Argentino Pessoa

Kuznets's hypothesis and the data constraint

Five decades ago, Simon Kuznets expressed an important hypothesis about the relationship between the degree of income inequality within a country and its level of economic development: the Kuznetss inverted-U hypothesis. The lack of longitudinal data has forced the use of cross-section or pooled datasets in order to draw conclusions about that relationship. In the present note we highlight the lack of international comparability of surveys where the measures of inequality are based, and we show two main findings: (1) data comparability goes on constituting a problem, particularly in what respects to the different welfare indicators used in national surveys, and (2) the procedure usually used to minimize the problem of noncomparability is likely to enforce the bias rather than to solve it.

Does astronomy generate economic benefits? Technological innovation seen through the lens of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope

While the study of the economic impact of big science has been an area of research, there is little work dedicated to the impact of astronomy projects. The present work shows and discusses empirical data concerning the perceived impact by European Southern Observatory’s suppliers of collaborating in the construction, update and operation of the Very Large Telescope. Data were obtained through a survey addressed, in 2010, to companies and research centres that supplied the Very Large Telescope between 1998 and 2009. Overall, the present study finds evidence of spillover effects coming from the Very Large Telescope project. Technological excellence and marketing benefits were the spillovers most recognised by suppliers. In general, the perceived impact by companies was lower than that of research centres.