An Estimation of UK Telephone Access Demand Using Pseudo-Panel Data

The policy of rebalancing tariffs in the newly liberalised telecommunications market has given rise to concerns about universal service issues. The rise of connection and rental charges threatens to increase the number of disconnections and burden low-income groups in a disproportionate manner. In order to assess the validity of these fears, we estimate a telephone access demand model based on UK houshold data. We use a pseudo-panel technique to account for the repeated cross-section nature of the data. Our reseulats of small, but significant price elasticities with respect to connection charges, line rental, and household income are consistent with evidence from North America. Furthermore, we find a significant differential in the elasticity measured between high- and low-income groups.universal service; telephone access; pseudo-panel data

Affordable, Entropy Conserving and Entropy Stable Flux Functions for the Ideal MHD Equations

In this work, we design an entropy stable, finite volume approximation for the ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The method is novel as we design an affordable analytical expression of the numerical interface flux function that discretely preserves the entropy of the system. To guarantee the discrete conservation of entropy requires the addition of a particular source term to the ideal MHD system. Exact entropy conserving schemes cannot dissipate energy at shocks, thus to compute accurate solutions to problems that may develop shocks, we determine a dissipation term to guarantee entropy stability for the numerical scheme. Numerical tests are performed to demonstrate the theoretical findings of entropy conservation and robustness.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1509.06902; text overlap with arXiv:1007.2606 by other author

A Polynomial Spectral Calculus for Analysis of DG Spectral Element Methods

We introduce a polynomial spectral calculus that follows from the summation by parts property of the Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto quadrature. We use the calculus to simplify the analysis of two multidimensional discontinuous Galerkin spectral element approximations

Robustness or Efficiency, A Test to Solve the Dilemma

When dealing with the presence of outliers in a dataset, the problem of choosing between the classical ordinary least squares and robust regression methods is sometimes addressed inadequately. In this article, we propose using a Hausman-type test to determine whether a robust S- estimator is more appropriate than an ordinary least squares one in a multiple linear regression framework, on the basis of the trade-off betewen robustness and efficiency. An economic example is provided to illustrate the usefulness of the test.Efficiency, Hausman Test, Linear Regression, Robustness, S- estimator

The Tragedy of the Commons or the Curse of Federalism

It has been suggested that …scal federalism is a good way to induce decentralized entities to behave parsimoniously, but this has been largely criticized in the literature, in particular because of the Common-Pool problem. In this paper, we present an extra facet of the latter problem. We present a simple theoretical model con…rmed by empirical evidence suggesting that vertical imbalance induces govenments to substitute redistributive spending for non-distributive expenditures. This drives …scal policies to be less efficient in reducing income inequality.Federalism, Income Inequality, Common Pool, Redistribution

Human Development and Electoral Systems

The aim of this paper is to test if electoral systems and human development are linked. Using high quality data and very simple panel data econometric techniques, we show that electoral systems play a critical role in explaining the difference in the levels of human development between countries. We find that countries which have proportional systems enjoy higher levels of human development than those with majoritarian ones, thanks to more redistributive fiscal policies. We also find that when the degree of proportionality, based on electoral district size, increases, so does human development.

Radically conservative

Günter Gassner explores the relations between radical and conservative approaches to design, through the lens of the ‘London skyline’