Deriving CGE Baselines from Macro-economic Projections

Quantitative policy analysts are usually confronted with the problem to derive a base-line scenario that reflects the most likely state of an economy in a future year. The methods used in practice to derive such a base-line scenarios are heterogeneous and range from the usage of the last observable year to complete and consistent estimation procedures. In the case of general equilibrium (CGE) analyses, the Scenar2020 project (European Commission 2006a) is one example how projections of macro-economic indicators (exogenous drivers) are used to construct the base-line as a model scenario: Starting from a calibrated version, exogenous variables are modified until macro-economic projections are met. However, numerous projections refer to economic indicators which are endogenous variables within the CGE framework, such as gross domestic product (GDP), market prices, or produced quantities. To investigate methods that allow integrating projections for endogenous CGE variables is the main topic of this study. Our starting point is the work by Arndt et al (2002), where entropy-based (Golan et al 1996) techniques are employed for the estimation of behavioural parameters by fitting a CGE model to time series on endogenous variables. Following this concept, we investigate a method to fit a CGE´s parameters and endogenous variables to market- and macro-economic projections from major research institutes.general equilibrium model, baseline construction, parameter estimation, macro-economic projections, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Internet Governance: the State of Play

The Global Forum on Internet Governance held by the UNICT Task Force in New York on 25-26 March concluded that Internet governance issues were many and complex. The Secretary-General's Working Group on Internet Governance will have to map out and navigate this complex terrain as it makes recommendations to the World Summit on an Information Society in 2005. To assist in this process, the Forum recommended, in the words of the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations at the closing session, that a matrix be developed "of all issues of Internet governance addressed by multilateral institutions, including gaps and concerns, to assist the Secretary-General in moving forward the agenda on these issues." This paper takes up the Deputy Secretary-General's challenge. It is an analysis of the state of play in Internet governance in different forums, with a view to showing: (1) what issues are being addressed (2) by whom, (3) what are the types of consideration that these issues receive and (4) what issues are not adequately addressed

Reply to ''Comment on 'Regularizing Capacity of Metabolic Networks' ''

In a recent paper [C. Marr, M. Mueller-Linow, and M.-T. Huett, Phys. Rev. E 75, 041917 (2007)] we discuss the pronounced potential of real metabolic network topologies, compared to randomized counterparts, to regularize complex binary dynamics. In their comment [P. Holme and M. Huss, arXiv:0705.4084v1], Holme and Huss criticize our approach and repeat our study with more realistic dynamics, where stylized reaction kinetics are implemented on sets of pairwise reactions. The authors find no dynamic difference between the reaction sets recreated from the metabolic networks and randomized counterparts. We reproduce the author's observation and find that their algorithm leads to a dynamical fragmentation and thus eliminates the topological information contained in the graphs. Hence, their approach cannot rule out a connection between the topology of metabolic networks and the ubiquity of steady states.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figure

Analysing the implication of the EU 20-10-20 targets for world vegetable oil production

The European Commission proposes a minimum of 10 % biofuels in the total transport fuel use by 2020. The new 10% minimum target in 2020 is combined with the existing regulation, which fixes the target at 5.75% in 2010. This paper will in particular investigates how a full implementation of the 20- 10-20 targets would affect production and trade of oil plants in the EU and its main trade partners on this commodity markets, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia. The global general equilibrium model GLOBE is used to carry out the policy scenarios and to assess the effects on oil palm plantation area in Malaysia and Indonesia. The results show that the increased EU bio-diesel target will not significantly influence the expansion of palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia.Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Reversability Of Arctic Sea Ice Retreat - A Conceptual Multi-Scale Modeling Approach

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2012The ice-albedo feedback has been identified as an important factor in the decay of the Arctic sea ice cover in a warming climate. Mechanisms of transition from perennial ice cover to seasonal ice cover are discussed in the literature; the existence of a tipping point is disputed. A newly developed regular network model for energy exchange and phase transition of an ice covered ocean mixed layer is introduced. The existence of bistability, a key ingredient for irreversibility, on local and regional scales is explored. It is shown in a spatially confined model that the asymptotic behavior and the existence of a parameter region of bistability strongly depend on the albedo parametrization. The spatial dynamics of sea ice retreat are studied for a high resolution latitudinal model of the ocean mixed layer. This regional model suggests that sea ice retreat is reversible. It is shown that laterally driven melt of thick multi-year sea ice, and thus, ice-albedo feedback, is an important mechanism in the transition from perennial to seasonal ice cover at the pole. Results are used to interpret observed changes in the recent ice extent and ice volume record. It is shown that the effectiveness of ice-albedo feedback strongly depends on the existence of lateral heat transfer mechanisms in the ocean

Regional Social Accounting Matrices for the EU27 (SAMNUTS2)

Agricultural polices in the EU are increasingly targeting not only the agricultural sector but also other economic branches. The indirect effects of these policies, as the rural development ones, might be as important as the direct ones, mainly on factor markets as labour. In addition, in order to better scale the adopted agricultural measures, policy makers are devoting more attention to the regionalized impacts of these policies. For these reasons, a pure partial-equilibrium agricultural model is not enough to account the effects of the EU agricultural policies. The development of regionalized Computable General Equilibrium models and the linkages with already developed regionalized agricultural partial equilibrium models is a fundamental step for agricultural economists. The greatest challenge to build a regional general equilibrium model for all EU27 NUTS2 regions is the database construction. This work show the main steps needed to construct such a database, called SAMNUTS2JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

An Inventory of Datasets for the Compilation of Regional Social Accounting Matrices for the EU

Due to the ever-increasing demand for model-based analyses of regional development policies in a multi-sector context, in 2009 the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) launched a project on the compilation of regional Social Accounting Matrices (SAM) for the NUTS2 regions of the EU (IOTNUTS2). The SAMs cover the time span between 2000 and 2005. This database shall permit general equilibrium analyses of policies like reforestation programmes, the promotion of investment in agro-tourism or environmental services, and the support for the production of renewable energy by farming enterprises, and, more generally, it will permit the evaluation of the rural development pillar of the European Common Agricultural Policy. Such measures primarily target the agricultural sector, but are likely to have an impact on other economic sectors and aggregate regional income, depending on the regional economic structure and the dominance of agriculture. Addressing regional heterogeneity requires multi-sector data on a sub-national scale. Such datasets are usually not sufficiently detailed, if available at all, which gave rise to numerous non-survey methods to generate regional Input-Output tables based on combinations of available regional indicators and national datasets (e.g. Location Quotients, GRIT methods). One particular challenge encountered during the IOTNUTS2 project was the high level of sectoral aggregation in regional branch accounts provided by ESTAT, where agriculture, forestry, and fisheries are merged for example. Given the interest in spillover effects of dominantly agricultural policies, more detailed information was required. Therefore, statistical organisations of the 27 EU Member States were contacted and the results of previous projects on regional databases were screened. This paper gives an overview of the compiled inventory on regional datasets for EU27, starting with the target structure of the database and the available national and regional datasets from ESTAT. Based on this, we discuss the datasets obtained from national statistical departments (NSO) and from previous projects with comparable aims. In general, we achieved a significant informational gain in comparison to the exclusive use of ESTAT datasets for several Member States although for some (i.e. Bulgaria) it was not as large as initially expected. Furthermore, we used the obtained NSO data to test the reliability of non-survey methods for the combination of national and regional datasets. It appeared that forestry, mining/quarrying, and fuel industries in particular displayed substantial deviations between derived indicators and those obtained from NSO, namely intermediate demand and gross output. For other branches, information could either be obtained (e.g. agriculture) or derived indicators proved to be close to the NSO values (most service sectors). In general, we conclude that for the majority of economic sectors considered, non-survey methods can generate reliable substitutes for otherwise collected indicators, but not for some critical branches which are usually concentrated in some regions and may dominate the regional economic structure (forestry, mining, fisheries). This result can be helpful for future projects with comparable objectives as we suggest that instead of attempting to sample economy-wide datasets, a focus on the mentioned critical sectors would provide higher marginal informational gains. The data collected from all the different sources are firstly utilized to populate national Input-Output tables for the EU 27 Member States. These matrices are then balanced following standard cross-entropy methods. These tables, with the suitable level of disaggregation, could be utilized as the starting point to update the EU Input-Output tables that IPTS provided to the GTAP Consortium.JRC.J.5-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Porównanie maksymalnego ciśnienia zamknięcia cewki moczowej mierzone cewnikiem typu mikrotip i cewnikiem wypełnionym powietrzem – badanie randomizowane

Background: Measurements of maximum urethral closure pressure (MUCP) are a part of urodynamic investigations preceding an incontinence surgery and a part of urethral function tests. Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare maximum urethral closure pressure determined by a microtip catheter with those measured by an air-charged catheter. Material and methods: A prospective randomized study in a tertiary referral centre. 122 female patients with urodynamic stress incontinence were randomly assigned to have their urethral pressure profi les measured at rest by both microtip and air-charged catheters. Intervention and Measurements: Each patient had three measurements taken by each catheter type. Means of the measurements were compared with regard to correlation and repeatability. For statistical analysis, an approach proposed by Bland-Altman was applied to assess the agreement between the two techniques. Results: Correlation coeffi cient between MUCP by the air-charged and the microtip catheter was r=0.8507(95% CI 0.7928 – 0.8934; pCel: Pomiar maksymalnego ciśnienia zamknięcia cewki moczowej (MUCP) jest częścią badania urodynamicznego poprzedzającego operacyjne leczenie nietrzymania moczu i częścią testow czynnościowych cewki moczowej. Celem pracy było porownanie maksymalnego ciśnienia zamknięcia cewki moczowej zmierzonego przy pomocy cewnika microtip i cewnika wypełnionego powietrzem. Materiał i metoda: Przeprowadzono prospektywne, randomizowane badanie w ośrodku trzeciego stopnia referencyjności. Do badania losowo włączono 122 kobiety z nietrzymaniem moczu, u których wykonywano profi l ciśnień w cewce moczowej w spoczynku przy pomocy zarówno cewnika microtip jak i cewnika wypełnionego powietrzem. Każda pacjentka miała wykonane trzy pomiary przy pomocy obu cewników. Średnie z pomiarów porównano w odniesieniu do korelacji i powtarzalności. Do celów statystycznych użyto metody Bland-Altmana oceniającej zgodność obu technik pomiarów. Wyniki: Współczynnik korelacji pomiędzy MUCP mierzonym cewnikiem powietrznym a cewnikiem microtip wynosił r=0,8507(95% CI 0,7928–0,8934;