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Since the discovery of mirror neurons, the study of human infant goal-directed actions and object manipulation has burgeoned into new and exciting research directions. A number of infant studies have begun emphasizing the social context of action to understand what infants can infer when looking at others performing goal-directed actions or manipulating objects. Others have begun addressing how looking at actions in a social context, or even simply looking at objects in the immediate environment influence the way infants learn to direct their own actions on objects. Researchers have even begun investigating what aspects of goal-directed actions and object manipulation infants imitate when such actions are being modeled by a social partner, or they have been asking which cues infants use to predict others' actions. A growing understanding of how infants learn to reach, perceive information for reaching, and attend social cues for action has become central to many recent studies. These new lines of investigation and others have benefited from the use of a broad range of new investigative techniques. Eye-tracking, brains imaging techniques and new methodologies have been used to scrutinize how infants look, process, and use information to act themselves on objects and/or the social world, and to infer, predict, and recognize goal-directed actions outcomes from others. This Frontiers Research topic brings together empirical reports, literature reviews, and theory and hypothesis papers that tap into some of these exciting developmental questions about how infants perceive, understand, and perform goal-directed actions broadly defined. The papers included either stress the neural, motor, or perceptual aspects of infants’ behavior, or any combination of those dimensions as related to the development of early cognitive understanding and performance of goal-directed actions.

motor development --- Infancy --- action understanding --- motor experience --- motor learning --- social cognition --- goal-directed actions --- action anticipation --- reaching --- action consequences --- motor development --- Infancy --- action understanding --- motor experience --- motor learning --- social cognition --- goal-directed actions --- action anticipation --- reaching --- action consequences

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Since the discovery of mirror neurons, the study of human infant goal-directed actions and object manipulation has burgeoned into new and exciting research directions. A number of infant studies have begun emphasizing the social context of action to understand what infants can infer when looking at others performing goal-directed actions or manipulating objects. Others have begun addressing how looking at actions in a social context, or even simply looking at objects in the immediate environment influence the way infants learn to direct their own actions on objects. Researchers have even begun investigating what aspects of goal-directed actions and object manipulation infants imitate when such actions are being modeled by a social partner, or they have been asking which cues infants use to predict others' actions. A growing understanding of how infants learn to reach, perceive information for reaching, and attend social cues for action has become central to many recent studies. These new lines of investigation and others have benefited from the use of a broad range of new investigative techniques. Eye-tracking, brains imaging techniques and new methodologies have been used to scrutinize how infants look, process, and use information to act themselves on objects and/or the social world, and to infer, predict, and recognize goal-directed actions outcomes from others. This Frontiers Research topic brings together empirical reports, literature reviews, and theory and hypothesis papers that tap into some of these exciting developmental questions about how infants perceive, understand, and perform goal-directed actions broadly defined. The papers included either stress the neural, motor, or perceptual aspects of infants’ behavior, or any combination of those dimensions as related to the development of early cognitive understanding and performance of goal-directed actions.

motor development --- Infancy --- action understanding --- motor experience --- motor learning --- social cognition --- goal-directed actions --- action anticipation --- reaching --- action consequences

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We study the process of external adjustment to large terms-of-trade level shifts—identified with a Markov-switching approach—for a large set of countries during the period 1960–2015. We find that adjustment to these shocks is relatively fast. Current accounts experience, on average, a contemporaneous variation of only about ½ of the magnitude of the price shock—indicating a significant volume offset—and a full adjustment within 3–4 years. Dynamics are largely symmetric for terms-of-trade booms and busts, as well as for advanced and emerging market economies. External adjustment is driven primarily by offsetting shifts in domestic demand, as opposed to variations in output (also reflected in the response of import rather than export volumes), indicating a strong income channel at play. Exchange rate flexibility appears to have played an important buffering role during booms, but less so during busts; while international reserve holdings have been a key tool for smoothing the adjustment process.

Business cycles --- Business cycles. --- Economic cycles --- Economic fluctuations --- Cycles --- Econometric models. --- Exports and Imports --- Foreign Exchange --- Information Management --- Current Account Adjustment --- Short-term Capital Movements --- Open Economy Macroeconomics --- International Business Cycles --- Technological Change: Choices and Consequences --- Diffusion Processes --- Knowledge management --- International economics --- Currency --- Foreign exchange --- Technology transfer --- Current account --- Exchange rate arrangements --- Adjustment process --- Exchange rate flexibility --- Technology --- Balance of payments --- United States

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This study analyzes composition of goods trade in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) along four main dimensions: revealed comparative advantage, product complexity, sophistication, and diversification. After describing some key trade patterns over the last half century, it compares the findings for LAC with other regions. Second, the study investigates how infrastructure quality, education, and tariff levels affect export composition. Third, using an approach based on product proximity, it aims to predict changes in LAC’s future composition of exports. The study concludes that policies to upgrade human capital and infrastructure are essential for increasing LAC’s export share in high-skill products.

Commerce --- Mathematical models. --- Latin America --- Economic conditions. --- Commercial policy. --- Investments: Commodities --- Exports and Imports --- Taxation --- Macroeconomics --- Trade: General --- Empirical Studies of Trade --- Technological Change: Choices and Consequences --- Diffusion Processes --- Neoclassical Models of Trade --- Trade Policy --- International Trade Organizations --- Commodity Markets --- Education: General --- Aggregate Factor Income Distribution --- International economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Investment & securities --- Education --- Exports --- Comparative advantage --- Tariffs --- Commodities --- International trade --- Taxes --- Income inequality --- National accounts --- Tariff --- Commercial products --- Income distribution --- Mexico

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This paper documents the downward trend in the labor share of global income since the early 1990s, as well as its heterogeneous evolution across countries, industries and worker skill groups, using a newly assembled dataset, and analyzes the drivers behind it. Technological progress, along with varying exposure to routine occupations, explains about half the overall decline in advanced economies, with a larger negative impact on middle-skilled workers. In emerging markets, the labor share evolution is explained predominantly by global integration, particularly the expansion of global value chains that contributed to raising the overall capital intensity in production.

Income distribution. --- Distribution of income --- Income inequality --- Inequality of income --- Distribution (Economic theory) --- Disposable income --- Income distribution --- E-books --- Finance: General --- Labor --- Macroeconomics --- Globalization --- Aggregate Factor Income Distribution --- Globalization: Labor --- Technological Change: Choices and Consequences --- Diffusion Processes --- Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General --- Globalization: General --- General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- Labor Economics: General --- Labour --- income economics --- Finance --- Labor share --- Emerging and frontier financial markets --- Global value chains --- Financial markets --- Wages --- Financial services industry --- Labor economics --- United States