The Mother Of All Toxic Cleanups

No one knows how todealwiththeuntoldtonsoflethalgoop———orwho willpayAs rescueworkerscontinuethegrim searchforbodiesin New Or-leans, environmentalengineersarestrugglingwith what willprobablybecome thebiggestchallengeofKat-rina———themess. A toxicbrew ofoil, chemicals, bacteri,a debri,s andgarbage must be clearedand theground scrubbedbeforethecitycanbe rebuil.tUnfortunatel,ytheexpertshave few new ideasabout how totacklea cleanupofthisscale.“Thereisno silverbulle,t and I would behighlysus…     

A Coalition-Form Analysis Of The “One Country - One Vote” Rule In The Governing Council Of The European Central Bank *

This paper analyses the “one country—one vote” rule for monetary policy decision

making of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank in a framework of cooperative game theory. The Shapley value is used as a solution concept. In contrast to former papers analysing the allocation of abstract "voting power" in committees of international organisations, preferences for monetary policy are modelled to obtain a prediction about potential transfers implied by an equal allocation of voting rights when countries are of different size. It is shown that if the number of countries participating to a currency union grows and the weight of the largest country within the currency union becomes small, the allocation of voting rights becomes irrelevant in the sense that transfers per country tend in any case to zero. [C71, E5, F02]     

Technological Expectations And The Diffusion Of ‘Intermediate’ Technologies

The concept of ‘technological expectations’ has established itself as a key one in the smdy of innovation adoption. The article suggests that it may help explaining not just the adopters' timing decisions, but also their decisions regarding the kind of innovation they adopt. Innova tions that set the technological frontier face the competitive diffusion of some ‘intemdiate’ technologies. These may be either old technologies or ‘midrange’ ones. which purposefully lag behind the frontier, in order to impose lower adoption costs to their users.

Taking into account midrange innovations casts new light on the supply side of the diffu sion process. in terms of technological variety and selection effects. Drawing examples from the electronic colour pre-press industry, we highlight the equipment suppliers' anxious quest for the successful midrange innovation, able to hit the right txade-off between proximity to the frontier and adoption costs.     

Appropriation Of Returns From Technological Assets And The Values Of Patents And R&D In Japanese High-Tech Firms †

This paper investigates the extent that technological assets contribute to the value of the firm, using the sample of 90 Japanese firms in pharmaceutical, chemical, and electrical equipment industries. We use the firm's R&D expenditures and the number of patents (in stock) as the measures of its technological assets and show that the relative usefulness of these two measures varies across industries. Particularly, Tobin's q is positively related to the technological assets most strongly in the pharmaceutical industry. It is also most sensitive in this industry to the level of patent stock, coinciding with the view that drug patents are more effective than other patents as a means of appropriating returns from innovation. The communications equipment industry is also characterized by its q's dependence on patent stock. In addition, this industry's q is particularly sensitive to the level of net R&D investment in the most recent year, presumably because of the rapid technological progress in this industry.     

Morphogenesis Of Social Networks And Coexistence Of Technologies ∗

The aim of the article is to relate the formation of influence networks to the coexistence of technologies in the long run. In the spirit of Plouraboue et al. (1998), we postulate that potential adopters of a technology are situated in a social network. In our model, initial relations are partly negative and all the expected utilities are revised in parallel. In the case of an exogenous network, opinions can fluctuate endlessly. When agents reallocate their relationships, this reinforces trust in agents whose opinion is close to theirs. As a result of this process, the network stabilizes in the long run, generating diversity in expected utilities.     

The Impact Of Information Technology On High-Skilled Labor In Services: Evidence From Firm-Level Panel Data ∗

This paper analyses the link between the high-skilled employment share and the level of investment in information technology (IT) in the service production process. The analysis is based on an unbalanced panel data set for 933 West German firms over the period 1994–1996. To account for firms which do not employ high-skilled labor. proxied by university graduates. fixed and random effects Tobit models are applied. We investigate whether the impoflance of IT varies across subsectors by allowing coefficients to differ across the main service sector industries. The empirical evidence indicates that firms with a higher IT investment to output ratio employ a laier fraction of high-skilled workers. However the size of the IT effect on skill intensity is rather small.     

The Impact Of New Technologies On Wages: Lessons From Matching Panels On Employees And On Their Firms †

We study the impact on New Technologies (NT) on wages using a panel that matches data on individuals and on their firms. In his article on the same topic, Krueger (1993) did not give a definitive answer to the following question: if workers who use NT are better paid, is it because they are abler or because NT increases their productivity. We try to provide an answer to this question. Comparing cross-section estimates and individual fixed-effect estimates, we show that computer-based new technologies are used by abler workers. These workers learn and become more productive when they get more experienced with these NT. In terns of wage differentials, the introduction of computer-based NT contributes to a small increase. The use of firm-level data does not modify these conclusions.     

