Generalized Falicov-Kimball Models

In this paper we extend the Falicov-Kimball model (FKM) to the case where the "quasi-particles" entering the FKM are not "ordinary" fermions. As an example we first discuss how the FKM can be generalized to the case with spin-dependent hopping. Afterwards we discuss several cases where the "quasi-particles" entering the FKM are Majorana fermions (extended Majorana-Falicov-Kimball Model (MFKM). Two examples of extended MFKM are discussed in detail: (i) a $p$-wave BCS superconductor on a bipartite lattice and (ii) a BCS-Anderson model. We also discuss the most general forms of extended MFKM, including a brief discussion on the case where the Majorana fermions represent spins, but not real fermion particles.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Near-Capacity Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation Design

Bandwidth efficient parallel-concatenated Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation (TTCM) schemes were designed for communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels. A symbol-based union bound was derived for analysing the error floor of the proposed TTCM schemes. A pair of In-phase (I) and Quadrature-phase (Q) interleavers were employed for interleaving the I and Q components of the TTCM coded symbols, in order to attain an increased diversity gain. The decoding convergence of the IQ-TTCM schemes was analysed using symbol based EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts. The best TTCM component codes were selected with the aid of both the symbol-based union bound and non-binary EXIT charts for the sake of designing capacity-approaching IQ-TTCM schemes in the context of 8PSK, 16QAM and 32QAM signal sets. It will be shown that our TTCM design is capable of approaching the channel capacity within 0.5 dB at a throughput of 4 bit/s/Hz, when communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels using 32QAM

China and central and eastern European countries : regional networks, global supply chain, or international competitors?

China has emerged as one of the top recipients of foreign direct investment in the world. Meanwhile, the successful transition experience of many Central and Eastern European countries has also allowed them to attract an increasing share of global foreign direct investment. In this paper, the authors use a panel data set to investigate whether foreign direct investment flows to these two regions are complements, substitutes, or independent of each other. Taking into account the role of host country characteristics - such as market size, degree of trade liberalization, and human capital - the authors find no evidence that foreign direct investment flows to one region are at the expense of those to the other. Instead, the results suggest that foreign direct investment flows are driven by distinct regional production networks (and thus are largely independent of each other) and the development of global supply chains (indicating that foreign direct investment flows are complementary).Debt Markets,Foreign Direct Investment,Emerging Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Investment and Investment Climate

Can Performance of Indigenous Factors Influence Growth and Globalisation?"

This paper employs a total of thirty four openness factors and indigenous factors to construct two indicators for 62 world economies for the period 1998-2002. While most globalization studies concentrated on openness factors, regression estimates and simulation studies show that sound performance in indigenous factors are crucial to an economy’s growth and globalization. Empirical evidence shows that an optimal performance in indigenous factors can be identified, and that successful globalized economies are equipped with strong performance in their indigenous factors.Globalization; indigenous factors; openess; world economies

China and Central and Eastern European Countries: Regional networks, global supply chain or international competitors?

China has emerged as one of the world's leading recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI). Meanwhile, the successful transition experience of many Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) also enables them to attract an increasing share of global foreign investment, particularly from the European Union (EU). What is the relationship between inward FDI of China and the CEECs? We conceptualize the relationship according to three alternative paradigms: 1) China and the CEECs each exist in its own regional production network, with no linkage between FDI flows into China and into CEECs; 2) China and the CEECs together comprise a global production network, so that FDI into China is positively related to FDI into CEECs; and 3)FDI into China is a substitute for FDI into the CEECs, so that the correlation between them is negative. In this paper, we employ panel data to study this issue in detail. Specifically, we compare empirical estimates for 15 CEECs over the 15-year period 1990-2004 using four different econometric approaches: FGLS with Random effects, FGLS with fixed effects, EC2SLS and GMM. The result supports the conclusion that China's inward FDI does not crowd out CEECs' inward FDI. In fact, it shows that in some circumstances FDI flows in these two regions are moderately complementary. In addition, our analysis confirms the importance for FDI flows of recipient-country characteristics such as market size, degree of trade liberalization and labor quality, as well as a healthy global capital market.foreign direct investment (FDI); regional networks; global supply chain; China’s FDI; Central and Eastern European Countries’ FDI