Author: Guillermo Pineda

PhD position in Economics, Ghent Univ., Belgium

Ghent University
Image via Wikipedia

Ghent University
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
has a vacancy for
a MOTIVATED DOCTORAL RESEACHER (M/F)
In the field of Micro-Econometrics Applied to Labour Economics

Project title: “EVALUATING ACTIVE LABOUR MARKET POLICIES IN FLANDERS”
To start in January 2012

Job Description
• The candidate writes a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Prof. Bart Cockx on the research project entitled “Evaluating Active Labour Market Policies in Flanders”. This project will be realized within the Policy Research Centre Work and Social Economy (“Steunpunt Werk en Sociale Economie”) financed by the Flemish Government. The project consists in two main research topics:
(i) A Simple Monitoring Instrument for the Effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies;
(ii) Public Procurement of Employment Services: Long-Run Effectiveness and the Role of the Service Provider.

The description of the research project can be downloaded fromhttp://users.ugent.be/~bcockx/PhDproject_Werk.pdf.
• The competencies and research interests of the promoter are described onhttp://users. ugent.be/~bcockx/.
• In addition to performing the tasks described in the research project, the PhD candidate will improve his/her research skills by completing a doctoral training programme. This includes advanced courses within the Belgian Graduate School in Economics, and attending and presenting research in seminars and international conferences. A description of the rules of the PhD programme are downloadable fromhttp://www.feb.ugent.be/en/Res/doctoraatsreglement_2011.pdf

Profile
• You are holder of a Master degree in Economics, which you should have completed with honours.
• You can work independently, accurately and systematically
• You have an interest in quantitative methods

Offer
• A doctoral research fellowship for up to 4 years.
• A dynamic research environment with interactions with other research centres, in particular with IRES at UCLouvain and also IZA and CESifo, research centres to which Bart Cockx is affiliated.

Interested?
Send a letter of motivation and your CV to prof. Bart Cockx bart.cockx@ugent. be as soon as possible and not later than December 15, 2011. Do not hesitate to send a mail for more info.

url: http://users.ugent.be/~bcockx/vacature2011.pdf

New Online Campus for the Study of Philosophy!

I have recently being informed about a new Objectivist Philosophy Program coming online next January 10, 2012.  The program is sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute that will create an online Campus.

ARI Campus will allow students around the world to take courses at their own pace and on their own time—for free. Students at all levels will be able of exploring educational materials in multimedia courses.

Initial course offerings will include the following:

The full, public launch of the site is slated for September of 2012. Add to your calendars the date January 10, 2012 and log in to the initial courses that will be offered by the ARI Campus!
Related articles:

A year in posts

Pencil
Image via Wikipedia

This blog was born at the end of 2011 and we already have had more than four thousand visitors! This is also, the 75th post in this blog and is again one more reason to celebrate!

Following the tradition of UDADASI and the blog of The Harvard University Press here’s my summary of the top 5 posts for 2011 by the amount of unique visitors,

  1. Joel Cohen: Top 10 key population trends on Earth with 7 billion
  2. The Drug War in Guatemala: A Conversation with Giancarlo Ibarguen
  3. On Free Press and On Capitalism
  4. At the Monument to the Battle of the Nations
  5. On Globalization

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Thanks for your support in the first year of Globalization & Capitalism!  I hope to share lots of more ideas and meet more new great people in 2012!

On Liberty,

The face of North Korea’s New Communist “Supreme Leader”

Kim Jong Un - Supreme Leader of North Korea - via: The Economist

Here’s the face of Kim Jong-un, the new Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  Kim Jong Un is the son and heir of Kim Jong Il who passed away on Saturday December 17, 2011. Jong Un is in his twenties and has inherited the control of what many consider to be a Communist Dictator system of leadership.  Lets see what history comes from this new, young and small powerful dictator and soon new Supreme Leader (General Secretary of the WPK).

As his father did, this young men would be in charge of a territory of 120,540 km2 and of 24,051,218 million people (the 51 most populated country).

North Korea is also a proven nuclear power and nuclear weapon country since 2006 that has consistently menaced the world with the use of its weapons in retaliation against South Corea and Japan. Diplomacy and food supplies to its dying population has been the methods used by countries in the United Nations to stop their menaces.