Economic Geography - Key Concepts

Economic geography can help us understand why people and firms choose to locate where they do, whether these are good choices from a broader efficiency/resource allocation viewpoint, and what the implications of these choices are for the distribution of income and wealth. This paper is an attempt to synthesise the key pieces of recent literature on economic geography and think about how the concepts may apply to New Zealand. The paper first builds a framework of the key forces affecting the geographic location of people and firms. The framework splits the concepts into exogenous and endogenous forces, with a particular focus on agglomerating and dispersing forces. The framework can be used to think about location decisions both within countries and between countries, and a closer look is taken at how the concepts apply to New Zealand at the international level. The paper then explores whether location decisions can be a problem from efficiency or equity perspectives and looks at possible roles for intervention. The paper highlights that location decisions are influenced by many factors and that density can offer many benefits to people and firms. Fundamental questions are raised about whether New Zealand as a whole can maintain a critical mass of activity. There are also important questions about how we might deal with poor or declining regions.

Comparison of signalized junction control strategies using individual vehicle position data

This paper is concerned with the development of control strategies for urban signalized junction that can make use of individual vehicle position data from localization probes on board the vehicles. Strategy development involves simulating the behaviour of vehicles as they negotiate junctions controlled by prototype strategies and evaluating performance. Two strategies are discussed in this paper, a simple auctioning agent strategy and an extended auctioning agent strategy where a machine learning approach is used to enable agents to be trained by a human expert to improve performance. The performance of these two strategies are compared with each other and with the MOVA algorithm in simulated tests. The results show that auctioning agents using individual vehicle position data can out perform MOVA, but that this performance can be improved further still by using learning auctioning agents trained by a human expert

Driving usage – what are publishers and librarians doing to evaluate and promote usage?

Although a relatively recent phenomenon, measuring the usage of published research has rapidly become one of the most important ways to evaluate the relative value of different publications. Libraries and publishers are also investigating the impact of interface and technology provision in improving resource discovery and content usage. Demand for such data is increasing throughout the industry, partly in response to greater scrutiny of return on investment. As a result the techniques used by publishers and librarians to promote and evaluate usage are also developing. This paper looks at some of the methods currently adopted and examines the issues faced by the industry in driving forward the application of usage data

Threshold and Flavour Effects in the Renormalization Group Equations of the MSSM II: Dimensionful couplings

We re-examine the one-loop renormalization group equations (RGEs) for the dimensionful parameters of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model with broken supersymmetry, allowing for arbitrary flavour structure of the soft SUSY breaking (SSB) parameters. We include threshold effects by evaluating the $\beta$-functions in a sequence of (non-supersymmetric) effective theories with heavy particles decoupled at the scale of their mass. We present the most general form for high scale SSB parameters that obtains if we assume that the supersymmetry breaking mechanism does not introduce new inter-generational couplings. This form, possibly amended to allow additional sources of flavour-violation, serves as a boundary condition for solving the RGEs for the dimensionful MSSM parameters. We then present illustrative examples of numerical solutions to the RGEs. We find that in a SUSY GUT with the scale of SUSY scalars split from that of gauginos and higgsinos, the gaugino mass unification condition may be violated by ${\cal O}$(10%). As another illustration, we show that in mSUGRA, the rate for the flavour-violating $\tilde{t}_1\to c\tilde{Z}_1$ decay obtained using the complete RGE solution is smaller than that obtained using the commonly-used "single-step" integration of the RGEs by a factor 10-25, and so may qualitatively change expectations for topologies from top-squark pair production at colliders. Together with the RGEs for dimensionless couplings presented in a companion paper, the RGEs in Appendix B of this paper form a complete set of one-loop MSSM RGEs that include threshold and flavour-effects necessary for two-loop accuracy.Comment: 96 pages, 14 figures, revtex4, multirow.sty, bm.sty, amsmath.sty; Corrected Fig. 3 and Eqs. (B9), (B11), (B13) - (B20) and (B24). Results change by less than 1

Comparison of simulation modeling and satellite techniques for monitoring ecological processes

In 1985 improvements were made in the world climatic data base for modeling and predictive mapping; in individual process models and the overall carbon-balance models; and in the interface software for mapping the simulation results. Statistical analysis of the data base was begun. In 1986 mapping was shifted to NASA-Goddard. The initial approach involving pattern comparisons was modified to a more statistical approach. A major accomplishment was the expansion and improvement of a global data base of measurements of biomass and primary production, to complement the simulation data. The main accomplishments during 1987 included: production of a master tape with all environmental and satellite data and model results for the 1600 sites; development of a complete mapping system used for the initial color maps comparing annual and monthly patterns of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), actual evapotranspiration, net primary productivity, gross primary productivity, and net ecosystem production; collection of more biosphere measurements for eventual improvement of the biological models; and development of some initial monthly models for primary productivity, based on satellite data

The Limits of Mathematics

This condensed version of chao-dyn/9509010 will be the main hand-out for a course on algorithmic information theory to be given 22-29 May 1996 at the Rovaniemi Institute of Technology, Rovaniemi, Finland (see announcement at http://www.rotol.fi/ ).Comment: LaTeX, 45 page

Economic Integration, Sovereignty and Identity: New Zealand in the Global Economy

Markets are becoming more integrated. Whilst governments have limited influence over this process, they can hasten or hinder the pace of integration and will need to respond to the implications of integration. This paper provides a framework for thinking about the benefits and costs of market integration. It analyses how cross border flows of goods, services, capital and labour affect the living standards of New Zealanders in terms of both productivity and incomes as well as other, broader, aspects of living standards. Particular attention is paid to the areas of spatial economic analysis and national sovereignty and identity. Governments must consider a number of factors when thinking about their stance on integration. Further economic integration promises economic benefits for New Zealanders in terms of greater productivity and higher incomes. One risk, however, is that with increasingly free factor flows, government pursuit of integration may increase the risk of activity relocating offshore. The evidence on the overall effect of integration on income distribution is unclear, however we do know that there will be winners and losers. Decision-making power and feelings of identity seem to be important components of well-being - integration brings with it both risks and opportunities in these areas, as pressure is put on traditional forms of governance and identity, and new forms develop. Deciding how the costs and benefits of integration stack up ultimately involves a number of value judgements - the paper provides a framework and a summary of empirical evidence to help inform those judgements.