Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor income (wage) taxes. We construct an environment in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this experimental framework to test whether a labor income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to an identical labor-leisure allocation. Despite controlling for subjects’ work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and not allowing for saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than they do in response to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift from an income to a consumption tax.experimental economics, tax equivalence, income tax, consumption tax, behavioraleconomics.

Are Income and Consumption Taxes ever really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor income (wage) taxes. We construct an environment in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this experimental framework to test whether a labor income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to an identical labor-leisure allocation. Despite controlling for subjects’ work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and not allowing for saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than they do in response to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift from an income to a consumption tax.experimental economics, tax equivalence, income tax, consumption tax, behavioral economics

Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor income (wage) taxes. We construct an environment in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this experimental framework to test whether a labor income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to an identical labor-leisure allocation. Despite controlling for subjects' work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and not allowing for saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than they do in response to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift from an income to a consumption tax.experimental economics, tax equivalence, income tax, consumption tax, behavioral economics

High Density Preheating Effects on Q-ball Decays and MSSM Inflation

Non-perturbative preheating decay of post-inflationary condensates often results in a high density, low momenta, non-thermal gas. In the case where the non-perturbative classical evolution also leads to Q-balls, this effect shields them from instant dissociation, and may radically change the thermal history of the universe. For example, in a large class of inflationary scenarios, motivated by the MSSM and its embedding in string theory, the reheat temperature changes by a multiplicative factor of $10^{12}$.Comment: 4 page

Constraining Modular Inflation in the MSSM from Giant Q-Ball Formation

We discuss constraints on which flat directions can have large vacuum expectation values (VEVs) after inflation. We show that only flat directions which are not charged under B-L and develop positive pressure due to renormalization group effects can have large VEVs of order \Mp. For example, within the MSSM only the $H_uH_d$ flat direction is found to be viable. This strongly constrains the embedding of a broad class of inflationary models in the MSSM or some other supersymmetric extension of the SM. For flat directions with negative pressure, the condensate fragments into very large Q-balls which we call Q-giants. We discuss the formation, evolution and reheating of these Q-giants and show that they decay too late. The analysis requires taking into account new phases of the flat directions, which have been overlooked in the formation and dynamics of the Q-balls. These constraints may be ameliorated by invoking a short period of thermal inflation. The latter, however, is viable in a very narrow window of parameter space and requires fine tuning.Comment: 40 pages, 3 figure

Constructing families of moderate-rank elliptic curves over number fields

We generalize a construction of families of moderate rank elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ to number fields $K/\mathbb{Q}$. The construction, originally due to Steven J. Miller, \'Alvaro Lozano-Robledo and Scott Arms, invokes a theorem of Rosen and Silverman to show that computing the rank of these curves can be done by controlling the average of the traces of Frobenius, the construction for number fields proceeds in essentially the same way. One novelty of this method is that we can construct families of moderate rank without having to explicitly determine points and calculating determinants of height matrices.Comment: Version 1.0, 4 pages, sequel to arXiv:math/040657

Hypoxic and low pH water in the nearshore marine environments of Monterey Bay, California: characterizing a decade of oxygen and pH, and drivers of variability.

A decade-long time series recorded in southern Monterey Bay, California demonstrates that the shallow, near-shore environment (17 m depth) is regularly inundated with pulses of cold, hypoxic and low pH water. During these episodes, oxygen can drop to biologically threatening levels, and pH levels were lower than expected. Weekly water chemistry monitoring revealed that the saturation state of aragonite (the more soluble form of calcium carbonate) was often below saturation and had a moderate positive relationship with pH, however, analytical and human error could be high. Pulses of hypoxia and low pH water with the greatest intensity arise at the onset of the spring upwelling season, and fluctuations are strongly semidurnal (tidal) and diurnal. Arrival of cold, hypoxic water on the inner shelf typically occurs 3 days after the arrival of a strong upwelling event and appears to be driven by upwelling modulated by internal tidal fluctuations. I found no relationship between the timing of low-oxygen events and the diel solar cycle nor with terrestrial nutrient input. These observations are consistent with advection of hypoxic water from the deep, offshore environment where water masses experience a general decline of temperature, oxygen and pH with depth, and inconsistent with biochemical forcing. Comparisons with concurrent temperature and oxygen time series taken ~20 km away at the head of the Monterey Canyon show similar patterns but even more intense hypoxic events due to stronger semidiurnal forcing there. Analysis of the durations of exposure to low oxygen levels establishes a framework for assessing the ecological relevance of these events. Increasing oceanic hypoxia and acidification of both surface and deep waters may increase the number, intensity, duration and spatial extent of future intrusions along the Pacific coast. Evaluation of the resiliency of nearshore ecosystems such as kelp forests, rocky reefs and sandy habitats, will require consideration of these events

Building Machines That Learn and Think Like People

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has renewed interest in building systems that learn and think like people. Many advances have come from using deep neural networks trained end-to-end in tasks such as object recognition, video games, and board games, achieving performance that equals or even beats humans in some respects. Despite their biological inspiration and performance achievements, these systems differ from human intelligence in crucial ways. We review progress in cognitive science suggesting that truly human-like learning and thinking machines will have to reach beyond current engineering trends in both what they learn, and how they learn it. Specifically, we argue that these machines should (a) build causal models of the world that support explanation and understanding, rather than merely solving pattern recognition problems; (b) ground learning in intuitive theories of physics and psychology, to support and enrich the knowledge that is learned; and (c) harness compositionality and learning-to-learn to rapidly acquire and generalize knowledge to new tasks and situations. We suggest concrete challenges and promising routes towards these goals that can combine the strengths of recent neural network advances with more structured cognitive models.Comment: In press at Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Open call for commentary proposals (until Nov. 22, 2016). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/information/calls-for-commentary/open-calls-for-commentar