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The BPF Expanded Polystyrene Group
EPS is 98% air
EPS is 100% recyclable
EPS News
Floating the idea of a perfect solution for houseboat hulls
Living on the water in London's Docklands thanks to EPS
airpop®, the new Europe-wide name for EPS (expanded polystyrene), is providing the perfect solution for twenty-first century living on water. With soaring house prices and fewer spaces to build houses in our major towns and cities, houseboats are proving to be the life-style of choice for many who want to escape the conventions of urban living.
Now airpop® – which is 98% air bound in a polymer matrix – has proved the perfect solution for manufacturing modern houseboat hulls because it can be easily shaped and offers economy, light weight, exceptional thermal and flotation performance and does not rot, mould or decay.
Mairpop® – which is 98% air bound in a polymer matrix – has proved the perfect solution for manufacturing modern houseboat hulls.
In London alone, an estimated 10,000 people now live on around 100 miles of the city's waterways and some houseboats in sought-after locations in the capital are rumoured to fetch up to £2 million. In the south of England particularly, houseboats are also a growing trend for those who value the benefits of waterside life. One of the latest airpop® hulls known as "Dragonfly" has been constructed at West Sussex Yacht Club by Mark Salanson who has built hulls for large two-storey houseboats as well as smaller projects. When completed the new houseboat will eventually be located in one of Britain's thriving houseboat communities on the River Adur in Shoreham by Sea. Mark said, "We can profile and finish airpop® to a very high standard and it is proving the ideal material for houseboat hulls. We have a number of firm orders and many ongoing enquiries for similar houseboats."
airpop® EPS expanded polystyrene hull takes shape
Kay-Cel EPS 70 from Kay-Metzler was used in the construction of "Dragonfly". Whilst many may be concerned about living on freezing water in the depths of the British winter, the material offers excellent thermal performance, with a thermal conductivity of 0.038w/mk. Stephen Mortimer, Business Development Manager at Kay Metzler said, "airpop® has very low water absorption properties even if it is immersed in water for long periods. In fact all of its characteristics make it an ideal material for long-term performance in marine use. Importantly, at the end of its life-cycle it can be fully recycled, for example our plant in Chelmsford has a full recycling facility to take clean airpop."
The company also stressed that airpop is non-toxic and chemically inert – no CFCs or HCFCs are used in its manufacture and it has a summary rating of A+ in the BRE Green Guide.
Approximately 200 mainly small and medium sized converters in Europe process about 300,000 tonnes of raw material into airpop® sheet, blocks, parts and products. Main customers are construction, civil engineering, HVAC, computers and electronics, household goods producers and the food industry. Further information about the new name is available at www.airpop.com or in the video below:
The British Plastics Federation is the UK's leading trade authority in plastics design, technical advancement and manufacture. Members of the EPS Group include: processors and converters of airpop®, raw material suppliers, suppliers of airpop® processing, manufacturing and auxiliary equipment, and recyclers of airpop®.
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EPS is an ecological insulation material
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New video shows big advantages of airpop 'Blown Bead' Insulation
An ace idea – with the potential to solve the world's housing shortage
Award-winning garden at Chelsea Flower Show features airpop
External wall insulation using airpop
The twenty mile high 'sky pod' gives view of life on Earth
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Tried and tested global solution that's just 98% air
A day in the life of a fish box – The Movie
Polystyrene fish box production expands to meet increased demand
Studies show that polystyrene is protecting Britain's fishing industry
Enhanced construction details for EPS insulation launched
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Dot Company is a team of innovators that have observed that dental care products have started lagging behind in the world of product design and personalization. We feel the big companies are producing new products but with the same old boring designs that the consumers, who are interested in personalized and contemporary design, find dull and uninteresting. T.brush is reinventing the art of toothbrush design by providing a compact and lightweight electric toothbrush, personalized to several styles and designs, with an overall performance better than the leading products in the market.
To mark the important 4th of July celebration in America we will be adding an addtional Style to the T.Brush range: The Patriot - USA Edition.
1) Battery Life – custom designed lithium polymer battery delivers 70% longer battery life than comparable brushes and takes 3 times less to reach full charge.
2) Perfect Travel mate – 60% more compact and lightweight than comparable brushes, with its universal voltage and USB travel charger allow it to be used anywhere in the world.
T.brush has a very strong mission: to bring Style to your Smile…but we live in a world where the fact that we can afford to buy an electric toothbrush means we are very fortunate indeed. But there are millions of people in the world that are not even able to smile.
The Adventurer Brush was designed after a very special man and one of the very first member's of the T.brush family and was the inspiration behind a lot for what we are trying to achieve. Alex's own mission was simple: he wanted to bring happiness and positively touch the lives of everyone person he met...and so he traveled for 3 years circumnavigating the world to reach and influence as many people as possible, especially those in deprived socio-economic regions....some who had never seen a white man before.
On Alex's passing he was helping poverty stricken children in orphanages across India.
In honor of this great man, our longer term aim is to establish a project that aims to give "One child a smile" for every Adventurer brush we sell and help children from all over the world who are unable to receive or afford even the most basic dental hygiene, get the smile they deserve...so help us along in this journey so we can "Give a Child a Smile"
Although, I had an extensive background in sales and marketing with some of the world's largest brands, I was missing so many different elements to bring this product to life.
Designing the product, engineering the product and the actual manufacturing of the product is where the journey REALLY began...So late in 2012, I teamed up with a very skilled product designer, Paul, to start working the initial sketches and translating these into CAD digital versions.
FIRST OBJECTIVE- create a brush a fraction of the size of the standard rotate brushes, without losing any performance or capability.
SECOND OBJECTIVE- create a range of really cool styles and make the overall aesthetics of brush and packaging more beautiful…so that we weren't just manufacturing one brush fit for all, but many versions so that t.brush users could feel more identity in this very personal appliance.
THIRD OBJECTIVE- address and find a solution for all the frustrations travelers have with their electric toothbrush: short battery life, unable to charge in other countries due to incorrect voltage, having to use an adaptor to charge in the bathroom, and also not being able to charge on the go (i.e. USB).
So with the product designs agreed, the next stage was to head to the Orient on a research trip to get the best engineers and manufacturers to help to develop the product.
It seemed my objective of creating the slimmest and best performing toothbrush, proved to be a little more challenging than I first imagined. It took more than 12 months of rigorous testing, mechanical and electrical engineering, circuit board design and an incredible amount of money to get the final prototype developed. After being told by the engineers, several who left in protest, it was impossible to fit all that technology into the slim designed we had provided…after 20 different custom designed motors and 15 different types of battery, and the circuit boards now folding in half using both sides…we did it! What an engineering feat that was!
Being able to hold the very first t.brush prototype was an amazing feeling, after all that hard work and perseverance. We sourced a high end manufacturer (who's factories create medical devices for hospitals, so quality control is exceptionally high), and secured all the parts suppliers etc.
We even made an agreement with the UK's largest high street retailer to sell the products from July 2014 and we were close to signing a deal with some of the UK's largest supermarkets. At this point the excitement about bringing this amazing product to market, and re-inventing the way people see electric toothbrushes, was at an all-time high.
Unfortunately, the next big task of securing investment did not go as planned…. the risk of requiring the money (to produce production moulds and working capital) 5 months before receiving a first order, was too great for potential investors. As a result, we missed out on another opportunity to sell with major retailers in Summer.
We even tried our hand on the big screen, with the TV debut on BBC 1's prime time show, Dragon's Den, in Feb 2015.
Let's spread the word about t.brush. It would mean the world to us if you could share our campaign on social media using our #tdotbrush hashtag. Don't forget to tag or mention us, we're @thedotbrush on Twitter, tdotbrush on Facebook and t.brush on Instagram.
DOT (www.thedotrange.com) is a new upcoming start-up with the aim of bringing to the market a range of appliances, not only fashionable but also developed to the highest technical level.
We have spent the last two years developing and testing this product…it has been through so many hoops it is scary, so we are completely confident in the quality of t.brush. However, as it is a hardware project we are aware that with the complexity of manufacturing and production (& shipping delays etc), that sometimes there are certain challenges to overcome... but this is the fun of creating a new product:) Nevertheless, we promise we will work 100% to find a solution to overcome any obstacle and still fulfill our promise to you, our backers!
With the component suppliers and manufacturers we have aligned an initial order run of 5,000 handles and they are expecting the factories to go into production by the end of summer…so in this respect we are confident that if we raise the kickstarter investment, you will receive the product by the delivery date proposed.
There is also a lot of bad feedback from KS campaigns that have not factored their BOM costs accurately or have not correctly calculated the pricing strategy of their products… I can assure you we have been through two years already understanding these things in detail (which made the process a lot longer I suppose but at least we have complete and clear direction now), we understand margin expectations with the retailers (which is extremely high!), hence we can offer a discounted price on Kickstarter and still be able to provide a sensational electric toothbrush directly.
We will keep you with us at each stage during and following the Kickstarter campaign, with any updates on our progress.


