The change of behavior of two strains of Leishmania after cultivation in a defined medium

Attempts have been made to characterize two strains of Leishmania that became infective to golden hamsters only after they had been maintained for several years in a chemically defined culture medium. Observations were made on the growth rates of promastigotes in vitro, course of infection in hamsters, morphology of amastigotes, and electrophoretic mobility patterns of eight isoenzymes. Information was obtained about the buoyant densities of n-DNA and k-DNA, and one strain was tested against monoclonal antibodies. The identity of both strains remains obscure.

Are there two species of Pygmy Shrews (Sorex)? Revisiting the question using DNA sequence data

Pygmy Shrews in North America have variously been considered to be one species (Sorex hoyi) or two species (S. hoyi and S. thompsoni). Currently, only S. hoyi is recognized. In this study, we examine mitochondrial DNA sequence data for the cytochrome b gene to evaluate the level of differentiation and phylogeographic relationships among eleven samples of Pygmy Shrews from across Canada. Pygmy Shrews from eastern Canada (i.e., Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) are distinct from Pygmy Shrews from western Canada (Alberta, Yukon) and Alaska. The average level of sequence divergence between these clades (3.3%) falls within the range of values for other recognized pairs of sister species of shrews. A molecular clock based on third position transversion substitutions suggests that these two lineages diverged between 0.44 and 1.67 million years ago. These molecular phylogenetic data. combined with a reinterpretation of previously published morphological data, are suggestive of separate species status for S. hoyi and S. thompsoni as has been previously argued by others. Further analysis of specimens from geographically intermediate areas (e.g., Manitoba. northern Ontario) is required to determine if there is secondary contact and/or introgression between these two putative species.

A computable general equilibrium analysis of the relative price sensitivity required to induce rebound effects in response to an improvement in energy efficiency in the UK economy

In recent years there has been extensive debate in the energy economics and policy literature on the likely impacts of improvements in energy efficiency. This debate has focussed on the notion of rebound effects. Rebound effects occur when improvements in energy efficiency actually stimulate the direct and indirect demand for energy in production and/or consumption. This phenomenon occurs through the impact of the increased efficiency on the effective, or implicit, price of energy. If demand is stimulated in this way, the anticipated reduction in energy use, and the consequent environmental benefits, will be partially or possibly even more than wholly (in the case of ‘backfire’ effects) offset. A recent report published by the UK House of Lords identifies rebound effects as a plausible explanation as to why recent improvements in energy efficiency in the UK have not translated to reductions in energy demand at the macroeconomic level, but calls for empirical investigation of the factors that govern the extent of such effects. Undoubtedly the single most important conclusion of recent analysis in the UK, led by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) is that the extent of rebound and backfire effects is always and everywhere an empirical issue. It is simply not possible to determine the degree of rebound and backfire from theoretical considerations alone, notwithstanding the claims of some contributors to the debate. In particular, theoretical analysis cannot rule out backfire. Nor, strictly, can theoretical considerations alone rule out the other limiting case, of zero rebound, that a narrow engineering approach would imply. In this paper we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework to investigate the conditions under which rebound effects may occur in the Scottish regional and UK national economies. Previous work has suggested that rebound effects will occur even where key elasticities of substitution in production are set close to zero. Here, we carry out a systematic sensitivity analysis, where we gradually introduce relative price sensitivity into the system, focusing in particular on elasticities of substitution in production and trade parameters, in order to determine conditions under which rebound effects become a likely outcome. We find that, while there is positive pressure for rebound effects even where (direct and indirect) demand for energy is very price inelastic, this may be partially or wholly offset by negative income and disinvestment effects, which also occur in response to falling energy prices.

The Expenditure Impacts of Individual Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and their Students on the Scottish Economy under Devolution: Homogeneity or Heterogeneity?

