First Housing Moves in Spain: An Analysis of Leaving Home and First Housing Acquisition

This paper examines young people's firsthousing acquisition in Spain. The majority ofyoung Spanish people leave home to buy aproperty and to live with a partner and/orchild. We examine the extent to which thistransition dominates first housing moves duringthe 1980s and consider the ways in which widerfamily networks facilitate leaving home to buya property. We then examine characteristicsassociated with deviation from this normativeroute. We find alternative transitions,particularly moving into rented accommodation,are more common among young people from moreadvantaged backgrounds, and those living innorthern Spain.     

论网络隐私权的法律保护

计算机信息网络技术的发展使得网络空间的个人隐私权受到前所未有的严峻挑战 ,这种状况已经严重阻碍了电子商务和网络经济的进一步发展。强化对网络空间的个人数据和隐私权的法律保护 ,已成为国际社会网络立法的当务之急。本文借鉴先进法域的立法经验并结合我国当前现状 ,提出了网络隐私权保护的相关立法建议     

Multidimensional Analysis of Deprivation and Fragility Patterns of Migrants in Lombardy,Using Partially Ordered Sets and Self-Organizing Maps

Social Indicators Research - In this paper, we present a multidimensional fuzzy analysis of the levels and the patterns of poverty and social fragility of migrants’ families, in the Italian...     

Special issue on “The role of intellectual capital and integrated reporting in management and governance: a performative perspective”

Journal of Management and Governance -     

Information and communication technology adoption in micro and small firms: Can internet access improve labour productivity?

The rapid spread of information and communication technologies (ICT) may increase firms’ productivity with important consequences for job creation and for economic growth. This article contributes to this discussion by analysing the impact of internet adoption on labour productivity and the mechanisms shaping this relationship in Peruvian micro and small manufacturing firms over the period 2011–2013. The article estimates a reduced form where labour productivity is a function of internet adoption and other explanatory factors. Internet adoption is instrumented using a measure of the availability of financial opportunities for micro and small firms in Peru. Findings indicate that internet adoption: (a) increases firms’ labour productivity; (b) reallocates employment away from temporary administrative workers and non‐remunerated workers and expands employment of permanent production workers; (c) leads to the formalization of labour relationships, to the implementation of new organizational practices and to the improvement of training measures. While changes in employment and formalization of workers are linked to labour productivity gains, increases in training measures and organizational changes do not generate any additional productivity increase. Policies oriented to promote the adoption of ICT in micro and small firms can be beneficial to close the productivity gap with larger firms in Peru. Moreover, policies directed to the formalization of the workforce can provide an extra benefit, i.e. additional labour productivity gains in firms adopting the internet. Finally, policies oriented to the development of digital skills are also important to ease the re‐employment of those workers losing their jobs and the achievement of additional productivity gains that new organizational practices can provide.     

CHANGING BUSINESS MODELS IN INTERNATIONAL BANK FUNDING

This paper investigates the foreign funding mix of globally active banks. Using BIS international banking statistics for a panel of 12 advanced economies, we detect a structural break in international bank funding at the onset of the great financial crisis. In their postbreak business model, banks rely less on cross‐border liabilities and, instead, tap funds from outside their jurisdictions by making more active use of their subsidiaries and branches, as well as interoffice accounts within the same banking group. (JEL C32, F65, G21)     

Multivariate Approach for Comparative Evaluations of Customer Satisfaction with Application to Transport Services

In problems related to evaluations of products or services (e.g. in customer satisfaction analysis) the main difficulties concern the synthesis of the information, which is necessary for the presence of several evaluators and many response variables (aspects under evaluation). In this article, the problem of determining and comparing the satisfaction of different groups of customers, in the presence of multivariate response variables and using the results of pairwise comparisons is addressed. Within the framework of group ranking methods and multi criteria decision making theory, a new approach, based on nonparametric techniques, for evaluating group satisfaction in a multivariate framework is proposed and the concept of Multivariate Relative Satisfaction is defined. An application to the evaluation of public transport services, like the railway service and the urban bus service, by students of the University of Ferrara (Italy) is also discussed.     

L'inspection du travail,un outil efficace quand les règles et sanctions varient selon les effectifs de l'entreprise? Analyse à partir du cas péruvien

L'auteure analyse l'effet de la rigueur du dispositif de mise en application de la législation sur le respect effectif des droits au travail lorsque les règles et sanctions dépendent des effectifs de l'entreprise. À partir de données de l'enquête auprès des ménages du Pérou (2008–2013), elle examine l'influence en la matière de facteurs déjà connus (effet dissuasif de l'inspection, glissement vers le secteur informel) mais aussi celui du «redimensionnement», stratégie utilisée par les employeurs pour se prévaloir de régimes plus favorables. Elle montre que l'intensité du dispositif de contrôle n'influe que modérément sur le degré de conformité. L'effet «redimensionnement» est lui aussi limité.     

Young Infants Match Facial and Vocal Emotional Expressions of Other Infants

Research has demonstrated that infants recognize emotional expressions of adults in the first half year of life. We extended this research to a new domain, infant perception of the expressions of other infants. In an intermodal matching procedure, 3.5‐ and 5‐month‐old infants heard a series of infant vocal expressions (positive and negative affect) along with side‐by‐side dynamic videos in which one infant conveyed positive facial affect and another infant conveyed negative facial affect. Results demonstrated that 5‐month‐olds matched the vocal expressions with the affectively congruent facial expressions, whereas 3.5‐month‐olds showed no evidence of matching. These findings indicate that by 5 months of age, infants detect, discriminate, and match the facial and vocal affective displays of other infants. Further, because the facial and vocal expressions were portrayed by different infants and shared no face–voice synchrony, temporal, or intensity patterning, matching was likely based on detection of a more general affective valence common to the face and voice.     

No‐Bubble Condition: Model‐Free Tests in Housing Markets

We test for the existence of housing bubbles associated with a failure of the transversality condition that requires the present value of payments occurring infinitely far in the future to be zero. The most prominent such bubble is the classic rational bubble. We study housing markets in the United Kingdom and Singapore, where residential property ownership takes the form of either leaseholds or freeholds. Leaseholds are finite‐maturity, pre‐paid, and tradeable ownership contracts with maturities often exceeding 700 years. Freeholds are infinite‐maturity ownership contracts. The price difference between leaseholds with extremely‐long maturities and freeholds reflects the present value of a claim to the freehold after leasehold expiry, and is thus a direct empirical measure of the transversality condition. We estimate this price difference, and find no evidence of failures of the transversality condition in housing markets in the U.K. and Singapore, even during periods when a sizable bubble was regularly thought to be present.