[. . .] " The four concepts that describe the context in which preservation exists are custody, social value, structure and cooperation. Let's have a look at each of them.
Custody refers to an extrinsic dimension of metadata, that is, to data to how this is kept and guarded. As Paul Conway shows, the concept is "at the center of information management theory and practice, including specifications for the disposition of government archives, the management of book collections, and the maintenance of large-scale information technology systems." We can see how this refers to metadata: metadata (just like 'ordinary' data) is kept in a certain custodial system that ensures its preservation.
Social Value refers, in my opinion, to the social role of metadata and how it will be able to influence the generations to come. The examples on Paul Conway's article refer to simple data and information. However, we can extend this notion of social value to metadata: the future generations will be able to use the governmental archives, the indexes and catalogues from the library, the museum repositories and guides, that is, all the material describing the initial data.
The two last concepts of preservation, structure and cooperation, can also be easily related to metadata by using the same principle of assimilation: data and metadata, even if two different concepts, are in fact two different forms of data and the notions for one can be applied to the other as well. If we refer to cooperation, for example, Paul Conway's article refers to how libraries can cooperate with each other in data preservation programs, but this notion can be enlarged so as to comprise metadata. Indeed, libraries (and not only) can work together so as to ensure that certain metadata they are using will be available in the future as well.
Just as well, when we are discussing data storage and data storage devices, we can also discuss about metadata storage. As Paul Conway shows in his article, microfilm technology was a step forward in data storage. Further more, with the appearance of the digital age and of digital image technologies, storage devices took a new perspective. Administrative documents, cataloging records, specialized indexes, etc. all can be stored of digital devices.
As you can see from the lines above, I have chosen until now to regard metadata as a concept related to data and to describe how metadata can be preserved, referring to Paul Conway's article. However, now I will follow the classification used by Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland in her essay and describe how preservation can also be regarded as a particular metadata type. The author breaks up the concept of metadata into a few distinctive categories: administrative, descriptive, preservation, use, and technical metadata.
If we refer to preservation metadata, this is "related to the preservation management of information resources" and comprises documents such as documents of physical condition of resources, documentation of actions taken to preserve physical and digital versions of resources, etc. In this sense, metadata becomes related to preservation stricto sensum, as the total documentation related to it. Indeed, metadata related to preservation may document the preservation actions.
I have chosen to relate the two articles in two different ways. First, I have regarded metadata as another type of data and have talked about preserving and the preservation of metadata. However, as Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland points out in her article, we can also discuss the metadata of preservation. In this sense (as we have seen in the first article), preservation implies a whole set of rules, a cooperation between different institutions, a certain management of the technological devices on which data is stores, a whole information management and resource allocation.
All these are described in a set of documents that can be regarded as metadata for preservation. These documents will describe what measures have been taken for a proper preservation of books for example, how different libraries have worked together to ensure preservation (that is as set of cooperation rules), how the resources were managed and allocated, etc. In one sense, we have the preservation of metadata, with all the elements of preservation derived from this, in another, we have the metadata of preservation, that is, all the documents related to preservation.
"Metadata Basically Means "Data." 5 March 2004. Web. 18 April 2019. <https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/metadata-basically-means-data/8352114>.
"Metadata Basically Means "Data." Essaytown.com. March 5, 2004. Accessed April 18, 2019.


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Home Opinion Guest Column Rosas: U.S. Elections: Lessons from New Zealand
Rosas: U.S. Elections: Lessons from New Zealand
María Cristina Rosas
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand was perceived as a marginal actor in international relations. At times, it became relevant, for instance in the entertainment industry due to the success of actors like Russell Crowe, and filmmakers as Peter Jackson.
The spectacular landscapes portrayed in the Lord of the Rings series attracted tourism. Wine-lovers have discovered New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc. Maori culture has also gained a momentum and a number of celebrities all over the world got Maori tattoos.
Yet, it is fair to say that the tyranny of distance made it difficult for New Zealand to create world headlines. That happened once in a while, for instance back in 1985 when due to the antinuclear sentiment in the country, the Government prevented the USS Buchanan, an American guided-missile destroyer from accessing New Zealand's ports.
That created a crisis in New Zealand-U.S. relations that diminished at the beginning of the 21st Century after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with then-Prime Minister Helen Clark being the first political leader to express her condolences by phone to the George W. Bush government, even though she was on board an airplane bound for Britain the very moment the attacks took place.
Another world headline for New Zealand was on July 1985, when the French Secret Services sank the famous Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior" ship at the Port of Auckland. More recently a shocking experience that attracted the world's attention occurred on March 15, when an armed man entered two mosques in Christchurch shot and killed 51 people and injured 49. The man had live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook. The terrorist attacks were condemned all over the world and put New Zealand in the spotlight for a while.
Apart from those moments, the world remained mostly unaware about events and developments in New Zealand until COVID-19 arrived in the country. Suddenly the handling of the epidemiological crisis became crucial to international affairs and, in looking for answers, New Zealand, and particularly its Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, became prominent to the eyes of the world. With 1,925 confirmed cases and only 25 deaths, Ardern has been praised by the leadership provided during the COVID-19 outbreak and by putting New Zealand in the world map, she is considered the Rockstar of the pandemic.
One may argue that social distancing is quite easy in a country with only five million inhabitants and a population density of 19 people per square kilometer. The geographical profile of the country facilitates border controls since it is a remote destination. Yet a quick reaction from the authorities when the first cases were confirmed, prevented the spreading of the disease. On March 15, the quarantine began, and a full and tough lockdown was shortly introduced. Also the rules were effectively communicated to the population while massive testing was conducted at a rate of 8,000 tests a day. Better yet, it followed the pandemic guidebook. Thanks to these measures, New Zealand may be able to recover sooner than other countries where skepticism, a lack of leadership and confrontations between national and local governments have hampered an appropriate response to the pandemic.
Recently the Kiwis went to the polls to elect the members of its 53rd parliament. The elections were originally scheduled for September 19 but postponed until October 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The House of Representatives consists of 120 seats and to have a majority a political party has to win 61 or more. Prior to the 2020 general election, in 2017, Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party, became Prime Minister at the age of 37, with a coalition government. Yet this time, her victory over Judith Collins' National Party was convincing, with a gain of 64 seats, thus securing a right to govern alone. Ardern's landslide victory is the result of the leadership shown in face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words: Ardern's victory is a well-deserved recognition for a job well done.
In contrast to New Zealand's response to the pandemic, the United States, now entering the final stage of its 2020 presidential election, leads the world in terms of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. No other country in the world has been as badly hit as the U.S.. Many reasons explain this: among them a lack of leadership from the Donald Trump administration and a reluctance to shut down the country by arguing the disease "would go away" almost miraculously. Trump collided with several states governed by Democrats, such as New York, over the best measures to fight the virus. He withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) and insisted that COVID-19 is a virus created by the PR China. As everyone now knows, eventually the President contracted the coronavirus himself and claimed to have learned lots of lessons. But, shortly after leaving the hospital, Trump said Dr. Anthony Fauci – the leading expert in charge of designing the response to the pandemic in the U.S. – and the scientific community are all "idiots."
The fact the President Trump was himself infected with the virus punished him hard during the election campaign. Many experts claim he's getting what he deserves, after months of denying the relevance of the disease and even suggesting that testing was not necessary, because "the more you test, the more confirmed cases you have", suggesting that avoiding testing was a way to diminish the number of cases.
Thus, if the U.S. presidential election is considered a referendum on the way the current administration has been handling the pandemic, it may have adverse results for Trump. This does not mean that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats have the answer to fighting the virus. Yet, to the eyes of more and more Americans – many of which have already cast their ballots – Donald Trump missed the chance of leading the country and the world in a coordinated fight against COVID-19. By withdrawing the U.S. from WHO, Trump damaged the political dialogue with key allies. The trade war against the RP China and the insistence on blaming Beijing for something that the scientific community believes is a diversion tactic, has left the U.S. almost alone, isolated from the rest of the world but also debilitating international efforts against the virus. As opposed to New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern, the Donald Trump Administration may be paying the cost of negligence.
Editor's Note: The above guest commentary was penned by María-Cristina Rosas, a professor and researcher at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian with the author's permission. Rosas can be reached via email at: [email protected]
Editor's Note: The main image accompanying the above guest commentary shows New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
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has been a researcher and academic for 30 years. She is currently based at the Department of International Relations of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. She has served as advisor to the Mexican, Japanese and Canadian governments in areas such as international security, national security, regionalization, human security, and soft power. She heads the Olof Palme Center of Analysis and Research in Peace, Security and Development in Mexico City.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Naddaf Oskouei, A., Elhami, M., Karami Fath, I. (2014). Analytical Investigation of Rupture Phenomena in Sheet Hydro-forming Process by Hemispherical Punch. ADMT Journal, 7(3), -.
Alireza Naddaf Oskouei; Mohammad Reza Elhami; Iman Karami Fath. "Analytical Investigation of Rupture Phenomena in Sheet Hydro-forming Process by Hemispherical Punch". ADMT Journal, 7, 3, 2014, -.
Naddaf Oskouei, A., Elhami, M., Karami Fath, I. (2014). 'Analytical Investigation of Rupture Phenomena in Sheet Hydro-forming Process by Hemispherical Punch', ADMT Journal, 7(3), pp. -.
Naddaf Oskouei, A., Elhami, M., Karami Fath, I. Analytical Investigation of Rupture Phenomena in Sheet Hydro-forming Process by Hemispherical Punch. ADMT Journal, 2014; 7(3): -.
Rupture and wrinkling are two prevalent phenomena that happen in hydro-forming process. Many efforts have been made to achieve the upper and lower bounds for the pressure related to rupture and wrinkling of sheet, respectively. The aim of this investigation is to improve the upper bound of fluid pressure in hydro-forming process by hemispherical punch. In this article, analytical study of the upper bound of fluid pressure based on new assumption of Hill theory is presented. Next, governing equations of the process is derived; and numerical methods are used to solve these equations. In this process, the effect of material and geometric properties on the upper bound pressure is investigated. The results then are compared with experimental and theoretical based on Tresca criterion. The investigation on the effect of geometry and material shows that increasing of the sheet thickness raises the upper bound pressure. Moreover, the reduction of sheet to punch diameter ratio leads to increase of the upper bound pressure. Decrease of the friction force as well as increase of the anisotropic coefficient both causes the rise of upper bound pressure. Finally, the increase of work hardening parameter leads to the rise of rupture place.


What if "Captain America: Winter Soldier" was made as an 80s action movie? Check out this awesome fan made trailer to find out. The Plot: The year is 2007. Crime is at an all time high and the law has a plan to wipe it out! CAPTAIN AMERICA (Chris Evans), a Vietnam vet who was given super strength by a military scientist, Abraham Erskine (Cillian Murphy) is now America's new crime fighter. When he refuses to kill an innocent Senator he is back stabbed by the very people who made him! He's out for revenge. If you're going to make enemies, you better make sure it's not America!


I've found some conflicting information about this online. Some people seem to think this has to do with how difficult it is to rank organically in Google for that keyword, however, it's actually a metric to gauge competition in Google Ads for that keyword on Google's Search Network.
So basically, it's a scale from 0-100, "0" being very low search advertiser competition and "100" being very high search advertiser competition.


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1. Abraham, Arpad
Koehne, Sebastian
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies.
Pavoni, Nicola
On the first-order approach in principal agent models with hidden borrowing and lending2011In: Journal of Economic Theory, ISSN 0022-0531, E-ISSN 1095-7235, Vol. 146, no 4, p. 1331-1361Article in journal (Refereed)
We provide sufficient conditions for the validity of the first-order approach for two-period dynamic moral hazard problems where the agent can save and borrow secretly. The first-order approach is valid if the following conditions hold: (i) the agent has non-increasing absolute risk aversion utility (NIARA), (ii) the output technology has monotone likelihood ratios (MLR), and (iii) the distribution function of output is log-convex in effort (LCDF). Moreover, under these three conditions, the optimal contract is monotone in output. We also investigate a few possibilities of relaxing these requirements.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. CESifo, Germany.
Optimal income taxation when asset taxation is limited2016In: Journal of Public Economics, ISSN 0047-2727, E-ISSN 1879-2316, Vol. 136, p. 14-29Article in journal (Refereed)
Several frictions restrict the government's ability to tax assets. First, it is very costly to monitor trades on international asset markets. Second, agents can resort to nonobservable low-return assets such as cash, gold or foreign currencies if taxes on observable assets become too high. This paper shows that limitations in asset taxation have important consequences for the taxation of labor income. We study a simple dynamic moral hazard model of social insurance with observable and nonobservable saving decisions. We find that optimal labor income taxes become less progressive when the ability to tax savings is limited.
Acemoglu, Daron
MIT.
Aghion, Philippe
Bursztyn, Leonardo
Harvard.
Hemous, David
The Environment and Directed Technical Change2010Report (Other academic)
This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints. A unique final good is produced by combining inputs from two sectors. One of these sectors uses "dirty" machines and thus creates environmental degradation. Research can be directed to improving the technology of machines in either sector. We characterize dynamic tax policies that achieve sustainable growth or maximize intertemporal welfare. We show that: (i) in the case where the inputs are sufficiently substitutable, sustainable long-run growth can be achieved with temporary taxation of dirty innovation and production; (ii) optimal policy involves both "carbon taxes" and research subsidies, so that excessive use of carbon taxes is avoided; (iii) delay in intervention is costly: the sooner and the stronger is the policy response, the shorter is the growth transition phase; (iv) the use of an exhaustible resource in dirty input production helps the switch to clean innovation under laissez-faire when the two inputs are substitutes. Under reasonable parameter values and with sufficient substitutability between inputs, it is optimal to redirect technical change towards clean technologies immediately and optimal environmental regulation need not reduce long-run growth.
4. Acemoglu, Daron
The Environment and Directed Technical Change2012In: The American Economic Review, ISSN 0002-8282, E-ISSN 1944-7981, Vol. 102, no 1, p. 131-166Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints. The final good is produced from dirty and clean inputs. We show that: (i) when inputs are sufficiently substitutable, sustainable growth can be achieved with temporary taxes/subsidies that redirect innovation toward clean inputs; (ii) optimal policy involves both carbon taxes and research subsidies, avoiding excessive use of carbon taxes; (iii) delay in intervention is costly, as it later necessitates a longer transition phase with slow growth; and (iv) use of an exhaustible resource in dirty input production helps the switch to clean innovation under laissez-faire.
MIT Department of Economics.
Griffith, Rachel
UCL.
Zilibotti, Fabrizio
Vertical Integration and Technology: Theory and Evidence2010In: Journal of the European Economic Association, ISSN 1542-4766, E-ISSN 1542-4774, Vol. 8, no 5, p. 989-1033Article in journal (Refereed)
Lelarge, Claire
Van Reenen, John
Technology, Information, and the Decentralization of the Firm2007In: Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 122, no 4, p. 1759-1799Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper analyzes the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. Decentralized control, on the other hand, delegates authority to a manager with superior information. However, the manager can use his informational advantage to make choices that are not in the best interest of the principal. As the available public information about the specific technology increases, the tradeoff shifts in favor of centralization. We show that firms closer to the technological frontier, firms in more heterogeneous environments, and younger firms are more likely to choose decentralization. Using three data sets on French and British firms in the 1990s, we report robust correlations consistent with these predictions.
Masachusetts Institute of Technology.
Information Accumulation in Development1998Report (Other academic)
We propose a model in which economic relations and intritutions in advanced and less developed countries differ as these societies have access to different amounts of information. The lack of information in less developed economies makes it hard to evaluate the performance of manager, and leads to high "agency costs". Differences in the amount of information have a variety of sources. As well as factors related to the informational infrastructure, we emphasize that societies accumulate information partly because the scarcity of capital restricts the repetition of various activities. Two implications of our model are: (i) as an economy develops and generates more information, it achieves better risk-sharing at a given level of effort, but because agents are exerting more effort and the types of activities are changing, the overall level of risk-sharing may decline; (ii) with development, the share of financial intermediation carried out through market institutions should increase.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Productivity Differences1998Report (Other academic)
Many technologies used by the LDCs are developed in the OECD economies, and as such, are designed to make optimal use of the skills of these richer countries' workforces. Due to differences in the supply of skills, some of the tasks performed by skilled workers in the OECD economies will be carried out by unskilled workers in the LDCs. Since the technologies in these tasks are designed to be used by skilled workers, productivity in the LDCs will be low. Even when all countries have equal access to new technologies, this mismatch between skills and technology can lead to sizable differences in total factor productivity and output per worker. Our theory also suggests that productivity differences should be highest in medium-tech sectors, and that the trade regime and the degree of intellectual property right enforcement in the LDCs have an important effect on the direction of technical change and on productivity differences.
9. Adolfson, Malin
Laseen, Stefan
Linde, Jesper
Svensson, Lars E. O.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden; NBER, United States.
Monetary policy trade-offs in an estimated open-economy DSGE model2014In: Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, ISSN 0165-1889, E-ISSN 1879-1743, Vol. 42, p. 33-49Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper studies the trade-offs between stabilizing CPI inflation and alternative measures of the output gap in Ramses, the Riksbank's estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of a small open economy. Our main finding is that the trade-off between stabilizing CPI inflation and the output gap strongly depends on which concept of potential output in the output gap between output and potential output is used in the loss function. If potential output is defined as a smooth trend this trade-off is much more pronounced compared to the case when potential output is defined as the output level that would prevail if prices and wages were flexible.
10. Adolfson, Malin
Laséen, Stefan
Lindé, Jesper
Optimal Money Policy in an Operational Medium-Sized DSGE Model2011In: Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, ISSN 0022-2879, E-ISSN 1538-4616, Vol. 43, p. 1287-1331Article in journal (Refereed)
We show how to construct optimal policy projections in Ramses, the Riksbank's open-economy medium-sized dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for forecasting and policy analysis. Bayesian estimation of the parameters of the model indicates that they are relatively invariant to alternative policy assumptions and supports our view that the model parameters may be regarded as unaffected by the monetary policy specification. We discuss how monetary policy, and in particular the choice of output gap measure, affects the transmission of shocks. Finally, we use the model to assess the recent Great Recession in the world economy and how its impact on the economic development in Sweden depends on the conduct of monetary policy. This provides an illustration on how Rames incoporates large international spillover effects.
Agell, Jonas
Department of Economics, Uppsala University.
Calmfors, Lars
Jonsson, Gunnar
Fiscal Policy when Monetary Policy is Tied to the Mast1994Report (Other academic)
The paper analyses the time inconsistency problem of both exchange rate and fiscal policy in a small open economy. The equilibrium under discretion is characterised by inflation and a deficit. Commitment of the exchange-rate instrument only, e.g., through membership in a European monetary union with low inflation, contributes to price stability but increases the deficit. Whether the government will prefer this outcome to the discretionary one depends on the structure of the economy: commitment appears more favourable, the more open is the economy. The time-consistency arguments strengthen the case for simultaneous commitment of monetary and fiscal policy for inflation-prone countries joining a monetary union.
Dillén, Mats
Macroeconomic Externalities: Are Pigovian Taxes the Answer?1991Report (Other academic)
Basic welfare economics tells us that many types of externalities can be remedied by proper use of corrective taxes and subsidies. This paper shows that this notion also extends to the macroeconomic externalities discussed in recent Keynesian literature on nominal price rigidities. The derived policy rules are lindred in spirit to standard Keynesian policy prescriptions: Progressive income taxes may serve a useful role in combating wasteful economic fluctuations. However, unlike older fix-price models of automatic stabilizers, progressive taxes work in our monopolistic economy because they directly affect the pricing mechanism.
Lommerud, Kjell Erik
Department of Economics, University of Bergen.
Egalitarianism and Growth1991Report (Other academic)
Are competitive wage premia an obstacle to growth? The answer of the architects of the Scandinavian "model" in the 1950s and 60s was in the affirmative: By punishing expansive and growth enhancing sectors of the economy competitive wage premia put an unwarranted drag on the rate of structural change. We formalize this intuition using a two sector endogenous growth model, considering both open and closed economy cases. We also show that egalitarian pay compression, combined with active labor market policies, works exactly in the same way as an industrial policy of subsidizing sunrise industries.
Lundborg, Per
Industrial Institute for Economic and Social Research.
Wage Fairness and International Trade Theory and Policy1991Report (Other academic)
We show how an extended theory of fair wages, in which workers also care about the functional distribution of income, can be incorporated in the two-by-two Heckscher-Ohlin model. An important feature of the model is the existence of involuntary unemployment. Several results stand out. First, there is no longer a simple relation between measures of factor abundance and trade patterns. First, there is no longer a simple relation between measures of factor abundance and trade patterns. Second, factor-price equalization will generally not occur. Third, differences in social norms explain why terms of trade shocks produce nonuniform adjustments in real wages and unemployment across otherwise similar countries. Fourth, losses from trade may occur. Finally, in countries where fairness considerations are important, tariffs may increase overall employment.
Persson, Mats
Asset Markets, Tax Arbitrage, and the Redistributive Properties of Progressive Income Taxation1988Report (Other academic)
It is commonly believed that tax arbitrage is anti-egalitarian. The present paper shows that this is not necessarily true; tax arbitrage might actually reduce inequality as well as increase efficiency. It is also shown that the introduction of tax arbitrage will linearize the tax system. Thus complicated, non-linear tax scedules in the spirit of Mirrlees (1971) cannot be sustained.
Does Debt Management Matter?1989Report (Other academic)
On the Analytics of the Dynamic Laffer Curve2000Report (Other academic)
In this paper, we analyze government budget balance within a simple model of endogenous growth. For the AK model, simple analytical conditions for a tax cut to be self-financing can be derived. The critical variable is not the tax rate per se, but the "transfer-adjusted tax rate". We discuss some conceptual issues in dynamic revenue analysis, and we explain why previous studies have arrived at seemingly contradictory results. Finally, we perform an empirical study of the transfer-adjusted tax rates of the OECD countries to see which country has the highest potential for fiscal improvements; it turns out that only a few countries have any potential for such "dynamic scoring".
Tax Arbitrage and Labor Supply1998Report (Other academic)
We examine how tax avoidance in the form of trade in well-functioning asset markets affects the basic labor supply model. We show that tax arbitrage has potentially dramatic implications for positive, normative and econometric analysis of how taxes affect work incentives.
Sacklén, Hans
Trade Union Institute for Economic Research.
Labor Supply Prediction when Tax Avoidance Matters1999Report (Other academic)
We examine how tax avoidance in the form of trade in well-functioning asset markets affects the emipircal study of labor supply. We discuss the implications for tax policy analysis, and we show that a failure to account for avoidance responses may lead to huge errors when predicting how tax reform affects labor supply, tax revenue, and the welfare cost of taxation. in conclusion we argue that our model may explain a number of otherwise hard to understand dimensions of tax payer response.
Algan, Yann
Cahuc, Pierre
Ecole Polytechnique.
Civil Society and the State: The Interplay between Cooperation and Minimum Wage Regulation2011In: Journal of the European Economic Association, ISSN 1542-4766, E-ISSN 1542-4774, Vol. 9, no 1, p. 3-42Article in journal (Refereed)
Department of Economics, Sciences Po.
Schleifer, Andrei
Harvard Economics Department.
Regulation and Distrust2010In: Quarterly Journal of Economics, ISSN 0033-5533, E-ISSN 1531-4650, Vol. 125, no 3, p. 1015-1049Article in journal (Refereed)
22. Aghion, Philippe
Bergeaud, Antonin
Boppart, Timo
Bunel, Simon
Firm Dynamics and Growth Measurement in France2018In: Journal of the European Economic Association, ISSN 1542-4766, E-ISSN 1542-4774, Vol. 16, no 4, p. 933-956Article in journal (Refereed)
In this paper we use the same methodology as Aghion et al. (2017a) to compute missing growth estimates from creative destruction in France. We find that from 2004 to 2015, about 0.5 percentage point of real output growth per year is missed by the statistical office, which is about the same as what was found in the United States. We look at how missing growth varies across French sectors and regions, and we look at the underlying establishment and firm dynamics. In particular we show that the similar missing growth estimates between France and the United States hide noticeable differences in plant dynamics between the two countries.
Klenow, Peter J.
Li, Huiyu
Missing Growth from Creative Destruction2019In: The American Economic Review, ISSN 0002-8282, E-ISSN 1944-7981, Vol. 109, no 8, p. 2795-2822Article in journal (Refereed)
For exiting products, statistical agencies often impute inflation from surviving products. This understates growth if creatively-destroyed products improve more than surviving ones. If so, then the market share of surviving products should systematically shrink. Using entering and exiting establishments to proxy for creative destruction, we estimate missing growth in US Census data on non farm businesses from 1983 to 2013. We find missing growth (i) equaled about one-half a percentage point per year; (ii) arose mostly from hotels and restaurants rather than manufacturing; and (iii) did not accelerate much after 2005, and therefore does not explain the sharp slowdown in growth since then.
Dewatripont, Mathias
ECARES, Free U Brussels.
Kolev, Julian
Murray, Fiona
Stern, Scott
Northwestern University.
The Public and Private Sectors in the Process of Innovation: Theory and Evidence from the Mouse Genetics Revolution2010In: The American Economic Review, ISSN 0002-8282, E-ISSN 1944-7981, Vol. 100, no 2, p. 153-58Article in journal (Refereed)
Holden, Richard
University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Incomplete Contracts and the Theory of the Firm: What Have We Learned over the Past 25 Years?2011In: Journal of Economic Perspectives, ISSN 0895-3309, E-ISSN 1944-7965, Vol. 25, no 2Article in journal (Refereed)
