Buying Time: Real and Hypothetical Offers

This paper provides the results of a field test of contingent valuation estimates within a willingness to accept framework. Using dichotomous choice questions in telephone-mail-telephone interviews, we compare responses to real and hypothetical offers to survey respondents for the opportunity to spend time in a second set of interviews on an undisclosed topic. Five hundred and forty people were randomly split between the real and hypothetical treatments. Our findings indicate no significant differences between people's choices with real and hypothetical offers. Choice models indicate the size of the offer and income were significant determinants of respondents' decisions, and these models were not significantly different between real and hypothetical offers.

Does Nature Limit Environmental Federalism?

This research considers whether the principles developed to analyze the optimal jurisdiction for producing public goods can be applied in cases where regulations of private activities provide the primary means to deliver different amounts of public and quasi-public goods. The analysis evaluates how devolution affects the development of benefit cost analyses for regulations and the role of economic versus environmental factors in defining the extent of the regulatory market. Using a study of nutrient control for the Neuse River in North Carolina, the analysis develops area specific measures of the benefits and costs of regulations and illustrates how changes in the composition of the areas allowed to "count" for policy design can affect decisions about the levels of control judged to meet the net benefit test.

Field condensations and Noncritical String for c>1

Quantum theory of 2d gravity for $c>1$ is examined as a non-critical string theory by taking account of the loop-correction of open strings whose end points are on the 2d world surface of the closed string. This loop-correction leads to a conformal anomaly, and we obtain a modified target-space action which implies a new phase of the non-critical closed-string. In this phase, the dual field of the gauge field, which lives on the boundary, condenses and the theory can be extended to $c>1$ without any instability.Comment: 17 pages, Latex, no figur

A simplicial gauge theory

We provide an action for gauge theories discretized on simplicial meshes, inspired by finite element methods. The action is discretely gauge invariant and we give a proof of consistency. A discrete Noether's theorem that can be applied to our setting, is also proved.Comment: 24 pages. v2: New version includes a longer introduction and a discrete Noether's theorem. v3: Section 4 on Noether's theorem has been expanded with Proposition 8, section 2 has been expanded with a paragraph on standard LGT. v4: Thorough revision with new introduction and more background materia

Quantum entanglement between a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator and a microwave field

We consider a theoretical model for a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator. The nanomechanical resonator is driven parametrically at twice its resonance frequency, while the superconducting microwave resonator is driven with two tones that differ in frequency by an amount equal to the parametric driving frequency. We show that the semi-classical approximation of this system has an interesting fixed point bifurcation structure. In the semi-classical dynamics a transition from stable fixed points to limit cycles is observed as one moves from positive to negative detuning. We show that signatures of this bifurcation structure are also present in the full dissipative quantum system and further show that it leads to mixed state entanglement between the nanomechanical resonator and the microwave cavity in the dissipative quantum system that is a maximum close to the semi-classical bifurcation. Quantum signatures of the semi-classical limit-cycles are presented.Comment: 36 pages, 18 figure

Valuing a Homeland Security Policy: Countermeasures for the Threats from Shoulder Mounted Missiles

This paper reports estimates for the ex ante tradeoffs for three specific homeland security policies that all address a terrorist attack on commercial aircraft with shoulder mounted missiles. Our analysis focuses on the willingness to pay for anti-missile laser jamming countermeasures mounted on commercial aircraft compared with two other policies as well as the prospect of remaining with the status quo. Our findings are based a stated preference conjoint survey conducted in 2006 and administered to a sample from Knowledge Networks' national internet panel. The estimates range from $100 to$220 annually per household. Von Winterfeldt and O'Sullivan's [2006] analysis of the same laser jamming plan suggests that the countermeasures would be preferred if economic losses are above $74 billion, the probability of attack is larger than 0.37 in ten years, and if the cost of the measures is less than about$14 billion. Our results imply that, using the most conservative of our estimates, a program with a cost consistent with their thresholds would yield significant aggregate net benefits. More generally, this research grows out of a need to measure the benefits of an iconic public good -- national defense -- to assess the economic efficiency of Department of Homeland Security policies.

Do Citizens Want the Truth about Terrorist Threats Regardless of the Consequences?

This paper proposes the use of consumers’ preferences in formulating policies for keeping secret information about terrorist activities and threats that might compromise future security. We report the results from two surveys indicating that people have clear preferences for full disclosure of some terrorist related information regardless of its consequences for specific industries or future threats. This result is especially clear for threats involving commercial airlines. For those threats associated with more general surveillance or threats to the financial system respondents were more willing to allow government authorities to withhold information.

Trying to understand confinement in the Schroedinger picture

We study the gauge-invariant gaussian ansatz for the vacuum wave functional and show that it potentially possesses many desirable features of the Yang--Mills theory, like asymptotic freedom, mass generation through the transmutation of dimensions and a linear potential between static quarks. We point out that these (and other) features can be studied in a systematic way by combining perturbative and 1/n expansions. Contrary to the euclidean approach, confinement can be easily formulated and easily built in, if not derived, in the variational Schroedinger approach.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure. Lecture given at the 4th St.Petersburg Winter School in Theoretical Physics, Feb. 22-28, 199