GATS and the electricity and water sectors

This paper discusses the impact of the GATS agreement of the World Trade Organisation on the electricity and water sectors

The financial crisis and nuclear power

An assessment of the impact of the financial crisis on the prospects for new nuclear power plant orders worldwide

Decision-Based Forecast Evaluation of UK Interest Rate Predictability*

This paper illustrates the importance of density forecasting in portfolio decision making involving bonds of different maturities. The forecast performance of an atheoretic and a theory informed model of bond returns is evaluated. The decision making environment is fully described for an investor seeking to optimally allocate his portfolio between long and short Treasury Bills, over investment horizons of up to two years. Using weekly data over 1997 to 2007 we examine the impact of parameter uncertainty and predictability in returns on the investor's allocation. We describe how the forecasts are computed and used in this context. Both statistical and decision-based criteria are used to assess the out-of-sample forecasting performance of the models. Our results show sensitivity to the evaluation criterion used. In the context of investment decision making under an economic value criterion, we find some potential gain for the investor from assuming predictability.Density Forecasting; Interest rate Predictability; Parameter Uncertainty and Decision-Based Forecast Evaluation

Economic Value of Stock and Interest Rate Predictability in the UK

In this paper, we evaluate the forecast performance of a range of atheoretic and theory informed models of bond and stock returns. The decision making environment is fully described for an investor who would like to optimally allocate his portfolio between bonds and stocks, over an investment horizon of up to two years. We use a weekly dataset on UK Treasury Bill rates and the FTSE All-Share Index over the period 1997 to 2007, to examine the impact parameter uncertainty and predictability in returns have on how the investor optimally allocates his portfolio. The methods by which the forecasts should be computed and used in this context are described. Both statistical and decision based criteria are used to evaluate the out-of-sample forecasting performance of the models. Our results suggest that in the context of investment decision making under an economic value criterion, the investor gains from not only assuming predictability but by modelling the bond and stock returns together.Density Forecasting; Decision-based Forecast Evaluation; Interest Rate and Stock Return Models; Predictability and Parameter Uncertainty

On the instability of hypersonic flow past a wedge

The instability of a compressible flow past a wedge is investigated in the hypersonic limit. Particular attention is given to the Tollmien-Schlichting waves governed by triple-deck theory though some discussion of inviscid modes is given. It is shown that the attached shock has a significant effect on the growth rates of Tollmien-Schlichting waves. Moreover, the presence of the shock allows for more than one unstable Tollmien-Schlichting wave. Indeed, an infinite discrete spectrum of unstable waves is induced by the shock, but these modes are unstable over relatively small but high frequency ranges. The shock is shown to have little effect on the inviscid modes considered by previous authors and an asymptotic description of inviscid modes in the hypersonic limit is given

Electricity privatisation and restructuring in Asia-Pacific

Overview of privatisation, liberalisation and restructuring of electricity in Asia-Pacific, including survey of multinational and regional companies

Urban fiscal austerity, infrastructure provision and the struggle for regional transit in 'Motor City'

Studies suggest that urban fiscal crises trigger the institutional separation of strategic services from general purpose municipal functions. Traditional reformists have highlighted the economic benefits of regional approaches. Global austerity has created fiscal problems for central cities and suburbs alike, transforming the motives for regional solutions. This paper examines how the City of Detroit engineered a new regional arrangement with the surrounding suburbs to raise debt for the delivery of mass transit infrastructure. It represents a dual 'spatial fix' in the form of (i) a 'state territorial fix' providing fiscally stressed municipalities access to municipal bond markets and (ii) a 'speculative spatial fix' that benefits the Detroit growth coalition by linking regional mass transit to the prospect of land-use intensification. © The Author 2014

NMSSM+

It is well known that the scale invariant NMSSM has lower fine-tuning than the MSSM, but suffers from the domain wall problem. We propose a new improved scale invariant version of the NMSSM, called the NMSSM+, which introduces extra matter in order to reduce even more the fine-tuning of the NMSSM. The NMSSM+ also provides a resolution of the domain wall problem of the NMSSM due to a discrete R-symmetry, which also stabilises the proton. The extra matter descends from an E6 gauge group and fills out three complete 27-dimensional representations at the TeV scale, as in the E6SSM. However the U(1)_N gauge group of the E6SSM is broken at a high energy scale leading to reduced fine-tuning. The extra matter of the NMSSM+ includes charge 1/3 colour triplet D-fermions which may be naturally heavier than the weak scale because they receive their mass from singlet field vacuum expectation values other than the one responsible for the weak scale effective {\mu} parameter.Comment: 25 pages, minor changes, references adde