Solving the Schrödinger equation with use of 1/N perturbation theory

The large N expansion provides a powerful new tool for solving the Schrödinger equation. In this paper, we present simple recursion formulas which facilitate the calculation. We do some numerical calculations which illustrate the speed and accuracy of the technique

Religious Freedom Under Attack: The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State

In the summer of 2010, national media attention turned to a plan to build a Muslim community center, to be called "Park51," a few blocks away from ground zero. Although the plan was first reported in late 2009, with a quote from the project's religious leader at the time stating that its goal was to "push back against the extremists," the proposal did not receive much media attention until May 2010.This report discusses the legal and cultural background against which these controversies are playing out, and details some of the recent attacks on Muslim communities in New York. It also offers recommendations for how our government and our communities can work to increase intercultural understanding of Muslim New Yorkers and reduce anti-Muslim sentiment in New York State

Exchange rate overvaluation and trade protection - lessons from experience

Despite a trend toward more flexible rates, more than half the world's countries maintain fixed or managed exchange rates. In the 1980s and 1990s, developing countries as a group progressively liberalized their trade regimes, but some governments defend their exchange rate in actions that run counter to long-run plans for liberalization. Without discussing the relative merits of fixed and flexible exchange rate systems, the authors note that exchange rate management in many countries has resulted in overvaluation of the real exchange rate. Roughly twenty five percent of the countries for which data are available have overvalued exchange rates, with black market premiums from 10 percent to more than 100 percent. After surveying the literature, the authors present lessons from experience about what has worked (or not) in response to crises involving external shocks and external trade deficits - and why. Trying to defend an overvalued exchange rate with protectionist trade policies is a classic pattern, but experience shows such protection does significantly retard the country's growth, and delay its integration into the world trading community. In fact, and overvalued exchange rate is often the root cause of protection, preventing the country from returning to more liberal trade policies that allow growth and integration into the world community without exchange rate adjustment. Most developing countries have downward price and wage rigidities and, with an external trade deficit, require some form of nominal exchange rate adjustment to restore external equilibrium. The authors present cross-country econometric and case study evidence - citing examples from Argentina, Chile, Ghana, The Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, Uruguay, and Sub-Saharan Africa (including the CFA zone) - that overvalued exchange rates reduce economic growth. Defending the exchange rate, they show, has nor no medium-term benefits, since falling reserves will eventually force devaluation. Better to have devaluation occur without further debilitating losses in reserves and lost productivity because of import controls. After devaluation the exchange rate will reach a new equilibrium, strongly influenced by government and central bank policies.ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Macroeconomic Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Stabilization,Economic Theory&Research

Developed Country Trade Barriers and the Least Developed Countries: The Economic Results of Freeing Trade

Least Developed Countries, Generalized System of Preferences, Doha Round

The geography of international investment

Much foreign direct investment is between high-income countries, but investment in some developing and transition regions, while still modest, grew rapidly in the 1990s. Adjusting for market size, much investment stays close to home; adjusting for distance, much heads toward the countries with the biggest markets. Foreign direct investment is more geographically concentrated than either exports, or production. Thus, U.S. affiliate production in Europe, is 7 times US exports to Europe; that ratio drops to 4 for all industrial countries, and to 1.6 for developing countries. Multinational activity in high-income countries is overwhelmingly horizontal, involving production for sale to the host country market. In developing countries, a greater proportion of multinational activity is"vertical", involving manufacturing at intermediate stages of production. Thus, only four percent of US affiliate production in the European Union (EU) is sold back to the United States, whereas for developing countries, the figure is eighteen percent, rising to forty percent for Mexico. Similarly, less than ten percent of Japan's affiliate production in the EU is sold back to Japan, compared with more than twenty percent in developing countries. In models of horizontal activity, the decision to go multinational, is a tradeoff between the additional fixed costs involved in setting up a new plant, and the savings in variable costs (transport costs, and tariffs) on exports. In models of vertical activity, direct investment is motivated by differences in factor prices) and discourage it (by making trade between headquarters , and an affiliate more expensive). The major outward investors carry out much horizontal investment in large markets. For US investors, this means Europe, especially the United Kingdom; for Japan and Europe, it means the United States. Most EU investments, however, stay within the EU. The major outward investors carry out much of their vertical investment closer to home: the United States, in Mexico; the EU, in Central and Eastern Europe; Japan, in Asia.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Foreign Direct Investment,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration

The Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project

Roadmap of follow up articl

French Wine and the U.S. Boycott of 2003: Does Politics Really Affect Commerce?

In early 2003, France actively tried to thwart the plans of the Bush administration to build international support for a war to depose Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. In response, calls in the United States for a boycott of French products, wine in particular, rebounded through all forms of media. In the spring of 2003, French business people even reported that the boycott calls were hurting their U.S. sales. Using a dataset of sales of nearly 4,700 individual wine brands, we show that there actually was no boycott effect. Rather, sales of French wine dipped for two reasons. First, they experience a cyclical peak at holiday time, from November through early January, and the boycott was called during the February to May period. Second, sales of French wine have been in a secular decline in the United States. Sales in February through May 2003 merely stayed on trend. We contrast our results with other recent work that has found evidence of a boycott effect but that omits the holiday effect from several specifications. French wine producers may be having economic problems, but it is not because of their government's foreign policy.

Self-administering arithmetic enrichment activities for the more rapid learner

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit