Indoor Climate Control: The Global Demand for Heating,Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Equipment

World demand for heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment is expected to rise in absolute terms during the current five-year period, but the rate of growth is slowing. However, growth is still in excess of that recorded by both global building construction expenditures and world gross domestic product. In 2007, $63.1 billion was spent on HVAC. The Asia-Pacific region now accounts for about 45 percent of the total. The two major categories of HVAC are cooling equipment, which accounts for 71 percent of the total, while heating equipment is responsible for the remaining 29 percent. The commercial market dominates the residential market by a ratio of 65:35. There are hundreds of suppliers around the world, but the eight leading firms have about 50 percent of the market.     

Labor Markets and Monetary Policy

Headline employment numbers have been consistent with previous recoveries from recession. Behind the headlines, however, there are troubling data that suggest that the recovery of labor markets is weaker than what would be suggested by prior experience. In particular, labor force participation is weaker than expected, and the duration of unemployment has been longer. This paper describes the dimensions of the problems, their implications, and issues concerning whether the U.S. Federal Reserve could have done more to forestall them—particularly with respect to its Large Scale Asset Purchases program.     

The Operations Management of the Shanghai Expo Sees Great Success ——Special interview with Mohammed AI Ghamdi,Saudi Arabia Pavilion＇s executive director

The Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, is a huge boat-shaped building like a half moon with a fantastic 3D IMAX theater within, and it has attracte＇d a great number of vis＇itors since it-was opened to public. At times it would take 10 hours standing in the queue betore visitors would make it through the doors. Covering a total ＇area of 6,000 square meters, the Saudi Arabia Pavilion ranks second only to the Chinese National Pavilion in terms of total size.     

Royal finance under King Henry III, 1216–72: the wardrobe evidence1

Existing studies have shown how the royal wardrobe, the king's personal administrative office, regularly handled between a quarter and a half of the Crown's annual cash income. Despite this, the financial contribution of the wardrobe to royal finance under Henry III is not fully understood. For a reign in which debates about royal fiscal strategies are so notable a feature, this represents a significant gap. This article will supplement existing studies of wardrobe finance under Henry III by collectively analysing all 15 of the king's wardrobe accounts that are enrolled on the exchequer pipe rolls. The article makes two important findings. Firstly, the wardrobe was financially strong when the period of baronial reform began in 1258. Secondly, the wardrobe's financial strength was the result of a new, and deliberate, approach to acquiring revenue beyond the treasury that targeted sources of income that could generate cash quickly. During Henry's final years, this included greater reliance on credit. These findings suggest Henry III was not incapable of making adroit financial decisions. They also reveal that the foundations for the financial system developed by the three Edwards, which was more reliant on credit and sources of ready cash, were laid under Henry III.     

First steps towards cross-national transfer in integrating mobility management and land use planning in the EU and Switzerland

This paper is based on research carried out in an EU Framework project, concerning the better integration of mobility management (MM) with land use planning. The objective of the paper is to analyse how, and how far, policies in this field of action can transfer from one member state to another, and to compare this to the theory of policy transfer put forward by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000), using their theory as an analytical framework, but also informing that theory. After providing a definition of this form of integration, the paper explains how far MM and land use planning are currently integrated in the EU member and other states covered in the research (Sweden, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, as well as Ireland and the Netherlands). It then presents the results of planning simulation workshops in five of these countries, where a group of planning professionals from each state considered real development sites and how MM could be integrated with the development. It shows that there is scope for transfer but concludes that barriers such as language, differing planning traditions, and the problem of transferring a new policy idea within a country will limit the scope of policy transfer significantly. Nonetheless, it sees a role for EU projects of this nature in encouraging initial consideration of new policy ideas.     

Deep habits and the dynamic effects of monetary policy shocks

We introduce deep habits into a sticky-price sticky-wage economy and examine the resulting models ability to account for the impact of monetary policy shocks. The deep habits mechanism gives rise to countercyclical markup movements even when prices are flexible and interacts with nominal rigidities in interesting ways. Key parameters are estimated using a limited information approach. The deep habits model can account very precisely for the persistent impact of monetary policy shocks on aggregate consumption and for both the price puzzle and inflation persistence. A key insight is that the deep habits mechanism and nominal rigidities are complementary: the deep habits model can account for the dynamic effects of monetary policy shock at low to moderate levels of nominal rigidities. The results are shown to be stable over time and not caused by monetary policy changes.     

Warum Vertrauen wichtig ist — Der ökonomische Blickwinkel

Die Finanzkrise hat die ?ffentliche Aufmerksamkeit auf eine der Grundstützen des marktwirtschaftlichen Systems gerichtet: das Vertrauen der Marktteilnehmer untereinander. Friedrich L. Sell und Marcus Wiens erl?utern die verschiedenen Sph?ren des Vertrauens (Zweierbeziehung, Gruppe, gesamte Gesellschaft), welche Risiken mit dem Vertrauen verbunden sind und wie diese überwunden werden k?nnen.     

Temporary trade and heterogeneous firms

Using Hungarian firm-transaction level export data, we show that about one third of firm–destination and about one half of firm–product–destination export spells are short-lived, or temporary, each year. This is in odds with theories where comparative advantage is stable and market entry costs are sunk. We show how endogenous choice between variable and sunk cost trade technologies can explain the empirical importance and some characteristics of temporary trade. We build a model in which the likelihood of temporary trade depends on productivity and capital cost of the firm as well as well-known gravity variables of destinations. These predictions are borne out by the data; the likelihood of permanent trade, defined by a simple filter, rises with firm productivity, financial stability, proximity and GDP of destination countries.