Mean Field Renormalization Group for the Boundary Magnetization of Strip Clusters

We analyze in some detail a recently proposed transfer matrix mean field approximation which yields the exact critical point for several two dimensional nearest neighbor Ising models. For the square lattice model we show explicitly that this approximation yields not only the exact critical point, but also the exact boundary magnetization of a semi--infinite Ising model, independent of the size of the strips used. Then we develop a new mean field renormalization group strategy based on this approximation and make connections with finite size scaling. Applying our strategy to the quadratic Ising and three--state Potts models we obtain results for the critical exponents which are in excellent agreement with the exact ones. In this way we also clarify some advantages and limitations of the mean field renormalization group approach.Comment: 16 pages (plain TeX) + 8 figures (PostScript, appended), POLFIS-TH.XX/9

Market Power in Hospital Markets and Selection in Health Insurance Markets

In many countries, market mechanisms are used to generate incentives for efficiency in health care markets. However, markets may suffer from market failures, resulting in an inefficient use of resources. A potentially important source of market failure in health care is insufficient competition between health care providers. In that case, health insurers are not able to bargain effectively with providers. Another potential source of market failure is that health insurance markets can by affected by selection problems and information frictions. Adverse selection can induce insurers to offer health plans with the goal to encourage self-selection by healthy individuals. Furthermore, information frictions may hamper optimal consumer choice in health insurance markets. This thesis examines empirically these market failures in the context of the Dutch health care system. It focuses on (i) market power in the provider market and (ii) selection and inertia in the insurance market

The Dick Pope Sr. Institute for Tourism Studies, Marketing Flyer

This pamphlet describes mission and services of the Dick Pope Sr. Institute for Tourism Studies

Tourism Specialization and Economic Output in Small Islands

Purpose– This study aims to investigate growth differentials among small islands and the impact of tourism specialization on the growth and the economic performance of small islands. Design/methodology/approach– The study is based on trade theory and uses data from a panel of small islands for 1995-2007. It applies panel regression and standard time series methods combined with a qualitative approach. Findings– Small islands experienced stronger basic patterns of growth than many developed countries, especially where economies of scale are not an issue. The findings further suggest that tourism specialization is not harmful to growth, and, in lieu of technological gaps and resource limitations, tourism specialization is a sound option. Size, a lack of complete sovereignty or independence and export orientation do not seem to affect the variance in the real per capita GDP at a greater degree. Finally, small islands may leverage returns to scale in global markets. Research limitations/ implications– While tourism specialization is assumed to enhance growth, in the case of small island destinations, the study did not formally test whether increased terms-of-trade may be perpetually improved. Practical implications– The study prompted four policy suggestions: small island economies should engage in tourism specialization; small island economies should allocate more resources to the tourism industry than other economic sectors; the success of tourism specialization does not depend exclusively on comparative advantage; and institutional realities and path dependence may play a role in economic performance. Originality/value– The originality of this study lies in the detection of a paradox in mainstream economics that indicates that small islands may not enjoy sustained economic growth. The detection led to a surprising discovery that tourism specialization may propel growth. The value of the study is twofold: theoretical value is added by suggesting a reconceptualization of the construct capital; and, practical value is strengthened in the sense that tourism specialization may only work under a condition where upon tourism offerings command higher prices than other commodities

The Significance of the 3000 B.P. Hoko River Waterlogged Fishing Camp in Our Overall Understanding of Southern Northwest Coast Cultural Evolution

The Hoko River site complex is located about 30 km from the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The complex consists of two temporally distinct areas of prehistoric occupation: an upriver waterlogged (wet) and adjoining (dry) campsite area dating from 3,000 to 2,200 B. P., and a rivermouth site within a large rockshelter, occupied from about 900 to 100 B. P. The chapter discusses how one would actually characterize the 2,500 to 3,000—year—old Hoko River fishing camp based on the simulation models predicting economic patterns, and as reflected by the archaeological remains from the wet and dry sites. It considers the prestorage and the storage model predictions to set the stage for evaluating this 3000 B. P. time period. Northwest Coast basketry and cordage artifacts provide senstitive data for hypothesizing continuity of cultural styles and general ethnic groups in the West Coast and the Puget Sound-Gulf of Georgia areas

Lachane Basketry and Cordage: A Technological, Functional and Comparative Study

Prehistoric basketry and cordage recovered from the Lachane site provide entirely new information concerning the prehistory of the northern Northwest Coast. These materials are analyzed for comparison at the level of attribute (mode), class (type) and functional category. Lachane basketry is compared to historic Tsimshian, Haida, and Tlingit basketry using different cluster analysis tests and the results clearly indicate a close degree of similarity between prehistoric Lachane and historic Tsimshian basketry. Since Lachane is in the heart of historic Tsimshian territory, these data support a model of Tsimshian cultural continuity. The Lachane cordage analysis demonstrates an emphasis on multi-strand, cedar bark, twisted cords. This is most similar to the cordage technology from the other northern wet site, Axeti, and in contrast to southern Northwest Coast wet site cordage technologies. This may indicate a northern, vs. southern, style of ropemaking. Both the Lachane basketry and cordage analyses demonstrate the sensitivity of these kinds of artifacts for prehistoric research on the Northwest Coast. La vannerie et le cordage recueillis du site Lachane fournissent de nouveaux renseignements concernant le prehistoire du nord de la Côte Ouest. On effectue une étuse comparative de ces objets en utilisant les caracteres (mode), les classes (types) et les categories fonctionnelles. On compare la vannerie de Lachane à la vannerie historique des Tsimshian, des Haida et des Tlingit en utilisant divers testes d'analyse vectorielle. Les résultats indiquent un degre 6troit de similitude entre la vannerie préhistorique et historique des Tsimshian. Comme Lachane est au coeur de l'évolution culturelle des Tsimshian, on en déduit une continuité culturelle. L'analyse du cordage de Lachane soulinge I'importance plac 130e sur les cordes tordues à brins multiples d'écorce de cédre. Ce cordage est similaire à la technique de cordage observée sur un autre site humide septentrional, Axeti, mais se trouve en contraste avec les techniques observées dans les sites humides au sud de la Côte Nord-ouest. Ceci peut indiquer un style, septentrional vs oriental, de fabrication de la corde. L'analyse de la vannerie et du cordage de Lachane démontre à quel point les objets de cette nature sont utiles à la recherche en préhistoire sur la Côte Nord-ouest

An evolving revolution in wet site research on the northwest coast of North America

Since 1950 AD, with the onset of larger-scale systematic archaeology on the southern Northwest Coast of North America, archaeologists have known that wet site deposits with perishable artefacts were occasionally encountered at the watertable depths of shellmidden excavations. The 1960s witnessed a testing of three large wet sites, Bider­bost, Hoko River and Ozette Village. The 1970s represented a flowering of wet site exploration, with ten sites hydrauli­cally excavated and reported in an overview conference volume. This peak decade of field investigations has been followed by attempts to incorporate the unique wet site data sets into the overall picture of Northwest Coast prehistory. Numerous surprises have arisen. The perishable artefacts demonstrate very contrary patterns of cultural evolution when compared with patterns represented by stone, bone and shell artefacts, causing a complete rethinking of the meaning of previously defined phase sequences along the Northwest Coast. The understanding of prehisioric eco­nomies and of the possible continuities of ethnic traditions has been greatly revised as well. Following England's Captain James Cook's visit to Noot­ka Sound on March 29, 1778, the Western world was first exposed to the unique and exceptionally rich hunter-fisher­gatherer cultures to be found along the Northwest Coast of North America (Fig. 12.1). Villages, or perhaps better termed towns, of thousands of people, with huge cedar plank houses, hundreds of large cedar dugout canoes, a stylized and large-scale art tradition, lived off efficient and intense fishing, hunting (including capture of even the largest mammal, the whale) and gathering of shellfish and plant foods. How these coastal people had evolved into the last re­maining highly complex societies based solely on hunting, fishing and gathering fascinated the. earliest North Ameri­can anthropologists, with considerable early ethnographic focus on recording their cultures. However the actual roots of this complexity could properly be approached only through archaeology, with one major problem: the majority of their often monumental structures, art and material cul­ture was made of wood and fibre. In fact Philip Drucker, one of the first anthropologists to explore the archaeological potential in this area in the late 1930s, attributed the long neglect of archaeological research on the Northwest Coast to "the belief that the coastal sites are small and few, that they are poor in artifactual material, and that much of what material they contain is so poorly preserved ... as to be irrecoverable

Forecasting Tourist Arrivals Using Origin Country Macroeconomics

This study utilizes both disaggregated data and macroeconomic indicators in order to examine the importance of the macroeconomic environment of origin countries for analysing destinations’ tourist arrivals. In particular, it is the first study to present strong empirical evidence that both of these features in tandem provide statistically significant information of tourist arrivals in Greece. The forecasting exercises presented in our analysis show that macroeconomic indicators conducive to better forecasts are mainly origin country-specific, thus highlighting the importance of considering the apparent sharp national contrasts among origin countries when investigating domestic tourist arrivals. Given the extent of the dependency of the Greek economy on tourism income, but also, given the perishable nature of the tourist product itself, results have important implications for policy makers in Greece

Prehistoric ethnicity on the Northwest Coast of North America: An evaluation of style in basketry and lithics

Resulting from the recent excavation of waterlogged (“wet”) sites on the Northwest Coast of North America, prehistoric basketry and cordage artifacts have become much more common. Since these artifacts have several unique diagnostic attributes, they become particularly useful as a new dimension for considering the meaning of Northwest Coast archaeological phase definitions. At the Hoko River wet/dry site, Olympic Peninsula, Washington State, we find a lithic component in the living areas (dry portion) which best “fits” the Locarno Beach Phase. This 2200–3000 B.P. fishing camp represents a westerly extension of this lithic artifact assemblage, typically found at this time period in the Gulf of Georgia. The abundant Hoko River perishable artifact assemblage found in the wet offshore areas demonstrates a distinctive style when compared to those from the classic and contemporary Locarno component from the Musqueam Northeast wet site (DhRt4) on the Fraser Delta. Therefore, what do the Locarno characteristics observed from lithic artifacts at Hoko River actually represent? From computer-assisted economic models of cultural evolution for the Hoko region, we propose that many groups of the southern Northwest Coast evolved through similareconomic stages or plateaus (best characterized by stone and bone artifact styles), yet retained distinct ethnic styles (best characterized by their basketry and cordage). Developing southern Northwest Coast groups may have passed through similareconomic plateaus that have become considered culturalphases or types, while the basketry and cordage artifacts may best represent continuity of cultural ethnicity through theseeconomic plateaus