More evidence on income distribution and growth

Inequality is often regarded as a necessary evil that has to be tolerated to allow growth, says the author. The view that inequality is necessary for the accumulation of wealth, and contains the seeds of eventual increases in everyone's income, is evident in trickle down economic theories, where societal acceptance of inequality allows the rich to earn a greater rate of return on their assets. Others argue that inequality slows growth - because increased inequality causes more conflict over distributional issues, thereby encouraging greater economic intervention and higher taxes. According to the author, the empirical evidence shows that: Inequality is negatively, and robustly, correlated with growth. This result is robust to many different assumptions about the exact form of the cross-country growth regression. Although statistically significant, the magnitude of the relationship between inequality and growth is relatively small. Decreasing inequality from one standard deviation above to one standard deviation below the mean increases the long-term growth rate by about 1.3 percentage points a year. Inequality has a similar effect in democracies and non-democracies. When an interaction term between the type of regime and inequality is included in the base regression, it is insignificant at conventional significance levels. The cross-country data on inequality follows Kuznets'inverted-U shape. Care should be taken in interpreting these results. Although inequality is negatively correlated with growth, this does not necessarily imply that soak-the-rich policies will improve long-term growth. First, theoretical work on inequality and growth stresses thatthis negative correlation is caused by high levels of inequality provoking high levels of government economic intervention. Soak-the-rich policies may be less necessary where there is less inequality. Second, although the partial correlation is robust, the direction of causality has not been determined and the effects of specific income distribution policies have not been tested. Finally, if policies designed to decrease inequality result in greater government consumption and the cost of increased government consumptions outweighs the benefits of greater equality, long-term growth may be harmed. But for certain: inequity is not a prerequisite for growth.Inequality,Governance Indicators,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research

Deriving Supply-side Variables to Extend Geodemographic Classification

The traditional proprietary geodemographic information systems that are on the market today use well-established methodologies. Demographic indicators are selected as a proxy for affluence and are then often linked to customer databases to derive a measure of the level of consumption expected from the different area typologies. However, these systems ignore fundamental relationships in the retail market by focusing upon demand characteristics in a ‘vacuum’ and ignore the supply side and consumer-supplier interaction. This paper argues that there may be considerable advantages to including supply-side indicators within geodemographic systems. Whilst the term ‘supply’ in this context might imply the number of consumer services already in an area, equally important for understanding demand are variables such as the supply of jobs and houses. We suggest that profiling an area in terms of its labour market characteristics gives a better insight into the income chain while the supply of houses could be argued to be a crucial factor in household formation that in turn will impact upon demographic structure. Using the regional example of Yorkshire and Humberside in northern England, we indicate how a suite of supply-side variables relating to the labour market can be assembled and used alongside a suite of demand variables to generate a new area classification. Spatial interaction models are calibrated to derive some of the variables that take into account zonal self-containment and catchment size

Do government policies that promote competition encourage or discourage new product and process development in low and middle-income countries?

Previous work has shown that firms in low and middle-income countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia that feel greater pressure to innovate from their competitors are more likely to introduce new products and services than firms that donot feel pressure (Carlin and others 2001; World Bank 2004). However, competition also appears to affect innovation in other ways. In particular, firms in these countries that face greater price competition appear to be less likely to innovate than other firms (Carlin and others 2001). The author assesses how competition and trade policy affect these different aspects of competition and, consequently, assesses their net impact on innovation. He finds that reducing tariffs and enacting and enforcing competition laws modestly increases both the pressure that firms feel regarding innovation and the level of price competition in the domestic economy. The net impact that lower tariffs have on new product and process development appears to be negative but small-for the most part the opposing effects cancel out. In contrast, stricter competition laws and better enforcement of those laws appear to increase the likelihood of new product and process development, especially when competition is treated as endogenous to innovation.Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Labor Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets

The response of self-graviting protostellar discs to slow reduction in cooling timescale: the fragmentation boundary revisited

A number of previous studies of the fragmentation of self-gravitating protostellar discs have modeled radiative cooling with a cooling timescale (t_{cool}) parameterised as a simple multiple (beta_{cool}) of the local dynamical timescale. Such studies have delineated the `fragmentation boundary' in terms of a critical value of beta_{cool} (beta_{crit}), where the disc fragments if beta_{cool} < beta_{crit}. Such an approach however begs the question of how in reality a disc could ever be assembled with beta_{cool} < beta_{crit}. Here we adopt the more realistic approach of gradually reducing beta_{cool}, as might correspond to changes in thermal regime due to secular changes in the disc density profile. We find that when beta_{cool} is gradually reduced (on a timescale longer than t_{cool}), the disc is stabilised against fragmentation, compared with models in which beta_{cool} is reduced rapidly. We therefore conclude that a disc's ability to remain in a self-regulated, self-gravitating state (without fragmentation) is partly dependent on its thermal history, as well as its current cooling rate. Nevertheless, a slow reduction in t_{cool} appears only to lower the fragmentation boundary by about a factor two in t_{cool} and thus only permits maximum alpha values (parameterising the efficiency of angular momentum transfer in the disc) that are about a factor two higher than determined hitherto. Our results therefore do not undermine the notion of a fundamental upper limit to the heating rate that can be delivered by gravitational instabilities before the disc is subject to fragmentation. An important implication of this work, therefore, is that self-gravitating discs can enter into the regime of fragmentation via secular evolution and it is not necessary to invoke rapid (impulsive) events to trigger fragmentation.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

