Openness Can be Good for Growth: The Role of Policy Complementarities

This paper studies how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree of labor market flexibility. In that model, trade protection may ameliorate the problem of underemployment (and underproduction) in sectors affected by labor market distortions; hence trade liberalization unambiguously increases per capita income only when labor markets are sufficiently flexible. We then present some panel evidence on how the growth effect of openness depends on a variety of structural characteristics. For this purpose, we use a non-linear growth regression specification that interacts a proxy of trade openness with proxies of educational investment, financial depth, inflation stabilization, public infrastructure, governance, labor-market flexibility, ease of firm entry, and ease of firm exit. We find that the growth effects of openness are positive and economically significant if certain complementary reforms are undertaken.

Openness Can be Good for Growth: The Role of Policy Complementarities

This paper studies how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree of labor market flexibility. In that model, trade protection may ameliorate the problem of underemployment (and underproduction) in sectors affected by labor market distortions; hence trade liberalization unambiguously increases per capita income only when labor markets are sufficiently flexible. We then present some panel evidence on how the growth effect of openness depends on a variety of structural characteristics. For this purpose, we use a non-linear growth regression specification that interacts a proxy of trade openness with proxies of educational investment, financial depth, inflation stabilization, public infrastructure, governance, labor-market flexibility, ease of firm entry, and ease of firm exit. We find that the growth effects of openness are positive and economically significant if certain complementary reforms are undertaken.

Openness can be good for Growth: The Role of Policy Complementarities

This paper studies how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro type of model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree of labor market flexibility. In that model, trade protection may ameliorate the problem of underemployment (and underproduction) in sectors affected by labor market distortions; hence trade liberalization unambiguously increases per capita income only when labor markets are sufficiently flexible. We then present some panel evidence on how the growth effect of openness depends on a variety of structural characteristics. For this purpose, we use a non-linear growth regression specification that interacts a proxy of trade openness with proxies of educational investment, financial depth, inflation stabilization, public infrastructure, governance, labor-market flexibility, ease of firm entry, and ease of firm exit. We find that the growth effects of openness are positive and economically significant if certain complementary reforms are undertaken.Openness, Growth, Economic Reform, Policy Complementarity

Openness can be good for growth : the role of policy complementarities

The authors study how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree of labor market flexibility. In that model, trade protection may ameliorate the problem of underemployment (and underproduction) in sectors affected by labor market distortions. Hence, trade liberalization unambiguously increases per capita income only when labor markets are sufficiently flexible. The authors then present some panel evidence on how the growth effect of openness depends on a variety of structural characteristics. For this purpose, they use a non-linear growth regression specification that interacts a proxy of trade openness with proxies of educational investment, financial depth, inflation stabilization, public infrastructure, governance, labor-market flexibility, ease of firm entry, and ease of firm exit. They find that the growth effects of openness are positive and economically significant if certain complementary reforms are undertaken.Free Trade,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,Labor Markets

Variation in early life maternal care predicts later long range frontal cortex synapse development in mice.

Empirical and theoretical work suggests that early postnatal experience may inform later developing synaptic connectivity to adapt the brain to its environment. We hypothesized that early maternal experience may program the development of synaptic density on long range frontal cortex projections. To test this idea, we used maternal separation (MS) to generate environmental variability and examined how MS affected 1) maternal care and 2) synapse density on virally-labeled long range axons of offspring reared in MS or control conditions. We found that MS and variation in maternal care predicted bouton density on dorsal frontal cortex axons that terminated in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and dorsomedial striatum (DMS) with more, fragmented care associated with higher density. The effects of maternal care on these distinct axonal projections of the frontal cortex were manifest at different ages. Maternal care measures were correlated with frontal cortex → BLA bouton density at mid-adolescence postnatal (P) day 35 and frontal cortex → DMS bouton density in adulthood (P85). Meanwhile, we found no evidence that MS or maternal care affected bouton density on ascending orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) or BLA axons that terminated in the dorsal frontal cortices. Our data show that variation in early experience can alter development in a circuit-specific and age-dependent manner that may be relevant to understanding the effects of early life adversity

Brer Rabbit's Angolan Cousin: Politics and the Adaptation of Folk Material

Paper

A Petunia homeodomain-leucine zipper protein, PhHD-Zip, plays an important role in flower senescence.

Flower senescence is initiated by developmental and environmental signals, and regulated by gene transcription. A homeodomain-leucine zipper transcription factor, PhHD-Zip, is up-regulated during petunia flower senescence. Virus-induced gene silencing of PhHD-Zip extended flower life by 20% both in unpollinated and pollinated flowers. Silencing PhHD-Zip also dramatically reduced ethylene production and the abundance of transcripts of genes involved in ethylene (ACS, ACO), and ABA (NCED) biosynthesis. Abundance of transcripts of senescence-related genes (SAG12, SAG29) was also dramatically reduced in the silenced flowers. Over-expression of PhHD-Zip accelerated petunia flower senescence. Furthermore, PhHD-Zip transcript abundance in petunia flowers was increased by application of hormones (ethylene, ABA) and abiotic stresses (dehydration, NaCl and cold). Our results suggest that PhHD-Zip plays an important role in regulating petunia flower senescence

IPO Underpricing in the Hospitality Industry: A Necessary Evil?

Hospitality initial public offerings (IPOs) experienced average first-day price increases of 17.1% between January 1981 and December 2001. This price increase, referred to as IPO underpricing, represents a substantial opportunity cost to the owners of the issuing firm. IPO underpricing is a critical consideration for managers of private hospitality firms who are considering going public. The increased liquidity, easier access to equity capital, and other benefits that accrue to publicly traded firms must be carefully weighed against the significant cost of underpricing. This paper explains the relationship between the marketing process of IPOs and the degree of underpricing. We test the hypothesis that underpricing is a reward for the information revealed by regular investors during the marketing process of the IPO. We explain why underpricing is a necessity for managers of private hospitality firms if they choose to go public. For managers of private hospitality firms who are considering taking their firms public, our results provide an historical benchmark for the underpricing that they can expect to transfer to outside investors which is different from that of the overall market. Beyond benchmarking the cost of going public, we test theories that predict underpricing and investigate the use of share allocations as an incentive for truth telling