Can Tax Progression Raise Employment? A Study of Four European Countries

This paper shows that increases in direct tax progression tend to reduce wages and increase welfare and employment, even in a model allowing for labour supply effects. The employment effect is reversed when benefit levels are low, however. The model shows the different impacts on full and parttime workers, and on men and women. The countries modelled are France, Germany, Italy and the UK. An efficiency wage sector with training costs generates unemployment effects. Households choose between an efficiency wage sector and a market-clearing sector.

Carbon Abatement and its international effects in Europe including effects on other pollutants: a general equilibrium approach

This paper outlines the development of a CGE model as a tool for analysing many of the issues relating to the introduction of environmental taxation, such as interaction with other taxes, revenue recycling, international carbon 'leakage' and tax export effects. The model is linked to IIASA's RAINS model to expand the analysis to cover other cross-boundary pollution. Analysis of a 30 ECU per tonne carbon tax applied in Germany, the UK and the rest of the European Union indicate that it could achieve savings of the order of 20 per cent in carbon emissions compared to business as usual, at little economic cost to the EU countries. The emission savings may be slightly higher in Germany and lower in the UK than the rest of the EU, while the latter would also gain more from terms of trade effects. The tax would bring substantial savings in sulphur emissions. Alternatively, if emissions were allowed to stay constant, the saving on abatement technology would mean a modest improvement in the net cost of the tax. Effects on Nitrogen emissions are smaller.

The Allocation of Carbon Permits within One Country : A General Equilibrium Analysis of the United Kingdom

As part of the Kyoto agreement on limiting carbon emissions, from 2008 onwards an international market in auction able carbon permits will be established. This raises the issue of whether trading should be simply between governments or between companies, or in the latter case how such permits should be allocated. Our paper uses the British section of a CGE model of the European energy sectors to evaluate the economics of various methods of allocating permits within a country, as discussed in Lord Marshall’s recent report to the British government. The option of allocation entirely by auction is similar to the setting of a carbon tax, and the recycling of revenues to reduce or offset other economic distortions could produce a potential net benefit to incomes and employment. 'Grandfathering' some of the permits free to large firms, according to their base year carbon emissions, would mean loss of the benefits of recycling auction revenues. This might be exacerbated if it created windfall profits repatriated by foreign shareholders. The third major alternative is to review the allocation regularly, awarding permits to all firms according to a ‘benchmark’ allocation, based on 'best practice' as estimated by outside experts. This would be similar in practice to recycling the revenue as an output subsidy to the industry, though it could be complicated to implement. Such a system could allow much of the potential ‘double dividend’ to be realized, though it might still be preferable to auction permits, with the revenues used to offset taxes across a wider spread of industry

The status and productivity of the Cape hake stock off the west coast of South Africa based on an age-structured production model with different stock-recruitment and fishing selectivity-at-age relationships

Bibliography: pages 41-47The surplus production model and ad hoc tuned VPA assessment methods currently used to provide the basis for scientific TAC recommendations for the Cape hake resource off South Africa provide rather different appraisals of the current status and productivity of this resource. The production model approach is based on the Butterworth-Andrew observation error estimator, and takes catch per unit effort (CPUE), as well as biomass survey data into account. The ad hoc tuned VPA is based on the Laurec-Shepherd tuning algorithm and utilizes catch-at-age and effort information. Applications of an age-structured model, which takes both CPUE and catch-at-age data into account, provides similar results to the production model if more weight is given to the CPUE data than the catch-at-age data and similar results to the ad hoc tuned VPA if more weight is given to the catch-at-age data rather than the CPUE data. This led Punt (1993) to conclude that the discrepancies between the various sets of results obtained from surplus production model and ad hoc tuned VPA methods are a consequence of a conflict between the catch-at-age data and the CPUE data and that they are not primarily a result of differences in the two assessment methods. However, the above two approaches are based on certain assumptions regarding recruitment, natural mortality and fishing selectivity. An attempt was made to obtain estimates of fishing selectivity-at-age from an age-structured production model. It is commonly assumed that selectivity-at-age has a slope of zero at older age classes. The estimates obtained all suggest that selectivity-at-age for older age classes (> 2 to 3 years) decreases with age. The results obtained in this study also indicate that the conflict between the observed trends in the catch-at-age data and the CPUE data can be basically resolved by assuming that for older age classes selectivity-at-age decreases

Attentional load and sensory competition in human vision: Modulation of fMRI responses by load fixation during task-irrelevant stimulation in the peripheral visual field.

Perceptual suppression of distractors may depend on both endogenous and exogenous factors, such as attentional load of the current task and sensory competition among simultaneous stimuli, respectively. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare these two types of attentional effects and examine how they may interact in the human brain. We varied the attentional load of a visual monitoring task performed on a rapid stream at central fixation without altering the central stimuli themselves, while measuring the impact on fMRI responses to task-irrelevant peripheral checkerboards presented either unilaterally or bilaterally. Activations in visual cortex for irrelevant peripheral stimulation decreased with increasing attentional load at fixation. This relative decrease was present even in V1, but became larger for successive visual areas through to V4. Decreases in activation for contralateral peripheral checkerboards due to higher central load were more pronounced within retinotopic cortex corresponding to 'inner' peripheral locations relatively near the central targets than for more eccentric 'outer' locations, demonstrating a predominant suppression of nearby surround rather than strict 'tunnel vision' during higher task load at central fixation. Contralateral activations for peripheral stimulation in one hemifield were reduced by competition with concurrent stimulation in the other hemifield only in inferior parietal cortex, not in retinotopic areas of occipital visual cortex. In addition, central attentional load interacted with competition due to bilateral versus unilateral peripheral stimuli specifically in posterior parietal and fusiform regions. These results reveal that task-dependent attentional load, and interhemifield stimulus-competition, can produce distinct influences on the neural responses to peripheral visual stimuli within the human visual system. These distinct mechanisms in selective visual processing may be integrated within posterior parietal areas, rather than earlier occipital cortex

Shadowgraph techniques in transonic tests with powered nacelles

Shadowgraph photography techniques in transonic wind tunnel tests are described. The system was used in tests with powered nacelle rings to visualize the shock wave pattern in the exhaust flow. The technique is also used for installed nacelle tests on a floor mounted half model with a turbine powered fan engine simulator

Phase transition in the Countdown problem

Here we present a combinatorial decision problem, inspired by the celebrated quiz show called the countdown, that involves the computation of a given target number T from a set of k randomly chosen integers along with a set of arithmetic operations. We find that the probability of winning the game evidences a threshold phenomenon that can be understood in the terms of an algorithmic phase transition as a function of the set size k. Numerical simulations show that such probability sharply transitions from zero to one at some critical value of the control parameter, hence separating the algorithm's parameter space in different phases. We also find that the system is maximally efficient close to the critical point. We then derive analytical expressions that match the numerical results for finite size and permit us to extrapolate the behavior in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: Submitted for publicatio

A Decision Support Tool for Seed Mixture Calculations

Grassland species are normally seeded in mixtures rather than monocultures. In theory, seeding rates for mixtures are simply a sum of the amount of pure live seed (PLS) of each seed lot in the mix, an amount sufficient to ensure establishment and survival of each species. Mixtures can be complex because of the number of species used (especially in conservation and reclamation programs) and variations in seed purity and seed size. Soil limitations and seeding equipment settings need to be considered and in Canada, a metric conversion may be required. All these conditions make by-hand calculations of mixtures containing more than 3 species tedious and complicated. Thus, in practice, agronomists and growers use simple rules to set rates. The easiest rule is to estimate the mixture’s components as a percentage by weight of a standardized total weight of the seed required (e.g. 10% of 10 kg/ha). The resulting errors can be observed in the predominance of thin stands, the unexpected dominance of small seeded species and the added costs of interseeding to compete with weeds and fertilizer to increase yield. The objective of this project was to develop a decision support tool, a seed mixture calculator to simplify conversion and improve the estimates of seed required for individual seeding projects

On the calibration of the relation between geometric albedo and polarimetric properties for the asteroids

We present a new extensive analysis of the old problem of finding a satisfactory calibration of the relation between the geometric albedo and some measurable polarization properties of the asteroids. To achieve our goals, we use all polarimetric data at our disposal. For the purposes of calibration, we use a limited sample of objects for which we can be confident to know the albedo with good accuracy, according to previous investigations of other authors. We find a new set of updated calibration coefficients for the classical slope - albedo relation, but we generalize our analysis and we consider also alternative possibilities, including the use of other polarimetric parameters, one being proposed here for the first time, and the possibility to exclude from best-fit analyzes the asteroids having low albedos. We also consider a possible parabolic fit of the whole set of data.Comment: Accepted by MNRA