73 research outputs found
Towards the shell biorefinery: sustainable synthesis of the anticancer alkaloid Proximicin A from chitin
No full textA shell biorefinery would involve fractionation of crustacean shells and incorporation of the components into value-added products, particularly those that contain nitrogen. In a proof-of-concept study that validates this concept, the anticancer alkaloid proximicin A has been synthesized from the chitin-derived platform chemical 3-acetamido-5-acetylfuran (3A5AF). This study accentuates the leading role chitin is likely to play in the sustainable production of nitrogen-containing fine chemicals that are not directly attainable from lignocellulose.</p
Fiscal policyfor managing Indonesia's environment
No full textThe objective of this paper is to examine the role of fiscal policy in the management of Indonesia's environment. The aim is to develop a framework that will allow an examination of possible fiscal instruments and their relevance to Indonesia's context. It is important to note that fiscal policy is one possible area of policy intervention. Regulatory policies would also continue to play a major role. A comprehensive environmental management strategy will need to be based on a balanced combination of regulatory and fiscal policy instruments. Furthermore, a critical element underlying the successful implementation of this strategy will be the availability of an appropriate institutional mechanism. The paper provides an overview of Indonesia's key environmental issues followed by the framework for fiscal policy instruments. The Indonesian Government's progress on environmental management policies is examined briefly to provide background for the discussion of possible fiscal policy options. Finally, the paper provides a summary and conclusions.Water Conservation,Forestry,Water Resources Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry
How Indonesia's monetary policy affects key variables
No full textThe objective of this paper is to examine the determination of interest rates, inflation and nominal exchange rates in Indonesia, and investigate the role of monetary policy in affecting these variables. In the short term, monetary policy can be used to protect domestic interest rates from the destabilizing influence of speculative capital flight. In the long run, monetary policy can help lower domestic nominal interest rates by maintaining low inflation and dampening expectation about depreciation. The potential for reducing interest rates through monetary expansion is limited. Domestic inflation is partly a monetary phenomenon but structural factors also affect it. The effects of international inflation are immediate and strong; the effects of wage pushes are smaller and less immediate. Inflation can be reduced to some extent by slowing the growth of money - which strengthens the secondary influence of a slower crawling exchange rate. A managed float is appropriate for maintaining a competitive exchange rate, given the gap between world and domestic inflation caused by structural and monetary factors. Real depreciation of the exchange rate will be necessary to compensate for unanticipated decline in oil income (from lower than expected oil prices).Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Banks&Banking Reform
How can Indonesia maintain creditworthiness and noninflationary growth ?
No full textDespite external shocks, Indonesia has maintained creditworthiness through swift adjustment. Indonesia's flexible economic management and clear policy signals have lent stability to the economy, in contrast to the stop and go reforms, uncertainty, and constant debt renegotiations in many high debt countries. The authors use an econometrically estimated macroeconomic model to analyze open economy adjustment in Indonesia - particularly the interaction between the exchange rate, the interest rate, growth, and debt - and to analyze future policy changes in light of Indonesia's objectives for growth, external debt, and inflation.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Stabilization,Banks&Banking Reform
Promoting growth in Sri Lanka : lessons from East Asia
No full textSri Lanka's weak economic performance, although compounded by the civil war and budgetary imbalance, largely reflects the following: 1) a stop-and-go pattern of policy reform, because of political constraints - even though the results of reform were generally positive; 2) weak economic management, resulting in high inflation and a high fiscal and balance of payments deficit; 3) poor management of public spending; 4) mixed performance in exchange-rate management, with periods of substantial overvaluation; 5) financial policies that (despite recent improvements) hamper efficient financial intermediation; 6) prolonged trade protection, followed by selective trade liberalization; 7) continued distortion in agricultural policies; 8) inflexible labor markets and, despite Sri Lanka's outstanding track record on human development, problems with the quality of the labor force. To address a substantially unfinished policy agenda, Sri Lanka needs to intensify efforts to peacefully resolve civil conflict. There is also a need to squarely address its macroeconomic imbalances, involving a sharp reduction