Comparing each of the twenty Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Scotland as separate sectors in an Input-Output table suggests their expenditure patterns are homogenous and that the apparent heterogeneity of their impacts is primarily driven by scale. However, a disaggregation of their income by source reveals a disparity in their dependence upon funding from the devolved Scottish Government and their ability to draw in income/funding from external sources. Acknowledging the binding budget constraint of the Scottish Government and deriving balanced expenditure multipliers reveals large differences in the net-expenditure impact of HEIs upon the Scottish economy, with the source of variation being the origin of income. Applying a novel treatment of student expenditure impacts, identifying the amount of exogenous spending per student, modifies the heterogeneity of the overall expenditure impacts. On balance this suggests that the impacts of impending budget cut-backs will be quite different by institution depending on their sensitivity to public funding. However, predicting the outcome of budget cutbacks at the margin is problematic as we do not know whether public and external incomes are complements or substitutions (and indeed this may vary between individual HEIs).

Inter-Connectedness In The Scottish Economy, 1998-2004

The measurement of inter-connectedness in an economy using input-output tables is not new, however much of the previous literature has not had any explicit dynamic dimension. Studies have tried to estimate the degree of inter-relatedness for an economy at a given point in time using one inputoutput table, some have compared different economies at a point in time but few have looked at the question of how inter-connectedness within an economy changes over time. The publication in 2009 of a consistent series of inputoutput tables for Scotland offers the researcher the opportunity to track changes in the degree of inter-connectedness over the seven year period 1998 to 2004. The paper is in two parts. A simple measure of inter-connectedness is introduced in the first part of the paper and applied to the Scottish tables. It is shown that although the aggregate results might appear to indicate a degree of import substitution was taking place this result is not robust to industrial disaggregation. In the second part of the paper an extraction method is applied to an eleven sector disaggregation of the Scottish economy in order to estimate how interconnectedness has changed over time for each industrial sector. It is shown that for the majority of sectors the degree of interconnectedness with the rest of the Scottish economy has grown for others, in particular Financial Services and Energy and Water Supply it has not.

The Expenditure Impacts of Individual Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and their Students on the Welsh Economy: Homogeneity or Heterogeneity?

This paper replicates the analysis of Scottish HEIs in Hermannsson et al (2010a) for the case of Wales in order to provide a self-contained analysis that is readily accessible by those whose primary concern is with the regional impacts of Welsh HEIs. When we treat each of the twelve Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that existed in Wales in 2006 as separate sectors in conventional input-output analysis, their expenditure impacts per unit of final demand appear rather homogenous, with the apparent heterogeneity of their overall impacts being primarily driven by scale. However, a disaggregation of their income by source reveals considerable variation in their dependence upon funding from the devolved Welsh Assembly Government and their ability to draw in income/funding from external sources. Acknowledging the binding budget constraint of the Welsh Assembly Government and deriving balanced expenditure multipliers reveals large differences in the net-expenditure impact of HEIs upon the Welsh economy, with the source of variation being the origin of income. Applying a novel treatment of student expenditure impacts, identifying the amount of exogenous spending per student, modifies the heterogeneity of the overall expenditure impacts. On balance this suggests that the impacts of impending budget cut-backs will be quite different by institution depending on their sensitivity to public funding. However, predicting the outcome of budget cutbacks at the margin is problematic for reasons that we identify.

Regional Policy Spillovers: The National Impact of Demand-Side Policy in an Interregional Model of the UK Economy

UK regional policy has been advocated as a means of reducing regional disparities and stimulating national growth. However, there is limited understanding of the interregional and national effects of such a policy. This paper uses an interregional computable general equilibrium model to identify the national impact of a policy-induced regional demand shock under alternative labour market closures. Our simulation results suggest that regional policy operating solely on the demand side has significant national impacts. Furthermore, the effects on the non-target region are particularly sensitive to the treatment of the regional labour market.