Localization of Metal-Induced Gap States at the Metal-Insulator Interface:Origin of Flux Noise in SQUIDs and Superconducting Qubits

The origin of magnetic flux noise in Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices with a power spectrum scaling as $1/f$ ($f$ is frequency) has been a puzzle for over 20 years. This noise limits the decoherence time of superconducting qubits. A consensus has emerged that the noise arises from fluctuating spins of localized electrons with an areal density of $5\times10^{17}$m$^{-2}$. We show that, in the presence of potential disorder at the metal-insulator interface, some of the metal-induced gap states become localized and produce local moments. A modest level of disorder yields the observed areal density

Circumventing embryonic lethality with Lcmt1 deficiency: generation of hypomorphic Lcmt1 mice with reduced protein phosphatase 2A methyltransferase expression and defects in insulin signaling.

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), the major serine/threonine phosphatase in eukaryotic cells, is a heterotrimeric protein composed of structural, catalytic, and targeting subunits. PP2A assembly is governed by a variety of mechanisms, one of which is carboxyl-terminal methylation of the catalytic subunit by the leucine carboxyl methyltransferase LCMT1. PP2A is nearly stoichiometrically methylated in the cytosol, and although some PP2A targeting subunits bind independently of methylation, this modification is required for the binding of others. To examine the role of this methylation reaction in mammalian tissues, we generated a mouse harboring a gene-trap cassette within intron 1 of Lcmt1. Due to splicing around the insertion, Lcmt1 transcript and LCMT1 protein levels were reduced but not eliminated. LCMT1 activity and methylation of PP2A were reduced in a coordinate fashion, suggesting that LCMT1 is the only PP2A methyltransferase. These mice exhibited an insulin-resistance phenotype, indicating a role for this methyltransferase in signaling in insulin-sensitive tissues. Tissues from these animals will be vital for the in vivo identification of methylation-sensitive substrates of PP2A and how they respond to differing physiological conditions

Developing and testing a generic micro-combined heat and power model for simulations of dwellings and highly distributed power systems

This paper elaborates an approach to the modelling of domestic micro-combined heat and power (μ-CHP) using a building simulation tool that can provide a detailed picture of the environmental performance of both the μ-CHP heating system and the dwelling it serves. The approach can also provide useful data for the modelling of highly distributed power systems (HDPS). At the commencement of the work described in this paper no μ-CHP device model that was compatible with a building simulation tool was available. The development of such a model is described along with its calibration and verification. The simulation tool with the device model was then applied to the analysis of a dwelling with a Stirling engine-based heating system. Different levels of thermal insulation and occupancy types were modelled. The energy and environmental performance of the μ-CHP device was quantified for each case; additionally, the potential for its participation in the control and operation of an HDPS was assessed. Analysis of the simulation results indicated that the parasitic losses associated with the μ-CHP system balance of plant reduced the overall heating system efficiency by up to 40 per cent. Performance deteriorated with increasing levels of insulation in the dwelling, resulting in reduced thermal efficiency and increased cycling, though overall fuel use was reduced. The analysis also indicated that the device was generally available to participate in HDPS control for greater than 90 per cent of the simulation time. The potential length of the participation time ranged from 1 to 800+min and depended upon the state of the μ-CHP system thermal buffer and prevailing heat loads. Probabilities for different participation times and modes were calculated

Constraints on the formation mechanism of the planetary mass companion of 2MASS 1207334-393254

In this paper we discuss the nature and the possible formation scenarios of the companion of the brown dwarf 2MASS 1207334-393254. We initially discuss the basic physical properties of this object and conclude that, although from its absolute mass ($5M_{\rm Jup}$), it is a planetary object, in terms of its mass ratio $q$ and of its separation $a$ with respect to the primary brown dwarf, it is consistent with the statistical properties of binaries with higher primary mass. We then explore the possible formation mechanism for this object. We show that the standard planet formation mechanism of core accretion is far too slow to form this object within 10 Myr, the observed age of the system. On the other hand, the alternative mechanism of gravitational instability (proposed both in the context of planet and of binary formation) may, in principle, work and form a system with the observed properties.Comment: 5 pages, MNRAS in pres

Research and Teacher Education: The BERA-RSA inquiry. Policy and Practice within the United Kingdom.

Across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) initial teacher education (ITE) is under active development, with its content, location, control and quality often the focuses of sustained debate. Statutory and professional requirements for the sector inevitably reflect differing assumptions about teaching, teacher knowledge and governance. In exploring ITE across the four jurisdictions, this paper reviews policies and practices through two major focuses: first, the relationships between the declared teacher standards (competencies/competences) and research-informed teacher education provision; second, the ‘turn or (re)turn to the practical’ in teacher education, including policy declarations, changes in practices, and emphases and effects of the discourse(s) of relevance