As a simple explanation, Internet literacy is a capability constitutive to utilizing the advantages of the Internet. But, due to the constant changes of digital technologies, what kinds of necessary capabilities are required to gain the advantages? In fact, more than focusing on the essential capabilities to benefit users from the Internet advantages, existing perceptions of Internet literacy h...

This paper uses new micro-level US data to re-examine productivity leadership in cotton spinning c. 1900. We find that output aggregation problems make the Census unreliable in this industry, and that Lancashire, not New England was the productivity leader for almost every type of yarn. This is true both for the operation of a given machinery type, and when comparing machinery typical in each c...

This paper estimates the determinants of labour productivity in European NUTS regions during 1989-1996. We compare three potential explanations of regional advantages: Technological capabilities (proxied by regional patents), agglomeration economies (employment density), and openness. To study the latter we use the number of airplane passengers embarked and disembarked in the region, and found ...

Despite their popularity as proxies of expected returns, the implied cost of capital’s (ICC) measurement error properties are relatively unknown. Through an in-depth analysis of a popular implementation of ICCs by Gebhardt, Lee, and Swaminathan (2001) (GLS), I show that ICC measurement errors can be not only nonrandom and persistent, but can also be associated with firms’ risk or growth charact...

One account of spatial concentration focuses on productivity advantages arising from market size. We investigate this for 40 regions of Japan. Our results identify important effects of a region’s own size, as well as cost linkages between producers and suppliers of inputs. Productivity links to a more general form of ‘market potential’ or Marshall-ArrowRomer externalities do not appear to be ro...

One account of spatial concentration focuses on productivity advantages arising from market size. We investigate this for 40 regions of Japan. Our results identify important effects of a region’s own size, as well as cost linkages between producers and suppliers of inputs. Productivity links to a more general form of ‘market potential’ or Marshall-ArrowRomer externalities do not appear to be ro...

Executive summary Integration of literature review, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis 1 Introduction The World Bank, through its Multilateral Donor Trust Fund for Trade and Development, Fundación Chile and Chile's National Council of Innovation for Competitiveness have developed the study " Can Skills and Competencies for Trade be Taught? ". It assesses the certification of labor c...

High-level, productivity-oriented languages such as Python are becoming increasingly popular in HPC applications as “glue” and prototyping code. The PGAS model offers its own productivity advantages [6], and combining PGAS and Python is a promising approach for rapid development of parallel applications. We discuss the potential benefits and challenges of a PGAS extension to Python, and we pres...

BACKGROUND The physicians' competency is an important public health issue around the world. Several international organizations have taken the lead in examining the competencies required to be a physician. The purpose of this study is to identify subgroups of physicians' competency based upon the importance results of competency evaluation and provide a scientific basis for the qualitative rese...