Search for non-SM Higgses at LEP

The four LEP experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for Higgs bosons predicted by a large number of extensions of the Standard Model. Flavor independent searches are presented for the h$^{0}$Z$^{0}$ process in which the h$^{0}$ decays hadronically. Search results are also presented for fermiophobic Higgs bosons, invisibly decaying Higgs bosons, charged Higgs bosons and the neutral Higgs bosons in the MSSM.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of XXXVI Rencontres de Moriond: QCD, March 200

The Detector and Interaction Region for a Photon Collider at TESLA

TESLA is designed as an electron-positron linear collider (LC) based on super-conducting technology. A second interaction region is forseen to be incorporated in the design allowing its possible operation as a photon collider. In this paper I describe the basic design of the $\gamma \gamma$ interaction region taking into account the beam-beam and laser related issuses and review some aspects of other accelerator components such as the feedback system and the beam dump which are critical to the operation of TESLA as a photon collider.Comment: Talk presented at HEP03 conference, Aachen, July 2003, 3 pages, 4 figure

Estate and Capital Gains Taxation: Efficiency and Political Economy Considerations

In this paper a simple dynastic overlapping-generations model with homogeneous agents is used to analyze the optimal use of capital income tax, labor income tax and estate tax. The results of this analysis add to the conventional wisdom about capital income taxation: while it is true that in the long run the estate tax rate should be set to zero, it is also true that other capital income taxation is a usable policy tool even in the steady state. The other contribution of the paper is the building of a simple dynamic political economy model where the structure of capital taxes is determined. In a median-voter framework with no policy commitment, estate taxation is used too heavily as a capital-tax-revenue-collecting tool relative to the second-best optimum for the social planner.Capital Income Taxation, Optimal Taxation, Political Economy

Does the Balance of Power Within a Family Matter? The Case of the Retirement Equity Act

This paper studies within-family decision making regarding investment in income protection for surviving spouses. A change in US pension law (the Retirement Equity Act of 1984) is used as an instrument to derive predictions both from a simple Nash-bargaining model of the household and from the classical single-utility-function model of the household. This law change gave spouses of married pension-plan participants the right to survivor benefits unless they explicitly waived this right. The predictions of the classical model are rejected in favor of the predictions of the Nash-bargaining model in the data.

Uncommitted Couples: Some Efficiency and Policy Implications of Marital Bargaining

This paper studies married couples dynamic investment and consumption choices under the assumption that the couple cannot commit across time to not to renegotiate their decisions. The inefficiencies that can arise are characterized. Efficiency properties of different divorce asset division regimes are examined. A stylized common law regime is shown to lead to a fully efficiency in a simple model while it is shown that under community property regime the couple is unlikely to attain full efficiency. The effect of inability to commit across time on the savings level is examined under a tractable special case of the model.

Estate and Capital Gains Taxation: Efficiency and Political Economy Considerations

In this paper a simple dynastic overlapping-generations model with homogeneous agents is used to analyze the optimal use of capital income tax, labor income tax and estate tax. The results of this analysis add to the conventional wisdom about capital income taxation: while it is true that in the long run the estate tax rate should be set to zero, it is also true that other capital income taxation is a usable policy tool even in the steady state. The other contribution of the paper is the building of a simple dynamic political economy model where the structure of capital taxes is determined. In a median-voter framework with no policy commitment, estate taxation is used too heavily as a capital-tax-revenue-collecting tool relative to the second-best optimum for the social planner.Capital Income Taxation, Optimal Taxation, Political Economy

Estate and Capital Gains Taxation: Efficiency and Political Economy Consideration

In this paper a simple dynastic overlapping-generations model with homogeneous agents is used to analyze the optimal use of capital income tax, labor income tax and estate tax. The results of this analysis add to the conventional wisdom about capital income taxation: while it is true that in the long run the estate tax rate should be set to zero, it is also true that other capital income taxation is a usable policy tool even in the steady state. The other contribution of the paper is the building of a simple dynamic political economy model where the structure of capital taxes is determined. In a median-voter framework with no policy commitment, estate taxation is used too heavily as a capital-tax-revenue-collecting tool relative to the second-best optimum for the social planner.capital income taxation, optimal taxation, political economy

Uncommitted Couples: Some Efficiency and Policy Implications of Marital Bargaining

This paper studies a married couple's dynamic investment and consumption choices under the assumption that the couple cannot commit across time not to renegotiate their decisions. The inefficiencies that can arise are characterized. Efficiency properties of different divorce asset- division regimes are examined. A stylized common-law regime is shown to lead to fully efficient outcome in a simple model while it is shown that under a community-property regime the couple is unlikely to attain full efficiency. The effect of the inability to commit across time on the savings level is examined under a tractable special case of the model.Marital Bargaining, Dynamic Models

Uncommitted Couples: Some Efficiency and Policy Implications of Marital Bargaining

This paper studies a married couple’s dynamic investment and consumption choices under the assumption that the couple cannot commit across time not to renegotiate their decisions. The inefficiencies that can arise are characterized. Efficiency properties of different divorce asset-division regimes are examined. A stylized common-law regime is shown to lead to fully efficient outcome in a simple model while it is shown that under a community-property regime the couple is unlikely to attain full efficiency. The effect of the inability to commit across time on the savings level is examined under a tractable special case of the model.

A rainfall simulation study on the relationships between soil test P versus dissolved and potentially bioavailable particulate phosphorus forms in runoff

Runoff from clayey soils often contains abundant particulate phoshorus (PP), part of which may solubilize in surface waters. Monitoring losses of potentially bioavailable forms of PP is expensive, calling for other ways to predict them. Such predictions could be based on soil loss and available soil P indices, e.g., agronomic P status. To study correlations between P pools in runoff versus soil P saturation (by Mehlich 3 extraction; DPSM3) and acetate soil test P (PAc), 15 clayey soils of south Finland were subjected to laboratory rainfall simulation. Runoff from these simulations was analyzed for concentrations of suspended soil (TSS), dissolved molybdate-reactive P (DRP), total P (TP), and, as normalized to soil loss, potentially bioavailable forms of PP: desorbable (anion exchange resin-extractable, AER-PP/TSS) and redox-labile PP (bicarbonate- dithionite-extractable, BD-PP/TSS). Correlation coefficients (r2) between DPSM3 and DRP, AER-PP/ TSS, and BD-PP/TSS equaled 0.92, 0.77, and 0.45, respectively. Runoff P forms were also correlated to soil PAc with r2 values of 0.84, 0.56, and 0.58 for DRP, AER-PP/TSS, and BD-PP/TSS, respectively. Prediction of soil loss-normalized concentrations of potentially bioavailable PP by the agronomic PAc test was considered possible. However, such predictions have a high degree of uncertainty, evidenced by comparison to published field data. Acceptably accurate predictive equations would require a large material as a basis for their construction, and soils should probably also be grouped according to other soil properties that would account for variation in P sorption capacity