An ideal Kyoto protocol: emissions trading, redistributive transfers and global participation

We demonstrate that an interregional policy scheme featuringtrading of carbon dioxide emissions, redistributive resourcetransfers and global participation, a scheme which we call ‘IdealKyoto Protocol’, yields an efficient equilibrium allocationfor a global economy. An altruistic international agency—say,the Global Environment Facility—should operate the resourcetransfer mechanism. In addition, regional governments shouldbe able to make independent policy commitments regarding howto control regional emissions of carbon dioxide in anticipationof the redistributive transfers. Our efficiency result suggeststhat the USA should be ‘bribed’ to reverse its decisionof not participating in the Kyoto Protocol.     

The kinesthetic speaker. Putting action into words

Speeches and presentations offer an interesting catch-22: executives don't want to spend long hours creating them, and people don't want to sit for long hours listening to them. Ultimately, though, executives can't live without them. That's because a good speech or presentation has the power to inspire people to act on the speaker's behalf and create change. Author Nick Morgan, a longtime speech-writer and speaking coach, says what's most often lacking in today's speeches and presentations is what he calls the "kinesthetic connection." Many good speakers connect aurally with their audiences, telling dramatic stories and effectively pacing their speeches to hold people's attention. Others connect visually, with a vivid film clip or a killer slide. Some people do both, but not many also connect kinesthetically. Morgan says the kinesthetic speaker feeds an audience's primal hunger to experience a presentation on a physical, as well as an intellectual, level. Through awareness of their own physical presence--gestures, posture, movements--and through the effective use of the space in which they present, kinesthetic speakers can create potent nonverbal messages that reinforce their verbal ones. In this article, Morgan describes techniques for harnessing kinesthetic power and creating a sense of intimacy with an audience--a closeness that is more widely expected from speakers since the advent of television. For instance, kinesthetic speakers should make use of audience proxies--individuals in the crowd who serve as representatives for the others. Ultimately, the author says, a speech or presentation offers something of great value to business executives: it's the best vehicle for winning trust from large groups of people--be they employees, colleagues, or share-holders.     

Estimating potential for aftermarket requirements

This article will focus mainly on utility electric plant maintenance with particular emphasis on steam (nonnuclear) turbine-generator maintenance. Our objective has been to identify and examine relationships between the target market and other recorded key operating parameters that would be useful for future forecasting of trends in the target market.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of monetary reforms

Using a monthly model of the economy, containing a detailed financial sector, various monetary reforms are evaluated in a stochastic setting. The setting is stochastic because parameters must be estimated from finite data sets and because unexplained residuals exist. The objective function is a single-period, simple quadratic function in income. The problem then reduces to finding the opportunity locus (mean-variance curve) corresponding to each reform; the more effective the reform the more favorable the mean-variance tradeoff. The general finding is that most of the reforms considered are effective, but their impact is not very significant.