Where Minimum Wage Bites Hard: The Introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage to a Low Wage Sector

Between 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the UK (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a large number of low paid workers and as such can be viewed as being very vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. We look at the impact on both wages and mployment. Our results suggest that the minimum wage raised the wages of a large number of care homes workers, causing a very big wage compression of the lower end of the wage distribution, thereby strongly reducing wage inequality. There is some evidence of employment and hours reductions after the minimum wage introduction, though the estimated effects are not that sizable given how heavily the wage structure was affected.

Contingent Valuation of Consumers’ Willingness-to-Pay for Organic Food in Argentina

Throughout these last years, organic agriculture has undergone a remarkable expansion due, among other things, to the greater interest shown by consumers aware of food safety concerns involving real or perceived quality risks [1]. This paper aims to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for organic food products available in the Argentinean domestic market, with a view to providing some useful insights to gain support and outline strategies for promotion of organic production, marketing, regulation, and labelling programs of organic food products. A Binomial Multiple Logistic Regression model is estimated with data from a food consumption survey conducted in Buenos Aires city, Argentina, in April 2005. The Contingent Valuation Method was chosen in order to calculate their WTP for five organic selected products: Regular Milk, Leafy Vegetables, Whole Wheat Flour, Fresh Chicken and Aromatic Herbs. The empirical results reveal that consumers are willing to pay a premium for these products and that although prices play an important role, lack of store availability and of a reliable regulatory system to mitigate quality risks constraint consumption of organic products in this country.Willingness-to-pay, Food attributes, Organics, Demand and Price Analysis,

Willingness to pay for organic food in Argentina: Evidence from a consumer survey

Most food markets do not count on complete information about food quality for consumers. Quality has become a key concept in the new approaches of the Demand Theory (Lancaster, 1966; Antle, 1999), and, therefore, food quality information has turned into a crucial factor when explaining the existing differences between demand profiles. Throughout these last years, organic agriculture has undergone a notorious expansion due, among other things, to the greater interest shown by consumers aware of food safety concerns involving real or potential quality risks perceptions. (Henson, 1996) This paper aims to estimate consumers´ willingness to pay (WTP) for organic food products available in the Argentinean domestic market, with a view to providing useful evidence to the government, and thus gain support in the promotion of organic production, regulation processes and labelling programs. The Contingent Valuation Method (Hanemann, 1984) was selected to estimate WTP. Data derives from a food consumption survey conducted in Buenos Aires city in April 2005. The parameters estimates for the selected products were obtained by applying a Binomial Multiple Logistic Regression. The results indicate that Argentinean consumers are willing to pay a price premium to acquire better quality products. Indeed, this is conditioned by the effective prices in the domestic market, in which price premiums range from 6% to 200%, thereby restricting their acquisition. Besides, the scarce availability of these healthy products has also become another meaningful obstacle for domestic consumption expansion in Argentina.Willingness to pay, Food quality attributes, Organic price premium, Argentina., Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Consumers' Perceptions about Food Quality Attributes and Their Incidence in Argentinean Organic Choices

There is an increasing consumers' concern for food safety and quality and, at the same time, there has been a significant market increment in differentiated or high value products consumption, including organic products. The lack of empirical research in Argentina regarding consumers' awareness of food safety brought our attention. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyse consumers' perceptions about the risk and quality attributes of food consumption; and to evaluate the incidence of these factors when buying organic products in Argentina. The Lancaster model (1966) provided the theoretical basis for the use of products attributes and characteristics to analyse the incidence of these attributes in consumers' choices. The data used in this study derives from a food consumption survey on organic and non-organic consumers conducted in Buenos Aires City, Argentina, in April 2005. According to consumers' perceptions, 67% were worried about their health, 79% take care in meals, 57% perceived the high risk of hormones and pesticides in food content and 91% of consumers are used to reading labels before or during their purchase. A Logit Binomial Regression Model was applied to explore which factors affected organic food consumption. The results yielded by this model suggest that the consumers with higher educational level, who eat healthy food, and consider food control organisms 'inefficient' are more likely to buy organic products. A high percentage of consumers read and trust label information in Argentina. This has interesting policy implications to promote differentiated and high value products, and to reduce information asymmetries.Food safety, Quality attributes, Consumers, Organics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q18, D1,

Swift Observations of the Be/X-ray Transient System 1A 1118-615

We report results of Swift observations for the high mass Be/X-ray binary system 1A 1118-615, during an outburst stage in January, 2009 and at a flaring stage in March, 2009. Using the epoch-folding method, we successfully detected a pulsed period of 407.69(2) sec in the outburst of January and of 407.26(1) sec after the flare detection in March. We find that the spectral detection for the source during outburst can be described by a blackbody model with a high temperature (kT ~ 1-3 keV) and a small radius (R ~ 1 km), indicating that the emission results from the polar cap of the neutron star. On the other hand, the spectra obtained after the outburst can further be described by adding an additional component with a lower temperature (kT ~ 0.1-0.2 keV) and a larger emission radius (R ~ 10-500 km), which indicates the emission from around the inner region of an accretion disk. We find that the thermal emission from the hot spot of the accreting neutron star dominates the radiation in outburst; the existence of both this X-ray contribution and the additional soft component suggest that the polar cap and the accretion disk emission might co-exist after the outburst. Because the two-blackbody signature at the flaring stage is a unique feature of 1A 1118-615, our spectral results may provide a new insight to interpret the X-ray emission for the accreting neutron star. The time separation between the three main outbursts of this system is ~17 years and it might be related to the orbital period. We derive and discuss the associated physical properties by assuming the elongated orbit for this specific Be/X-ray transient.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures and 4 tables; accepted by MNRA

Implementation of brute force algorithm for topology optimisation of wireless networks

The paper discusses the topology optimisation of wireless networks using a brute force algorithm. In order to reduce the computational complexity of the algorithm the multi-thread application has been implemented to conduct the optimisation procedure. The efficiency of the algorithm was verified using an example task where topology of a wireless network has been optimised under various criteria

A micro-econometric analysis of alcohol prohibition in India.

This thesis contributes to the understanding of alcohol prohibition by examining the causes and effects of prohibition policy in Indian states over 1957-2001. Chapter 2 examines the political economy of prohibition by using a state-level dataset to estimate the determinants of prohibition legislation. The analysis finds prohibition to be associated with the electoral cycle, legislature identity, lower relative strength of the alcohol industry, and the composition of state finances - in particular the share of central union excise. Chapter 3 focuses on the impact of prohibition on alcohol consumption using a series of cross sections of the National Sample Survey. Unit value analysis is conducted to estimate the impact on prices by alcohol group and uncover the demand and supply dynamics in the market. The relationship between alcohol, tobacco, and pan is examined using prohibition as an exogenous instrument, and the spill-over effects of policy on the demand for these goods are calculated. Prohibition is estimated to decrease alcohol participation by 26% with the effect varying by alcohol type and extent of prohibition. While both supply and demand shifts drive the decrease in consumption, the evidence suggests the deterrent effect of prohibition is significant. Tobacco and pan are found to be complements to alcohol and prohibition is associated with a fall in their demand. Chapter 4 focuses on the impact of prohibition on intrahousehold resource allocation by estimating Engel curves for broad categories of expenditure. The results indicate prohibition increased outlays for food and fuel with the magnitude of change being consistent with the reduction in alcohol estimated. The negative private and social effects of alcohol use are also examined. Prohibition led to a decrease in spurious liquor consumption and incidence of burglaries. However, it is associated with an increase in liver disease deaths and homicide rates