Retail Bottle Pricing at the Border: Evidence of Cross-Border Shopping, Fraudulent Redemptions, and Use Tax Evasion

This paper examines the pattern of retail prices for deposit eligible goods near Michigan’s borders. Michigan’s unique bottle redemption system and lower sales tax generate incentives for various potentially illegal household responses. Such incentives and behavior should be capitalized in the prices of affected goods. I empirically quantify the spatial price effects and find patterns consistent with theoretical predictions. Michigan’s border prices are higher (lower) for goods with higher (lower) per unit costs by up to 38%. Price-distance trends reflect the waning of these effects away from the border

Evaluating Expectations of Functionals of Brownian Motions: a Multilevel Idea

Prices of path dependent options may be modeled as expectations of functions of an infinite sequence of real variables. This talk presents recent work on bounding the error of such expectations using quasi-Monte Carlo algorithms. The expectation is approximated by an average of $n$ samples, and the functional of an infinite number of variables is approximated by a function of only $d$ variables. A multilevel algorithm employing a sum of sample averages, each with different truncated dimensions, $d_l$, and different sample sizes, $n_l$, yields faster convergence than a single level algorithm. This talk presents results in the worst-case error setting

Essays on the Interaction Effects of Policies Across Jurisdictions.

This dissertation analyzes the theoretical and empirical effects of cross-border policy dynamics, specifically state level bottle deposit-redemption systems and international corporate income taxation. As governments can only enact policies within their own jurisdictions, borders often become areas with policy discontinuities. Mobility of economic factors allows firms and consumers to take advantage/arbitrage across such divides. The presence of borders therefore carries important positive and normative policy implications. Chapter 1 analyzes the effect of Michigan's deposit-redemption system on Michigan as well as Indiana and Ohio, two bordering states with no such policy. In conjunction with a sales tax differential between the three states, households are theoretically able to fraudulently redeem out-of-state bottles and evade use taxes via cross-border shopping. I hypothesize that evidence of this behavior should be reflected in the patterns of retail prices for deposit eligible goods near these borders. Results from a simulated model of imperfect competition and mobile households suggest that the main determinant of prices is travel costs. I then empirically analyze an original dataset and find that retail prices are increasing and decreasing with distance from the border in Indiana/Ohio and Michigan, respectively. At the border, prices are generally higher on the Michigan side. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze the strategic interactions between corporate income taxes of countries that compete to attract mobile firms and capital. Specifically, I analyze the equilibrium revenue implications when competing countries offer preferential tax rates for targeted tax bases. Chapter 2 uses numerical methods to generalize existing theoretical literature in analyzing a less restrictive model of international tax competition. In the context of bilateral tax agreements, I find that countries with greater productivity and population asymmetry generate greater equilibrium revenues by allowing for preferential policies. Conversely, more symmetric countries would do better by banning such policies. Chapter 3 focuses specifically on the equilibrium revenue effect of cross-country profit correlation, i.e., the degree to which firms generate the same profits across different countries. As profit correlation decreases, preferential regimes become more revenue-dominant.PhDEconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99921/1/bniu_1.pd

Multi-level Monte Carlo algorithms for infinite-dimensional integration on RN

AbstractWe study randomized algorithms for numerical integration with respect to a product probability measure on the sequence space RN. We consider integrands from reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, whose kernels are superpositions of weighted tensor products. We combine tractability results for finite-dimensional integration with the multi-level technique to construct new algorithms for infinite-dimensional integration. These algorithms use variable subspace sampling, and we compare the power of variable and fixed subspace sampling by an analysis of minimal errors

Gravity-induced Wannier-Stark ladder in an optical lattice

We discuss the dynamics of ultracold atoms in an optical potential accelerated by gravity. The positions and widths of the Wannier-Stark ladder of resonances are obtained as metastable states. The metastable Wannier-Bloch states oscillate in a single band with the Bloch period. The width of the resonance gives the rate transition to the continuum.Comment: 5 pages + 8 eps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Chaos assisted tunnelling with cold atoms

In the context of quantum chaos, both theory and numerical analysis predict large fluctuations of the tunnelling transition probabilities when irregular dynamics is present at the classical level. We consider here the non-dissipative quantum evolution of cold atoms trapped in a time-dependent modulated periodic potential generated by two laser beams. We give some precise guidelines for the observation of chaos assisted tunnelling between invariant phase space structures paired by time-reversal symmetry.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. E ; 16 pages, 13 figures; figures of better quality can be found at http://www.phys.univ-tours.fr/~mouchet

