Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1899:Agricultural Trade Policies, Alcohol Taxes and War

Britain – contrary to received wisdom – was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century War with Louis XIV from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France for a quarter of a century. The creation of powerful protected interests both at home and abroad (notably in the form of British merchants, and investors in Portuguese wine) led to the imposition of prohibitively high tariffs on French imports -- notably on wine and spirits -- when trade with France resumed in 1714. Protection of domestic interests from import competition allowed the state to raise domestic excises which provided increased government revenues despite almost no increases in the taxes on land and income in Britain. The state ensured compliance not simply through the threat of lower tariffs on foreign substitutes but also through the encouragement of a trend towards monopoly production in brewing and restricted retail sales of beer (which began around 1700 and continued throughout the eighteenth century). This history is analyzed in terms of its effects on British fiscal and commercial policy from the early 1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. The result is a fuller, albeit revisionist account of the rise of the modern state that calls into question a variety of theses in economics and political science that draw on the naive view of a liberal Britain unilaterally moving to free trade in the nineteenth century.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural trade policies and war, economic history of Europe, alcohol taxes, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, H20, N40, N43, N53, O13,

Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1899: Agricultural Trade Policies, Alcohol Taxes, and War

Britain – contrary to received wisdom – was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century. War with Louis XIV from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France for a quarter of a century. The creation of powerful protected interests both at home and abroad (notably in the form of British merchants, and investors in Portuguese wine) led to the imposition of prohibitively high tariffs on French imports -- notably on wine and spirits -- when trade with France resumed in 1714. Protection of domestic interests from import competition allowed the state to raise domestic excises which provided increased government revenues despite almost no increases in the taxes on land and income in Britain. The state ensured compliance not simply through the threat of lower tariffs on foreign substitutes but also through the encouragement of a trend towards monopoly production in brewing and restricted retail sales of beer (which began around 1700 and continued throughout the eighteenth century). This history is analyzed in terms of its effects on British fiscal and commercial policy from the early 1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. The result is a fuller, albeit revisionist account of the rise of the modern state that calls into question a variety of theses in economics and political science that draw on the naive view of a liberal Britain unilaterally moving to free trade in the nineteenth century.International Development, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, F13, H20, N40, N43, N53, O13, Q17,

Analysis of Demand for Major Spices in India

India is the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of spices in the world. The demand scenario for major spices in India has been comprehensively examined in the study. The shift in preferences of domestic consumers for food items, increasing urbanization and rising incomes, altered demographic and social factors and the changes in productivity of spices have brought about changes in the pattern of their consumption and demand. A two-stage budgeting framework, which is a recent development in the theory, of demand with quadratic terms of total expenditure / food expenditure and is an appropriate technique for computing the expenditure elasticities, has been employed to work out the expenditure elasticities for spices in India. The resultant expenditure elasticities range between 0.40 and 0.60 and do not show much disparity across different income classes or regions and over the years. Also, the household consumption demand projections for important spices in the country for the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 show that the domestic demand for spices would increase further in the coming years.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Management of Risks in Agriculture: A Synthesis

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Lessons of spin and torsion: Reply to ``Consistent coupling to Dirac fields in teleparallelism"

In reply to the criticism made by Mielke in the pereceding Comment [Phys. Rev. D69 (2004) 128501] on our recent paper, we once again explicitly demonstrate the inconsistency of the coupling of a Dirac field to gravitation in the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity. Moreover, we stress that the mentioned inconsistency is generic for {\it all} sources with spin and is by no means restricted to the Dirac field. In this sense the $SL(4,R)$-covariant generalization of the spinor fields in the teleparallel gravity theory is irrelevant to the inconsistency problem.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, no figure

11 Congreso Nacional de Filosofia (México, 5-9 diciembre 1983)

No hi ha abstract

Oak Persistence in Mediterranean Landscapes: The Combined Role of Management, Topography, and Wildfires

Mediterranean ecosystems have been shaped by a history of human and ecological disturbances. Understanding the dynamics of these social-ecological systems requires an understanding of how human and ecological factors interact. In this study, we assess the combined role of management practices and biophysical variables, i.e., wildfire and topography, to explain patterns of tree persistence in a cork oak (Quercus suber L.) landscape of southern Portugal. We used face-to-face interviews with landowners to identify the management practices and the incentives that motivated them. We used aerial photographs and a Geographic Information System (GIS) to classify vegetation patch-type transitions over a period of 45 years (1958-2002) and logistic regression to explain such changes based on management and biophysical factors. The best model explaining vegetation transitions leading to cork oak persistence in the landscape included both biophysical and management variables. Tree persistence was more likely to occur on steeper slopes, in the absence of wildfires, and in the absence of understory management. We identified ecological, ideological, and economical barriers that preclude oak persistence and that are important to consider in implementing efficient environmental policies for adequate conservation and reforestation programs of Mediterranean cork oak landscape

X-ray photoemission spectroscopy of La(0.67)Ca(0.33)MnO(3) films

We have performed x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) on thin films of (001) and (200) oriented La(0.67)Ca(0.33)MnO(3) grown on (100) and (110) SrTiO(3) substrates by off-axis sputtering. The films were examined by XPS without exposing them to air. We have compared the core levels and the valence spectra between the two different orientations, as well as after the effects of air exposure and annealing in UHV. We find that the surfaces are very stable against exposure to air. Comparing the measured intensity ratios to a model for the uniform termination of the film shows the terminating layer to be MnO(2) for both the (001) and (200) oriented La(0.67)Ca(0.33)MnO(3) films.Comment: 7 pages, 6 jpg figures, to appear in Applied Surface Scienc