Accession to the WTO. Computable General Equilibrium Analysis: the Case of Ukraine. Part II.

This research studies the accession of a transition country to the World Trade Organization on the case of Ukraine. Quantitative results are obtained by building a Computable General Equilibrium model in the mathematical programming language General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS). Four scenarios are simulated: 1) import tariffs reform; 2) improvement of exports access; 3) improvement of investment climate and 4) the scenario that combines previous three, or a full WTO accession. The results of the model show that in all scenarios there is growth of both exports and imports. By contrast, output and household consumption levels vary from scenario to scenario. The first two simulations, tariff reform and improvement of export access, show no significant change in domestic production and consumption. Thus, with expanded trade and practically the same output and consumption, Ukraine merely becomes more open and shifts to foreign trade. In the third scenario, improvement of investment climate has the most favourable results. Owning to better allocation of resources, both domestic production and consumption expand and the welfare of households increases by nearly 10% of consumption or 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The combined scenario shows a somewhat smaller but still significant improvement in welfare: over 8% of consumption or 1.8% of GDP

The regional electricity generation mix in Scotland: A portfolio selection approach

Standalone levelised cost assessments of electricity supply options miss an important contribution that renewable and non-fossil fuel technologies can make to the electricity portfolio: that of reducing the variability of electricity costs, and their potentially damaging impact upon economic activity. Portfolio theory applications to the electricity generation mix have shown that renewable technologies, their costs being largely uncorrelated with non-renewable technologies, can offer such benefits. We look at the existing Scottish generation mix and examine drivers of changes out to 2020. We assess recent scenarios for the Scottish generation mix in 2020 against mean-variance efficient portfolios of electricity-generating technologies. Each of the scenarios studied implies a portfolio cost of electricity that is between 22% and 38% higher than the portfolio cost of electricity in 2007. These scenarios prove to be “inefficient” in the sense that, for example, lower variance portfolios can be obtained without increasing portfolio costs, typically by expanding the share of renewables. As part of extensive sensitivity analysis, we find that Wave and Tidal technologies can contribute to lower risk electricity portfolios, while not increasing portfolio cost.Electricity generation mix, portfolio theory, regional energy policy

Methodology for the Development of Radar Control Systems for Flying Targets with an Artificially Reduced RCS

The article explores methods for detecting and tracking air targets in radar with an artificially reduced radar cross-section (RCS). A technique for control the radar antenna system using an adaptive method is presented, which is based on adapting the system to the conditions of information uncertainty due to fluctuations in the excitation signal of the radar target's radar-absorbing coating. Known methods of radar aircraft (active and passive, which do not take into account the structure of the coating of the aircraft) do not allow obtaining information about an air target with an artificially reduced RCS. The main contribution of this article is the development of radar and control methods based on the resonant frequency-phase interaction of the microwave electromagnetic field with the crystal structure of the radar absorbing coating of the aircraft. The stages of antenna system control based on the "frequency-phase detection method", "passive-active" tracking method, and "adaptive method" of antenna control have been studied. To test the proposed methods, an experiment was conducted to determine the transient process in the control system under conditions of information uncertainty. As a result of the experiment, the probability of tracking the target is increased by 14-19%. The findings will be useful for developers of radar and control systems for modern air facilities with an artificially reduced RCS

Do Remittances Cause Dutch Disease in Resource Poor Countries of Central Asia?

Dutch disease or resource curse is an adverse effect of high dependence on exports of natural resources, such as oil and gas, or other inflows, such as remittances or foreign aid. Dutch disease is known to lead to appreciation of the real exchange rate, decline in tradable sectors (mostly industry and agriculture) and surge in non-tradable sectors (services). This means unfavourable development of an economy where retail trade or construction would grow, but production sectors would be atrophied. Such economies become vulnerable and may suffer if inflow of currency from natural resources or remittances dries out. This study tests whether large inflow of foreign currency coming to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan from labour migrants has caused Dutch disease as described by Corden (1984) and Corden and Neary (1982): appreciation of the real exchange rate, decline in tradable sectors and surge in non-tradable sectors. Furthermore, the paper takes one step further and looks at this phenomenon from the point of view of importing Dutch disease from resource-rich countries to resource-poor countries. Results show that symptoms of Dutch disease are present in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. There is an evidence of deindustrialisation, higher growth rates and larger share of service sector in GDP. In addition, high oil prices showed strong appreciation effect on local currencies of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan indicating the transfer of Dutch disease from resource-rich Russia

