Ergodicity and indistinguishability in percolation theory

This paper explores the link between the ergodicity of the clus-ter equivalence relation restricted to its infinite locus and the indis-tinguishability of infinite clusters. It is an important element of the dictionary connecting orbit equivalence and percolation theory. This note starts with a short exposition of some standard material of these theories. Then, the classic correspondence between ergodicity and in-distinguishability is presented. Finally, we introduce a notion of strong indistinguishability that corresponds to strong ergodicity, and obtain that this strong indistinguishability holds in the Bernoulli case. We also define an invariant percolation that is not insertion-tolerant, sat-isfies the Indistinguishability Property and does not satisfy the Strong Indistinguishability Property

Identifying Fiscal Policy (In)effectiveness from the Differential Counter-Cyclicality of Government Spending in the Interwar Period

Differences across decades in the counter-cyclical stance of fiscal policy can identify whether the growth in government spending affects output growth and so speeds recovery from a recession. We study government-spending reaction functions from the 1920s and 1930s for twenty countries. There are two main findings. First, surprisingly, government spending was less counter-cyclical in the 1930s than in the 1920s. Second, the growth of government spending did not have a significant effect on output growth, so that there is little evidence that this feature of fiscal policy played a stabilizing role in the interwar period.fiscal policy, business-cycle history, Great Depression, interwar period

Population-level interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm: an overview of systematic reviews.

OBJECTIVE: To analyse available review-level evidence on the effectiveness of population-level interventions in non-clinical settings to reduce alcohol consumption or related health or social harm. METHOD: Health, social policy and specialist review databases between 2002 and 2012 were searched for systematic reviews of the effectiveness of population-level alcohol interventions on consumption or alcohol-related health or social outcomes. Data were extracted on review research aim, inclusion criteria, outcome indicators, results, conclusions and limitations. Reviews were quality-assessed using AMSTAR criteria. A narrative synthesis was conducted overall and by policy area. RESULTS: Fifty-two reviews were included from ten policy areas. There is good evidence for policies and interventions to limit alcohol sale availability, to reduce drink-driving, to increase alcohol price or taxation. There is mixed evidence for family- and community-level interventions, school-based interventions, and interventions in the alcohol server setting and the mass media. There is weak evidence for workplace interventions and for interventions targeting illicit alcohol sales. There is evidence of the ineffectiveness of interventions in higher education settings. CONCLUSION: There is a pattern of support from the evidence base for regulatory or statutory enforcement interventions over local non-regulatory approaches targeting specific population groups

Do Political Institutions Affect the Choice of the U.S. Cross-Listing Venue?

We study the impact of political institutions on foreign firms’ choice of their U.S. cross-listing venue. Using two measures of political institutions (an index of political rights and a political constraint index) and controlling for various firm-level and country-level characteristics, we show that foreign firms from countries with weak political institutions are more likely to cross-list in the U.S. via the over-the-counter market and less likely to opt for an exchange-listed program (i.e., New York, Nasdaq, and AMEX).Cross-listing, Political institutions, Legal institutions

DHCR7 mutations linked to higher vitamin D status allowed early human migration to Northern latitudes

PMCID: PMC3708787This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited