How Strong Buyers Spur Upstream Innovation

We challenge the view that the presence of powerful buyers stiffles suppliers' incentives to innovate. Following Katz (1987), we model buyer power as buyers' ability to substitute away from a given supplier and isolate several effects that support the opposite view, namely that the presence of powerful buyers induces a supplier to invest more in cost reduction. In contrast to negotiations with smaller buyers, the outcome of negotiations with large buyers is fully determined by their more valuable alternative supply option. This increases the supplier.s incentives to reduce marginal costs, both as the supplier receives a larger fraction of the thereby generated incremental profits and as this makes buyers' alternative supply option less valuable. The latter effect is due to downstream competition between buyers and, as we show, is also stronger the larger and thus the more powerful buyers are.Buyer power; Merger; Investment incentives

A techno-economic evaluation of friction stir welding of DH36 steel

Friction stir welding of steel presents an array of advantages across many industrial sectors such as shipbuilding when compared to conventional fusion welding techniques. However, there seems to be very limited techno-economic assessment studies on its potential introduction in industry, and particularly in shipbuilding. A microstructure and property evaluation of friction stir welded low alloy steel grade DH36 plate, commonly used in ship and marine applications has been undertaken. In this comprehensive study, steel plates were butt welded together at increasing traverse speeds in order to improve the technical competitiveness of the process. Samples were examined microscopically and by traverse tensile testing, Charpy impact testing and micro-hardness testing in various regions of the weld. The study has examined a wide range of traverse speeds; from this, initial process parameter data have been established that are able to produce commercially attractive excellent quality welds through a substantial increase in the conventionally recognised welding traverse speed. In parallel, a comparative economic evaluation between friction stir welding and submerged arc welding has revealed a number of areas where the former is superior. However, the cost of the friction stir welding tool for steel has been exposed as the dominant obstacle for the wider commerical acceptance of the process on steel

A Worker-Centered Trade Policy

What is a “worker-centered” trade policy? The Biden administration claims that it means protecting all workers—foreign and American—from exploitative working conditions in trade sectors. The administration’s vigorous enforcement of international labor rights suggests a significant departure from previous U.S. trade priorities centered on domestic interests. For economic and humanitarian reasons, various policymakers and scholars celebrate these developments. They optimistically assume that the administration’s new trade policy will influence foreign governments and facilities to comply with international labor rights in trade if the costs of noncompliance outweigh the benefits. They also assume that the policy will influence compliance with strong labor protections as negotiated on the international platform. Both assumptions are misplaced.Outside the trade context, governments, employers, and workers negotiate how international labor rights mani-fest in their countries based on pragmatic issues such as political ideologies, economic capacity, and legal systems. Those actors tend to respect those labor rights because they actively participate in the design, monitoring, and enforcement processes. Despite its newfound interest in ensuring compliance with international labor rights under U.S. trade agreements, the Biden administration excludes foreign workers, employers, and counterpart governments from those processes. That exclusion risks obscuring and distorting enforcement predictability, perceptions of legitimacy, and the scope of international labor rights protections within and outside the United States—all of which may reduce or weaken compliance and protections for workers in trade sectors. If the administration sincerely intends to protect workers from trade-related exploitation worldwide, it must stop reinforcing its own discretion and control and start reinforcing the participatory processes embedded in international labor rights

Living Landmarks: Equipping Landmark Protection for Today’s Challenges

The past few decades have brought tremendous change to New York City as gentrification continues its march through many of the city’s neighborhoods. This change has transformed formerly neglected neighborhoods into highly desired locations. While these changes have introduced potential benefits to the transformed areas, they have also put immense economic pressure on important local establishments, such as diners, bars, and other informal gathering spaces that played an important role in their communities before the neighborhoods became “hot.” Increasingly, this pressure has resulted in the shuttering of many such local establishments. Their disappearance represents not only a loss of an irreplaceable piece of organic New York culture, but also a profound and tangible detriment to pre-existing communities that are experiencing the impact of enormous economic and social change in their neighborhoods. Currently, there are no legal mechanisms in place to protect such businesses from being washed away by a tide of money, greed, and shortsightedness. This stands in stark contrast to the protection that is afforded to certain buildings and historic districts in New York which have been preserved through the city’s Landmarks Law. Today, preservation needs to be reimagined not only as a way to ensure the preservation of a neighborhood’s aesthetic heritage, but also as a tool for maintaining the unique qualities and characteristics of a community, both for its own sake and to ensure that the neighborhood’s commercial districts represent the tastes and values of all residents, not just of those with the most disposable income

