Is the scope of phonological planning constrained by the syntactical role of the utterance constituents?

Five experiments looked the effect of repeated phonemes in the production of color adjective+noun phrases in English ("green gun"), or noun+color adjective phrases in Spanish and French. Whereas phoneme repetition sped up naming latencies in the case of prenominal color adjectives, it induced inhibition in the postnominal case. We argue that these dissociation is not compatible with a genuine crosslinguistic difference in the scope of phonological encoding. Rather we explain it in terms of the interplay between an activation gradient, coding word order, and an activation bias, coding the syntactical role of the utterance constituents

Spillover effects from new housing supply

I estimate spillovers from new housing supply on house prices, crime rates, and household income. To estimate these effects, I use exogenous variation in supply induced by a housing subsidy implemented in middle-income neighborhoods in the city of Montevideo. The program incentivized residential development through tax breaks that led to sizable investments in certain neighborhoods. I exploit the spatial structure of the scheme to identify the externalities and find clear evidence of spillovers from new supply on house prices, with prices increasing between 12 and 17%. Property crime rates only decreased in the short term, while there is evidence of an increase in household income, suggesting that the neighborhood income mix responded to the supply expansion. Increasing supply appears to revitalize neighborhoods, but these effects also reduce housing affordability

EU TRADE POLICY AMID THE CHINA-US CLASH: CAUGHT IN THE CROSS-FIRE? BRUEGEL WORKING PAPER | ISSUE 07 | SEPTEMBER 2019

China’s rapid rise and unique economic system, and the United States’ increasingly disruptive trade policy, threaten the global rules-based trade and economic system. The European Union has so far been comparatively spared from the US-China trade war, but must nevertheless safeguard its critical interests by adopting an independent, proactive stance. The EU does not currently have to make a general choice between China or the US, and like many other jurisdictions around the world it should aim to defend its continuing ability to not make such a general choice, even as this stance will generate tensions with both. The April 2019 China-EU summit illustrated the credibility of this approach, and the objectives stated in the summit conclusions should be delivered. The EU, even more than the US or China, has a strategic interest in preserving the global rules-based order embodied by the World Trade Organisation. It must steer WTO reform, working closely with aligned third countries such as Japan. The EU should expand its outreach beyond its immediate negotiating counterparts in both the US and China, and work in particular to ensure its (EU- and member-state level) leading officials better understand China. While strengthening its instruments to address new challenges, such as the screening of foreign direct investment for security purposes, the EU must also resist the temptations of protectionism and economic nationalism. In support of these objectives, the EU should prepare for difficult decisions, which might involve revising some of its red lines in international trade negotiations. Conversely, the EU should stand firm on principles such as refusing one-sided agreements and rejecting abusive recourse to national security arguments in trade policies

EU trade policy amid the China-US clash: caught in the crossfire? WORKING PAPER | ISSUE 07 | 16 SEPTMBER 2019. Bruegel

China’s rapid rise and unique economic system, and the United States’ increasingly disruptive trade policy, threaten the global rules based trade and economic system. The European Union has so far been comparatively spared from the US-China trade war, but must nevertheless safeguard its critical interests by adopting an independent, proactive stance. The EU does not currently have to make a general choice between China or the US, and like many other jurisdictions around the world it should aim to defend its continuing ability to not make such a general choice, even as this stance will generate tensions with both. The April 2019 China-EU summit illustrated the credibility of this approach, and the objectives stated in the summit conclusions should be delivered. The EU, even more than the US or China, has a strategic interest in preserving the global rules-based order embodied by the World Trade Organisation. It must steer WTO reform, working closely with aligned third countries such as Japan. The EU should expand its outreach beyond its immediate negotiating counterparts in both the US and China, and work in particular to ensure its (EU- and member-state level) leading officials better understand China. While strengthening its instruments to address new challenges, such as the screening of foreign direct investment for security purposes, the EU must also resist the temptations of protectionism and economic nationalism. In support of these objectives, the EU should prepare for difficult decisions, which might involve revising some of its red lines in international trade negotiations. Conversely, the EU should stand firm on principles such as refusing one-sided agreements and rejecting abusive recourse to national security arguments in trade policie

