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Daily Archives: April 1, 2014

Structural Asymmetries at the Roots of the Eurozone Crisis: What’s New for Industrial Policy in the EU?

Botta, Alberto, Structural Asymmetries at the Roots of the Eurozone Crisis: What’s New for Industrial Policy in the EU? (March 31, 2014). Levy Economics Institute, Working Papers Series No. 794. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2418530

“In this paper, we analyze and try to measure productive and technological asymmetries between central and peripheral economies in the eurozone. We assess the effects such asymmetries would likely bring about on center-periphery divergence/convergence patterns, and derive some implications as to the design of future industrial policy at the European level. We stress that future European Union (EU) industrial policy should be regionally focused and specifically target structural changes in the periphery as the main way to favor center-periphery convergence and avoid the reappearance of past external imbalances. To this end, a wide battery of industrial policy tools should be considered, ranging from subsidies and fiscal incentives to innovative firms, public financing of R & D efforts, sectoral policies, and public procurements for home-produced goods. All in all, future EU industrial policy should be much more interventionist than it currently is, and dispose of much larger funds with respect to the present setting in order to effectively pursue both short-run stabilization and long-run development goals.”

Do Financial Knowledge, Behavior, and Well-Being Differ by Gender?

Via the Urban Institute: Brett Theodos, Emma Kalish, Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe: “Using the National Financial Capability Survey, we examine differences among men and women in financial knowledge, behavior, and well-being. We find that women are less financially knowledgeable than men. Women are less willing than men to take financial risks and have more credit cards than men. However,… Continue Reading

Towers Watson – Capturing Meaningful Employee Opinion Data

“Today’s business leaders are inundated with a vast ongoing flow of information. Technological advances allow us to track financial results, customer behavior and operational performance on an up-to-the-minute basis. It is therefore only natural for leaders to expect that all business-relevant information — including employee opinion — should be gathered and reported on an equally… Continue Reading

Crude Oil Causes Developmental Abnormalities in Large Marine Fish

NOAA: Crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster causes severe defects in the developing hearts of bluefin and yellowfin tunas, according to a new study by a team of NOAA and academic scientists. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, show how… Continue Reading

EPIC- Judge Approves Controversial Settlement Over Objection of Consumer Privacy Organizations

“A federal judge in California has approved a settlement agreement in a lawsuit against Google that will allow the company to continue to sell data about users’ browsing history to advertisers. EPIC and several other consumer privacy organizations objected to the settlement, stating that it requires no change in Google’s business practices and provides no benefit to those… Continue Reading

Developing a 21st Century Global Library for Mathematics Research

“Like most areas of scholarship, mathematics is a cumulative discipline: new research is reliant on well-organized and well-curated literature. Because of the precise definitions and structures within mathematics, today’s information technologies and machine learning tools provide an opportunity to further organize and enhance discoverability of the mathematics literature in new ways, with the potential to… Continue Reading

McKinsey – The disruptive potential of solar power

April 2014 | by David Frankel, Kenneth Ostrowski, and Dickon Pinner: “The economics of solar power are improving. It is a far more cost-competitive power source today than it was in the mid-2000s, when installations and manufacturing were taking off, subsidies were generous, and investors were piling in. Consumption continued rising even as the MAC Global Solar Energy… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – Afghanistan, Missile Defense

AFGHANISTAN: Changes to Updated U.S. Civil-Military Strategic Framework Reflect Evolving U.S. Role, GAO-14-438R: Published: Apr 1, 2014. Publicly Released: Apr 1, 2014: “Although the October 2012 and the August 2013 versions of the U.S. Civil-Military Strategic Framework for Afghanistan have similarities, the two versions differ in several aspects. These differences reflect, among other things, the U.S. government’s… Continue Reading