James E. Bond: Scholar

Kelly Kunsch, Librarian Emeritus at Seattle University School of Law: James E. Bond: Schola

Soybean Flour and Wheat Germ Proportions in Artificial Diet and Their Effect on the Growth Rates of the Tobacco Budworm, Heliothis virescens

Soybean flour and wheat germ are the two most important protein components of wheat germ-based insect artificial diets. The effect of modifying the proportion of these two ingredients in a Noctuidae-specific diet was investigated utilizing the tobacco budworm Heliothis virescens (F.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), with the goal of developing a suboptimal diet that, without drastically affecting this insect's growth and reproductive rates, could manifest subtle negative effects in this insect. The original diet formula contained 2.51% protein. When the proportions of soybean flour and wheat germ were changed to 2.15% protein the net reproductive rate of the first generation was significantly lower. In the second generation, the net reproductive rate, development time, percent female survivorship, fertility, intrinsic rate of increase, finite rate of increase and female longevity were significantly lower in both the 2.15% and 2.26% protein diets. The survival rate of immatures to the adult stage was 1% in the 2.05% protein diet in the first generation. Interestingly, females exposed to these suboptimal diets produced a significantly higher number of eggs but the survival of their larvae was significantly reduced. It is evident from these results that modifications to the protein content and the nutrient composition profile of the original wheat germ-based insect artificial formula can be used to produce subtle negative effects on the growth of tobacco budworm

PEM automotive stack model with experimental validation

Dynamic models of PEM stacks are the basis to design controllers for appropriate performance, maximum efficiency and minimum degradation. Fluid dynamic models of different dimensions can be found in the literature; however, these models are rarely used to improve the control laws and strategies. This work presents a control oriented 1+1D model (distributed in the direction of the stack flow channels). The model is based on a similar model presented by M. Mangold [1], is implemented in MATLAB Simulink. The model is validated using experimental data of a Powercell stack.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

PEM automotive stack model with experimental validation

Dynamic models of PEM stacks are the basis to design controllers for appropriate performance, maximum efficiency and minimum degradation. Fluid dynamic models of different dimensions can be found in the literature; however, these models are rarely used to improve the control laws and strategies. This work presents a control oriented 1+1D model (distributed in the direction of the stack flow channels). The model is based on a similar model presented by M. Mangold [1], is implemented in MATLAB Simulink. The model is validated using experimental data of a Powercell stack.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

QAP Out: Why the Federal Government Should Require More from How States Allocate Low-Income Housing Tax Credits

Prohibitively high land acquisition and construction costs block affordable housing developers from using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program in high opportunity areas. Policymakers must study the history of housing policy in the United States and realize that the LIHTC program works because it suitably balances previously problematic private-market competition, federalism concerns, and compliance issues. Federal lawmakers can look to Qualified Allocation Plans drafted by individual states as a way to encourage the construction of affordable housing without upsetting this equilibrium. To encourage such development, the federal government can require states, in determining tax credit allocations through QAPs, to give preference to difficult development areas, high opportunity areas, or areas with less than 10% affordable housing stock

A new species in the Hieracium lycopifolium agg. (Asteraceae) from the Western Carpathians

Hieracium zajacii Szeląg is described from the Vel'ká Fatra Mts in Slovakia. It is the first representative of H. lycopifolium agg. to be found in the Carpathians. The new species is tetraploid (2n = 36) and reproduces apomictically. Its origin is briefly discussed