School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

About: School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences is a facility organization based out in Villejuif, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Context (language use). The organization has 1230 authors who have published 2084 publications receiving 57740 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales & EHESS.

Efficient tuition fees and examinations

Abstract: We assume that students observe only a private, noisy signal of their ability and that universities can condition admission decisions on the results of noisy tests. If the university observes a private signal of each student's ability, which is soft information, then asymmetries of information are two-sided, and the optimal admission policy involves a mix of pricing and pre-entry selection, based on the university's private information. In contrast, if all test results are public knowledge, then there is no sorting on the basis of test scores: Tuition alone does the job of implementing an optimal degree of student self-selection. These results do not depend on the existence of peer effects. The optimal tuition follows a classic marginal social-cost pricing rule. (JEL: D82, H42, I22, J24)

Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks

Abstract: Urbanisation is a fundamental phenomenon whose quantitative characterisation is still inadequate. We report here the empirical analysis of a unique data set regarding almost 200 years of evolution of the road network in a large area located north of Milan (Italy). We find that urbanisation is characterised by the homogenisation of cell shapes, and by the stability throughout time of high-centrality roads which constitute the backbone of the urban structure, confirming the importance of historical paths. We show quantitatively that the growth of the network is governed by two elementary processes: (i) `densification', corresponding to an increase in the local density of roads around existing urban centres and (ii) `exploration', whereby new roads trigger the spatial evolution of the urbanisation front. The empirical identification of such simple elementary mechanisms suggests the existence of general, simple properties of urbanisation and opens new directions for its modelling and quantitative description.

Uma "boa" educação

Abstract: For the dominant sections of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, an ethical education ¾ a "good"education ¾ for their daughters, is always a major preoccupation.Instruction, on the other hand, a training for intellectual activity, is considered of secundary importance, as though, in the case of theses girls, the transmission of the economic and cultural capital. The "Notre Dame des Oiseaux" school, is not so much an excepcional case as a bordeline case.With a few concessions to the new bourgeois morality, and thanks to the extreme homogeneity not only of its pupils, but also of its teaching staff and the sisters, the preparation for a specific role ¾ "happy" mother, cultivated wife, with a job but quite prepared to give it up, pious, involved in some charitable activity ¾ remains the most important aspect of the education of young girls of this milieu.