Market Structure and Conduct of the North Dakota Livestock Marketing Industry

Industrial Organization, Marketing,

Prices versus Quantities versus Bankable Quantities

Quantity-based regulation with banking allows regulated firms to shift obligations across time in response to periods of unexpectedly high or low marginal costs. Despite its wide prevalence in existing and proposed emission trading programs, banking has received limited attention in past welfare analyses of policy choice under uncertainty. We address this gap with a model of banking behavior that captures two key constraints: uncertainty about the future from the firm’s perspective and a limit on negative bank values (e.g., borrowing). We show conditions where banking provisions reduce price volatility and lower expected costs compared to quantity policies without banking. For plausible parameter values related to U.S. climate change policy, we find that bankable quantities produce behavior quite similar to price policies for about two decades and, during this period, improve welfare by about a $1 billion per year over fixed quantities.

Prices versus Quantities versus Bankable Quantities

Welfare comparisons of regulatory instruments under uncertainty, even in dynamic analyses, have typically focused on price versus quantity controls despite the presence of banking and borrowing provisions in existing emissions trading programs. This is true even in the presence of banking and borrowing provisions in existing emissions trading programs. Nonetheless, many have argued that such provisions can reduce price volatility and lower costs in the face of uncertainty, despite any theoretical or empirical evidence. This paper develops a model and solves for optimal banking and borrowing behavior with uncertain cost shocks that are serially correlated. We show that while banking does reduce price volatility and lowers costs, the degree of these reductions depends on the persistence of shocks. For plausible parameter values related to U.S. climate change policy, we find that bankable quantities eliminate about 20 percent of the cost difference between price and nonbankable quantities.welfare, prices, quantities, climate change

Comment on "Regularizing capacity of metabolic networks"

In a recent paper, Marr, Muller-Linow and Hutt [Phys. Rev. E 75, 041917 (2007)] investigate an artificial dynamic system on metabolic networks. They find a less complex time evolution of this dynamic system in real networks, compared to networks of reference models. The authors argue that this suggests that metabolic network structure is a major factor behind the stability of biochemical steady states. We reanalyze the same kind of data using a dynamic system modeling actual reaction kinetics. The conclusions about stability, from our analysis, are inconsistent with those of Marr et al. We argue that this issue calls for a more detailed type of modeling

Pedagogy First, Technology Second: teaching & learning information literacy online

This paper explores the pedagogical and technical issues, challenges and outcomes of creating an online information literacy course. Currently under development, this course will be offered as a parallel study option to Advanced Information Retrieval Skills (AIRS:IFN001 ) for QUT postgraduate students, a compulsory face-to-face course for all QUT research students. The aim of this project is to optimise students’ access to AIRS:IFN001 and meet the University’s objectives regarding flexible delivery and online teaching. Still in its developmental stages, AIRS::Online extends beyond the current notion of static online information literacy tutorials by providing a facilitated, student focussed learning environment comprising content and learning experiences enhanced by appropriate multimedia technology and resources which engage students in planned facilitated and/or self-paced learning events. Course assessment is formative and summative, and is comprised of a research log and reflective journal to provide a means for reviewing the content and key process of advanced information searching and retrieval

Introduction: Untold Legacies of the First World War

The current centenary of the First World War provides an unrivaled opportunity to uncover some of the social legacies of the war. The four articles which make up this special issue each explore a different facet of the war’s impact on British society to explore an as yet untold story. The subjects investigated include logistics, the history of science, the social history of medicine and resistance to war. This article introduces the four which follow, locating them in the wider historiographic debates around the interface between warfare and societies engaged in war

L1-determined ideals in group algebras of exponential Lie groups

A locally compact group $G$ is said to be $\ast$-regular if the natural map \Psi:\Prim C^\ast(G)\to\Prim_{\ast} L^1(G) is a homeomorphism with respect to the Jacobson topologies on the primitive ideal spaces \Prim C^\ast(G) and \Prim_{\ast} L^1(G). In 1980 J. Boidol characterized the $\ast$-regular ones among all exponential Lie groups by a purely algebraic condition. In this article we introduce the notion of $L^1$-determined ideals in order to discuss the weaker property of primitive $\ast$-regularity. We give two sufficient criteria for closed ideals $I$ of $C^\ast(G)$ to be $L^1$-determined. Herefrom we deduce a strategy to prove that a given exponential Lie group is primitive $\ast$-regular. The author proved in his thesis that all exponential Lie groups of dimension $\le 7$ have this property. So far no counter-example is known. Here we discuss the example $G=B_5$, the only critical one in dimension $\le 5$

UK universities: choosing the right partner

This paper offers an overview of British universities from the perspective of a prospective international student or educational manager looking for international collaboration. The authors explain criteria used to rank UK universities in University League Table 2015. They give an overview of specific terminology and jargon associated with British higher education explaining terms such as Oxbridge, Russell Group universities, Red brick universities, Scottish MA etc