The demand for alcohol: a meta-analysis of elasticities

Numerous studies have estimated elasticities of alcohol demand using different procedures. Because of widespread differences in demand estimates, however, it is difficult to synthesise the literature into coherent meaning. This study improves our understanding of alcohol demand by reporting results from a meta-analysis of 132 studies. Specifically, regressing estimated price, income and advertising elasticities of alcohol on variables accounting for study characteristics, we find alcohol elasticities to be particularly sensitive to demand specification, data issues and various estimation methods. Furthermore, compared to other alcoholic beverages, beer elasticities tend to be more inelastic.alcohol demand, elasticity, meta-analysis, Demand and Price Analysis,

Cyclicality and the Labor Market for Economists

A multimarket theory of optimal search suggests that job seekers will respond to a weakening market by adjusting their search strategies at the extensive margin (which markets to enter) and the intensive margin (how many applications to submit per market). Meanwhile, employers respond to the weakening market by raising their hiring standards. The equilibrium suggestst that high quality applicants will obtain an increased share of academic interviews in weak markets while applicants from weaker schools will increasingly secure interviews outside of the academic market. Empirical results show that in the bust market, graduates of elite schools shifted their search strategies to include weaker academic institutions, while graduates of lower ranked schools shifted their applications away from academia and toward the business sector. In bust conditions, academic institutions increasingly concentrate their interviews on elite school graduates, women and U.S. residents.

Convergence Of Market Shares In The U.S. Cigarette Industry

Many studies examine the degree of rivalry in an industry by utilizing measures of market share instability, with greater (lesser) volatility of market shares coinciding with greater (lesser) rivalry. This short paper extends this line of research by addressing long run instability of market shares. In particular, we test for the convergence of market shares in the U.S. cigarette industry using unit root procedures. Our finding that market shares for pairs of firms rarely converge suggests that market shares are unstable in the long run. Hence, rivalry has remained quite intact in the cigarette industry

Solar activity during the Holocene: the Hallstatt cycle and its consequence for grand minima and maxim

Cosmogenic isotopes provide the only quantitative proxy for analyzing the long-term solar variability over a centennial timescale. While essential progress has been achieved in both measurements and modeling of the cosmogenic proxy, uncertainties still remain in the determination of the geomagnetic dipole moment evolution. Here we improve the reconstruction of solar activity over the past nine millennia using a multi-proxy approach. We used records of the 14C and 10Be cosmogenic isotopes, current numerical models of the isotope production and transport in Earth's atmosphere, and available geomagnetic field reconstructions, including a new reconstruction relying on an updated archeo-/paleointensity database. The obtained series were analyzed using the singular spectrum analysis (SSA) method to study the millennial-scale trends. A new reconstruction of the geomagnetic dipole field moment, GMAG.9k, is built for the last nine millennia. New reconstructions of solar activity covering the last nine millennia, quantified in sunspot numbers, are presented and analyzed. A conservative list of grand minima and maxima is provided. The primary components of the reconstructed solar activity, as determined using the SSA method, are different for the series based on 14C and 10Be. These primary components can only be ascribed to long-term changes in the terrestrial system and not to the Sun. They have been removed from the reconstructed series. In contrast, the secondary SSA components of the reconstructed solar activity are found to be dominated by a common ~2400-yr quasi-periodicity, the so-called Hallstatt cycle, in both the 14C and 10Be based series. This Hallstatt cycle thus appears to be related to solar activity. Finally, we show that the grand minima and maxima occurred intermittently over the studied period, with clustering near highs and lows of the Hallstatt cycle, respectively.Comment: In press in Astronomy & Astrophysics, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/20152729

