Growth and public infrastructure

The paper analyzes a multicountry extension of the Barro model of productive public expenditure. In the presence of positive infrastructural externalities between countries, the provision of infrastructure will be inefficiently low if countries do not coordinate. This provides a role for a supranational body, such as the European Union, to coordinate the policies of the individual governments. It is shown how intervention by a supranational body can raise welfare by internalizing the infrastructural externality. Infrastructural externalities increase the importance of tax policy in the growth process and distribute the benefits of taxation across countries

Growth and Public Infrastructure

The paper analyzes a multi-country extension of the Barro model of productive public expenditure. In the presence of infrastructural externalities between countries the provision of infrastructure will be inefficiently low if countries do not coordinate. This provides a role for a supra-national body, such as the EU, to coordinate the policies of the individual governments. It is shown how the supranational body can ensure the efficient level of infrastructure provision and, as a result, obtain an increased rate of growth. The results of the paper also show how capital flows between countries act to equalize growth rates. This can help explain why there is limited empirical evidence for tax rates causing a difference in growth rates between countries. This is not the same as saying taxation does not affect growth: if production requires public infrastructure then taxation is needed for growth. The flow of capital acts to distribute the benefit of this across countries.

Tax fraud by firms and optimal auditing

Abstract Tax fraud is an issue of increasing importance in China. One particularly signi…cant fraud involves excessive claims for the rebate of VAT on exported goods. This fraud has two interesting features. First, it requires the collusion of an intermediary to supply the false documentation that supports a rebate application. Second, the punishment schedule is convex -with capital punishment used in major fraud cases. These features ensure that the payo¤ function of a …rm engaging in fraud is strictly concave in the level of fraud. This gives a well-de…ned optimization without the need to appeal to risk aversion. We show that the existence of fraud does not a¤ect the real output decision of the …rm nor the tax policy of the government. Audit resources can be used to detect …rms engaged in fraud as well as the intermediaries who supply false documents. Under reasonable assumptions it is shown that resources should be focused on detecting …rms and not intermediaries. Finally, if the government must take action on fraud a convex punishment scheme is shown to be optimal

A study of the perceptions among counselors and high school students regarding the need for a community college in Cape May County, New Jersey

The purpose of this study was to compare high school guidance counselors\u27 perceptions in general regarding college attendance with those of their graduating students. It was posited, as well, that guidance counselor rankings and the student rankings of five college-choice aspects would be related; namely, that the guidance counselors\u27 choices would be ranked in the same order that the high school students\u27 choices were ranked, and that the students\u27 choices would be significantly related to those aspects relevant to community college attendance. A pilot study was conducted first over phone interviews of the guidance counselors from the four public high schools in Cape May County, and two hundred high school senior students and 13 guidance counselors in the four public high schools located in Cape May County were polled. A total of 115 student surveys were used in the chi-square analysis of the rank-order of the categories, and the relevance of aspects of college choice germane to those used in community college selection was found to be significant at the .05 level of significance. Through clear and concise analysis using percentages and tables, it can be said that a vast majority of students who were not planning on attending a community college would entertain the idea of attending one located in Cape May County

Vascular dementia

Vascular dementia (VaD) is a common but heterogeneous condition in which there is a clear temporal relationship between the dementia and vascular disease. It may result from multiple large or small vessel strokes or a single strategic stroke. Subcortical ischaemic VaD includes multiple lacunes and subcortical arteriosclerotic encephalopathy (Binswanger’s disease) and imaging shows multiple deep white matter lesions or leukoaraiosis. Large vessel disease may result in VaD by causing multiple cortical and subcortical strokes, while strategic stroke VaD is caused by a single stroke in a specific area of the brain. On the basis of cinical features and imaging, definite, probable and possible VaD can be defined. Vascular risk factor reduction, particularly the use of antihypertensive agents, remains the most important means to prevent VaD. Treatment is limited although acetylcholinesterase inhibitors may have value. Treating behavioural symptoms may be difficult and newer antipsychotics as well as acetylcholinesterase inhibitor therapy should be considered.S Afr Psychiatry Rev 2003;6:16-2

Can Authority be Sustained while Balancing Accessibility and Formality?

Economics has developed into a quantitative discipline that makes extensive use of mathematical and statistical concepts. When writing a dictionary for economics undergraduates it has to be recognised that many users will not have sufficient training in mathematics to benefi t from formal definitions of mathematical and statistical concepts. In fact, it is more than likely that the user will want the dictionary to provide an accessible version of a definition that avoids mathematical notation. Providing a verbal description of a mathematical concept has the risk that the outcome is both verbose (compared to a definition using appropriate mathematical symbols) and imprecise. For the author of a dictionary this raises the question of how to resolve this conflict between accessibility and formal correctness. We use a range of examples from the Oxford Dictionary of Economics to illustrate this conflict and to assess the extent to which a non-formal definition can be viewed as authoritative

Multiple Quantum Well Structures As Optical Waveguides

This thesis is concerned with the design, fabrication and characterisation of semiconductor optical waveguides in which the high index guiding layer is a multiple quantum well structure (MQWS), consisting of alternate layers of high and low band gap semiconductors with the electrons and holes in the MQWS being confined to the low band gap material. This confinement in two dimensions alters greatly the electronic and optical properties of the MQWS in comparison to the bulk properties of the constituent layers. The basic concepts involved in MQW waveguides are introduced using an elementary quantum mechanical analysis of quantum wells together with a brief description of the properties of dielectric waveguides, A more detailed treatment of the electronic and optical properties of MQWS and a review of published experimental work is used to show that the fundamental absorption edge is much more abrupt than that in the corresponding bulk material with strong excitonic characteristics being evident even at room temperature. In addition, the absorption edge is seen to be anisotropic with the fundamental energy gap being larger for light polarised perpendicular to the MQW layers. This anisotropic absorption edge, together with the layered dielectric nature of MQWS, makes them birefringent with a smaller refractive index for light polarised perpendicular to the MQW layers. The quantum confinement of carriers in MQWS also enhances their electroabsorption and electro-optic properties through the quantum confined Stark effect. Standard techniques used in the design, fabrication and analysis of bulk semiconductor waveguides are developed for application to MQW waveguides. These include analytical and numerical techniques for the design of dielectric waveguides; dry etching and metallisation processes for the fabrication of devices; and a laser/optics system to analyse the waveguide devices. To verify these techniques they are first applied to the well-understood case of n/n+ GaAs waveguides and are used to successfully fabricate and analyse single-mode, passive, rib waveguides at l=1.15mum. The electro-optic coefficient is also measured in an active, planar n/n+ waveguide and found to be close to that reported by other workers. The design techniques are then applied to MOWS waveguides resulting in the design of a MQW double heterostructure (MQW-DH), p-i-n diode which was predicted to produce the required Quantum properties (strong, room temperature, excitonic behaviour), waveguide properties (single-mode propagation up to the fundamental absorption edge) and electronic properties (a high reverse bias breakdown voltage and uniform applied electric field). Most of the theoretical work and all the experimental work included is devoted to MQWS in the (Al,Ga)As, III-V semiconductor alloy system. Accordingly, the methods available for growing MQWS in this system are reviewed with Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) being found the most likely method to satisfactorily reproduce the desired structure. MQW-DH were grown at two establishments and are initially studied by photoluminescence and scanning electron microscopy before their planar optical waveguide characteristics are checked using the laser system. Only one sample is found to satisfy all the design requirements, and then only partially. Detailed analysis of the properties of MQW waveguides is therefore limited to this structure. Passive MQW-DH waveguides are demonstrated to exhibit an anisotropic absorption edge as predicted, and it is shown that the design and fabrication techniques developed can be successfully used to obtain single, double and multi-mode strip loaded waveguides. Single-mode waveguides are also used to fabricate passive directional couplers with coupling lengths in good agreement with theoretically predicted values. A semi-empirical model is put forward to describe the band edge electro-absorption of MQWS. Although simple, the model is in qualitative and approximate quantitative agreement with published results. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

E-Help: Community perspectives on help-seeking using electronic forms of communication

The provision of mental health services using telephones, the Internet, and mobile phones (e-help), has been widely recommended as part of a solution to closing the gap between high prevalence of mental illness and low rates of service uptake. However, little is known about how potential users of these services view them. To address this gap, three focus groups (N = 17, age 17 - 69 years) were conducted to explore general community perspectives on using e-help. Interpretative phenomenological analysis identified three themes with related subthemes: (1) awareness; (2) trust and feeling safe when seeking and using e-help; (3) it depends on the person really: e-help issues. This study found that many factors that may contribute to non-help-seeking for traditional forms of mental health services were also potential barriers to using e-help. The findings were integrated into a model of the help-seeking process. This model was discussed with relation to both e-help and general help-seeking for mental health concerns. Findings suggest that service developers and policy planners need to take into consideration people\u27s preferences for help and comfort with mode of communication. It was concluded that in order for e-help to fulfil its promise, it will need to overcome some of the same barriers that face more traditional modes of service delivery

The Impact of Country-level Characteristics on Cross-Border Merger and Acquisition Premiums

It is observed that merger premiums vary across countries. In this paper we study the impact of country-level characteristics on cross-border merger and acquisition premiums. By using principal component analysis to combine several existing country-level indices, we provide empirical evidence that stronger measures of legal and regulatory standards, investor protection, and corporate transparency lead to higher merger premiums in cross-border transactions. The results indicate that managers of the acquiring firm are willing to pay a higher premium to acquire a foreign target when they believe the risks of achieving merger synergies are lower, and that the market for corporate control is not an effective substitute for a formal legal and regulatory system that protects shareholders

Structure of the optimal income tax in the quasi-linear model

Author's draft: final version appears in International Journal of Economic Theory Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2007, p. 5-33. Available online on http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/Existing numerical characterizations of the optimal income tax have been based on a limited number of model specifications. As a result, they do not reveal which properties are general. We determine the optimal tax in the quasi-linear model under weaker assumptions than have previously been used; in particular, we remove the assumption of a lower bound on the utility of zero consumption and the need to permit negative labor incomes. A Monte Carlo analysis is then conducted in which economies are selected at random and the optimal tax function constructed. The results show that in a significant proportion of economies the marginal tax rate rises at low skills and falls at high. The average tax rate is equally likely to rise or fall with skill at low skill levels, rises in the majority of cases in the centre of the skill range, and falls at high skills. These results are consistent across all the specifications we test. We then extend the analysis to show that these results also hold for Cobb-Douglas utility