1,787 research outputs found
Tobacco Politics and Electoral Accountability in the United States
This paper investigates whether reputation-building strategies guide U.S. governors’ state cigarette tax choices, and whether the federal cigarette tax influences such behavior. Using 1975-2000 data, we find evidence that governors in states with relatively important agricultural tobacco production and tobacco manufacturing, and which are densely populated by smokers, appear prone to reputation-building. Moreover, lame ducks are more prone to raise the state cigarette tax the lower the federal tax
Gubernatorial Reputation and Vertical Tax Externalities: All Smoke, No Fire?
This paper investigates whether reputation-building strategies guide U.S. governors’ responses to changes in federal cigarette taxes (i.e. vertical tax interactions). Using 1975-2000 state cigarette tax data, we find that reputation-building strategies affect the nature of vertical tax externalities. Lame duck governors exhibit a more negative response to changes in the federal cigarette tax. Thus, by reducing the state tax base and by causing a decline in the state tax, an increase in the federal tax rate reduces state tax revenues in states headed by lame ducks
Taxing Under the Influence? : Corruption and U.S. State Beer Taxes
This article examines the effect of state level corruption on state beer taxes in the United States. Our lobby group model predicts that corruption reduces the beer tax, but this effect is conditional on the level of alcohol-related vehicle deaths. Using a panel of state level data from 1982 to 2001, we find that increased corruption is associated with lower state beer tax rates. The magnitude of the effect, however, declines with increases in alcohol-related traffic deaths. Our findings suggest that future empirical work estimating the effect of alcohol taxes on alcohol-related traffic fatalities should treat alcohol taxes as endogenous
Are Politicians Office or Policy Motivated? The Case of U.S. Governors\u27 Environmental Policies
Are elected politicians primarily motivated by holding office, thus choosing environmental policies accordingly? Or are they motivated by the chance to implement their preferred environmental policies? Do governors have character, in the sense that they promise and implement environmental policies consistent with their own preferences? To answer these questions, we study the differences in environmental spending across both re-electable and lame duck governors from the two main political parties. In our empirical analysis, we make use of parametric and non-parametric regression-discontinuity approaches. While re-electable governors do not set significantly different policies, lame duck governors do. We argue that in the area of environmental policy governors appear to be primarily office motivated and lack character
MICROSTRUCTURAL AND THERMAL STABILITY OF SELECTIVE LASER MELTED 316L STAINLESS STEEL SINGLE TRACKS#
Published ArticleTo remove residual stresses, an as-built SLM object is usually post-treated. This treatment can affect the microstructure, changing the final mechanical characteristics. This investigation is focused on the microstructural characterisation of 316L austenitic stainless steel in as-built and annealed conditions. The SLM microstructure was relatively stable up to 900°C, when cell boundaries start to disappear. At higher temperatures, an insignificant grain coarsening was detected. These microstructural changes caused a gradual drop in the hardness. The obtained result is background for the future development of post-treatment regimens to achieve a high level in the final mechanical properties of SLM objects
Pearson cross-correlation in the first four black hole binary mergers
We adopt the Pearson cross-correlation measure to analyze the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detector data streams around the events GW150914, GW151012,GW151226 and GW170104. We find that the Pearson cross-correlation method is sensitive to these signals, with correlations peaking when the black hole binaries reconstructed by the LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations, are merging. We compare the obtained cross-correlations with the statistical correlation fluctuations arising in simulated Gaussian noise data and in LIGO data at times when no event is claimed. Our results for the significance of the observed cross-correlations are broadly consistent with those announced by the LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations based on matched-filter analysis. In the same data, if we subtract the maximum likelihood waveforms corresponding to the announced signals, no residual cross-correlations persists at a statistically significant level
Fast Searching in Packed Strings
Given strings and the (exact) string matching problem is to find all
positions of substrings in matching . The classical Knuth-Morris-Pratt
algorithm [SIAM J. Comput., 1977] solves the string matching problem in linear
time which is optimal if we can only read one character at the time. However,
most strings are stored in a computer in a packed representation with several
characters in a single word, giving us the opportunity to read multiple
characters simultaneously. In this paper we study the worst-case complexity of
string matching on strings given in packed representation. Let be
the lengths and , respectively, and let denote the size of the
alphabet. On a standard unit-cost word-RAM with logarithmic word size we
present an algorithm using time O\left(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + m +
\occ\right). Here \occ is the number of occurrences of in . For this improves the bound of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm.
Furthermore, if our algorithm is optimal since any
algorithm must spend at least \Omega(\frac{(n+m)\log
\sigma}{\log n} + \occ) = \Omega(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + \occ) time to
read the input and report all occurrences. The result is obtained by a novel
automaton construction based on the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm combined with
a new compact representation of subautomata allowing an optimal
tabulation-based simulation.Comment: To appear in Journal of Discrete Algorithms. Special Issue on CPM
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The Chandrasekhar limit for quark stars
The Chandrasekhar limit for quark stars is evaluated from simple energy
balance relations, as proposed by Landau for white dwarfs or neutron stars. It
has been found that the limit for quark stars depends on, in addition to the
fundamental constants, the Bag constant.Comment: LateX fil
Crop Yield and Democracy
How does the historical legacy of agriculture affect democratic traditions in contemporary societies? This paper provides empirical evidence that inherent crop yield and democracy exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship. This finding is supported by cross-country data from up to 147 countries, 186 pre-colonial societies, and the U.S. states. The relationship thus exhibits a highly persistent pattern. Crop yield is measured by kilocalories per hectare per year under rain-fed conditions, which has the advantage of being highly exogenous. The hump-shaped relationship holds up to a battery of robustness tests
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