A Ricardian Model with Endogenous Comparative Advantage and Endogenous Trade Policy Regimes

This paper develops a general equilibrium model with transaction costs and endogenous and exogenous comparative advantages. In the model, the governments are allowed to choose between tariff war, tariff negotiation, and laissez faire regimes. The model shows that the level of division of labor and the volume of trade increase as transaction conditions improve. In the process of moving to a high level of division of labour, a country may receive more gains from trade even if its terms of trade deteriorate. This is because an expansion of the network size of division of labour can generate productivity gains that outweigh the adverse effect of the terms of trade deterioration. When a high level of division of labor occurs in general equilibrium, if both countries play a Nash tariff game, a tariff war may break out, which can dissipate all the gains from trade. Facing this risk, all governments would prefer trade negotiations to a trade war. A Nash tariff negotiation would result in zero tariff rates. If a medium level of division of labor occurs in general equilibrium, then unilateral tariff protection and unilateral laissez faire policies would coexist. The result provides a plausible story about the evolution of trade policy regimes, and highlights the importance of trade negotiations in achieving trade liberalization.inframarginal analysis of trade theory, Ricardo model, dual structure, underdevelopment

Detection of high-speed railway subsidence and geometry irregularity using terrestrial laser scanning

Subsidence and geometry deformation monitoring are essential for safe transportation on a high-speed railway. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is able to collect dense three-dimensional point data from the survey scene and achieve highly accurate measurements; therefore, it is considered to be one of the most promising surveying techniques for railway track geometry deformation monitoring. This paper proposes a new approach that uses TLS to detect subsidence and irregularities in a track by fitting boundaries of the cross section of the track. In addition, for a section of local railway, an outdoor experiment was performed to ascertain the feasibility and accuracy of this method. The deformations detected with TLS were compared with the field measurements gathered with other methods such as those from a track inspection car. The results indicate that the subsidence difference between TLS and precise leveling is 2–3 mm, and the difference in the geometric parameters of the tracks is 1–2 mm. Finally, the possible causes of error involved with TLS are discussed

E-commerce adoption by Taiwan entrepreneurs

[[abstract]]As one of leading countries in the digital economy, Taiwan has a significantly higher number of Internet hosts per capita. With Taiwan's manufacturing sector as a case study, this paper aims to explore the determinants of e-commerce adoption by manufacturers. Drawing on the database of the recent industrial census, the empirical results show that highquality human capital will benefit firms in engaging in technology-led organizational change, enabling them to further grasp the fruits of e-commerce. This research also confirms the firms with export orientation to have higher incentive to carry out Ecommerce. In addition, e-commerce popularity among incumbents, deeply and positively influence adoption of e-commerce by manufacturers.[[notice]]補正完畢[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20080618~20080620[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Dalian, Chin

Single-photon transport and mechanical NOON state generation in microcavity optomechanics

We investigate the single-photon transport in a single-mode optical fiber coupled to an optomechanical system in the single-photon strong-coupling regime. The single-photon transmission amplitude is analytically obtained with a real-space approach and the effects of thermal noises are studied via master-equation simulations. The results provide an explicit understanding of optomechanical interaction and offer a useful guide for manipulating single photons in optomechanical systems. Based on the theoretical framework, we further propose a scheme to generate the mechanical NOON states with arbitrary phonon numbers by measuring the sideband photons. The probability for generating the NOON state with five phonons is over 0.15.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure