Reference Point Dependence for Specification Bias from Quality Upgrading

This paper argues that whether estimates of the welfare cost of natural or artificial trade barriers that do not discriminate by quality are subject to positive or negative specification bias when using models which do not explicitly recognize quality variation depends on the reference point used in counterfactual equilibrium analysis. We use numerical general equilibrium techniques to generate counter examples to the widely held view that (in the competitive case) incorporating quality upgrading will tend to reduce the welfare costs of quality invariant trade barriers. To do this, we use a trade-distorted equilibrium as the reference point, rather than free trade.

Plasma oestrogens after the menopause

Imperial Users onl

Comparing importance of knowledge and professional skill areas for engineering programming utilizing a two group Delphi survey

All engineering careers require some level of programming proficiency. However, beginning programming classes are challenging for many students. Difficulties have been well-documented and contribute to high drop-out rates which prevent students from pursuing engineering. While many approaches have been tried to improve the performance of students and reduce the dropout rate, continued work is needed. This research seeks to re-examine what items are critical for programming education and how those might inform what is taught in introductory programming classes (CS1). Following trends coming from accreditation and academic boards on the importance of professional skills, we desire to rank knowledge and professional skill areas in one list. While programming curricula focus almost exclusively on knowledge areas, integrating critical professional skill areas could provide students with a better high-level understanding of what engineering encompasses. Enhancing the current knowledge centric syllabi with critical professional skills should allow students to have better visibility into what an engineering job might be like at the earliest classes in the engineering degree. To define our list of important professional skills, we use a two-group, three-round Delphi survey to build consensus ranked lists of knowledge and professional skill areas from industry and academic experts. Performing a gap analysis between the expert groups shows that industry experts focus more on professional skills then their academic counterparts. We use this resulting list to recommend ways to further integrate professional skills into engineering programming curriculum

Can Tax Progression Raise Employment? A Study of Four European Countries

This paper shows that increases in direct tax progression tend to reduce wages and increase welfare and employment, even in a model allowing for labour supply effects. The employment effect is reversed when benefit levels are low, however. The model shows the different impacts on full and parttime workers, and on men and women. The countries modelled are France, Germany, Italy and the UK. An efficiency wage sector with training costs generates unemployment effects. Households choose between an efficiency wage sector and a market-clearing sector.

Carbon Abatement and its international effects in Europe including effects on other pollutants: a general equilibrium approach

This paper outlines the development of a CGE model as a tool for analysing many of the issues relating to the introduction of environmental taxation, such as interaction with other taxes, revenue recycling, international carbon 'leakage' and tax export effects. The model is linked to IIASA's RAINS model to expand the analysis to cover other cross-boundary pollution. Analysis of a 30 ECU per tonne carbon tax applied in Germany, the UK and the rest of the European Union indicate that it could achieve savings of the order of 20 per cent in carbon emissions compared to business as usual, at little economic cost to the EU countries. The emission savings may be slightly higher in Germany and lower in the UK than the rest of the EU, while the latter would also gain more from terms of trade effects. The tax would bring substantial savings in sulphur emissions. Alternatively, if emissions were allowed to stay constant, the saving on abatement technology would mean a modest improvement in the net cost of the tax. Effects on Nitrogen emissions are smaller.

The Allocation of Carbon Permits within One Country : A General Equilibrium Analysis of the United Kingdom

As part of the Kyoto agreement on limiting carbon emissions, from 2008 onwards an international market in auction able carbon permits will be established. This raises the issue of whether trading should be simply between governments or between companies, or in the latter case how such permits should be allocated. Our paper uses the British section of a CGE model of the European energy sectors to evaluate the economics of various methods of allocating permits within a country, as discussed in Lord Marshall’s recent report to the British government. The option of allocation entirely by auction is similar to the setting of a carbon tax, and the recycling of revenues to reduce or offset other economic distortions could produce a potential net benefit to incomes and employment. 'Grandfathering' some of the permits free to large firms, according to their base year carbon emissions, would mean loss of the benefits of recycling auction revenues. This might be exacerbated if it created windfall profits repatriated by foreign shareholders. The third major alternative is to review the allocation regularly, awarding permits to all firms according to a ‘benchmark’ allocation, based on 'best practice' as estimated by outside experts. This would be similar in practice to recycling the revenue as an output subsidy to the industry, though it could be complicated to implement. Such a system could allow much of the potential ‘double dividend’ to be realized, though it might still be preferable to auction permits, with the revenues used to offset taxes across a wider spread of industry

Analysis of thermal anharmonicity in some cubic perovskites

High -resolution neutron elastic- diffraction data have been collected for the cubic perovskites CsPbCZ₃, RbCaF₃, KMnF₃ and SrTiO₃ at a few degrees above their cubic -- tetragonal phase transition temperatures, Tᶜ. Similar data have also been collected for RbCaF₃ and KMnF₃ at room temperature - well above the transition.Use of both cumulant- and Fourier -invariant -expansion formalisms in the characterisation of anharmonic temperature factors is examined. The relative merits of each formalism are compared with particular reference to computational aspects and to the ease with which reliable descriptions of atomic probability density functions may be derived. It is found that the regimes of validity of both formalisms fall considerably short of systems displaying classically disordered microstructure. The superiority of Fourier -invariant techniques in the regime of relatively small anharmonic thermal motion is, however, clearly established.Cumulant and Fourier -invariant expressions have been used in the analysis of the data collected for the cubic perovskites. It is found that such anharmonicity as does exist in these crystals just above Tᶜ is predominantly associated with the thermal motion of the cations; that the magnitude and significance of this anharmonicity varies considerably between the different cations; but that its structure shows similar features in each. The motion of the cations is shown to be preferentially in the plane of the cubic unit cell face; a further slight preference is established for motion in the directions along which the ions are known to displace on passing to the lower- temperature phase. Clear evidence is found, for RbCaF₃ and KMnF₃, that the thermal anharmonicity of the cations is anomalously enhanced just above Tᶜ, while that of the anions is qualitatively as expected.Suggestions are made as to the nature of further work which will be required in order to clarify the full range of anharmonic atomic distributions susceptible to meaningful analysis by elastic- diffraction techniques