Demographic shocks and global factor flows: discussion

In this intriguing paper, Jeffrey Williamson emphasizes that changes in the age distribution of the population (especially the share of young adults, the dependency ratio, and the like) are often much more important than changes in population growth rates in explaining the magnitude and direction of global factor flows. He also stresses that the transition period that follows a demographic change (such as lower fertility or lower mortality) is usually very long: a century or even longer.Demography ; Economic conditions

Virtual viewpoint three-dimensional panorama

Conventional panoramic images are known to provide for an enhanced field of view in which the scene always has a fixed appearance. The idea presented in this paper focuses on the use of the concept of virtual viewpoint creation to generate different panoramic images of the same scene with three-dimensional component. Three-dimensional effect in a resultant panorama is realized by superimposing a stereo-pair of panoramic images

Disparity map generation based on trapezoidal camera architecture for multiview video

Visual content acquisition is a strategic functional block of any visual system. Despite its wide possibilities, the arrangement of cameras for the acquisition of good quality visual content for use in multi-view video remains a huge challenge. This paper presents the mathematical description of trapezoidal camera architecture and relationships which facilitate the determination of camera position for visual content acquisition in multi-view video, and depth map generation. The strong point of Trapezoidal Camera Architecture is that it allows for adaptive camera topology by which points within the scene, especially the occluded ones can be optically and geometrically viewed from several different viewpoints either on the edge of the trapezoid or inside it. The concept of maximum independent set, trapezoid characteristics, and the fact that the positions of cameras (with the exception of few) differ in their vertical coordinate description could very well be used to address the issue of occlusion which continues to be a major problem in computer vision with regards to the generation of depth map

Robust Adaptive Intra Refresh for Multiview Video

Transmission error propagation in wireless multimedia communication systems has become a recurring problem. This persistent problem has led to grave consequences on the visual quality of the decoded video. It is against this backdrop that, we present an adaptive intra refresh (AIR) error-resilient coding tool to mitigate the effect of transmission error propagation in 3D video communications. This work utilizes periodic insertion of intra macroblocks in badly error-infected frames temporally as well as related frames in the multi view video scheme. Our objective is to maximize the transmission efficiency while ensuring the transmission robustness of the coded bitstream. The selection of periodic macroblocks is based on areas with high motion above a pre-set threshold. The coding modes of the macroblocks are based on the distortion expectation due to transmission errors. Extensive simulation results show significant improvement in both objective and subjective video quality at different intra refresh rates

Gains from FDI Inflows with Incomplete Information

The paper develops an international macroeconomic model of FDI flows with a unique feature: a hands-on management ability to react in real time to changing economic environments. Anticipating this advantage, foreign direct investors can outbid other investors in a certain industry in which they specialize in the source country. The model can explain both two-way FDI flows among developed countries and one-way FDI flows from developed to developing country. The unique gains from FDI to the host country stem from the increased eciency of domestic investment.

Resisting Migration: The Problems of Wage Rigidity and the Social Burden

Just like any trade activity in well-functioning markets, migration tends to enhance the efficiency of the allocation of resources. With non-distortionary income distribution policy instruments which can compensate losers, migration generates income gains. But the gains tend to be typically rather small. However, when the labor market is malfunctioning and wages are rigid, migration exacerbates imperfections in the market. Consequently, it may lead to losses to the established population which can be quite sizable. Another problem raised by migration is the toll it imposes on the welfare state. Being unable to perfectly exclude migrants from various entitlement programs and public services, the modern welfare state finds it more and more costly to run its various programs. These two economic considerations may help explain why there is strong resistance to migration. Consequently, improvements in functioning of the labor markets (with a possible compensation to wage earners that compete with unskilled migrants) and more selectivity in the scope of and the eligibility for the state entitlement programs may potentially ease, to a large extent, the resistance to migration from the established population.

Aging and the Welfare State: The Role of Young and Old Voting Pivots

An income tax is generally levied on both capital and labor income. The working young bears mostly the burden of the tax on labor income, whereas the retired old, who already acummulated her savings, bears the brunt of the capital income tax. Therefore, there arise two types of conflict in the determination of the income tax: the standard intragenerational conflict between the poor and the rich, and an ntergenerational conflict between the young and the old. The paper studies how aging affects the resolution of these conflicts, and the politico-economic forces that are at play: the changes in the voting pivots and the fiscal leakage from tax payers to transfer recipients.

Productivity and Taxes as Drivers of FDI

We develop a framework in which the host country productivity has a positive effect on the intensive margin (the size of FDI flows), but only an ambiguous effect on the extensive margin (the likelihood of FDI flows to occur). The source-country productivity has a negative effect on the extensive margin. An increase in the host-country corporate tax rate reduces the actual FDI flows the likelihood of such flows to occur. An increase in the source-country corporate tax rate reduces the likelihood of FDI flows. These predictions are confronted with Data on FDI flows, drawn from the International Direct Investment dataset (Source OECD), covering the bilateral FDI flows among 18 OECD countries over the period 1987 to 2003. We find some support for the main predictions of the model.

The Stability and Growth Pact as an Impediment to Privatizing Social Security

The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual retirement programs. Lifting the Stability-Pact type ceiling on fiscal deficits is shown to facilitate the transition from a national to a private pension system, through an endogenously determined shift in the median voter.

Vying for Foreign Direct Investment: A EU-type Model of Tax Competition

This paper brings out the special mechanism through which taxes influence bilateral FDI, when investment decisions are two-fold in the presence of fixed setup flows costs. For each pair of source-host countries, there is a set of factors determining whether aggregate FDI flows will occur at all, and a different set of factors determining the volume of FDI flows (provided they occur). We develop a two-country tax competition model which yield an asymmetric Nash-equilibrium with high corporate tax rate and high level of public good provision in the rich source country for FDI outflows and with low corporate tax rate and low level of public good provision in the poor host country for FDI outflows. This is akin to the asymmetry among the EU 15 and EU 10 in the enlarged European Union, as of 2004. We also demonstrate that the notion that the mere international tax differentials are a key factor behind the direction and magnitude of FDI flows, the traditional race to the bottom argument in tax competition are too simple.