Risks at work: the demand and supply sides of government redistribution

To understand how the welfare state adjusts to economic shocks it is important to explain both the genesis of popular preferences and the institutional incentives of governments to respond to these preferences. This paper attempts to do both, using a general theoretical framework and detailed data at both the individual and national levels. In a first step, we focus on how risk exposure and income are related to preferences for redistribution. To test our hypotheses, we extract detailed risk exposure measures from labor force surveys and marry them to cross-national survey data. In a second step, we turn our attention to the supply side of government redistribution. Institutions, we argue, mediate governments’ reactions to redistributional demands following economic shocks. Using time-series cross-country data, we demonstrate how national training systems, electoral institutions as well as government partisanship shape government responses. -- Um zu verstehen, wie Wohlfahrtsstaaten auf ökonomische Schocks reagieren, ist es wichtig, sowohl die Nachfrage- als auch die Angebotsseite von Umverteilung zu analysieren. Wie entstehen Umverteilungs-Präferenzen in der Bevölkerung? Welche institutionellen Anreize haben Regierungen, darauf zu reagieren? Das vorliegende Papier wendet einen generellen theoretischen Rahmen und umfangreiche Individual- und Aggregat-Daten an, um diesen Fragen nachzugehen. Dazu wird zuerst analysiert, wie Risiken im Arbeitsmarkt und das Einkommen Umverteilungs-Präferenzen von Individuen beeinflussen. Die abgeleiteten Hypothesen werden an neuen Datensätzen getestet. Diese kombinieren Informationen von Arbeitsmarkterhebungen und Umfrage-Daten für mehrere Länder und Jahre. In Sachen Angebotsseite wird argumentiert, dass unterschiedliche Regierungen auf ökonomische Schocks unterschiedlich reagieren, abhängig von Institutionen. Das Papier testet diese und andere Hypothesen auf der Aggregatsebene anhand von vergleichenden Zeitreihen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Art und Weise, wie Regierungen auf ökonomische Schocks reagieren, von Ausbildungs- und Wahlsystemen sowie der parteipolitischen Färbung der Regierung mitbestimmt werden.Public Opinion,Preferences,Redistribution,Varieties of Capitalism,Partisanship,Unemployment,Occupations

Unemployment Compensation and High European Unemployment: A Reassessment with New Benefit Indicators

Generous unemployment benefits lie at the heart of the conventional explanation for persistent high unemployment. The effects of benefit generosity are more ambiguous in a broader behavioral framework in which workers get substantial disutility from unemployment controlling for income, and know that unemployment has scarring effects in the future. The micro evidence suggests modest effects of changes in generosity, but there are reasons to doubt that the impacts on national unemployment rates are consequential. The strongest evidence for the orthodox prediction comes from cross-country regressions on the OECD’s gross replacement rate (GRR), but we find little support in the pattern of annual changes in the GRR and the unemployment rate for OECD countries over the last three decades. We take advantage of newly released and much improved net replacement rate indicators from the OECD, which show little correlation with either the GRRs or with unemployment and employment rates. The evidence does not offer compelling support for the view that benefit generosity is at the root of high European unemployment. ��

Low Mach Number Modeling of Type Ia Supernovae

We introduce a low Mach number equation set for the large-scale numerical simulation of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs experiencing a thermonuclear deflagration. Since most of the interesting physics in a Type Ia supernova transpires at Mach numbers from 0.01 to 0.1, such an approach enables both a considerable increase in accuracy and savings in computer time compared with frequently used compressible codes. Our equation set is derived from the fully compressible equations using low Mach number asymptotics, but without any restriction on the size of perturbations in density or temperature. Comparisons with simulations that use the fully compressible equations validate the low Mach number model in regimes where both are applicable. Comparisons to simulations based on the more traditional anelastic approximation also demonstrate the agreement of these models in the regime for which the anelastic approximation is valid. For low Mach number flows with potentially finite amplitude variations in density and temperature, the low Mach number model overcomes the limitations of each of the more traditional models and can serve as the basis for an accurate and efficient simulation tool.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal 31 pages, 5 figures (some figures degraded in quality to conserve space

Systematics of heavy-ion fusion hindrance at extreme sub-barrier energies

The recent discovery of hindrance in heavy-ion induced fusion reactions at extreme sub-barrier energies represents a challenge for theoretical models. Previously, it has been shown that in medium-heavy systems, the onset of fusion hindrance depends strongly on the "stiffness" of the nuclei in the entrance channel. In this work, we explore its dependence on the total mass and the $Q$-value of the fusing systems and find that the fusion hindrance depends in a systematic way on the entrance channel properties over a wide range of systems.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett., 5 pages, 3 figure

Study of vibrational excitation mechanisms of CO2 at high temperatures

Calculating vibrational excitation of CO2 for anharmonic coupling and normal mode at high temperatur

Study of vibrational excitation mechanisms of carbon dioxide at high temperatures

Vibrational relaxation models of carbon dioxide at high temperature

Beam heat load analysis with COLDDIAG: a cold vacuum chamber for diagnostics

The knowledge of the heat intake from the electron beam is essential to design the cryogenic layout of superconducting insertion devices. With the aim of measuring the beam heat load to a cold bore and understanding the responsible mechanisms, a cold vacuum chamber for diagnostics (COLDDIAG) has been built. The instrumentation comprises temperature sensors, pressure gauges, mass spectrometers and retarding field analyzers, which allow to study the beam heat load and the influence of the cryosorbed gas layer. COLDDIAG was installed in the storage ring of the Diamond Light Source from September 2012 to August 2013. During this time measurements were performed for a wide range of machine conditions, employing the various measuring capabilities of the device. Here we report on the analysis of the measured beam heat load, pressure and gas content, as well as the low energy charged particle flux and spectrum as a function of the electron beam parameters

Fusion-Fission of 16O+197Au at Sub-Barrier Energies

The recent discovery of heavy-ion fusion hindrance at far sub-barrier energies has focused much attention on both experimental and theoretical studies of this phenomenon. Most of the experimental evidence comes from medium-heavy systems such as Ni+Ni to Zr+Zr, for which the compound system decays primarily by charged-particle evaporation. In order to study heavier systems, it is, however, necessary to measure also the fraction of the decay that goes into fission fragments. In the present work we have, therefore, measured the fission cross section of 16O+197Au down to unprecedented far sub-barrier energies using a large position sensitive PPAC placed at backward angles. The preliminary cross sections will be discussed and compared to earlier studies at near-barrier energies. No conclusive evidence for sub-barrier hindrance was found, probably because the measurements were not extended to sufficiently low energies.Comment: Fusion06 - Intl. Conf. on Reaction Mechanisms and Nuclear Structure at the Coulomb Barrier, San Servolo, Venezia, Italy, March 19-223, 2006 5 pages, 4 figure