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Equilibrium Level (equilibrium + level)
Selected AbstractsProgressive Taxes and the Labour Market: Is the Trade,off Between Equality and Efficiency Inevitable?JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 1 2002Knut Røed Does an income tax harm economic efficiency more the more progressive it is? Public economics provides a strong case for a definite ,yes'. But at least three forces may pull in the other direction. First, low,wage workers may on average have more elastic labour supply schedules than high,wage workers, in which case progressive taxes contribute to a more efficient allocation of the total tax burden. Second, in non,competitive labour markets, progressive taxes may encourage wage moderation, and hence reduce the equilibrium level of unemployment. And third, if wage setters have egalitarian objectives, progressive taxes may reduce the need for redistribution in pre,tax wages, and hence increase the demand for low,skilled workers. This paper surveys the theoretical, as well as the empirical literature about labour supply, taxes and wage setting. We conclude that in a second best world, the trade,off between equality and efficiency is not always inevitable. [source] Short- and long-term benefits and detriments to recombination under antagonistic coevolutionJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2007A. D. PETERS Abstract We explored the evolution of recombination under antagonistic coevolution, concentrating on the equilibrium frequencies of modifier alleles causing recombination in initially nonrecombining populations. We found that the equilibrium level of recombination in the host depended not only on parasite virulence, but also on the strength of the modifier allele, and on whether or not the modifier was physically linked to the parasite interaction loci. Nonetheless, the maximum level of recombination for linked loci at equilibrium was about 0.3 (60% of free recombination) for interactions with highly virulent parasites; the level decreased for unlinked modifiers, and for lower levels of parasite virulence. We conclude that recombination spreads because it provides a combination of an immediate (next-generation) fitness benefit and a delayed (two or more generations) increase in the rate of response to directional selection. The relative impact of these two mechanisms depends on the virulence of parasites early in the spread of the modifier, but a trade-off between the two dictates the equilibrium modifier frequency for all nonzero virulences that we examined. In addition, population mean fitness was higher in populations at intermediate equilibria than populations fixed for free recombination or no recombination. The difference, however, was not enough on its own to overcome the two-fold cost of producing males. [source] Lactate transport and transporters: General principles and functional roles in brain cellsJOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH, Issue 1-2 2005Leif Hertz Abstract Lactate is transported across cell membranes by diffusional, saturable cotransport with protons, mediated by monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). This transport is bidirectional and in the absence of a transcellular H+ gradient, it can increase the intracellular concentration of lactate up to but not beyond the extracellular level (or vice versa). If extra- and intracellular pH differ, however, the equilibrium level is determined by the gradients of both lactate anions and protons. Rates of lactate uptake are determined most often by measuring uptake of labeled lactate, e.g., [U- 14C]lactate. In the case of lactate and other compounds that are metabolized, errors are introduced easily because continuing inwardly directed diffusional net transport of label can be achieved by intracellular metabolism, reducing the intracellular level of the nonmetabolized lactate and thus maintaining a concentration gradient between extra- and intracellular concentrations of the nonmetabolized compound (metabolism-driven uptake). For measurement of facilitated diffusion kinetics, it is essential that the period during which the uptake is measured is short enough that little or no metabolism-driven uptake contributes to the measured uptake (or that first-order regression analysis is carried out to obtain initial uptake rates from nonlinear traces). To achieve initial uptake rates, incubation periods well below 1 min are generally required. Lactate uptake is fast in astrocytes, which express powerful, low-affinity MCTs, i.e., MCT1 and MCT4. Due to the low affinity of these transporters, they respond to increased lactate gradients with enhanced transporter activity. The predominant MCT in neurons is the high-affinity MCT2, which can only increase its activity to a limited extent in the face of an increased lactate gradient. This is reflected by a high-affinity lactate uptake, although most investigators also have demonstrated a component of lactate uptake with lower affinity. In both neurons and astrocytes, however, facilitated diffusion is fast enough that under most conditions lactate fluxes will be determined mainly by the rate of metabolism-driven uptake, and MCT-mediated transport only will be rate-limiting after establishment of large transmembrane gradients. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] ROSS AND BUDE FORMATIONS (CARBONIFEROUS, IRELAND AND ENGLAND): REINTERPRETED AS LAKE-SHELF TURBIDITESJOURNAL OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGY, Issue 1 2004R. Higgs The Ross Formation (Namurian, Ireland) and the near-identical Bude Formation (Westphalian, England), both amply described in the literature, are used by oil companies as deep-sea-fan reservoir analogues. However, the Ross Formation is reinterpreted here, like the Bude Formation in recent publications, to be composed of river-fed turbidites deposited on the wave-influenced northern shelf of a Variscan foreland-basin lake, which also had a southern flysch trough. Key features of these formations are: (i) two classes of thin (, 0.4m) sandstone "event bed" in shale comprising (a) structureless turbidite-like beds, and (b) rippled beds with combined-flow ripples and/or hummocky cross-stratification, neither structure having previously been reported from the Ross Formation; (ii) "trademark" tabular packets (1,10 m) of amalgamated event beds which interfinger laterally with mudstones; (iii) sharp packet bases and tops; (iv) rare sinuous channel fills; and (v) rare thick (1,10m) shale units, each containing a thin (cm-dm) fossiliferous band. The fossil bands are interpreted here as