Cost Linkages Transmit Volatility Across Markets

We present and test a model relating a firm's idiosyncratic cost, its exporting status, and the volatilities of its domestic and export sales. In prior models of trade, supply costs for domestic and exports were linear and thus additively separable. We introduce a nonlinear cost function in order to link the domestic and export supply costs. This theoretical contribution has two new implications for the exporting firm. First, the demand volatility in the foreign market now directly affects the firm's domestic sales volatility. Second, firms hedge domestic demand volatility with exports. The model has several testable predictions. First, larger firms have lower total and domestic sales volatilities. Second, foreign market volatility increases domestic sales volatilities for exporters. Third, exporters allocate output across both markets in order to reduce total sales volatility. We find evidence for these predictions with Danish firms operating between 1992 and 2006.

A Quantile Estimation Approach to Identify Income and Age Variation in the Value of Statistical Life

In theory, heterogeneity in individual characteristics translates into variation in the marginal willingness to pay for a mortality risk reduction. Two dimensions of heterogeneity, with respect to income and age, have recently received attention due to their policy relevance. We propose a quantile regression approach to simultaneously explore these two sources of heterogeneity and their interactions within the context of the hedonic wage model, the most common revealed preference approach for obtaining value of statistical life estimates. We illustrate the approach using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We find that the impact of age on the wage–risk tradeoff varies across the wage distribution. This result indicates important interactions between age and income heterogeneity. Thus, the conventional mean hedonic wage regression, even when the mean effect is allowed to vary with age, masks important heterogeneity

Hedging Price Volatility Using Fast Transport

Purchasing goods from distant locations introduces a significant lag between when a product is shipped and when it arrives. This is problematic for firms facing volatile demand, who must place orders before knowing the resolution of demand uncertainty. We provide a model in which airplanes bring producers and consumers together in time. Fast transport allows firms to respond quickly to favorable demand realizations and to limit the risk of unprofitably large quantities during low demand periods. Fast transport thus provides firms with a real option to smooth demand volatility. The model predicts that the likelihood and extent to which firms employ air shipments is increasing in the volatility of demand they face, decreasing in the air premium they must pay, and increasing in the contemporaneous realization of demand. We confirm all three conjectures using detailed US import data. We provide simple calculations of the option value associated with fast transport and relate it to variation in goods characteristics, technological change, and policies that liberalize trade in air services.

Country report : Austria

ITHACA - Integration, Transnational Mobility and Human, Social and Economic Capital Transfer

Migrants in countries in crisis. Thailand case study: migration and natural disasters – the impact on migrants of the 2011 floods in Thailand

This case study examines the immediate and longer-term consequences of the 2011 floods in Thailand on migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. It was conducted as part of the EU-funded project Migrants in Countries in Crisis: Supporting an Evidence-Based Approach for Effective and Cooperative State Action. Under this project, six case studies were prepared. The current report represents one of these. Due to the nature of the 2011 flood disaster in Thailand and the relatively fast rebound of the Thai economy, most of the migrants affected by the crisis were still in Thailand at the time this research was done. For many of them, the longer-term effects of the disaster stemmed mainly from their experiences during the crisis, the choices they made to cope and other events in the aftermath of the floods, particularly changes in Thailand’s migrant registration system

Nova metoda za dokazivanje HNE-histidinskih konjugata u {takorskim upalnim stanicama

Oxidative stress, excessive production of reactive oxygen species, is considered an important part of different disorders, as well as of physiological processes (inflammation). The difference between physiological and pathological oxidative stress is often the occurrence of lipid peroxidation and its final toxic products, among which is 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE), a reactive aldehyde that forms protein conjugates. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution of HNE-histidine conjugates in leukocytes during systemic inflammation. We used genuine monoclonal antibodies against HNE-histidine conjugates for immuno-cytochemical, immuno- histochemical and immuno-electronmicroscopical analyses of HNE in inflammatory cells. Spleen tissue, leukocytes from blood and macrophages from the peritoneum of rats intraperitoneally (i.p.) injected with micronized zeolite (MZ) were analyzed. HNE-histidine conjugates were predominantly detected near cell membranes, phagosomes and macrophage granules. Immunodetection of HNE-histidine conjugates may be used as an analytical immunochemical method to study HNE formation in pathological and physiological processes and for pathomorphological diagnostic procedures.Oksidacijski stres, stanje prekomjernoga stvaranja reaktivnih kisikovih tvari, bitna je sastavnica različitih bolesti, ali i fizioloških procesa (upala). Često je razlika između fiziološkoga i patološkoga oksidacijskoga stresa pojava lipidne peroksidacije i njenih završnih toksičnih produkata, među kojima posebnu ulogu ima 4-hidroksi- 2-nonenal (HNE), reaktivni aldehid koji tvori konjugate s bjelančevinama. Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je utvrditi distribuciju HNE-histidinskih konjugata u leukocitima tijekom nespecifične upalne reakcije. Rabili smo izvorna monoklonalna protutijela na HNE-histidinski konjugat, za imuno-citokemijsko, histokemijsko i elektronskomikroskopsko dokazivanje HNE-a u upalnim stanicama. Analizirano je tkivo slezene, leukociti iz krvi te makrofazi štakora kojima je intraperitonealno injiciran mikronizirani zeolit (MZ). HNE-histidinski konjugati pretežito su uočeni uz stanične membrane te pored fagosoma i makrofagnih granula. Imunodetekcija HNE-histidinskih konjugata mogla bi se stoga rabiti kao analitička imunokemijska metoda za istraživanja fizioloških i patoloških procesa te u patomorfološkim dijagnostičkim postupcima

The Effects of Transit Systems on International Trade

In this paper, we estimate the trade effects of a transit system upgrading that streamlines border processing in developing countries. Our empirical approach combines transaction level export data from El Salvador with unique data that distinguishes export flows that were processed on the transit system. Our results indicate that the new transit system lowered regulatory border costs and raised exports. At the low end, our back-of-the-envelope estimate of the return to investment is US$ 3-to-1. This evidence informs a policy covered by the 2013 WTO Agreement of Trade Facilitation