TAXATION, FINES, AND PRODUCER LIABILITY RULES: EFFICIENCY AND MARKET STRUCTURE IMPLICATIONS

This paper addresses the comparative efficiency of liability rules and regulatory policy in competitive equilibria with endogenous product safety. Pigouvian taxation fails to achieve long-run social optimality. A policy involving accident fines and safety subsidization can achieve efficiency, although the optimal policy may involve taxation, not subsidization, of product safety.Public Economics,

Symmetries in QFT

This document contains notes from the graduate lecture course, "Symmetries in QFT" given by J.F.Wheater at Oxford University in Hilary term. The course gives an informal introduction to QFT.Comment: Lecture note

Vertical Structure and Strategic Environmental Trade Policy

The idea that environmental trade policy may be used to achieve competitive advantage in international markets has important implications for the way we conceive tree-trade. This paper reconsiders the issue of strategic environmental policy in a model that makes explicit the vertical structure that supports production of the traded good. We find these intranational vertical relationships to have a substantial qualitative effect on the optimal strategic environmental trade policy. We show that under both quantity and price competition in the international market, the optimal policy to levy on the polluting input when vertical contracts are allowed is a Pigouvian tax.strategic trade, vertical contracts, environmental policy

Slotting Allowances and Retail Product Variety under Oligopoly

Slotting fees are fixed charges paid by food manufacturers to retailers for access to the retail market. The role of the practice and its effects on market efficiency are highly controversial. To date, the literature has focused on the effect of the practice on retail prices; however, slotting allowances also have the potential to alter the range of products available to consumers. Our analysis reveals that the strategic use of slotting allowances by oligopoly firms leads to a superior allocation of product variety among retailers. Indeed, absent price effects, we show that slotting allowances lead to the socially optimal provision of product variety.Slotting fees, vertical contracts, monopolization., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Industrial Organization, Marketing, L13, L14, L42, D43,

Charge shelving and bias spectroscopy for the readout of a charge-qubit on the basis of superposition states

Charge-based qubits have been proposed as fundamental elements for quantum computers. One commonly proposed readout device is the single-electron transistor (SET). SETs can distinguish between localized charge states, but lack the sensitivity to directly distinguish superposition states, which have greatly enhanced coherence times compared with position states. We propose introducing a third dot, and exploiting energy dependent tunnelling from the qubit into this dot (bias spectroscopy) for pseudo-spin to charge conversion and superposition basis readout. We introduce an adiabatic fast passage-style charge pumping technique which enables efficient and robust readout via charge shelving, avoiding problems due to finite SET measurement time.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, note slightly changed title, replaced with journal versio

Product Liability, Entry Incentives, and Industry Structure

Industrial Organization,

The effect of television on the leisure time activities of sixth grade children in Medford, Massachusetts.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit