The Costs of Risk: Examining the Missing Link between Globalization and Social Spending

Globalization is often credited with the expansion of the welfare state and increased spending on social insurance programs. However, empirical evidence on the relationship between globalization and social welfare spending is mixed. One possible explanation for these mixed results might be country-specific factors that mediate the effect of globalization on social spending, such as key characteristics of a country's labor market. Countries with fluid, flexible labor markets likely respond to globalization differently than countries with rigid, inflexible markets. At the micro level, workers who find it costly to adjust to market volatility will likely demand compensatory and insurance programs to offset the high costs of adjustment. Given this, the relationship between globalization and social insurance is likely to be more sharply positive among countries with relatively immobile labor. I test this argument using data on social expenditures in both developed and developing countries. The findings indicate that trade exposure increases social spending in countries where workers face high adjustment costs. When workers face low adjustment costs, trade exposure has a strong reductive effect on social spending. This reductive effect declines as adjustment costs increase.

Traceability Adoption by Specialty Crop Producers in California

Surveys were sent to specialty crop producers in California, predominantly grower-packer-shippers, during the first half of 2006 to better understand the motives for traceability adoption. The questions in our survey allowed respondents to consider the benefits of tracing. A representative tracing system for melons was developed and costs for the system were collected from industry sources. Values were assigned to the benefits of traceability based on the cost of the representative system, responses collected in our survey, and using Borda’s rule. Results suggest that litigation concerns and firm reputation are the key drivers for maintaining traceability.Borda’s rule, California, partial budget, specialty crops, survey, traceability, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries,

Tilting mutation of weakly symmetric algebras and stable equivalence

We consider tilting mutations of a weakly symmetric algebra at a subset of simple modules, as recently introduced by T. Aihara. These mutations are defined as the endomorphism rings of certain tilting complexes of length 1. Starting from a weakly symmetric algebra A, presented by a quiver with relations, we give a detailed description of the quiver and relations of the algebra obtained by mutating at a single loopless vertex of the quiver of A. In this form the mutation procedure appears similar to, although significantly more complicated than, the mutation procedure of Derksen, Weyman and Zelevinsky for quivers with potentials. By definition, weakly symmetric algebras connected by a sequence of tilting mutations are derived equivalent, and hence stably equivalent. The second aim of this article is to study these stable equivalences via a result of Okuyama describing the images of the simple modules. As an application we answer a question of Asashiba on the derived Picard groups of a class of self-injective algebras of finite representation type. We conclude by introducing a mutation procedure for maximal systems of orthogonal bricks in a triangulated category, which is motivated by the effect that a tilting mutation has on the set of simple modules in the stable category.Comment: Description and proof of mutated algebra made more rigorous (Prop. 3.1 and 4.2). Okuyama's Lemma incorporated: Theorem 4.1 is now Corollary 5.1, and proof is omitted. To appear in Algebras and Representation Theor

Domestic Support Reform? A Closer Look at EU Policies Applied to Processed Fruits and Vegetables

Recent trade negotiations have attracted much attention to the consequences of domestic support applied to agricultural markets. In various markets, researchers have examined the economic effects of regimes and scenarios with less, or different forms of, domestic support including decoupled payments. Here we examine the domestic support regimes for processed fruits and vegetables in the European Union (EU) where major policy changes were applied in 2001 and again in 2008. The changes were billed as policy “reform” but no analysis has yet evaluated quantitatively the nature of what was reformed and what was not. A simulation model is used here to assess the price, production, and welfare effects of policies that have been applied to the EU processing tomato industry. Our results indicate that EU domestic support has increased EU tomato production by 7 to 12%, decreased production in other regions by 3 to 5%, and distorted the processing tomato market most during the period between 2001 and 2007.agricultural policy reform, domestic support, horticultural markets, European Union, Common Agricultural Policy, processing tomatoes, simulation analysis, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q18,

Two-Buck Chuck and Wine Quality: Hedonic Price Analysis of Cool Climate Wines

Demand and Price Analysis,

“Pill vs. Broccoli” – The Economics of Health Behavior and Vitamin Consumption

Health Economics and Policy,

Greece’s creditors are paying the price for not relaxing their conditions prior to the 2015 election

Greece has submitted new proposals to its creditors in an attempt to finally end the deadlock over the release of further bailout funding. Stephanie J. Rickard writes that the present impasse could have been avoided if the strategy pursued by the International Monetary Fund in previous loan programmes to other countries had been repeated. Drawing on a study of democratic countries under IMF programmes, she notes that the IMF has typically relaxed loan programme requirements in the leadup to elections. By failing to do so in the Greek case, the foundations were set for Syriza to come to power on an anti-austerity platform, making a compromise far more difficult

Searching for Young Substellar Companions to Gaia Stars

The aim of this thesis is to select young ultra-cool dwarf (UCD, spectral type later than M7) candidates that are likely companions to primary stars within the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) catalogue. The intention is to identify a sample of “benchmark” UCDs for which youth and age constraints can be established through association with well understood primary stars. Candidate UCDs are identified through searches of two large-area optical surveys, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS), and two large-area infrared surveys, the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) and the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS). Potential benchmark pairings are selected using a cone-search around each TGAS star with a search radius of 10,000 AU at the distance of each TGAS star. Photometric (colour and magnitude) requirements are imposed on possible associations through comparison, in colour magnitude diagrams (CMDs), with the location of established parallax samples of young and normal UCDs. A set of complementary approaches has been implemented to identify indications of youth in both the UCD and the primary components, the results of which have been brought together into a prioritisation scheme which has been used to guide and plan follow-up observing runs during the project. These diagnostics included unusual UCD colours in the near-infrared and optical, main-sequence lifetime constraints for the primaries, and primary over-brightness (as a function of [M/H] and Teff) indicative of pre-main sequence evolution. A broad range of database information on the stellar components is also gathered providing additional age limitations. UCD proper motion constraints are determined using multi-epoch astrometry from the search-surveys as well as archival motions from the SuperCOSMOS Science Archive. This extensive search and analysis generated a sample of 1,623 candidate young benchmark associations, twenty-four that already evidence strong youth diagnostics in both UCD and primary star components, fifty that are common-proper-motion associations, thirty where the pairs are in close proximity to each other (< 6 arcseconds), and 348 where the primary candidate has high proper motion leading to expectation that the companion candidate can be rapidly motion-tested. Narrow band near-infrared observations are also presented for ten of the candidate UCD components, in an attempt to search for established H-band morphological indicators of extreme youth. With three of these candidates showing Hs-Hl and J-J3 colours consistent with synthesized predictions using previously known young objects. Finally, high priority followup plans and additional development aimed at near-future Gaia DR2 exploitation are considered as future work

Economic geography, politics, and policy

Globalization has reduced the importance of distance between countries. Yet, within countries, geography matters now more than ever. Economic activities, including production and employment, occur unevenly across space within countries, and globalization consequently impacts various regions differently. Some areas benefit from international economic integration while others lose, and as a result, economic geography shapes citizens’ experience of globalization. Economic geography also influences governments’ responses to globalization and economic shocks. Economic geography consequently merits the attention of political scientists. By examining economic geography, researchers will find new traction on long-standing theoretical debates and valuable insights on recent developments, including the growing backlash against globalization. The challenges of studying economic geography include causal complexity and measurement issues