Jaravel, Xavier
Persson, Torsten
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. CIFAR, Canada.
Rouzet, Dorothée
Education and Military Rivalry2019In: Journal of the European Economic Association, ISSN 1542-4766, E-ISSN 1542-4774, Vol. 17, no 2, p. 376-412Article in journal (Refereed)
What makes countries engage in reforms of mass education? Motivated by historical evidence on the relation between military threats and expansions of primary education, we assemble a panel dataset from the last 150 years in European countries and from the postwar period in a large set of countries. We uncover three stylized facts: (i) investments in education are associated with military threats, (ii) democratic institutions are negatively correlated with education investments, and (iii) education investments respond more strongly to military threats in democracies. These patterns continue to hold when we exploit rivalries in a country's neighborhood as an alternative source of variation. We develop a theoretical model that rationalizes the three empirical findings. The model has an additional prediction about investments in physical infrastructures, which finds support in the data.
Almas, Ingvild
Cappelen, Alexander W.
Salvanes, Kjell G.
Sørensen, Erik Ø.
Tungodden, Bertil
Willingness to Compete: Family Matters2016In: Management science, ISSN 0025-1909, E-ISSN 1526-5501, Vol. 62, no 8, p. 2149-2162Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper studies the role of family background in explaining differences in the willingness to compete in a cognitive task. By combining data from a lab experiment conducted with a fairly representative sample of adolescents in Norway and high-quality register data on family background, we show that family background is fundamental in two important ways. First, boys from low socioeconomic status families are less willing to compete than boys from better-off families, even when controlling for confidence, performance, risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences, and psychological traits. Second, family background is crucial for understanding the large gender difference in the willingness to compete. Girls are much less willing to compete than boys among children from better-off families, whereas we do not find any gender difference in willingness to compete among children from low socioeconomic status families. Our data suggest that the main explanation of the role of family background is that the father's socioeconomic status is strongly associated with boys' willingness to compete. We do not find any association between the willingness to compete for boys or girls and the mother's socioeconomic status or other family characteristic that may potentially shape competition preferences, including parental equality and sibling rivalry.
28. Almond, Douglas
Currie, Janet
Simeonova, Emilia
Public vs. private provision of charity care?: Evidence from the expiration of Hill-Burton requirements in Florida2011In: Journal of Health Economics, ISSN 0167-6296, E-ISSN 1879-1646, Vol. 30, no 1, p. 189-199Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper explores the consequences of the expiration of charity care requirements imposed on private hospitals by the Hill-Burton Act. We examine delivery care and the health of newborns using the universe of Florida births from 1989 to 2003 combined with hospital data from the American Hospital Association. We find that charity care requirements were binding on hospitals, but that private hospitals under obligation cream skimmed the least risky maternity patients. Conditional on patient characteristics, they provided less intensive maternity services but without compromising patient health. When obligations expired, private hospitals quickly reduced their charity caseloads, shifting maternity patients to public hospitals. The results in this paper suggest, perhaps surprisingly, that requiring private providers to serve the underinsured can be effective.
Almås, Ingvild
Attanasio, Orazio
Jalan, Jyotsna
Oteiza, Francisco
Vigneri, Marcella
Using data differently and using different data2018In: Journal of Development Effectiveness, ISSN 1943-9342, E-ISSN 1943-9407, Vol. 10, no 4, p. 462-481Article in journal (Refereed)
The lack of adequate measures is often an impediment to robust policy evaluation. We discuss three approaches to measurement and data usage that have the potential to improve the way we conduct impact evaluations. First, the creation of new measures, when no adequate ones are available. Second, the use of multiple measures when a single one is not appropriate. And third, the use of machine learning algorithms to evaluate and understand programme impacts. We motivate the relevance of each of the categories by providing examples where they have proved useful in the past. We discuss the challenges and risks involved in each strategy and conclude with an outline of promising directions for future work.
Auglaend Johnsen, Ashild
The cost of a growth miracle - reassessing price and poverty trends in China2018In: Review of economic dynamics (Print), ISSN 1094-2025, E-ISSN 1096-6099, Vol. 30, p. 239-264Article in journal (Refereed)
China's economic development in recent decades has been tremendous, but also subject to debate. This paper uses Engel curves to identify price levels and real incomes that are comparable across both time and space. Based on these, new poverty trends are presented. We find that the urban and coastal areas that have experienced the fastest economic development have also seen smaller price increases than the poorer rural and inland areas. Our measures reveal that China has experienced substantial poverty reduction in a time with high economic growth, but compared to both the World Bank measures and those based on official CPI adjustments, our measures suggest a more moderate poverty reduction. Our findings imply that poverty was reduced by 40 and not 66 percent using the $1 dollar a day measure.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. Norwegian School of Economics.
Cappelen, Alexander
Haaland, Inger
Rettferdig ulikhet2015In: Magma - Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, ISSN 1500-0788, E-ISSN 1500-6069, Vol. 6, p. 38-43Article in journal (Refereed)
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Norway.
Sorensen, Erik O.
What Explains the Gender Gap in College Track Dropout? Experimental and Administrative Evidence2016In: The American Economic Review, ISSN 0002-8282, E-ISSN 1944-7981, Vol. 106, no 5, p. 296-302Article in journal (Refereed)
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. Norwegian School of Economics, Norway.
Fairness and family background2017In: Politics, Philosophy and Economics, ISSN 1470-594X, E-ISSN 1741-3060, Vol. 16, no 2, p. 117-131Article in journal (Refereed)
Fairness preferences fundamentally affect individual behavior and play an important role in shaping social and political institutions. However, people differ both with respect to what they view as fair and with respect to how much weight they attach to fairness considerations. In this article, we study the role of family background in explaining these heterogeneities in fairness preferences. In particular, we examine how socioeconomic background relates to fairness views and to how people make trade-offs between fairness and self-interest. To study this, we conducted an economic experiment with a representative sample of 14- to 15-year-old and matched the experimental data to administrative data on parental income and education. The participants made two distributive choices in the experiment. The first choice was to distribute money between themselves and another participant in a situation where there was no difference in merit. The second choice was to distribute money between two other participants with unequal merits. Our main finding is that there is a systematic difference in fairness view between children from low-socioceconomic status (SES) families and the rest of the participants; more than 50 percent of the participants from low-SES families are egalitarians, whereas only about 20 percent in the rest of the sample hold this fairness view. In contrast, we find no significant difference in the weight attached to fairness between children from different socioeconomic groups.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. NHH, Norwegian School of Economics, Norway.
Grewal, Mandeep
Hvide, Marielle
Ugurlu, Serhat
The PPP approach revisited: A study of RMB valuation against the USD2017In: Journal of International Money and Finance, ISSN 0261-5606, E-ISSN 1873-0639, Vol. 77, p. 18-38Article in journal (Refereed)
We analyze the alleged undervaluation of the Chinese renminbi against the US dollar through an application of the relative PPP hypothesis, the PPP approach. The PPP approach measures the relative misalignment of a currency by estimating the relationship between log price levels and log per capita real incomes from a cross section of countries. We estimate this relationship by using ICP 2011 and incorporating model selection tests. Our results confirm that price level-real income relationship is best approximated by a quadratic functional form. We show that, using this functional form, the PPP approach does not reveal any evidence of renminbi undervaluation as of 2011, and this result is robust to various sensitivity tests.
Kjelsrud, Anders
Rags and Riches: Relative Prices, Non-Homothetic Preferences, and Inequality in India2017In: World Development, ISSN 0305-750X, E-ISSN 1873-5991, Vol. 97, p. 102-121Article in journal (Refereed)
It is well known that consumption patterns change with income. Relative price changes would therefore affect rich and poor consumers differently. Yet, the standard price indices are not income-specific, and hence, they cannot account for such differences. In this paper, we study consumption inequality in India, while fully allowing for non-homotheticity. We show that the relative price changes during most of the period from 1993 to 2012 were pro-poor, in the sense that they favored the poor relative to the rich. As a result, we also find that conventional measures significantly overstate the rise in real consumption inequality during this period. The main lesson from our study is the importance of accounting for non-homotheticity when measuring inequality. The price index literature has, as of yet, paid relatively little attention to this. In our application, however, it turns out that the allowance for nonhomotheticity is quantitatively much more important than much discussed adjustments, such as those for substitution in consumption.
Somanathan, Rohini
A Behavior-Based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India2019In: Scandinavian Journal of Economics, ISSN 0347-0520, E-ISSN 1467-9442, Vol. 121, no 1, p. 182-224Article in journal (Refereed)
Estimates of poverty in India are crucial inputs for the understanding of world poverty, yet there is much disagreement about the numbers and the legitimacy of methods used to derive them. In this paper, we propose and justify an alternative approach to identify the poor, which uses the proportion of income spent on food. Our estimates have weaker data requirements than official methods, and they compare favorably with several validation tests. Most notably, households around our state poverty lines obtain their calories from similar sources, whereas this is not true of official poverty lines. We also find that rates of self-reported hunger are higher in states that we classify as poor.
Alonso, Irasema
Yale University.
Prado, Jr., Jose Mauricio
Ambiguity Aversion, the Equity Premium, and the Welfare Costs of Business Cycles2007Report (Other academic)
We examine the potential importance of consumer ambiguity aversion for asset prices and how consumption fluctuations influence consumer welfare. First, considering a simple Mehra-Prescott-style endowment economy with a representative agent facing consumption fluctuations calibrated to match U.S. data, we study to what extent ambiguity aversion can deliver asset prices that are consistent with data: a high return on equity and a low return on riskfree bonds. For some configurations of preference parameters – a discount factor, a degree of relative risk aversion, and a measure of ambiguity aversion – we find that it can. Then, we use these parameter configurations to investigate how much consumers would be willing to pay to reduce endowment fluctuations to zero, thus delivering a Lucas-style welfare cost of fluctuations. These costs turn out to be very large: consumers are willing to pay over 10% of consumption in permanent terms.
38. Ampudia, Miguel
van Vlokhoven, Has
Zochowski, Dawid
Financial fragility of euro area households2016In: Journal of Financial Stability, ISSN 1572-3089, E-ISSN 1878-0962, Vol. 27, p. 250-262Article in journal (Refereed)
Until recently, the lack of appropriate harmonized micro data covering both income and wealth has been the major obstacle in analyzing financial vulnerability of the household sector in the euro area. This data problem has been partially circumvented by the dissemination of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Based on this unique data set, we put forward a stress testing method of household balance sheets in a consistent manner across euro area countries. To this end, we put forward a metric of distress which takes into account both the solvency and liquidity position of the household and demonstrate that this metric outperforms the most common metrics used in the literature, which do not take into account the households' asset holdings. We calibrate this metric using the country level data on non-performing loan ratios and estimate stress-test elasticities in response to an interest rate shock, an income shock and a house price shock. We find that, albeit euro-area households are relatively resilient as a whole, there are large discrepancies in the impact of macroeconomic shocks across countries. Finally, we demonstrate that our framework could be used to assess some measures mitigating losses to the banks, such as engaging in the restructurings of loans that are at risk of defaulting.
Andersen, Torben
University of Aarhus.
Bergman, Michael
University of Copenhagen.
Flodén, Martin
Stockholm School of Economics.
Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS).
Svaleryd, Helena
Reseach Institute of Industrial Economics.
Tobisson, Lars
Åsbrink, Erik
Kommentarer till Budgetpropositionen 20102010Report (Other academic)
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics.
Svensk finanspolitik: Finanspolitiska rådets rapport 20102010Report (Other academic)
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Uppsala University.
Jonung, Lars
IFN.
Swedish Fiscal Policy Council.
Svensk Finanspolitik2011Report (Other academic)
Swedish Fiscal Policy2011Report (Other academic)
Granskare behöver bättre villkor2011In: Svenska Dagbladet, Vol. 8/2Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
44. Andersson, Rune
Bergström, Hans
Feldt, Kjell-Olov
Hansson, Åsa
Henrekson, Magnus
Lodin, Sven-Olof
Melz, Peter
Öberg, Ann
Skattesystemet ett lappverk – en ny stor reform behövs2014In: Dagens nyheter, ISSN 1101-2447Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
André, Karin
Stockholm University, Stockholm Environment Institute.
Bruzell, Susanna
Centrum för miljö- och klimatforskning, Lunds universitet.
Gerger Swartling, Åsa
Jönsson, Anna Maria
Lagergren, Fredrik
Vulturius, Gregor
Blennow, Kristina
Carlsen, Henrik
Engström, Kerstin
Hassler, John
Lindeskog, Mats
Olsson, Olle
Klimatanpassat skogsbruk: drivkrafter, risker och möjligheter : Mistra-SWECIA syntesrapport2015Report (Other academic)
46. Anundsen, André K.
Gerdrup, Karsten
Hansen, Frank
Kragh-Sørensen, Kasper
Bubbles and Crises: The Role of House Prices and Credit2016In: Journal of applied econometrics (Chichester, England), ISSN 0883-7252, E-ISSN 1099-1255, Vol. 31, no 7, p. 1291-1311Article in journal (Refereed)
This paper utilizes quarterly panel data for 20 OECD countries over the period 1975:Q1-2014:Q2 to explore the importance of house prices and credit in affecting the likelihood of a financial crisis. Estimating a set of multivariate logit models, we find that booms in credit to both households and non-financial enterprises are important to account for when evaluating the stability of the financial system. In addition, we find that global housing market developments have predictive power for domestic financial stability. Finally, econometric measures of bubble-like behavior in housing and credit markets enter with positive and highly significant coefficients. Specifically, we find that the probability of a crisis increases markedly when bubble-like behavior in house prices coincides with high household leverage.
Balleer, Almut
New Evidence, Old Puzzles: Technology Shocks and Labor Market Dynamics2012In: Quantitative Economics, ISSN 1759-7323, E-ISSN 1759-7331, Vol. 3, no 3, p. 363-392 Article in journal (Refereed)
Can the standard search-and-matching labor market model replicate the business cycle fluctuations of the job finding rate and the unemployment rate? In the model, these fluctuations are driven by movements in productivity. This paper investigates the sources of productivity fluctuations that are commonly interpreted as technology shocks. I estimate different types of technology shocks from structural vector autoregressions and reassess the empirical performance of the standard model based on second moments that are conditional on technology and nontechnology (preference) shocks. Most prominently, the model is able to replicate the conditional volatilities of job finding and unemployment. However, it fails to replicate the correlation of productivity with unemployment and job finding that is conditional on both technology and nontechnology shocks.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for International Economic Studies. RWTH Aachen, Germany.
Gehrke, Britta
Lechthaler, Wolfgang
Merkl, Christian
Does short-time work save jobs? A business cycle analysis2016In: European Economic Review, ISSN 0014-2921, E-ISSN 1873-572X, Vol. 84, p. 99-122Article in journal (Refereed)
In the Great Recession most OECD countries used short-time work (publicly subsidized working time reductions) to counteract a steep increase in unemployment. We show that short-time work can actually save jobs. However, there is an important distinction to be made: while the rule-based component of short-time work is a cost-efficient job saver, the discretionary component is completely ineffective. In a case study for Germany, we use the rich data available to combine micro- and macroeconomic evidence with macroeconomic modeling in order to identify, quantify and interpret these two components of short-time work.
Does Short-Time Work Save Jobs? A Business Cycle Analysis2014Report (Other academic)
Some Surprising Facts About Working Time Accounts and the Business Cycle2014Report (Other academic)


See this article the concepts, operation and practical implementation of the Iterator design patterns in Java programming language.
The Design Patterns are solutions already found, tried and tested and we can apply to projects without having to reinvent the wheel. Various Design Patterns have been cataloged and are a set of best practices that we follow and use in projects of object-oriented software.
Design Patterns basically describe solutions to recurring problems in developing systems of object-oriented software. A design pattern provides a name and define the problem, the solution, when to apply this solution (context) and its consequences.
Additionally, the Design Standards also define a common vocabulary that facilitates communication, documentation and learning software systems.
Behavioral - define the interaction between classes and objects.
In this article we will see on the Iterator design pattern that is used in several projects and the Java API.
The method hasNext () determines whether there are more elements to be iterated. The next () method returns the next object in the iteration.
One method that could be part of our diagram is the "remove" to remove objects from the collection, however, this is an optional method, we need not necessarily provide resources for removal.
The Iterator pattern is defined as: "The Iterator pattern provides a way to sequentially access the elements of an aggregate object without exposing its underlying representation." Therefore, we have the standard Iterator allows one access an elements of an array without knowing how they are being represented, so it becomes irrelevant whether the collection of objects is an ArrayList, HashTable or whatever. In addition, the Standard Iterator takes responsibility to access the elements sequentially and transferred this task to the iterator object, so the object aggregator has its simplified interface and implementation and are no longer responsible for iteration.
Below is an example implementation in Java using the Iterator pattern.
In the example above we have the main class MenuItem that is simply an item from a menu that has a name, this could be a menu that would appear in the menu section of a site, for example.
In the example above we can see that the iteration is all visible in the middle of class, and if we had this iteration into several classes and now we would need to change it, because the type of collection also has changed? What if you were a HashMap menu and not an array? We would have to change too iteration. One can imagine that this would work.
We may note that the entire internal structure of the iterator pattern was abstracted by Project Iterator getting a much more clean and clear. The only thing we use are the methods next () and hasNext ().
The Iterator Pattern encapsulates implementations of iterations, from now on we no longer need to see what kind of collection is being used by objects such as an ArrayList or HashTable. Using the standard Iterator just need a loop to deal polymorphically with any collection of items since it only implements the Iterator. Previously we were also linked with the code to classes such as ArrayList, now use only one interface (Iterator), remember to always program to interfaces.
The Iterator pattern allows sequential access to elements of an aggregate without exposing its underlying implementation. The Iterator pattern is also responsible for the entire task iteration, thereby removing the added responsibility, thereby simplifying the interface and its implementation leaving the responsibility where it should be. Finally, the standard Iterator refers us to two principles of good projects that are of high cohesion in classes designed around a set of functions related to each other and the Single Responsibility, where the class has a single purpose or responsibility. Although cohesion have a more generic concept, it is closely related to the concept of Single Responsibility.


text:
Major newspaper fires its entire staff
May 7, 2019 / NPJ
The Times-Picayune, the primary newspaper in New Orleans, was founded in 1837. It was just announced that it had been sold to its major rival. The deal will result in the layoff of every member of the Times-Picayune staff. It is another reminder of how hard the traditional newspaper industry has fallen.
The Times-Picayune has been owned by the extremely wealthy Newhouse family, via its Advance Publication umbrella. The company also owns newspapers in Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio. The family additionally owns Conde Nast, which publishes a number of magazines, including Vogue. Conde Nast has lost money for several years, has gone through several series of layoffs and recently added a new chief executive officer.
The Times-Picayune online operations use a brand called NOLA.com, and the entire Advance Publications New Orleans operation became known as NOLA Media Group. In 2012, the company decided to cut the paper's publishing frequency to three times a week from seven. It only printed the paper on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The moves were meant to save money. Competition from a rival paper caused the NOLA Media Group to return the frequency to seven days a week in 2014. The Baton Rouge-based The Advocate moved into New Orleans with its own paper and started to take business from NOLA and The Times-Picayune.
The owners of The Advocate, John and Dathel Georges, are the buyers of NOLA. It was their decision to fire the staff of their newly acquired company. In total, 161 people lost their jobs.
The deal shows two themes about the newspaper industry as it continues to implode. The Newhouse family has a net worth of over $12 billion, but they were not willing to use some of that fortune to save a major daily newspaper. The Georges family, on the other hand, was willing to take over the money-losing property, but only if it could cut its expenses to zero. The Georges have gambled that the brand is enough to keep subscribers and advertisers. It will use the infrastructure of The Advocate to support the bet With the 161 staff gone, that is a very little risk at all. The major financial cost to seller and owner was only the end of one of America's oldest major city newspapers.
Every city has to look to the New Orleans decision and consider whether it could lose its newspaper as well. Some cities have watched their major papers gutted already. Among the most well-known of these was the decision of owner Alden Global Capital to fire about a third of the Denver Post newsroom staff in 2018. Newspaper executives and city officials across the country attacked the decision as another example of a rich owner refusing to support local journalism. Alden's newspaper operation, Digital First Media, is in a battle to control the largest newspaper chain holder in the United States, Gannett, owner of over 100 newspapers, including USAToday.
It is hard to imagine that the decision about the Times-Picayune will not be followed by similar ones in other cities, or that the current owners of papers will continue to cut costs until there are none left. On a rare occasion, an extremely rich owner will save a newspaper. This has happened in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Boston. It is not a model the entire industry can count on. On the contrary, the rich owner of the Times-Picayune decided that it was not worth another dollar of investment.
SOURCE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/a-major-newspaper-fires-its-entire-staff/ar-AAAYjhg?li=BBnb7Kz
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6 thoughts on "Major newspaper fires its entire staff"
Journalism died some years ago, decades ago. Are there any true "journalists" left? Nowadays it's choose a side and spin it!
Lady J
Sad, but true, Jason. Whatever happened to unbiased news coverage? To reporters who wrote about important events instead of the slop we see on TV now?
sad to see where this country is going now with everyone reading the news online.I can remember my dad reading the paper in the morning or giving me
the comics to read on Saturday or a good sports page.And yes its very sad
to see good people lose they're jobs .
Joe Darby
This paper went back to 1837, when Andrew Jackson was president! As some of you may know who read my column, I began working for the TP in 1965 and retired in 2006. I'm sad for the demise of one of this country's oldest newspapers but I have nothing but disregard for the way the paper handled its employees in the last 12 to 15 years. Even before this, many very good reporters lost their jobs. Times-Picayune — RIP.
Politicians should be happy. Less oversight leads to more corruption. When reporters don't attend government meetings anything can and will happen.
A sad day for 161 employees. A sad day for journalism in our state. The Times Picayune was the biggest of the old newspapers in our state for a very long time.


Meet 40-year old Isaac Lachmann, a struggling actor who is struggling with life. His career is tanking amid directing a small theater production of The Seagull. His family is tired of him and to make matters worse, his blind girlfriend of 10 years can't even stand to be in the same room as him.
Deadline's sister publication Variety calls Lemon "the year's breakout buzz film from the Next section of Sundance," paralleling Janicza Bravo's feature directorial debut to David Lynch's talents with a style that is "Theater of the Absurd meets Comedy Central sitcom".
Bravo cowrote Lemon with her husband Brett Gelman who stars as Isaac, while Judy Greer plays his blind g.f. Ramona in what is the most audacious role of her career.
Janicza was at Sundance back in 2013 with Gregory Go Boom, a short starring Michael Cera as a paraplegic who lives near the Salton Sea. Cera also stars in Lemon as an actor in the Seagull production who gets more than his fair share of intimacy with Isaac. In sum, Bravo has directed seven shorts, and most recently helmed the episode "Juneteenth" for Donald Glover's Atlanta series.
Describing her seed for Lemon, Janicza says that Gelman and her were grappling with "this fear and anxiety that we were going to fail and we weren't going to arrive at the light that we hoped for; that was the genesis of Isaac." They hammered out the first draft five years ago a process that Gelman says was "meticulous." Gelman is a TV writer/creator and as an actor stars in Comedy Central's Another Period as Hamish Crassus and Starz's Blunt Talk. He can be seen in the upcoming reboot of Lynch's Twin Peaks and Craig Johnson's feature Wilson which also played at this year's Sundance.
Lemon also stars Nia Long, Gillian Jacobs, Shiri Appleby, Rhea Pearlman, David Paymer, Megan Mullally, Jeff Garlin, and Jon Daly.


text:
Q: SQL error 1222 different number of coloumns Hey i keep getting the error 1222 "The used select statements have a different number of coloumns. I have found out the error is in this section
JOIN
 ( SELECT 3 snpos,x.name fa1,x.mass mz_fa1,x.catoms catomsfa1,x.dbnum dbnumfa1,y.name fa2,y.mass mz_fa2,y.catoms catomsfa2,y.dbnum dbnumfa2,z.name fa3,z.mass mz_fa3,z.catoms catomsfa3, z.dbnum dbnumfa3, x.mass+y.mass+z.mass total, x.catoms+y.catoms+z.catoms totcatoms, x.dbnum+y.dbnum+z.dbnum totdbnum FROM ms2frag x JOIN ms2frag y ON y.id <= x.id JOIN  ms2frag z ON z.id <= y.id
   UNION ALL
   SELECT 2      ,x.name fa1,x.mass mz_fa1,x.catoms catomsfa1,x.dbnum dbnumfa1,y.name fa2,y.mass mz_fa2,y.catoms catomsfa2,y.dbnum dbnumfa2, x.mass+y.mass total, x.catoms+y.catoms totcatoms, x.dbnum+y.dbnum totdbnum FROM ms2frag x JOIN ms2frag y ON y.id <= x.id
   UNION ALL
   SELECT 1,x.name fa1,x.mass mz_fa1, x.catoms catomsfa1, NULL,0,NULL,0, mass, catoms FROM ms2frag
 ) ms2frag

So just to explain in has to pick which of the following lines it should be according to if snpos =3 or 2 or 1.
The other parts of the code works, only this one which doesn't.

A: When using UNION, you have to make sure each of your statements returns the same number of columns.  In your example, each query returns a different number of columns and won't work.

A: To use Union you must provide equal number of columns for all select statements inside. It is obvious that you have different number of column in fisrt and third select. Also the column types in the corresponding columns must be of implicitly convert to each other.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Maid found hanging, no FIR after 3 days
Posted on April 18, 2014 Posted By: ravikantsvCategories: CHILD LABOUR
AMBIKA PANDIT IN THE TIMES OF INDIA
NEW DELHI: A tribal girl from West Bengal was found hanging from a grill in the courtyard of her employer's house in Faridabad on April 14. She had a dog's leash around her neck.
Till date, no FIR has been lodged in the case. While the police blame their helpless on the absence of a report, the girl's body lies in a mortuary unclaimed. Attempts are on to track her family in Uttar Dinajpur and bring them to identify her.
The case, yet again, brings to the fore the rising cases of exploitation of domestic workers from tribal belts. In the absence of laws to regulate domestic work and placement agencies, these girls live and die without any identity or rights.
Police officials from Dabua Police Chowki of Saran police station had found the girl's body in Sector 49 of Dabua Colony after her employers informed them. The employers told the police that the girl was hired on March 24 from Laxmi Placement Agency and she appeared to be depressed. But so far, no one has inquired into the alleged cause of depression or the girl's employment history. The employers told police that it was a case of suicide. Police, however, has not initiated any inquiry to investigate the role of the employers in the case.
There is also no clarity on the girl's age as she appears to be a minor. Preliminary inquiry shows that the girl was hired for a meager salary of Rs 3,500 to do the house work in a family of six members, police said, adding that the placement agency took around Rs 22,000 from the employers as commission.
Strangely, the placement agency owner has been tasked with the job of finding the girl's family and bringing them to the police station. Meanwhile, the police officials say they are trying hard to keep the body from being eaten away by mice in the "dead house" where the freezer facility is not working properly and ice is being used to preserve the girl's body.
While mystery shrouds the domestic worker's death, NGO Shakti Vahini has written to the Faridabad police commissioner seeking an investigation into the matter from the point of view of inter-state human trafficking (West Bengal-Delhi-Haryana). "It is a matter of concern how the girl came in contact with the placement agency. What is the legal status of the agency? The girl's age is also a matter of investigation," the letter states.
Meanwhile, experts working on trafficking cases feel that much time has been wasted. Former member of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Vinod Tikoo, cited Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to point out the role of police to enquire and report on suicide, and such matters.
As per the Code, a police officer has the power to inform an executive magistrate empowered to hold inquests. The police can also make a report on the basis of spot examination and preliminary investigation into cause of death to enable the district magistrate to act.
Human Trafficking, Shakti Vahini, SLAVERY, TRAFFICKING
Babubhai Vaghela 09427608632 says
Politicians, Corporates, Bureaucrats and Judges in Delhi Exploit Tribal Girls Mr Chief Justice of India?
atul srivastava says
only few are for the HELP of the victim otherwise all are part of it.
CHILD LABOUR (35)
KANT BROTHERS INDIA (2)
RAPE (5)
SHAKTI VAHINI (484)
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (136)
ASSAM Child Labour CHILD LABOUR INDIA Childline CHILDLINE GURGAON Criminal Laws (Ammendment ) Bill 2013 DELHI POLICE FAST TRACK COURTS HONOUR KILLING HONOUR KILLING INDIA HONOUR KILLINGS INSIA HUMAN TRA Human Trafficking HUMAN TRAFFICKING INDIA India INDIA SHAKTI VAHINI Jharkhand JUVENILE JUSTICE KANT BROTHERS KANT BROTHERS INDIA KHAP PANCHAYATS MISSING CHILDREN MISSING CHILDREN INDIA MISSING PERSONS PLACEMENT AGENCY Prostitution RAPE RAPE CASES Rape Law s sha Shakti Vahini SHAKTI VAHINI INDIA SLAVERY TRAFFICKING US TIP REPORT 2012 z शक्ति वाहिनी


text:
Full Moon Features: Howl (2015)
When we first meet Joe Griffin (Ed Speleers), the protagonist of the British werewolf film Howl, things aren't going so hot for him. Not only has he been passed over for a promotion at Alpha Trax, the rail company he works for, but the guy who got the job in his stead is a real jerk who makes him take a double shift and he's shot down by a co-worker (Holly Weston) when he asks her out. Then, to top things off, the dreaded Eastborough red eye (which they're both on) suffers a breakdown in the middle of a forest infested with werewolves. Talk about your hairy situations.
Writers Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler were on the ball when they named the company Alpha since much of the drama arises out of who takes the lead when things go pear-shaped and the train's driver (played ever so briefly by Dog Soldiers vet Sean Pertwee) goes missing. Try as he might to maintain his authority, Joe is swiftly undermined by a entitled first-class passenger (Elliot Cowan) who's accustomed to taking charge and an uptight businesswoman (Shauna Macdonald). Just about everybody takes a turn putting him in his place, though, including a narcissistic teenager (Rosie Day) and the elderly couple (Duncan Preston and Ania Marson) who share her compartment and have to put up with her inconsiderate behavior.
A funny thing happens, though, as the situation grows more dire and everyone comes around to the realization that the threat they're facing is supernatural in origin: Joe becomes more confident and decisive, and he even gains some allies (starting with the similarly marginalized Sam Gittins and Amit Shah). That this coincides with director Paul Hyett's decision to show off his creatures more is surely coincidental. After teasing the viewer with fleeting shots of digitigrade legs and twisted claws, once Hyett does the full reveal he keeps his monsters out in the open, while being mindful that the worst villains in these films are often the ones still standing on human feet.
Craig J. Clark	Apr. 21st 2016
In Film, Television & Music, Full Moon Features, Reviews


The white matte crown with black PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) face makes alignment easier while eliminating distracting glare. Inverted cone shape with low center of gravity produces high launch angle. Constructed to achieve the maximum allowable performance for the player's swing speed and to conform to USGA rules.


The workshop is scheduled for Saturday 10 November from 13:30 – 17:30 at the Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen's Park (Thai Chitlada Room #2, on the 2nd Floor). There is no cost to attend, but registration is required. The online registration allows you to also register for the DetNet – TSN joint session the following day.
Draft minutes from the workshop are available online here: draft minutes. For more information, or to offer your follow-up participation, please contact Paul Congdon.
A summary covering the Workshop and the Data Center Network activity in 802 Nendica was posted by IEEE-SA Beyond Standards as Laying the Foundation for the Lossless Data Center on 2018-12-06.


The City of Oak Grove is seeking candidates for the position of Public Works Superintendent. This position reports directly to the Public Works Director and is responsible for supervising the day-to-day operations of the department. Oak Grove is located approximately 20 miles east of Kansas City on I-70. The ideal candidate should have a strong ability to establish and maintain effective relationships with co-workers and members of the public contacted during the course of work.
Have a proven record of successfully managing the field operations of a public works department/division or a similar construction field equivalent. Have a strong knowledge of all public works functions, infrastructure maintenance, crew training, and team leading. This position performs a variety of activities in support of the Public Works Department including leading and working on a crew. There is an on call requirement. Project management and heavy equipment operation experience is also required.


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