Reserve Requirements as Implicit Taxation of Commercial Banks

Reserve requirements is viewed as very important instrument of the monetary policy, with the help of which Central Bank can influence at money supply and credit creation. At the same time this instrument imposes implicit tax on financial institutions, which are subject to this regulation. Reserve requirements in Ukraine stay at quite high level and the topic of this paper is analysis of such implicit taxation, its impact on economy and possible path of reforms in Ukraine. We argue that faced wit high reserve requirements and, as a consequence, diminishing revenues, commercial banks will try to pass as much costs as they can to their clients, widening interest rate spread. Eventual effect of high reserve requirements would be lower deposit rate, higher loan rate, less intermediation and aggregate investment that finally can lead to drop in output. In this paper we develop formal model of implicit taxation and provide empirical analysis, roughly estimating cost of reserve requirements for Ukrainian banking sector, which comes to almost 1 UAH bn per year. Further, we discuss policy issues and possibility of reducing reserve requirements and come to the conclusion that in Ukraine gradual decrease of required reserves is possible and indeed needed

EU Enlargement to the East and its Impact on Non-accessing Countries, Applied General Equilibrium Analysis

In March 1998, the EU formally launched accession negotiations with a number of countries. In this process there is a danger that countries of the new EU will switch to the trade inside the Union and non-accessing countries will face isolation, locking at the trade between them and lacking flows of foreign capital and new technologies, which can lead to the further gap in the regional development. Above all it concerns Former Soviet Union countries and in the paper the author investigates this issue. For this purpose the author employs Computable General Equilibrium Model, developed by Global Trade Analysis Project (USA). Database for the model is GTAP 4, in current research it was aggregated into 5 regions and 8 sectors of economy

Accession to the WTO. Computable General Equilibrium Analysis: the Case of Ukraine. Part II.

This research studies the accession of a transition country to the World Trade Organization on the case of Ukraine. Quantitative results are obtained by building a Computable General Equilibrium model in the mathematical programming language General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS). Four scenarios are simulated: 1) import tariffs reform; 2) improvement of exports access; 3) improvement of investment climate and 4) the scenario that combines previous three, or a full WTO accession. The results of the model show that in all scenarios there is growth of both exports and imports. By contrast, output and household consumption levels vary from scenario to scenario. The first two simulations, tariff reform and improvement of export access, show no significant change in domestic production and consumption. Thus, with expanded trade and practically the same output and consumption, Ukraine merely becomes more open and shifts to foreign trade. In the third scenario, improvement of investment climate has the most favourable results. Owning to better allocation of resources, both domestic production and consumption expand and the welfare of households increases by nearly 10% of consumption or 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The combined scenario shows a somewhat smaller but still significant improvement in welfare: over 8% of consumption or 1.8% of GDP

Impact of joining the WTO on Ukrainian ferrous metallurgy: subsidies vs. antidumping, is there really a trade-off?

Authors provide a case study of the impact of antidumping and subsidies in Ukrainian steel. They argue that that accession the WTO for Ukraine will require the elimination of subsidies to Ukrainian steel. This will result in a benefit to Ukraine in a decline in antidumping actions against Ukrainian steel in its export markets. The authors quantify the impacts. Contrary to popular discussion in Ukraine, they show that the reduction in subsidies in Ukraine will also benefit the country as a whole. So, despite losses to the producers of steel, accession to the WTO, which entails both subsidy reduction and reduced antidumping against its exports, should be a win-win situation for Ukraine

Engineering Practices of Determining Transmission Capacity and Delay of Interconnecting Line Taking into Account its Configuration and Cost

This article contains information on engineering practice of determining transmission capacity of computer network line. The article presents a variant of engineering synthesis of computer network, which is a combined process of mathematical and heuristic methods combining. The engineering synthesis is offered as vector and global, because it must result in network development, optimal in terms of its practical use. All the significant network quality indicators, including economic and practical, are taken into consideration. In case of engineering synthesis, it is not possible that only one quality indicator is significant: there are always at least two significant indicators – a cost and an indicator that characterizes the main effect that is achieved in case of network use (efficacy). If at least one of the quality indicators significant for practical use is not taken into account, such network cannot be considered optimal. Computer network synthesis usually consists of structure synthesis, parameters optimization and discrete network selection. If network topology is maintained unchanged, it is possible to formulate an optimization task for line transmission capacity. The solution of transmission capacity task, which is constantly changing, may be chosen as a starting point for the selection of discrete indicator of transmission capacity

Assessment of quality indicators of the automatic control system influence of accident interference

This work concentrates the analysis of the system of automatic control of the directive diagram of the moving active electronically scanned array with a limited number of transceiver modules. The analysis revealed a number of shortcomings that lead to a significant increase in standard deviations, quadratic integral estimates, and an increase in transient time. The identified disadvantages lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the antenna system, an increase in the error rate at the reception, the inability of the system to react to disturbances applied to any point of the system in the event of a mismatch of a given signal/noise level. In accordance with the analysis, the mathematical model of the automatic control system of the directional diagram of the moving active electronically scanned array was considered, considering this a new method of estimating the quality indicators of the automatic control diagram of the directional diagram of the active electronically scanned array in a random setting and disturbing action was developed. The difference between the proposed method and the existing method is in the construction of an automatic control system with differential coupling equivalent to the combination due to the introduction of derivatives of the random setting action of the open compensation connection