1,613 research outputs found
Asymmetric Vertical Integration
No full textWe examine vertical backward integration in a reducedform model of successive oligopolies. Our key findings are: (i) There may be asymmetric equilibria where some firms integrate and others remain separated, even if firms are symmetric initially; (ii) Efficient firms are more likely to integrate vertically. As a result, integrated firms also tend to have a large market share. The driving force behind these findings are demand/mark-up complementarities in the product market. We also identify countervailing forces resulting from strong vertical foreclosure, upstream sales and endogenous acquisition costs.successive oligopolies, vertical integration, effciency, foreclosure
A Product-Market Theory of Industry-Specific Training
No full textWe develop a product market theory that explains why firms provide their workers with skills that are sufficiently general to be potentially useful for competitors. We consider a model where firms first decide whether to invest in industry-specific human capital, then make wage offers for each others’ trained employees and finally engage in imperfect product market competition. Equilibria with and without training, and multiple equilibria can emerge. If competition is sufficiently soft and returns to the number of trained workers decrease sufficiently, firms may invest in non-specific training if others do the same, because they would otherwise suffer a competitive disadvantage or need to pay high wages in order to attract trained workers.industry-specific training, human capital, oligopoly, turnover
Diagnostic exome sequencing in early-onset Parkinson's disease confirms VPS13C as a rare cause of autosomal-recessive Parkinson's disease.
No full textParkinson's disease (PD) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder and new putative disease genes are discovered constantly. Therefore, whole-exome sequencing could be an efficient approach to genetic testing in PD. To evaluate its performance in early-onset sporadic PD, we performed diagnostic exome sequencing in 80 individuals with manifestation of PD symptoms at age 40 or earlier and a negative family history of PD. Variants in validated and candidate disease genes and risk factors for PD and atypical Parkinson syndromes were annotated, followed by further analysis for selected variants. We detected pathogenic variants in Mendelian genes in 6.25% of cases and high-impact risk factor variants in GBA in 5% of cases, resulting in overall maximum diagnostic yield of 11.25%. One individual was compound heterozygous for variants affecting canonical splice sites in VPS13C, confirming the causal role of protein-truncating variants in this gene linked to autosomal-recessive early-onset PD. Despite the low diagnostic yield of exome sequencing in sporadic early-onset PD, the confirmation of the recently discovered VPS13C gene highlights its advantage over using predefined gene panels
Energy distribution controlled ballistic Josephson junction
No full textFunding Information: The authors thank R. Mélin and C. Winkelmann for fruitful discussions. This work was partly supported by Helmholtz Society through program STN and the DFG via the Projects No. DA 1280/3-1, No. DA 1280/7-1, and No. BE 4422/4-1. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Physical Society.We report an experimental study on the tuning of supercurrent in a ballistic graphene-based Josephson junction by applying a control voltage to a transverse normal channel. In this four-terminal geometry, the control voltage changes the occupation of Andreev states in the Josephson junction, thereby tuning the magnitude of the supercurrent. As a function of gate voltage, we find two different regimes characterized by a double-step distribution and a hot-electron distribution, respectively. Our work opens opportunities to design highly controllable Josephson junctions for tunable superconducting quantum circuits.Peer reviewe
The Invisible Dutch - a Pilot Study Evaluating Dutch Migrants’ Path to New Zealand from 1996 to 2006. NCRE Online Paper No. 06/02, August 2006
No full text[From the Introduction]. Are the Dutch in New Zealand invisible? It seems to be a good way of describing Dutch immigrants to New Zealand, especially when looking at the last ten years. There is not much known on the movements of recent Dutch immigrants, nor are records available how to contact them. The Netherlands government, represented at the Royal Netherlands Embassy, keeps no records of Dutch immigrants to New Zealand. According to arrival statistics there are at least a few thousand of (former) Dutch residents in New Zealand who arrived from 1996 onwards. Only in 2005/2006 1702 work permits have been approved for Dutch citizens and over the last five years approximately 2000 residence permits have been submitted and approved1. These numbers do not seem to be very impressive on a population of approximately four million, but even then can make a difference in a country that is economical dependent on the supply of immigrants. There is quite a lot of recent research available on immigrants, but research conducted at recent immigrants from specific ethnicities or nationalities is scarce, especially on smaller immigration groups like the Dutch nowadays. Research documents produced by the Department of Labour (2002; , 2006b; , 2006) mostly produce aggregated data for regions like Europe and Russia or Western Europe and the United States. In previous research Dutch migrants were often mentioned as a separate group, nowadays the Dutch seem to have lost their special position and differentiations undertaken less frequent. Where research exists on recent migration groups, this research has a strong econometric accent and is mainly based on a comparison of groups through data from New Zealand Statistics (Boyd, 2003; Poot & Cochrane, 2005; Winkelmann, 2000, 2002; Winkelmann & Winkelmann, 1998a, 1998b). Although these analyses are very useful, they do not differentiate between recent Dutch migrants and migrants that have been in New Zealand for a much longer period
Overshoot Tipping Model
No full textCode to the paper "Global warming overshoots increase risk of climate tipping cascades in a network model" by N. Wunderling, R. Winkelmann, J. Rockström, S. Loriani, D.I. Armstrong McKay, P. Ritchie, B. Sakschewski, J.F. Donges</p
Validity of Discrete-Choice Experiments - Evidence for Health Risk Reduction
No full textThere is growing interest in discrete-choice experiments (DCE) as a method to elicit consumers' preferences in the health care sector. Increasingly this method is used to determine willingness-to-pay (WTP) for health-related goods. However, its external validity in the health care domain has not been investigated until today. This paper examines the external validity of DCE concerning the reduction of a health risk. Convergent validity is examined by comparing the value of a statistical life with other preference elicitation techniques, such as revealed preference. Criterion validity is shown by comparing WTP values derived from stated choices in the experiment with those derived from actual choices made by the same individuals. Both tests provide strong evidence in favor of external validity of the DCE method.Choice Experiments (DCE), Willingness-to-Pay (WTP), Validity, Risk Reduction, Hip Protectors
The Purpose and Limits of Social Health Insurance
No full textThis contribution seeks to answer two related questions. First, what is the purpose of social health insurance? Or put in slightly different terms, what are the reasons for social (or public) health insurance to exist, even to dominate private health insurance in most developed countries? And second, what are the limits of social health insurance? Can one say that there is "too much" social health insurance in the following two senses: Should the balance be shifted towards the private alternative? And is the degree of coverage excessive?social health insurance, private health insurance, insurance coverage
The Knowledge Production of 'R' and 'D'
No full textMany studies investigate the relationship between R&D expenditures as an input and patents as an intermediate product or output of a knowledge production function. We suggest that the productivity of research in patent production functions has been underestimated in the literature, as scholars typically use information about R&D, i.e. the sum of research expenditure and development expenditure, due to data availability. However, in most industries only (applied) research will lead to patentable knowledge, and development happens after the initial research phase that may have led to a patent. Instead of using data on R&D, we separate the knowledge creating process into 'R' and 'D'. This data stems from R&D surveys of Belgian firms. It turns out that only the 'R' part of R&D expenditure has a significant effect on patents and that development expenditure are insignificant. Thus previous literature relying on R&D expenditure suffers from a measurement error, such that the coefficient of R&D is biased towards zero, as R&D includes a large fraction of irrelevant expenditure, i.e. development expenditure, with respect to patenting. --Patents,Research,Development,Knowledge Production Function
- …
