The Penn Effect and Transition: The New EU Member States in International Perspective

Recent panel studies have found relatively high point estimates for the elasticity of ag-gregate price measures with respect to productivity in (former) transition economies, while other studies report price-productivity elasticity estimates to depend positively on average productivity in the sample. We aim to reconcile both results by putting com-parative price developments of transition economies in an international perspective. We argue that estimating simple price-productivity relationships without the inclusion of other real factors connected to reform effort might severely bias estimates for CEEC economies. Our results imply that, when controlling for reform effort and therefore avoiding this endogeneity problem, the price-productivity-elasticity for CEEC econo-mies was not different from that of non-transition economies during the first 15 years of transition

Concurrent starbursts in molecular gas disks within a pair of colliding galaxies at z = 1.52

We report on the discovery of a merger-driven starburst at z = 1.52, PACS-787, based on high signal-to-noise ALMA observations. CO(5-4) and continuum emission (850um) at a spatial resolution of 0.3" reveal two compact (r_1/2 ~ 1 kpc) and interacting molecular gas disks at a separation of 8.6 kpc thus indicative of an early stage in a merger. With a SFR of 991 Msun/yr, this starburst event should occur closer to final coalescence, as usually seen in hydrodynamical simulations. From the CO size, inclination, and velocity profile for both disks, the dynamical mass is calculated through a novel method that incorporates a calibration using simulations of galaxy mergers. Based on the dynamical mass, we measure (1) the molecular gas mass, independent from the CO luminosity, (2) the ratio of the total gas mass and the CO(1 - 0) luminosity (alpha_CO = M_gas/L'_CO(1-0)), and (3) the gas-to-dust ratio, with the latter two being lower than typically assumed. We find that the high star formation, triggered in both galaxies, is caused by a set of optimal conditions: a high gas mass/fraction, a short depletion time (t_depl=85 and 67 Myrs) to convert gas into stars, and the interaction of likely counter-rotating molecular disks that may accelerate the loss of angular momentum. The state of interaction is further established by the detection of diffuse CO and continuum emission, tidal debris that bridges the two nuclei and is associated with stellar emission seen by HST/WFC3. This observation demonstrates the power of ALMA to study the dynamics of galaxy mergers at high redshift

Can We Identify Balassa-Samuelson Effects with Measures of Product Variety?

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis - i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio - has been one of the most prominent frameworks in open economy macroeconomics for more than forty years. However, empirical studies have often been unable to confirm it. We argue that this might at least in part be due to measurement errors leading to downward-biased estimates. We test the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis with innovative trade-based vari-ety measures to differentiate between tradables and non-tradables sector productivities that do not suffer from such errors-in-variables. Using a pairwise regression approach, we find stable and very robust Balassa-Samuelson effects over all our specifications

Context dependent learning in the serial RT task

This study investigated the development of contextual dependencies for sequential perceptual-motor learning on static features in the learning environment. In three experiments we assessed the effect of manipulating task irrelevant static context features in a serial reaction-time task. Experiment 1 demonstrated impaired performance after simultaneously changing display color, placeholder shape, and placeholder location. Experiment 2 showed that this effect was mainly caused by changing placeholder shape. Finally, Experiment 3 indicated that changing context affected both the application of sequence knowledge and the selection of individual responses. It is proposed either that incidental stimulus features are integrated with a global sequence representation, or that the changed context causes participants to strategically inhibit sequence skills

Sensory information in perceptual-motor sequence learning: visual and/or tactile stimuli

Sequence learning in serial reaction time (SRT) tasks has been investigated mostly with unimodal stimulus presentation. This approach disregards the possibility that sequence acquisition may be guided by multiple sources of sensory information simultaneously. In the current study we trained participants in a SRT task with visual only, tactile only, or bimodal (visual and tactile) stimulus presentation. Sequence performance for the bimodal and visual only training groups was similar, while both performed better than the tactile only training group. In a subsequent transfer phase, participants from all three training groups were tested in conditions with visual, tactile, and bimodal stimulus presentation. Sequence performance between the visual only and bimodal training groups again was highly similar across these identical stimulus conditions, indicating that the addition of tactile stimuli did not benefit the bimodal training group. Additionally, comparing across identical stimulus conditions in the transfer phase showed that the lesser sequence performance from the tactile only group during training probably did not reflect a difference in sequence learning but rather just a difference in expression of the sequence knowledge