Evaluating the Relative Impact of Fiscal Incentives and Trade Policies on the Returns to Manufacturing in Taiwan 1955-1995

In this paper, an integrated cash flow model is developed to examine the relative impact of tax incentives, financial subsidies, and macroeconomic variables on the profitability of industrial investments. It allows for various variables to interact with each other. An application of the model is carried out for Taiwan, which implemented a variety of fiscal incentives over the past forty years. The principal policy conclusion is that trade and macroeconomic policies are much more important than income tax incentives or subsidized finance policies in determining the success of industrialization process. The effects of any of the fiscal incentives are found generally much smaller than those of the trade policies or the fundamental trends in macroeconomic variables such as the movement of the real exchange rate and the real wage rate.tax incentives, export promotion, industrialization, real exchange rate, trade policy, Taiwan

Evaluation of the benefits of transnational transportation projects

In this paper an analytical framework has been developed to evaluate the primary beneficiaries of cargo traffic generated by transnational transport projects. In the transportation economics literature, the economic impact of infrastructure projects on cargo traffic has not been developed as fully as for passenger traffic. In much of the previous literature it is often assumed that consumers of the traded goods would receive the full benefits from the reduction in logistics and transportation costs. This paper has shown that whether the goods are traded internationally or regionally is a key factor in the allocation of the economic benefits arising from the reduction in the cost of cargo transportation. The analytical framework developed in the paper is applied to the evaluation of the impacts of the proposed Buenos Aires-Colonia binational bridge project.Argentina, Uruguay, cargo traffic, transnational, transportation benefits

Cost-Benefit Analysis Case Study on Regulations to Lower the Level of Sulphur in Gasoline

The Canadian Cost-Benefit Analysis Guide: Regulatory Proposals, sets out the general methodology and analytical steps to perform a cost-benefit analysis of proposed regulatory changes. To make the Guide operational, this case study has been prepared following the analytical approach recommended by the Guide. In 1994, the sulphur content of Canadian gasoline was found to be high and varied widely across the country. Scientists and health experts have found evidence that emissions of pollutants from vehicles cause considerable harm to the health of Canadians and to the environment. In order to derive the net economic benefits, we integrate the economic benefits with the economic costs for each of the alternative scenarios. In the cost-benefit analysis, all private costs must be measured in terms of their economic opportunity costs. The results indicate that reducing the sulphur in gasoline for any scenario under consideration would generate substantial net health benefits or well-being for Canadians as a whole. Estimates of the net present value (at an eight percent discount rate) range from $1,809 million to$2,663 million.Gasoline, Sulphur, Cost-Benefit, Environment

Is the Value Added Tax Naturally Progressive?

A broad based consumption tax, such as a value added tax, is generally considered to be a regressive tax. This conclusion, however, has not taken into account the fact that in developing countries the commodities on which poor households spend most of their income, even if they are included in the legal tax base, are administratively impractical to tax. This paper employs a rich data set on household incomes and expenditures for the Dominican Republic. The data set covers 2042 goods and services purchased by households of different income and consumption levels. It also contains information on the type of establishment from which the items were purchased. With this information, we estimate the effective rate of tax that has been paid on each item purchased by households. These estimations include the effect of the different rates of the tax compliance across households with different expenditure levels. The results of the study show that the burden of the current VAT in the Dominican Republic is progressive over all the quintiles of household expenditure. Furthermore, if the base of the VAT is made comprehensive, the estimated incidence of the burden of the VAT is still progressive over all the quintiles of household expenditure.Value Added Tax, incidence, compliance

Simulating Shallow Soil Response Using Wave Propagation Numerical Modelling in the Western Plain of Taiwan

This study used the results from 45 microtremor array measurements to construct a shallow shear wave velocity structure in the western plain of Taiwan. We constructed a complete 3D velocity model based on shallow and tomography models for our numerical simulation. There are three major subsurfaces, engineering bedrock (VS = 600 m s-1), Pliocene formation and Miocene formation, constituted in the shallow model. The constant velocity is given in each subsurface. We employed a 3D-FD (finite-differences) method to simulate seismic wave propagation in the western plain. The aim of this study was to perform a quantitative comparison of site amplifications and durations obtained from empirical data and numerical modelling in order to obtain the shallow substructure soil response. Modelling clearly revealed that the shallow substructure plays an important role in strong ground motion prediction using 3D simulation. The results show significant improvements in effective shaking duration and the peak ground velocity (PGV) distribution in terms of the accuracy achieved by our developed model. We recommend a high-resolution shallow substructure as an essential component in future seismic hazard analyses

Three-Heartbeat Multilead ECG Recognition Method for Arrhythmia Classification

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the primary basis for the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. However, the amount of ECG data of patients makes manual interpretation time-consuming and onerous. Therefore, the intelligent ECG recognition technology is an important means to decrease the shortage of medical resources. This study proposes a novel classification method for arrhythmia that uses for the very first time a three-heartbeat multi-lead (THML) ECG data in which each fragment contains three complete heartbeat processes of multiple ECG leads. The THML ECG data pre-processing method is formulated which makes use of the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database as training samples. Four arrhythmia classification models are constructed based on one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) combined with a priority model integrated voting method to optimize the integrated classification effect. The experiments followed the recommended inter-patient scheme of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) recommendations, and the practicability and effectiveness of THML ECG data are proved with ablation experiments. Results show that the average accuracy of the N, V, S, F, and Q classes is 94.82%, 98.10%, 97.28%, 98.70%, and 99.97%, respectively, with the positive predictive value of the N, V, S, and F classes being 97.0%, 90.5%, 71.9%, and 80.4%, respectively. Compared with current studies, the THML ECG data can effectively improve the morphological integrity and time continuity of ECG information and the 1D-CNN model of ECG sequence has a higher accuracy for arrhythmia classification. The proposed method alleviates the problem of insufficient samples, meets the needs of medical ECG interpretation and contributes to the intelligent dynamic research of cardiac disease