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This thesis investigates issues related to gender inequalities and scarring effects in school to work transitions. The first chapter analyses the gender earnings gap among Italian college graduates at the beginning of their careers. Thanks to the richness of the dataset used I am able to control for a large set of variables related to individuals' educational and family background, as well as personality traits. The main finding is that the content of the college degree course is the most signicant variable in explaining the earnings gender differentials of young workers. In particular I show that female sorting in college majors characterised by a low maths content explains between 13 and 16% of the earnings gender gap. Motivated by this result, in Chapter 2 I investigate the determinants of gender gaps in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduation rates, with an emphasis on family, cultural and school influences. I show that half of the gap is attributed to the gender difference in maths and science content of the high school curriculum. The results indicate that in Italy the issue of the gender gap in STEM graduation has its roots in a gendered choice that originates many years before. The final chapter analyses the extent to which the mismatch of demand and supply of skills that young workers face when they enter the labour market upon completing education affects their careers. Regression results show that there is a long lasting negative effect of these initial conditions on labour market outcomes. The evidence is suggestive of a `trickle down unemployment' phenomenon, namely that high-skill workers try to escape strong competition from their high-skill peers by taking jobs for which a lower level of education is required, moving down the occupational ladder.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-157). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Labor economists have persistently observed a “gap” in the earnings of men and women. In this paper, I attempt to offer a partial explanation for the gender wage gap by analyzing the gender wage gap across male-dominated, female-dominated, and gender-neutral occupations. Using data from the Current Population Survey (2010-2012), I perform three Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions across the entire sample. I then perform decompositions across male-dominated, female-dominated, and gender-neutral occupations separately using the first specification. I find that occupations of different gender concentrations (male-dominated, female-dominated, and gender-neutral) have different gender gaps. In particular, male-dominated and gender neutral occupations have a much larger gender wage gap than female-dominated occupations, even after controlling for human capital and demographic variables. Combined with previous research and summary statistics, these results seem to suggest that certain workplace factors that might contribute to a higher gender wage gap, such as workplace inflexibility and gender discrimination, could be higher among male-dominated and gender-neutral occupations than they are among female-dominated occupations; however, further research into the precise characteristics of male-dominated, gender-neutral, and female-dominated occupations is necessary to confirm this analysis.

Aktiebolagslagen anger att aktiebolag i Sverige ska ha en eller flera revisorer. Revisorernas ansvar är att undersöka och rapportera om bolagets räkenskaper och förvaltningen av bolaget. Med tiden har reglerna ökat och till följd av detta har revisorerna fått allt mer ansvar. Detta har i sin tur lett till att klienternas förväntningar har ökat och skilda meningar om vad revisorns ansvar är har uppstått. Som ett resultat av dessa meningsskiljaktigheter uppstår ett förväntningsgap mellan revisor och klient. / The Swedish Companies Act states that companies in Sweden should have one or more auditors. Auditor's responsability is to investigate and report on the company's financial statements and the management of the company. Increased regulations have led to higher responsibility of auditor's. This in turn has led to increased expectations from the client's and disagreements about the responsibilities of auditor's. Because of these disagreements, an expectation gap arises between auditor and client.

Bakgrund: E-handel är en marknad som växt under de senaste åren och möjliggjort för företag att vara verksamma på en större marknad. Tillväxten på marknaden har lett till större konkurrenskraft som gjort att faktorer som kvalitet och snabba leveranser blivit allt viktigare för att tillfredsställa kunders behov. Tidigare undersökningar visar att det finns ett gap mellan det företag tror att konsumenterna tycker är viktigt och det konsumenterna tycker är viktigt för leveransserviceelementen tid och flexibilitet vid ett e-handelsköp. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att identifiera om det finns signifikanta gap mellan företagens uppfattning om vad konsumenterna tycker är viktigt och det konsumenterna tycker är viktigt avseende leveransserviceelement vid e-handelsköp. Syftet är också att identifiera om detta skiljer sig i de valda branscherna kläder&skor, böcker&media samt hemelektronik. Uppsatsen ska även undersöka om de valda faktorerna har ett samband med vad konsumenter tycker är viktigt avseende leveransserviceelementen. Metod: Studien som genomförts är av kvantitativt slag och har ett deduktivt angreppssätt. Studien har en tvärsnittsdesign, där en enkät utförts på företag och konsumenter. Urvalet har skett med hjälp av bekvämlighetsurval. Metoden för analysen har varit att t-test och sambandsanalyser genomförts i det statistiska datorprogrammet SPSS. Slutsats: Resultatet från denna undersökning visar att det existerar få signifikanta gap mellan vad respondentföretagen tror att konsumenterna tycker är viktigt och det respondentkonsumenterna tycker är viktigt avseende leveransserviceelementen vid e-handelssköp utifrån branscherna kläder&skor, böcker&media samt hemelektronik. Denna studie visar också att det finns signifikanta samband mellan de olika faktorerna och vad de undersökta kunderna tycker är viktigt avseende leveransserviceelement vid e-handelsköp. Dock är de flesta samband som påvisats svaga.

Graphene bilayers in Bernal stacking exhibit a transverse electric (E) field dependent band gap, thanks to the on-site electron energy asymmetry between the two layers, which can be used to increase the channel resistivity, and enable higher on/off ratio devices. Using dual-gated device structure, we investigate the transport characteristics of exfoliated graphene bilayers as a function of carrier density and E-field at temperature from 295 K down to 0.3 K. At high E-field, strong conduction suppression near the charge neutrality point is observed, a primary characteristic introduced by band gap opening. The conductivity suppression persists up to the finite threshold voltages, which increase with increasing the E-field, similar to a gapped semiconductor. We extract the transport gap as a function of E-field from the threshold measurement, and further discuss the impact of disorder. At gate bias higher than the threshold, conductivity increases linearly as carrier density increases, which contrasts to the sub-linear dependence in graphene monolayer. Mobility shows decreasing tendency with the increasing E-field, which changes little as temperature changes. Besides, we probe the electrical characteristics of quasi-free-standing graphene bilayers grown on SiC at temperature down to 0.3 K, based on the study on the exfoliated graphene bilayers. The epitaxial graphene bilayer on SiC is prepared by atmospheric pressure graphitization in Ar, followed by H₂ intercalation, which renders the material quasi-free-standing. At the charge neutrality point, the longitudinal resistance shows an insulating behavior, and follows a temperature dependence consistent with variable range hopping transport in a gapped state. Besides, clear linear dependence of the conductivity on the carrier density is observed, which is distinguishable from the sub-linear dependence in graphene monolayer. These properties show that the epitaxial graphene bilayer grown on the SiC exhibits band-gap opening and Bernal stacked arrangement. / text