169,916 research outputs found
The attachment of adult women to the Italian labour market in the shadow of COVID-19
No full textWe investigate the attachment to the labour market of women in their 30s, who are combining career and family choices, through their reactions to an exogenous, and potentially symmetric shock, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that in Italy a large number of women with small children, living in the North, left permanent (and temporary) employment and became inactive in 2020. Despite the short period of observation after the burst of the pandemic, the identified impacts appear large and persistent, particularly with respect to the men of the same age. We argue that this evidence is ascribable to specific regional socio-cultural factors, which foreshadow a potential long-term detrimental impact on female labour force participation.</p
Temporary workers educational mismatch and firm performance
No full textThe objective of this paper is to provide new evidence on the effect of temporary contracts on firm productivity through their impact on skill mismatch using a matched employer-employee dataset. To achieve this goal, we regress TFP on the fraction of educationally mismatched temporary workers and a set of additional controls in a dynamic panel model at firm-year level controlling for industry and time effects. We also take advantage of institutional labour market reforms occurred in Italy in 2001 and 2003 to study the changes in the mismatch among temporary workers which differ for their training content. We find that over-education has a positive effect on TFP while the opposite is true for under-education. When looking on different types of workers we find that while the effect of over-education on TFP does not change for short-term workers, among apprentices has a negative effect on productivity which overturn the positive trend. Finally under-education among short term contract has mitigating effect on productivity while among apprentices, its effect is negative
Does Employment Protection Affect Qualification Mismatch?
No full textThis article investigates the effect of the relaxation of the rigidity of employment protection legislation in dual economies on qualification mismatch, measured as the sum of over‐education and under‐education. Using a unique matched employer–employee flow dataset, the effect of two reforms, which significantly modified the rules for the utilization of temporary contracts in Italy, is studied. By increasing the relative flow of workers on short‐term contracts, the short‐term contract reform is found to have reduced the relative flow of over‐educated workers. However, this result holds only for older male workers, while no effect is found for female and younger workers. The apprenticeship reform instead had no major effects on the relative flow of mismatched workers
Polymorphism in Na2(Co/Zn)P2O7 and Na2(Co/Fe)P2O7 Pyrophosphates: A Combined Diffraction and 31P NMR Study
No full textPyrophosphates of the general formula A2BP2O7 (A = alkali metal and B = transition metal) find applications in several technological fields, including rechargeable Na-ion batteries. They present a rich polymorphism vs composition, which may strongly influence their functional properties. Therefore, to selectively obtain a specific structure is crucial for applications. Here, we combine structural investigation techniques (solid-state NMR, X-ray and neutron diffraction, and DFT calculations) to investigate the crystal chemistry of the series Na2(M/M’)P2O7 with couples M/M’ = Co/Zn and Co/Fe. For both the series, a phase transition vs composition is observed. A tetragonal to orthorhombic phase transition is found for the Zn/Co series, and an orthorhombic to triclinic phase transition is found for the Co/Fe series. Such changes are interpreted in view of the different electronic structures of the transition metal ion. In addition, with the support of modeling, short- and long-range structural analysis, we show that the coexistence of two polymorphs for a given composition is possible, suggesting that the final structures may be strongly dependent upon the synthesis procedure
Uncertainty and the politics of employment protection
No full textThis paper investigates social preferences over employment protection regulation in a general equilibrium model of dynamic labor demand and sheds some light on the comparative dynamics of Eurosclerosis. When firing costs are low, a transition to a rigid labor market is favored by all the employed workers with idiosyncratic productivity below some threshold; when their status quo level is high, preserving a rigid labor market is favored only by the employed with intermediate productivity. A more volatile environment and a lower rate of productivity growth increase the political support for labor market rigidity only in high-rents economies
Zn ion diffusion in spinel-type cathode materials for rechargeable batteries: the role of point defects
No full textOxides with spinel structure are attracting increasing attention as potential cathode materials for multivalent ion batteries, such as those based on Mg2+, Ca2+ and Zn2+. Their electrochemical performances generally depend on synthesis conditions, as the intercalation properties of such materials can be highly influenced by the amount and distribution of point defects. In this work we employ atomistic modelling techniques to investigate the trends in the energetics of point defects formation and Zn2+ diffusion in spinel-type ZnCo2O4, in order to shed light on the correlation between structure, defects and intercalation properties. The results of this study indicate that ZnCo2O4 has the potential to be used as cathode material in Zn-ion rechargeable batteries and that synthesis approaches aimed at reducing the degree of spinel inversion and introducing cation under-stoichiometry are expected to improve the intercalation properties of this class of compounds
Improving Oxygen Transport in Perovskite-Type LaGaO3Solid Electrolyte through Strain
No full textLattice strain is a promising possibility to improve materials performance in view of their application in thin-film devices. In particular, defect and transport properties in ionic conductors may be tailored through strain effects, since defect formation energy and migration barriers are correlated to structural parameters which, in turn, are influenced by strain-induced deformations. In this computational study we predicted that oxide-ion diffusion in perovskite-type lanthanum gallate can be improved through application of tensile strain. The structural deformations required to accommodate tensile lattice strain in the perovskite system are shown to result in a preferential localization of the oxygen vacancies in the equatorial plane of the GaO6 octahedra, while oxide-ion diffusion becomes anisotropic
Lattice effects in cubicLa2Mo2O9: effect of vacuum and correlation with transport properties
No full textThis study aims to investigate correlations between lattice effects and transport properties in cubic La2Mo2O9. High temperature neutron diffraction data, recorded in air and under vacuum, are used to follow the evolution with temperature of selected structural parameters, i.e. bond lengths and angles. Results suggest a possible correlation with the experimentally observed decrease of the
activation energy for oxygen migration at high temperature. The effect on the structural properties of the low oxygen partial pressure used during the measurements in vacuum is negligible and this represents a valuable information in view of possible applications of the material in solid state devices.
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Fabrication of Pt/Ti/TiO2 Photoelectrodes by RF-Magnetron Sputtering for Separate Hydrogen and Oxygen Production
No full textEvolution of pure hydrogen and oxygen by photocatalytic water splitting was attained
from the opposite sides of a composite Pt/Ti/TiO2 photoelectrode. The TiO2 films were prepared
by radio frequency (RF)-Magnetron Sputtering at different deposition time ranging from 1 up to
8 h and then characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and
ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-vis-NIR) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The photocatalytic
activity was evaluated by incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) measurements and by
photocatalytic water splitting measurements in a two-compartment cell. The highest H2 production
rate was attained with the photoelectrode prepared by 6 h-long TiO2 deposition thanks to its high
content in the rutile polymorph, which is active under visible light. By contrast, the photoactivity
dropped for longer deposition time, because of the increased probability of electron-hole recombination
due to the longer electron transfer path
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