The role of entrepreneurship in the 1980s

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Internal and external liberalisation for faster growth

This paper is an attempt to bring the two sides together. It will demonstrate, on the, one hand, - that internal and external liberalisation of trade in goods and services does substantially raise potential output and its growth path and - that it, therefore, pays to anticipate these gains in conceiving and conducting macro-economic policies. On the other hand, it will be argued that a macro-economic policy that is trade oriented and forward looking in this sense would allow trade negotiators and deregulators to deemphasise the direct losses of output and employment expected from removing restrictions and to anticipate a pull of demand that will facilitate the transfer of resources to alternative uses.

Eurosclerosis

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Real Exchange Rates and economic development

It is the purpose of this paper to correct some of these shortcomings and to lengthen the time horizon in the public debate about exchange rates, notably about the dollar/DM rate. Long-term interest rates, most of all the real rate of interest and the profitability of investment, will be brought into focus. The hypothesis emerging from this paper is that the dollar is likely to remain strong for fundamental reasons, i.e. for reasons rooted in the real sectors of the American and European economies. Temporary declines for short-term reasons are, of course, not excluded. They should, therefore, not be viewed as disproving the central thesis: what matters in the longer run are the vitality of an economy and its place and role in world economic development.

On the recent slowdown in productivity growth in advanced economies

After two and a half decades of prosperous postwar development, western industrialised countries recently experienced a slowdown of economic growth and productivity advance together with an increase in the rates of inflation and unemployment. The deep recession of 1974/75 has uncovered fundamental structural weaknesses; since then, the advanced economies have not regained the momentum of the 1960s. In this paper, we shall attempt to contribute to a better understanding of this malaise. But as our comparative advantage is not in growth-accounting and as we do not believe that we can single out one or two specific causes, we shall merely aim at forming an idea (perhaps only a rather vague one) which might be further developed into a paradigm or research programme (in Lakatos? sense).

SimGrid: a Sustained Effort for the Versatile Simulation of Large Scale Distributed Systems

In this paper we present Simgrid, a toolkit for the versatile simulation of large scale distributed systems, whose development effort has been sustained for the last fifteen years. Over this time period SimGrid has evolved from a one-laboratory project in the U.S. into a scientific instrument developed by an international collaboration. The keys to making this evolution possible have been securing of funding, improving the quality of the software, and increasing the user base. In this paper we describe how we have been able to make advances on all three fronts, on which we plan to intensify our efforts over the upcoming years.Comment: 4 pages, submission to WSSSPE'1

The effect of the CYP1A2 -163 C\u3eA polymorphism on the metabolism of caffeine and effect on performance

Prior studies from our laboratory suggest that the -163 C \u3e A polymorphism of the Cytochrome P450 (CYP1A2) gene influences the ergogenic effect of caffeine. Although this polymorphism has been known to influence the inducibility of hepatic CYP1A2 and the rate of caffeine metabolism, levels of caffeine and/or metabolites have never been reported in these aforementioned studies (1, 12, 16). Thus, a mechanistic link between the polymorphism and the ergogenic effect of caffeine is lacking. The purpose of this study was to determine if the CYP1A2 polymorphism affected caffeine metabolism between the genotypes (AA homozygotes and C allele carriers). Twenty male subjects were recruited for this study. Subjects participated in two 3km cycling time trials with placebo (all-purpose flour) and caffeine (6mg/kg body weight anhydrous caffeine) supplementation. “Slow metabolizers” were characterized as possessing a “C” allele on the first intron of that gene (grouped AC heterozygotes, and CC homozygotes), and “fast metabolizers” were those who were homozygous for the A allele. C allele carriers had significantly higher serum caffeine after one hour (C allele carriers = 14.2 ± 1.8 ppm, AA homozygotes = 11.7 ± 1.7 ppm). While there was a main effect for caffeine ingestion on time trial performance, there was no caffeine x genotype interaction (C allele carriers: Placebo = 297 ± 20.8 sec, Caffeine = 292 ± 20 sec; AA homozygotes: Placebo = 318.3 ± 34.5 sec; Caffeine = 307.9 ± 21.9 sec). Results from this study suggest that C allele carriers have higher serum caffeine after one hour than AA homozygotes, consistent with the assertion that C allele carriers metabolize caffeine slower. These findings do not support a genetic influence on the ergogenic effect of caffeine in a 3km cycling trial