Pigou Meets Mirrlees: On the Irrelevance of Tax Distortions for the Second-Best Pigouvian Tax

This paper extends the Mirrlees (1971) model of optimal income redistribution with optimal corrective taxes to internalize consumption externalities. It is demonstrated that the optimal second-best tax on an externality-generating good should not be corrected for the marginal cost of public funds. The reason is that the marginal cost of public funds equals unity in the optimal tax system, since marginal distortions of taxation are equal to marginal distributional gains. The Pigouvian tax needs to be modified, however, if polluting commodities or environmental quality are more complementary to leisure than non-polluting commodities are.marginal cost of public funds, optimal environmental taxation, optimal redistribution, externalities

An extension of the Kac ring model

We introduce a unitary dynamics for quantum spins which is an extension of a model introduced by Mark Kac to clarify the phenomenon of relaxation to equilibrium. When the number of spins gets very large, the magnetization satisfies an autonomous equation as function of time with exponentially fast relaxation to the equilibrium magnetization as determined by the microcanonical ensemble. This is proven as a law of large numbers with respect to a class of initial data. The corresponding Gibbs-von Neumann entropy is also computed and its monotonicity in time discussed.Comment: 15 pages, v2 -> v3: minor typographic correctio

Rigidity percolation on aperiodic lattices

We studied the rigidity percolation (RP) model for aperiodic (quasi-crystal) lattices. The RP thresholds (for bond dilution) were obtained for several aperiodic lattices via computer simulation using the "pebble game" algorithm. It was found that the (two rhombi) Penrose lattice is always floppy in view of the RP model. The same was found for the Ammann's octagonal tiling and the Socolar's dodecagonal tiling. In order to impose the percolation transition we used so c. "ferro" modification of these aperiodic tilings. We studied as well the "pinwheel" tiling which has "infinitely-fold" orientational symmetry. The obtained estimates for the modified Penrose, Ammann and Socolar lattices are respectively: $p_{cP} =0.836\pm 0.002$, $p_{cA} = 0.769\pm0.002$, $p_{cS} = 0.938\pm0.001$. The bond RP threshold of the pinwheel tiling was estimated to $p_c = 0.69\pm0.01$. It was found that these results are very close to the Maxwell (the mean-field like) approximation for them.Comment: 9 LaTeX pages, 3 PostScript figures included via epsf.st

Measuring Synchronicity and Co-movement of Business Cycles with an Application to the Euro Area

We develop multivariate measures of synchronicity and co-movement of business cycles. In addition to synchronicity, the co-movement measure takes differences between cycle amplitudes into account that have been overlooked in most previous studies. We apply the new measures to the euro area. Synchronicity and co-movement for the region as a whole do not exhibit a clear upward tendency. Although several countries saw the similarity of their business cycle vis-`a-vis the euro area reference cycle increase, national business cycles remain fairly diverse. Changes in business cycle amplitudes cause most of the observed change in cycle co-movement.business cycles, synchronisation, concordance, co-movement, cycle amplitudes, euro area

Transfer of Sulfamethazine from Contaminated Beeswax to Honey

A liquid chromatographic tandem mass spectrometric method for the determination of sulfa drugs in beeswax was developed. When performing residue control on beeswax intended for the fabrication of wax foundations, residues of sulfonamides were found. A migration test was set up to study whether sulfonamide-containing beeswax could lead to the contamination of honey. The higher the concentration of sulfamethazine doped in the wax, the higher was the concentration of sulfamethazine found in the honey. The maximum transfer was 15.6, 56.9, and 29.5% of the initial amount spiked in the wax foundation. In a second experiment, the percentage of sulfamethazine migrating from medicated winter feed to beeswax in relation to the concentration in the syrup and the contact time was studied. The maximum transfer of sulfamethazine from medicated sucrose syrup to beeswax was 3.1%