Economic Growth Nonlinearities

Nonlinearities in growth have important implications for cross-country income inequality. In particular, they imply that countries may spend long periods of time in a low-growth poverty trap. However, finding evidence of such nonlinearities in the data and accounting for their emergence pose unique challenges to researchers.

Pressure measurements of impinging jet with asymmetric nozzle

For modern aircraft, impinging surfaces are commonly used as a device for obtaining vector thrust from engine exhaust. The nature of dynamic loading is important to understand for design purposes. In this study, the frequency, mode, and level of pressure fluctuations generated by an elliptic jet are examined. The elliptic jet is used because it has several operational advantages over a circular jet

Hybrid Path Planning Incorporating Global and Local Search for Mobile Robot

[[abstract]]This paper proposes a hybrid path planning algorithm incorporating a global and local search mechanism for mobile robot. The global path planning is based on Voronoi graph to establish a backbone path for the map with significantly reduced nodes for the original grid map. With the use of the backbone path, the D* algorithm is adopted to determine a shortest path between the starting and end points. Taking advantages of the D* algorithm and Voronoi graph, the proposed hybrid path planning algorithm is capable of obtaining a desired path for the mobile robot, overcoming the efficiency problem while maintaining maximum safety distance from the obstacles when the mobile robot navigates in the environment.[[sponsorship]]University of Bristol[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20120820~20120825[[booktype]]電子版[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Bristol, England, United Kingdo

Is the relationship between aid and economic growth nonlinear?:

"There have been intensive debates on the role of aid in promoting economic development in developing countries by using cross-country analyses. Cross-country regression assuming linear relationship between aid and growth and without taking into heterogeneity of countries would produce biased estimates. To correct this, in this paper we investigate the relationship between foreign aid and growth using recently developed sample splitting methods that allow us to simultaneously uncover evidence for the existence of heterogeneity and nonlinearity. We also address model uncertainty in the context of these methods. We find some evidence that aid may have heterogeneous effects on growth across two growth regimes defined by ethnolinguistic fractionalization. However, when we account for model uncertainty, we find no evidence to suggest that the relationship between aid and growth is nonlinear. In fact, our results suggest that the partial effect of aid on growth is likely to be weakly negative. In this sense, our findings suggest that aid is potentially counterproductive to growth with outcomes not meeting the expectations of donors... The methodology developed in this paper can be used to identify typologies on other outcome variables, such as those included in the Millennium Development Goals." from Authors' AbstractEconomic development, Cross-country studies, Foreign aid, Public investment, Nonlinearity, Typology,

Structural Threshold Regression

This paper extends the simple threshold regression framework of Hansen (2000) and Caner and Hansen (2004) to allow for endogeneity of the threshold variable. We develop a concentrated least squares estimator of the threshold parameter based on an inverse Mills ratio bias correction. We show that our estimator is consistent and investigate its performance using a Monte Carlo simulation that indicates the applicability of the method in finite samples.

THRET: Threshold Regression with Endogenous Threshold Variables

This paper extends the simple threshold regression framework of Hansen (2000) and Caner and Hansen (2004) to allow for endogeneity of the threshold variable. We develop a concentrated two-stage least squares (C2SLS) estimator of the threshold parameter that is based on an inverse Mills ratio bias correction. Our method also allows for the endogeneity of the slope variables. We show that our estimator is consistent and investigate its performance using a Monte Carlo simulation that indicates the applicability of the method is finite samples. We also illustrate its usefulness with an empirical example from economic growth.

Do institutions rule? The role of heterogeneity in the institutions vs. geography debate

We uncover evidence of substantial heterogeneity in the growth experience of countries using a structural threshold regression methodology. Our findings suggest that studies that seek to promote mono-causal explanations in the institutions versus geography debate in growth are potentially misleadingThreshold Regression, Endogenous Threshold Variables, Growth, Institutions, Geography.