The Size of the Government and Economic Growth: An Empirical Study of Sri Lanka

The new growth theory establishes, among other things, that government expenditure can manipulate economic growth of a country. This study attempts to explain whether government expenditure increases or decreases economic growth in the context of Sri Lanka. Results obtained applying an analytical framework based on time series and second degree polynomial regressions are generally consistent with previous findings: government expenditure and economic growth are positively correlated; excessive government expenditure is negatively correlated with economic growth; and an open economy promotes growth. In a separate section, the paper examines Armey’s (1995) idea of a quadratic curve that explains the level of government expenditure in an economy and the corresponding level of economic growth. The findings confirm the possibility of constructing the Armey curve for Sri Lanka, and it estimates the optimal level of government expenditure to be approximately 27 per cent. This paper adds to the literature indicating that the Armey curve is a reality not only for developed economies, but also for developing economies.government expenditure, economic growth, time series regression, polynomial regression, Armey curve

Knowledgehubs - meeting the water sector needs of the Asia-Pacific Region

Information exchange, Information transfer, Capacity building, Research institutes, Stakeholders, Water resource management, Irrigation management, Food security, Asia, Pacific Islands, Singapore

Flexible Trade Policies in Agriculture Sectors of Developing Countries: Proposing a Technical Approach for Sri Lanka

After two decades of liberalized economic policies together with early accession to WTO, Sri Lanka could not achieve the exp ected fast economic growth. Agriculture growth in particular fell sharply. WTO Doha round expects a deeper liberalization. Instead, we will benefit more from being a friend of the "Development Box" and securing flexibility in tariff revisions. In asserting this, the paper analyzes impacts of liberalized policies on agriculture, stress the need for flexible trade policies and formulate a design for self designating Special Products (SP) and Special Safeguard Mechanisms (SSM). The past economic growth favoured mostly urbanised population. Sluggish rural agricultural growth, hurt with increased food imports, was the main cause of this unbalance development. Therefore the sustainable growth of the agriculture sector, facilitated by some protection, is necessary for equitable economic development. As the country budget restricts domestic support, the SP and SSM modalities would be the most suitable protective tools. WTO Hong Kong meeting allows flexibility in tariff schedules to address rural development (RD), food security (FS) and livelihood security (LS) needs through protection. The study identified appropriate criteria to designate agriculture products contributing to RD, FS, and LS for protection from dumping and import surges. The study recommends SP and also Volume and Price triggers for products as appropriate to invoke SSM for Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka, trade liberalization, market access, special products, special safeguard mechanisms, International Relations/Trade,

Market-Based Approaches to Pollution Control in the Lake Taupo Catchment in New Zealand

There are at least five general reasons why market-based policies fail to address some of the most basic environmental objectives. This study evaluates the available biophysical and economic data against these criteria and concludes that market-based approaches should be employed cautiously in pollution control under the present system and the available technology for farming in the lake area. The most effective market-based instrument to control pollution, in this case, seems to be negative incentives, as the public net cost of farming is extremely higher than the private net benefits. However, the intensity of taxes that would be effective in this regard would definitely results negative net farm benefits. The principle alternative, emission trading, would be effective with a highly regulated system given long-term political willingness to address the problem effectively.Pollution, Market-based policies, Emission trading, Environmental Economics and Policy,

The IWRM-Fergana Project: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Water resource management / Development projects / Water users associations / Irrigation canals / Irrigation management / Central Asia / Kyrgyzstan / Tajikistan / Uzbekistan / Fergana Valley

Real Estate Market Efficiency: A Survey of Literature

In this paper, we discuss the question whether or not the real estate market is efficient. We define market efficiency and the efficient market hypothesis as it had been developed in the literature on financial markets. Then, we discuss the empirical evidence that exists concerning the efficiency or inefficiency of financial markets, usually seen as the reference markets as far as market efficiency is concerned. In a separate section, we turn to the real estate market. There, we define the real estate market and discuss various aspects that are decisive for the efficiency of that market. As it turns out, the result found in the literature is inconclusive. Majority of studies provide evidence supporting inefficiency of the real estate market while several studies maintain the notion of real estate market efficiency.

Going Deeper into Action Recognition: A Survey

Understanding human actions in visual data is tied to advances in complementary research areas including object recognition, human dynamics, domain adaptation and semantic segmentation. Over the last decade, human action analysis evolved from earlier schemes that are often limited to controlled environments to nowadays advanced solutions that can learn from millions of videos and apply to almost all daily activities. Given the broad range of applications from video surveillance to human-computer interaction, scientific milestones in action recognition are achieved more rapidly, eventually leading to the demise of what used to be good in a short time. This motivated us to provide a comprehensive review of the notable steps taken towards recognizing human actions. To this end, we start our discussion with the pioneering methods that use handcrafted representations, and then, navigate into the realm of deep learning based approaches. We aim to remain objective throughout this survey, touching upon encouraging improvements as well as inevitable fallbacks, in the hope of raising fresh questions and motivating new research directions for the reader

Reconciling Value Conflicts in Regional Forest Planning in Australia: A Decision Theoretic Approach

The Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) programme introduced in the 1990s, in Australia to protect environmental values, encourage job creation and growth and manage forests in an ecologically sustainable manner. Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques were used in this study to assess their potential for examining the RFA policy. The empirical study of the North East Victoria RFA using MCDA attempted to explore the potential of these techniques. The results indicate that the old-growth forest is the most valued attribute and timber production appeared important. The most preferred forest land management option was option A with a high level of conservation and low level of native timber extraction which differed from the government option for North East Victoria. This observation highlights the fact that non-incorporation of stakeholder preferences into public decision making in forest management can lead to decisions not acceptable to a majority of stakeholders. The three methods namely AHP, MAVT and MAUT provide similar ranking of options. despite the different theoretical bases of the three MCDA techniques. The major implication of this research is that better forest management policies can be developed if we can incorporate stakeholder preferences explicitly.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Mechanical properties and thermomechanical behaviour of poly (ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) based shape memory polymer composites

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are an emerging class of intelligent material that can program in to a temporary shape and recover to its original by exposing to a particular external stimulus. Poly (ethyleneco-vinyl acetate) (EVA) is one of the commercial polymers, which has been used to produce SMPs activated by heat. However, its low mechanical properties, low recovery stress and flexible behaviour restrict the potential applications under robust conditions. Herein, we developed a series of EVA based shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) with glass fibre, carbon fibre and multi-walled carbon nanotube reinforcements. The effects of different reinforcements on tensile strength have been investigated. Moreover, the dynamic mechanical analysis has been carried out to characterize the glass transition temperature. The shape memory performance of the neat SMP and SMPCs were examined by measuring the angle recovery of 90° bended strips. Subsequently, the shape fixity and recovery ratios of the samples were calculated. This paper presents the manufacturing methods and performance of the fibre and particle reinforced EVA based SMPCs. The inclusion of reinforcements have enhanced the applicability of EVA based SMPCs in wider range of engineering application. In this paper the applicability of such SMPCs for machine elements are deliberated. Accordingly, a conceptual design of a SMPC made mechanical coupler is presented

State-resolved slice imaging of photochemical dynamics

This dissertation focuses on the understanding the unimolecular photochemistry and dynamics utilizing state-resolved slice imaging approach combined with the quantum-state selective spectroscopy technique called resonance enhanced multi photon ionization (REMPI) method. This powerful technique allows selecting the initial quantum states of the reactants and determining the nal quantum states, energy, the orientation and alignments of the products. In the investigations of photodissociation dynamics of acetone at 230 nm, a bimodal distribution for the resulting CO photoproduct is identied. This observation indicated the presence of unimolecular dissociation mechanism analogues to the roaming dynamics reported in formaldehyde photodissociation. Moreover, another type of roaming mechanism called \roaming-mediated isomerization is introduced in the study of nitrobenzene photodissociation. In this study molecules undergo roaming type isomerization before the simple bond ssion take place. In the study of photodissociation dynamics of tertachloroethylene (TCE) at 235 nm and 202 nm using state resolved slice imaging approach illustrate that the dissociation take place at the ground state despite the dierence in the excitation energies. A similar spin-orbit branching ratio of Cl/Cl* at both wavelengths are observed due to the above dynamical behavior of the molecule. In the study of HNO3 photodissociation near 204 nm report the translational energy and angular momentum distributions of the resulting O(1D) product. The vibrational energy distribution of the HONO co-product, as seen through the O(1D) translational energy distribution, shows signicant vibrational energy remaining in the molecule. Analysis of the angular distributions from both the 1F3 \u3c-- \u3c-- 1D2 and 1P1 \u3c-- \u3c-- 1D2 O probe transitions oer additional insight into the dynamics of the dissociation of nitric acid through the S3 (2 1A0 ) excited state, helping to resolve some outstanding questions and pointing the way to future studies. This approach allowed us to identify new mechanisms and channels created during the photodissociation events, calculate the branching ratios and infer the complex reactive processes in combustion, atmospheric and interstellar chemistry