Income Skewness, Redistribution and Growth: A Reconciliation.

The so-called “fiscal policy approach" predicts that increases in income skewness should be associated with an intensification of redistributive efforts, at least in democracies. If redistribution is detrimental to growth, then this implies that a poor middle class is bad for long-run productivity; a prediction which has found empirical support. However, cross-country studies tend to find a negative association between income skewness and the amount of redistribution taking place, and, a positive relationship between redistributive taxation and growth. This paper offers a reconciliation of the existing theory and these puzzling findings. Specifically, the model predicts that the traditionally stipulated chains of causality holds within countries, whereas the puzzling correlations mentioned above may arise across countries. We provide a test of our explanation and find support for our approach using data on income taxes, taxes on property and expenditures on education.income distribution; political economy; endogenous growth

Off-farm income and farm capital accumulation: a farm-level data analysis

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/30/06.Farm Management,

Deglaciation of the Connectiut Valley: Vernon, Vermont, to Westmoreland, New Hampshire

Guidebook for field trips in southwestern New Hampshire, southeastern Vermont, and north-central Massachusetts: New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, 80th annual meeting, October 14, 15 and 16, 1988, Keene, New Hampshire: Trip A-

Route Aware Predictive Congestion Control Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Congestion in wireless sensor networks (WSN) may lead to packet losses or delayed delivery of important information rendering the WSN-based monitoring or control system useless. In this paper a routing-aware predictive congestion control (RPCC) yet decentralized scheme for WSN is presented that uses a combination of a hop by hop congestion control mechanism to maintain desired level of buffer occupancy, and a dynamic routing scheme that works in concert with the congestion control mechanism to forward the packets through less congested nodes. The proposed adaptive approach restricts the incoming traffic thus preventing buffer overflow while maintaining the rate through an adaptive back-off interval selection scheme. In addition, the optimal routing scheme diverts traffic from congested nodes through alternative paths in order to balance the load in the network, alleviating congestion. This load balancing of the routes will even out the congestion level throughout the network thus increasing throughput and reducing end to end delay. Closed-loop stability of the proposed hop-by-hop congestion control is demonstrated by using the Lyapunov-based approach. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme results in reduced end-to-end delays

Prediction of early race starts in Norwegian-Swedish Coldblooded Trotters

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Less than a third of Norwegian-Swedish Coldblooded Trotters (NSCTs) have started racing as three year olds since the year 2000 despite the fact that large sums are paid out as price-money in the three year season. Recruitment races are arranged by the Norwegian Trotting Association (NTA) to stimulate early training. The management of young horses varies considerably and a large majority is reared by amateurs. The aim of the present study was to identify predictors of early race starts in young NSCT horses under field conditions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Of the 801 registered NSCT horses born in 2005, 144 were randomly selected by stratified sampling with gender and paternal progeny as stratification factors. All horses were examined clinically. Further data were collected from NTA and by interviews of breeders, owners and trainers. The set of dependent variables consisted of "passed recruitment race", "start in regular race by the end of the three year season" and "start in regular race by the end of October in the four year season". Univariate and logistic regression analyses were performed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Genetic performance potential, as indicated by best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) indices, was the major predictor of the three dependent variables despite large variation in management. Dam's index was a better predictor than sire's index. However, the probability of early race starts in a horse with a low genetic performance potential can be increased by a favourable management. Examples of advantageous management factors in the present study were a flat pasture the first summer and early training. Nearly all horses racing in the three or four year seasons had passed a recruitment race in the two year season.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results confirm the value of the published BLUP index as an important tool for the NSCT breeding program. Recruitment races stimulate early training.</p