Ownership and performance of Lithuanian enterprises

The author presents some evidence of improved corporate performance in Lithuania for the period 1995-97. His question: Were these improvements in any way caused by privatization and changes in the environment in which enterprises operate? He presents evidence of correlation between ownership and enterprise performance as measured by increased revenues, and improved export performance. Controlling for pre-selection bias increases the magnitude, and significance of private share ownership, which indicates negative selection bias at privatization. On the other hand, (expected) subsidies seem to contribute negatively to enterprise performance. However, the study finds no clear evidence of the effect of market competition on performance indicators in the short run. The author's is the first study to analyze the consequences of commercial (as opposed to mass) privatization in Central and Eastern European countries.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,FinancialCrisis Management&Restructuring,Judicial System Reform,Legal Institutions of the Market Economy,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Judicial System Reform

Industrial growth and the quality of institutions : what do (transition) economies have to gain from the Rule of Law?

The authors empirically test the link between industrial growth and indicators of institutional quality. They find significant evidence that institutional quality affects inindustrial growth in 27 Asian and Latin American countries. Their results suggest that the development of the legal and regulatory framework works its way to industrial growth through both investment and total factor productivity. The implications for policymakers in transition economies: Institution building should complement privatization, public and private investment in education, research and development, and measures to promote foreign direct investment. Specifically, policymakers should try to reduce corruption, eliminate bureacratic barriers, and improve the legal environment and contract enforcement. Special attention should also be given to measures to deepen financial intermediation, improve the financial sector infrastructure, and increase the efficiency of financial transactions.Governance Indicators,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Trade and Regional Integration

How Tight is Too Tight? A Look at Welfare Implications of Distortionary Policies in Uzbekistan

Since independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has pursued a gradual approach to the transition from planned to market economy. This approach relied heavily on trade controls, directed credit, and large public investments. In addition, a number of financial sector measures were instituted that distorted resource allocation and increased transaction costs. As a result, while possibly preventing the contraction of output in the early 1990s, these policies led to disappointing economic outcomes and social conditions later on. The paper reviews the underlying distortions and presents survey-based evidence to support their existence and their detrimental impact on economic activity. Looking forward, the paper - using a representative agent framework to model existing financial sector distortions - offers some guidance regarding the likely implications of eliminating these distortions on key aggregate variables. It suggests that the elimination of these distortions will be welfare enhancing and will lead to higher levels of investment and capital stock.financial sector distortions, transition, Uzbekistan

Equation of state at high densities and modern compact star observations

Recently, observations of compact stars have provided new data of high accuracy which put strong constraints on the high-density behaviour of the equation of state of strongly interacting matter otherwise not accessible in terrestrial laboratories. The evidence for neutron stars with high mass (M =2.1 +/- 0.2 M_sun for PSR J0751+1807) and large radii (R > 12 km for RX J1856-3754) rules out soft equations of state and has provoked a debate whether the occurence of quark matter in compact stars can be excluded as well. In this contribution it is shown that modern quantum field theoretical approaches to quark matter including color superconductivity and a vector meanfield allow a microscopic description of hybrid stars which fulfill the new, strong constraints. The deconfinement transition in the resulting stiff hybrid equation of state is weakly first order so that signals of it have to be expected due to specific changes in transport properties governing the rotational and cooling evolution caused by the color superconductivity of quark matter. A similar conclusion holds for the investigation of quark deconfinement in future generations of nucleus-nucleus collision experiments at low temperatures and high baryon densities such as CBM @ FAIR.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G. (Special Issue

First results from the NA60 experiment at CERN

Since 1986, several heavy ion experiments have studied some signatures of the formation of the quark-gluon plasma and a few exciting results have been found. However, some important questions are still unanswered and require new measurements. The NA60 experiment, with a new detector concept that vastly improves dimuon detection in proton-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions, studies several of those open questions, including the production of open charm. This paper presents the experiment and some first results from data collected in 2002.Comment: Paper presented at the XXXVIII Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions, Les Arcs, March 22-29, 2003. 4 pages, 6 figure

First results from NA60 on low mass muon pair production in In-In collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon

The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS studies dimuon production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. The combined information from a novel vertex telescope made of radiation-tolerant silicon pixel detectors and from the muon spectrometer previously used in NA50 allows for a precise measurement of the muon vertex and a much improved dimuon mass resolution. We report on first results from the data taken for Indium-Indium collisions at 158 AGeV/nucleon in 2003, concentrating on a subsample of about 370 000 muon pairs in the mass range $<1.2$ GeV/$c^{2}$. The light vector mesons $\omega$ and $\phi$ are completely resolved, with a mass resolution of about 23 MeV/$c^{2}$ at the $\phi$. The transverse momentum spectra of the $\phi$ are measured over the continuous range $0<p_{\rm T}<2.5$ GeV/c; the inverse slope parameter of the spectra is found to increase with centrality, with an average value of $T=252\pm3$ MeV.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Plenary talk, SQM2004 conference, Cape Town, South Africa 15-20 September, 2004. To be published in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physic

Galectin-9 Controls CD40 Signaling through a Tim-3 Independent Mechanism and Redirects the Cytokine Profile of Pathogenic T Cells in Autoimmunity

While it has long been understood that CD40 plays a critical role in the etiology of autoimmunity, glycobiology is emerging as an important contributor. CD40 signaling is also gaining further interest in transplantation and cancer therapies. Work on CD40 signaling has focused on signaling outcomes and blocking of its ligand, CD154, while little is known about the actual receptor itself and its control. We demonstrated that CD40 is in fact several receptors occurring as constellations of differentially glycosylated forms of the protein that can sometimes form hybrid receptors with other proteins. An enticing area of autoimmunity is differential glycosylation of immune molecules leading to altered signaling. Galectins interact with carbohydrates on proteins to effect such signaling alterations. Studying autoimmune prone NOD and non-autoimmune BALB/c mice, here we reveal that in-vivo CD40 signals alter the glycosylation status of non-autoimmune derived CD4 T cells to resemble that of autoimmune derived CD4 T cells. Galectin-9 interacts with CD40 and, at higher concentrations, prevents CD40 induced proliferative responses of CD4loCD40+ effector T cells and induces cell death through a Tim-3 independent mechanism. Interestingly, galectin-9, at lower concentrations, alters the surface expression of CD3, CD4, and TCR, regulating access to those molecules and thereby redirects the inflammatory cytokine phenotype and CD3 induced proliferation of autoimmune CD4loCD40+ T cells. Understanding the dynamics of the CD40 receptor(s) and the impact of glycosylation status in immunity will gain insight into how to maintain useful CD40 signals while shutting down detrimental ones