Schooling, Labour Force Quality and the Growth of Nations: Comment

Hanushek and Kimko (2000) concluded that, for a sample of nearly 80 countries, the quality of the labour force is significantly positively related to economic growth rates for the period 1960-1990 and is more important that mean years of schooling. In this paper, we further test the robustness of their result by firstly including in the original model a proxy for labour force health, and secondly by re-estimating the model for a later sample period. We conclude that the findings of Hanushek and Kimko are not robust to these changes. In particular, their measure of labour force quality is significantly but negatively related to economic growth rates for the later sample period.Labour force quality, labour force health, growth

TRADE REFORMS AND BREAKPOINTS IN AUSTRALIA’S MANUFACTURED TRADE: AN APPLICATION OF THE ZIVOT AND ANDREWS MODEL

Trade liberalization is expected to increase imports but also exports via reduced input costs and increased domestic competition. This paper investigates whether this is the case for Australian manufactured goods. We begin by briefly describing the trends in the effective rate of protection, imports and exports in Australia over the last 30 years and then investigate the existence of major structural breaks in the imports and exports series by applying the Zivot and Andrews (1992 )test, using annual time series data from 1968/69 to 2003/2004. We find that a significant structural break occurred for imports in 1988/1989, which coincides with the introduction of major trade liberalization policy. We also find a significant structural break for exports with the three-year lag in 1992/1993.Unit roots hypothesis, structural breaks, trade and Australia

Trade Reforms and Changes in Australian Manufactured Exports

This paper briefly describes the major reforms to Australian trade policy over the last 30 years and then explores whether these reforms have increased manufactured exports across 141 manufacturing branches over the period 1989/90 to 2000/01. We find that the declining level of protection over this period is associated with increased exports.Trade reforms, Australian manufactured exports

The Social Capital Experience of International Students in Australia: The Wollongong Experience

International university students arrive in their host country denuded of supporting social networks and confronting unfamiliar cultural and educational institutions, an experience that adversely impacts on their wellbeing and academic performance. Our study extends these general notions in the recent literature by investigating how, and to what extent, students renew their social networks. We adopt the social capital framework and conduct a participant survey in order to categorise and measure these different investments in clubs, employment, and friendships. Our results reveal a high degree of variability of social capital renewal between students and, among the more active, there remained a tendency to build close networks only with students from their own county of origin.Social capital, international students, Wollongong Australia

Drugs and Growth-Efficient Prevention: An Inter-temporal Portfolio of Machos, Narcos and Angels

In many countries substance abuse is a social epidemic. This paper deals conceptually with some macroeconomic aspects of widespread substance abuse with special reference to narcotic drugs. The labour force is divided into non-using and therefore fully productive workers, a number of whom are employed by the government in drug-use prevention, and only partially productive drug users. An efficient management of the nation’s portfolio of workers is taken to be the trajectory of drug-prevention that maximises the present value of the stream of the disposable national incomes.Substance abuse, labour productivity, national income

Macroeconomic Aspects of Substance Abuse: Diffusion, Productivity and Optimal Control

This paper deals dynamically with macroeconomic aspects of widespread substance abuse with a reference to illicit drugs as an example. Substance-abuse impedes the productivity of the labour force and subsequently economic growth. The labour force is divided into non-using and therefore fully productive workers, a number of whom are employed by the government in drug-control activities, and drug users who are only partially productive. An efficient management of the nation's portfolio of workers is taken to be the trajectory of drug-control that maximises the present value of the stream of disposable national incomes.Substance abuse, labour productivity, national income, optimal control

Income Disparities and Trends in Manufactured Exports Across the States and Territories of Australia: 1989/90 - 2000/01

This paper documents differences in the levels and growth rates of manufactured exports across the Australian states and territories over the period 1989/90 - 2000/01 and then re-interprets these differences using shift-share analysis. Our results suggest that the relative changes in state exports of manufactured goods have been substantial and seem in large part due to state specific characteristics that impact on state competitiveness.Income disparities, manufactured exports, Australian states

Statistics of Infima and Stopping Times of Entropy Production and Applications to Active Molecular Processes

We study the statistics of infima, stopping times and passage probabilities of entropy production in nonequilibrium steady states, and show that they are universal. We consider two examples of stopping times: first-passage times of entropy production and waiting times of stochastic processes, which are the times when a system reaches for the first time a given state. Our main results are: (i) the distribution of the global infimum of entropy production is exponential with mean equal to minus Boltzmann's constant; (ii) we find the exact expressions for the passage probabilities of entropy production to reach a given value; (iii) we derive a fluctuation theorem for stopping-time distributions of entropy production. These results have interesting implications for stochastic processes that can be discussed in simple colloidal systems and in active molecular processes. In particular, we show that the timing and statistics of discrete chemical transitions of molecular processes, such as, the steps of molecular motors, are governed by the statistics of entropy production. We also show that the extreme-value statistics of active molecular processes are governed by entropy production, for example, the infimum of entropy production of a motor can be related to the maximal excursion of a motor against the direction of an external force. Using this relation, we make predictions for the distribution of the maximum backtrack depth of RNA polymerases, which follows from our universal results for entropy-production infima.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figure

Integral Fluctuation Relations for Entropy Production at Stopping Times

A stopping time $T$ is the first time when a trajectory of a stochastic process satisfies a specific criterion. In this paper, we use martingale theory to derive the integral fluctuation relation $\langle e^{-S_{\rm tot}(T)}\rangle=1$ for the stochastic entropy production $S_{\rm tot}$ in a stationary physical system at stochastic stopping times $T$. This fluctuation relation implies the law $\langle S_{\rm tot}(T)\rangle\geq 0$, which states that it is not possible to reduce entropy on average, even by stopping a stochastic process at a stopping time, and which we call the second law of thermodynamics at stopping times. This law implies bounds on the average amount of heat and work a system can extract from its environment when stopped at a random time. Furthermore, the integral fluctuation relation implies that certain fluctuations of entropy production are universal or are bounded by universal functions. These universal properties descend from the integral fluctuation relation by selecting appropriate stopping times: for example, when $T$ is a first-passage time for entropy production, then we obtain a bound on the statistics of negative records of entropy production. We illustrate these results on simple models of nonequilibrium systems described by Langevin equations and reveal two interesting phenomena. First, we demonstrate that isothermal mesoscopic systems can extract on average heat from their environment when stopped at a cleverly chosen moment and the second law at stopping times provides a bound on the average extracted heat. Second, we demonstrate that the average efficiency at stopping times of an autonomous stochastic heat engines, such as Feymann's ratchet, can be larger than the Carnot efficiency and the second law of thermodynamics at stopping times provides a bound on the average efficiency at stopping times.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figure

Generic Properties of Stochastic Entropy Production

We derive an Ito stochastic differential equation for entropy production in nonequilibrium Langevin processes. Introducing a random-time transformation, entropy production obeys a one-dimensional drift-diffusion equation, independent of the underlying physical model. This transformation allows us to identify generic properties of entropy production. It also leads to an exact uncertainty equality relating the Fano factor of entropy production and the Fano factor of the random time, which we also generalize to non steady-state conditions.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures (contains Supplemental Material, 7 pages