39,759 research outputs found
A Study of the LEP and SLD Measurements of
A systematic study is made of the data dependence of the parameter
, that, since 1995, has shown a deviation from the Standard Model
prediction of between 2.4 and 3.1 standard deviations. Issues addressed
include: the effect of particular measurements, values found by individual
experiments, LEP/SLD comparison, and the treatment of systematic errors. The
effect, currently at the 2.4 level, is found to vary in the range from
1.7 to 2.9 by excluding marginal or particularly sensitive
data. Since essentially the full LEP and SLD Z decay data sets are now analysed
the meaning of the deviation, (new physics, or marginal statistical
fluctuation) is unlikely to be given by the present generation of colliders.Comment: 15 pages 7 figures 7 table
Globalization, Crop Choice and Property Rights in Rural Peru, 1994-2004
This paper describes the results of initial work analysing a panel of rural households in Peru between 1994 and 2004 to determine household responses to changes in relative prices of traditional versus export-oriented products. Our principal interest was to better understand how household responses to external economic shocks influenced rural welfare, income distribution and poverty. Since a large percentage of Peruvians living in poverty are located in rural areas, learning more about how these households respond to a changing external environment provides insights into the factors that influence their ability to improve their absolute and relative economic position. The results of our analysis indicate that changes in relative prices had a significant impact on the adoption of new agricultural products, and the magnitude of response was mitigated by households? degree of tenure security and access to regional and local markets. Analyses of household expenditures over the period indicate that those who adopted export crops experienced a significant growth in consumption proportional to the change in acreage devoted to exportable products, and were less likely to be classified as impoverished at the end of the period. Instrumental variables estimates suggest that this association is causal.agricultural households, microeconomic, international trade, structural adjustment, technology adoption, poverty,
The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century
Because of the Depression’s place in both the popular and academic imagination, and the repeated and justifiable emphasis on output that was not produced, income that was not earned, and expenditure that did not take place, it will seem startling to propose the following hypothesis: the years 1929–1941 were, in the aggregate, the most technologically progressive of any comparable period in U.S. economic history.1 The hypothesis entails two primary claims: that during this period businesses and government contractors implemented or adopted on a more widespread basis a wide range of new technologies and practices, resulting in the highest rate of measured peacetime peak-to-peak multifactor productivity growth in the century, and secondly, that the Depression years produced advances that replenished and expanded the larder of unexploited or only partially exploited techniques, thus providing the basis for much of the labor and multifactor productivity improvement of the 1950’s and 1960’s
Economics, Biology, and Culture: Hodgson on History
This book addresses what the author claims, with considerable justification, to be the foremost challenge confronting the social and behavioral sciences today: the problem of historical specificity. Hodgson poses the question by asking whether we need different theories to understand social and economic behavior in different societies at different stages of their development. He answers the question in the affirmative, and criticizes the economics profession for suggesting that there is one universal model or theory equally suited to all economies and societies at all times. He faults the profession further for no longer worrying much or conducting serious debate about this issue, a development he attributes to the eclipse and eventual demise of institutionalism and historical economics in England, Germany, and the United States
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