879 research outputs found
Essays on Mandated Vertical Restraints
This dissertation examines the impact mandated vertical restraints have on market outcomes using the US brewing industry. In particular, I examine the impact of beer franchise laws, which restrict when a brewer can end a contract with a wholesaler, mandated exclusive territories which require a brewer to grant a geographic region to a wholesaler in which no other wholesaler is allowed to sell the contracted brands, and divorcement of brewers and wholesalers, which are laws that prohibit brewers from wholesaling their products to retailers. The first chapter explains the industry and these restraints in detail. The second chapter examines the impact of franchise termination laws, mandated exclusive territories, and prohibitions of vertical integration between brewers and wholesalers on the entry and production decisions of craft brewers in the US beer market. I identify the effects by exploiting variation in policies across states and time between 1984 and 2013. I estimate that franchise termination laws significantly reduced net brewery entry and craft beer production. The impact is larger in states that prohibit self-distribution by brewers. Mandated exclusive territories reduced brewery entry as well, though the estimates are not statistically significant in all specifications and are estimated to have very little effects on production. Lastly, allowing vertical integration between brewers and wholesalers accounts for 60-78% of the difference in the number of breweries between states that prohibit integration and led to 178-251% more craft beer production. The final chapter examines a case study of the effect on price and quantity of law changes regarding vertical restraints in the beer industry. In May of 2004, Wisconsin enacted beer franchise laws which legally restricted when a brewer could terminate a contract with a beer wholesaler. Subsequently in January of 2006, Wisconsin mandated that brewers must assign each wholesaler to an exclusive wholesale territory. Using scanner data from a large number of chain grocery stores, I examine the impact of these laws on prices and quantities sold. The impacts differ depending on whether the brewery is a large, domestic brewery, import brewery, smaller craft brewery or located in-state. I find that craft beer prices increased by approximately 2.34-3.40% after franchise laws were implemented and increased 3.31-3.92% after exclusive territories were mandated. The latter effect was larger for craft brewers located within Wisconsin. These results are robust and consistent across several control groups. I do not find robust results, consistent across control groups, on sales quantities. Using surrounding states as a control group, which may better account for local shocks, finds overall beer quantity sold decreased. Results are consistent with the laws causing an increase in costs of distribution and reducing competition
The extent of dust in NGC 891 from Herschel/SPIRE images
We analyse Herschel/SPIRE images of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891 at 250,
350 and 500 micron. Using a 3D radiative transfer model we confirm that the
dust has a radial fall-off similar to the stellar disk. The dust disk shows a
break at about 12 kpc from the center, where the profile becomes steeper.
Beyond this break, emission can be traced up to 90% of the optical disk in the
NE side. On the SW, we confirm dust emission associated with the extended,
asymmetric HI disk, previously detected by the Infrared Space Observatory
(ISO). This emission is marginally consistent with the large diffuse dust disk
inferred from radiative transfer fits to optical images. No excess emission is
found above the plane beyond that of the thin, unresolved, disk.Comment: Letter accepted for publication in A&A; final version after
shortening and language editin
ISOCAM observations of the rho Ophiuchi cloud: Luminosity and mass functions of the pre-main sequence embedded cluster
We present the results of the first extensive mid-infrared (IR) imaging
survey of the rho Ophiuchi embedded cluster, performed with the ISOCAM camera
on board the ISO satellite. The main molecular cloud L1688, as well as L1689N
and L1689S, have been completely surveyed for point sources at 6.7 and 14.3
micron. A total of 425 sources are detected including 16 Class I, 123 Class II,
and 77 Class III young stellar objects (YSOs). Essentially all of the mid-IR
sources coincide with near-IR sources, but a large proportion of them are
recognized for the first time as YSOs. Our dual-wavelength survey allows us to
identify essentially all the YSOs with IR excess in the embedded cluster down
to Fnu ~ 10 - 15 mJy. It more than doubles the known population of Class II
YSOs and represents the most complete census to date of newly formed stars in
the rho Ophiuchi central region. The stellar luminosity function of the
complete sample of Class II YSOs is derived with a good accuracy down to L=
0.03 Lsun. A modeling of this lumino- sity function, using available pre-main
sequence tracks and plausible star for- mation histories, allows us to derive
the mass distribution of the Class II YSOs which arguably reflects the IMF of
the embedded cluster. We estimate that the IMF in rho Ophiuchi is well
described by a two-component power law with a low- mass index of -0.35+/-0.25,
a high-mass index of -1.7 (to be compared with the Salpeter value of -1.35),
and a break occurring at M = 0.55+/-0.25 Msun. This IMF is flat with no
evidence for a low-mass cutoff down to at least 0.06 Msun.Comment: A&A Document Class -- version 5.01, 27 pages, 10 figures v2: typos
added including few changes in source numberin
An anomaly detector with immediate feedback to hunt for planets of Earth mass and below by microlensing
(abridged) The discovery of OGLE 2005-BLG-390Lb, the first cool rocky/icy
exoplanet, impressively demonstrated the sensitivity of the microlensing
technique to extra-solar planets below 10 M_earth. A planet of 1 M_earth in the
same spot would have provided a detectable deviation with an amplitude of ~ 3 %
and a duration of ~ 12 h. An early detection of a deviation could trigger
higher-cadence sampling which would have allowed the discovery of an Earth-mass
planet in this case. Here, we describe the implementation of an automated
anomaly detector, embedded into the eSTAR system, that profits from immediate
feedback provided by the robotic telescopes that form the RoboNet-1.0 network.
