Bureaucracy intermediaries, corruption and red tape

Intermediaries helping individuals and firms with the government bureaucracy are common in developing countries. Although such bureaucracy intermediaries are, anecdotally, linked with corruption and welfare losses, few formal analyses exist. In our model, a government license can benefit individuals. We study individuals' net gain when acquiring the license through the regular bureaucratic procedure, through bribing or through intermediaries. For a given procedure, individuals using intermediaries are better off than if intermediaries and corruption had not existed. Intermediaries "grease the wheels". We then study incentives of corrupt bureaucrats to create red tape. When free to choose levels of red tape, bureaucrats implement more red tape and individuals are unambiguously worse off in a setting with intermediaries than with "direct" corruption only. Intermediaries can thus improve access to the bureaucracy, but also strengthen incentives to create red tape - a potential explanation why license procedures tend to be long in developing countries.Bureaucracy; Corruption; Intermediaries; Red tape

The scenario-based generalization of radiation therapy margins

We give a scenario-based treatment plan optimization formulation that is equivalent to planning with geometric margins if the scenario doses are calculated using the static dose cloud approximation. If the scenario doses are instead calculated more accurately, then our formulation provides a novel robust planning method that overcomes many of the difficulties associated with previous scenario-based robust planning methods. In particular, our method protects only against uncertainties that can occur in practice, it gives a sharp dose fall-off outside high dose regions, and it avoids underdosage of the target in ``easy'' scenarios. The method shares the benefits of the previous scenario-based robust planning methods over geometric margins for applications where the static dose cloud approximation is inaccurate, such as irradiation with few fields and irradiation with ion beams. These properties are demonstrated on a suite of phantom cases planned for treatment with scanned proton beams subject to systematic setup uncertainty

In search of a new identity:Shiga Shigetaka's recommendations for Japanese in Hawaii

The demand for on-demand video streaming has seen an enormous increased usage and is today the main contributor to Internet traffic. Technological developments combined with the accessibility of sufficiently powerful end-user hardware, large bandwidth capacities and significantly reduced storage cost are major contributors to this trend. We have built a simulation environment where multiple clients stream linear and branched video while competing over a shared bottleneck network. We examine how rate caps can be implemented to increase the overall Quality of Experience (QoE). First we present simulation results demonstrating the impact that rate caps have on clients playing linear video and compare and relate the results with prior work. Second we simulate the performance implementation of branched video and consider how its performance is affected by rate caps. Here, we highlight and discuss the trade-off patterns between playback quality and stability observed when a cap is implemented. To derive our conclusions we consider a range of scenarios, in which we vary different variables when a rate cap is set or not and measure the (i) requested encodings, (ii) buffer occupancy, and (iii) the amounts of switches between encodings made by the clients during the playback sequence. The rate cap implementation is shown to generate less switches between encodings, providing an enhanced stability and thus contributing to a better QoE in both the linear and branched environment

Is early learning really more productive? The effect of school starting age on school and labor market performance

In Sweden, children typically start compulsary school the year they turn seven. Individuals born just before or just after the new year, have about the same date of birth but start school att different ages. We exploit this source of exogenous variation, to identify the effects of age at school entry on school and labor market outcomes. Using data for the entire Swedish population born 1935-84, we find that children who start school at an older age do better in school and go on to have more education than their younger peers. The longrun earnings effects are positive but small. However, since starting school later entails the opportunity cost of entering the labor market later, the net earnings effect over the entire life-cycle is negative. Exploiting within-school variation in peer age composition, we find that the school starting age effect primarily is due to absolute maturity rather than to the relative age in the class.School starting age; school performance; labor market outcomes; regression-discontinuity design

Migration and Local Public Services

Using unique Swedish micro data we examine the impact of local public services on community choice. The choice of community is modeled as a choice between a discrete set of alternatives. The US literature has produced conflicting evidence with respect to the importance of local public services. We find a robust positive (negative) relationship between local public services (local income tax rates) and the residential choices of short-distance migrants (defined as those moving within a local labor market). However, local public characteristics are less important for migrants who entered from other local labor markets. Using information on subsequent mobility, we also investigate whether the last result is due to lack of information about the characteristics of the local public sector. The evidence suggests that this is not the case.Migration; Local public services; Tiebout; Discrete choice; repeat migration

Surface conditions of the Orgueil meteorite parent body as indicated by mineral associations

Three periods of mineral formation from study of Orgueil meteorit