Pigou’s Dividend versus Ramsey’s Dividend in the Double Dividend Literature

This paper deals with the welfare analysis of green tax reforms. The aims of this paper are to highlight misinterpretations of policy assessments in the double dividend literature, to specify which of the efficiency costs and benefits should be ascribed to each dividend, and then, to propose a definition for the first dividend and the second dividend. We found the Pigou’s dividend more appropriate for policy guidance, in contrast to the Ramsey’s dividend usually found in mainstream literature. Therefore, we take up some authors’ recent claims about the need of unambiguous and operative definitions of these dividends both for empirical purposes, and political advice. Finally, the paper analyzes a green tax reform for the US economy to illustrate the advantages of our definitions for policy assessment. The new definitions proposed in this paper i) overcome some shortcoming of the mainstream current definitions in the literature regarding overestimation of the efficiency costs; and, ii) provide information by themselves and not as a partial view of the whole picture.Double Dividend, Green Tax Reforms, Ramsey’s Dividend, Pigou’s Dividend

Complete and Incomplete Markets with Short-Sale Constraints

This paper argues that the introduction of a short-sale constraint in the Arrow-Radner frameworkinvalidates standard definitions of complete and incomplete markets. In this constrained set-up,two threshold values with familiar properties arise.The case of a zero short-sale bound set on some security fulfills the standard definition ofincomplete financial markets. Beyond a particular level of the short-sale bound financial marketsare complete, since the short-sale constraint is not active.For intermediate bounds the distinction between complete and incomplete financial markets isblurred. Although some technical definitions hold, agents can not fully transfer wealth amongstates. These intermediate cases, called technically incomplete markets, exhibit interestingwelfare properties. For instance, the resulting equilibrium allocations may not be Pareto dominatedby those of the non-restricted complete markets equilibrium

Pigou's Dividend versus Ramsey's Dividend in the Double Dividend Literature

The aims of this paper are to highlight misinterpretations of policy assessments in the double dividend literature, to specify which of the efficiency costs and benefits should be ascribed to each dividend, and then, to propose a definition for the first dividend and the second dividend. We found the Pigou's dividend more appropiate for policy guidance than the usual Ramsey's dividend. Finally, the paper analyzes a green tax reform for the US economy to illustrate the advantages of the new definitions proposed in this paper: i) overcome some shortcoming of the mainstream current definitions in the literature regarding overestimation of the efficiency costs; and, ii) provide information by themselves and not as a partial view of the whole picture.Double dividend, Green Tax Reforms, Ramsey's dividend, Pigou's dividend

Devaluation Beliefs and Debt Crisis: The Argentinian Case

Throughout the year 2001 the Argentine real GDP fell by 20 percent and the Investment Rate decreased by more than 20 percent of the GDP. The government made several announcements on changes in exchange rate policy in order to assist the recovery of the economy. At same time, the Trade Balance produced a huge surplus and the Argentine External Debt over GDP ratio increased so much that it forced the Argentinian government to default and, afterwards, devalue the peso 40 percent. We explore the relationship between default and the expectations on devaluation. We find that depending on the level of debt and given an expectation of devaluation two types of crises can arise: if the level of debt is low the government devalues but does not default; for a higher level of debt, the government devalues and defaults to cancel the future cost of repaying the debt. We have calibrated our model to match the main features of the Argentine crisis and we show that the External Debt over GDP ratio was in a crisis zone where the government found it optimal to default and to devalue.Debt crisis, Devaluation, Argentina

Efficient Allocation of Land between Productive Use and Recreational Use - An Application to Galician Case

In this paper the efficient allocation of natural recreational areasis analysed. Natural recreational areas have the features of publicgoods. We present the efficient allocation of this non-excludablepublic good in a rational general equilibrium model withheterogeneous agents. This allows us to deal with the free-riderproblem in the provision of the public good. This framework could beconsidered as a microfoundation of the Lopez, Shah and Altobello(1994) model. In addition we study both the existence value and theuse value of the recreational area in the same setting. Amethodological critique is also made of previous empiricalliterature. It is suggested that our theoretical framework is asuitable starting point for further empirical research. Finally anempirical application for the Galician case is presented. Our resultssuggest that current allocations of land to natural recreationalareas in Galiza are not efficient

Why do people get married? About the decisions that make people remain single and not accept a marital proposal

Aplicase a análise económica ao comportamento individual no momento mesmo de decidir casar, é dicer, de aceptar unha oferta matrimonial. Esta investigación realizase no marco dun modelo de búsqueda. Asemade identificanse os factores que influen en dita decisión. A teoría pode reproducir certos feítos da realidade como a actual elevada idade da xente ao casar, e exténdese ao caso da decisión de ser noivo e da formación das parellas de feíto. Finalmente realizouse unha calibración con datos de España 1940-1991. Partindo do feíto que a porcentaxe de casados crece á mesma taxa que o volume de persoas en idade de casemento, obtivose unha taxa natural de solteiroAn economlc approach is applied to the individual behaviour in the same moment of decidíng to get married; that ís of acceptlng a marital proposítíon. This research is carried out within the framework of a search model. The factors that influence on such decision are identífíed. A theory can reproduce certaín facts of reality such as the actual high age of people when getting married and ít is extended to the case of the decision of becoming a "fiancé" or forming unmarried couples. Finally, an calibration will data from Spain 1940-1991 was performed. Takíng as assumption the fact that the percentage of married people grows at the same rata as the number o people in marriage age, a natural rate of single people was obtainedS

