A Generalization of Plexes of Latin Squares

A $k$-plex of a latin square is a collection of cells representing each row, column, and symbol precisely $k$ times. The classic case of $k=1$ is more commonly known as a transversal. We introduce the concept of a $k$-weight, an integral weight function on the cells of a latin square whose row, column, and symbol sums are all $k$. We then show that several non-existence results about $k$-plexes can been seen as more general facts about $k$-weights and that the weight-analogues of several well-known existence conjectures for plexes actually hold for $k$-weights

Capital Stock Estimation in Hungary: A Brief Description of Methodolgy and Results

The capital stock in Hungary was estimated using two approaches: one based on the historical time series of investments and the other based on direct survey data. The two approaches resulted in significantly different levels of net capital stock estimations: the level estimated by cumulating investments is approximately 50 percent of the level calculated from the survey data. Although the historical investment series is considered to be less reliable, it was found that the investments-based estimation provides more acceptable results by international standards. During the estimation, several issues emerged that strongly relate to the transition process, and therefore have not been discussed in the “classical” literature on the capital stock. We found no reliable information on how to estimate the one-off depreciation of non-competitive capital assets that were activated before the 1990s and also found it difficult to give assumptions for the changes in service life before and after the transition period. However, the sensitivity analysis showed that the alternative assumptions lead to only slight differences in the estimated accumulation path of the capital stock, and consequently strengthened the hypothesis that our results were quite robust. We also made a crosscheck using the growth accounting framework, and found that the estimated capital stock generated a TFP dynamics that is in accordance with international experience.capital stock, Hungary

Can confidence indicators be useful to predict short term manufacturing growth?

In this study we investigate the usefulness of business survey data in forecasting Hungarian manufacturing output growth in the short run. We analyse the individual questions of the business surveys, and use models with different flexibility (factor model, best fitting and recursively best fitting model) to estimate the relationship between the business survey indicators and manufacturing output growth. The models are evaluated according to their forecasting performance. We generally find that although confidence indicators can be useful in forecasting manufacturing output in the short run, their forecasting ability is limited to a one-quarter horizon. For this reason their use in forecasting should mainly be restricted to nowcasting purposes.

Is China climbing up the quality ladder? Estimating cross country differences in product quality using Eurostat's COMEXT trade database

There is an ongoing debate in the literature about the quality content of Chinese exports and to what extent China imposes a threat to the market positions of advanced economies. While China’s export structure is very similar to that of the advanced world, its export unit values are well below the level of developed economies. Building on the assumption that unit values reflect quality the prevailing view of the literature is that China exports low quality varieties of the same products than its advanced competitors. This paper challenges this view by relaxing the assumption that unit values reflect quality. We derive the quality of Chinese exports to the European Union by estimating disaggregated demand functions from a discrete choice model. The paper has two major findings. First, China’s share on the European Union market is larger than would be justified by its relatively low average prices, implying that the quality of Chinese export products is relatively high compared to many competitors. Second, China has gained quality relative to other competitors since 1995, indicating that China is climbing up the quality ladder. The relatively high and improving quality of China’s exports may be explained by the increasing role of global production networks in China. JEL Classification: F1, F12, F14, F15, F23Chinese Exports, COMEXT database, Discrete Choice Model, Global Production Networks, Quality Ladder, Vertical Product Differentiation

Has emerging Asia decoupled? An analysis of production and trade linkages using the Asian international input-output table

Due to the emergence of global production networks, trade statistics have became less accurate in describing the dependence of emerging Asia on external demand. This paper analyses, using an update of the Asian International Input-Output (AIO) table, the interdependence of emerging Asian countries, the United States, the EU15, and Japan via trade and production linkages. According to the results, we do not find evidence of the decoupling of emerging Asia from the rest of the world. On the contrary, we find evidence on increasing trade integration, both globally and regionally. Nonetheless, our analysis indicates that emerging Asia’s dependence on exports is only about one-third of its GDP, i.e. well below the 50% exposure suggested by trade data. This finding can be explained by the high import content of exports in these economies, which is a result of the increasing segmentation of production across the region. JEL Classification: F14, C67, E23Asian International Input-Output table, decoupling, Emerging Asia, real linkages, resilience

Investigation into the Magnetoelectric Effect and Magnetic Properties of Iron-doped Cobalt Molybdate

The plausibility of revealing linear magnetoelectric coupling is investigated in the cobalt molybdate (Co2Mo3O8). Recently, Wang et al.[Scientific Reports. 2015;Vol. 5:Article 12268] showed that iron molybdate(Fe2Mo3O8) can be induced into a ferrimagnetic state from a nominal antiferromagnetic state via application of a magnetic field. As such, it may be possible that cobalt molybdate exhibits a similar effect intrinsically or with addition of iron dopant. Single crystals of the hexagonal molybdate (Co(1-x)Fe(x))2Mo3O8 (x=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) were synthesized via chemical vapour transport. The magnetic properties were investigated along the polar axis and in the basal plane. Despite doping with iron, no metamagnetic phase transition was present in (Co(1-x)Fe(x))2Mo3O8 (x=0.25, 0.5, 0.75). Low field measurements of the susceptibility reveal the presence of an anisotropic ferromagnetic-like moment, which is suppressed at moderate fields. This is believed to be a product of an exchange-bias-like phenomena, which is not fully understood. The magnetocapacitance was measured along the c-axis for x=(0.25, 0.5). Co1.5Fe0.5Mo3O8 exhibits the conventional magnetodielectric effect, with a proportionality constant of 5.1(0.3) x10^(-14) Oe^(-2) at 40K, while the capacitance of Co1Fe1Mo3O8 shows linear dependency on H, with slope -6.99(0.07) x10^(-9) Oe^(-1) at 49K