Estimating the impact of transport efficiency on trade costs: Evidence from Chinese agricultural traders

Using a unique survey data on agricultural traders in China in 2004, this study provides direct evidence on significance of interregional transport costs and their key determinants. Our major findings are as follows: (1) the trade barriers within China are dominated by transport-related costs but not artificial barriers, approximated by tolls and fines; (2) Labor and fuels costs are the most significant component of transport costs; (3) road quality is very important for transportation efficiency. Our results indicate that if increasing transport speed by 1 km per hour now, the fuel costs and total direct transportation costs for Chinese traders would reduce by 1.3% and 0.7% respectively.Transportation Costs, China, Agricultural Traders, Infrastructure, International Relations/Trade,

Phase transitions in a holographic s+p model with backreaction

In a previous paper (arXiv:1309.2204, JHEP 1311 (2013) 087), we present a holographic s+p superconductor model with a scalar triplet charged under an SU(2) gauge field in the bulk. We also study the competition and coexistence of the s-wave and p-wave orders in the probe limit. In this work we continue to study the model by considering the full back-reaction The model shows a rich phase structure and various condensate behaviors such as the "n-type" and "u-type" ones, which are also known as reentrant phase transitions in condensed matter physics. The phase transitions to the p-wave phase or s+p coexisting phase become first order in strong back-reaction cases. In these first order phase transitions, the free energy curve always forms a swallow tail shape, in which the unstable s+p solution can also play an important role. The phase diagrams of this model are given in terms of the dimension of the scalar order and the temperature in the cases of eight different values of the back reaction parameter, which show that the region for the s+p coexisting phase is enlarged with a small or medium back reaction parameter, but is reduced in the strong back-reaction cases.Comment: 15 pages(two-column), 9 figure