Ringing in a new order? Hegemony, hierarchy, and transition in East Asia

This paper examines how to account for the continuing though changing character of US preponderance in the East Asia region; the extent, potential, and meaning of China’s rise; and what non-great powers have to do with it.Executive summaryRegional institutions have been created not only to socialise China, but also to legitimise the United States’ continuing role in East Asia.East Asian regionalism poses a limited challenge to the US-led global order.There remains significant regional demand for the US to define and prioritise public goods and how they are provided, especially in managing conflicts on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea.The continuing divorce between China and Japan facilitates US regional leadership.We have witnessed the parallel strategic resurgence of both the US and China in East Asia.East Asian states have been renegotiating the US hegemonic order to incorporate China as a constrained, pro-status quo power.This hierarchical order framework points to urgent strategic choices beyond balancing, bandwagoning and ‘hedging’.Policy recommendations Australia should persuade Washington to recognise China’s legitimate growing interests and to negotiate shared responsibilities for regional order. Australia should help to cultivate regional constituencies to legitimise the US role, and to negotiate acceptable terms for China’s legitimate inclusion. Australia should consult with and learn from the experiences of its East Asian neighbours. Australia should overcome the artificial divide between the economic and security realms in strategy formulation and policy coordination

Nonparametric Inferences on Conditional Quantile Processes

This paper is concerned with tests of restrictions on the sample path of conditional quantile processes. These tests are tantamount to assessments of lack of fit for models of conditional quantile functions or more generally as tests of how certain covariates affect the distribution of an outcome variable of interest. This paper extends tests of the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) type as introduced by Fan, Zhang and Zhang (2001) to nonparametric inference problems regarding conditional quantile processes. As such, the tests proposed here present viable alternatives to existing methods based on the Khmaladze (1981, 1988) martingale transformation. The range of inference problems that may be addressed by the methods proposed here is wide, and includes tests of nonparametric nulls against nonparametric alternatives as well as tests of parametric specifications against nonparametric alternatives. In particular, it is shown that a class of GLR statistics based on nonparametric additive quantile regressions have pivotal asymptotic distributions given by the suprema of squares of Bessel processes, as in Hawkins (1987) and Andrews (1993). The tests proposed here are also shown to be asymptotically rate-optimal for nonparametric hypothesis testing according to the formulations of Ingster (1993) and of Spokoiny (1996).quantile regression, nonparametric inference, minimax rate, additive models, local polynomials, generalized likelihood ratio

Bandwidth Selection for Semiparametric Estimators Using the m-out-of-n Bootstrap

This paper considers a class of semiparametric estimators that take the form of density-weighted averages. These arise naturally in a consideration of semiparametric methods for the estimation of index and sample-selection models involving preliminary kernel density estimates. The question considered in this paper is that of selecting the degree of smoothing to be used in computing the preliminary density estimate. This paper proposes a bootstrap method for estimating the mean squared error and associated optimal bandwidth. The particular bootstrap method suggested here involves using a resample of smaller size than the original sample. This method of bandwidth selection is presented with specific reference to the case of estimators of average densities, of density-weighted average derivatives and of density-weighted conditional covariances.bandwidth selection, density-weighted averages, bootstrap, m-out-of-n bootstrap, kernel density estimation

Bootstrap-based Bandwidth Selection for Semiparametric Generalized Regression Estimators

This paper considers the problem of implementing semiparametric extremum estimators of a generalized regression model with an unknown link function. The class of estimator under consideration includes as special cases the semiparametric least-squares estimator of Ichimura (1993) as well as the semiparametric quasi-likelihood estimator of Klein and Spady (1993). In general, it is assumed to involve the computation of a nonparametric kernel estimate of the link function that appears in place of the true, but unknown, link function in the appropriate location in a smooth criterion function. The specific question considered in this paper concerns the practical selection of the degree of smoothing to be used in computing the nonparametric regression estimate. This paper proposes a method for selecting the smoothing parameter via resampling. The particular method suggested here involves using a resample of smaller size than the original sample. Specific guidance on selecting the resample size is given, and simulation evidence is presented to illustrate the utility of this method for samples of moderate size.Bandwidth selection, semiparametric, single-index model, bootstrap, m-out-of-n bootstrap, kernel smoothing

Construction of scaling partitions of unity

Partitions of unity in ${\mathbf R}^d$ formed by (matrix) scales of a fixed function appear in many parts of harmonic analysis, e.g., wavelet analysis and the analysis of Triebel-Lizorkin spaces. We give a simple characterization of the functions and matrices yielding such a partition of unity. For invertible expanding matrices, the characterization leads to easy ways of constructing appropriate functions with attractive properties like high regularity and small support. We also discuss a class of integral transforms that map functions having the partition of unity property to functions with the same property. The one-dimensional version of the transform allows a direct definition of a class of nonuniform splines with properties that are parallel to those of the classical B-splines. The results are illustrated with the construction of dual pairs of wavelet frames

Phenomenology of Left-Right Twin Higgs Model

Twin Higgs mechanism has recently been proposed to solve the ``little Hierarchy'' problem. We studied the implementation of twin Higgs mechanism in left-right models. We discussed the particle spectrum, and the collider phenomenology at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Proceedings of SUSY06, the 14th International Conference on Supersymmetry and the Unification of Fundamental Interactions, UC Irvine, California, 12-17 June 200