The Political Economy of State Government Subsidy Adoption: The Case of Ethanol

In this paper we examine the factors that determine the adoption of state economic development incentives in the ethanol industry. We compile data on the implementation dates for subsidies/tax credits for all states for years 1984-2007, a period that covers the complete emergence of the biofuel industry in the United States and that was characterized by the passage of a numerous of state-level subsidies and tax breaks aimed at increasing ethanol production. Using Cox proportional hazard regression analysis, we find that states are more likely to adopt ethanol subsidies when corn production is high, when corn prices are low and gasoline prices are high, when a state is affiliated with the National Corn Growers Association, when a check-off is present, and when state government is under the control of Democrats.ethanol, subsidies, political economy, rent seeking, proportional hazard estimation

Geometry and Analytic Theory of Semisimple Coalescent Frobenius Structures: an Isomonodromic approach to Quantum Cohomology and Helix structures in Derived Categories

In this Thesis we study geometrical and analytic aspects of semisimple points of Frobenius manifolds presenting a phenomenon of coalescence of canonical coordinates. Particular attention is given to the isomonodromic description of these resonances as well as to their (still conjectural) relationships with the derived geometry of Fano varieties

Criminal and Constitutional Populism Under the Aristotelian Framework

Aristotle's work relies on the assessment of human nature and the search for the supreme good defined as the complete fulfillment of an active life. In his view, the Stagirite regards the community of the political type as the most conducive to the common and individual good. Therefore, the account of justice cannot be separated from the account of politics, and consequently from the account of virtues. These two concepts are indeed intrinsically connected. In fact, in his perspective, the best city requires the best citizens as the ideal ground to build up the best possible community, and vice versa. This conceptual framework seems particularly essential and useful to assess the modern phenomenon of constitutional populism. The basis of Aristotle's theory of justice (in its general, distributive, and corrective type) applied to the perceived deviant constitution of democracy demonstrates how the phenomenon works in the fields of constitutional and criminal law

The Making of Trials and Plays in the Context of Show Trials

The article aims to assess the intrinsic characteristics of both trial and play, in order to outline comparisons and contrasts between these two realms in terms of setting, techniques, strategies and ends. The study is mainly carried out within the domain of the so-called ‘show trials’, a unique hybrid frame that marks the border line between the two areas, thus helping to trace their respective contours and to highlight some relevant common grounds

Cyclic stratum of Frobenius manifolds, Borel-Laplace (α,β)(\boldsymbol\alpha,\boldsymbol\beta)-multitransforms, and integral representations of solutions of quantum differential equations

In the first part of this paper, we introduce the notion of cyclic stratum of a Frobenius manifold M\smash{M}M. This is the set of points of the extended manifold C∗×M\smash{\mathbb C^*\times M}C∗×M at which the unit vector field is a cyclic vector for the isomonodromic system defined by the flatness condition of the extended deformed connection. The study of the geometry of the complement of the cyclic stratum is addressed. We show that at points of the cyclic stratum, the isomonodromic system attached to M\smash{M}M can be reduced to a scalar differential equation, called the master differential equation of M\smash{M}M. In the case of Frobenius manifolds coming from Gromov–Witten theory, namely quantum cohomologies of smooth projective varieties, such a construction reproduces the notion of quantum differential equation.In the second part of the paper, we introduce two multilinear transforms, called Borel–Laplace (α,β)(\boldsymbol{\alpha}, \boldsymbol{\beta})(α,β)-multitransforms, on spaces of Ribenboim formal power series with exponents and coefficients in an arbitrary finite-dimensional C\smash{\mathbb C}C-algebra A\smash{A}A. When A\smash{A}A is specialized to the cohomology of smooth projective varieties, the integral forms of the Borel–Laplace (α,β)(\boldsymbol{\alpha}, \boldsymbol{\beta})(α,β)-multitransforms are used in order to rephrase the Quantum Lefschetz theorem. This leads to explicit Mellin–Barnes integral representations of solutions of the quantum differential equations for a wide class of smooth projective varieties, including Fano complete intersections in projective spaces.In the third and final part of the paper, as an application, we show how to use the new analytic tools, introduced in the previous parts, in order to study the quantum differential equations of Hirzebruch surfaces. For Hirzebruch surfaces diffeomorphic to P1×P1\smash{\mathbb P^1\times \mathbb P^1}P1×P1, this analysis reduces to the simpler quantum differential equation of P1\smash{\mathbb P^1}P1. For Hirzebruch surfaces diffeomorphic to the blow-up of P2\smash{\mathbb P^2}P2 in one point, the quantum differential equation is integrated via Laplace (1,2;12,13)\smash{(1,2;\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{3})}(1,2;21​,31​)-multitransforms of solutions of the quantum differential equations of P1\smash{\mathbb P^1}P1 and P2\smash{\mathbb P^2}P2, respectively. This leads to explicit integral representations for the Stokes bases of solutions of the quantum differential equations, and finally to the proof of the Dubrovin conjecture for all Hirzebruch surfaces