Infrastructure, Competition Regimes and Air Transport Costs: Cross Country Evidence

The relevance of transport costs has increased as liberalization continues to reduce artificial barriers to trade. Countries need to adopt policies to “get closer†to global markets. Can improvements in infrastructure and regulation reduce transport costs? Is it worthwhile to implement policies designed to increase competition in transport markets? Focusing on air transport, which has increased its share in US imports from 24% in 1990 to 35% in 2000, this paper quantifies the effects of infrastructure, regulatory quality and liberalization of air cargo markets on transport costs. During the 1990s, the US implemented a series of Open Skies Agreements, providing a unique opportunity to assess the effect that a change in the competition regime has on prices. We find that infrastructure, quality of regulation and competition matter. In our sample, an improvement in airport infrastructure from the 25th to 75th percentiles reduces air transport costs 15 percent. A similar improvement in the quality of regulation reduces air transport costs 14 percent. Besides, Open Skies Agreements further reduces air transport costs 8 percent: Infrastructure, Transport costs, air transport liberalization, regulatory quality

Religiosity and spatial demographic differences in the Netherlands

This paper investigates whether current differences in religiosity between the Dutch regions are also manifested in spatial demographic patterns. We use cluster analysis to distinguish relatively homogeneous clusters of regions, specified by religious affiliation and the frequency of churchgoing among their populations. Although the regional demographic differences are relatively modest in the Netherlands, between-clusters contrasts are consistent with the expected influence of religiosity. The cluster including the most conservative region, the so-called Bible Belt, also displays the most traditional demographic patterns. In order to differentiate the impact of religiosity from the social and economic factors, we perform stepwise regression of selected indicators of fertility, union formation and living arrangements. The frequency of churchgoing rather than the fact of belonging to a certain denomination manifested the strongest impact on the regional demographic contrasts. In case of fertility of parity four and higher, marriage rate and the proportion of young women cohabiting, churchgoing turned out to be the most important predictor of regional differentiation.

Partisan Goals and Electoral Interests: Brazilian Economic Reforms under Lula

Almost everyone was surprised by the reforms proposed by the Lula administration in Brazil. Once in power, they proposed reforms they voted against when in opposition. We analyze a game in which political parties, with partisan and electoral interest, try to approve reforms that benefit the majority of population but face an opposition with substantial power to determine their fate. The Opposition’s behavior may lead to different equilibrium: approval of the reform after an electoral cycle, with the party initially against the reform making it their own; not approval, with the parties taking turn in power; not approval, with the party that originally proposed the reform remaining in power, but with the deterioration of the economic situationEconomic Reforms, Electoral Interest, Partisan Interest

Religión tradicional y colonización: una aproximación a la visión francesa sobre la sociedad tradicional de los joola de la Baja Casamance

Este artigo apresenta a visão do governo colonial francês sobre a religião tradicional joola e as autoridades tradicionais da Baixa-Casamança. Desde o início da colonização da região, no fim do século XIX, os franceses não tiveram uma visão homogênea sobre a cultura dos Joola. Enquanto para alguns representantes da administração francesa os Joola eram um povo selvagem, o qual devia ser civilizado, para outros, os Joola do Sul do Rio Casamança eram inteligentes e permeáveis às novidades que aportava a dominação colonial

Impact of Foreign Investment on Economic Growth in OECD's Members: A Panel Data Model, 1977-2017

Motivation: This paper is aimed at analyzing the impact of foreign investment (FI) on economic growth (EG) in Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, and USA.Novelty: The research is: 1) concentrated in countries belonging to the OECD; 2) based on a greater number of countries, variables and periods; and 3) addressed to correcting multicollinearity and autocorrelation of data.Methodology: A Granger causality analysis is carried out and both static and dynamic panel data models are estimated.Data and Empirical Analysis: Data is obtained from World Bank for the period 1977-2017. The causality of Granger reveals that during the first 10 years there is a unidirectional relationship from FI toward EG. In the following 15 years, there is empirical evidence of a bidirectional causal relationship. Moreover, during the whole period of study, 7 years have a unidirectional causality from EG toward FI. Finally, estimates of both static and dynamic panel data models show that FI has a positive impact on EG in all the studied economies.Policy Considerations: A set of recommendations for policy designers and decision makers is provided to build the appropriate instruments and incentives to encourage the attraction of FI to boost EG and, therefore, to enhance social welfare

New Transposon Tools Tailored for Metabolic Engineering of Gram-Negative Microbial Cell Factories

Re-programming microorganisms to modify their existing functions and/or to bestow bacteria with entirely new-to-Nature tasks have largely relied so far on specialized molecular biology tools. Such endeavors are not only relevant in the burgeoning metabolic engineering arena, but also instrumental to explore the functioning of complex regulatory networks from a fundamental point of view. À la carte modification of bacterial genomes thus calls for novel tools to make genetic manipulations easier. We propose the use of a series of new broad-host-range mini-Tn5 vectors, termed pBAMDs, for the delivery of gene(s) into the chromosome of Gram-negative bacteria and for generating saturated mutagenesis libraries in gene function studies. These delivery vectors endow the user with the possibility of easy cloning and subsequent insertion of functional cargoes with three different antibiotic resistance markers (kanamycin, streptomycin, and gentamicin). After validating the pBAMD vectors in the environmental bacterium Pseudomonas putida KT2440, their use was also illustrated by inserting the entire poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) synthesis pathway from Cupriavidus necator in the chromosome of a phosphotransacetylase mutant of Escherichia coli. PHB is a completely biodegradable polyester with a number of industrial applications that make it attractive as a potential replacement of oil-based plastics. The non-selective nature of chromosomal insertions of the biosynthetic genes was evidenced by a large landscape of PHB synthesis levels in independent clones. One clone was selected and further characterized as a microbial cell factory for PHB accumulation, and it achieved polymer accumulation levels comparable to those of a plasmid-bearing recombinant. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the new mini-Tn5 vectors can be used to confer interesting phenotypes in Gram-negative bacteria that would be very difficult to engineer through direct manipulation of the structural genes

Hydrogen adsorption on Pd(133) surface

In this study used is an approach based on measurements of the total energy distribution (TED) of field emitted electrons in order to examine the properties of Pd (133) from the aspect of both hydrogen adsorption and surface hydrides formation. The most favourable sites offered to a hydrogen atom to be adsorbed have been indicated and an attempt to describe the peaks of the enhancement factor R spectrum to the specific adsorption sites has also been made.Comment: to be submitted to the Centr. Eur. J. Phy