Is There Really a “Border Effect”?

Abstract: The observed excess price variability in cross-border city pairs compared to that in withincountry city pairs has been defined as the “border effect.” We used a unique data set from cities that were in the same country at one time and were in two separate countries later on to examine the effects of the presence of a national border on price variability. Interestingly a border-like effect was detected even during the period when all the cities were in the same country. We also found a large border effect when cities were in two separate countries. However, we found no change in the price variability at crossborder city pairs during the periods both before and after the cities separated into two different countries. This finding suggests that the observed systematic higher variability of consumer prices in cross-border city pairs might not be due to the presence of a border as suggested in the literature

Novel Ion selective membranes

La capa mediante la técnica de capa se aplicó a modificar membrana de intercambio catiónico (FKB) para mejorar la selectividad de iones monovalentes de la membrana. Cationinc polielectrolito PDADMAC, PSS polielectrolito aniónico y polímero de ion híbrido PSBMA se utiliza para modificar FKB membrana de intercambio catiónico. Las membranas PEM modificado se caracterizaron por espectroscopia UV-Vis y el ángulo de contacto del agua. Rendimiento de la membrana se evaluó mediante la medición de la resistencia eléctrica, lo que limita la densidad de corriente y varios experimentos de difusión. A partir de la medición de la radiación UV-Vis, se obtuvo una relación lineal de la absorbancia en función del número de bicapas lo que significa que hemos depositado con éxito PEM en nuestro sustrato FKB y de manera estequiométrica. La membrana resistencias eléctricas y el ángulo de contacto del agua valores (CA) mostraron una tendencia alterna zig-zag debido a la potencial superficial cambio de capa más externa con cada deposición monocapa. Ángulo de contacto de agua oscilante mostró el comportamiento hidrofobicidad / hidrofilicidad debido al proceso de inversión de carga de superficie en cada deposición monocapa. Una buena propiedad de barrera con PEM se explica lo que puede mejorar la selectividad iónica cuando el número de bicapa es alta. Se encontró que la Ilim de bicapa 6,5 disminuye significativamente cuando se mide a 50 mM KCl entorno sal. La fuerte posibilidad es la exclusión y de capa alta interpenetración Donnan debido a la superficie positivo. Ion experimento transporte de iones únicos y el ion mixto (K + y Li +) por diálisis por difusión se llevó a cabo y se encontró que en bicapa 6,5, disminuye el flujo del K + significativamente a continuación, Li+, que en última instancia, reduce el K+ / Li+ selectividad. El hallazgo importante desde experimento de difusión es que la multicapa catiónico (bicapa 6,5) influyen en el valor de flujo como tal flujo de K+ disminuye más que el Li+, aparentemente selectividad de cualquiera de los compuestos puede ser cambiado por PEM multicapa sobre una membrana de intercambio catiónico. La razón se explica por la combinación de la exclusión de Donnan, radio iónico hidratado de K+ y Li+ y la carga superficial de la membrana

Infrastructure Provision and Macroeconomic Performance

Behavioral differences between economies where infrastructure is privately provided and where the government is the sole provider are examined in the context of a growing economy. The choice between private and public provision generates differences in the private sector\u27s ability to internalize capital utilization decisions and market prices along the equilibrium path. This in turn has a crucial impact on the effects of fiscal policy on resource allocation and welfare in each regime. If the government wants to stimulate infrastructure investment, a subsidy to private providers yields significantly higher welfare gains than an equivalent increase in direct government investment, even with lump-sum tax financing. On the other hand, an income tax is more distortionary under private than under government provision. In designing optimal fiscal policy, while a constant income tax-infrastructure subsidy combination is jointly required to attain the first-best equilibrium under private provision, the optimal income tax rate must be time-varying under government provision

Endogenous Private Transfer and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics in a Two-Sector Dependent Economy

Government to government transfers are treated understandably as exogenous in open economy macro models. Even private transfer like remittances are treated as exogenous in the extant literature. In this paper we examine the effects of endogenous private transfer (remittances) on the real exchange rates using a dynamic two-sector dependent economy model. We examine the effects of demand and supply shocks and found that the dynamic patterns for real exchange rates depends on endogeneity of the transfer and the factor intensity of the traded and non-traded sectors

Current Account Imbalances, Capital Accumulation, and Foreign Investment: A Theoretical Analysis of Interrelationships and Causalities

This paper develops a unified structure to examine the interrelationships between current account, foreign investment and domestic capital accumulation. In particular, we develop a twocountry, two-period model with international mobility of both physical and financial capital, and endogenous domestic capital accumulation. We consider cases where (i) current account is endogenous, but foreign investments are exogenous, and (ii) current account is exogenous, but foreign investments are endogenous. For (i), we examine how inflow and outflow of foreign physical capital affects current account and domestic investments. For the second case, we examine how an increase in current account deficit affects foreign investments

Real Exchange Rate Dynamics: The Role of Elastic Labor Supply

Empirical evidence suggests that the flexibility of labor supply is closely related to the dynamic adjustment of the real exchange rate. This paper investigates this relationship in a two-sector dependent economy model. While, the long-run equilibrium real exchange rate is independent of the elasticity of labor supply, our analysis confirms that the nature of the labor supply can be a crucially important determinant of its short-run dynamics. The extent to which this is so depends to some degree on the source of the underlying structural change that is driving the dynamics of the real exchange rate. Numerical simulations confirm that this mechanism may help explain the larger shortrun volatility and more rapid convergence typically associated with developing countries having less flexible labor markets

Elasticity of Substitution and the Persistence of the Deviation of the Real Exchange Rates

Empirical evidence suggests (i) that the real exchange rates of developing economies show less persistence than do those of more advanced economies and (ii) that the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor tends to increase from below unity for less developed economies to above one for more advanced economies. This paper shows how the introduction of sectoral adjustment costs in a two-sector model of a small open economy, together with CES production functions, provides a very natural explanation of this empirical regularity. Other aspects of the relationship between the technologies and the speed of convergence of the real exchange rate are also discussed

Airborne Residues of Paraquat, Glyphosate and Chlorpyrifos in Rice Fields of Sungai Besar, Selangor, Malaysia

Due to government subsidies and lack of labour, rice farmers in Malaysia generally use large amount of pesticides in a season starting from land preparation until maturity. The intensive use of pesticides has resulted into serious contamination of the environment, because substantial amount of agriculturally applied pesticides have been shown to become airborne during and after application that ultimately cause acute and chronic health hazards to field workers. In this study, airborne residue levels of three widely used pesticides (paraquat, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos) were determined in two rice seasons (wet and dry) at three sampling locations (Kampung Pasir Panjang, Kampung Simpang Lima and Kampung Sungai Panjang) in Sungai Besar, Malaysia. Air was sampled in 12h day time with a 4h sampling intervals at both pre-and post-spray sampling events by using three simple and low-cost passive samplers (cotton gauze, cellulose filter, and polyurethrane foam (PUF) samplers) and two active samplers (PUF plug and quartz filter cartridges). Moreover, air was pumped in the breathing zone of the spray operator to measure the possible amount of pesticides breathed in during field spraying. For accurate residue analysis of air samples, analytical method validation was performed that showed the fitness of methods for each compound undertaken in this study. Studies on passive sampler’s performance validation showed that the performance of passive samplers were consistent. Satisfactory correlation coefficient (r2 = 0.979) was observed in paired comparison between active and passive sampling methods, and passive sampling showed significantly better performance over active sampling method with respect to airborne residue measurement. Among the three passive air samplers, cotton gauze showed significantly the highest deposition for particle-bound pesticides – paraquat and glyphosate (15.56 and 2.49 ng/cm2, respectively), whereas PUF sampler showed the highest for vapor-bound pesticide – chlorpyrifos (48.80 ng/cm2). In active air samplers, paraquat and glyphosate residues were detected only in quartz fibre filter cartridges (0.52 and 0.10 μg/m3, respectively); on the other hand, chlorpyrifos was detected on PUF plug cartridges (2.54 μg/m3). Data on airborne residue measured in the rice growing area revealed that among the three compounds, glyphosate was measured in the lowest amount in the air followed by paraquat and chlorpyrifos. In day-long sampling events, however, virtually no residue was detected in any of the samples exposed in the pre-event sampling, and obviously, the highest airborne residue was measured during spraying at breathing zone of the spray operator, and subsequently the residue levels were drastically dropped in the postspray sessions. Moreover, in post-spray sampling sessions, the residue level was consistently higher during first 0-4 hours relative to that of second 4-8 hrs sampling events. Furthermore, residue amounts showed spatial (location-wise) as well as seasonal variations during which local environmental conditions, physiochemical properties of the compound and its application technique played very important role on pesticides atmospheric deposition. In comparison between rice seasons, residue amounts measured by passive and active sampling methods showed higher detection in dry season (18.83,8.59 ng/cm2 and 0.76, 0.28 μg/m3 for paraquat; 2.82, 1.03 ng/cm2 and 0.28, 0.06 μg/m3 for glyphosate; 48.62, 19.71 ng/cm2 and 4.19, 1.54 μg/m3 for chlorpyrifos, respectively) than that of wet season (13.68, 4.84 ng/cm2 and 0.56, 0.19 μg/m3 for paraquat; 1.62, 0.55 ng/cm2 and 0.13, 0.00 μg/m3 for glyphosate; 21.28, 9.36 ng/cm2 and 1.79, 0.54 μg/m3 for chlorpyrifos, respectively). However, seasonal variations showed insignificant effects on airborne residue for paraquat and glyphosate, but significant effect for chlorpyrifos. Interestingly, seasonal effect was insignificant for paraquat, glyphosate and chlorpyrifos on respirable residues (109.74, 32.50, 153.50 μg/m3 in wet season and 108.66, 31.73, 186.68 μg/m3 in dry season, respectively) in the air around the spray operator’s breathing zone during spraying in the field. In extrapolated field operators exposure assessment, both potential dermal (5 to 7 and 15 to 30 times, respectively) and inhalation (40 and 100 times, respectively) doses were higher than the proposed acceptable operators exposure level (AOEL) for paraquat and chlorpyrifos, whereas,both doses were far below the proposed AOEL for glyphosate

Accounting for City Real Exchange Rate Changes in India

We examine the role of non-traded goods in the city real exchange rate changes in India. Using the Mean Squared Error (MSE) decomposition we find that non-traded goods explain about 30% of the variation of the Indian city real exchange rate changes, rather than the small amount found in other cross-country studies. We also analyze the role of consumption elasticity of substitution between traded and non-traded goods