The Extent and Consequences of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that true wage changes have many fewer nominal cuts and more nominal freezes than reported nominal wage changes. The data overwhelmingly rejects a model of flexible wage changes and provides some evidence against a model of perfect downward rigidity in favor of a more general model. The more general model incorporates downward rigidity but specifies that nominal wage cuts may occur when large cuts would occur in the absence of wage rigidity. However, the results of the general model imply that nominal wage cuts are rare. We also analyze the personnel files of a large corporation and find cuts in base pay are rare and almost always associated with changes in full time status or a switch between compensation schemes involving incentives. Our evidence on the consequences of nominal wage rigidity is mixed. We find modest support for the hypothesis that workers who are overpaid because of nominal wage rigidity are less likely to quit.

Integrating business and personal income taxes

An examination of the problems surrounding the current corporate tax system, including a detailed look at several reform proposals from the Treasury Department.Corporations - Taxation ; Income tax

Structural precursor to freezing: An integral equation study

Recent simulation studies have drawn attention to the shoulder which forms in the second peak of the radial distribution function of hard-spheres at densities close to freezing and which is associated with local crystalline ordering in the dense fluid. We address this structural precursor to freezing using an inhomogeneous integral equation theory capable of describing local packing constraints to a high level of accuracy. The addition of a short-range attractive interaction leads to a well known broadening of the fluid-solid coexistence region as a function of attraction strength. The appearence of a shoulder in our calculated radial distribution functions is found to be consistent with the broadened coexistence region for a simple model potential, thus demonstrating that the shoulder is not exclusively a high density packing effect

Strengths and Silences: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in Rural and Small Town Schools

For more than 20 years, GLSEN has worked to make schools safer for all students; it has sought specifically to reduce the bullying and harassment targeted at students' sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students across the country, violence and harassment experienced in school affect their ability to learn. Although schools in urban areas are typically regarded as more violent or dangerous than schools in other areas, findings from our National School Climate Surveys consistently show that it is most often rural schools that may pose the greatest threats for LGBT students. It may be that community characteristics, such as religious and cultural traditions, income, and educational levels, influence individual beliefs and attitudes toward LGBT people in these areas. It may also be that a lack of positive LGBT-related school resources negatively affects LGBT students' school engagement and academic performance, particularly if they also experience bullying and harassment. Although research on the educational experiences of LGBT youth has grown considerably over the past 25 years, less is known about rural students specifically. This research report examines the experiences of LGBT students in small town and rural areas on matters related to biased language in schools, school safety, harassment and victimization, educational outcomes, school engagement, and LGBT-related resources and support. It also examines the prevalence and utility of LGBT-related resources in rural schools. Finally, this report concludes by advocating for more intentional policies, measures, and programs that protect LGBT students

Supercurrent conservation in the lattice Wess-Zumino model with Ginsparg-Wilson fermions

We study supercurrent conservation for the four-dimensional Wess-Zumino model formulated on the lattice. The formulation is one that has been discussed several times, and uses Ginsparg-Wilson fermions of the overlap (Neuberger) variety, together with an auxiliary fermion (plus superpartners), such that a lattice version of U(1)_R symmetry is exactly preserved in the limit of vanishing bare mass. We show that the almost naive supercurrent is conserved at one loop. By contrast we find that this is not true for Wilson fermions and a canonical scalar action. We provide nonperturbative evidence for the nonconservation of the supercurrent in Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

The Detection of Defects in a Niobium Tri-layer Process

Niobium (Nb) LTS processes are emerging as the technology for future ultra high-speed systems especially in the digital domain. As the number of Josephson Junctions (JJ) per chip has recently increased to around 90000, the quality of the process has to be assured so as to realize these complex circuits. Until now, very little or no information is available in the literature on how to achieve this. In this paper we present an approach and results of a study conducted on an RSFQ process. Measurements and SEM inspection were carried out on sample chips and a list of possible defects has been identified and described in detail. We have also developed test-structures for detection of the top-ranking defects, which will be used for yield analysis and the determination of the probability distribution of faults in the process. A test chip has been designed, based on the results of this study, and certain types of defects were introduced in the design to study the behavior of faulty junctions and interconnections