Household incomes in New Zealand: The impact of the market, taxes and government spending, 1987/88–1997/98

How well have New Zealand households fared over a decade of extensive economic and social changes? This study compares household incomes in 1997/98 with household incomes in 1987/88, using the concept of "final income". Final income is a measure of the income accruing to households after adjusting for payments to, and benefits from, central government, whether these benefits are in cash or in kind. In particular, receipt of government health and education services is counted as adding to a household’s income, and payment of consumption taxes is counted as taking away from a household’s income. In all income deciles, the real final incomes of households were, on average, at least the same in 1997/98 as they were in 1987/88, and in most cases had increased. Government intervention, through taxes, cash benefits and social services, has maintained the incomes of less well-off households over a period of upheaval in New Zealand.final income; income distribution; redistribution; fiscal incidence; income inequality; New Zealand

Variations in earnings growth: Evidence from earnings transitions in the NZ Linked Income Survey

This paper uses the New Zealand Linked Income Supplement (LIS) to investigate the annual transitions in hourly earnings of working age individuals over the years 1997 to 2004. I first construct transition matrices for annual changes in weekly and hourly earnings, to enable comparison with previous analyses using New Zealand tax data. I then estimate the determinants of annual changes in hourly earnings using OLS and quantile regressions. Differences in human capital are associated with differences in the rate of earnings growth. The results were broadly similar across the sub-periods 1997-2001 and 2001-2004.Earnings dynamics; earnings growth; human capital

Using a microwave oven to determine moisture in forages

"Harvesting and storing forage crops at the proper moisture is necessary to minimize forage losses and to maintain maximum nutritonal value. But it is difficult to determine the moisture concentration of forage crops prior to ensiling or baling."--First page.Barry J. Steevens, Ron Belyea and Richard Crawford (Department of Dairy Science)New 1/86/6

Investing in Well-being: An Analytical Framework

The NZ Treasury is currently engaged in a project to identify cost-effective interventions to improve outcomes for children and young adults in order to maximise the value of government expenditures across the social sector. The central aim of this paper is to provide an empirically-robust framework to compare intervention across a range of social sectors. There are two key components to the framework. The first is a life-course view of child development that emphasises that experiences and influences in childhood can affect well-being throughout life. The second component involves viewing social expenditures as investments addressed at achieving particular outcomes, typically directed at enhancing well-being. The paper presents evidence from a review of the literature on how the process and experiences of childhood have a later impact on wellbeing; how child development and outcomes are influenced by individual, family and communal factors and how risk and resilience can be used to indicate that an individual is at increased or decreased risk of negative outcomes. Case studies of youth suicide, teenage pregnancy, educational underachievement and youth inactivity provide evidence about what interventions work using key empirical findings from the literature.Well-being; social investment; life-course; child development; child and adult outcomes; portfolio; intervention

DISCOVER-AQ: An Overview and Initial Comparisons of NO2 with OMI Observations

The first deployment of the Earth Venture -1 DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality) project was conducted during July 2011 in the Baltimore-Washington region. Two aircraft (a P-3B for in-situ sampling and a King Air for remote sensing) were used along with an extensive array of surface-based in-situ and remote sensing instrumentation. Fourteen flight days were accomplished by both aircraft and over 250 profiles of trace gases and aerosols were performed by the P-3B over surface air quality monitoring stations, which were specially outfitted with sunphotometers and Pandora UV/Vis spectrometers. The King Air flew with the High Spectral Resolution Lidar for aerosols and the ACAM UV/Vis spectrometer for trace gases. This suite of observations allows linkage of surface air quality with the vertical distributions of gases and aerosols, with remotely-sensed column amounts observed from the surface and from the King Air, and with satellite observations from Aura (OMI and TES), GOME-2, MODIS and GOES. The DISCOVER-AQ data will allow determination of under what conditions satellite retrievals are indicative of surface air quality, and they will be useful in planning new satellites. In addition to an overview of the project, a preliminary comparison of tropospheric column NO2 densities from the integration of in-situ P-3B observations, from the Pandoras and ACAM, and from the new Goddard OMI NO2 algorithm will be presented

Cold War Sport, Film and Propaganda : A Comparative Analysis of the Superpowers

This document is the author's original submitted manuscript (pre-print) version. An updated version has been published by MIT Press in Journal of Cold War Studies, available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00721.Films and sports played central roles in Cold War popular culture. Each helped set ideological agendas domestically and internationally while serving as powerful substitutes for direct superpower conflict. This article brings film and sport together by offering the first comparative analysis of how U.S. and Soviet cinema used sport as an instrument of propaganda during the Cold War. The article explores the different propaganda styles that U.S. and Soviet sports films adopted and pinpoints the political functions they performed. It considers what Cold War sports cinema can tell us about political culture in the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945 and about the complex battle for hearts and minds that was so important to the East-West conflict.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Role of dopamine D1-like receptors in methamphetamine locomotor responses of D2 receptor knockout mice

Behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants manifests as an increased locomotor response with repeated administration. Dopamine systems are accepted to play a fundamental role in sensitization, but the role of specific dopamine receptor subtypes has not been completely defined. This study used the combination of dopamine D2 receptor-deficient mice and a D1-like antagonist to examine dopamine D1 and D2 receptor involvement in acute and sensitized locomotor responses to methamphetamine. Absence of the dopamine D2 receptor resulted in attenuation of the acute stimulant effects of methamphetamine. Mutant and wild-type mice exhibited sensitization that lasted longer within the time period of the challenge test in the mutant animals. Pretreatment with the D1-like receptor antagonist SCH 23390 produced more potent reductions in the acute and sensitized locomotor responses to methamphetamine in D2 receptor-deficient mice than in wild-type mice; however, the expression of locomotor sensitization when challenged with methamphetamine alone was equivalently attenuated by previous treatment with SCH 23390. These data suggest that dopamine D2 receptors play a key role in the acute stimulant and sensitizing effects of methamphetamine and act in concert with D1-like receptors to influence the acquisition of methamphetamine-induced behavioral sensitization, traits that may influence continued methamphetamine use.Fil: Kelly, M. A.. Oregon Health And Science University; Estados UnidosFil: Low, M. J.. Oregon Health And Science University; Estados UnidosFil: Rubinstein, Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Phillips, T. J.. Oregon Health And Science University; Estados Unido