The dynamic effects of currency union on trade

A currency union’s ability to increase international trade is one of the most debated questions in international macroeconomics. This paper studies the dynamics of these trade effects over time. First, empirical work with data from the European Monetary Union finds that the extensive margin of trade (entry of new firms or goods) responds several years ahead of overall trade volume and actual implementation of the monetary union. This implies a fall at the intensive margin (previously traded goods) in the run-up to EMU. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of trade studies the announcement of a future monetary union as a news shock lowering future trade costs, and finds that the early entry of new firms in anticipation is explainable as a rational forward-looking response under certain conditions. Required elements are sunk costs of exporting and ex-ante heterogeneity among firms. The findings help identify which types of trading frictions are reduced by adopting a currency union. Findings also indicate that a significant fraction of the welfare gains from a monetary union are based upon expectations for the future, so that continued gains depend upon long-term credibility of the union

Threshold Effects in Cigarette Addiction: An Application of the Threshold Model in Dynamic Panels

We adopt the threshold model of myopic cigarette addiction to US state-level panel data. The threshold model is used to identify the structural effects of cigarette demand determinants across the income stratification. Furthermore, we apply a bootstrap approach to correct for the small-sample bias that arises in the dynamic panel threshold model with fixed effects. Our empirical results indicate that there exists the heterogeneity of smoking dynamics across consumers.Cigarettes demand, price elasticity, threshold regression model, dynamic panel model, bias correction, bootstrap

Developing a Career Development Assessment for Predicting Young Stem Graduates’ Employability and Career Barriers

The increased concern of declining STEM candidates could negatively impact the U.S. economy (Kelic & Zagnoel, 2009; Maltese & Tai, 2010). Previous studies suggest that the gap between the supply of STEM students in higher education and workface demand is not reflected merely in the number of STEM graduates but instead in the number of qualified STEM graduates who could satisfy STEM workforce demands (Kelic & Zagnoel, 2009; Lowell & Salzman, 2007). The current study used Rae’s employability theory (Rae, 2007) to develop an assessment for evaluating student’s career development in STEM during their higher education. Unlike other instruments focusing on students’ interests, knowledge, and preparation of their careers interests, this new assessment integrated employability, enterprise, and curriculum elements to assess five career development domains. Results from an exploratory factor analysis indicated that the assessment retained four factors with a total of 33 questions. New STEM graduates’ employment status, their skill development, work-based learning, and career management in STEM higher education were positively associated with their employment status (i.e., employed full-time or non-full-time). In addition, students’ skill development, work-based learning, career management, and applied learning experiences significantly predicted their academic performance (i.e., GPA). The implications for this study support offering work-based curricula and personal-development opportunities in undergraduate STEM programs to help college students achieve their career goals in STEM, which could optimally decrease the skill gap between STEM higher education and workforce demands

Loss, Repetition and the Everyday

My doctoral research aims to explore artistic obsession through repetitive documentation of the domestic and the everyday. Drawing upon the resources of my cultural heritage, I experiment with synthesizing cross-cultural and cross­ historical forms. Through theoretical research and creative practice, I use photography, large-scale installations, moving image projections and two­ dimensional visual images (paintings, drawings and prints) to articulate my relationship to family and memories. Starting with research into masters of the moving image such as Andrei Tarkovsky, photographers of the American 'underclass' Robert Franks, and installation artists Mona Hatoum and Yayoi Kusama, I articulate my own relationship to family and memory through various mediums in my practice. My varied cultural background - Taiwan, Japan, the US, the UK - as well as my personal experiences, are the basis of my exploration of still photography and the moving image, particularly as projected onto objects and environments, and my development of large-scale installations and two-dimensional works. Through further research into historical painting and printmaking traditions, and contemporary visual artist On Kawara, I explore the tensions and exchanges between the aesthetic concerns of 'east' and 'west' which became the most significant resource for my works. I take inspiration from my culture, background, memories, a traumatised childhood in Taiwan and Japan; my early adulthood in the US and this last decade in UK. These experiences and memories are the fertile ground for my art practice. Art practice allows me to bring new energy to the burden of memories and dealing with loss, to make sense of the world and of myself. Although the content of my work seems personal, loss is a universal human experience. Throughout the last two decades I have been writing, drawing and taking photos. These activities become my research tools for my practice. Like an archaeologist, I take inspiration directly from the accumulation of these primary research materials, I then develop them into projects with various mediums. I believe through the process of documenting life as it happens, new works will organically develop. I find narratives of human nature in these developed materials. I believe artists' ultimate responsibility is to reveal universal truths through exploring their lives and experiences

Deterministic Dense Coding and Faithful Teleportation with Multipartite Graph States

We proposed novel schemes to perform the deterministic dense coding and faithful teleportation with multipartite graph states. We also find the sufficient and necessary condition of a viable graph state for the proposed scheme. That is, for the associated graph, the reduced adjacency matrix of the Tanner-type subgraph between senders and receivers should be invertible.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure;v2. discussions improve