The Bilateral J-curve: Turkey versus her 13 Trading Partners

This study empirically analyses bilateral J-curve dynamics of Turkey with her thirteen trading partners using quarterly time series data over the period 1985-2005. Previous studies on the J-curve of Turkey are based on only aggregate data and they reveal mixed results. Short and long-run impacts of the depreciation of Turkish lira on the trade balance between Turkey and her thirteen trading partners are estimated from the bound testing approach and error correction modeling. The empirical results indicate that whilst there is no J-curve effect in the short-run, but in the long-run, the real depreciation of the Turkish lira has positive impact on Turkey’s trade balance in couple of countries. The stability of the long-run trade balance equations is also checked through CUSUM and CUSUMSQ stability tests.J-curve; co-integration; stability tests; Turkey

Current Trends in Child Abuse Prevention and Fatalities: The 2000 Fifty State Survey

This survey takes a closer look at two pressing needs. The first is the important role of prevention, specifically at the most effective prevention programs and how they are funded. The second need, based on feedback from PCA America Chapters and other prevention experts, is to better understand child fatalities and the kind of prevention strategies that can best reduce fatalities. This survey differs from previous surveys, as it did not attempt to gather data on child abuse and neglect reports or substantiations. Instead, the National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, the research arm of PCA America, is working with the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ensure that our nation has the best systems available for gathering and tracking child maltreatment incidences. This report's highlights and findings are based on responses from 50 states and the District of Columbia, although all states have not responded to all questions. The results are reported in two main sections: Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, and Child Maltreatment Fatalities. At the beginning of each are highlights followed by the complete findings for that section. Estimating procedures for child maltreatment fatalities should be used when interpreting the results for child maltreatment fatalities. In addition, throughout the document are references and links to sites containing additional information on the topics cited

ESTIMATING MARKETING MARGIN COST COMPONENTS: AN APPLICATION OF SIMULATION TO PRODUCTS OF THE VEGETABLE OIL INDUSTRY

Demand and Price Analysis,

THE CAUSAL STRUCTURE OF LAND PRICE DETERMINANTS

This paper investigates causation contemporaneously and over time to elucidate the persistent lack of agreement about what "causes" changes in farmland prices. Using recently developed causal modeling framework of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and cointegrated (VAR) techniques, the assumed causal structures of existing structural and empirical models are tested directly. The results validate concerns about the nonstationarity of these series. Land price changes are found to respond to a small subset of the oft-cited causes of price change, including macroeconomic variables.Land Economics/Use,

Senior Tax Breaks on the Move—but Are Seniors Actually Moving?

Every state in the United States with an income tax offers some kind of tax break to its older citizens. These breaks are often sizable, resulting in an elderly household owing substantially less in income taxes than a non-elderly household with the same income. In this brief, author Karen Smith Conway examines these state income tax breaks for the elderly, describing how they work, their distributional and revenue effects, and whether these policies affect migration. She reports that existing state income tax breaks for the elderly result in non-trivial reductions in state revenue and offer little relief to the most vulnerable elderly. Data on interstate migration yield little evidence that these tax breaks pay for themselves by inducing the elderly to remain in or move to the state. Proposed additional tax breaks would primarily benefit high-income elderly households, while the existing breaks primarily benefit middle- and high-income elderly households

Grounding the Lexical Semantics of Verbs in Visual Perception using Force Dynamics and Event Logic

This paper presents an implemented system for recognizing the occurrence of events described by simple spatial-motion verbs in short image sequences. The semantics of these verbs is specified with event-logic expressions that describe changes in the state of force-dynamic relations between the participants of the event. An efficient finite representation is introduced for the infinite sets of intervals that occur when describing liquid and semi-liquid events. Additionally, an efficient procedure using this representation is presented for inferring occurrences of compound events, described with event-logic expressions, from occurrences of primitive events. Using force dynamics and event logic to specify the lexical semantics of events allows the system to be more robust than prior systems based on motion profile