Communication Externalities in Cities

To identify communication externalities in French cities, we exploit a unique survey recording workplace communication of individual workers. Our hypothesis is that in larger and/or more educated cities, workers should communicate more. In turn, more communication should have a positive effect on individual wages. By estimating both an earnings and a communication equation, we find evidence of communication externalities. Being in a larger and more educated city makes workers communicate more and in turn this has a positive effects on wages. However, only a small fraction of the overall effects of a more educated and larger city on wages percolates through this channel.human capital, cities, communication externalities

Communication sur le lieu de travail et productivité : effets directs et externalité d’agglomération

Les fondements économiques de la concentration spatiale des activités en ville reposent, en partie, sur l'hypothèse de l'existence d'un gain de productivité lié à la plus grande possibilité d'échanges d'informations pertinentes en face-à-face, sans surcoût (en particulier de transport), dans les lieux à forte densité. La mesure de ces externalités de communication permet d'une part d'en évaluer l'impact effectif sur la productivité et, d'autre part, d'appréhender les effets des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC), en termes de re-dispersion des activités vers les espaces ruraux. Les effets indirects de l'environnement local (taille de la population et part locale de salariés très formés) passant par l'intensité de la communication représentent environ 22% de leurs effets directs, confirmant ainsi l'hypothèse d'externalité d'agglomération et remettant fortement en question la possibilité de redéploiement des activités vers les espaces ruraux, basée sur le seul développement des TIC.

Does fiscal coopération increase local tax rates in urban areas?

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of fiscal cooperation on local taxation in a decentralized country, using the French experience in urban municipalities. We estimate a model of tax setting for local business tax using spatial and dynamic econometric techniques, for the period 1993-2003 and an unbalanced data set. As predicted by the theory, we find that reducing the number of municipalities is likely to limit tax competition and, as a consequence, increase local business tax rates

Econometric modelling of the regional knowledge production function in Europe

By adopting a semiparametric approach, the ‘traditional’ regional knowledge production function is developed in three complementary directions. First, the model is augmented with region-specific time trends to account for endogeneity due to selection on unobservables. Second, the nonparametric part of the model relaxes the standard assumptions of linearity and additivity regarding the effect of R&D and human capital. Finally, the assumption of homogeneity in the effects of R&D and human capital is also relaxed by explicitly accounting for the differences between developed and lagging regions. The analysis of the genesis of innovation in the regions of the European Union unveils nonlinearities, threshold effects, complex interactions and shado

Les enjeux de la fiscalité locale : des collectivités rurales prises entre interactions fiscales et forces d’agglomération

Les disparités d’imposition entre collectivités territoriales ont longtemps été expliquées par les seules caractéristiques spécifiques à chacune des collectivités. On doit cependant considérer que les choix fiscaux des collectivités sont également guidés par des relations de concurrence ou de coopération qui se nouent entre elles. En s’appuyant ici sur une analyse de la fiscalité adoptée par les établissements publics de coopération intercommunale à taxe professionnelle unique, on montre qu’il y a bien en France des interactions fiscales entre groupements intercommunaux. Le choix d’un taux de taxe d’une collectivité influence ainsi les choix des collectivités environnantes. Par ailleurs, les espaces urbains bénéficient d’une rente d’agglomération imposable. Les entreprises implantées en ville consentent à y supporter un coût fiscal supérieur, tant que celui-ci est compensé par les avantages à l’agglomération liés à la concentration d’activités privées. Les collectivités urbaines et rurales ne disposent donc pas de la même marge de manoeuvre en termes de fiscalité locale. Les collectivités territoriales rurales ne peuvent se permettre d’augmenter leur taux d’imposition sans voir fuir leur base.

Municipal Cooperation and Local Direct Taxation

The main determinant of all forms of local taxation in France between 1993 and 2006 was the cooperation between municipalities (communes) known as intercommunality. First, a municipalitys membership in a Public Intermunicipal Cooperation Body (Établissement Public de Coopération Intercommunale: EPCI) tends to increase the rates of the four local direct taxes relative to a municipality that does not belong to such a group. Second, the rates are structurally higher in EPCIs that have adopted a single business tax and a supplementary local tax on households (fiscalité mixte). Third local taxation rates tend to rise structurally with municipality size, then decline in the largest cities. We obtained these results with a structural-residual analysis of taxation levels for the four local direct taxes in municipalities according to their membership in various categories of intermunicipal groupings, their population size, their degree of rurality, and their type of living area (bassin de vie).Fiscal Policies, Local Taxation, Municipal Cooperation

Energy Resolution Performance of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The energy resolution performance of the CMS lead tungstate crystal electromagnetic calorimeter is presented. Measurements were made with an electron beam using a fully equipped supermodule of the calorimeter barrel. Results are given both for electrons incident on the centre of crystals and for electrons distributed uniformly over the calorimeter surface. The electron energy is reconstructed in matrices of 3 times 3 or 5 times 5 crystals centred on the crystal containing the maximum energy. Corrections for variations in the shower containment are applied in the case of uniform incidence. The resolution measured is consistent with the design goals

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis