Expenditure Patterns of Migrant Households: Evidence from Moldova

This paper examines the effect of temporary and permanent migration on household expenditures and on asset/durables ownership. Using household survey data from Moldova, this paper relies on the matching approach for identification. It is shown that temporary migrant and permanent migrant households have additional expenditures for food compared to non-migrant households. Concerning the ownership of goods or assets compared to the regional crisis in 1998, temporary and permanent migrant households are more likely to own more goods or assets than non-migrant households. Migration has stronger effects on ownership in rural areas. Overall, the findings indicate that temporary migration has a stronger effect on household expenditures than permanent migration. --Expenditures,Remittances,Migration,Propensity Score Matching

South Asian monsoon history over the past 60 kyr recorded by radiogenic isotopes and clay mineral assemblages in the Andaman Sea

The Late Quaternary variability of the South Asian (or Indian) monsoon has been linked with glacial‐interglacial and millennial scale climatic changes but past rainfall intensity in the river catchments draining into the Andaman Sea remains poorly constrained. Here we use radiogenic Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope compositions of the detrital clay‐size fraction and clay mineral assemblages obtained from sediment core NGHP Site 17 in the Andaman Sea to reconstruct the variability of the South Asian monsoon during the past 60 kyr. Over this time interval εNd values changed little, generally oscillating between −7.3 and −5.3 and the Pb isotope signatures are essentially invariable, which is in contrast to a record located further northeast in the Andaman Sea. This indicates that the source of the detrital clays did not change significantly during the last glacial and deglaciation suggesting the monsoon was spatially stable. The most likely source region is the Irrawaddy river catchment including the Indo‐Burman Ranges with a possible minor contribution from the Andaman Islands. High smectite/(illite + chlorite) ratios (up to 14), as well as low 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.711) for the Holocene period indicate enhanced chemical weathering and a stronger South Asian monsoon compared to marine oxygen isotope stages 2 and 3. Short, smectite‐poor intervals exhibit markedly radiogenic Sr isotope compositions and document weakening of the South Asian monsoon, which may have been linked to short‐term northern Atlantic climate variability on millennial time scales

Trade Effects of the Europe Agreements

The eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) brought and will bring full membership to countries whose trade barriers with the EU had to a large extent already been removed under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) during the 1990s. We employ a theory-based new version of a gravity equation, whose specification allows for an assessment of the impact of the arrangements on extra- and intra-group imports. We find robust evidence that the agreements have substantially increased intra-group trade, in the case of the Czech and Slovak Republic at the expense of the Rest of the World (ROW).Free Trade Agreements; Gravity equation; Central and Eastern Europe; Panel data

Consistently Simulating a Wide Range of Atmospheric Scenarios for K2-18b with a Flexible Radiative Transfer Module

The atmospheres of small, potentially rocky exoplanets are expected to cover a diverse range in composition and mass. Studying such objects therefore requires flexible and wide-ranging modeling capabilities. We present in this work the essential development steps that lead to our flexible radiative transfer module, REDFOX, and validate REDFOX for the Solar system planets Earth, Venus and Mars, as well as for steam atmospheres. REDFOX is a k-distribution model using the correlated-k approach with random overlap method for the calculation of opacities used in the $\delta$-two-stream approximation for radiative transfer. Opacity contributions from Rayleigh scattering, UV / visible cross sections and continua can be added selectively. With the improved capabilities of our new model, we calculate various atmospheric scenarios for K2-18b, a super-Earth / sub-Neptune with $\sim$8 M$_\oplus$ orbiting in the temperate zone around an M-star, with recently observed H$_2$O spectral features in the infrared. We model Earth-like, Venus-like, as well as H$_2$-He primary atmospheres of different Solar metallicity and show resulting climates and spectral characteristics, compared to observed data. Our results suggest that K2-18b has an H$_2$-He atmosphere with limited amounts of H$_2$O and CH$_4$. Results do not support the possibility of K2-18b having a water reservoir directly exposed to the atmosphere, which would reduce atmospheric scale heights, hence too the amplitudes of spectral features inconsistent with the observations. We also performed tests for H$_2$-He atmospheres up to 50 times Solar metallicity, all compatible with the observations.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The Adoption of Water Conservation and Intensification Technologies and Farm Income: A Propensity Score Analysis for Rice Farmers in Northern Ghana

This study uses cross-sectional data of 342 small-scale lowland rice farmers in Northern Region of Ghana to analyze the impact of the adoption decision of bund construction and seed dibbling on net returns, input demand and output supply. Matching was conducted based on Mahalanobis distance combined with propensity score. Balancing tests by checking the mean standardized absolute bias in the matched sample were conducted as well as sensitivity analysis to check for hidden bias due to unobservable selection. The empirical results of impact assessment using propensity score matching controlling for self-selection bias suggest that input demand is significantly higher for adopters of bunds, but not statistically different for adopters and non-adopters of dibbling seed. However, output supply and net returns were not found to be statistically different for adopters and non-adopters of bunds. Adopters of dibbling were found to have higher output supply while no statistically significant difference was found for net returns of adopters and non-adopters of dibbling. The results were found to be relative insensitive to hidden bias.Propensity score matching, evaluation, sensitivity analysis, Rosenbaum bounds, water conservation methods, bunds, rice production, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

Prospective NATO or EU Membership and Institutional Change in Transition Countries

This paper quantifies the impact of incentives related to potential membership on institutional change as measured by the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI). Based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2008 we show that pre-accession incentives provided by EU and NATO clearly matter for institutional development. In addition, path-dependency determined by cultural norms may be overcome by economic liberalization while foreign aid seems to hamper institutional development.EU, NATO, Transition Economies, Institutional Change, Governance

Natural knowledge and Aristotelianism at early modern protestant universities

This volume aims to shed new light on the ways in which science was institutionalized and the central role played by university culture at reformed universities in the early modern period. It particularly explores the relationship between the Aristotelian legacy in Protestant centers of learning and the new natural knowledge which emerged from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. Within the university context, Aristotelianism proved to be a dynamic tradition which we would term a ‘mobile episteme’ in line with the research program of the Collaborative Research Centre Episteme in Motion and the ERC endeavor EarlyModernCosmology (Horizon 2020, GA 725883). The transformation of academic science depended on its circulation in institutional and intellectual networks. The transfer and exchange of knowledge always implied its reformulation and often its deep alteration as well, even in those cases in which the explicit intention of the historical actors was to preserve and secure a received canon of knowledge, such as the corpus Aristotelicum or the Scholastic style of thought. As a matter of fact, the cross-pollination between ‘early’ forms of knowledge and ‘modern’ perspectives produced changes of content, theory, and experience. The fields that underwent major hybridizations and shifts range from astronomy to astrology, medicine, theories of the soul, alchemy, physics, and biology. Because methodologies were revised throughout this process, later instantiations of method, including rhetoric, epistemology, and theories of argumentation must be reevaluated within the terms of this transformative episteme

Distance, Lending Relationships, and Competition

A recent string of theoretical papers has highlighted the importance of geographical distance in explaining loan rates for small firms.Lenders located in the vicinity of small firms face significantly lower transportation and monitoring costs, and hence wield considerable market power, if competing financiers are located relatively far from the borrowing firms.We study the effect on loan conditions of geographical distance between firms, the lending bank, and all other banks in the vicinity.For our study we employ detailed contract information from more than 15,000 bank loans to small firms comprising the entire loan portfolio of a large Belgian bank.We control for relevant relationship, loan contract, bank branch, firm, and regional characteristics.We report the first comprehensive evidence on the occurrence of spatial price discrimination in bank lending.Loan rates decrease with the distance between the firm and the lending bank and similarly increase with the distance between the firm and competing banks.The effect of distance on the loan rate is statistically significant and economically relevant.Robust to changes in model specifications and variable definitions, the effect is seemingly not driven by the modest changes over time in lending technology that we infer.We deduce that transportation costs cause the spatial price discrimination we observe.prices;credit;banks;competition;bank lending

A Map of European Megaliths

As part of a request from the “European Megalithic Routes” organization to its Scientific Advisory Board for a comprehensive map of European megaliths, an attempt was made to produce the corresponding map using existing publications on megalithic tombs. As a result, 17409 published megalithic tombs were mapped. This endeavour forms the basis for a continuous and necessary improvement of a map of European megalithic sites, especially regarding the architectural classification of the individual megaliths