Podcast episode 4: Reflections on Travel Seminar to India

This article and podcast was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community.Christina Richardson (MDiv ’19) and David Schultz (MDiv ’18) discuss their experience abroad in India

Trade Adjustment Assistance under the U.S. Trade Act of 1974: An Analytical Examination and Worker Survey

The goals of trade adjustment assistance (TAA) are to ease transition, compensate injury, and bleed political pressure for protectionism. Section I of the paper outlines the economic principles underlying these goals, and their shifting historical importance in the U.S. Sections II and III of the paper discuss the personal characteristics of a representative sample of worker recipients of TAA in 1976, and their labor market success in several subsequent years. Their experience is compared to that of a matched sample of workers receiving standard unemployment insurance (UI) . Comparisons in Section II focus on differences in mean characteristics and experience between the TAA and UT samples, controlling only for whether workers returned eventually to the firm from which they were initially separated. Comparisons in Section III focus on differences between the TAA and UI samples in their ability to recover lost employment and income, using a regression approach that in principle controls for all relevant variables, and not for just one. The most important conclusions of the research are the following. (1) The majority of TAA recipients in 1976 were not permanently displaced, but returned eventually to their former employers. A far greater proportion of UI recipients suffered permanent displacement. (2) Workers receiving TAA had higher incomes on average than their counterparts who received only UI. Their incomes furthermore fell less frequently below the poverty line. (3) TAA recipients nevertheless experienced more frequent and enduring transitional unemployment than did UI recipients, and did not return to their former income level as rapidly. (4) The reasons for conclusion (3) were unclear. It could not readily be explained by differences between the TAA and UI samples in permanence of layoff, generosity of program benefits, age, experience, industry, affluence, economic environment, socioeconomic status, or behavioral responses to any of these variables. Conclusions (1) and (2) are at variance with most previous work on TAA. Conclusion (3) is not, but the traditional explanations for it are those that conclusion (4) rules out.

Numerical investigation of the Earth's rotation during a complete precession cycle

A theory for the long-term rotational motion of the quasi-rigid Earth was constructed by numerical integration. The theory spans 72,000 years centered about 1968 A.D., and provides accurate rotational and positional data for the Earth in the recent past and the near future. The physical model is termed dynamically consistent because developments for the active forces and torques are truncated based solely on their magnitudes regardless of their origin. The model includes all appropriate forces and torques due to the geopotential and tidal effects as well as lunisolar and planetary contributions. The elastic and inelastic deformations due to tidal action were too small to affect the mass properties of the Earth at the truncation level of the model. However, long-term dissipative effects of the tidal forces and torques were not negligible. These considerations gave the model its quasi-rigid characterization. The numerical output provided both rotational and orbital-element data. The data were fitted throughout the 72,000-year range using Chebyshev polynomial series

Exchange Rates and U.S. Auto Competitiveness

This paper develops unique disaggregated data for three U.S. automakers and three Japanese to assess how changes in exchange rates, factor costs, and voluntary export restraints have affected recent price competitiveness in the U.S. passenger car market. We find support for several familiar relationships. The support provided by the experience of the late 1970s is straightforward. The dollar's foreign- exchange value fell below its historical trend, in both nominal and cost- adjusted (real) terms, relative to the major suppliers of U.S. auto imports. U.S. price competitiveness tracked U.S. cost competitiveness quite closely, as average prices of U.S. automakers rose more slowly than those of their principal rival firms (all Japanese). "Misalignment" of the dollar toward weakness by historical norms was reflected in competitive relative pricing by U.S. auto firms, again with respect to a historical norm. The support provided by the experience of the years 1980-1985 is more complex and interesting. Strong offsetting forces appear to have been at work. Relative to major auto suppliers, the effective nominal dollar rose gradually toward its level of the mid-1970s, but the effective real "auto dollar" rose much faster, increasing to a level well above its historical norm by early 1985. U.S. cost competitiveness deteriorated not so much because of exchange rates, but because unit labor costs in manufacturing rose in the U.S. relative to those in major auto suppliers. U.S. auto price competitiveness began to deteriorate correspondingly, but soon stopped, and instead improved gradually between 1982 and 1985, ending up at about the same level in 1985 as in 1980. The Voluntary Restraint Arrangements (VRAs) with Japan, which began in 1981, seem to be the explanation for why the negative effects of exchange rates and costs on U.S. auto price competitiveness were offset. The VRAs are also a reason why average prices of U.S. automakers rose faster than other U.S. prices as measured by the consumer price index, and why in Japan, average prices on auto sales to the U.S. rose much faster than other Japanese prices. In sum, "misalignment" of the dollar toward strength by historical norms and deteriorating labor cost competitiveness, which tended to undermine the competitiveness of U.S. auto firms, were offset by the Japanese VRAs, which buttressed it. The VRAs, however, undermined the inter-sectoral competitiveness of autos.

The WTO and market-supportive regulation: a way forward on new competition, technological and labor issues

World Trade Organization

The readability of Australia’s taxation laws and supplemetary materials: an empirical investigation

Australian taxation law has been criticised for many years for its difficulty to read and understand. The Tax Law Improvement Project (TLIP) was established in December 1993 to rewrite in plain language Australia’s income tax legislation. The primary purpose of this study is to test empirically the effectiveness of attempts at simplifying the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 as amended. The study utilises empirical measures in analysing the level of readability of Australia’s taxation laws. In doing so, it builds on earlier research, which applied similar methods in examining the New Zealand taxation simplification process. It was found that the sections of Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 sampled were slightly more readable than corresponding sections of Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 as amended, which is consistent with Wallschutzky’s (1995) findings. Nevertheless, the results fall well short of acceptable bench-marks, suggesting that the goal of simplification has not been achieved.

Sensorless Battery Internal Temperature Estimation using a Kalman Filter with Impedance Measurement

This study presents a method of estimating battery cell core and surface temperature using a thermal model coupled with electrical impedance measurement, rather than using direct surface temperature measurements. This is advantageous over previous methods of estimating temperature from impedance, which only estimate the average internal temperature. The performance of the method is demonstrated experimentally on a 2.3 Ah lithium-ion iron phosphate cell fitted with surface and core thermocouples for validation. An extended Kalman filter, consisting of a reduced order thermal model coupled with current, voltage and impedance measurements, is shown to accurately predict core and surface temperatures for a current excitation profile based on a vehicle drive cycle. A dual extended Kalman filter (DEKF) based on the same thermal model and impedance measurement input is capable of estimating the convection coefficient at the cell surface when the latter is unknown. The performance of the DEKF using impedance as the measurement input is comparable to an equivalent dual Kalman filter using a conventional surface temperature sensor as measurement input.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 201