Trabajadores excesivamente educados en USA

1 de cada 5 trabajadores estadounidenses: Estoy demasiado educado para mi trabajo
En realidad, eso no es tan malo, según los estándares internacionales.

Reuters
Cuando los estadounidenses no están preocupados sobre el ser sin educación, estamos por lo general preocupándose por sobreeducación.

Cada cierto tiempo, los escritores y académicos empiezan sonar la alarma sobre un exceso procedente de los graduados universitarios que terminan condenados a una vida de subempleo. Y, cuando la economía baja, esas advertencias pueden parecer bastante razonable.

Es por eso que la tabla de abajo, de un reciente informe de la OCDE sobre las habilidades empleos en todo el mundo, me llamó la atención. A pesar de que no se ocupa específicamente de la educación universitaria, muestra que alrededor del 19 por ciento de los estadounidenses dicen que tienen más educación que sea necesario para tener derecho a su trabajo. Eso es en realidad inferior a la media entre los 22 países mencionados. En Japón y en el Reino Unido, la cifra es de alrededor de 30 por ciento. En el otro extremo del espectro en Italia, que es alrededor del 13 por ciento.



Así que en realidad hay un montón de sobre-educados estadounidenses - y en inglés y japonés, y los australianos y estonios para el caso, también. Curiosamente, el informe de la OCDE constata que, según los puntajes de alfabetización, la mayoría de los trabajadores que dicen estar sobrecualificados para su empleo son probablemente muy adecuadas para ellos en términos de sus habilidades primas. Por lo tanto, podría ser que en un país con un sistema educativo que funcione, las credenciales de algunas personas van a superar a sus talentos.

The Atlantic

Las sociedades sin efectivo

We are so far away from the cashless society, reveals new study from Mastercard
By Christopher Mims @mims

Consumers in rich countries don’t buy expensive things with cash, reveals ground-breaking new study.Mastercard

How far are we from the mythical “cashless society”? A new study from Mastercardseems to suggest that, as measured by the dollar amount of consumer transactions, some countries are but a hairsbreadth away already, with only 7% of the value of consumer transactions taking place in cash in Belgium, 8% in France and 10% in Canada.
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But there’s a great big asterisk to all of this: Consumer purchases constitute only 11% of all payments worldwide, or $2.8 trillion of $592 trillion, once you throw in what governments and business spend.
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Consumers just don’t spend that much, compared to businesses and governments.Mastercard

Cashless transactions aren’t beating cash transactions if you count up the number of transactions, rather than their value. In fact, 85% of all transactions are conducted in cash. But the much higher average value of non-cash transactions means that only 34% of the value of all consumer transactions worldwide was in cash.
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Cash is really popular—but not for big-ticket items.

China, for example, saw a 20% drop in the value of cash payments for consumer goods between 2006 and 2011, and now 55% of the value of transactions in the country were non-cash.
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Cash also still has uses beyond small, everyday transactions; black markets, criminal syndicates and tax evasion all require it. It’s just that, especially in rich countries, it’s easier to use something like, oh, a Mastercard. The ongoing utility of cash is one reason that the US $100 bill is more popular than ever—mostly as ameans of exchange outside the US.

Quartz

Los mejores estudiantes están mejor en las peores escuelas

High-achieving students are better off in worse schools

By Josephine Lethbridge
Josephine Lethbridge is an assistant editor at The Conversation.

Muddling in the middle. Reuters/Luke MacGregor

There is an assumption that children perform better among highly achieving peers. High class achievement might be thought to indicate better teaching, or to induce academic competition between students. However, new research counters (pdf) this common assumption.

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Felix Weinhardt and Richard Murphy, from the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, analyzed administrative data of over 2.3 million British schoolchildren. This data was used to assess how primary school rank affected later exam results. Pupils were compared on leaving primary school at KS2 (age 11) and at secondary school KS3 (age 14).

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Imagine two primary school pupils of a the same ability. One is at the top of a class, whereas the other is in the middle, at a better performing school. The results find that the first student performs better at secondary school, implying the significance of rank—and confidence.

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The scale of the effect is large if you look at it in the context of recent education studies. The teacher effect literature (pdf), for example, says a teacher who is one standard deviation better than the average can improve test scores by one point on a one to 100 scale. “We find that moving up one standard deviation in rank similarly improves test scores,” said Weinhardt. “That’s why we say the rank effect is comparable to being taught by a good teacher.”

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Another way to think about the scale of the effect, Weinhardt explained, is that “moving up half the rank distribution in primary school—from the middle to the top of the class—is equivalent to about three extra month of schooling (pdf).”

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In boys, this effect is significantly more pronounced. The study indicates that boys gain four times more in later test scores from being top of the class, compared to girls. Boys were also more affected by being ranked below the median level. Being ranked below average tended to cause boys to underachieve at KS3.

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Tina Rampino, a research student at the University of Essex, commented on why this gender difference is so pronounced. “Boys and girls are brought up to socialize differently,” she said. “Girls tend to be taught to behave, and they tend to be under stricter parental supervision. Therefore, they tend to do better in school. Boys, on the other hand, are brought up to be more competitive than girls.”

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Sending your children to the “best” school, particularly in the case of boys, is therefore perhaps not the best idea.

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The research is mostly relevant on an individual level. “Of course, whatever way you organize classes,” Weinhardt said, “half the students are going to lose out. It is the local comparisons that matter. What our research reveals is the importance of motivational confidence issues in education.”

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“Drawing attention to rank is highly beneficial in the case of some children and in others, not. Sometimes you should compare students, and sometimes you shouldn’t. Parents and teachers should be more aware of this, and consider different ways of building up confidence.”

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This post originally appeared at The Conversation.

Quartz

Shiller muestra dos gráficos importantes de los últimos 20 años

Nobel Prize Winner Robert Shiller Is Responsible For The 2 Most Important Charts Of The Last Two Decades

SAM RO

Yale University professor Robert Shiller was one of three people to win the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics).

Shiller is already a god among economists. He famously predicted two of the biggest bubbles of all time: the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble.  Both times, he published an edition of his book Irrational Exuberance, which described and predicted each respective bubble.

The theme of this year's award "Trendspotting in asset markets," and the Nobel committee pointed to Shiller's work in forecasting intermediate-term moves in asset prices.

"He found that stock prices fluctuate much more than corporate dividends, and that the ratio of prices to dividends tends to fall when it is high, and to increase when it is low," said the Nobel Committee. "This pattern holds not only for stocks, but also for bonds and other assets."

Shiller regularly updates his data and makes it available for free online.

He is responsible for two charts, that everyone in finance follow very closely.

The first chart is of the cyclically-adjusted price-earnings (CAPE) ratio.  CAPE is calculated by taking the S&P 500 and dividing it by the average of ten years worth of earnings.  If the ratio is above the long-term average of around 16, the stock market is considered expensive. Shiller has argued that the CAPE is remarkably good at predicting returns over the period of several years.

As you can see, the CAPE ratio reached insanely high levels during the dotcom bubble.

Yale

The second chart is of a long-term look at home prices adjusted for inflation.

During the early 2000s, home prices took off, forcing Shiller to publish the second edition of Irrational Exuberance.

As you can see, homes are not great assets if you're looking for real returns.

"Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment," he told Bloomberg's Trish Regan earlier this year. "It takes maintenance, it depreciates, it goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better.

"So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad. That was an idea that took hold in the early 2000's. And I don't expect it to come back. Not with the same force. So people might just decide, "Yeah, I'll diversify my portfolio. I'll live in a rental." That is a very sensible thing for many people to do."

Yale

No one will argue that Shiller wasn't deserving of the Nobel prize. If anything, it was long overdue.

Business Insider

17 imágenes de la globlalización

The Global Economy In 17 Beautiful Maps
WALTER HICKEY

Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

El ecosistema de la economía mundial es una máquina compleja con miles de piezas móviles.

Por suerte, encontramos Countrylicious, un proyecto excepcional por el ingeniero de software rumano Daniel Chirita.

El sitio cuenta con grandes cantidades de datos recogidos de fuentes abiertas en torno a la economía de nuestro planeta, y Chirita fue lo suficientemente amable para hacernos publicamos algunos. En el caso de que los datos no fueron ya realizadas en un mapa con sombra, tomamos su información mad hizo uno.

Echa un vistazo a lo que hace que la garrapata economía global.

Countrylicious

But when you divide GDP by population, y ou can see individual national productivity come forward, who is punching above their weight.


Countrylicious

Take a look at the explosive growth in emerging markets. Post-Gaddafi Libya is just exploding.


Countrylicious

Also worth taking a look at is the industrial production growth rate. Tiny Qatar is the winner here.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Inflation Hawks, take note. The U.S. is doing pretty good here.


Countrylicious

This map shows world unemployment. Even leaving a recession the U.S. is looking pretty.


Countrylicious

Youth Unemployment is a major international issue that is only starting to be addressed.


Countrylicious

The percent the state taxes across the globe varies wildly by nation.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Here's who is selling to the world.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

And here's who's buying.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

The international energy market is another fascinating story.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Here's who is selling.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Here's who is buying.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Another awesome look at the global economy is the mobile penetration in each nation.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Even moreso is the Internet penetration. There's a whole world out there without the web.


Walter Hickey/ BI, data via Countrylicious

Here's how much each nation is investing in their children.


Countrylicious

And, in a map that is by and large the converse of the previous map, the ones buying a military.

Business Insider

Argentina... "entorno inviable para negocios"

Grupo Elektra abandona Argentina por entorno inviable para negocios

La compañía mexicana, propiedad de Ricardo Salinas, explicó en un comunicado enviado a la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores que esta "decisión resulta de un difícil entorno macroeconómico y de negocios, que resta viabilidad a la operación en ese país".

También denunció que en ese país (Argentina) "existe una cultura de no pago de adeudos que hace inviable el negocio del crédito".

El mexicano Grupo Elektra, que opera más de 6.500 puntos de venta en México y otros países, anunció el retiro de sus inversiones y operaciones en Argentina, entre otros factores por el control cambiario y las restricciones al comercio exterior.

La compañía, propiedad de Ricardo Salinas, explicó en un comunicado enviado a la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores que esta "decisión resulta de un difícil entorno macroeconómico y de negocios, que resta viabilidad a la operación en ese país".


Explicó que entre los factores que hacen inviables los negocios está el "control cambiario y restricciones a importar y exportar que limitan el acceso a mercancías para el comercio, mientras que los controles al flujo de capitales restringen la inversión".

Además, señaló que la "alta inflación, dificulta la planeación de los negocios, mientras que la regulación laboral permite prácticas sindicales que afectan el ambiente de inversión".

También denunció que en ese país "existe una cultura de no pago de adeudos que hace inviable el negocio del crédito".

Elektra afirmó que sus operaciones en Argentina son "poco significativas" respecto al tamaño de la compañía, y aclaró que no mantiene actividades bancarias, las cuales han permitido desarrollar operaciones exitosas en otras regiones.

Con su salida de Argentina, Elektra, que además tiene presencia en Estados Unidos, Guatemala, Honduras, Perú, Panamá, El Salvador y Brasil, buscará concentrarse en otros mercados con mayores perspectivas de rentabilidad en beneficio de sus inversores.

Elektra forma parte del consorcio Grupo Salinas, que opera Televisión Azteca, una compañía de telefonía móvil y el Banco Azteca entre otras empresas.

América Economía

Keynes Was Right!?

Keynes tenía razón : la austeridad del Gobierno en tiempos de problemas es una mala idea

Estoy seguro que muchos de ustedes han visto el reciente estudio realizado por Thomas Herndon, un estudiante de economía graduado de 28 años de edad en la Universidad de Massachusetts Amherst. Si no es así, que se titula Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff [¿Una elevada deuda pública es consistente para ahogar el crecimiento económico? Crítica de Reinhart y Rogoff."] (Al citar se puede leer el artículo, descargar los datos, véanse las respuestas a la misma, etc.)

Para una buena visión general rápida, haga clic aquí.

He aquí un resumen aún más breve :

El artículo es una crítica devastadora del enfoque de austeridad recientemente defendida en los estados y otros países, que cínicamente pretende cortar y recortar el gobierno federal y estatal en la sumisión fiscal, mientras que las grandes empresas continúa su gran crecimiento en los mercados globales altamente dinámicos, ganar más dinero que nunca antes.



Lo que hace tan devastadora es que Henderson usa Reinhart y los propios datos de Rogoff : parece que los autores iniciales hechas a,, error de base de datos flagrante importante importante, olvidándose de codificar adecuadamente la información correcta, los autores iniciales también dejaron a tres de los países (Canadá, Nueva Zelanda y Australia), donde un enfoque caritativo y relajado para pasar resultó en un éxito significativo.

Lo que también hace el interesante trabajo desde una perspectiva de ciencias de la complejidad es el tema de la curva de montaje y el enfoque de Herndon de no linealidad en comparación con el enfoque adoptado por los autores iniciales.

(La figura de arriba fue tomada del trabajo de Herndon.)

De todos modos, creo que es un muy buen papel para leer, y, para aquellos de nosotros que enseñan las estadísticas y método, es un recordatorio malvados para compartir con nuestros estudiantes : siempre, siempre, siempre, verifique sus datos, y luego comprobar su los datos de nuevo! ! ! De todas las cosas que mi mentor, Galen Buckwalter me enseñó, que es una de esas cosas quemadas en la parte trasera de mi cerebro.

Sociology and Complexity Blog

Control: Todas las casas holandesas mapeadas

A Delightfully Trippy Map of Every Single Building in The Netherlands

• JOHN METCALFE

What you're looking at above is not the viewfinder of the Hubble Telescope. It's a section of a map that shows every building in The Netherlands, all 9,866,539 of them, each color-coded by the age it was constructed. History buffs, pick up your jaws now and get exploring this crazily detailed visualization, which offers details for every structure at the click of a mouse button.

Here's the color key:

Bert Spaan, the maker of this nerdy freakshow, was inspired by that seminal piece of open-data historical cartography, Thomas Rhiel's horde of 320,000-something buildings in Brooklyn. The Netherlands version slides right in with a host of imitators, including age maps for Portlandand the five boroughs of New York, although by comparison it's a bloated giant squeezing out the competition. I believe it's the largest map of its kind in existence – but used to think that about the New York wonder, too, so if anybody knows different please fling in a comment.

The data supporting this maddening masterpiece comes from The Netherlands's land registry, the Kadaster. The map sometimes has date discrepancies from what's promulgated in the larger historical record, but more or less it seems to be on target. Let's take a brief tour, beginning inside the angry red eye of canal-streaked Amsterdam. There, some buildings hail from the 13th century (and to believe the Kadaster, even a couple centuries before that):

In the timeworn heart of the city is the 1600s-era Beurs van Berlage building, former headquarters of what's reputed to be the oldest stock-swapping center in the world, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (now called Euronext):

(Beursvanberlage / WIkipedia)

The interior is quite impressive in an airline-hanger kind of way:

(Wikimedia Commons)

Bluish late-century growth overruns the municipality of Westland like architectural mildew, although you still can see hoary city centers embedded in the newer connective tissue:

This is the creaky city of Maastricht, home to the oldest church in the country (it's the chalk-red structure to the left of the central blue square):

At pavement-level the 11th-century Basilica of Saint Servatius looks delightful, concealing the fact it's built on the grave of something called an "ice saint":

(Google Maps)

Map created by Bert Spaan and hosted at CitySDK

The Atlantic Cities

Un video de alerta sobre la desigual distribución del ingreso en USA

Wealth Inequality Is MUCH Worse Than You Realize

MICHAEL KELLEY

A YouTube video that went viral this weekend shows that Americans radically underestimate income disparity in the U.S.

The video, created by user politizane, displays graphics made from data in a Harvard Business School survey that asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the U.S. and what the ideal distribution is, then compared those answers to what it actually looks like.

The study found that the top 1 percent (of Occupy Wall Street infamy) "has more of the country's wealth than nine out of ten Americans believe the entire top 20 percent should have."

YouTube/politizane

Politizane presents the distribution in a way that makes the study's findings astoundingly clear.

The video takes America's $54 trillion in wealth (as of 2009) and distributes it to the entire U.S. population, represented as 100 people in a line.

For example, this is what socialism would look like:

YouTube/politizane

 Here's what most Americans believe is ideal:

YouTube/Politizane

What Americans think the reality is:

YouTube/politizane

And what distribution actually is (Note: the 97-99 percentiles didn't even fit on this chart, while the top 1 percent had to be divided into ten columns):

YouTube/Politizane

Politizane points out that the top 1 percent own 40 percent of U.S. wealth, takes home nearly a quarter (24 percent) of the national income, and owns half of the country's stocks bonds and mutual funds.

Meanwhile the bottom 80 percent own just 7 percent of America's wealth, while the average worker has to work for a month to earn what the CEO makes in an hour.

The video concludes that "all we need to do is wake up and realize that the reality in this country is not at all what we think it is."

Business Insider

El cierre del gobierno americano en un solo gráfico

The Whole Government Shutdown In One Simple, Beautiful Chart
WALTER HICKEY


The outstanding folks at Enigma.io are out with an excellent visualization of who's really hurting during the government shutdown.

Most importantly, it shows you the scale of certain departments when it comes to employment.

This rectangle represents all the employees of the federal government. It's divided into smaller boxes that correspond to individual departments. Those boxes are sized proportionally to the number of people who work in them. The red portion are furloughed employees. The blue portion are people exempt from furlough and still on the job. The different shades of blue refer to why they're still on the job. 

So, for instance, NASA — a smaller box on the lower right — has 97% of its employees furloughed. 

Finally, the government shutdown in one chart:

Enigma.io

As the Washington Post's Brad Plumer noted on Twitter, the Department of Defense indicated over the weekend they'd be recalling many of their workers, so this chart is subject to get a bit bluer the left side. 

Business Insider