maximum flooding surfaces, reflecting glacioeustatic marine incursions over the lake spill point (sill), forcing the lake to rise and to turn marine or strongly brackish; these bands define Galloway-type depositional sequences 50,100 m thick. During eustatic falls, the lake was forced down to sill level, where it perched and turned fresh (desalination). Intervals containing sandstone packets are attributed to the falling-stage and lowstand systems tracts, each packet representing a higher-order lowstand systems tract. Packets are interpreted as tongue shaped, supplied by river-fed underflows. Packet bases (sharp) represent the storm-wave-graded equilibrium shelf profile, glacioeustatically forced to its lowstand position. On this erosion surface were deposited underflow turbidites produced by floods in the catchment. Occasional catastrophic storms on the lake shaved these turbidites and interfingering fair-weather muds back down to the equilibrium level, leaving behind a subsidence-accommodated increment whose surface was sculpted by storm wind and wave currents, forming hummocks, combined-flow ripples and erosional megaflutes. Whenever a river-fed underflow accompanied one of these storms, the resulting highly erosive combined flow carved a sinuous channel on the wave-sculpted equilibrium surface. Sandstone-shale intervals separating the sandstone packets are interpreted as transgressive- and highstand systems tracts. They contain both turbidites and wave-modified turbidites (rippled beds), deposited on the out-of-equilibrium drowned shelf. A gradual rotation in sole-mark direction with time in both formations is attributed to a reversal of Coriolis deflection as the plate drifted north across the equator, causing underflows (deflected along-shelf geostrophically) to flow first NEwards and then SWwards on an inferred SE-facing shelf. The lack of evidence for emergence in the Ross and Bude Formations, in spite of the great thicknesses (460m and 1,290m, respectively) of these shallow-water deposits, is attributed to regulation of minimum water depth firstly by the lake sill blocking eustatically-forced exposure, and secondly by storm grading, preventing emergence by sedimentation. [source] Planned obsolescence and marketing strategyMANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 8 2000Atsuo Utaka By using a two-period model of a durable goods monopolist, we investigate marketing activities that have an obsolescence effect on products already sold in the past period. We assume that the monopolist can stimulate consumer demand for second-period products by marketing activities, and analyse not only the case where the level of marketing is determined in the second period, but also the case where it is determined in advance, namely, in the first period. It is shown that the equilibrium level of marketing becomes higher than the efficiency level not only in the former case, but also in the latter case if the obsolescence effect is not so large. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] HOW DID LIFE BECOME SO DIVERSE?PALAEONTOLOGY, Issue 1 2007THE DYNAMICS OF DIVERSIFICATION ACCORDING TO THE FOSSIL RECORD AND MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS Abstract:, The long-term diversification of life probably cannot be modelled as a simple equilibrial process: the time scales are too long, the potential for exploring new ecospace is too large and it is unlikely that ecological controls can act at global scales. The sum of many clade expansions and reductions, each of which happens according to its own dynamic, probably approximates more a damped exponential curve when translated into a global-scale species diversification curve. Unfortunately, it is not possible to plot such a meaningful global-scale species diversification curve through time, but curves at higher taxonomic levels have been produced. These curves are subject to the vagaries of the fossil record, but it is unlikely that the sources of error entirely overwhelm the biological signal. Clades radiate when the external and internal conditions are right: a new territory or ecospace becomes available, and the lineage has acquired a number of characters that open up a new diet or mode of life. Modern high levels of diversity in certain speciose clades may depend on such ancient opportunities taken. Dramatic climatic changes through the Quaternary must have driven extinctions and originations, but many species responded simply by moving to more favourable locations. Ecological communities appear to be no more than merely chance associations of species, but there may be real interactions among species. Ironically, high species diversity may lead to more speciation, not, as had been assumed, less: more species create more opportunities and selective pressures for other species to respond to, rather than capping diversity at a fixed equilibrium level. Studies from the scale of modern ecosystems to global long-term patterns in the fossil record support a model for the exponential diversification of life, and one explanation for a pattern of exponential diversification is that as diversity increases, new forms become ever more refinements of existing forms. In a sense the world becomes increasingly divided into finer niche space. Organisms have a propensity to speciate freely, species richness within ecosystems appears to generate opportunities for more speciation, clades show all kinds of patterns from sluggish speciation rates and constant diversity through time to apparently explosive speciation, and there is no evidence that rapidly speciating clades have reached a limit, nor that they are driving other clades to extinction. A corollary of this view is that current biodiversity must be higher than it has ever been. Limits to infinite growth are clearly local, regional, and global turnover and extinction events, when climate change and physical catastrophes knock out species and whole clades, and push the rising exponential curve down a notch or two. [source] The Politics of Financial Development: Evidence from Trade LiberalizationTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 3 2008MATIAS BRAUN ABSTRACT Incumbents in various industries have different incentives to promote or oppose financial development. Changes in the relative strength of promoter and opponent industries thus result in changes in the political equilibrium level of financial development. We conduct an event study using a sample of 41 countries that liberalized trade during 1970 to 2000, and show that the strengthening of promoter relative to opponent industries resulting from liberalization is a good predictor of subsequent financial development. The benefits of developing the financial system are insufficient for financial development, and rents in particular hands appear to be necessary to achieve it. [source] Purchasing Power Parity Adjustment Speeds in High Frequency Data when the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate is Proxied by a Deterministic TrendTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2003Ivan Paya Rogoff suggested in 1996 that the dollar,yen real exchange rate represented a ,canonical' case of a trend in the equilibrium real exchange rate. The implied speed of adjustment of the dollar,yen real exchange rate is found to be substantially faster, with half-life shocks of less than 2 years, from estimates of a non-linear model which incorporates a deterministic trend proxying the equilibrium level. We also examine the power of unit root tests against smooth transition non-linear models which incorporate a deterministic trend and the robustness of such non-linear estimations using Monte Carlo and bootstrap simulations. [source] International Capital Mobility in the Short Run and the Long Run: A Daily Data Study for Japan, Singapore and Taiwan*ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 1 2008Han-Min Hsing F32; F41; G15 Using daily data from between 1993 and 2003, covered interest differential and cointegration tests are applied to examine short-run and long-run international capital mobility for Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, and, for comparison purposes, the UK. Despite the high short-run mobility in Japan (Singapore and Taiwan), being slightly (significantly) lower than in the UK, perfect long-run mobility exists in all three Asian economies, especially when the Asian currency crisis is excluded. Different short-run and long-run mobility implies the existence of a response lag in the financial market. As expected, although the impulse response reaches the significant long-run equilibrium level shortly after the shock in the UK, lagged responses appear in the three Asian economies, particularly in Singapore and Taiwan. [source] Agglomeration Economies, Division of Labour and the Urban Land-rent Escalation: A General Equilibrium Analysis of UrbanisationAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 2 2002Guang-Zhen Sun A general equilibrium model with increasing return to labour specialisation and economies of transaction agglomeration is developed to address the residential land-rent escalation associated with the urbanisation process, which is in turn endogenised as a result of the evolution of the division of labour. The interplay among the geographical pattern of transactions, trading efficiency and the network size of the division of labour plays a crucial role in our story of urbanisation. We show that: as transaction conditions are improved, the equilibrium level of division of labour and individuals specialisation levels increase; the urban land-rent increases absolutely as well as relative to that in the rural area, the relative per capita lot size of residence in the urban and rural areas decreases; the diversity of occupations in the urban area and the population share of urban residents increase; and the productivity of all goods and per capital real income increase. [source] Current Issues in the Economics of Groundwater Resource ManagementJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 5 2004Phoebe Koundouri Abstract., The issue of groundwater management remains a practical concern in many regions throughout the world, while water managers continue to grapple with the question of how to manage this resource. In this article, we attempt to bring the most advanced and appropriate tools to bear on the issue of resource allocation involving groundwater. Our objective is to demonstrate the state of the art in the literature on ways to think about this complex resource and to deal with the important economic issues emanating from its complexity. We present the conceptual framework within which economists examine the elements interacting in the management of groundwater resources, indicate why the role of the market is limited with respect to the price of this very complex resource, and point to the mechanisms that can pull competitive groundwater price and quality-graded quantity of groundwater in line with their equilibrium levels. In particular, we critically review economic models of groundwater use, examine the potential for groundwater management, discuss the difficulties encountered in the estimation of the relevant control variables of such models, and identify the advantages and limitations of the instruments devised for the efficient use (allocation) of this resource. Finally, we argue that devised regulatory schemes usually ignore the information and knowledge needed for their implementation, and we suggest a core of conditions necessary for successful groundwater management reforms. [source] Zirconia-Based Metastable Solid Solutions through Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis: Synthesis, Characterization, and Mechanistic InvestigationsJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Issue 8 2000Filippo Maglia Cubic Zr1,xMexOy(Me = Fe, Co, Ni, Cu) metastable solid solutions with metal content significantly higher than equilibrium levels have been synthesized by the self-propagating high-temperature synthesis method based on a thermite reaction between metallic zirconium and the transition-metal oxides CoO, Fe2O3, CuO, and NiO. Through in situ XRD analysis, it was determined that when heated to 1100°C, the cubic solid solution transformed to the tetragonal phase with the concomitant formation of iron oxide. When cooled to lower temperatures, the tetragonal phase transformed to the monoclinic phase at or below 500°C. Results of auxiliary experiments strongly suggest that the formation of the solid solution takes place behind the combustion front by a reaction between zirconia and the metal. [source] Sovereign Risk in the Classical Gold Standard Era,THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 271 2009PRASANNA GAI This paper reassesses the determinants of sovereign bond yields during the classical gold standard period (1872,1913) using the pooled mean group methodology. We find that, rather than lowering risk premia directly, membership of the gold standard hastened the convergence of sovereign bond spreads to their long-run equilibrium levels. Our results also suggest that investors looked beyond the gold standard to country-specific fundamental factors when pricing and differentiating sovereign risk. [source] | ||||||||||||||||