Wage subsidies and international trade: when does policy coordination pay?

National labour market institutions interact across national boundaries when product markets are global. Labour market policies can thus entail spill-overs, a fact widely ignored in the academic literature. This paper studies the effects of wage subsidies in an international duopoly model with unionised labour markets. We document both positive and negative spill-over effects and discuss the benefits and costs from international policy coordination both for the case of symmetric and asymmetric labour market institutions. Our results suggest that institutional differences could sign responsible for the slow speed at which labour market policy coordination has progressed so far

Gender Inequality and Trade

The paper empirically explores the international linkages between gender inequality and trade flows of a sample of 92 developed and developing countries. The focus is on comparative advantage in labour-intensive manufactured goods. The results indicate that gender wage inequality is positively associated with comparative advantage in labourintensive goods, that is, countries with a larger gender wage gap have higher exports of these goods. Also, gender inequality in labour force activity rates and educational attainment rates are negatively linked with comparative advantage in labour-intensive commodities. --Gender Inequality,Trade,Comparative Advantage

State-owned Banks as Competition Enhancers, or the Grand Illusion

We analyze the role of state-ownership in the banking sector from the perspective of competition. Considering both the market for mortgage loans and the market for savings and investment deposits in Switzerland, we test three hypothesis: (i) Is the conduct followed by the state-owned 'cantonal banks' consistent with marginal cost pricing? (ii) Do cantonal banks charge and/or offer relatively customer friendly interest rates? And (iii) is competition intensified by the conduct and presence of cantonal banks. Based on a detailed database containing information at he individual bank level over the 1996-2002 period, the answer is: 'No'.Competition, Banking, State-ownership, Switzerland, Cantonal banks

Characterization and Application of Hard X-Ray Betatron Radiation Generated by Relativistic Electrons from a Laser-Wakefield Accelerator

The necessity for compact table-top x-ray sources with higher brightness, shorter wavelength and shorter pulse duration has led to the development of complementary sources based on laser-plasma accelerators, in contrast to conventional accelerators. Relativistic interaction of short-pulse lasers with underdense plasmas results in acceleration of electrons and in consequence in the emission of spatially coherent radiation, which is known in the literature as betatron radiation. In this article we report on our recent results in the rapidly developing field of secondary x-ray radiation generated by high-energy electron pulses. The betatron radiation is characterized with a novel setup allowing to measure the energy, the spatial energy distribution in the far-field of the beam and the source size in a single laser shot. Furthermore, the polarization state is measured for each laser shot. In this way the emitted betatron x-rays can be used as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to retrieve very subtle information of the electron dynamics within the plasma wave. Parallel to the experimental work, 3D particle-in-cell simulations were performed, proved to be in good agreement with the experimental results.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures, submitted to the Journal of Plasma Physic

A solid-state high harmonic generation spectrometer with cryogenic cooling

Solid-state high harmonic generation spectroscopy (sHHG) is a promising technique for studying electronic structure, symmetry, and dynamics in condensed matter systems. Here, we report on the implementation of an advanced sHHG spectrometer based on a vacuum chamber and closed-cycle helium cryostat. Using an in situ temperature probe, it is demonstrated that the sample interaction region retains cryogenic temperature during the application of high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses that generate high harmonics. The presented implementation opens the door for temperature-dependent sHHG measurements down to few Kelvin, which makes sHHG spectroscopy a new tool for studying phases of matter that emerge at low temperatures, which is particularly interesting for highly correlated materials

Random Phase Center Motion Technique for Enhanced Angle-Doppler Discrimination Using MIMO Radars

A random Phase Center Motion (PCM) technique is presented in this paper, based on Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar, in order to suppress the angle- Doppler coupling in Time Division Multiplex (TDM) Multiple- Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar when employing sparse array structures. The presented approach exploits an apparently moving transmit platform or PCM due to spatio-temporal transmit array modulation. In particular, the work considers a framework utilizing a random PCM trajectory. The statistical characterization of the random PCM trajectory is devised, such that the PCM and the target motion coupling is minimal, while the angular resolution is increased by enabling the virtual MIMO concept. In more details, this paper discusses sidelobe suppression approaches within the angle-Doppler Ambiguity Function (AF) by introducing a phase center probability density function within the array. This allows for enhanced discrimination of multiple targets. Simulation results demonstrate the suppression angle- Doppler coupling by more than 30 dB, even though spatiotemporal transmit array modulation is done across chirps which leads usually to strong angle-Doppler coupling

Avalanche of stimulated forward scattering in high harmonic generation

© 2016 [Optical Society of America]. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modifications of the content of this paper are prohibited.Optical amplifiers in all ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum exhibit an essential characteristic, namely the input signal during the propagation in the amplifier medium is multiplied by the avalanche effect of the stimulated emission to produce exponential growth. We perform a theoretical study motivated and supported by experimental data on a He gas amplifier driven by intense 30-fs-long laser pulses and seeded with attosecond pulse trains generated in a separated Ne gas jet. We demonstrate that the strong-field theory in the frame of high harmonic generation fully supports the appearance of the avalanche effect in the amplification of extreme ultraviolet attosecond pulse trains. We theoretically separate and identify different physical processes taking part in the interaction and we demonstrate that X-ray parametric amplification dominates over others. In particular, we identify strong-field mediated intrapulse X-ray parametric processes as decisive for amplification at the single-atom level. We confirm that the amplification takes place at photon energies where the amplifier is seeded and when the seed pulses are perfectly synchronized with the driving strong field in the amplifier. Furthermore, propagation effects, phase matching and seed synchronization can be exploited to tune the amplified spectral range within the seed bandwidth.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft