The Effect of Outsourcing on the Change of Wage Share

The technology breakthroughs and tariff reductions of the last several decades have reduced the costs of trade. The classical Heckscher-Ohlin model cannot explain the pattern of the change in nonproduction wage share: the relative wages of nonproduction and production workers increased steadily since 1980s. The increasing wage gap leads to increasing income inequality, growing poverty and strains the social fabric. Hence, we need an alternative approach to explain the increasing “wage gap†between nonproduction and production workers. Feenstra developed a trade in intermediate model which estimates the how much outsourcing contributes to the total change in nonproduction wage share and compared it with the contribution of computers. He estimated the change in nonproduction wage share in his book, Advanced International Trade (2004). Using the NBER productivity data (Bartelsman and Gray 1996) and imported intermediate inputs data (Feenstra and Hanson 1990) to run his regression, he found that outsourcing and high-tech capital are the main factors. Specifically, he reported that the outsourcing contributed 15-24% and computers (high-tech capital) contributed 13-31% to the total change in nonproduction wage share from 1979 to 1990. Moreover, whether outsourcing is more or less important than computers, depends on how we measure the computers. If we measure computers with the share of investments, it will be more important than outsourcing. If we measure computers with ex-post or ex-ante rental prices, it will be less important than outsourcing. For this paper, I use an updated data and compare my results with Feenstra\u27s. The NBER data I use is for the years 1958 to 2009 (Bartelsman and Gray 2014) and the intermediate inputs data is updated through 1997. I find that outsourcing contributed 17-28% while computers contributed 9-45%. If we measure computers as the share of investment, it contributes 45%, which is more important than outsourcing. In other measurements like ex-post, computers contribute 14%, which is less important than outsourcing. The fact that my findings are similar to Feenstra\u27s, provides a robustness check on his original findings and gives us more confidence in them

Design of a current probe for measuring ball-grid-array packaged devices

A current probe to measure BGA ball currents via magnetic induction has been designed. The probe is manufactured on a 4 layer flex circuit and has been validated by full wave simulations and measurements. The feature size of the probe is very tiny that it almost pushes the limit of flex-circuit technology. Several critical manufacturing problems were happened, and they have been solved now. The probe allows measuring currents of a 1 mm pitch BGA ball directly. Its operating frequency stretched from tens of MHz up to 3GHz. The BGA probe\u27s mutual inductance is approximately 11 pH, and with amplifiers the signal is large enough to be visible in real time on an oscilloscope. Moreover, a frequency-domain-calibration program has been developed to correct the measured data. And a FPGA DUT board is designed and manufactured, to demonstrate the application of the BGA probe. ADS model is also developed to show the principle of how the probe works --Abstract, page iii

A Game-Level Analysis: How Does Trade Affect Team Performance in NBA?

Using game-level panel data on the National Basketball Association for 2015-2016 season, I examine the relationship between trade and team performance. In my study, trade is measured by a game-minute-adjusted salary dispersion. I construct a fixed effect model to analyze the effect of salary dispersion on team performance. The results show that salary dispersion is negatively related to team performance. To verify whether different team characteristics will affect this relationship, I categorize the teams into two groups twice based on their playoff likelihood and number of trades made. The results provide additional evidence that salary dispersion influence team performance negatively. The findings suggest that a compressed salary structures lead to more productivity in the NBA

Post-transient relaxation in graphene after an intense laser pulse

High intensity laser pulses were recently shown to induce a population inverted transient state in graphene [T. Li et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 167401 (2012)]. Using a combination of hydrodynamic arguments and a kinetic theory we determine the post-transient state relaxation of hot, dense, population inverted electrons towards equilibrium. The cooling rate and charge-imbalance relaxation rate are determined from the Boltzmann-equation including electron-phonon scattering. We show that the relaxation of the population inversion, driven by inter-band scattering processes, is much slower than the relaxation of the electron temperature, which is determined by intra-band scattering processes. This insight may be of relevance for the application of graphene as an optical gain medium.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted as contribution of the IMPACT Special Topics series of the EP