Are Prices Really Affected by Mergers?

During the 80s, several empirical studies have shown a positive correlation between concentration, prices and profits. It is well known that these estimates all suffer from simultaneity bias: market structure and prices are affected by common factors, some of which are not observable, which rules out any causal interpretation of cross-sectional correlations. Mergers are an interesting instrument to identify the (static) impact of concentration on prices, since they induce breaks in strategic interactions between actors. The few ex post studies on mergers that are currently available are difficult to generalize, because they pertain to specific markets. This study looks more systematically to selling prices in 63 sectors observed between 1989 and 2002. The approach that has been chosen is a difference in differences approach, applied to price movements around mergers. The rate of inflation in a sector where a merger has occurred is compared to a counterfactual. In a simple framework, in line with previous studies (McCabe 2002), this counterfactual would be built as the mean of inflation rates in other sectors. This paper focuses on more relevant estimates, provided by a factor model. This methodology allows tracking the profile of prices around mergers. We separate mergers between French firms and mergers between other European firms controlled by European authorities (and thus assumed to have affected the common market). We also distinguish mergers having led to an in-depth inquiry by competition authorities (« phase 2 ») and those benefiting from a shorter procedure (« phase 1 »). We observe an acceleration of price movements around the most important of French mergers, but not for the ones authorized under phase 1. We also observe a break in price movements for mergers between foreign firms examined by the European Commission, generally in the other direction.mergers, prices, factor models

Alien Registration- Boutin, Marie L. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30645/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Boutin, Marie L. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30645/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Boutin, Marie L. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30645/thumbnail.jp

L'assainissement non collectif en France : Analyse statistique de la qualité des eaux usées traitées de 240 installations

S2SMALL, Nantes, FRA, 23-/10/2017 - 26/10/2017International audienceAn assessment of on-site sanitation systems began in 2011 to evaluate their efficiency. Data were collected from 240 on-site sanitation facilities in 22 French departments which cover 5 of the 6 Water Agency territories. The parameters analysed at the outlet are TSS, COD, BOD 5 , NH 4 + -N, NO 3 - -N and TKN. The aim of this article is to describe the outlet effluent quality and explain the data dispersion by analyzing the impact of explanatory variables such as i) the sampling method, ii) the treatment processes, iii) the applied organic load, iv) the aging and v) the maintenance

Sound absorption and reflection from a resonant metasurface : homogenization model with experimental validation

Efficient manipulation of sound waves by some resonant acoustic metasurface designs has recently been reported in the literature. This paper presents a general theoretical framework for the description of sound wave interaction with the resonant metasurface that is independent of the nature of resonators and the excitation. The equations governing the behaviour of the metasurface are upscaled from the rigorous description of its unit cell using the two scale asymptotic homogenisation. The procedure relies on the existence of the boundary layer confined in the vicinity of the resonators operating in the deep subwavelength regime. The model is capable of describing sound interaction with the array of resonators positioned above or upon the substrate, so that the out of plane direction becomes an additional degree of freedom in the design. It is shown that at the leading order, the behaviour of the resonant surface is described in terms of the effective admittance, whose unconventional properties makes it possible to achieve the total sound absorption at multiple frequencies, broadband absorption, the phase reversal of the reflected wave at resonance and the control of the enclosure modes. The theory is validated by experiments performed in the impedance tube and in the anechoic environment using a surface array of spherical Helmholtz resonators with the extended inner neck. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness and robustness of the resonant surface for control of sound waves

Atrazine contamination at the watershed scale and environmental factors affecting sampling rates of the polar organic chemical integrative sampler (POCIS)

AbstractPolar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) were used to estimate atrazine contamination at 24 stream/river sites located across a watershed with land use ranging from 6.7 to 97.4% annual crops and surface water nitrate concentrations ranging from 3 to 5404 μg/L. A gradient of atrazine contamination spanning two orders of magnitude was observed over two POCIS deployments of 28 d and was positively correlated with measures of agricultural intensity. The metabolite desisopropyl atrazine was used as a performance reference compound in field calibration studies. Sampling rates were similar between field sites but differed seasonally. Temperature had a significant effect on sampling rates while other environmental variables, including water velocity, appeared to have no effect on sampling rates. A performance reference compound approach showed potential in evaluating spatial and temporal differences in field sampling rates and as a tool for further understanding processes governing uptake of polar compounds by POCIS

A low complexity method for detection of text area in natural images

We propose a low complexity method for segmentation of text regions in natural images. This algorithm is designed for mobile applications (e.g. unmanned or hand-held devices) in which computational and energy resources are limited. No prior assumption is made regarding the text size, font, language, character set or the camera angle. However, the text is assumed to be located on a piecewise homogeneous background with a contrasting color. We have deployed our method on a Nokia N800 Internet tablet as part of a system for automatic detection and translation of outdoor signs. Our experiments show that the 0.3 megapixel images taken by the phone camera can be accurately segmented within the device in a fraction of a second

The Impact of College Training and Vocational Rehabilitation Services on Employment for Consumers with Hearing Loss

Many deaf and hard of hearing consumers of the federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) program choose higher education training while similar consumers bypass college and prepare for work through other means. An ex-post facto study was conducted to determine which VR services predict competitive employment for two subgroups of consumers: those with hearing loss who received college training and those with hearing loss who did not receive college training. A comparison of the findings from multiple logistic regression analyses run on cases within a database of the Rehabilitation Services Administration reveal differences in effective services across these two subgroups