A World Trade Model with Bilateral Trade Based on Comparative Advantage

This paper describes an extension of Duchin's World Trade Model to include the explicit representation of transportation costs, permitting the endogenous determination of bilateral trade &degree;ows and region-specific prices. The original model is a linear program that, based on comparative advantage and the minimization of factor use, determines regional production and trade &degree;ows as well as world prices and scarcity rents for m regions, n goods, s transportation sectors, and k factors. The new World Trade Model with Bilateral Trade achieves its objectives by introducing transportation services and geographically dependent transportation requirements for each traded good and each pair of potential trade partners. The formulation of this model and its major properties are presented, and results from a preliminary analysis with 11 regions, 8 goods, 4 transportation sectors, and 6 factors of production are reported and compared with corresponding results from the World Trade Model.

Shifting Trade Patterns as a Means to Reduce Global CO2 Emissions: Implications for the Aluminium Industry

This paper investigates how changes in the international division of labor can contribute to reducing CO2 emissions. The mitigation potential and costs implied by this mechanism are analyzed. Implications for the aluminium sector are assessed, including changes in the price of aluminium when global carbon emissions are constrained and the constraints are progressively tightened. The analysis makes use of the World Trade Model with Bilateral Trade (WTMBT), a linear program based on comparative advantage with any number of goods, factors, and regional trade partners. Minimizing factor use, WTMBT determines regional production, bilateral trade patterns, and region-specific prices. The model is extended for this study through the application of multi-objective optimization techniques and is used to explore efficient trade-offs between reducing CO2 emissions and increasing global factor costs. This application demonstrates how the WTMBT, with its global scope and regional and sectoral production detail, can be used to build bridges between global objectives and concerns about a specific industry in specific regions. This capability can extend the reach of more traditional studies in industrial ecology.

Wage bargaining and political strength in the public sector

This paper analysis the link between political strength and public sector wages using a unique matched individual-employer data set for Norwegian local governments during the period 1990-1998. The results indicate that political strength, measured in several ways, has a positive effect on wages, while administrative strength, measured by the tenure of the chief executive, has a negative effect. The positive effect of political strength is consistent with a model in which the budgetary process is a multistage game and employment is determined in an interaction with interest groups prior to the wage bargain

Formation and characterization of FeLV iscoms.

Immunostimulating complexes (ISCOMs) have been prepared from feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) envelope proteins. The ISCOMs were characterized biochemically in SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showing the presence of proteins of estimated molecular weights of 15,000, 27,000 and 70,000. Immunoblotting showed that both the transmembrane protein p15E and the external glycoprotein gp70 (making up the gp85 protein) were present in the ISCOM. Furthermore, a degradation product of gp70 with an estimated molecular weight of 32,000 was identified in the immunoblot. The FeLV ISCOM was shown by electron microscopy to have the characteristic cage-like structure of an ISCOM with a mean diameter of 37 nm. About 10% of the total amount of gp70 in the culture fluid was recovered in the ISCOMs. The largest loss was encountered during the sedimentation of the virus. In a preliminary immunization experiment in mice the FeLV ISCOMs elicited after a booster gave a clear-cut immune response against gp70

Structure of sufficient quantum coarse-grainings

Let H and K be Hilbert spaces and T be a coarse-graining from B(H) to B(K). Assume that density matrices D_1 and D_2 acting on H are given. In the paper the consequences of the existence of a coarse-graining S from B(K) to B(H) satisfying ST(D_1)=D_1 and ST(D_2)=D_2 are given. (This condition means the sufficiency of T for D_1 and D_2.) Sufficiency implies a particular decomposition of the density matrices. This decomposition allows to deduce the exact condition for equality in the strong subadditivity of the von Neumann entropy.Comment: 13 pages, LATE