Core-flow constraints on extreme archeomagnetic intensity changes

Recent studies (Ben-Yosef et al., 2009; Shaar et al., 2011) propose extreme archeomagnetic intensity changes (termed spikes) in the range ~4-5μT/year c.a. 1000 BC in the Near East, around 40 to 50 times larger than values typical of the present-day. In order to investigate whether such extreme changes are consistent with a model of the source region of the magnetic field, namely the fluid flow at the surface of Earth's core, we construct upper bounds for instantaneous magnetic intensity change at an arbitrary site on the Earth's surface. These bounds are constrained by the amount of kinetic energy available to sustain the change, taken here to be a prescribed value for the root-mean-squared surface velocity of 13 km/yr as inferred from the current state of the core. Further, we focus attention on two end-members of optimised core surface flow structure: unrestricted and purely-toroidal. As the derivation of the bounds demands complete knowledge of the geomagnetic field at the core surface, we model the unknown field by means of a Monte Carlo approach, extending to high degree the CHAOS-4 (epoch 2010 AD) and CALS10k1.b (epoch 1000 BC) geomagnetic field models.Using 2000 realisations for each family of stochastic field models, we find that optimised core flows are always large-scale and that they tend to generate a non-dipole, quadrupole-dominated secular variation at the Earth's surface. The dependence of the upper bounds as a function of site location reflects the large-scale structure of the intensity itself: stronger field permits more rapid change. For the site in the Near East, purely-toroidal flows have upper bounds of approximately 0.62 ± 0.02μT/year, whereas unrestricted flows increase this bound to 1.20 ± 0.02μT/year. We favour the former as more geophysically sound, on the account of a large body of previous results from core surface flow inversions and consistency with the existence of a stratified layer at the top of the core. Even if we allow for a generous threefold increase in the prescribed rms velocity (and a concomitant threefold increase in the bound), we conclude that the reported occurrences of extreme intensity changes as suggested in the Near East are not compatible with the commonly accepted structure of core-surface flow. However, it may be that an explanation for spikes lies beyond our current perception of core-dynamics and future work would be further motivated by seeking corroborative evidence of rapid intensity change from sites elsewhere on Earth's surface; we therefore also discuss the form that the secular variation would take in the case of simultanenous archeomagnetic spikes

Real rank boundaries and loci of forms

In this article we study forbidden loci and typical ranks of forms with respect to the embeddings of $\mathbb P^1\times \mathbb P^1$ given by the line bundles $(2,2d)$. We introduce the Ranestad-Schreyer locus corresponding to supports of non-reduced apolar schemes. We show that, in those cases, this is contained in the forbidden locus. Furthermore, for these embeddings, we give a component of the real rank boundary, the hypersurface dividing the minimal typical rank from higher ones. These results generalize to a class of embeddings of $\mathbb P^n\times \mathbb P^1$. Finally, in connection with real rank boundaries, we give a new interpretation of the $2\times n \times n$ hyperdeterminant.Comment: 17 p

The Business Cycle And Competition In The U.S. Brewing Industry

Recent game-theoretic models of cartel behavior assess the sustainability of cooperation in the presence of demand fluctuations.  Depending on the stochastic assumptions of demand, different outcomes are predicted.  Accordingly, this paper investigates the effects of demand fluctuations on competition in the U.S. brewing industry.  The results show that competition among brewers is greater during periods associated with significant negative shocks to demand, lower observed demand, lower expected future industry profit, and lower advertising

Destabilizing Taylor-Couette flow with suction

We consider the effect of radial fluid injection and suction on Taylor-Couette flow. Injection at the outer cylinder and suction at the inner cylinder generally results in a linearly unstable steady spiralling flow, even for cylindrical shears that are linearly stable in the absence of a radial flux. We study nonlinear aspects of the unstable motions with the energy stability method. Our results, though specialized, may have implications for drag reduction by suction, accretion in astrophysical disks, and perhaps even in the flow in the earth's polar vortex.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figure

The SPICE carbon isotope excursion in Siberia: a combined study of the upper Middle Cambrian-lowermost Ordovician Kulyumbe River section, northwestern Siberian Platform

An integrated, high-resolution chemostratigraphic (C, O and Sr isotopes) and magnetostratigraphic study through the upper Middle Cambrian–lowermost Ordovician shallowmarine carbonates of the northwestern margin of the Siberian Platform is reported. The interval was analysed at the Kulyumbe section, which is exposed along the Kulyumbe River, an eastern tributary of the Enisej River. It comprises the upper Ust’-Brus, Labaz, Orakta, Kulyumbe, Ujgur and lower Iltyk formations and includes the Steptoean positive carbon isotopic excursion (SPICE) studied here in detail from upper Cambrian carbonates of the Siberian Platform for the first time. The peak of the excursion, showing δ13C positive values as high as+4.6‰and least-altered 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.70909, is reported herein from the Yurakhian Horizon of the Kulyumbe Formation. The stratigraphic position of the SPICE excursion does not support traditional correlation of the boundary between theOrakta and Labaz formations at the Kulyumbe River with its supposedly equivalent level in Australia, Laurentia, South China and Kazakhstan, where the Glyptagnostus stolidotus and G. reticulatus biozones are known to immediately precede the SPICE excursion and span the Middle–Upper Cambrian boundary. The Cambrian–Ordovician boundary is probably situated in the middle Nyajan Horizon of the Iltyk Formation, in which carbon isotope values show a local maximum below a decrease in the upper part of the Nyajan Horizon, attributed herein to the Tremadocian Stage. A refined magnetic polarity sequence confirms that the geomagnetic reversal frequency was very high during Middle Cambrian times at 7–10 reversals per Ma, assuming a total duration of about 10 Ma and up to 100 magnetic intervals in the Middle Cambrian. By contrast, the sequence attributed herein to the Upper Cambrian on chemostratigraphic grounds contains only 10–11 magnetic intervals