INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT MOTIVATIONS OF U.S. WINERIES

This study used personal and telephone interviews of wine industry executives and observers to examine the foreign direct investment motivations of U.S. wineries. Underlying most winery motivations was the recognition that U.S. wineries sense increasing pressure to offer a competitive range of wines that meet the price/quality needs of consumers and retailers in important markets and market segments. Wineries' marketing plans are often constrained by their ability to obtain adequate grape and juice supplies that meet important price and quality criteria, especially when domestic grape production drops. The importance of product portfolios and the industry's resource dependence have placed tremendous pressures on U.S. wineries to coordinate winegrape and juice acquisitions, especially as retailers consolidate their supply chains. Some U.S. wineries have invested abroad in response to these pressures while others have not. Interview results suggest that foreign investments by U.S. wineries were primarily motivated by the need for greater access to stable or adequate winegrape/juice supplies, the need for more control over the winegrape costs within given quality levels, and the desire to expand wine portfolios.International Relations/Trade,

Chargino Production and Decay in Photon-Photon-Collisions

We study the production and leptonic decay of charginos in collisions of polarized photon beams including the complete spin correlations. The photons can be generated by Compton backscattering of polarized laser pulses off a polarized electron beam. Since the production process is determined alone by the electromagnetic coupling of the charginos this process allows to study their decay dynamics. The cross section and the forward-backward asymmetry of the decay lepton are very sensitive to the gaugino mass parameter $M_1$ and to the sneutrino mass without any ambiguities.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX, Talk presented at the International Workshop on High Energy Photon Collider

EXPORT SUPPLY AND IMPORT DEMAND ELASTICITIES IN THE JAPANESE TEXTILE INDUSTRY: A PRODUCTION THEORY APPROACH

Agricultural goods are often treated as final goods in applied agricultural trade models. However, many agricultural traded goods are intermediate in nature. In this paper a production theory approach is applied in deriving export supply and import demand functions for the Japanese textile industry. The production theory approach derives import demand and export supply functions from the assumption of profit maximizing (cost minimizing) behavior. The behavioral implications of the profit maximization framework are used to specify producer supply and demand functions which are consistent with economic theory. Flexible functional forms are estimated in the econometric model and the concavity restrictions implied by economic theory are checked and imposed. Elasticities derived from the production theory approach are also compared with results based on a single equation specification of the aggregate import demand equation. A major shortcoming of the single equation approach is the lack of theoretical guidance for choosing the appropriate specification.International Relations/Trade,

Labeling Policies in Food Markets: Private Incentives, Public Intervention, and Welfare Effects

This study considers the welfare impact of labeling policies of agricultural commodities with specific characteristics. Using a model of vertical differentiation, the effects on equilibrium and welfare levels are calculated. The introduction of the regulation and the emergence of two differentiated competitive markets leaves consumers and high-quality producers better off, while low-quality producers are worse off. With high costs and low quality differences, the total welfare impact of the regulation can be negative. Findings show that when high-quality producers can exercise market power, the regulation could be more easily accepted by producers, but it would have a negative effect on consumers.asymmetric information, food markets, labeling, market power, vertical differentiation, welfare effects, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Do Macroeconomic Variables Affect the Agricultural Trade Sector? An Elasticities Analysis

International Relations/Trade,

LHC/ILC Interplay in SUSY Searches

Combined analyses at the Large Hadron Collider and at the International Linear Collider are important to reveal precisely the new physics model as, for instance, supersymmetry. Examples are presented where ILC results as input for LHC analyses could be crucial for the identification of signals as well as of the underlying model. The synergy of both colliders leads also to rather accurate SUSY parameter determination and powerful mass constraints even if the scalar particles have masses in the multi-TeV range.Comment: 5 pages, contribution to the proceedings of EPS0

DOES INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION RAISE PRODUCTIVITY IN FOOD INDUSTRIES?

This manuscript investigates the productivity-industrial concentration relationship in U.S. food industries. We identify a critical level of industrial concentration beyond which its relationship with productivity growth becomes negative. The welfare effects of an increase in concentration - productivity growth and deadweight loss- are computed. Welfare loss from increasing concentration is substantially offset by gains from productivity growth.Industrial Organization, Productivity Analysis,

Beam Polarization and Spin Correlation Effects in Chargino Production and Decay

We study chargino production e^+ e^- -> chi^+_1 chi^-_1 and the subsequent leptonic decay chi^-_1\to chi^0_1 e^- nu_e including the complete spin correlations between production and decay. We work out the advantages of polarizing the e^+ and e^- beams. We study in detail the polarized cross sections, the angular distribution and the forward--backward asymmetry of the decay electron. They can be used to determine the sneutrino mass m_{\tilde{\nu}_e}.Comment: 14 pages, 17 postscript figures, latex using epsfi