3,754 research outputs found
The macroeconomics of the public sector deficit : the case of Morocco
No full textThis paper tries to uncover the reasons underlying the performance of the Moroccan economy. The author argues that wage moderation and judicious monetary policies were instrumental in restraining inflation. With one brief exception in 1983, monetary authorities remained firmly committed to eschew any inflationary financing of the budget deficit. This strategy could only succeed however because of the wide ranging system of credit and monetary regulations which worked to channel domestic funds toward the Treasury at relatively low costs. The prospects for the continuation of such a strategy are not favourable however. As far as the growth performance is concerned, it appears that it can be attributed to an outstanding export response to the new trade regime on the one hand and a set of favourable supply shocks, including a string of recordagricultural harvests and the collapse of real oil prices, on the other. The paper studies the evolution of the budget and its different components and argues that the reluctance by Morocco's policy makers to monetize existing budget deficits is well explained by the sharply unfavourable trade-offs between higher monetization and inflation existing in Morocco. It analyzes the implications that continuing budgetary disequilibria has on investment and saving decisions and finds that such implications may be substantial, even though they may not work their way exclusively through traditional interest rates channels.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Financial Intermediation
Rent - seeking trade policy : a time series approach
No full textUsing a time-series approach, the author analyzes the relationship between the extent of rent-seeking trade policy and both political and economic variables. For rent-seeking trade policy, the indicator he uses is the number of foreign-trade regulations passed each year for the benefit of a single firm or industry. The author uses data from Uruguay for 1925-83. Uruguay, which experienced an impressive economic decline, is an outstanding example of a rent-seeking society. After being a wealthy economy in midcentury, it suffered almost complete stagnation, which led to social and policital disintegration by the end of the 1960s. Three decades of restrictive regulations on foreign trade had created a nearly closed economy by the end of the 1960s. It was worth analyzing whether policymakers'great receptiveness to demands for protection could account for Uruguay's decline. Over the period 1925-83, the author finds almost 4,000 laws, decrees, and administrative resolutions that create, maintain, or modify a foreign-trade regulation for the benefit of a single firm or industry. About half of them explicitly identify the petitioner - usually a firm or guild. Since the size of the Uruguayan economy changed over the period studied, the author scales the annual number of regulations by output or exports to measure the extent of rent-seeking trade policy. The author shows that the extent of rent-seeking trade policy increased with discretionary policies and under dictatorship. (In the period studied, there were two stages of democracy - until 1932 and from 1943-72 - and two stages of dictatorship.) He also shows that rent-seeking trade restrictions increased under import-substitution strategies and, more unexpectedly, under active export promotion. This suggests that discretionary power leads to wasteful distribution, whether it is used to support inward- or outward-oriented policies. Finally, the author analyzes the correlation between innovations in the trade policy indicator and innovations in the growth rates of output and exports, with a lag of up to 20 years. Surprisingly, he finds a positive correlation with output growth rates after two or three years. But the correlation becomes negative some years later, particularly in the case of exports. The short-run positive impact on growth rates, together with the surprisingly long time lag before the negative impact, may account for policymakers'receptiveness to demands for protection.Trade Policy,Achieving Shared Growth,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies
Supplemental Material - Body mass index across adulthood and the development of airflow obstruction and emphysema
No full textSupplemental Material for Body mass index across adulthood and the development of airflow obstruction and emphysema by Ruth E Trethewey, Nicole L Spartano, Ramachandran S Vasan, Martin G Larson, George T O’Connor, Dale W Esliger, Emily S Petherick and Michael C Steiner in Chronic Respiratory Disease</p
Doppler transmitral flow indexes and risk of atrial fibrillation (the Framingham Heart Study)
No full textAtrial fibrillation (AF) is characterized by structural remodeling and atrial systolic failure. It is unclear if atrial filling abnormalities precede the onset of AF. We evaluated 942 Framingham Study subjects (587 women; mean age 75 years) who underwent Doppler echocardiographic evaluation at a routine examination and who did not have a history of AF. We used multivariable Cox regression models (stratified by gender and prevalent cardiovascular disease) to examine the relations of Doppler transmitral flow indexes (ratio of the velocity-time integrals of the early [E] and late [A] diastolic filling waves [VTI E/A], a correlate of atrial conduit function; E-wave deceleration time; the atrial filling fraction, an index of atrial systolic function; and peak A wave velocity) to the incidence of AF. At follow-up (mean 7 years), 85 subjects (41 women) developed AF. In models adjusting for established risk factors for AF (including left atrial size) at baseline, and for heart failure and myocardial infarction on follow-up, a 1 SD increment in VTI E/A was associated with a 28% increase in risk of AF (hazards ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval 1.02 to 1.59). A 1 SD decrease in the atrial filling fraction was associated with a 28% higher risk of AF (hazards ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.67). There was a U-shaped relation between peak A-wave velocity and risk of AF. Thus, in our elderly community-based sample, increased VTI E/A and a low atrial filling fraction were markers of increased risk of AF, suggesting that altered atrial filling may antedate AF
