Fiscal policy in a depressed economy : was there a ‘free lunch’ in 1930s’ Britain?

We report estimates of the fiscal multiplier for interwar Britain based on quarterly data and timeseries econometrics. We find that the government-expenditure multiplier was in the range 0.3 to 0.9 even during the period that interest rates were at the lower bound. The scope for a ‘Keynesian solution’to recession was much less than is generally supposed. In the later 1930s but not before Britain’s exit from the gold standard, there was a ‘fiscal free lunch’in that deficit-financed government spending would have improved public finances enough to pay for the interest on the extra debt

Rearmament to the rescue? New estimates of the impact of ‘Keynesian’ policies in 1930s’ Britain

We report estimates of the fiscal multiplier for interwar Britain based on quarterly data, time-series econometrics, and ‘defense news’. We find that the government expenditure multiplier was in the range 0.3 to 0.8, much lower than previous estimates. The scope for a Keynesian solution to recession was less than is generally supposed. We find that rearmament gave a smaller boost to real GDP than previously claimed. Rearmament may, however, have had a larger impact than a temporary public works program of similar magnitude if private investment anticipated the need to add capacity to cope with future defense spending

A theoretical/experimental program to develop active optical pollution sensors

Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology was applied to the assessment of air quality, and its usefulness was evaluated by actual field tests. Necessary hardware was successfully constructed and operated in the field. Measurements of necessary physical parameters, such as SO2 absorption coefficients were successfully completed and theoretical predictions of differential absorption performance were reported. Plume modeling improvements were proposed. A full scale field test of equipment, data analysis and auxiliary data support was conducted in Maryland during September 1976

Self-defeating austerity? Evidence from 1930s' Britain

Self-defeating austerity entails “perverse effects” of fiscal consolidation such that fiscal indicators deteriorate. Inter alia, this depends on the size of the fiscal multiplier as Keynes (1933. The Means to Prosperity. London: Macmillan) underlined. We find that the government-expenditure multiplier was less than 1 in 1930s' Britain. Austerity was not self-defeating in the long run and even its initial impact probably did not raise the public debt-to-GDP ratio. In the later 1930s, there was a “fiscal free lunch” in that deficit-financed government spending would have improved public finances enough to pay for the interest on the extra debt

Six centuries of British economic growth : a time-series perspective

This paper provides a time-series analysis of recent annual estimates of real GDP and industrial output covering 1270–1913. We show that growth can be regarded as a segmented trend-stationary process. On this basis, we find that trend growth of real GDP per person was zero prior to the 1660s but then experienced two significant accelerations, pre- and post-industrial revolution. We also find that the hallmark of the industrial revolution is a substantial increase in the trend rate of growth of industrial output rather than being an episode of difference stationary growth

Predicting medium-term TFP growth in the United States : econometrics vs ‘techno-optimism’

We analyse TFP growth in the US business sector using a basic unobserved component model where trend growth follows a random walk and the noise is a first order autoregression. This is fitted using a Kalman-filter methodology. We find that trend TFP growth has declined steadily from 1.5 to 1.0 per cent per year over the past 50 years. Nevertheless, recent trends are not a good guide to actual medium-term TFP growth. This exhibits substantial variations and is quite unpredictable. Techno-optimists should not give best to productivity pessimists simply because recent TFP growth has been weak

Positronium Hyperfine Splitting in Non-commutative Space at the Order α6\alpha^6

We obtain positronium Hyperfine Splitting owing to the non-commutativity of space and show that, in the leading order, it is proportional to $\theta \alpha^6$ where, $\theta$ is the parameter of non-commutativity. It is also shown that spatial non-commutativity splits the spacing between $n=2$ triplet excited levels $E(2^3S_1)\to E(2^3P_2)$ which provides an experimental test on the non-commutativity of space.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Non linear fields in the SPS and their compensation

Tight tolerances were placed upon non-linearities in the SPS magnet system and sextupoles installed to adjust the chromaticity of the machine. These sextupoles together with octupoles and active damping were used to adjust the SPS beam dynamics and to damp and suppress both multibunch and single bunch transverse instabilities up to 10/sup 13/ protons per pulse. (4 refs)

About the parabolic relation existing between the skewness and the kurtosis in time series of experimental data

In this work we investigate the origin of the parabolic relation between skewness and kurtosis often encountered in the analysis of experimental time-series. We argue that the numerical values of the coefficients of the curve may provide informations about the specific physics of the system studied, whereas the analytical curve per se is a fairly general consequence of a few constraints expected to hold for most systems.Comment: To appear in Physica Script

Surface spin-flop and discommensuration transitions in antiferromagnets

Phase diagrams as a function of anisotropy $D$ and magnetic field $H$ are obtained for discommensurations and surface states for an antiferromagnet in which $H$ is parallel to the easy axis, by modeling it using the ground states of a one-dimensional chain of classical XY spins. A surface spin-flop phase exists for all $D$, but the interval in $H$ over which it is stable becomes extremely small as $D$ goes to zero. First-order transitions, separating different surface states and ending in critical points, exist inside the surface spin-flop region. They accumulate at a field $H'$ (depending on $D$) significantly less than the value $H_{SF}$ for a bulk spin-flop transition. For $H' < H < H_{SF}$ there is no surface spin-flop phase in the strict sense; instead, the surface restructures by, in effect, producing a discommensuration infinitely far away in the bulk. The results are used to explain in detail the phase transitions occurring in systems consisting of a finite, even number of layers.Comment: Revtex 17 pages, 15 figure