47,499 research outputs found
Do product market regulations in upstream sectors curb productivity growth? Panel data evidence for OECD countries
The paper focuses on the influence of upstream competition for productivity outcomes in downstream sectors. This relation is illustrated with a neo-Schumpeterian theoretical model of innovation (Aghion et al., 1997) with market imperfections in the production of intermediate goods. In this context, upstream market imperfections create barriers to competition in downstream markets and upstream producers use their market power to share innovation rents sought by downstream firms. Thus, lack of competition in upstream markets curbs incentives to improve productivity downstream, negatively affecting productivity outcomes. We test this prediction by estimating an error correction model that differentiates the potential downstream effects of lack of upstream competition in situations close and far from the global technological frontier. We measure competition upstream with regulatory burden indicators derived from OECD data on sectoral product market regulation and the industry-level efficiency improvement and the distance to frontier variables by means of a multifactor productivity (MFP) index. Panel regressions are run for 15 OECD countries and 20 sectors over the 1985-2007 period with country, sector and year fixed effects. We find clear evidence that anticompetitive regulations in upstream sectors have curbed MFP growth downstream over the past 15 years. These effects tend to be strongest for observations (i.e. country/sector/period triads) that are close to the global technological frontier. Our results suggest that, measured at the average distance to frontier and average level of anticompetitive regulations, the marginal effect of increasing competition by easing such regulations is to increase MFP growth by between 1 and 1.5 per cent per year in the OECD countries covered by our sample. Our results are robust to changes in the way MFP and the regulatory burden indicators are constructed, as well as to variations in the sample of countries and/or sectors.Productivity, Growth, Regulations, Competition, Catch-up.
Near-Field Radio Holography of Large Reflector Antennas
We summarise the mathematical foundation of the holographic method of
measuring the reflector profile of an antenna or radio telescope. In
particular, we treat the case, where the signal source is located at a finite
distance from the antenna under test, necessitating the inclusion of the
so-called Fresnel field terms in the radiation integrals. We assume a ``full
phase'' system with reference receiver to provide the reference phase. We
describe in some detail the hardware and software implementation of the system
used for the holographic measurement of the 12m ALMA prototype submillimeter
antennas. We include a description of the practicalities of a measurement and
surface setting. The results for both the VertexRSI and AEC
(Alcatel-EIE-Consortium) prototype ALMA antennas are presented.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, to appear in IEEE Antennas and Propagation
Magazine, Vol. 49, No. 5, October 2007. Version 2 includes nice mug-shots of
the author
New Precision Electroweak Tests of SU(5) x U(1) Supergravity
We explore the one-loop electroweak radiative corrections in supergravity via explicit calculation of vacuum-polarization and
vertex-correction contributions to the and
parameters. Experimentally, these parameters are obtained from a global fit to
the set of observables , and . We
include -dependent effects, which induce a large systematic negative shift
on for light chargino masses (m_{\chi^\pm_1}\lsim70\GeV). The
(non-oblique) supersymmetric vertex corrections to \Zbb, which define the
parameter, show a significant positive shift for light chargino
masses, which for can be nearly compensated by a negative
shift from the charged Higgs contribution. We conclude that at the 90\%CL, for
m_t\lsim160\GeV the present experimental values of and
do not constrain in any way supergravity in
both no-scale and dilaton scenarios. On the other hand, for m_t\gsim160\GeV
the constraints on the parameter space become increasingly stricter. We
demonstrate this trend with a study of the m_t=170\GeV case, where only a
small region of parameter space, with \tan\beta\gsim4, remains allowed and
corresponds to light chargino masses (m_{\chi^\pm_1}\lsim70\GeV). Thus
supergravity combined with high-precision LEP data would
suggest the presence of light charginos if the top quark is not detected at the
Tevatron.Comment: LaTeX, 11 Pages+4 Figures(not included), the figures available upon
request as an uuencoded file(0.4MB) or 4 PS files from [email protected],
CERN-TH.7078/93, CTP-TAMU-68/93, ACT-24/9
SUSY signals at HERA in the no-scale flipped SU(5) supergravity model
Sparticle production and detection at HERA are studied within the recently
proposed no-scale flipped supergravity model. Among the various
reaction channels that could lead to sparticle production at HERA, only the
following are within its limit of sensitivity in this model: , where are the
two lightest neutralinos and is the lightest chargino. We study the
elastic and deep-inelastic contributions to the cross sections using the
Weizs\"acker-Williams approximation. We find that the most promising
supersymmetric production channel is right-handed selectron ()
plus first neutralino (), with one hard electron and missing energy
signature. The channel leads to comparable rates but also
allows jet final states. A right-handedly polarized electron beam at HERA would
shut off the latter channel and allow preferentially the former one. With an
integrated luminosity of {\cal L}=100\ipb, HERA can extend the present LEPI
lower bounds on by
\approx25\GeV, while {\cal L}=1000\ipb will make HERA competitive with
LEPII. We also show that the Leading Proton Spectrometer (LPS) at HERA is an
excellent supersymmetry detector which can provide indirect information about
the sparticle masses by measuring the leading proton longitudinal momentum
distribution.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures (available upon request as uuencoded file or
separate ps files), tex (harvmac) CTP-TAMU-15/93, CERN/LAA/93-1
Implications of a Sub-Threshold Resonance for Stellar Beryllium Depletion
Abundance measurements of the light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron
are playing an increasingly important role in the study of stellar physics.
Because these elements are easily destroyed in stars at temperatures 2--4
million K, the abundances in the surface convective zone are diagnostics of the
star's internal workings. Standard stellar models cannot explain depletion
patterns observed in low mass stars, and so are not accounting for all the
relevant physical processes. These processes have important implications for
stellar evolution and primordial lithium production in big bang
nucleosynthesis. Because beryllium is destroyed at slightly higher temperatures
than lithium, observations of both light elements can differentiate between the
various proposed depletion mechanisms. Unfortunately, the reaction rate for the
main destruction channel, 9Be(p,alpha)6Li, is uncertain. A level in the
compound nucleus 10B is only 25.7 keV below the reaction's energetic threshold.
The angular momentum and parity of this level are not well known; current
estimates indicate that the resonance entrance channel is either s- or d-wave.
We show that an s-wave resonance can easily increase the reaction rate by an
order of magnitude at temperatures of approximately 4 million K. Observations
of sub-solar mass stars can constrain the strength of the resonance, as can
experimental measurements at lab energies lower than 30 keV.Comment: 9 pages, 1 ps figure, uses AASTeX macros and epsfig.sty. Reference
added, typos corrected. To appear in ApJ, 10 March 199
Time as a limited resource: Communication Strategy in Mobile Phone Networks
We used a large database of 9 billion calls from 20 million mobile users to
examine the relationships between aggregated time spent on the phone, personal
network size, tie strength and the way in which users distributed their limited
time across their network (disparity). Compared to those with smaller networks,
those with large networks did not devote proportionally more time to
communication and had on average weaker ties (as measured by time spent
communicating). Further, there were not substantially different levels of
disparity between individuals, in that mobile users tend to distribute their
time very unevenly across their network, with a large proportion of calls going
to a small number of individuals. Together, these results suggest that there
are time constraints which limit tie strength in large personal networks, and
that even high levels of mobile communication do not fundamentally alter the
disparity of time allocation across networks.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Social Network
Precision Electroweak Tests of the Minimal and Flipped SU(5) Supergravity Models
We explore the one-loop electroweak radiative corrections in the minimal
and the no-scale flipped supergravity models via explicit
calculation of vacuum polarization contributions to the
parameters. Experimentally, are obtained from a global fit
to the LEP observables, and measurements. We include -dependent
effects which have been neglected in most previous ``model-independent"
analyses of this type. These effects induce a large systematic negative shift
on for light chargino masses (m_{\chi^\pm_1}\lsim70\GeV).
In agreement with previous general arguments, we find that for increasingly
large sparticle masses, the heavy sector of both models rapidly decouples, \ie,
the values for quickly asymptote to the Standard Model
values with a {\it light} Higgs (m_{H_{SM}}\sim100\GeV). Specifically, at
present the CL upper limit on the top-quark mass is m_t\lsim175\GeV in
the no-scale flipped supergravity model. These bounds can be
strengthened for increasing chargino masses in the 50-100\GeV interval. In
particular, for m_t\gsim160\GeV, the Tevatron may be able to probe through
gluino() and squark() production up to m_{\tilde g}\approx
m_{\tilde q}\approx250\GeV, exploring at least half of the parameter space in
this model.Comment: 15 pages,(6 ps figures available upon request), TeX(harvmac),
CTP-TAMU-19/93, ACT-07/9
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