Trade Reform and Poverty in the Philippines: a Computable General Equilibrium Microsimulation Analysis

The paper employs an integrated CGE-microsimulation approach to analyze the poverty effects of tariff reduction. The results indicate that the tariff cuts implemented between 1994 and 2000 were generally poverty-reducing, primarily through the substantial reduction in consumer prices they engendered. However, the reduction is much greater in the National Capital Region (NCR), where poverty incidence is already lowest, than in other areas, especially rural, where poverty incidence is highest. Tariff cuts lower the cost of local production and bring about real exchange rate depreciation. Since the non-food manufacturing sector dominates exports in terms of export share and export intensity, the general equilibrium effects of tariff reduction is an expansion of this sector and a contraction in the agricultural sector. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the relative returns to factors, such as capital, used intensively in the non-food manufacturing sector and a fall in returns to unskilled labor. As rural households depend more on unskilled labor income, income inequality worsens as a result.Dynamic CGE model, trade liberalisation, poverty, inequality, Senegal

Doha scenarios, trade reforms, and poverty in the Philippines : a computable general equilibrium analysis

Since the early 1980s the Philippines has undertaken substantial trade reform. The current Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to world import prices and export demand. The impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear and is the subject of intense debate. The authors use a detailed economywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to run a series of policy experiments. They find that poverty increases slightly with the implementation of the prospective Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand for the Philippines'agricultural exports. The authors find that the impacts of full liberalization-involving free world trade and complete domestic liberalization-depend strongly on the mechanism the government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily nonagricultural, expand. In separate simulations, the authors discover that free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, whereas domestic liberalization is poverty increasing and favors urban households. Under free world trade, rural households benefit from increasing world agricultural demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariff rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed, and rural low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty.

Doha scenarios, trade reforms, and poverty in the Philippines

"The paper examines the possible impact of Doha agreement on Philippine poverty. Using a detailed CGE analysis, the agreement is observed to depress world demand for Philippine agricultural exports, and thus slightly increase poverty, especially among rural households. However, an ambitious full trade liberalization scenario, which involves free world trade and domestic liberalization, leads to increased industrial exports that favor urban households. These impacts are driven primarily by domestic trade liberalization, as free world trade favors the agricultural sector by increasing the cost of competing agricultural imports." Authors' AbstractDoha agreement ,Computable general equilibrium (CGE) ,Free trade ,

Automatic motion analysis of colliding spheres

Motion analysis is useful to compute linear and angular velocities and acceleration of an object from a sequence of images. This thesis is part of an investigation to compute the translation and rotation velocities needed to determine the collision parameters of two colliding spheres. This involves the tracking of the spheres and feature points on the spheres over a time interval. An experimental setup releases two spheres such that they collide and a high speed imaging system, i.e., Kodak Ektapro 1000 is utilised to record the motion of the spheres. The imaging system is capable of recording at a speed of 1000 frames/sec with an image resolution of 239 x 192 for each frame. Selected images are analyzed in a PC 486 using programs developed with the Visilog software from Noesis 1. Edge data from the images allow the feature points and the locations of the spheres to be detected and their locations recorded. Centers of the circles are computed using the Hough transform technique. Correspondence of the feature points from frame to frame is achieved using the proximal uniformity constraint. Suggestions for future work are given

Doha Scenarios, Trade Reforms, and Poverty inthe Philippines: a CGE Analysis

Since the early 1980s, the Philippines have undertaken substantial trade reform. The current Doha round of WTO negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to world import and export prices and world export demand. The impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear and is the subject of very intense debate. A detailed economy-wide CGE model is used to run a series of policy experiments. Poverty is found to increase slightly with the implementation of the Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand for Philippines agricultural exports. The impacts of full liberalization involving free world trade and complete domestic liberalization are found to depend strongly on the mechanism the government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily non-agricultural, expand. In separate simulations, we discover that free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, whereas domestic liberalization is poverty-increasing and favors urban households. Under free world trade, rural households benefit from increasing world agricultural export prices and demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariffs rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed and rural low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty.Computable General Equilibrium, Microsimulation, Poverty, International Trade, Philippines

Agricultural Price Distortions, Poverty and Inequality in the Philippines

This paper analyzes the poverty and inequality implications of removing agricultural and non-agricultural price distortions in the domestic market of the Philippines and abroad. Liberalization in the rest of the world is poverty and inequality reducing, whereas full domestic liberalization increases national poverty and inequality. Poverty declines while inequality increases marginally in the combined scenario of both global and domestic agriculture reform. Although the reduction in the national poverty headcount is small in the latter scenario, the poorest of the poor – particularly those living in the rural areas – emerge as “winners”, given their strong reliance on agricultural production and unskilled labor wages.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

Moonlight Kisses

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4141/thumbnail.jp

You Are My Rain-Beau

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2784/thumbnail.jp

Sweetheart Lane

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2562/thumbnail.jp

MATA-RL: Continuous Reaction Wheel Attitude Control Using the MATA Simulation Software and Reinforcement Learning

As earth observation satellites, Diwata microsatellites need to have a high degree of target pointing accuracy. Additionally, being in low orbit, they could experience strong external disturbances. Current methods for attitude control have proven to be effective. However, they are prone to changes in control and mass parameters. In this paper, we explore using Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) for attitude control. This paper also leverages on Diwata’s simulator, MATA: Mission, Attitude, and Telemetry Analysis (MATA) software, in training the RL agent. We implemented two RL algorithms: Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). We then simulated different scenarios and compared the performance of these algorithms to that of Diwata’s current attitude controller, the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control. Our results show that reinforcement learning can outperform traditional controllers in terms of settling time, overshoot, and stability. The results of this research will help solve problems in conventional attitude controllers and enable satellite engineers to design a better Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS)