Borderplex Economic Growth: Chicken, Egg, or Scrambled?

Regional debates over which metropoitan economy is the dominant growth pole in multi-city areas can be intense. Such discourse is frequently voiced with regard to economic expansion in the El Paso, Texas, USA - Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico borderplex economy. To date, no empirical analyses have been carried out to address that question. Granger causality tests are applied to various cross-border data to shed light on that question and others regarding the nature of regional growth in this international setting.Border economic growth, applied econometrics, population, employment

Aztec Economic Woes Continue

Initial estimates for the first quarter of 2009 indicate that the Mexican economy declined by 8.2 percent from the same period in 2008. The leading economic indicator index of INEGI, the national statistics institute, points to additional economic contraction in the coming months. The Consensus Mexico survey results are in agreement with the INEGI barometer. Panelist projections for real gross domestic product point to a comparatively steep decline. The current consensus forecast calls for a real GDP decrease for Mexico of -4.8 percent for the year as a whole.Mexico Economic Outlook

Effect of flux-dependent Friedel oscillations upon the effective transmission of an interacting nano-system

We consider a nano-system connected to measurement probes via non interacting leads. When the electrons interact inside the nano-system, the coefficient |ts(E_F)|^2 describing its effective transmission at the Fermi energy E_F ceases to be local. This effect of electron-electron interactions upon |ts(E_F)|^2 is studied using a one dimensional model of spinless fermions and the Hartree-Fock approximation. The non locality of |ts(E_F)|^2 is due to the coupling between the Hartree and Fock corrections inside the nano-system and the scatterers outside the nano-system via long range Friedel oscillations. Using this phenomenon, one can vary |ts(E_F)|^2 by an Aharonov-Bohm flux threading a ring which is attached to one lead at a distance Lc from the nano-system. For small distances Lc, the variation of the quantum conductance induced by this non local effect can exceed 0.1 (e^2/h)

The Trough Deepens

As the third quarter of 2009 comes to a close, the Mexican economy remains severely battered. The latest INEGI data indicate that the second quarter of 2009 brought with it an annual GDP decrease, in real terms, of nearly 10.3 percent. The current consensus outlook calls for the light at the end of the tunnel to appear in 2010. In spite of this austere outlook, the financial system in Mexico has fared better than it did in prior recessions and the economy seems poised for growth once exports recover. The consensus outlook for real gross domestic product (GDP) calls for a noticeably sharp decline in 2009 of 7.1 percent. Relative to the consensus from last quarter, that represents a sharp downward revision. Individual panelist forecasts range from a drop of 6.5 percent to a steeper decline of 8.2 percent. An important source of the more pessimistic outlook is private consumption. Compared with the previous quarter, Mexican consumers are expected to reduce purchases by 6.9 percent, more than double the rate of decline expected three months ago.Mexico, Macroeconomic Forecast, Consensus Survey

Light at the End of Tunnel?

For 2009 as a whole, this quarter’s consensus outlook anticipates a steep decline of 6.9 percent in real gross domestic product (GDP). This outlook for inflation-adjusted GDP is not surprising given the panelists expectations for private consumption, as consumers are expected to reduce expenditures by 6.5 percent this year alone. Projections for the government stimulus package have declined substantially, however, with government consumption growth expected to slow to less than 1 percent. Diminished confidence in the Mexican business sector is still expected to cause total fixed investment to shrink at double digit rates. Given the lingering effects of the global economic downturn, the panelists also expect imports and exports to display steep contractions in excess of 11 and 22 percent, respectively. The 2009 consensus figure calls for consumer price increase in excess of 4 percent. Against this backdrop, the panelists expect a 2009 average exchange rate of 13.42 pesos per dollar. The consensus outlook for the 2009 yield on 28-day Treasury Certificates (CETES) holds steady at 5.5 percent, again, this quarter.Mexico, Macroeconomic Outlook, Consensus Survey

Excitons in few-layer hexagonal boron nitride: Davydov splitting and surface localization

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has been attracting great attention because of its strong excitonic effects. Taking into account few-layer systems, we investigate theoretically the effects of the number of layers on quasiparticle energies, absorption spectra, and excitonic states, placing particular focus on the Davydov splitting of the lowest bound excitons. We describe how the inter-layer interaction as well as the variation in electronic screening as a function of layer number $N$ affects the electronic and optical properties. Using both \textit{ab initio} simulations and a tight-binding model for an effective Hamiltonian describing the excitons, we characterize in detail the symmetry of the excitonic wavefunctions and the selection rules for their coupling to incoming light. We show that for $N > 2$, one can distinguish between surface excitons that are mostly localized on the outer layers and inner excitons, leading to an asymmetry in the energy separation between split excitonic states. In particular, the bound surface excitons lie lower in energy than their inner counterparts. Additionally, this enables us to show how the layer thickness affects the shape of the absorption spectrum.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

Peso Acceptance Patterns in El Paso

This paper examines the acceptance of peso payments, or currency substitution reverse dollarization, by U.S retail firms near the international border with Mexico. Survey data are drawn from a stratified random sample of 586 retailers located in El Paso, Texas, situated across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Approximately 13 percent of the participant firms accept Mexican pesos in exchange for goods and services. Empirical results indicate that factors such as a firm’s percentage of Spanish speaking employees and distance to the nearest international bridge significantly influence the decision to accept or reject Mexican pesos.Currency Substitution; Mexican Peso; Border Economics; Probit Models

Borderplex Long-Term Economic Trends to 2026

Long-term prospects for the El Paso - Ciudad Juárez borderplex economy call for steady growth. On the north side of the border, the population of El Paso is projected to reach 965 thousand by 2026, the last year of the forecast period. Real gross metropolitan product, the broadest measure of local economic activity, is expected to increase by more than 85 percent over the course of the next two decades to more than $31.5 billion (1996 dollars). Better job market conditions combine with income growth to push total retail sales above$20.7 billion by the end of the simulation period. Given this projected state of affairs, the UTEP Borderplex Econometric Model forecasts housing starts to average more than 5 thousand units per year through 2026. Substantially higher single-family home prices result under these circumstances. Demographic expansion and business growth jointly lead to greater demand for water in El Paso. As shown in Table 1, total consumption will approximate 45.8 billion gallons per year by the end of the forecast period.Border Economies; Econometric Forecasting Analysis

Conditional Sum-Product Networks: Imposing Structure on Deep Probabilistic Architectures

Probabilistic graphical models are a central tool in AI; however, they are generally not as expressive as deep neural models, and inference is notoriously hard and slow. In contrast, deep probabilistic models such as sum-product networks (SPNs) capture joint distributions in a tractable fashion, but still lack the expressive power of intractable models based on deep neural networks. Therefore, we introduce conditional SPNs (CSPNs), conditional density estimators for multivariate and potentially hybrid domains which allow harnessing the expressive power of neural networks while still maintaining tractability guarantees. One way to implement CSPNs is to use an existing SPN structure and condition its parameters on the input, e.g., via a deep neural network. This approach, however, might misrepresent the conditional independence structure present in data. Consequently, we also develop a structure-learning approach that derives both the structure and parameters of CSPNs from data. Our experimental evidence demonstrates that CSPNs are competitive with other probabilistic models and yield superior performance on multilabel image classification compared to mean field and mixture density networks. Furthermore, they can successfully be employed as building blocks for structured probabilistic models, such as autoregressive image models.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Infrastructure Tolls in Texas: Evidence from the Borderplex

Do changes in toll rates affect pedestrian, car, and truck traffic across the bridges between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico? As more and more attention is paid to the use of tolls as funding mechanisms for new road and infrastructure construction in Texas, the answer to this question has policy implications not only for local and state lawmakers, but also for firms importing and exporting goods between Texas and Mexico. This article uses bridge traffic data from the Borderplex to examine the relative impact of tolls and concludes that local policymakers have more leeway than they thought in raising funds to make infrastructure improvements.Tolls; International Bridges; Border Economics