Predicting the poverty impacts of trade reform

An important area of research in recent years involves assessing the microeconomic implications of macro-level policies-particularly those related to international trade. While a wide range of research methodologies are available for assessing the microeconomic incidence of micro-policies, as well as for assessing the effect of macro-level policies on markets and broad groups of households, there is a gap when it comes to eliciting the disaggregated household and firm level effects of trade policies. Recent research addresses this knowledge gap and the present survey offers an overview of this literature. The preponderance of the evidence from the studies encompassed by this survey points to the dominance of earnings-side effects over consumption-side effects of trade reform. This is problematic, since household surveys are notable for their underreporting of income. From the perspective of the poor, it is the market for unskilled labor that is most important. The poverty effects of trade policy often hinge crucially on how well the increased demand for labor in one part of the economy is transmitted to the rest of the economy by way of increased wages, increased employment, or both. Further econometric research aimed at discriminating between competing factor mobility hypotheses is urgently needed.Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Assessment,Achieving Shared Growth,Health Economics&Finance

A New Determination Of The Diffuse Galactic and Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Emission

The GALPROP model for cosmic-ray propagation is able to make explicit predictions for the distribution of galactic diffuse gamma-rays. We compare different propagation models with gamma-ray spectra measured by EGRET for various regions of the sky. This allows sensitive tests of alternative explanations for the apparent excess emission observed at GeV gamma-rays. We find that a population of hard-spectrum gamma-ray sources cannot be solely responsible for the excess since it also appears at high latitudes; on the other hand a hard cosmic-ray electron spectrum cannot explain the gamma-ray excess in the inner Galaxy. By normalizing the cosmic ray spectra within reasonable bounds under preservation of their shape we are able to obtain our best prediction of the Galactic component of diffuse gamma rays, and show that away from the Galactic plane it gives an accurate prediction of the observed gamma-ray intensities. On this basis we reevaluate the extragalactic gamma-ray background. We find that for some energies previous work underestimated the Galactic contribution and hence overestimated the background. The new EGRB spectrum shows a positive curvature similar to that expected for models of the extragalactic gamma-ray emission based on contributions from unresolved blazars.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Evidence on Imperfect Competition and Strategic Trade Theory

Strategic trade theory shows that government intervention in markets with small numbers of traders can boost the welfare of a country relative to free trade. This survey critically assesses the empirical evidence regarding this possibility. One finding is that while many international food and agricultural markets are characterized by oligopoly, price-cost markups tend to be small, and the potential gains from intervention are modest at best. In turn, existing government interventions such as agricultural export subsidies are generally not optimal in a strategic trade sense. The evidence suggests that oligopoly by itself is not a sufficient rationale for deviating from free trade in international markets.

A New Estimate of the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background from EGRET Data

We use the GALPROP model for cosmic-ray (CR) propagation to obtain our best prediction of the Galactic component of gamma rays, and show that away from the Galactic plane it gives an accurate prediction of the observed EGRET intensities. On this basis we re-evaluate the isotropic extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGRB). We find that for some energies previous work underestimated the Galactic contribution and hence overestimated the background. Our new EGRB spectrum shows a positive curvature similar to that expected for models of the extragalactic emission based on the blazar population.Comment: 4 pages, 1 ps-figures, tsukuba.sty, to appear in the Proc. 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference (Tsukuba, Japan 2003). More details can be found at http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm

Diffuse Galactic continuum gamma rays

Galactic diffuse continuum gamma-ray emission is intricately related to cosmic-ray physics and radio astronomy. We describe recent results from an approach which endeavours to take advantage of this. Information from cosmic-ray composition constrains the propagation of cosmic rays; this in turn can be used as input for gamma-ray models. The GeV gamma-ray excess cannot be explained as neutral pion decay resulting from a hard nucleon spectrum without violating antiproton and positron data; the best explanation at present appears to be inverse-Compton emission from a hard interstellar electron spectrum. One consequence is an increased importance of Galactic inverse Compton for estimates of the extragalactic background. At low energies, an additional point-source component of gamma-rays seems to be necessary.Comment: 8 pages, 15 ps-figures; invited talk, to appear in Proc. 5th Compton Symp. (Portsmouth, NH, Sep. 1999), AIP, in press. More details can be found at http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm

Evaluation of Models for Diffuse Continuum Gamma Rays in EGRET Range

The GALPROP model for cosmic-ray (CR) propagation produces explicit predictions for the angular distribution of Galactic diffuse gamma rays. We compare our current models with EGRET spectra for various regions of the sky. This allows a critical test of alternative hypotheses for the observed GeV excess. We show that a population of hard-spectrum gamma-ray sources cannot be solely responsible for the excess since it also appears at high latitudes; on the other hand a hard CR electron spectrum model cannot explain the gamma-ray excess in the inner Galaxy. Hence some combination of these explanations is suggested.Comment: 4 pages, 12 ps-figures, tsukuba.sty, to appear in the Proc. 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference (Tsukuba, Japan 2003). More details can be found at http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm