Pricing to market of German exporters: evidence from panel data

This paper investigates price discrimination of German exporters across different foreign markets. We examine the degree of pass-through of exchange rate fluctuations in the pricing of 70 export items. The model is estimated using panel data on export unit values. Parameter estimation relies on GMM first difference, fixed effects, LAD, OLS first difference, and the random coefficients model. The main results for 70 manufactured goods and 15 destination countries between 1990-1994 are : The degree of pricing to market differs among destinations and products. Highest pricing to market is observed for U.S., Japan, Italy and Spain. Pricing to market is more prevalent in exports of chemicals and fertilisers than in machinery products. --Pricing to market,law of one price,panel data

Temporal Variability and Stability in Infant-Directed Sung Speech: Evidence for Language-specific Patterns.

In this paper, sung speech is used as a methodological tool to explore temporal variability in the timing of word-internal consonants and vowels. It is hypothesized that temporal variability/stability becomes clearer under the varying rhythmical conditions induced by song. This is explored crosslinguistically in German – a language that exhibits a potential vocalic quantity distinction – and the non-quantity languages French and Russian. Songs by non-professional singers, i.e. parents that sang to their infants aged 2 to 13 months in a non-laboratory setting, were recorded and analyzed. Vowel and consonant durations at syllable contacts of trochaic word types with ¦CVCV or ¦CVːCV structure were measured under varying rhythmical conditions. Evidence is provided that in German non-professional singing, the two syllable structures can be differentiated by two distinct temporal variability patterns: vocalic variability (and consonantal stability) was found to be dominant in ¦CVːCV structures whereas consonantal variability (and vocalic stability) was characteristic for ¦CVCV structures. In French and Russian, however, only vocalic variability seemed to apply. Additionally, findings suggest that the different temporal patterns found in German were also supported by the stability pattern at the tonal level. These results point to subtle (supra) segmental timing mechanisms in sung speech that affect temporal targets according to the specific prosodic nature of the language in question

Topological objects in QCD

Topological excitations are prominent candidates for explaining nonperturbative effects in QCD like confinement. In these lectures, I cover both formal treatments and applications of topological objects. The typical phenomena like BPS bounds, topology, the semiclassical approximation and chiral fermions are introduced by virtue of kinks. Then I proceed in higher dimensions with magnetic monopoles and instantons and special emphasis on calorons. Analytical aspects are discussed and an overview over models based on these objects as well as lattice results is given.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures; Lectures given at 45th Internationale Universitaetswochen fuer Theoretische Physik (International University School of Theoretical Physics): Conceptual and Numerical Challenges in Femto- and Peta-Scale Physics, Schladming, Styria, Austria, 24 Feb - 3 Mar 200

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant

[Excerpt] The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant was created in the 1996 welfare reform law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, P.L. 104-193). That law was the culmination of a series of legislative changes that altered the rules for providing benefits and services to needy families with children

On Idempotent D-Norms

Replacing the spectral measure by a random vector \bfZ allows the representation of a max-stable distribution on $\R^d$ with standard negative margins via a norm, called \emph{$D$-norm}, whose generator is \bfZ. The set of $D$-norms can be equipped with a commutative multiplication type operation, making it a semigroup with an identity element. This multiplication leads to idempotent $D$-norms. We characterize the set of idempotent $D$-norms. Iterating the multiplication provides a track of $D$-norms, whose limit exists and is again a $D$-norm. If this iteration is repeatedly done on the same $D$-norm, then the limit of the track is idempotent.Comment: 17 page

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Issues for the 110th Congress

Enactment of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA, P.L. 109-171) ended more than four years of congressional debate on “reauthorizing” the block grant of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The DRA extended funding for most TANF grants through FY2010, except TANF supplemental grants which expire after FY2008. Supplemental grants go to 17 states that have high population growth or low historic funding in TANF’s predecessor programs per poor person. TANF is best known as the funding source for welfare benefits for low-income families with children. In 2005, about two million families per month received TANF cash welfare, down from the historical high of five million families receiving cash welfare in the mid-1990s. In 2005, about three in ten poor children were in families that received TANF cash welfare. However, TANF funds a wide range of “nonwelfare” benefits and services for needy families with children. In FY2005, spending on activities related to traditional cash welfare accounted for a little more than half of total TANF funding, while other “nonwelfare” activities accounted for the remainder. Still, most issues that Congress has debated in the past, and will potentially consider in the 110th Congress, relate to TANF cash welfare. The DRA revised the rules relating to TANF work participation standards for families receiving welfare, by requiring states to either increase participation in activities or reduce their welfare caseloads to meet these numerical performance standards. Many states had to act quickly to avoid failing these standards, which were effective in FY2007. Further, states must engage 90% of their two-parent welfare caseload in activities — a fairly high standard that President Bush’s FY2008 budget seeks to eliminate. The DRA also required the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue regulations defining the specific activities that may be counted toward the participation standards. The regulations, published June 29, 2006, clarified that the participation standards focus on work or short-term job preparation. This raises old issues of whether a “work-first” orientation is best for those who have barriers to employment, such as very low levels of educational attainment or disabilities. Congress might consider proposals left over from TANF reauthorization proposals, but not included in DRA, to loosen some rules for nonwelfare spending, such as allowing carry-over funds to be used for nonwelfare benefits and services and to consider any TANF child care or transportation benefits “nonwelfare” and not subject to the rules associated with welfare benefits. Congress might also consider improving the information available on how TANF funds are used for nonwelfare benefits. Additionally, legislation that affects foster care, child welfare services for abused and neglected children, and child care funding would have an effect on TANF, since large amounts of TANF “nonwelfare” dollars are used to supplement dedicated federal and state funding for these programs. This report will be updated as legislative events warrant