Trade facilitation in ASEAN member countries : measuring progress and assessing priorities

This paper reviews recent progress and indicators of trade facilitation in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The findings show that import and export costs vary considerably in the member countries, from very low to moderately high levels. Tariff and non-tariff barriers are generally low to moderate. Infrastructure quality and services sector competitiveness range from fair to excellent. Using a standard gravity model, the authors find that trade flows in Southeast Asia are particularly sensitive to transport infrastructure and information and communications technology. The results suggest that the region stands to make significant economic gains from trade facilitation reform. These gains could be considerably larger than those from comparable tariff reforms. Estimates suggest that improving port facilities in the region, for example, could expand trade by up to 7.5 percent or $22 billion. The authors interpret this as an indication of the vital role that transport infrastructure can play in enhancing intra-regional trade.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Free Trade,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Common Carriers Industry

Road infrastructure in Europe and Central Asia : does network quality affect trade ?

The authors present a new database of minimum distance road routes connecting 138 cities in 27 countries across Europe and Central Asia. They use it to show that improved road network quality is robustly associated with higher intraregional trade flows. Gravity model simulations suggest that an ambitious but feasible road upgrade could increase trade by 50 percent over baseline, exceeding the expected gains from tariff reductions or trade facilitation programs of comparable scope. Cross-country spillovers due to overland transit are important: total intraregional trade couldbe increased by 30 percent by upgrading roads in just three countries-Albania, Hungary, and Romania.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Free Trade,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Trade Law

Scooterkit

Wilson has explored human-powered mobility since building his own bikes at 15, creating several innovations in vehicle typology. His previous research with the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design included a tilting tricycle for disabled children that could be swiftly adapted to different needs and abilities, still a Design Council Web resource a decade later (http://www.designcouncil.info/inclusivedesignresource/benwilson/methodology.html) and cited as exemplary in Preiser and Smith, Universal Design Handbook 2nd edn. (2010). In addition to design and engineering research for production, Wilson creates innovative one-off cycles and related mobility devices to represent ideas and promote pedal-power. Scooterkit extends Wilson’s own design by engaging teenagers through Design Camps, funded by three London boroughs as part of the Design Technology curriculum to offer an authentic experience of being a designer/maker. The work was exhibited at the Aram Gallery in 2010 and gained a Helen Hamlyn Alumni Design Award. Related work includes Seebikesaw (2011) with Brooks England (one of the world's oldest bicycle component manufacturers), a bike-seesaw for both adults and children exhibited as part of ‘100% Design London’. Working with Gavin Turk, Wilson also created 4H (2011): four unicycles joined by an H-frame engaging four riders in a collaborative biking experience. Highlighting the need for sustainable and pleasurable ways to travel, it was commissioned as part of Bicycle Wheel, a series of London artists’ commissions intended to raise environmental debate and encourage cycling through art. Wilson’s Pocket Rocket 2 appeared in the ‘Power of Making’ exhibition (2011–12) at the V&A Museum, as did his Precious Bicycle, a low-rider encrusted with 110,000 Swarovski crystals, reconceptualising the bicycle as charismatic object. Wilson has advised Sir Clive Sinclair over many years, including on the Sinclair X-1 electric power-assisted street bike (2010) and A-bike (2006, in production now)

Help or hindrance ? the impact of harmonized standards on african exports

The authors test the hypothesis that product standards harmonized to de facto international standards are less trade restrictive than ones that are not. To do this, the authors construct a new database of European Union (EU) product standards. The authors identify standards that are aligned with ISO standards (as a proxy for de facto international norms). The authors use a sample-selection gravity model to examine the impact of EU standards on African textiles and clothing exports, a sector of particular development interest. The authors find robust evidence that non-harmonized standards reduce African exports of these products. EU standards which are harmonized to ISO standards are less trade restricting. Our results suggest that efforts to promote African exports of manufactures may need to be complemented by measures to reduce the cost impacts of product standards, including international harmonization. In addition, efforts to harmonize national standards with international norms, including through the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, promise concrete benefits through trade expansion.Information Security&Privacy,Standards and Technical Regulations,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Information and Records Management

Conservation Pricing Of Household Water Use In Public Water Systems In Georgia's Coastal Communities: A Preliminary Exploration

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of price on residential water use in public water supply systems in Georgia's Coastal region. Particular attention is focused on measures for the elasticity of demand for residential water use inasmuch as a showing of price inelasticity may make the wider adoption of conservation pricing more palatable to small communities with concerns that raising water prices will reduce much-needed revenues.To clarify the nature and importance of the elasticity measure, consider the following simplified example. A community sells 100 units of water for $1.00 per unit. Its' total revenues are$100. Suppose price is increased by 20% to $1.20, and that the units purchased falls by 30$84.00. In this case, we say that demand is "elastic;" the quantity of water used by folks "stretches" relative to the change in price. With elastic demand, rising prices mean lower total revenues. Suppose, however, that with the 20% price increase, demand fell to only 90 units -- a 10% decrease. Total revenues are now $108. In this case we say demand is inelastic -- quantity doesn't really "stretch" much when prices rise. If demand is inelastic, rising prices means higher revenues.From our limited, phase one efforts in these regards, we use aggregate water pricing data from 50 public water supply systems in 28 coastal counties that participated in a survey conducted during late the period 2003-2005. We find strong evidence that, at the margin, residential water use is indeed affected by prices charged for water in this region. We also find what we regard to be reasonably compelling evidence suggesting that residential water demand is inelastic over the range of marginal prices observed in our sample. This latter finding suggests that the use of conservation pricing as a tool for water conservation may not have an adverse effect on community revenues. Indeed, it may well be the case that increasing water prices will increase, not decrease, the community's revenues from the sale of water.In moving to phase two of this work, a great more will be accomplished in terms of refinements in the nature and quality of data used; greater efforts will be placed on attempts to identify functional forms that will yield best estimates for residential water demand in the state. Our ultimate goal is to be capable of responding to the needs of Georgia communities in the coastal region for information related to how one might improve the design of a community's water rate structure, and to conservation pricing policies that will best serve their interests and the interests of the state. Working Paper Number 2005-00

Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific

The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.Economic Theory&Research,Free Trade,Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Trade Policy

Efficient computation of the magnetic polarizabiltiy tensor spectral signature using proper orthogonal decomposition

The identification of hidden conducting permeable objects from measurements of the perturbed magnetic field taken over a range of low frequencies is important in metal detection. Applications include identifying threat items in security screening at transport hubs, location of unexploded ordnance, and antipersonnel landmines in areas of former conflict, searching for items of archeological significance and recycling of valuable metals. The solution of the inverse problem, or more generally locating and classifying objects, has attracted considerable attention recently using polarizability tensors. The magnetic polarizability tensor (MPT) provides a characterization of a conducting permeable object using a small number of coefficients, has an explicit formula for the calculation of their coefficients, and a well understood frequency behavior, which we call its spectral signature. However, to compute such signatures, and build a library of them for object classification, requires the repeated solution of a transmission problem, which is typically accomplished approximately using a finite element discretization. To reduce the computational cost, we propose an efficient reduced order model (ROM) that further reduces the problem using a proper orthogonal decomposition for the rapid computation of MPT spectral signatures. Our ROM benefits from a posteriori error estimates of the accuracy of the predicted MPT coefficients with respect to those obtained with finite element solutions. These estimates can be computed cheaply during the online stage of the ROM allowing the ROM prediction to be certified. To further increase the efficiency of the computation of the MPT spectral signature, we provide scaling results, which enable an immediate calculation of the signature under changes in the object size or conductivity. We illustrate our approach by application to a range of homogenous and inhomogeneous conducting permeable objects

Characterisation and Classification of Hidden Conducting Security Threats using Magnetic Polarizability Tensors

The early detection of terrorist threat objects, such as guns and knives, through improved metal detection, has the potential to reduce the number of attacks and improve public safety and security. Walk through metal detectors (WTMDs) are commonly deployed for security screening purposes in applications where these attacks are of particular con-cern such as in airports, transport hubs, government buildings and at concerts. However, there is scope to improve the identification of an object’s shape and its material proper-ties. Using current techniques there is often the requirement for any metallic objects to be inspected or scanned separately before a patron may be determined to pose no threat, making the process slow. This can often lead to build ups of large queues of unscreened people waiting to be screened which becomes another security threat in itself. To improve the current method, there is considerable potential to use the fields applied and measured by a metal detector since, hidden within the field perturbation, is object characterisation information. The magnetic polarizability tensor (MPT) offers an economical characteri-sation of metallic objects and its spectral signature provides additional object character-isation information. The MPT spectral signature can be determined from measurements of the induced voltage over a range of frequencies for a hidden object. With classification in mind, it can also be computed in advance for different threat and non-threat objects, producing a dataset of these objects from which a machine learning (ML) classifier can be trained. There is also potential to generate this dataset synthetically, via the application of a method based on finite elements (FE). This concept of training an ML classifier trained on a synthetic dataset of MPT based characterisations is at the heart of this work.In this thesis, details for the production and use of a first of its kind synthetic dataset of realistic object characterisations are presented. To achieve this, first a review of re-cent developments of MPT object characterisations is provided, motivating the use of MPT spectral signatures. A problem specific, H(curl) based, hp-finite element discreti-sation is presented, which allows for the development of a reduced order model (ROM), using a projection based proper orthogonal decomposition (PODP), that benefits from a-posteriori error estimates. This allows for the rapid production of MPT spectral signatures the accuracy of which is guaranteed. This methodology is then implemented in Python, using the NGSolve finite element package, where other problem specific efficiencies are also included along with a series of additional outputs of interest, this software is then packaged and released as the open source MPT-Calculator. This methodology and software are then extensively tested by application to a series of illustrative examples. Using this software, MPT spectral signatures are then produced for a series of realistic threat and non-threat objects, creating the first of its kind synthetic dataset, which is also released as the open source MPT-Library dataset. Lastly, a series of ML classifiers are documented and applied to several supervised classification problems using this new syn-thetic dataset. A series of challenging numerical examples are included to demonstrate the success of the proposed methodology