Domestic purchase requirements for import license allocations in Mali

This paper investigates the incentive system facing importers under a linking arrangement and their likely behavior. It analyzes the impact on imports, consumption, and domestic production and the social costs under the assumption that all the relevant"industries"(production of the product in the domestic market, importing and distribution) are competitive, in the sense that there are a large number of firms involved and nothing deters new firms from entering the market. It focuses on the interaction of the linking arrangement with price controls, because the products in question also have been subject to this additional regulation. The overlapping regulations pose problems of timing in the liberalization process. The paper also investigates the operation of the linking arrangements when domestic production is monopolized. The conclusion is that the ranking of the policy instruments as a means of obtaining certain objectives may switch if the domestic industry is not competitive.Markets and Market Access,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Markets

The high cost of protecting Uruguay's automotive industry

Domestic content requirements are regulations that mandate minimum percentages of domestic value-added, or domestic components for products sold within the country, or provide strong incentives to substitute domestic for imported inputs. The author developed a model to investigate the distortions, costs, and transfers among groups caused by the combination of domestic content and compensatory export requirements. This model was applied to the protection scheme for Uruguay's automobile industry. The author found that the protective regime keeps vehicle prices and domestic production costs high and transfers large sums to special interest groups. Higher finished vehicle prices encourage more output from domestic assembly operations, but domestic content and compensatory export requirements discourage domestic assembly. The net effect could either encourage or discourage domestic assembly operations, depending on the net impact of the regulations. Trade in this industry should be liberalized. Care should be taken not to inadvertently increase effective protection of the assembly industry by, for example, phasing out domestic content and compensatory export requirements on kits faster than those on finished autos, thus temporarily encouraging domestic assembly.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Water and Industry

The economic impact of export controls : an application to Mongolian cashmere and Romanian wood products

Countries sometimes use export controls on raw materials to encourage domestic processing. The motivation is usually to assure raw materials at low prices for domestic industries, although exports are sometimes controlled in an attempt to increase export earnings (by promoting exports of higher value-added processed goods rather than raw materials). The problem is, export controls hurt raw material producers and cause economic distortions that result in net losses to the country. The impact of raw material export controls on total export earnings is ambiguous: the decline in raw material export when production is discouraged by lower prices may outweigh the effect of increased exports of processed goods. The author develops a simple partial equilibrium model of export controls on raw material to investigate the impact of export restrictions and to estimate the potential magnitude of the transfers between groups and the net costs of the export-control regimes. The author's estimates of the magnitude of transfers and costs of export controls on raw cashmere (in Mongolia) and wood production (in Romania) indicate that the transfers and costs may be substantial. The author finds that (under reasonable assumptions about elasticities of supply) export controls can transfer significant profits from the raw materials producers to the processing industries, causing significant net losses to the economy and a substantial net decrease in export earnings. Quantitative export controls will be even more distortive if processing industries have any monopsony (single-buyers) power. This is quite likely in developing countries with small industrial bases - or in economies in transition, where central planning has left a legacy of very large firms in highly concentrated industries. With monopsony power in the processing industry, both output and exports of final products can be reduced by quantitative export controls on raw material inputs. The quantitative control bestows effective monopsony power on the processing firm and encourages it to exploit this monopsony power by reducing output. If the raw materials could be freely exported, processors would not be able to effectively exercise monopsony power.Markets and Market Access,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets

How import protection affects the Philippines'motor vehicle industry

The motor vehicle industry in the Philippines is regulated and protected by the provisions of development programs for cars, commercial vehicles, and motorcycles. Each program virtually prohibits the import of completely built-up vehicles, specifies minimum local content requirements for vehicles assembled in the country from imported completely knocked-down kits, and requires that firms assembling kits export to earn foreign exchange to cover the cost of the kits. Similar protective regimes have existed in a number of countries, especially in Latin America. The author develops a model to illustrate the economic impact and welfare cost of import prohibitions, local content requirements, and export requirements. She applies that model to Philippine data. Her results indicate that the protective regime in the Philippines imposes substantial costs on consumers and encourages the allocation of resources to relatively high-cost activities. Eliminating all of the restrictions overnight may lead to adjustment problems, but gradual liberalization could limit these problems. The proportion of domestic content required, the percentage of compensatory exports required for kits, and the tariff rates on kits could be lowered in stages, according to a preannounced schedule, to allow gradual adjustment. The prohibition on imports of assembled vehicles could be replaced by a tariff and phased out gradually. To avoid proportionately more protection of the assembly industry, the tariff on finished autos could be phased out more quickly than the other tariffs, to avoid sending false signals to the domestic industry about the direction of adjustment. To avoid increasing the effective rate of protection on assembly operations during liberalization, elimination of the domestic content and compensatory export requirements should be accompanied by decreases in the tariff rates on assembled vehicles.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Rules of Origin

Bacterial degradation of polychlorinted biphenyls in sludge from an industrial sewer lagoon

A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine if polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's) found in an industrial sewer sludge can be effectively degraded by mutant bacteria. The aerated sludge was inoculated daily with mutant bacteria in order to augment the existing bacteria with bacteria that were considered to be capable of degrading PCB's. The pH, nitrogen, and phosphorus levels were monitored daily to maintain an optimum growing medium for the bacteria. A gas chromatographic method was used to determine the PCB concentrations of the sludge initially and also throughout the experiment. Results and discussion of the bacterial treatment of polychlorinated biphenyls are presented

Bessie on the Board Walk

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4685/thumbnail.jp

Exact Maximal Height Distribution of Fluctuating Interfaces

We present an exact solution for the distribution P(h_m,L) of the maximal height h_m (measured with respect to the average spatial height) in the steady state of a fluctuating Edwards-Wilkinson interface in a one dimensional system of size L with both periodic and free boundary conditions. For the periodic case, we show that P(h_m,L)=L^{-1/2}f(h_m L^{-1/2}) for all L where the function f(x) is the Airy distribution function that describes the probability density of the area under a Brownian excursion over a unit interval. For the free boundary case, the same scaling holds but the scaling function is different from that of the periodic case. Numerical simulations are in excellent agreement with our analytical results. Our results provide an exactly solvable case for the distribution of extremum of a set of strongly correlated random variables.Comment: 4 pages revtex (two-column), 1 .eps figure include

Documentation of the GLAS fourth order general circulation model. Volume 2: Scalar code

Volume 2, of a 3 volume technical memoranda contains a detailed documentation of the GLAS fourth order general circulation model. Volume 2 contains the CYBER 205 scalar and vector codes of the model, list of variables, and cross references. A variable name dictionary for the scalar code, and code listings are outlined

Documentation of the GLAS fourth order general calculation model. Volume 3: Vectorized code for the Cyber 205

Volume 3 of a 3-volume technical memoranda which contains documentation of the GLAS fourth order genera circulation model is presented. The volume contains the CYBER 205 scalar and vector codes of the model, list of variables, and cross references. A dictionary of FORTRAN variables used in the Scalar Version, and listings of the FORTRAN Code compiled with the C-option, are included. Cross reference maps of local variables are included for each subroutine

Documentation of the GLAS fourth order general circulation model. Volume 1: Model documentation

The volume 1, of a 3 volume technical memoranda which contains a documentation of the GLAS Fourth Order General Circulation Model is presented. Volume 1 contains the documentation, description of the stratospheric/tropospheric extension, user's guide, climatological boundary data, and some climate simulation studies