Deregulation of conveyancing markets in England and Wales

There has been much concern in recent years with whether the ‘privilege’ of self- regulation accorded to the professions works for or against the public interest (Federal Trade Commission, 1984; Monopolies and Mergers Commission, 1970, 1976a and 1976b; Department of Trade and Industry, 1989; Courts and Legal Services Act, 1990). Ogus (1993) argues that ‘Self-regulation has had a bad press’ and that ‘most of this criticism is well-founded in relation to some forms of self- regulation’. Economists have been, traditionally, highly critical of many aspects of professional self-regulation.2 More recently, there has been a greater awareness of the informational asymmetry inherent in professional markets which demands some protection for the (infrequent) consumer of personal professional services (see, for example, Dingwall and Fenn (1987)). Commentators have identified three principal instruments of such selfregulators which work against the public interest: (1) restrictions on entry; (2) restrictions on fee competition; and (3) restrictions on advertising and other means of promoting a competitive process within the profession.

Triangular buckling patterns of twisted inextensible strips

When twisting a strip of paper or acetate under high longitudinal tension, one observes, at some critical load, a buckling of the strip into a regular triangular pattern. Very similar triangular facets have recently been observed in solutions to a new set of geometrically-exact equations describing the equilibrium shape of thin inextensible elastic strips. Here we formulate a modified boundary-value problem for these equations and construct post-buckling solutions in good agreement with the observed pattern in twisted strips. We also study the force-extension and moment-twist behaviour of these strips by varying the mode number n of triangular facets

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION ON PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY STRUCTURE

Environmental regulations are hypothesized to have an impact on industry structure in manufacturing industries. A nonstationary Markov chain analysis shows that the capital expenditures required to meet environmental regulations is a statistically significant variable explaining increasing concentration of production capacity in the pulp and paper industry.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Sudden collapse of a colloidal gel

Metastable gels formed by weakly attractive colloidal particles display a distinctive two-stage time-dependent settling behavior under their own weight. Initially a space-spanning network is formed that for a characteristic time, which we define as the lag time \taud, resists compaction. This solid-like behavior persists only for a limited time. Gels whose age \tw is greater than \taud yield and suddenly collapse. We use a combination of confocal microscopy, rheology and time-lapse video imaging to investigate both the process of sudden collapse and its microscopic origin in an refractive-index matched emulsion-polymer system. We show that the height $h$ of the gel in the early stages of collapse is well described by the surprisingly simple expression, h(\ts) = \h0 - A \ts^{3/2}, with \h0 the initial height and \ts = \tw-\taud the time counted from the instant where the gel first yields. We propose that this unexpected result arises because the colloidal network progressively builds up internal stress as a consequence of localized rearrangement events which leads ultimately to collapse as thermal equilibrium is re-established.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, final versio

Relativistic theory of tidal Love numbers

In Newtonian gravitational theory, a tidal Love number relates the mass multipole moment created by tidal forces on a spherical body to the applied tidal field. The Love number is dimensionless, and it encodes information about the body's internal structure. We present a relativistic theory of Love numbers, which applies to compact bodies with strong internal gravities; the theory extends and completes a recent work by Flanagan and Hinderer, which revealed that the tidal Love number of a neutron star can be measured by Earth-based gravitational-wave detectors. We consider a spherical body deformed by an external tidal field, and provide precise and meaningful definitions for electric-type and magnetic-type Love numbers; and these are computed for polytropic equations of state. The theory applies to black holes as well, and we find that the relativistic Love numbers of a nonrotating black hole are all zero.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, many tables; final version to be published in Physical Review

On the Equilibrium of a Thin Elastic Spherical Bowl

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When Consumers Diet, Should Producers Care? An Examination of Low-Carb Dieting and U.S. Orange Juice Consumption

From 2000 through 2004, per-capita orange juice purchases decreased by 12.3 percent in the United States, while the popularity and media coverage of low-carbohydrate dieting exploded. Content analysis was used to count selected newspaper articles topically related to low-carbohydrate dieting, the Atkins diet, and the South Beach diet. These data were included in a national orange juice demand model, where purchase data served as the independent variable and proxy for consumer demand of orange juice. Results indicate that media coverage of low-carbohydrate diets and dieting was negatively and significantly related to demand for orange juice in the United States.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

CHANGING PATTERNS OF ORANGE JUICE CONSUMPTION IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES

From 2000 through 2004, per capita orange juice purchases decreased by 12.3 percent while the popularity and media coverage of low-carbohydrate dieting exploded. Content analysis was used to count selected Southern region newspaper articles topically related to low-carbohydrate dieting, the Atkins diet, and the South Beach diet. This data was included in a Southern region orange juice demand model, where purchase data served as the independent variable and proxy for consumer demand of orange juice. Results indicated that media coverage of low-carbohydrate diets and dieting was negatively and significantly related to demand for orange juice in the Southern region.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Exporting and productivity in business services:evidence from the United States

Does exporting make firms more productive, or do more productive firms choose to become exporters? This paper considers the link between exporting and productivity for a sample of firms in US business services. We find that larger, more productive firms are more likely to become exporters, but that these factors do not necessarily influence the extent of exporting. This conforms with previous literature that there is a self-selection effect into exporting. We then test for the effect of exporting on productivity levels after allowing for this selection effect. We model both the relationship between exporting and productivity, and a simultaneous relationship between export intensity and productivity after allowing for selection bias. In both cases we find an association, indicating that productivity is positively linked both to exporting and to increased exposure to international markets