Haarlem,One of the Most Ancient Cities Of Netherlands

HaarlemisoneoftheNetherlands'mostbeautifulancientcitieswithastunningcityscapethatbeckonsvisitorsfromafar.Itisapleasant,safecity,hometo150,000inhabitantsandsituatedontheriverSpaarne.Theoldcity,repletewithnumerouslistedbuildings,offersahostofsitesofinterest…     

The Motor Tycoon of The world

NewDeparturesTosecureapositionamongthetopglobalcompetitors,acompanyneedstobeabletoadaptswiftlytochangingcondi-nons.Thereisnoalternative.Businesses,processandstructuresmustberegularlyscreenedtoensuretheircontinuingfitnesstomeetever-changingchallenges.TheDaimler-BenzGrouprecentlyconductedacomprehensivereviewofitsbusinessportfolio,whichresultedinthePrevious35businessesbeingreducedto23.FOllowingthisstrategicrepositioning,Daimler-Benzisnowactiveinthefol-lowingfields:Passengercars,commercialvehi…     

Of Markets And Martyrs: Is It OK To Pay Well For Care?

If caring work were well paid, would it lose some of the special, emotional, interpersonal aspects we want in "real" care relationships? Some fear that the introduction of "market values" would lead to such an outcome. This article seeks to bring to light some logical fallacies and insufficiently expunged gender dualisms that may lie, unexamined, under such concerns. Examining the ways we think and talk about markets, meanings, and motivations, it argues that the foci of feminist concern should instead be the concrete structures of caregiving and the problem of under-demand.     

The Budget-Making Process

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The Bernanke Agenda

Cool,calm,and collected,Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is driving Wall Street batty.When traders scream about a recessionary "credit crunch," the former professor acknowledges their concerns but predicts contin-     

The Technical City-Quebec

CapitaloftheProvinceofQuebec，whichrepresentsanareaof1522563km2withapopulationofonly7millionpeople,thecityofquebecisastrongtechnologicalcenter,withauniqueandextremelyrichhistoricalandculturalheritage,locatedinamodernenyironmentwithanexceptionalqualityoflife.DesignatedWorldHeritageSitebyUnesco,theCapitalofQuebecanditsirnmediatesurroundingsisoftenreferredtoasthemostEuropeanofNorthAmericancities,andreprescntsaprivilegedlocationfromwhiclionecaneasilyaccessthenortheasternpartoftheNorthAmericanc…     

The Quiets Americans

Since my daughter is graduatingfrom college today, I am thinking a lotabout the class of 2007 and the worldthey are about to enter. I'm not sure whatthey call this generation. Is it generation     

Positive Analysis Of Income Disparity between Towns＇ Residents and Rural Residents in Hebei Province

With the economic development, the income disparity between towns＇ residents and rural residents in China shows an enlarging trend. This phenomenon becomes a hot issue of the whole society. The income disparity between towns＇ residents and rural residents in Hebei province also shows an enlarging trend. The authors study this problem with the positive analysis method from the situation, the developing trend in the future, the reasons of the income disparity between towns＇ residents and rural residents in Hebei, and put forward proposals about how to reduce the income disparity.     

The simultaneity in human capital estimations： The case of China

Existing papers on human capital and growth in China has been using single equation estimations. This might cause a simultaneity bias if a two-way causality between the two variables exists. In this paper, the author performs vector autoregressive estimations using panel data on the number of graduates at each level of education as a proxy for human capital in China during 1991-2005. The results show that investment in human capital increases output per worker at all three levels of education. Regarding the effects of output per worker on the accumulation of human capital, the author finds mixed results with the primary-school graduates＇ benefits the most from increases in per capita output.     

The Next Big One

Where America is most vulnerable and how the nation canbetter manage the risks ahead Dr.Irwin E.Redlener is in Ba-ton Rouge La.,setting up mobilemedical units.He has been inLouisiana and Mississippi for manylong days helping people deal withthe horror of Hurricane Katrina,andhis voice is full of anger and despair.“The country is really just not pre-pared for a major catastrophicevent,”says Redlener.“Whatever itis—the Big One in San Francisco,aterrorist attack—it doesn’t matter.The…     

The Titan From Tucheng

Move over,Flextronics. For years,the Singapore giant claimed the top spotamong the contract man-ufacturers that churn out laptops,printers,cameras,and allmanner of electronic gadgets for the likes of Hewlett-Packard,Apple,and Dell.But a new champion is sweeping past Flextronics International Ltd.to claim the world title of No.1:Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.,alow-profile Taiwanese company based in the gritty Taipei suburb of Tucheng.In the cutthroat world of Tai-wan’s electronicsmaker…