Multilateralism versus Regionalism!?

The well-known question whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system (MTS) are "strangers, friends, or foes" (Bhagwati and Panagariya, 1996) has gained new importance with the widespread proliferation of RTAs in recent years. Based on an extensive data set which covers most of world trade over the past 60 years and about 240 regional trade agreements, we analyze the relationship between RTAs and the MTS by combining the gravity model framework with vector auto-regression analysis. Impulse-response-functions robustly suggest that multilateral trade liberalization responds in a signifcantly positive way to regional trade liberalization. We also find robust evidence that RTA liberalization Granger-causes GATT/WTO liberalization. Thus, our results indicate that RTAs do not undermine the MTS but serve as building blocs to multilateral trade liberalization.Regionalism, multilateralism, trade agreement, gravity model

Do the World Trade Organization and the Generalized System of Preferences foster bilateral trade?

World trade has grown exponentially during the last 60 years. Admittedly, it is not clear if this development can be assigned to international trade agreements like the World Trade Organization or the Generalized System of Preferences as previous empirical studies found contradicting results. In this paper we generalize the different approaches used in the lit- erature to estimate the role of GATT/WTO and the Generalized System of Preferences for trade. We use a gravity model and apply FE estimation on a disaggregated bilateral data set of the trade flows between 145 countries across 1962-99. In our analysis we find a significant positive effect of WTO membership on bilateral trade. Referring to other multi- lateral institutions, we find robust evidence that membership in regional trade agreements or currency unions substantially increase bilateral trade flows as well. By contrast, we fi nd that the Generalized System of Preferences does not foster trade in general, rather the opposite. This might be due to the opportunistic behavior of industrial countries that grant GSP schemes as long as the concerned products are relatively unimportant, but restrict them as soon as they become relevant.WTO, GSP, regional trade agreements, currency union, gravity model, international trade

AlScN: A III-V semiconductor based ferroelectric

Ferroelectric switching is unambigiously demonstrated for the first time in a III-V semiconductor based material: AlScN -- A discovery which could help to satisfy the urgent demand for thin film ferroelectrics with high performance and good technological compatibility with generic semiconductor technology which arises from a multitude of memory, micro/nano-actuator and emerging applications based on controlling electrical polarization. The appearance of ferroelectricity in AlScN can be related to the continuous distortion of the original wurtzite-type crystal structure towards a layered-hexagonal structure with increasing Sc content and tensile strain, which is expected to be extendable to other III-nitride based solid solutions. Coercive fields which are systematically adjustable by more than 3 MV/cm, high remnant polarizations in excess of 100 \mu C/cm$^2$ which constitute the first experimental estimate of the previously inaccessible spontaneous polarization in a III-nitride based material, an almost ideally square-like hysteresis resulting in excellent piezoelectric linearity over a wide strain interval from -0.3% to +0.4% as well as a paraelectric transition temperature in excess of 600{\deg}C are confirmed. This intriguing combination of properties is to our knowledge as of now unprecedented in the field of polycrystalline ferroelectric thin films and promises to significantly advance the commencing integration of ferroelectric functionality to micro- and nanotechnology, while at the same time providing substantial insight to one of the central open questions of the III-nitride semiconductors - that of their actual spontaneous polarization

Zeitgemäß oder anachronistisch? Zwangseinweisungspraxis in Frankfurt am Main

Background: The evaluation of local mental health care remains difficult. For this reason systematic development of appropriate services is barely possible. Methods: We examined involuntary hospitalization in the city of Frankfurt/Main with regard to diagnoses, socio-demographic data, complementary psychosocial outpatient care, and circumstances of hospitalization. There are four psychiatric clinics, each serving a catchment area of more than 165.000 inhabitants. These clinics are responsible for all psychiatric in-patient treatments regardless of the admission modus. During a one year period, 677 patients were involuntarily hospitalized. Statistical analyses were performed subsequent to pooling the data. Results: During a period of one year, 103 out of 100.000 inhabitants of Frankfurt/Main were admitted involuntarily. The rate of involuntary admissions related to all admissions was 10.98 percent. Any complementary psychosocial care was missing in more than 70 percent of patients admitted involuntarily. Only about 10 percent of patients were examined by a physician before reaching the hospital and in disappointing 1.3 percent the municipal mental health service had been consulted prior to involuntarily admission. Conclusion: Our results show that a systematic improvement of precautionary complementary psychosocial care for risk patients is needed as well as the obligation of psychiatric emergency consultation before involuntary hospitalization.Anliegen: In der gemeindepsychiatrischen Versorgung ist eine systematische Datenerhebung bislang unzureichend etabliert. Daher ist eine planvolle Entwicklung von Versorgungsstrukturen kaum möglich. Zur weiteren Qualitätsverbesserung der gemeindepsychiatrischen Struktur soll eine verlässliche Datenbasis geschaffen werden. Methode: Das durch den Sozialpsychiatrischen Dienst initiierte Projekt PISA untersuchte 677 Zwangseinweisungen in die Versorgungskliniken der Stadt Frankfurt/Main. Ergebnisse: Bei über 70 % der Patienten fehlte eine komplementäre psychosoziale Versorgung, nur 10 % wurden außerhalb der Klinik vor der Einweisung ärztlich untersucht, nur 1,3 % durch den Sozialpsychiatrischen Dienst. Schlussfolgerungen: Eine gezielte Ausweitung ambulanter Hilfesysteme und die Hinzuziehung fachärztlicher Kompetenz vor einer Zwangseinweisung erscheinen dringend erforderlich

A nation-wide laboratory: Examining trust and trustworthiness by integrating behavioral experiments into representative surveys

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and selfselection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and representative surveys thereby overcoming crucial weaknesses of both approaches. One of the major advantages of our approach is that it allows for the integration of experiments, which require interaction among the participants, with a survey of non-interacting respondents in a smooth and inexpensive way. We illustrate the power of our approach with the analysis of trust and trustworthiness in Germany by combining representative survey data with representative behavioral data from a social dilemma experiment. We identify which survey questions intended to elicit peoples trust correlate well with behaviorally exhibited trust in the experiment. People above the age of 65, highly skilled workers and people living in bigger households exhibit less trusting behavior. Foreign citizens, Catholics and people favoring the Social Democratic Party or the Christian Democratic Party exhibit more trust. People above the age of 65 and those in good health behave more trustworthy or more altruistically, respectively. People below the age of 35, the unemployed and people who say they are in favor of none of the political parties behave less trustworthy or less altruistically, respectively. -- Die experimentelle Ökonomie führt typischerweise Labor-Untersuchungen durch, die mit homogenen und selektiven Versuchspersonen arbeiten. Repräsentative Surveys leiden hingegen unter Meßfehlern und der Frage, ob hypothetisches Verhalten, das erhoben wird, mit tatsächlichem Verhalten korrespondiert. Deswegen präsentieren wir eine Methode, mit der man die Schwächen beider Ansätze überwindet, indem man Survey-Daten mit Experimenten kombiniert. Die von uns entwickelte Methode hat den Vorzug, dass sie es auf preiswerte Art und Weise erlaubt, Experimente, die die Interaktion zweier Personen erfordern, mit Standard-Surveys zu kombinieren, die auf der Unabhängigkeit der befragten Personen beruhen. Wir illustrieren die Möglichkeiten unserer Methodik mit einer Untersuchung über Vertrauen und Vertrauenswürdigkeit in Deutschland, bei der eine repräsentative Umfrage mit einem Experiment über eine Dilemma-Situation verbunden wurde. Unsere Resultate zeigen zum einen, dass nicht alle Survey-Fragen über Vertrauen mit den Ergebnissen des Experiments korrelieren. Zum zweiten zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, dass ältere Menschen (65 Jahre und älter), Hochqualifizierte und Personen, die in grösseren Haushalten leben, im Experiment unterdurchschnittlich Vertrauen offenbaren. Für Ausländer, Katholiken und die Anhänger der großen Volksparteien finden wir überdurchschnittliches Vertrauen. Vertrauenswürdigkeit bzw. Altruismus zeigen im Experiment Ältere und Befragte mit gutem Gesundheitszustand. Unterdurchschnittliche Vertrauenswüdigkeit bzw. Altruismus zeigen jüngere Befragte (bis zu 35 Jahren), arbeitslos Gemeldete und Befragte ohne eine Parteineigung.Experiment,Survey,Trust,Trustworthiness,Altruism

People like us? People like them? Contemporary media representations of social class

In this thesis, I discuss media representations of social class. My particular focus is on entertaining television formats and as an empirical example, I analyse the BBC Three docusoap People Like Us (2013l). To explore how social class is reflected in and impacts on the production of the programme, I conduct interviews with people participating in it, carry out a discourse analysis of its content and also attempt a small-scale audience research to get an understanding of how the programme was perceived. Theoretically, my research is framed by a Bourdieusian conception of social class and relevant related concepts like habitus, doxa and symbolic violence. I come to the conclusion that class divisions are clearly reflected and played out in the media field in multiple, interlinked ways. In the discourse analysis of People Like Us (2013l) I show how negative working-class stereotypes structure the programme narratively. I demonstrate how these stereotypical and reductionist images are artificially constructed and how they are linked with contemporary political discourses around class. Furthermore, I discuss how class hierarchies structure access to and power over the production of media output and underpin a division of labour that divides people into subjects and objects of representations largely along class lines. In the analysis of my empirical example, I explore the exploitative nature of this constellation and also the (moral) value that is attached to the respective class positions. Bourdieu makes the point that media representations are part of a wider class struggle. The analysis carried out in this research very much confirms this assessment, however, in the field of large-scale cultural production these battles are fought with very unequal weapons. The discourse analysis of my chosen empirical example explores, in connection with the conducted interviews with participants of the programme, a number of instances of very manipulative editing that cannot just be explained by the genre-typical requirements and the intention of the programme to entertain

Predicting solar cell efficiencies from bulk lifetime images of multicrystalline silicon bricks

We present a model for predicting the solar cell efficiency potential of multicrystalline silicon bricks prior to sawing. Three model inputs are required: bulk lifetime images from the side faces of the bricks, the cell manufacturing process, and its gettering action. The model is set up with numerical device and circuit simulations, but may afterwards be parameterized for inline application. In the example shown here, we chose literature data to quantify the increase in bulk lifetime caused by phosphorus gettering of impurities during cell manufacturing. Our proposed model enables manufacturers to (i) assess initial brick quality in relation to their specific cell production line, (ii) to exclude certain parts of the bricks from cell manufacturing, and (iii) to adjust cell manufacturing to initial material quality. The specific gettering efficiency and cell process can be fed into the model dynamically and need to be calibrated ideally for each material manufacturer and each cell production line. The model presented here can be extended to cast mono and dendritically grown bricks.Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA