Firm Heterogeneity and the Geography of International Trade

A key distinction which has emerged from heterogeneous firm models of international trade is that of exporting at the intensive and extensive margins. Empirically however, the two are often conflated, leading to biased estimates of the impact of falling trade costs. This paper exploits detailed firm level data, which includes information on the destination of exports to investigate causal links between enterprise productivity and the number of markets a firm serves as well as the relative size of those markets. Our focus is Sweden’s Food and Beverage sector, which is not only highly open, but has been subject to policy induced changes in trade costs (as well as falling natural barriers) over our sample period. We have data on almost 10,000 firm / time / destination observations across 6 years and 138 destinations. Our results confirm that conflating adjustment at the internal and external margins does bias trade resistance effects. Combining detailed firm specific information with data on destination characteristics confirms the importance of a range of country specific characteristics (including exchange rate risk) and facilitates the estimation of both distance and market size elasticities, from firm level data.trade costs, firm characteristics, destination characteristics, market size, distance

Exchange Rate Uncertainty and Export Decisions in the UK

Using data on UK manufacturing firms, we examine the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on firm decisions on export market entry and export intensity. The use of micro data and new measures of exchange rate uncertainty enable us to test for hysteresis effects in a new way and to test the sensitivity of results to a range of different measures. The results show that exchange rate uncertainty has little effect on firms’ export participation but a significant impact on export intensity.Exchange rate uncertainty, export share, hysteresis effects

Exchange Rates, Exports and FDI: A Microeconometric Analysis

Our focus is the effects of exchange rate movements on firm decisions on export market entry and export intensity. Using data on UK manufacturing firms we find that exchange rate movements have little effect on firm export participation but have a significant impact on export shares. We also investigate the effects of exchange rate movements on the export behaviour of multinationals, and find important differences according to country of origin. Multinationals firms originating from outside the European Union are less affected by changes in the exchange rate compared to those inside, whose reactions are similar to domestic firms.Exchange rate movements, export share, multinational firms

Exchange Rates and Exports: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in the UK

Our focus is the effects of exchange rate movements on firm decisions on export market entry and exit and export intensity. The analysis breaks down export adjustments between changes in export share by existing exporters and changes due to entry to and exit from export markets. Using data on a large sample of UK manufacturing firms, we find that exchange rate movements have little effect on firm's export participation and exit decisions. However, they do have a significant impact on export shares after entry. The responsiveness of the export share to exchange rate changes is not quantitatively small: one index point depreciation in the REER index will increase export share by about 1.28 percent. We also investigate the effects of exchange rate movements on the export behavior of multinationals, and find their export behavior is less likely to be affected by exchange rate changes than that of indigenous firms.Exchange rate movements, export share, multinational firms

Technology Gap, Foreign Direct Investment, and Market Structure

We develop and analyze an entry model that predicts that the likelihood that foreign firms enter a country increases with the productivity gap between foreign and domestic firms. The intuition is that foreign firms locate where their competitive advantage is highest and thus enter countries where their productivity is higher relative to domestic firms. We test this model using firm level data on acquisitions of British firms by foreign firms and find results that are consistent with our model’s predictions.Technology gap, FDI, entry

Incidence of rough and irregular atmospheric ice particles from Small Ice Detector 3 measurements

NERC, NE/E011225/1 © Author(s) 2013. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 LicenseThe knowledge of properties of ice crystals such as size, shape, concavity and roughness is critical in the context of radiative properties of ice and mixed phase clouds. Limitations of current cloud probes to measure these properties can be circumvented by acquiring two-dimensional light scattering patterns instead of particle images. Such patterns were obtained in situ for the first time using the Small Ice Detector 3 (SID-3) probe during several flights in a variety of mid-latitude mixed phase and cirrus clouds. The patterns are analyzed using several measures of pattern texture, selected to reveal the magnitude of particle roughness or complexity. The retrieved roughness is compared to values obtained from a range of well-characterized test particles in the laboratory. It is found that typical in situ roughness corresponds to that found in the rougher subset of the test particles, and sometimes even extends beyond the most extreme values found in the laboratory. In this study we do not differentiate between small-scale, fine surface roughness and large-scale crystal complexity. Instead, we argue that both can have similar manifestations in terms of light scattering properties and also similar causes. Overall, the in situ data is consistent with ice particles with highly irregular or rough surfaces being dominant. Similar magnitudes of roughness were found in growth and sublimation zones of cirrus. The roughness was found to be negatively correlated with the halo ratio, but not with other thermodynamic or microphysical properties found in situ. Slightly higher roughness was observed in cirrus forming in clean oceanic airmasses than in a continental, polluted one. Overall, the roughness and complexity is expected to lead to increased shortwave cloud reflectivity, in comparison with cirrus composed of more regular, smooth ice crystal shapes. These findings put into question suggestions that climate could be modified through aerosol seeding to reduce cirrus cover and optical depth, as the seeding may result in decreased shortwave reflectivity.Peer reviewe