The system-wide impacts of the external benefits to higher education on the Scottish economy: An exploratory “micro-to-macro” approach

The private market benefits of education, i.e. the wage premia of graduates, are widely studied at the micro level, although the magnitude of their macroeconomic impact is disputed. However, there are additional benefits of education, which are less well understood but could potentially drive significant macroeconomic impacts. Following the taxonomy of McMahon (2009) we identify four different types of benefits of education. These are: private market benefits (wage premia); private non market benefits (own health, happiness, etc.); external market benefits (productivity spillovers; and external non-market benefits (crime rates, civic society, democratisation, etc.). Drawing on available microeconometric evidence we use a micro-to-macro simulation approach (Hermannsson et al, 2010) to estimate the macroeconomic impacts of external benefits of higher education. We explore four cases: technology spillovers from HEIs; productivity spillovers from more skilled workers in the labour market; reduction in property crime; and the potential overall impact of external and private non-market benefits. Our results suggest that the external economic benefits of higher education could potentially be very large. However, given the dearth of microeconomic evidence this result should be seen as tentative. Our aim is to illustrate the links from education to the wider economy in principle and encourage further research in the field.

The Growth in Inter-connectedness in the Scottish Economy, 1998-2007; a disaggregated analysis

The measurement of inter-connectedness in an economy using input-output tables is not new, however much of the previous literature has not had any explicit dynamic dimension. Studies have tried to estimate the degree of inter-relatedness for an economy at a given point in time using one input-output table, some have compared different economies at a point in time but few have looked at the question of how interconnectedness within an economy changes over time. The publication in 2010 of a consistent series of input-output tables for Scotland offers the researcher the opportunity to track changes in the degree of inter-connectedness over the seven year period 1998 to 2007. The paper is in two parts. A simple measure of inter-connectedness is introduced in the first part of the paper and applied to the Scottish tables. In the second part of the paper an extraction method is applied to sector by sector to the tables in order to estimate how interconnectedness has changed over time for each industrial sector.

The Growth in Inter-connectedness in the Scottish Economy 1998-2007; a disaggregated analysis.

The measurement of inter-connectedness in an economy using input-output tables is not new, however much of the previous literature has not had any explicit dynamic dimension. Studies have tried to estimate the degree of inter-relatedness for an economy at a given point in time using one input-output table, some have compared different economies at a point in time but few have looked at the question of how interconnectedness within an economy changes over time. The publication in 2010 of a consistent series of input-output tables for Scotland offers the researcher the opportunity to track changes in the degree of inter-connectedness over the seven year period 1998 to 2007. The paper is in two parts. A simple measure of inter-connectedness is introduced in the first part of the paper and applied to the Scottish tables. In the second part of the paper an extraction method is applied to sector by sector to the tables in order to estimate how interconnectedness has changed over time for each industrial sector.

The Political Economy of Resource Rent Distribution

I model the link between political regime and level of diversification following a windfall of natural resource revenues. The explanatory variables I make use of are the political support functions embedded within each type of regime and the disparate levels of discretion, openness, transparency, and accountability of government. I show that a democratic government seeks to maximize the long-term consumption path of the representative consumer, in order to maximize its chances of re-election, while an authoritarian government, in the absence of any electoral mechanism of accountability, seeks to buy off and entrench a group of special interests loyal to the government and potent enough to ensure its short-term survival. Essentially the contrast in the approaches towards resource rent distribution comes down to a variation in political weights on aggregate welfare and rentierist special interests endogenized by distinct political support functions.

The Commons and anti-commons problems in the tourism economy

Countries specialised in tourism tend to face two problems with contradictory effects: the commons and the anti-commons, which lead to tourism over- and under-production, respectively. This paper develops a two-period model to analyse the joint effects of both problems on a small and remote tourism economy. Congestion and the complementariness between foreign transport and local tourism services are key features in this type of markets. As a result, direct selling and the presence of foreign tour-operators emerge as possible market arrangements with different implications in terms of welfare and public intervention. Four main results are obtained. First, in the direct selling situation the optimal policy depends on the relative importance of the problems. Second, the existence of tour-operators always leads to tourism over-production. Third, the presence of a single tour-operator does not solve the congestion problem. Lastly, the switch from several tour-operators to a single one is welfare reducing.