Invoicing and the Dynamics of Pricing-to-market: Evidence from UK Export Prices around the Brexit Referendum

We provide micro-econometric evidence that, following the large and persistent sterling depreciation after the Brexit referendum, on impact, exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) was complete for transactions invoiced in producer currency and low for sales invoiced either in a vehicle or in the destination market currency. Yet these differences strikingly narrowed within six quarters. A weaker currency did not translate into a persistent gain in price competitiveness for UK exports. At a granular level we find that UK exporters invoice in multiple currencies ̶ even when shipping a product to the same destination ̶ and switch currencies over time. Remarkably, we fail to detect significant changes in the relative shares of invoicing currencies in response to the Brexit shock. Last but not least, we find that UK firms price-to-market, i.e., adjust markups to bilateral exchange rate and CPI movements, only when they invoice sales in the destination-market currency

Dominant Currency Dynamics: Evidence on Dollar-invoicing from UK Exporters

How do the choices of individual firms contribute to the dominance of a currency in global trade? Using export transactions data from the UK over 2010-2016, we document strong evidence of two mechanisms that promote the use of a dominant currency: (1) prior experience: the probability that a firm invoices its exports to a new market in a dominant currency is increasing in the number of years the firm has used the dominant currency in its existing markets; (2) strategic complementarity: a firm is more likely to invoice its exports in the currency chosen by the majority of its competitors in a foreign destination market in order to stabilize its residual demand in that market

The Looming Threat of Tariff Hikes: Entry into Exporting Under Trade Agreement Renegotiation

Since the end of World War II, trade policy around the world has been characterized by a tendency toward greater liberalization. Among developed countries, almost all reductions in import tariffs and relaxation of quantitative restrictions have been negotiated under multilateral, preferential, or bilataral trade agreements. Countries engaged in these negotiations have sought to reduce trade barriers relative to the existing level of protectin - the threat point in the event of a breakdown in negotiations has generally been a continuation of the status quo

Black-hole horizons as probes of black-hole dynamics II: geometrical insights

In a companion paper [1], we have presented a cross-correlation approach to near-horizon physics in which bulk dynamics is probed through the correlation of quantities defined at inner and outer spacetime hypersurfaces acting as test screens. More specifically, dynamical horizons provide appropriate inner screens in a 3+1 setting and, in this context, we have shown that an effective-curvature vector measured at the common horizon produced in a head-on collision merger can be correlated with the flux of linear Bondi-momentum at null infinity. In this paper we provide a more sound geometric basis to this picture. First, we show that a rigidity property of dynamical horizons, namely foliation uniqueness, leads to a preferred class of null tetrads and Weyl scalars on these hypersurfaces. Second, we identify a heuristic horizon news-like function, depending only on the geometry of spatial sections of the horizon. Fluxes constructed from this function offer refined geometric quantities to be correlated with Bondi fluxes at infinity, as well as a contact with the discussion of quasi-local 4-momentum on dynamical horizons. Third, we highlight the importance of tracking the internal horizon dual to the apparent horizon in spatial 3-slices when integrating fluxes along the horizon. Finally, we discuss the link between the dissipation of the non-stationary part of the horizon's geometry with the viscous-fluid analogy for black holes, introducing a geometric prescription for a "slowness parameter" in black-hole recoil dynamics.Comment: Final version published on PR

Renegotiation of Trade Agreements and Firm Exporting Decisions: Evidence from the Impact of Brexit on UK Exports

The renegotiation of a trade agreement introduces uncertainty into the economic environment. In June 2016 the British electorate unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union, introducing a new era in which the UK and EU began to renegotiate the terms of the UK-EU trading relationship. We exploit this natural experiment to estimate the impact of uncertainty associated with trade agreement re-negotiation on the export participation decision of firms in the UK. Starting from the Handley and Limão (2017) model of exporting under trade policy uncertainty, we derive testable predictions of firm entry into (exit from) a foreign market under an uncertain 'renegotiation regime'. Empirically, we develop measures of the trade policy uncertainty facing firms exporting from the UK to the EU after June 2016. Using the universe of UK export transactions at the firm and product level and cross-sectional variation in 'threat point' tariffs, we estimate that in 2016 over 5200 firms did not enter into exporting new products to the EU, whilst almost 4000 firms exited from exporting products to the EU. Entry (exit) in 2016 would have been 5.1% higher (4.3% lower) if firms exporting from the UK to the EU had not faced increased trade policy uncertainty after June 2016

Travelling waves in a drifting flux lattice

Starting from the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equations for a type II superconductor, we derive the equations of motion for the displacement field of a moving vortex lattice without inertia or pinning. We show that it is linearly stable and, surprisingly, that it supports wavelike long-wavelength excitations arising not from inertia or elasticity but from the strain-dependent mobility of the moving lattice. It should be possible to image these waves, whose speeds are a few \mu m/s, using fast scanning tunnelling microscopy.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 2 .eps figures imbedded in paper, title shortened, minor textual change

The Effect of New Jersey Lottery Promotions on Consumer Demand and State Profits

We estimate elasticities of demand for New Jersey’s Pick 3 and Pick 4 midday/evening numbers games by exploiting random price variation generated by episodic promotions for each game. These Pick 3 Green Ball and Pick 4 Red Ball promotions lower the price of a lottery ticket for an evening numbers game by increasing prize payments during the 28-day promotion periods. The own-price elasticity of demand for the evening Pick 3 and Pick 4 games are both approximately -0.5. During the promotions, the loss in margin outweighs the gain in sales because of this inelastic demand. However, Green Ball promotions increase state profits by about $14.5 million because of the increase in sales of Pick 3/Pick 4 games and instant games after the promotion ends, and because of the complementarity of Pick 3 with Pick 4 and instant games during the promotion. Red Ball promotions reduce state profits by an estimated$2.6 million because increased evening Pick 4 sales after the promotion ends are not sufficient to offset the losses during the promotion, and the Pick 4 promotion has a net negative effect on other lottery games. (JEL D12, H71, L83, L98

Bridging the Gap Between the Foreland and Hinterland I: Geochronology and Plate Tectonic Geometry of Ordovician Magmatism and Terrane Accretion on the Laurentian Margin of New England

U-Pb dates on magmatic and detrital zircon from samples in the hinterland of the Taconic orogen place new constraints on the timing and plate tectonic geometry of terrane accretion and magmatic arc activity. The Moretown terrane, a Gondwanan-derived exotic block, extends from the Rowe Schist-Moretown Formation contact in the west to the Bronson Hill arc in the east. Arc-related plutonic and volcanic rocks formed above an east-dipping subduction zone under the western leading edge of the Moretown terrane from approximately 500 to 475 Ma, until collision with hyperextended distal fragments of Laurentia, represented by the Rowe Schist, at 475 Ma. Magmatic arc rocks formed during this interval are primarily located in the Shelburne Falls arc, although some are also located in the Bronson Hill arc to the east. Metasedimentary rocks in the Shelburne Falls arc contain detrital zircon derived from mixing of Gondwanan, Laurentian, and arc sources, suggesting that the Moretown terrane was proximal to Laurentia by 475 Ma. Explosive eruptions at 466 to 464 Ma preserved in the Barnard Volcanic Member of the Missisquoi Formation in Vermont and as ash beds in the Indian River Formation in the Taconic allochthons may record slab-breakoff of subducted lithosphere following collision of the Moretown terrane with distal Laurentian crustal fragments. Between 466 and 455 Ma a reversal in subduction polarity lead to a west-dipping subduction zone under Laurentia and the newly accreted Moretown terrane. Magmatic arc rocks in the Bronson Hill arc formed above this west-dipping subduction zone along the eastern trailing edge of the Moretown terrane at approximately 455 to 440 Ma. The western boundary of Ganderia in New England is east of the Bronson Hill arc, buried beneath Silurian and Devonian rocks deformed during the Acadian orogeny

Characterizing Atacama B-mode Search Detectors with a Half-Wave Plate

The Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) instrument is a cryogenic ($\sim$10 K) crossed-Dragone telescope located at an elevation of 5190 m in the Atacama Desert in Chile that observed for three seasons between February 2012 and October 2014. ABS observed the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at large angular scales ($40<\ell<500$) to limit the B-mode polarization spectrum around the primordial B-mode peak from inflationary gravity waves at $\ell \sim100$. The ABS focal plane consists of 480 transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. They are coupled to orthogonal polarizations from a planar ortho-mode transducer (OMT) and observe at 145 GHz. ABS employs an ambient-temperature, rapidly rotating half-wave plate (HWP) to mitigate systematic effects and move the signal band away from atmospheric $1/f$ noise, allowing for the recovery of large angular scales. We discuss how the signal at the second harmonic of the HWP rotation frequency can be used for data selection and for monitoring the detector responsivities.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, conference proceedings submitted to the Journal of Low Temperature Detector

Systematic effects from an ambient-temperature, continuously-rotating half-wave plate

We present an evaluation of systematic effects associated with a continuously-rotating, ambient-temperature half-wave plate (HWP) based on two seasons of data from the Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) experiment located in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The ABS experiment is a microwave telescope sensitive at 145 GHz. Here we present our in-field evaluation of celestial (CMB plus galactic foreground) temperature-to-polarization leakage. We decompose the leakage into scalar, dipole, and quadrupole leakage terms. We report a scalar leakage of ~0.01%, consistent with model expectations and an order of magnitude smaller than other CMB experiments have reported. No significant dipole or quadrupole terms are detected; we constrain each to be <0.07% (95% confidence), limited by statistical uncertainty in our measurement. Dipole and quadrupole leakage at this level lead to systematic error on r<0.01 before any mitigation due to scan cross-linking or boresight rotation. The measured scalar leakage and the theoretical level of dipole and quadrupole leakage produce systematic error of r<0.001 for the ABS survey and focal-plane layout before any data correction such as so-called deprojection. This demonstrates that ABS achieves significant beam systematic error mitigation from its HWP and shows the promise of continuously-rotating HWPs for future experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; revision to submitted version, Fig. 5 and Eqs. (14) and (15) corrected; added Fig. 9 and description, text revisions for clarification, Fig. 5 revised for better calibration, corrected labeling errors and plotting bugs in Fig. 3, 4, and Eq. (14) and (15