Earl W. Sadleir v. Melvin G. Knapton : Brief of Appellant
No full textAppeal from the District Court of the Third Judicial District in and for the County of Salt Lake. Honorable Martin M. Larson, Judge
The Predicting Tree Growth App: an algorithmic approach to modelling individual tree growth
No full textPredictingTreeGrowth is free and open-source application software written in Python 3.7 that allows easy and fast development of predictive models using the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)/Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) framework. RNNs have an upgraded architecture able to capture tree growth mechanisms related to time ordering and size dependence. The motivation for this App is to demystify the use of Machine Learning algorithms and allow accessibility of Machine Learning algorithms by the scientific community. Its simple graphical user interface (GUI) provides straightforward tools for building predictive models with the RNN algorithm.Fil: Magalhaes, Juliana G. de S.. University of British Columbia; CanadáFil: Polinko, Adam P.. Mississippi State University.; Estados UnidosFil: Amoroso, Mariano Martin. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Andina. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Kohli, Gursimran S.. University Fraser Simon; CanadáFil: Larson, Bruce C.. University of British Columbia; Canad
Uncertainty and the price for crude oil reserves
No full textInnovations in futures, options, and derivative instruments permit active trading, speculating and hedging - linking markets for physical petroleum products with financial markets. These derivative markets continuously value petroleum delivered today and for future dates, providing a market price for inventories. Underground petroleum reserves are also an inventory defined by exploration surveys and development drilling. Thus, observable market information can be used to value these reserves. Option - valuation models can be used to price reserves using observable markets, but are dependent on unexplained convenience yields revealed by the term structure of futures prices. The authors apply a general inventory pricing model to petroleum inventories and generate an empirical model of the returns to storage for petroleum markets. They examine the determinants of the crude oil convenience yield using a stochastic control model. They specify optimal production and inventory conditions using a third-order cost function and estimate them using monthly observations. Their inventory arbitrage condition embodies the Hotelling principle and Kaldor's convenience yield, and includes a premium on the dispersion in crude oil prices. The empirical results suggest that returns to storage contain both a cost-reducing component and often sizable premiums associated with the dispersion of petroleum prices. Their findings suggest that crude oil markets differentiated by quality and location provide similar premiums. The premiums associated with the dispersion of petroleum prices may account for persistent backwardation in crude oil prices. This finding may also explain the wide discrepancies between Hotelling values and transaction prices found in previous studies.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Labor Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research
Catalog Of The Nineteenth-Century British Brass Instruments In The Arne B. Larson Collection Of Musical Instruments.
No full textI t is the purpose o f th is d issertation to present the resu lts of a detailed examination made by th is author of fo rty -th re e nineteenthcentury B ritish brass instruments from the C ollection — s lid e trumpets, a hand horn, keyed bugles, an ophicleide, an a l t horn, cornopeans, cornets, a trumpet, a flugelhorn, a French horn, a lto horns, tenor horns, trombones, and tubas — made by the leading nineteenth-century B ritis h makers: Besson, B ilto n , Boosey, G a rre tt, Grayson, Higham, Kohler, M e tzle r, Pace, and R iviere & Hawkes
Sociocultural concepts of pandemic influenza and determinants of community vaccine acceptance in Pune, India
No full textVaccines are considered one of public health’s greatest achievements. Yet, public concerns and hesitancy towards acceptance of vaccines has been noted around the world for various vaccines. Limited vaccine uptake against influenza A (H1N1) was a problem during the 2009-2010 pandemic. Ensuring the ability to rapidly produce large quantities of an efficacious vaccine has been a focus of pandemic preparedness at the global and national levels. Notwithstanding the importance of these preparedness measures, its availability and clinical efficacy alone may not be sufficient for the vaccine to be effective at a community level.
Culture has a powerful influence on the understanding of sickness and illness-related behaviour. The framework of cultural epidemiology used in this thesis integrates the local validity of anthropology and the explanatory power of epidemiology to clarify the cultural basis of vaccine hesitancy and acceptance.
Despite cross-cultural differences and an acknowledged need for country-specific studies, relatively little research has focussed on pandemic influenza vaccine hesitancy in lower income settings. A mixed-methods research study was conducted in urban and rural Pune, a hotspot of the influenza pandemic in India. The aim was to study local sociocultural features of illness and determinants of pandemic influenza vaccine acceptance from a community perspective.
This work is a contribution to global advances in the study of vaccine hesitancy and it underscores the value of sociocultural study and community preferences in planning effective vaccine action
Author explores politics of education
No full textA book review of Comparative political analysis, by Allen L. Larson
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