Shallow versus Deep Integration between Mediterranean Countries and the EU and within the Mediterranean Region

The paper aims at assessing the specific impact of shallow versus deep integration between Mediterranean (MED) countries1 and their partners in the European Union (EU) as well as between the MED countries themselves. It relies on dataset developed for this project concerning tariffs (as a proxy for shallow integration) and Non Tariff Measures (NTMs)2 (as a proxy for deep integration). Additional data are also included in order to take into account other trade costs, especially transport costs and logistics costs. In this regard, an original dataset of maritime freight cost (Maersk, 2007) is introduced as well as the trade logistics performance (TLP) index produced by the World Bank. Such datasets are useful for providing additional insight into deep integration. The paper starts by calculating the magnitude of NTMs in terms of ad valorem tariff equivalent (AVEs). The estimation of NTMs through ad valorem equivalents (AVEs) shows that Algeria and Jordan have the highest value of AVEs, whereas Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt have the lowest value. A gravity model is then estimated with special emphasis on trade costs which are the crucial point in our research study. Given the limitation of data on NTMs, the gravity model is estimated for only one year (2001), and for each MED country. Trade costs are represented by tariffs, AVEs of NTMs, and transport and logistics costs. The idea is to test which of the three elements of trade costs are the most impeding to bilateral trade between MED countries and EU countries as well as amongst MED countries. The model shows that tariffs, NTMs, and trade and logistics costs have a significant impact on trade, but is highly vivid in countries suffering from high tariff rates, prevalence of NTMs, and trade costs. A number of simulations are carried out trying to differentiate between the impact of partial liberalization and full liberalization on trade creation. The results obtained show that full liberalization has a significant effect whether it is only related to shallow integration (tariff removal) or deep integration (NTMs and trade and logistics). The effect is higher if trade costs and logistics are improved. The results are far less if only partial liberalization takes place and in several countries is insignificant implying that marginal reductions in NTMs or tariffs cannot always help to create trade. Finally the study shows that there is a huge potential for enhancing trade amongst MED countries if trade costs are lowered, logistics is improved, and NTMs are abolished.Regional Trade Agreements, Regional Integration, Non-Tariff-Measures, Deep versus shallow integration, South Mediterranean countries, European Union Trade Agreements

RT-SLAM: A Generic and Real-Time Visual SLAM Implementation

This article presents a new open-source C++ implementation to solve the SLAM problem, which is focused on genericity, versatility and high execution speed. It is based on an original object oriented architecture, that allows the combination of numerous sensors and landmark types, and the integration of various approaches proposed in the literature. The system capacities are illustrated by the presentation of an inertial/vision SLAM approach, for which several improvements over existing methods have been introduced, and that copes with very high dynamic motions. Results with a hand-held camera are presented.Comment: 10 page

A Framework For TV Logos Learning Using Linear Inverse Diffusion Filters For Noise Removal

Different logotypes represent significant cues for video annotations. A combination of temporal and spatial segmentation methods can be used for logo extraction from various video contents. To achieve this segmentation, pixels with low variation of intensity over time are detected. Static backgrounds can become spurious parts of these logos. This paper offers a new way to use several segmentations of logos to learn new logo models from which noise has been removed. First, we group segmented logos of similar appearances into different clusters. Then, a model is learned for each cluster that has a minimum number of members. This is done by applying a linear inverse diffusion filter to all logos in each cluster. Our experiments demonstrate that this filter removes most of the noise that was added to the logo during segmentation and it successfully copes with misclassified logos that have been wrongly added to a cluster

Local retail prices, product varieties and neighborhood change

We study how local grocery prices within a city are affected by changes in housing markets. Our empirical strategy is based on an exogenous shift in the spatial distribution of construction activity induced by a large-scale, place-based tax exemption in the city of Montevideo. We provide instrumental variable estimates showing that the relative price of grocery goods decreases in areas within the city that experience more residential development: the estimated elasticity of grocery prices to newly-built residential space lies between -3 and -4%. Using a multi-product model of imperfect competition, we show that this negative effect can result from either an expansion in product varieties or firm entry. We report evidence supporting the varieties channel, with new residential development causing an increase in varieties of groceries available locally, and evidence of changes in the composition of stores