in the fiscal deficit, a cutback on public spending and redefinition of spending priorities, improvement of cost recovery for public services, and continuing to improve the management of the exchange rate. In trade policy, eliminate most quanitative restrictions, further reduce tariff protection, simplify the tariff structure, and, possibly, reform customs (to reduce leakage and abuse). Rationalize employment, exit, and bankruptcy regulations and procedures. The authors recommend improvement in communications between government and the private sector. It is necessary for the financial sector to become more competitive by legislating banking reform, giving state-owned banks more autonomy and putting private commercial banks on an equal footing with the two state banks, with the ultimate goal of privatizing the state banks, and also strengthen the supervision of banking. Also in the financial sector the authors have identified a need for privatization in insurance and pension funds to strengthen the capital market. Several aspects of the agricultural sector need to be revamped. Primarily, privatization of the estate plantations, perhaps through long-term management contracts and the gradual sale of share in assets; reduced trade protection; implementation of land reform; strengthen agricultural support; and possibly support rural financing institutions. Lastly, the authors suggest an end to government controls on hiring, firing, and wage setting as well as rationalization in civil service employment decisions.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Inequality
Poverty and income distribution during adjustment : issues and evidence from the OECD project
No full textDrawing lessons from country studies, the authors examine the effects of adjustment policies on the distribution of income in Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Morocco. After analyzing the issues that must be confronted in designing adjustment programs with a focus on poverty, they synthesize the main conclusions of the different country studies. With simulation exercises they explore the effects of the design of the adjustment packages on poverty and on the sustainability of the measures undertaken in these countries. These exercises show considerable diversity in the evolution of income distribution during adjustment. They also expose the fatal flaws of narrowly designed adjustment programs. Adjustment programs - whether focused on efficiency or on welfare - will fail when they do not recognize the interdependence of the three criteria of efficiency, welfare, and political feasibility. Adjustment programs must be carefully packaged to fit country circumstances, taking into account both the political and economic environments.Economic Stabilization,Inequality,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance
The effects of fiscal consolidation in the OECD
No full textDespite the current recession in many parts of the OECD, fiscal consolidation is likely in many OECD economies in the 1990s. The author asks: is fiscal consolidation in the OECD in a period of low growth a recipe for global stagnation? In particular, what effects are likely in developing countries? The author starts with an overview of cuts in the U.S. fiscal deficit proposed by the Clinton administration and the extent to which European governments must cut fiscal deficits between now and 1997 to satisfy deficit targets in the Maastricht Treaty. How changes in fiscal policy are transmitted within an economy and between that economy and the rest of the world depends on whether those changes lead to permanent or temporary changes in government saving; whether they are implemented through government spending or taxes; and whether the taxes fall on households or firms. The main channels of transmission are through changes in: agents'expectations about future taxes, interest rates, exchange rates, and economic activity. The author uses the MSG2 multicountry models to quantify the ramifications of those changes. He concludes, among other things, that fiscal contraction in the OECD will probably lead to slower growth over the next several years. But the current and likely paths of fiscal policy are such that deficit reduction programs may have stimulating effect in the short run, as long as future fiscal contraction is credible. And fiscal deficit reduction will probably increase long-run output in the OECD through its effects on savings and investment. Finally, growth in the developing countries (at least total growth) may not be impaired at all by fiscal consolidationin the OECD. The negative effects of fiscal contraction will occur through lower net exports of non-OECD economies. For developing countries with open capital markets, the initial reduction in demand through lower exports can be offset by the reduction in interest rates following an inflow of capital from the countries with contracting fiscal policy. A significant decline in real global interest rates is likely to increase growth in developing countries that are debt-constrained, either directly (through private capital inflows) or indirectly (by relaxing the balance of payments constraint, allowing more resources to be channeled to domestic investment needs).Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Macroeconomic Management
