Education as a Positional Good? Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

People care about their relative standing in society and therefore compare themselves to relevant others. Empirical findings suggest that there are concerns for relative standing for different goods and life domains such as income, cars, attractiveness, and supervisor’s praise. Even education has been mentioned as having a (partially) positional character. However, there has been only small consideration of education as a positional good in the empirical literature so far. Based on the literature on positional concerns and the role of education on relative position, I use German panel data to investigate the relationship between education and life satisfaction beyond the effect education might have through other variables such as income, health, or occupational prestige. Additionally, I consider the possibility that the consumption of education is subject to positional concerns. I discover a positive relationship between education and life satisfaction, indicating that education has a consumption component. Moreover, the relationship depends on the distribution of particular levels of education, suggesting that education has a positional character. © 2021, The Author(s)

FARM MACHINERY INVESTMENT AND THE TAX REFORM ACT OF 1986

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 significantly changed incentives for investing. This analysis specifically examines how changes in marginal tax rates, depreciation schedules, and the investment tax credit altered the cost of capital and net investment in agriculture. A stochastic coefficients econometric methodology is used to estimate an investment function which is then used to simulate the effects of tax reform. Estimates indicated that relative to prior law, the Tax Reform Act will reduce the capital stock of farm machinery and equipment by nearly $4 billion.Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Electron beam induced softening of fused silica

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Effect of external magnetic field on electron spin dephasing induced by hyperfine interaction in quantum dots

We investigate the influence of an external magnetic field on spin phase relaxation of single electrons in semiconductor quantum dots induced by the hyperfine interaction. The basic decay mechanism is attributed to the dispersion of local effective nuclear fields over the ensemble of quantum dots. The characteristics of electron spin dephasing is analyzed by taking an average over the nuclear spin distribution. We find that the dephasing rate can be estimated as a spin precession frequency caused primarily by the mean value of the local nuclear magnetic field. Furthermore, it is shown that the hyperfine interaction does not fully depolarize electron spin. The loss of initial spin polarization during the dephasing process depends strongly on the external magnetic field, leading to the possibility of effective suppression of this mechanism.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Age, habitat, and yearly variation in the diet of a generalist insectivore, the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher

The article presents a study which examines the age, habitat, and yearly variation in the diet of a generalist insectivore, the southwestern Willow Flycatcher at Roosevelt Lake in central Arizona. It focuses on the five prey categories which were accounted for 70% of the proportional abundance in flycatcher diet, including Hymenoptera, Diptera, Cicadellidae, Coleoptera, and Formicide. It states that there were no detected differences in diet between sexes of adults, but adults and nestling samples differed, with higher proportions of Hymenoptera in adult samples and more Diptera in nestling samples. It discusses the comparison between flycatcher diet in habitat patches dominated by native cottonwood and willow, exotic salt cedar, or a mix of the three species

Measurements of the instantaneous velocity difference and local velocity with a fiber-optic coupler

New optical arrangements with two single-mode input fibers and a fiber-optic coupler are devised to measure the instantaneous velocity difference and local velocity. The fibers and the coupler are polarization-preserving to guarantee a high signal-to-noise ratio. When the two input fibers are used to collect the scattered light with the same momentum transfer vector but from two spatially separated regions in a flow, the obtained signals interfere when combined via the fiber-optic coupler. The resultant light received by a photomultiplier tube contains a cross-beat frequency proportional to the velocity difference between the two measuring points. If the two input fibers are used to collect the scattered light from a common scattering region but with two different momentum transfer vectors, the resultant light then contains a self-beat frequency proportional to the local velocity at the measuring point. The experiment shows that both the cross-beat and self-beat signals are large and the standard laser Doppler signal processor can be used to measure the velocity difference and local velocity in real time. The new technique will have various applications in the general area of fluid dynamics.Comment: Patent number: 67437 for associated information on the hardware, see http://karman.phyast.pitt.edu/horvath

Local birthing services for rural women: Adaptation of a rural New South Wales maternity service.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the outcomes of a public hospital maternity unit in rural New South Wales (NSW) following the adaptation of the service from an obstetrician and general practitioner-obstetrician (GPO)-led birthing service to a low-risk midwifery group practice (MGP) model of care with a planned caesarean section service (PCS). DESIGN: A retrospective descriptive study using quantitative methodology. SETTING: Maternity unit in a small public hospital in rural New South Wales, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: Data were extracted from the ward-based birth register for 1172 births at the service between July 2007 and June 2012. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Birth numbers, maternal characteristics, labour, birthing and neonatal outcomes. RESULTS: There were 750 births over 29 months in GPO and 277 and 145 births over 31 months in MGP and PCS, respectively, totalling 422 births following the change in model of care. The GPO had 553 (73.7%) vaginal births and 197 (26.3%) caesarean section (CS) births (139 planned and 58 unplanned). There were almost universal normal vaginal births in MGP (>99% or 276). For normal vaginal births, more women in MGP had no analgesia (45.3% versus 25.1%) or non-invasive analgesia (47.9% versus 38.6%) and episiotomy was less common in MGP than GPO (1.9% versus 3.4%). Neonatal outcomes were similar for both groups with no difference between Apgar scores at 5 min, neonatal resuscitations or transfer to high-level special care nurseries. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates how a rural maternity service maintained quality care outcomes for low-risk women following the adaptation from a GPO to an MGP service

Observation of Apparently Zero-Conductance States in Corbino Samples

Using Corbino samples we have observed oscillatory conductance in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system subjected to crossed microwave and magnetic fields. On the strongest of the oscillation minima the conductance is found to be vanishingly small, possibly indicating an insulating state associated with these minima.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTex