scholarly journals Creative Destruction and Regional Productivity: Evidence from the Polish Regions in 2004–2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (341) ◽  
pp. 201-215
Author(s):  
Sławomir Kuźmar

A considerable and persisting diversity of the development levels of Polish regions makes it necessary to seek potential causes of this phenomenon. It can be presumed that some of the diversity is caused by institutional qualities, characteristic for each individual region, including the dynamics of the reallocation of resources available in a particular region, which can be identified with the creative destruction processes, indicated by J. A. Schumpeter. In the view of these facts, this study aims at identifying the mechanisms of creative destruction processes and assessing their influence on the levels of regional productivity of labour in Poland, in the 2004–2015 time period. The conducted analyses showed that the correlation between the measures of creative destruction and the labour productivity is ambiguous and limited, as it was confirmed for only a part of Polish regions. For the remaining part, contrary to the theoretical assumptions, a reverse relationship was observed, i.e. it is the dynamics of productivity that affects the level of reallocation of resources, identified with the processes of creative destruction.

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Bessma Momani ◽  
Emma Dreher ◽  
Kira Williams

This article measures gender pay gaps in Ontario’s public post-secondary education sector from 1996 to 2016 using the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Data. We find gaps widening among all faculty ranks. Men were paid on average 2.06%, 2.14%, and 5.26% more than their women colleagues for all employees, university teaching staff, and deans, respectively. We also conduct a Blinder- Oaxaca decomposition to measure the source of gendered salary differentials. Pay gaps persist during this time period despite controlling for the literature’s most common explanations, including the “pipeline effect.” Our results additionally imply that women’s years of experience in academia do not mitigate the observed pay gaps. Suggestions for future research include increasing the scope of our study to factor in finer details such as labour productivity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashok Silwal ◽  
Sujan Prasad Gautam ◽  
Monika Karki ◽  
Prakash Poudel ◽  
Arati Thapa ◽  
...  

Abstract The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global economic shutdown provided an opportunity to conduct a real-time experiment assessing the influence of global emission reductions in the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) level, an indicator of air pollution over Nepal. Nepal's government imposed a lockdown on the country for approximately three months (from 24 March onwards) in 2020. The purpose of this study is to examine the temporal fluctuation in Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) caused by the COVID-19 shutdown by comparing its value during the same time period of the past year over two sites: Pokhara and Kyanjin Gompa. We comparatively analyzed the variation of diurnal mean and monthly average AOD of two selected sites, from the month of January to May 2020 and January to May 2018. By examining the time-series graph of daily average AOD prior to and during the lockdown period, our study showed an apparent fluctuation in AOD throughout the studied areas. The major findings of the research revealed that after the lockdown, a significant variation in monthly averaged AOD was observed, ranging from 20–60% deviation over Pokhara and 25–50% deviation in Kyanjin Gompa at different wavelengths. This confirms previous studies on aerosols and other particulate matter during COVID-19 lockdown, as well as theoretical assumptions. In addition, we performed the heatmap correlation analysis among AOD, Total precipitable water (Tpw), Angstrom exponent (α), Turbidity coefficient (β), and Visibility (V) during the studied period with possible explanations. We believe this research work serves as a crucial reference for our government to implement appropriate policies for pollution control over the studied areas in the future.


2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stilianos Alexiadis ◽  
George M. Korres

This paper examines the pattern of convergence in labour productivity across regions due to their ability to adopt technology. Whether regions exhibit a pattern of convergence depends on the degree to which infrastructure conditions are appropriate for the adoption of technological improvements. The ability of a region to adopt or create technology is reflected in the percentage of its labour force employed in technologically dynamic sectors or, more generally, in the resources devoted to science and technology. A high percentage of labour employed in technologically advanced sectors leads a region to a pattern of convergence. This hypothesis is tested using data for the NUTS-2 regions of the EU-27 during the time period 1995-2006. The results suggest that adoption of technology has a significant and positive effect on regional convergence in Europe. The analysis is also shown to have important implications for the direction of regional policy in Europe. To be more specific, regional policies, in order to enhance regional growth and convergence, should encourage employment in advanced technological sectors.


Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar ◽  
Jyoti Singh ◽  
Priya Singh

The Indian government and those of the devolved administrations have adopted a policy framework for boosting regional productivity based on five drivers: Investment, Skills, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Competition. We modelled the relationships between the five drivers and labour productivity using a structural equation model that fitted the data well. The main conclusion is that promoting entrepreneurship, spending more on research and development, increasing the capital-worker ratio and the percentage of the workforce with higher qualifications has a significant bearing upon regional labour productivity. In contrast, regulatory barriers to competition do not seem to affect labour productivity at a regional level.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 419-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Lazcano

AbstractDifferent current ideas on the origin of life are critically examined. Comparison of the now fashionable FeS/H2S pyrite-based autotrophic theory of the origin of life with the heterotrophic viewpoint suggest that the later is still the most fertile explanation for the emergence of life. However, the theory of chemical evolution and heterotrophic origins of life requires major updating, which should include the abandonment of the idea that the appearance of life was a slow process involving billions of years. Stability of organic compounds and the genetics of bacteria suggest that the origin and early diversification of life took place in a time period of the order of 10 million years. Current evidence suggest that the abiotic synthesis of organic compounds may be a widespread phenomenon in the Galaxy and may have a deterministic nature. However, the history of the biosphere does not exhibits any obvious trend towards greater complexity or «higher» forms of life. Therefore, the role of contingency in biological evolution should not be understimated in the discussions of the possibilities of life in the Universe.


Author(s):  
Itaru Watanabe ◽  
Dante G. Scarpelli

Acute thiamine deficiency was produced in mice by the administration of oxythiamine, a thiamine analogue, superimposed upon a thiamine deficient diet. Adult male Swiss mice (30 gm. B.W.) were fed with a thiamine deficient diet ad libitumand were injected with oxythiamine (170 mg/Kg B.W.) subcutaneously on days 4 and 10. On day 11, severe lassitude and anorexia developed, followed by death within 48 hours. The animals treated daily with subcutaneous injections of thiamine (300 μg/Kg B.W.) from day 11 through 15 were kept alive. Similarly, feeding with a diet containing thiamine (600 μg/Kg B.W./day) from day 9 through 17 reversed the condition. During this time period, no fatal illness occurred in the controls which were pair-fed with a thiamine deficient diet.The oxythiamine-treated mice showed a significant enlargement of the liver, which weighed approximately 1.5 times as much as that of the pair-fed controls. By light and electron microscopy, the hepatocytes were markedly swollen due to severe fatty change and swelling of the mitochondria.


Author(s):  
Robert E. Ogilvie

The search for an empirical absorption equation begins with the work of Siegbahn (1) in 1914. At that time Siegbahn showed that the value of (μ/ρ) for a given element could be expressed as a function of the wavelength (λ) of the x-ray photon by the following equationwhere C is a constant for a given material, which will have sudden jumps in value at critial absorption limits. Siegbahn found that n varied from 2.66 to 2.71 for various solids, and from 2.66 to 2.94 for various gases.Bragg and Pierce (2) , at this same time period, showed that their results on materials ranging from Al(13) to Au(79) could be represented by the followingwhere μa is the atomic absorption coefficient, Z the atomic number. Today equation (2) is known as the “Bragg-Pierce” Law. The exponent of 5/2(n) was questioned by many investigators, and that n should be closer to 3. The work of Wingardh (3) showed that the exponent of Z should be much lower, p = 2.95, however, this is much lower than that found by most investigators.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 4-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Welch

Abstract Functional capacity evaluations (FCEs) have become an important component of disability evaluation during the past 10 years to assess an individual's ability to perform the essential or specific functions of a job, both preplacement and during rehabilitation. Evaluating both job performance and physical ability is a complex assessment, and some practitioners are not yet certain that an FCE can achieve these goals. An FCE is useful only if it predicts job performance, and factors that should be assessed include overall performance; consistency of performance across similar areas of the FCE; consistency between observed behaviors during the FCE and limitations or abilities reported by the worker; objective changes (eg, blood pressure and pulse) that are appropriate relative to performance; external factors (illness, lack of sleep, or medication); and a coefficient of variation that can be measured and assessed. FCEs can identify specific movement patterns or weaknesses; measure improvement during rehabilitation; identify a specific limitation that is amenable to accommodation; and identify a worker who appears to be providing a submaximal effort. FCEs are less reliable at predicting injury risk; they cannot tell us much about endurance over a time period longer than the time required for the FCE; and the FCE may measure simple muscular functions when the job requires more complex ones.


2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Schick

The following study is based on a sample of 241 9-13-year-old children (66 children from divorced parents, 175 children from non divorced parents). They were examined for differences regarding anxiety, self-esteem, different areas of competence, and degree of behavior problems. With a focus on the children’s experiences, the clinically significant differences were examined. Clinically significant differences, revealing more negative outcomes for the children of divorce, were only found for social anxiety and unstable performance. The frequency of clinical significant differences was independent of the length of time the parents had been separated. The perceived destructiveness of conflict between the parents one of four facets of interparental conflict in this study functioned as a central mediator of the statistically significant group differences. The children’s perception of the father’s social support was a less reliable indicator of variance. Further studies should try to make underlying theoretical assumptions about the effects of divorce more explicit, to distinguish clearly between mediating variables, and to investigate them with respect to specific divorce adjustment indicators.


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