Centennial Lecture I: History and Contributions of the Woods Hole Fisheries Laboratory

The genesis and the early history of the Woods Hole Laboratory (WHL), to a lesser extent the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), and to some degree the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), were elegantly covered by Paul S. Galtsoff (1962) in his BCF Circular "The Story of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts." It covers the period from the beginning in 1871 to 1958. Galtsoffs more than 35-year career in the fishery service was spent almost entirely in Woods Hole. I will only briefly touch on that portion of the Laboratory's history covered by Galtsoff. Woods Hole, as a center of marine science, was conceived and implemented largely by one man, Spencer Fullerton Baird, at that time Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian and who was also instrumental in the establishment of the National Museum and Permanent Secretary of the newly established American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871 as the first U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries. Fisheries research began here as early as 1871, but a permanent station did not exist until 1885

Baryon Spectroscopy on the Lattice

Recent lattice QCD calculations of the baryon spectrum are outlined.Comment: Plenary contribution to Baryons 2002, Jefferson Lab, March 2002, 9 pages, 7 figure

Using information technology to help business students learn about contract law

This paper describes continuing work in using information technology (IT) to help Business students learn about contract law. The approach adopted uses a model of the contracting process as being one of negotiation, where the decisions made by the parties involve the acceptance or rejection of certain risks. Normal discussion tutorials are therefore replaced by a role‐play exercise in which students learn by taking part in simulated negotiations, each interested party being represented by a team of students. IT is being introduced into the learning process, both to provide decision‐support for the student teams, and to improve the mechanics of the exercise

Topology and chiral symmetry in finite temperature QCD

We investigate the realization of chiral symmetry in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition in quenched QCD using overlap fermions. Via the index theorem obeyed by the overlap fermions, we gain insight into the behavior of topology at finite temperature. We find small eigenvalues, clearly separated from the bulk of the eigenvalues, and study the properties of their distribution. We compare the distribution with a model of a dilute gas of instantons and anti-instantons and find good agreement.Comment: 3 pages with 3 ps figures; to appear in the proceedings of Lattice '99, Pisa, Italy, June 29 -- July 3, 1999. LATTICE99(topology

SACU tariff policies: Where should they go from here?

This paper characterizes the current SACU tariff structure, considers its rationale, proposes and evaluates some alternatives and offers some suggestions for reforming the SACU revenue sharing formula and regional trade strategy. While considerable progress was made until recently in liberalizing and simplifying SACU’s tariff structure, over the past few years such movement appears to have halted. This is unfortunate because, as the paper demonstrates, the tariff structure remains excessively complex, and opaque, continues to taxes exports and provides sectors with very disparate amounts of protection. The differentiation appears mainly to be the result of historical accident and does not appear to be justifiable as efficient job preservation, equitable income distribution or on infant industry grounds. Several alternative tariff structures that use just one or two tariff bands are explored. We demonstrate that it is possible simultaneously to provide benefits to consumers, limit employment dislocation, confer a reasonable degree of effective protection, particularly on finished goods, reduce export taxes, improve transparency and provide a norm against which industrial policy priorities can be set. A major reform of SACU tariffs would also provide the opportunity to renegotiate the SACU revenue-sharing formula, more clearly and rationally separating its aid and tariff-revenue sharing components. The paper also advocates that SACU place primary reliance on free trade agreements rather than new customs unions in its dealing with other trading partners.Trade policy; South African Customs Union; Liberalisation

US Trade and Wages: The Misleading Implications of Conventional Trade Theory

Conventional trade theory, which combines the Heckscher-Ohlin theory and the Stolper- Samuelson theorem, implies that expanded trade between developed and developing countries will increase wage equality in the former. This theory is widely applied. It serves as the basis for estimating the impact of trade on wages using two-sector simulation models and the net factor content of trade. It leads naturally to the presumption that the rapid growth and declining relative prices of US manufactured imports from developing countries since the 1990s have been a powerful source of increased US wage inequality. In this study we present evidence that suggests the presumption is not warranted. We highlight the sensitivity of conventional theory to the assumption of incomplete specialization and find evidence that is not consistent with it. Since 1987, although US domestic relative effective prices in industries with relatively high shares of manufactured goods imports from developing countries have declined, effective unskilled-worker weighted prices have actually risen relative to skilled- worker-weighted prices. If anything this suggests pressures for increased wage equality. Also in apparent contradiction to theory, the (six-digit NAICS) US manufacturing industries with high shares of manufactured imports from developing countries are actually more skill-intensive than the industries with high shares of imports from developed countries. Finally, applying a two-stage regression procedure, we find that developing country import price changes have not mandated increased US wage equality. While these results conflict with standard theory, they are easily explained if the US and developing countries have specialized in products and tasks that are imperfect substitutes. If this is the case, the impact of increased trade with developing countries on US wage inequality is far more muted than standard theory suggests. Also methodologies such as the net factor content of trade using US production coefficients and simulation models assuming perfect substitution between imports and domestic products could be highly misleading.