Superfluidity of Bose-Einstein Condensate in An Optical Lattice: Landau-Zener Tunneling and Dynamical Instability

Superflow of Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice is represented by a Bloch wave, a plane wave with periodic modulation of the amplitude. We review the theoretical results on the interaction effects in the energy dispersion of the Bloch waves and in the linear stability of such waves. For sufficiently strong repulsion between the atoms, the lowest Bloch band develops a loop at the edge of the Brillouin zone, with the dramatic consequence of a finite probability of Landau-Zener tunneling even in the limit of a vanishing external force. Superfluidity can exist in the central region of the Brillouin zone in the presence of a repulsive interaction, beyond which Landau instability takes place where the system can lower its energy by making transition into states with smaller Bloch wavenumbers. In the outer part of the region of Landau instability, the Bloch waves are also dynamically unstable in the sense that a small initial deviation grows exponentially in time. In the inner region of Landau instability, a Bloch wave is dynamically stable in the absence of persistent external perturbations. Experimental implications of our findings will be discussed.Comment: A new section on tight-binding approximation is added with a new figur

Review of magnetic gear technologies and their applications in marine energy

The marine energy industry is in its early stages but has a large potential for growth. One of the most significant challenges is the reduction of operation and maintenance costs. Magnetic gears (MGs) offer the potential for long periods between maintenance intervals due to their frictionless torque transmission which could reduce these costs. This study presents a summary of the state of the art in MG technology and then investigates its potential for marine energy applications. A brief overview is given of the state of the marine energy industry and the environment in which marine energy converters (MECs) operate. A short history of MG development over the past century is then presented followed by a discussion of the leading MG technologies and their relative advantages. In order to demonstrate the potential of MGs in marine applications, the current technologies, i.e. mechanically geared and direct drive machines, are examined in terms of sizing, reliability and economic value using previous studies on a similar technology, namely wind. MGs are applied to four types of MECs to demonstrate how the technology can be incorporated. The potential to deploy at scale and potential obstacles to this are then discussed

A vision-based system to support tactical and physical analyses in futsal

This paper presents a vision-based system to support tactical and physical analyses of futsal teams. Most part of the current analyses in this sport are manually performed, while the existing solutions based on automatic approaches are frequently composed of costly and complex tools, developed for other kind of team sports, making it difficult their adoption by futsal teams. Our system, on the other hand, represents a simple yet efficient dedicated solution, which is based on the analyses of image sequences captured by a single stationary camera used to obtain top-view images of the entire court. We use adaptive background subtraction and blob analysis to detect players, as well as particle filters to track them in every video frame. The system determines the distance traveled by each player, his/her mean and maximum speeds, as well as generates heat maps that describe players’ occupancy during the match. To present the collected data, our system uses a specially developed mobile application. Experimental results with image sequences of an official match and a training match show that our system provides data with global mean tracking errors below 40 cm, demanding on 25 ms to process each frame and, thus, demonstrating its high application potential

Room Temperature Magnetically Ordered Polar Corundum GaFeO3 Displaying Magnetoelectric Coupling

The polar corundum structure type offers a route to new room temperature multiferroic materials, as the partial LiNbO3-type cation ordering that breaks inversion symmetry may be combined with long-range magnetic ordering of high spin d5 cations above room temperature in the AFeO3 system. We report the synthesis of a polar corundum GaFeO3 by a high-pressure, high-temperature route and demonstrate that its polarity arises from partial LiNbO3-type cation ordering by complementary use of neutron, X-ray, and electron diffraction methods. In situ neutron diffraction shows that the polar corundum forms directly from AlFeO3-type GaFeO3 under the synthesis conditions. The A3+/Fe3+ cations are shown to be more ordered in polar corundum GaFeO3 than in isostructural ScFeO3. This is explained by DFT calculations which indicate that the extent of ordering is dependent on the configurational entropy available to each system at the very different synthesis temperatures required to form their corundum structures. Polar corundum GaFeO3 exhibits weak ferromagnetism at room temperature that arises from its Fe2O3-like magnetic ordering, which persists to a temperature of 408 K. We demonstrate that the polarity and magnetization are coupled in this system with a measured linear magnetoelectric coupling coefficient of 0.057 ps/m. Such coupling is a prerequisite for potential applications of polar corundum materials in multiferroic/magnetoelectric devices