Welfare Analysis of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Cotton Textile and Apparel Industries

This article studies the effects of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (US-CAFTA-DR) on the world fiber market using a partial equilibrium modeling approach. We find the effect of the agreement on the U.S. cotton yarn and Caribbean cotton apparel industries to be positive while the U.S. cotton apparel industry suffers significant losses. Cotton apparel producers in the Caribbean region gain approximately $80 million under US-CAFTA-DR while gains by the U.S. yarn industry average about $120 million over current trade arrangements. The U.S. cotton apparel industry loses about $40 million per year under US-CAFTA-DR.     

A diffusion model of the process of implementing the generalized system of preferences

This paper uses a two-stage approach to study the process of adopting tariff preferences under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and to identify factors that influence the dynamic adoption process. First, logistic growth functions of the share of preferential exports in total exports over time are estimated to provide measures of the adoption rate and upper limit participation value for developing country beneficiaries under each GSP scheme. The second step relates these parameters to measures of market access for GSP-covered products. Results indicate the process of implementing a tariff preference scheme mirrors a dynamic diffusion process whereby beneficiaries increase their share of preferential exports in total exports over time.     

AN INFRA-SURFER'S PARADISE: RIDING THE CREST OF THE LAND - VALUE WAVE

The author devoted his working life to adding wealth to the nation. Now, to expose the damage caused by taxes to the enterprise economy, he is an accredited Infra-surfer. And as he triangulates between deals in St Petersburg, up-state New York and the coast of Spain, he finds himself slipping into a dream-like world of virtual reality…     

修炼运营敏捷性提升企业竞争力

组织的运营敏捷性来源于比竞争对手更加快速，有效且始终如一地把握核心业务中出现的增加收入和削减成本机会的能力。     

Explaining Regional Differences in Black Earnings Discrimination among Full-time Working Men

Using data from the 2000 Census 1% PUMS, this paper analyzes the causes of regional differences in Black earnings discrimination. The methodology is a two stage process used to generate and analyze a cross section of earnings discrimination across cities. In the first stage, a city measure of discrimination is constructed using the Oaxaca decomposition method. The second stage then utilizes these estimated measures of discrimination as a dependent variable in OLS models to test various discrimination theories. While the second stage offers some evidence that increases in the size of both the Black labor force and immigrant labor force are positively related to greater discrimination, increasing overall income inequality is found to robustly increase Black earnings discrimination.     

Applications of robust estimation techniques in demand analysis

Estimates are presented of the demand for tobacco in Italy in the context of a demand system approach. The grouping of goods is based on Varian's non-parametric test for weak separability. The parametric demand model is Banks, Blundell and Lewbel's QUAIDS model, which combines the empirical flexibility of quadratic logarithmic Engel curves with integrability. Estimation is by iterative GMM procedure. The estimates are used in an analysis of welfare-improving tax reforms which incorporates distributional data. The results are discussed with respect to the special features of the Italian tobacco market.