Light scattering by ice particles in the Earth's atmosphere and related laboratory measurements

The microphysical properties of ice crystals, such as size, shape, concavity and roughness, are important in the context of radiative properties of ice and mixed phase clouds. Limitations of current cloud probes to measure such properties can be circumvented by acquiring light scattering patterns instead of particle images. Recent in situ cloud data from the SID-3 probe is shown which is consistent with ice particles with rough surfaces being dominant

Alternative Price Indexes for Medical Care: Evidence from the MEPS Survey

Spending on medical care is a large and growing component of GDP. There are wellknown measurement problems that are estimated to overstate inflation and understate real growth for this sector by as much as 1-1/2 percentage points per year. Because of its size, this would translate into an overstatement of inflation for the overall economy of about ¼ percentage point with an equal understatement in real GDP growth. In this paper, we use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to obtain new, more comprehensive estimates for this bias and to explore a possible adjustment to existing official price indexes. The MEPS data show an upward bias to price growth in this sector of 1 percentage point, which translates into an overstatement of overall inflation of .2 percentage point and an understatement of GDP growth of the same amount. We also find that an adjustment recently used in Bradley et al provides a useful approximation to the indexes advocated by health economists.

The Universal Cloud and Aerosol Sounding System (UCASS): a low-cost miniature optical particle counter for use in dropsonde or balloon-borne sounding systems

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. An earlier version of this work was published in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions: https://dx.doi.org/10.5194/amt-2019-70.A low-cost miniaturized particle counter has been developed by The University of Hertfordshire (UH) for the measurement of aerosol and droplet concentrations and size distributions. The Universal Cloud and Aerosol Sounding System (UCASS) is an optical particle counter (OPC), which uses wide-angle elastic light scattering for the high-precision sizing of fluid-borne particulates. The UCASS has up to 16 configurable size bins, capable of sizing particles in the range 0.4–40 µm in diameter. Unlike traditional particle counters, the UCASS is an open-geometry system that relies on an external air flow. Therefore, the instrument is suited for use as part of a dropsonde, balloon-borne sounding system, as part of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or on any measurement platform with a known air flow. Data can be logged autonomously using an on-board SD card, or the device can be interfaced with commercially available meteorological sondes to transmit data in real time. The device has been deployed on various research platforms to take measurements of both droplets and dry aerosol particles. Comparative results with co-located instrumentation in both laboratory and field settings show good agreement for the sizing and counting ability of the UCASS.Peer reviewe

A population-based observational study on the factors associated with the completion of palliative chemotherapy among patients with oesophagogastric cancer.

OBJECTIVES: Palliative chemotherapy is routinely given to patients diagnosed with locally advanced or metastatic oesophagogastric (O-G) cancer. We examine which patients with O-G cancer in England receive palliative chemotherapy, and identify factors associated with treatment completion. DESIGN: A prospective population-based observational study. SETTING: All English National Health Service (NHS) trusts diagnosing patients with O-G cancer. PARTICIPANTS: Data were prospectively collected on patients diagnosed with invasive epithelial cancer of the oesophagus or stomach between 1 October 2007 and 30 June 2009 in English NHS hospitals, and those who had palliative treatment intent. OUTCOME MEASURE: We calculated the proportion of patients with different characteristics (eg, age, sex, stage at diagnosis, performance status) starting palliative chemotherapy. Multiple logistic regression was used to identify characteristics associated with non-completion of chemotherapy. RESULTS: There were 9768 patients in the study whose treatment intent was palliative. Among these, 2313 (24%) received palliative chemotherapy. It was received by 51% of patients aged under 55 years but only 9% of patients aged 75 years or over. Overall, 917 patients (53%) completed their treatment among the 1741 patients for whom information on treatment completion was recorded. Treatment completion ranged from 50-60% for patients with good performance status but was under 35% for patients aged 55 years or older with poor performance status. Treatment completion was not associated with site of cancer, pretreatment stage, sex, comorbidities or histology. CONCLUSIONS: Completion rates of palliative chemotherapy in patients with O-G cancer are low and elderly patients with poor performance status are very unlikely to complete a palliative chemotherapy treatment. Clinicians and patients should consider this information when balancing potential (survival) benefits, toxicity of treatment and its effect on quality of life