Widening access to grammar schools: the educational impact in Northern Ireland.

What are the overall effects on educational attainment of widening access to the more academic track? Research by Eric Maurin and Sandra McNally investigates using the 'natural experiment' of the grammar school system in Northern Ireland, which has survived long after its dismantlement in England.

Sentence Reductions and Recidivism: Lessons from the Bastille Day Quasi Experiment

This paper exploits the collective pardon granted to individuals incarcerated in French prisons on the 14th of July, 1996 (Bastille Day) to identify the effect of collective sentence reductions on recidivism. The collective pardon generated a very significant discontinuity in the relationship between the number of weeks of sentence reduction granted to inmates and their prospective date of release. We show that the same discontinuity exists in the relationship between recidivism probability five years after the release and prospective date of release. Overall, the Bastille Day quasi experiment suggests that collective sentence reductions increase recidivism and do not represent a cost-effective way to reduce incarceration rates or prisons' overcrowding.crime, prison, deterrence effect, recidivism

A sectoral analysis of Barbados’ GDP business cycle

This paper has two main objectives. Firstly, to establish and characterise a reference cycle (based on real output) for Barbados over the quarterly period 1974-2003 using the Bry and Boschan algorithm. Secondly, to link this aggregate output cycle to the cycles of the individual sectors that comprises real output. The overriding conclusions are that the cycles of tourism and wholesale and retail closely resembles that of the aggregate business cycle, while the non-sugar agriculture and fishing cycle is acyclical.Barbados; Gross Domestic Product, Business Cycle

Are Caribbean countries diverging or converging? evidence from spatial econometrics

After gaining political independence from the European countries and the United States, the Caribbean Basin economies have at the end of the 2000s display considerable differences in income and living standards. In this paper the concepts of convergence are used to examine whether disparities in per capita GDP of selected countries in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have tended to diminish or not. It was shown, based on descriptive statistical methods, and spatial statistical and econometric tests of beta-convergence and sigma-convergence that there was an absence of convergence for CARICOM countries since the early 1980s. This is so even in the OECS group which are linked in a quasi monetary union framework.Spacial Economics, Caribbean, Convergence

Insertion device for pressure testing

Test device which introduces either pressure or vacuum into a test pipe or tube, is insertable into the tested item where it secures itself into position and requires no external support. The unit has an operating range from zero to 25,000 psig and to any vacuum level that available equipment can reach

β\beta--Radioactive Cosmic Rays in a diffusion model: test for a local bubble?

In the present paper, we extend the analysis of Maurin et al. (2001) and Donato et al. (2001) to the $\beta$-radioactive nuclei $^{10}$Be, $^{26}$Al and $^{36}$Cl. These species are be shown to be particularly sensitive to the properties of the local interstellar medium (LISM). As studies of the LISM suggest that we live in an underdense bubble of extent r_{hole} \sim 50 - 200 \unit{pc}, this local feature must be taken into account. We present a modified version of our diffusion model which describes the underdensity as a hole in the galactic disc. It is found that the presence of the bubble leads to a decrease in the radioactive fluxes which can be approximated by a simple factor $\exp(-r_{hole}/l_{rad})$ where $l_{rad}=\sqrt{K \gamma \tau_0}$ is the typical distance travelled by a radioactive nucleus before it decays. We find that each of the radioactive nuclei independently point towards a bubble radius \lesssim 100 \unit{pc}. If these nuclei are considered simultaneously, only models with a bubble radius r_{hole} \sim 60 - 100 \unit{pc} are marginally consistent with data. In particular, the standard case r_{hole}=0 \unit{pc} is disfavoured. Our main concern is about the consistency of the currently available data, especially $^{26}$Al/$^{27}$Al.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, Latex, macro aa.cls, to appear in A&