Tilburg University

About: Tilburg University is a education organization based out in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 5550 authors who have published 22330 publications receiving 791335 citations.

Intended and unintended consequences of a publish-or-perish culture: A worldwide survey

Abstract: How does publication pressure in modern-day universities affect the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in science? By using a worldwide survey among demographers in developed and developing countries, the authors show that the large majority perceive the publication pressure as high, but more so in Anglo-Saxon countries and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. However, scholars see both the pros (upward mobility) and cons (excessive publication and uncitedness, neglect of policy issues, etc.) of the so-called publish-or-perish culture. By measuring behavior in terms of reading and publishing, and perceived extrinsic rewards and stated intrinsic rewards of practicing science, it turns out that publication pressure negatively affects the orientation of demographers towards policy and knowledge sharing. There are no signs that the pressure affects reading and publishing outside the core discipline. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Buying Beauty: On Prices and Returns in the Art Market

Abstract: This paper investigates the price determinants and investment performance of art. We apply a hedonic regression analysis to a new data set of more than one million auction transactions of paintings and works on paper. Based on the resulting price index, we conclude that art has appreciated in value by a moderate 3.97% per year, in real U.S. dollar terms, between 1957 and 2007. This is a performance similar to that of corporate bonds--at much higher risk. A repeat-sales regression on a subset of the data demonstrates the robustness of our index. Next, quantile regressions document larger average price appreciations (and higher volatilities) in more expensive price brackets. We also find variation in historical returns across mediums and movements. Finally, we show that measures of high-income consumer confidence and art market sentiment predict art price trends.

The Effectiveness of Structural Policy in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis for the EU-15 in 1995-2001

Abstract: The main aim of structural policy is to decrease the regional disparities within the European Union (EU). In 2004 ten new member countries joined the EU, and it is expected that this enlargement will cause strong regional disparities within the Union. For this reason the distribution of financial support by structural policy will undergo drastic changes. In this study we consider two main themes. First, convergence of the current EU Member States is empirically tested for the period 1995-2001, and the effect of the structural funds in this context is identified. Structural funds do indeed appear to have had a positive impact, and poorer countries (like Greece) appear to have caught up with the richer countries. The importance of the structural funds in this respect therefore cannot be neglected. Second, we touch on the problem of moral hazard and the substitution effect. It may be expected that receivers of structural funds in some cases are not really eligible and may therefore use the funds inefficiently. Our first and preliminary results seem to indicate that the less clean countries (or as we measure it, more 'corrupt' countries) of the current EU-15 do not gain less economic growth from the structural funds. The hypothesis that structural funds contributed to fewer interregional disparities within the current 15 European countries cannot be rejected. This may mean the intended plans of channelling a big share of the funds to the candidate countries in 2007-13 will probably contribute to higher economic growth in these countries.

Implementation of Interior Point Methods for Mixed Semidefinite and Second Order Cone Optimization Problems

Abstract: There is a large number of implementational choices to be made for the primal-dual interior point method in the context of mixed semidefinite and second order cone optimization. This paper presents such implementational issues in a unified framework, and compares the choices made by dierent research groups. This is also the first paper to provide an elaborate discussion of the implementation in SeDuMi.