Export promotion agencies revisited

The number of national export promotion agencies has tripled over the past two decades. Although more countries made them part of their export strategy, studies criticized their efficacy in developing countries. The agencies were retooled, partly in response to these critiques. This paper studies the impact of today's export promotion agencies and their strategies, based on new survey data covering 103 developing and developed countries. The results suggest that on average they have a statistically significant effect on exports. The identification strategies highlight the importance of EPA services for overcoming foreign trade barriers and solving asymmetric information problems associated with exports of heterogeneous goods. There are also strong diminishing returns, suggesting that as far as export promotion agencies are concerned, small is beautiful.Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets,Trade Policy,Free Trade,Emerging Markets

Export promotion agencies : what works and what doesn't

The number of national export promotion agencies (EPAs) has tripled over the past two decades. While more countries have made them part of their national export strategy, studies have criticized their efficiency in developing countries (Hogan, Keesing, and Singer 1991). Partly in reaction to these critiques, EPAs have been retooled (see International Trade Centre, ITC, 1998 or 2000, for example). This paper studies the impact of existing EPAs and their strategies based on a new data set covering 104 industrial and developing countries. Results suggest that on average they have a strong and statistically significant impact on exports. For each $1 of export promotion, the paper estimates a$40 increase in exports for the median EPA. However, there is heterogeneity across regions, levels of development, and types of instruments. Furthermore, there are strong diminishing returns, suggesting that as far as EPAs are concerned, small is beautiful.Economic Theory&Research,Country Strategy&Performance,Trade Policy,Tax Law,Free Trade

The environmental effects of peak hour air traffic congestion: the case of London Heathrow Airport

This paper was presented for publication in the journal Research in Transportation Economics and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2016.04.012© 2016 Elsevier Ltd.The commercial air transport sector currently faces the serious and seemingly incompatible challenge of meeting growing consumer demand for flight whilst reducing its environmental impact and meeting increasingly stringent international emissions targets. Growing demand for air travel combined with improvements in environmental performance in other industrial sectors means that commercial aviation has become a key focus for tackling climate change. The aim of this paper is to quantify the impacts of capacity-induced airport congestion using the case of London Heathrow Airport. The paper quantifies the environmental effect of airborne delays to inbound aircraft at the heavily constrained London Heathrow Airport on emissions and local air quality. The findings reveal that the additional CO2 and NOx emissions resulting from airborne delays are significant and will increase if capacity constraints on the ground are not addressed. The results are analysed in the context of Heathrow's climate change targets and current debates surrounding expansion and the challenge of reconciling environmental sustainability with aviation growth

The practices of modern criminal defence lawyers: alienation and its implications for access to justice

This article marries two sets of independently gathered empirical data (observation and interviews) to argue that English criminal defence lawyers currently present as alienated workers. We seek to revive and revisit theories of alienation that are grounded in Marxism and use them as a lens through which lawyers’ behaviour can be viewed and understood. Building on a Marxist application of alienation, we offer a refined analysis premised upon a contemporary understanding of how alienation plays out in criminal defence work during the neoliberal era. We highlight that the way lawyers talk about their roles suggests that they have lost a sense of purpose, and feel powerless and undervalued. We argue that those feelings appear to have developed as a result of structural change—most notably funding cuts and demands for efficiency—which seem to be grounded in what can broadly be understood as neoliberal political ideology and austerity measures. We further suggest that such structural change and resultant feelings of alienation have implications for the quality of service that defendants receive

Land Grant Application- Moody, Daniel (Minot)

Land grant application submitted to the Maine Land Office on behalf of Daniel Moody for service in the Revolutionary War, by their widow Lucy.https://digitalmaine.com/revolutionary_war_me_land_office/1655/thumbnail.jp

Introduction:Reworking Walter Scott

An overview of Walter Scott\u27s contemporary celebrity and evolving reputation, of scholarship on his afterlives, of the way his work has been reshaped in a variety of settings and media, and of the essays collected in this special issue

Spectral Signatures of Gravitationally Confined Thermonuclear Supernova Explosions

We consider some of the spectral and polarimetric signatures of the gravitational confined detonation scenario for Type Ia supernova explosions. In this model, material produced by an off-center deflagration (which itself fails to produce the explosion) forms a metal-rich atmosphere above the white dwarf surface. Using hydrodynamical simulations, we show that this atmosphere is compressed and accelerated during the subsequent interaction with the supernova ejecta. This leads ultimately to the formation of a high-velocity pancake of metal-rich material that is geometrically detached from the bulk of the ejecta. When observed at the epochs near maximum light, this absorbing pancake produces a highly blueshifted and polarized calcium IR triplet absorption feature similar to that observed in several Type~Ia supernovae. We discuss the orientation effects present in our model and contrast them to those expected in other supernova explosion models. We propose that a large sample of spectropolarimetric observations can be used to critically evaluate the different theoretical scenarios.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in ApJ Letters. For higher resolution images and movies see http://panisse.lbl.gov/~dnkasen/gcd.htm