38,748 research outputs found
Does Eco-labeling of Services Matter? Evidence from Higher Education
Eco-labeling of services has become increasingly common, yet little empirical evidence exists concerning its effectiveness. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing a highly visible eco-label, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), in the sector of higher education. We match information about the ACUPCC to the US Department of Education IPEDS database to examine the impact of signing on student applications, admissions, and enrollment. We mainly utilize a difference-in-difference approach to identify the effects of interest but confirm results with an interrupted time series model. We find that signing the ACUPCC increases applications and admitted students by 2.5–3.5 %. However, the evidence regarding enrollment is weaker with only some specifications finding increases of around 1–2 %. Overall, there is considerable heterogeneity across sectors and selectivity of the institutions. These results show that, at the minimum, voluntary and information-based approaches (VIBAs) for services can be effective in generating visibility and influencing less-costly consumer behavior
A short note on the presence of spurious states in finite basis approximations
The genesis of spurious solutions in finite basis approximations to operators
which possess a continuum and a point spectrum is discussed and a simple
solution for identifying these solutions is suggested
What is Different about Government-Controlled Acquirers in Cross-Border Acquisitions?
We examine the motives for and consequences of 5,317 failed and completed cross-border acquisitions constituting $619 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. We benchmark this activity at the aggregate country level and also at the deal level with cross-border acquisitions involving corporate acquirers over the same period. We find that government-led deal activity is relatively more intense for geographically-closer countries, but also relatively less sensitive to differences in the level of economic development of the acquirer’s and target’s home countries, in the quality of their legal institutions and accounting standards, and to how stringent are restrictions on FDI flows in their countries. Government-led acquirers are more likely to pursue larger targets with greater growth opportunities and more financial constraints. But, the share-price reactions to the announcements of such acquisitions are not different. Among those deals involving government-controlled acquirers, we do find important differences involving sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). SWF-led acquisitions are less likely to fail, they are more likely to pursue acquirers that are larger in total assets and with fewer financial constraints, and the market reactions to SWF-led acquisitions, while positive, are statistically and economically much smaller. We discuss policy implications in terms of recent regulatory changes in the U.S. and other countries that seek to restrict foreign acquisitions by government-controlled entities.Government-controlled Acquirers, Cross-Border Acquisitions
Perturbative 2-body Parent Hamiltonians for Projected Entangled Pair States
We construct parent Hamiltonians involving only local 2-body interactions for
a broad class of Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS). Making use of
perturbation gadget techniques, we define a perturbative Hamiltonian acting on
the virtual PEPS space with a finite order low energy effective Hamiltonian
that is a gapped, frustration-free parent Hamiltonian for an encoded version of
a desired PEPS. For topologically ordered PEPS, the ground space of the low
energy effective Hamiltonian is shown to be in the same phase as the desired
state to all orders of perturbation theory. An encoded parent Hamiltonian for
the double semion string net ground state is explicitly constructed as a
concrete example.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, v2 published versio
Quantum sensors based on weak-value amplification cannot overcome decoherence
Sensors that harness exclusively quantum phenomena (such as entanglement) can
achieve superior performance compared to those employing only classical
principles. Recently, a technique based on postselected, weakly-performed
measurements has emerged as a method of overcoming technical noise in the
detection and estimation of small interaction parameters, particularly in
optical systems. The question of which other types of noise may be combatted
remains open. We here analyze whether the effect can overcome decoherence in a
typical field sensing scenario. Benchmarking a weak, postselected measurement
strategy against a strong, direct strategy we conclude that no advantage is
achievable, and that even a small amount of decoherence proves catastrophic to
the weak-value amplification technique.Comment: Published version with improvements to presentation, including
clarifying our understanding of technical noise and quantum nois
Nonlinearity arising from noncooperative transcription factor binding enhances negative feedback and promotes genetic oscillations
We study the effects of multiple binding sites in the promoter of a genetic
oscillator. We evaluate the regulatory function of a promoter with multiple
binding sites in the absence of cooperative binding, and consider different
hypotheses for how the number of bound repressors affects transcription rate.
Effective Hill exponents of the resulting regulatory functions reveal an
increase in the nonlinearity of the feedback with the number of binding sites.
We identify optimal configurations that maximize the nonlinearity of the
feedback. We use a generic model of a biochemical oscillator to show that this
increased nonlinearity is reflected in enhanced oscillations, with larger
amplitudes over wider oscillatory ranges. Although the study is motivated by
genetic oscillations in the zebrafish segmentation clock, our findings may
reveal a general principle for gene regulation.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
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