It went into operation for the 2007 microlensing observing season. As part of
our discussion about an optimal strategy for planet detection, we shed some new
light on whether concentrating on highly-magnified events is promising and
planets in the 'resonant' angular separation equal to the angular Einstein
radius are revealed most easily. Given that sub-Neptune mass planets can be
considered being common around the host stars probed by microlensing
(preferentially M- and K-dwarfs), the higher number of events that can be
monitored with a network of 2m telescopes and the increased detection
efficiency for planets below 5 M_earth arising from an optimized strategy gives
a common effort of current microlensing campaigns a fair chance to detect an
Earth-mass planet (from the ground) ahead of the COROT or Kepler missions. The
detection limit of gravitational microlensing extends even below 0.1 M_earth,
but such planets are not very likely to be detected from current campaigns.
However, these will be within the reach of high-cadence monitoring with a
network of wide-field telescopes or a space-based telescope.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA
ISOCAM observations of the L1551 star formation region
The results of a deep mid-IR ISOCAM survey of the L1551 dark molecular cloud
are presented. The aim of this survey is a search for new YSO (Young Stellar
Object) candidates, using two broad-band filters centred at 6.7 and 14.3
micron. Although two regions close to the centre of L1551 had to be avoided due
to saturation problems, 96 sources were detected in total (76 sources at 6.7
micron and 44 sources at 14.3 micron). Using the 24 sources detected in both
filters, 14 were found to have intrinsic mid-IR excess at 14.3 micron and were
therefore classified as YSO candidates. Using additional observations in B, V,
I, J, H and K obtained from the ground, most candidates detected at these
wavelengths were confirmed to have mid-IR excess at 6.7 micron as well, and
three additional YSO candidates were found. Prior to this survey only three
YSOs were known in the observed region (avoiding L1551 IRS5/NE and HL/XZ Tau).
This survey reveals 15 new YSO candidates, although several of these are
uncertain due to their extended nature either in the mid-IR or in the
optical/near-IR observations. Two of the sources with mid-IR excess are
previously known YSOs, one is a brown dwarf MHO 5 and the other is the well
known T Tauri star HH30, consisting of an outflow and an optically thick disk
seen edge on.Comment: 14 Pages, 8 Figure
Discovery of Highly Obscured Galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance
We report the discovery of twenty-five previously unknown galaxies in the
Zone of Avoidance. Our systematic search for extended extra-galactic sources in
the GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL mid-infrared surveys of the Galactic plane has revealed
two overdensities of these sources, located around l ~ 47 and 55 degrees and
|b| less than 1 degree in the Sagitta-Aquila region. These overdensities are
consistent with the local large-scale structure found at similar Galactic
longitude and extending from |b| ~ 4 to 40 degrees. We show that the infrared
spectral energy distribution of these sources is indeed consistent with those
of normal galaxies. Photometric estimates of their redshift indicate that the
majority of these galaxies are found in the redshift range z = 0.01 - 0.05,
with one source located at z = 0.07. Comparison with known sources in the local
Universe reveals that these galaxies are located at similar overdensities in
redshift space. These new galaxies are the first evidence of a bridge linking
the large-scale structure between both sides of the Galactic plane at very low
Galactic latitude and clearly demonstrate the feasibility of detecting galaxies
in the Zone of Avoidance using mid-to-far infrared surveys.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, 28 pages, 5
tables, 11 figure
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Thermal H<sub>2</sub>O emission from the Herbig-Haro flow HH 54
The first detection of thermal water emission from a Herbig-Haro object is presented. The observations were performed with the LWS (Long Wavelength Spectrograph) aboard ISO (Infrared Space Observatory). Besides H2O, rotational lines of CO are present in the spectrum of HH 54. These high-J CO lines are used to derive the physical model parameters of the FIR (far-infrared) molecular line emitting regions. This model fits simultaneously the observed OH and H2O spectra for an OH abundance X(OH)=10-6 and a water vapour abundance X(H2O)=10-5.
At a distance of 250pc, the total CO, OH and H2O rotational line cooling rate is estimated to be 1.3x10-2 L⊙, which is comparable to the mechanical luminosity generated by the 10km s-1 shocks, suggesting that practically all of the cooling of the weak-shock regions is done by these three molecular species alone
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Detection of [O I] 63 <i>μ</i>m in absorption toward Sgr B2
A high signal-to-noise 52-90 μm spectrum is presented for the central part of the Sagittarius B2 complex. The data were obtained with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer on board the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). The [O I] 63 μm line is detected in absorption even at the grating spectral resolution of 0.29 μm. A lower limit for the column density of atomic oxygen of the order of 1019 cm-2 is derived. This implies that more than 40% of the interstellar oxygen must be in atomic form along the line of sight toward the Sgr B2 molecular cloud
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