Export Promotion, the Fallacy of Composition and Declining Terms of Trade (or the Moors’ Last Sigh).

This paper examines various schools of trade policy reform and finds little difference between them in regards their essential export optimism. This optimism is based on an unwarranted assumption in cross-country empirical studies. In practise the increasing number of large LDC’s shifting towards export promotion since the 1980s is found to coincide with declining terms of trade for labour-intensive manufactures. So far this decline has been offset by growth in volume. The positive relation is actually dependent on market growth in developed countries rather than domestic policy reform. Marx (the Moor) provides a useful framework in which to analyse this process. His analysis of competition and accumulation within a national economy is transposed to that of international trade. Finally, the increasing integration of capital into ‘value chains’ and the formation of regional trading blocs can be related to the crisis tendencies of competition and the erosion of profit margins

Implications of Globalization for the Output-inflation Relationship: An Assessment

During the past two decades, a growing body of research has explored the implications of increased trade and financial openness for the relationship between output and inflation. This paper reviews proposed theoretical channels through which the degree of openness might ultimately affect the output-inflation trade-off and surveys the empirical studies that have sought to determine the net effect of greater openness on this trade-off. In addition, the paper utilizes a single cross-country data set to evaluate, taking into account recent developments in the literature, the likely sign and significance of this net effect. In particular, we find current data imply that there is a negative and significant relationship between openness and the sacrifice ratio, regardless of the transmission channel that is proposed

Knowledge production in a cooperative economy

Knowledge here means something similar to but broader than science; reliable but not necessarily as systematic or explicit. A cooperative economy is contrasted with the competitive economy that has dominated political thinking almost everywhere for about half a century - the neo-liberal period. It is argued that the neo-liberal ideology and its economic ideas and practices are unjust and unsustainable. A model for a cooperative economy is described which would be more just and sustainable. Three main features of the model are outlined - basic income, asset and income limits, and a concept of work that counts all activity useful to human well-being rather than counting monetary profit. Knowledge in such an economy is considered in four main stages - production, review, dissemination and use. It is argued that, in the described cooperative economy, these stages would proceed more efficiently and lead to human well-being

(WP 2007-01) Openness, Income-Tax Progressivity, and Inflation

This paper considers a model of an open economy in which the degree of income-tax progressivity influences the interaction among openness, central bank independence, and the inflation rate. Our model suggests that an increase in the progressivity of the tax system induces a smaller response in real output to a change in the price level. This implies that increased income-tax progressivity reduces the equilibrium inflation rate and that the effect of increased income-tax progressivity on inflation is smaller when the central bank places a higher weight on inflation or when there is greater openness. Examination of cross-country inflation data provides empirical support for these key predictions

Vitamin D3-loaded electrospun cellulose acetate/polycaprolactone nanofibers: Characterization, in-vitro drug release and cytotoxicity studies

Vitamin D deficiency is nowa global health problem; despite several drug delivery systems for carrying vitaminD due to low bioavailability and loss bioactivity. Developing a new drug delivery system to deliver vitamin D3 is a strong incentive in the current study. Hence, an implantable drug delivery system (IDDS) was developed from the electrospun cellulose acetate (CA) and ε-polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous membrane, in which the core of implants consists of vitamin D3-loaded CA nanofiber (CAVD) and enclosed in a thin layer of the PCL membrane (CAVD/PCL). CA nanofibrousmat loadedwith vitaminD3 at the concentrations of 6, 12, and 20% (w/w) of vitamin D3 were produced using electrospinning. The smooth and bead-free fibers with diameters ranged from 324 to 428 nm were obtained. The fiber diameters increased with an increase in vitamin D3 content. The controlled drug release profile was observed over 30-days, which fit with the zero-order model (R2 > 0.96) in the first stage. The mechanical properties of IDDS were improved. Young's modulus and tensile strength of CAVD/PCL (dry) were161 ± 14 and 13.07 ± 2.5 MPa, respectively. CA and PCL nanofibers are non-cytotoxic based on the results of the in-vitro cytotoxicity studies. This study can further broaden in-vivo study and provide a reference for developing a new IDDS to carry vitamin D3 in the future

Globalisation and the mix of wage and profit taxes

This paper analyses the development of the ratio of corporate taxes to wage taxes using a simple political economy model with internationally mobile and immobile firms. Among other results, our model predicts that countries reduce their corporate tax rate, relative to the wage tax, either when preferences for public goods increase or when a rising share of capital is employed in multinational firms. The predicted relationships are tested using panel data for 23 OECD countries for the period 1980 through 2001. The results of the empirical analysis support our central hypotheses

Critical powder loading and the rheology of nanosized cemented carbide with titanium carbide as grain growth inhibitor for injection molding

The purpose of this paper is to determine the critical powder loading of WC-Co and to study the effect of TiC powder on the rheological behavior of MIM feedstock. WC-TiC-6Co metal powder was taken as raw material. 60% (mass fraction) palm stearin and 40% low density polyethylene were employed as binders to prepare injection feedstock. Three feedstocks were prepared at different TiC % loadings of 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 (by weight). A homogeneous metal powders is formed by using ball mill mixer and mixed together with binder system by using Brabender mixer. Based on the result obtained, it was concluded that feedstock with 0.75 wt. % TiC powder show a good pseudo-plastic behavior within acceptable ranges in MIM

Corruption and Openness

We report an intriguing empirical observation. The relationship between corruption and output depends on the economy's degree of openness: in open economies, corruption and GNP per capita are strongly negatively correlated, but in closed economies there is no relationship at all. This stylized fact is robust to a variety of different empirical specifications. In particular, the same basic pattern persists if we use alternative measures of openness, if we focus on different time periods, if we restrict the sample to nclude only highly corrupt countries, if we restrict attention to specific geographic areas or to poor countries, and if we allow for the possible endogeneity of the corruption measure. We find that the extent to which corruption affects output is determined primarily by the degree of financial openness. The difference between closed and open economies is mainly due to the different effect of corruption on capital accumulation. We present a model, consistent with these findings, in which the main channel through which corruption affects output is capital drain.corruption openness growth

Domestic policy no match for trade stance of Central American countries

Free trade