¿Cal é o caracter cíclico dos prezos?: evidencia para economía galega

Notas breve

Thermostable in vitro transcription-translation compatible with microfluidic droplets

Background: In vitro expression involves the utilization of the cellular transcription and translation machinery in an acellular context to produce one or more proteins of interest and has found widespread application in synthetic biology and in pharmaceutical biomanufacturing. Most in vitro expression systems available are active at moderate temperatures, but to screen large libraries of natural or artificial genetic diversity for highly thermostable enzymes or enzyme variants, it is instrumental to enable protein synthesis at high temperatures. Objectives: Develop an in vitro expression system operating at high temperatures compatible with enzymatic assays and with technologies that enable ultrahigh-throughput protein expression in reduced volumes, such as microfluidic water-in-oil (w/o) droplets. Results: We produced cell-free extracts from Thermus thermophilus for in vitro translation including thermostable enzymatic cascades for energy regeneration and a moderately thermostable RNA polymerase for transcription, which ultimately limited the temperature of protein synthesis. The yield was comparable or superior to other thermostable in vitro expression systems, while the preparation procedure is much simpler and can be suited to different Thermus thermophilus strains. Furthermore, these extracts have enabled in vitro expression in microfluidic droplets at high temperatures for the first time. Conclusions: Cell-free extracts from Thermus thermophilus represent a simpler alternative to heavily optimized or pure component thermostable in vitro expression systems. Moreover, due to their compatibility with droplet microfluidics and enzyme assays at high temperatures, the reported system represents a convenient gateway for enzyme screening at higher temperatures with ultrahigh-throughputThis work has received funding from the European Union\u2019s Research and Innovation Framework programs FP7 and Horizon 2020 under Grant Agreement numbers 324439, 635595, 685474, 695669 and 10100560 and from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant number BIO-2013-44963-R. The CBM is funded by \u201CCentre of Excellence Severo Ochoa\u201D Grant CEX2021-001154-S from MICIU/AEI / https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 and receives institutional support by Fundaci\u00F3n Ram\u00F3n Arece

Homochiral Metal-Organic Frameworks for Enantioselective Separations in Liquid Chromatography

Selective separation of enantiomers is a substantial challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Chromatography on chiral stationary phases is the standard method, but at a very high cost for industrial-scale purification owing to the high cost of the chiral stationary phases. Typically, these materials are poorly robust, expensive to manufacture and often too specific for a single desired substrate, lacking desirable versatility across different chiral analytes. Here we disclose a porous, robust homochiral metal-organic framework (MOF), TAMOF-1, built from copper(II) and an affordable linker prepared from natural L-histidine. TAMOF-1 has shown to be able to separate a variety of model racemic mixtures, including drugs, in a wide range of solvents of different polarity, outperforming several commercial chiral columns for HPLC separations. Although not exploited in the present article, it is worthy to mention that the preparation of this new material is scalable to the multikilogram scale, opening unprecedented possibilities for low-energy chiral separation at the industrial scale

The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, MEDA. A Suite of Environmental Sensors for the Mars 2020 Mission

86 pags., 49 figs., 24 tabs.NASA’s Mars 2020 (M2020) rover mission includes a suite of sensors to monitor current environmental conditions near the surface of Mars and to constrain bulk aerosol properties from changes in atmospheric radiation at the surface. The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) consists of a set of meteorological sensors including wind sensor, a barometer, a relative humidity sensor, a set of 5 thermocouples to measure atmospheric temperature at ∼1.5 m and ∼0.5 m above the surface, a set of thermopiles to characterize the thermal IR brightness temperatures of the surface and the lower atmosphere. MEDA adds a radiation and dust sensor to monitor the optical atmospheric properties that can be used to infer bulk aerosol physical properties such as particle size distribution, non-sphericity, and concentration. The MEDA package and its scientific purpose are described in this document as well as how it responded to the calibration tests and how it helps prepare for the human exploration of Mars. A comparison is also presented to previous environmental monitoring payloads landed on Mars on the Viking, Pathfinder, Phoenix, MSL, and InSight spacecraft.This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the projects No. ESP2014-54256-C4-1-R (also -2-R, -3-R and -4-R) and AYA2015-65041-P; Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, projects No. ESP2016-79612-C3-1-R (also -2-R and -3-R), ESP2016-80320-C2-1-R, RTI2018-098728-B-C31 (also -C32 and -C33) and RTI2018-099825-B-C31; Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial; Ministry of Science and Innovation’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology; Grupos Gobierno Vasco IT1366-19; and European Research Council Consolidator Grant no 818602. The US co-authors performed their work under sponsorship from NASA’s Mars 2020 project, from the Game Changing Development program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate and from the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate