Partners or predators? : the impact of regional trade liberalization on Indonesia

The authors empirically assess regional integration and liberalization scenarios impact on Indonesia and other Pacific Rim economies, including the complete Uruguay Round, further global liberalization and the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) free trade areas. They consider how major international exchange rate realignments affect the world trade pattern, and Indonesia in particular. The analysis uses a multi-country, computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to quantify the trade liberalization impact on countries, sectors, and factors. The extended APEC-CGE model consists of nine linked country models: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (together), the Philippines, Thailand, China (including Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan, Japan, the United States and the European Union. Each country model is linked through explicit bilateral trade flows modeling for each traded sector. The empirical results lead to several conclusions: a) eliminating tariff and non tariff barriers in industrial countries (especially the Multifibre Agreement) gives Asian developing countries the opportunity to expand exports and achieve productivity gains; b) creation of an APEC free trade area gives participants significant benefits, with little effect on nonmembers while creation of an ASEAN free trade area gives its members little benefit, thus ASEAN countries should work toward more liberalization under GATT or hasten the APEC free trade area creation; c) all economies gain the most from further multilateral liberalization; and d) major exchange rate realignments significantly affect bilateral trade balances and world trade volume and direction. However, they have less effect than trade liberalization on the internal production and trade structure. Sectoral protection andsubsidy rates vary greatly and their elimination yields significant efficiency gains. Changes in exchange rates have less effect.Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Transport and Trade Logistics,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration,Trade Policy

After the negotiations: assessing the impact of free trade agreements in Southern Africa

After protracted and difficult negotiations, agreement was recently reached on the dimensions of a South African-EU free trade deal. Because of South Africa's prominence in the sub-region, implementation of this agreement will have an impact not only on South Africa, but on all the SADC economies. This paper traces how this impact may be felt over time, using a multi-region model constructed to focus on the determination of sectoral and geographic trade patterns. By separatelymodeling South Africa and the rest of southern Africa, the model can be used to evaluate how alternative SADC regional trade strategies can influence how the EU deal affects the region's economies; by distinguishing among major trading partners (EU, North America, East Asia), the simulations can help illuminate how the trade deal will likely affect current trade patterns The empirical results lead to a number of conclusions: (1) trade creation dominates trade diversion for the region under all FTA arrangements; (2) the rest of southern Africa benefits from an FTA between the EU and South Africa — the recently signed bilateral agreement is not a “beggar thy neighbor” policy; (3) the rest of southern Africa gains more from zero-tariff access to EU markets than from a partial (50 percent) reduction in global tariffs; and (4) the South African economy is not large enough to serve as a growth pole for the region. Access to EU markets provides substantially bigger gains for the rest of southern Africa than does access to South Africa.Trade policy Africa., Free trade., South Africa.,

Policy lessons from a simple open - economy model

The authors show how two-sector models can be used to derive policy lessons about adjustment in developing economies. In the past two decades, changes in the external environment and in economic policies have been the key factors in the performance of developing economies. By and large the shocks have involved the external sector: terms-of-trade shocks or cutbacks in foreign capital. The policy responses most commonly proposed have targeted the external sector: depreciating the real exchange rate or reducing distortionary taxes to make the economy more competitive. The authors provide a starting point for analyzing the relation between external shocks and policy responses. Starting from a small, one-country, two-sector, three-good (1-2-3) model, the authors outline how the effects of a foreign capital inflow and terms-of-trade shock can be analyzed. They derive the assumptions underlying the conventional policy recommendation of real exchange rate depreciation in response to adverse shocks. The implications of such trade and fiscal policy instruments as export subsidies, import tariffs, and domestic indirect taxes can also be studied in this framework. The authors show that the standard advice to depreciate the real exchange rate in the wake of an adverse terms-of-trade shock rests on the condition that the income effect of the external shock dominates its substitution effect. But, depending on the characteristics of the economy (for example, the trade elasticities), policy results may run counter to received wisdom. For example, when the substitution effect ofan adverse external shock dominates, real depreciation is inappropriate. An infusion of foreign capital does not necessarily benefit the nontradable sector, as the results of"Dutch disease"models suggest (for example, in the extreme case of nearly infinite substitution elasticity between imports and domestic goods). When import tariffs are significant sources of public revenue, potential revenue losses from tariff cuts must be offset by other revenue sources to maintain the external current account balance. The paper shows a simple way to calculate the necessary tax adjustment. A major advantage of small models is their simplicity. The example in this paper can be solved analytically - either graphically or algebraically. It also can be solved numerically, using such widely available PC-based spreadsheet programs as Excel. The numerical implementation involves only modest data requirements. The data that governments normally release on national income, fiscal, and balance of payments accounts are sufficient.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Markets and Market Access

The magnesium sulfate-water system at pressures to 4 kilobars

Hydrated magnesium sulfate constitutes up to 1/6 of the mass of carbonaceous chondrites, and probably is important in many icy asteroids and satellites. It occurs naturally in meteorites mostly as epsomite. MgSO4, considered anhydrously, comprises nearly 3/4 of the highly soluble fraction of C1 chondrites. Thus, MgSO4 is probably an important solute in cryovolcanic brines erupted on certain icy objects in the outer solar system. While the physiochemical properties of the water-magnesium sulfate system are well known at low pressures, planetological applications of these data are hindered by a dearth of useful published data at elevated pressures. Accordingly, solid-liquid phase equilibria was recently explored in this chemical system at pressures extending to about 4 kilobars. The water magnesium sulfate system in the region of the eutectic exhibits qualitatively constant behavior between pressures of 1 atm and 2 kbar. The eutectic melting curve closely follows that for water ice, with a freezing point depression of about 4 K at 1 atm decreasing to around 3.3 K at 2 kbars. The eutectic shifts from 17 pct. MgSO4 at 1 atm to about 15.3 pct at 2 kbars. Above 2 kbars, the eutectic melting curve again tends to follow ice

PinAPL-Py: A comprehensive web-application for the analysis of CRISPR/Cas9 screens.

Large-scale genetic screens using CRISPR/Cas9 technology have emerged as a major tool for functional genomics. With its increased popularity, experimental biologists frequently acquire large sequencing datasets for which they often do not have an easy analysis option. While a few bioinformatic tools have been developed for this purpose, their utility is still hindered either due to limited functionality or the requirement of bioinformatic expertise. To make sequencing data analysis of CRISPR/Cas9 screens more accessible to a wide range of scientists, we developed a Platform-independent Analysis of Pooled Screens using Python (PinAPL-Py), which is operated as an intuitive web-service. PinAPL-Py implements state-of-the-art tools and statistical models, assembled in a comprehensive workflow covering sequence quality control, automated sgRNA sequence extraction, alignment, sgRNA enrichment/depletion analysis and gene ranking. The workflow is set up to use a variety of popular sgRNA libraries as well as custom libraries that can be easily uploaded. Various analysis options are offered, suitable to analyze a large variety of CRISPR/Cas9 screening experiments. Analysis output includes ranked lists of sgRNAs and genes, and publication-ready plots. PinAPL-Py helps to advance genome-wide screening efforts by combining comprehensive functionality with user-friendly implementation. PinAPL-Py is freely accessible at http://pinapl-py.ucsd.edu with instructions and test datasets

The Mass of the Black Hole in the Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 4593 from Reverberation Mapping

We present new observations leading to an improved black hole mass estimate for the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4593 as part of a reverberation-mapping campaign conducted at the MDM Observatory. Cross-correlation analysis of the H_beta emission-line light curve with the optical continuum light curve reveals an emission-line time delay of 3.73 (+-0.75) days. By combining this time delay with the H_beta line width, we derive a central black hole mass of M_BH = 9.8(+-2.1)x10^6 M_sun, an improvement in precision of a factor of several over past results.Comment: 22 pages, 3 tables, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Sequential Extensions of Causal and Evidential Decision Theory

Moving beyond the dualistic view in AI where agent and environment are separated incurs new challenges for decision making, as calculation of expected utility is no longer straightforward. The non-dualistic decision theory literature is split between causal decision theory and evidential decision theory. We extend these decision algorithms to the sequential setting where the agent alternates between taking actions and observing their consequences. We find that evidential decision theory has two natural extensions while causal decision theory only has one.Comment: ADT 201

Impossible worlds

Impossible worlds are representations of impossible things and impossible happenings. They earn their keep in a semantic or metaphysical theory if they do the right theoretical work for us. As it happens, a worlds-based account provides the best philosophical story about semantic content, knowledge and belief states, cognitive significance and cognitive information, and informative deductive reasoning. A worlds-based story may also provide the best semantics for counterfactuals. But to function well, all these accounts need use of impossible and as well as possible worlds. So what are impossible worlds? Graham Priest claims that any of the usual stories about possible worlds can be told about impossible worlds, too. But far from it. I'll argue that impossible worlds cannot be genuine worlds, of the kind proposed by Lewis, McDaniel or Yagisawa. Nor can they be ersatz worlds on the model proposed by Melia or Sider. Constructing impossible worlds, it turns out, requires novel metaphysical resources

Portable Unit for Metabolic Analysis

The Portable Unit for Metabolic Analysis measures human metabolic function. The compact invention attaches to the face of a subject and it is able to record highly time-resolved measurements of air temperature and pressure, flow rates during inhalation and exhalation, and oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressure. The device is capable of `breath-by-breath` analysis and `within-breath` analysis at high temporal resolution