Risk - adjusted rates of return for project appraisal
No full textIncorporating risk assessment into public project appraisal makes sense when project risk is significantly correlated with uncertainty about national income. It is especially important in countries that specialize in particular agricultural or resource sectors. This report presents the following conclusions: (a) risk corrections can be substantial; (b) the intuition that risk is great for further investment in a crop or sector that constitutes a large part of a country's GNP is not invalid, but the effect may be offset by other forces in operation; (c) risk corrections can be negative because of a negative correlation between project return and GNP; (d) risk premia vary greatly across countries and sectors - so recognizing the risk correction needed for each project on its own merits makes more sense than including a common general risk premium in the rate of return required for all lending; (e) risk corrections are small for many sectors and countries - so efforts can be concentrated on the other categories, where the proposed treatment of risk makes a big difference; (f) risk affects investment projects in many different, subtle ways; and (g) resource requirements for this are not great.Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Crops&Crop Management Systems
Cadmium sulphide transducers : thick vacuum-deposited films for ultrasonic shear-mode low-frequencey operation
No full textThe primary aim of this research project was to deposist thick-film
(low-frequency) s-mode CdS piezoelectric transducers directly onto
copper or aluminium rods which formed part of the welding-electrode of
a spot-welding machine. These transducers were to replace the discrete
transducers used in a set-up for the "on-machine" evaluation of spot-welds. A secondary aim was to deposit very thin CdS films on glass
slides for use as microwave resonators. The dependence of film adhesion
on film thickness, and crystallographic orientation changes with thickness
imposed an upper limit on the thickness of transducers with adequate
properties for applications. The final goal, established through experience
on the project, was to determine how thick piezoelectric films could be
deposited to make useful transducers.
Highly stoichiometric (deviations from stoichiometry of the order
of 1 part in 10^13 ) and highly resistive (> 10^10 Ω.m.), and highly oriented
films up to 100 μm thick have been successfully deposited on Ae rod
substrates. Two deposition techniques were used : CdS/S electron beam
bombardment evaporation and Cd/S isothermal cells. Provided that the
temperature of the vapour molecules was less than 400 degrees C and that the
pumping speed could be increased at will , then, the faster the deposition
rate, the sharper the oblique c-axis preferred orientation, and the better
the piezoelectric performance of the films. The pumping speed limited
the deposition rate to 10 μm.h^- 1.
Appreciable thermal stresses in the films gave rise to large
forces which induced the thick-films to flake off or disintegrate.
The dependence of film adhesion on film thickness is explained in
terms of the inequality between the forces which bind the film to the
substrate (independent of thickness) and the forces which induce the film
to flake off (proportional to thickness). Thick CdS films were
made to adhere to the substrate by making the substrate surface rouqher
so that the films "keyed-in".
No appreciable temperature gradients existed in the CdS films
during growth, either across their thicknesses or along their surfaces.
No changes in temperature gradients occurred in the films due to changes
in film orientation, and vice versa.
Up to a certain critical thickness, the c-axes of most CdS film
crystallites aligned themselves with the direction of the vapour beam.
When the thickness of the film exceeded the critical thickness, the
growth of oblique crystallites was stifled and the film's c-axis tilted
towards the substrate-normal and eventually became parallel to it. This
was confirmed by etching-back a thick CdS film which was deposited at
oblique vapour incidence. A model is presented for the "stifling process”
which gives the relation between the critical thickness, the grain size
and the deposition angle of the film. For a given deposition environment,
the stifling process imposed an upper limit on the thickness of an s-mode
transducer.
The use of copper substrates, and of copper parts inside the
deposition chamber, was abandoned because of the corrosive action of
sulphur on copper. Cu/CdS junctions were nearly ohmic, and the anomalous
behaviour of these junctions is explained in terms of the reaction between
Cu and S to form Cu2S.
CdS s-mode transducers with untuned two-way insertion loss of
35 dB in a 50 ohm system have been successfully deposited on glass
slides for operation at frequencies down to 20 MHz. The stress in CdS
films on glass slides was much less than that on Ae rods. It is possible
that the higher stress in films on Ae rods weakened their piezoelectric
performance
Effect of solvent on the morphology of MoS2 nanosheets prepared by ultrasonication-assisted exfoliation
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