Uninsurance through trade

Trade with differentiated goods normally provides a form of insurance against disasters, such as floods and fires, through an increasing relative price of goods from the afflicted country. With open access renewable resources this is reversed. A country hit by a negative shock recovers faster if trading with fewer countries and, if trading with many, shocks affecting also the trading partners are preferred over idiosyncratic shocks. Trade thus increases economic vulnerability to disasters and local disasters will be worse than global. Furthermore, world markets transmit shocks so a natural disaster in one country can cause man-made disasters in competitor countries. These results are particularly relevant for developing countries due to high renewable resource reliance, more problems of open access and more economic vulnerability to disasters. A calibration suggests these concerns may apply to around 60 percent of world fisheries and that around 20 percent risk collapsing following small idiosyncratic shocks

Productivity shocks, international trade and import prices: Evidence from agriculture

The purpose of this study is to measure the sensitivity of trade volumes and unit values to agricultural productivity shocks at home and abroad. We find that the unit values of trade ows vary systematically with production shocks using both aggregate data on a large sample of countries and detailed firm-level imports to Sweden. We find that import prices increase (and import volumes fall) when importer production increases. This result is likely driven by a change in the quality composition of imports or by economies of scale in international trade. This beneficial terms-of-trade effect that we find may thus be an important coping mechanism for food net-importing countries that experience negative production shocks. Our results also suggest that trade volumes are relatively insensitive to changes in production. The results suggest that trade frictions, product differentiation and storage limit the role of international trade as way of coping with production volatility

The black paradox

We model competition between an oil monopolist and competitive suppliers of coal and renewable energy in a dynamic general equilibrium framework. We show that market power- which disrupts the order of extraction-may lead to higher long-run emissions by encouraging early extraction of dirty fuels such as coal which would otherwise remain in the ground permanently; simply banning coal burning may be better than Pigovian taxation. Market power can of course be corrected by production subsidies to the monopolist, but when distribution affects welfare a better option is to offer subsidies to renewable energy, which force the oil monopolist to reduce her (limit) price but are never actually paid out

What is the effect of EU's fuel-tax cuts on Russia's oil income?

Following the oil-price surge in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many countries in the EU are proposing to cut taxes on petrol and diesel. Using standard theory and empirical estimates, we assess how such tax cuts will influence the oil income in Russia. We find that a tax cut of 20 euro cents per liter would increase Russia's oil profits by around 11-17 million Euros per day in the short run and long run. This is equivalent to 4100-6300 million Euros in a year, 0.3-0.5% of Russia's GDP or 7-11% of its military spending. We show that a cash transfer to EU citizens, with an equivalent fiscal burden as the tax cut, reduces these side effects to a fraction

The Cybersecurity Aspects of New Entities Need a Cybernetic, Holistic Perspective

In our connected world security and proof (evidence constituted in Verifiable Credentials (VC, W3C)) is distributed over what an individual can attest, what my objects tell about me (that is why AI = inferences from that data, is so important), and my behavior: “apply shaving foam” is a number in coelition.org. It is clear that we can no longer isolate the notion of security as in securing devices or securing infrastructure. In this brief article which is the background to a number of workshops that the authors and the Journal will host together, we sketch what we believe to be the end of a paradigm of a government model that has outsourced capabilities to the market. It is in the process of privatizing its last public capability: identity management. This is causing tremendous stress in systems, services, organizational procedures, and individuals. We propose a holistic perspective, distributing security at two points: at the device level and a moral movement at a societal level. As a time out to create room to discuss this broadly, we propose a particular model of SSI and disposable identities

Des comètes aux tempêtes : le brassage disciplinaire d’Hervé Faye, entre ruptures et continuités

À quoi Hervé Faye peut-il nous être utile ? En traversant une grande partie du XIXe siècle, Faye nous offre certainement la possibilité de porter un regard renouvelé sur la science d’une époque où les savoirs s’institutionnalisent, où des disciplines apparaissent sous l’influence de nouvelles techniques, où la société vit de profonds bouleversements sociaux et économiques. Personnage assez méconnu et peu étudié, Faye apparaît tout à la fois comme un acteur de ces nouveaux domaines de savoir q..

Cellulose Nanocrystals: From Classical Hydrolysis to the Use of Deep Eutectic Solvents

During the last two decades, interest in cellulosic nanomaterials has greatly increased. Among these nanocelluloses, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) exhibit outstanding properties. Indeed, besides their high crystallinity, cellulose nanocrystals are interesting in terms of morphology with high aspect ratio (length 100–1000 nm, width 2–15 nm), high specific area, and high mechanical properties. Moreover, they can be used as rheological modifier, emulsifier, or for barrier properties, and their surface chemistry opens the door to numerous feasible chemical modifications, leading to a large panel of applications in medical, electronic, composites, or packaging, for example. Traditionally, their extraction is performed via monitored sulfuric acid hydrolysis, leading to well-dispersed aqueous CNC suspensions; these last bearing negative charges (half-sulfate ester groups) at their surface. More recently, natural chemicals called deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been used for the production of CNC in a way of green chemistry, and characterization of recovered CNC is encouraging

Introduction

Cet ouvrage rassemble les interventions de la journée d’études consacrée à Hervé Faye (1814-1902), le 26 septembre 2012. Organisée par le Groupe d’Histoire de l’Astronomie du Centre François Viète (GHACFV), au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Nantes, cette journée a réuni une dizaine d’historiens des sciences qui ont réfléchi aux multiples facettes du personnage de façon à le saisir dans sa globalité, et ainsi éclairer certains aspects de la science française du XIXe siècle, tant d’un point de ..

Evaluation of the level of prediction errors and sub-hourly variability of PV and wind generation in a future with a large amount of renewables

International audienceIn this paper we propose a method for the simulation of errors in renewable energy sources generation forecasting (photovoltaic and wind) for use in power system planning studies. The proposed methodology relies on 5 elementary simulation steps. The first step is the simulation of photovoltaic plant and wind farm power production, with a sufficient spatial and temporal resolution (few km and hourly time step), the second is the simulation of the localisation of production sites, the third step is the generation of forecast errors using historic data of numerical weather predictions, and the last step is the simulation of intra-hourly variations of photovoltaic production. Finally, it is discussed how these simulation tools can assist the evaluation of the required tertiary reserves in a power system with a large share of renewable energies into the mix

#44 - Effects of chemical vagotomy on the neonatal mouse paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus

Birth is marked by a dramatic transition from the sterile womb to a world full of microorganisms that colonize every body surface. We previously found that this colonization exerts rapid effects on brain development, as in mice born in the absence of microbes had increased cell death in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN), an effect not seen 12 h prior to expected delivery. The gut microbiota influences the development of many body systems, and communicates bi-directionally with the brain. We hypothesize that the microbiota exerts effects on neuronal cell death via the vagus nerve, which connects the gut to the PVN via two synapses. To test this, we plan to use capsaicin to perform chemical vagotomies, but we must first validate the approach. In preliminary studies, we confirmed that capsaicin injections to newborn mice caused marked increases in death of vagal afferents. To further validate our technique, in this experiment we evaluated whether capsaicin also induces cell death in the PVN (which could present a confound to our study) and whether it influences neural activity in this nucleus. Mice were injected with capsaicin or vehicle subcutaneously on postnatal day 0 and their brains were collected 0.5, 2, 4, 6, or 24 hours later, and processed for immunohistochemical detection of markers of cell death (activated caspase-3, AC3) or neural activation (Fos). We found that capsaicin did not alter cell death in the PVN at any time point. It did, however, cause increased Fos expression 2 and 4 hours after treatment, which may be due to the activation of the vagal-PVN pathway. The absence of capsaicin-induced cell death in the PVN suggests that chemical vagotomies may be a useful approach to test whether the microbiota affects cell death in the PVN via the vagus nerve