Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board, State of Iowa, Independent Auditor's Reports, Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports

On the Segregation of Genetically Modified, Conventional, and Organic Products in European Agriculture: A Multi-market Equilibrium Analysis, October 2005

Evaluating the possible benefits of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops must address the issue of consumer resistance as well as the complex regulation that has ensued. In the European Union (EU) this regulation envisions the “co-existence” of GM food with conventional and quality-enhanced products, mandates the labelling and traceability of GM products, and allows only a stringent adventitious presence of GM content in other products. All these elements are brought together within a partial equilibrium model of the EU agricultural food sector. The model comprises conventional, GM and organic food. Demand is modelled in a novel fashion, whereby organic and conventional products are treated as horizontally differentiated but GM products are vertically differentiated (weakly inferior) relative to conventional ones. Supply accounts explicitly for the land constraint at the sector level and for the need for additional resources to produce organic food. Model calibration and simulation allow insights into the qualitative and quantitative effects of the large-scale introduction of GM products in the EU market. We find that the introduction of GM food reduces overall EU welfare, mostly because of the associated need for costly segregation of non-GM products, but the producers of quality-enhanced products actually benefit.

Collective Marketing Arrangements for Geographically Differentiated Agricultural Products: Welfare Impacts and Policy Implications, May 2006

This paper examines the incentive of atomistic agricultural producers within a specific geographical region to differentiate and collectively market products. We develop a model that allows us to analyze the market and welfare effects of the main types of real-world producer organizations, using it to derive economic insights regarding the circumstances under which these organizations will evolve, and describing implications of the results obtained in the context of an ongoing debate between the European Union and United States. As the anticipated fixed costs of development and marketing increase and the anticipated size of the market falls, it becomes essential to increase the ability of the producer organization to control supply in order to ensure the coverage of fixed costs. Whenever a collective organization allows a market (with a new product) to exist that otherwise would not have existed there is an increase in societal welfare. Counterintuitively, stronger property right protection for producer organizations may be welfare enhancing even after a differentiated product has been developed. The reason for this somewhat paradoxical result is that legislation aimed at curtailing the market power of producer organizations may induce large technological distortions.

Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board, State of Iowa, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2005

State Audit Reports

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2006

The economic effects of a Spanish trade boycott against Catalan products

We study the potential consequences of a hypothetical trade boycott against Catalan products organized by some sectors of the Spanish society mainly for political reasons. A symmetric trade boycott would have two effects: a reduction of Catalan exports to Spain and a partial process of import substitution in Catalonia. In order to quantify the economic impact of the boycott, we compare the "actual" Catalan economy, as described in the input-output table for 2005, with a "simulated" Catalan economy that takes into account the effects of a boycott on the trade exchanges between Catalonia and Spain.

When to carry eccentric products? Optimal retail assortment under consumer returns

To understand whether retailers should consider consumer returns when merchandising, we study howthe optimal assortment of a price-taking retailer is influenced by its return policy. The retailer selects itsassortment from an exogenous set of horizontally differentiated products. Consumers make purchase andkeep/return decisions in nested multinomial logit fashion. Our main finding is that the optimal assortmenthas a counterintuitive structure for relatively strict return policies: It is optimal to offer a mix of the mostpopular and most eccentric products when the refund amount is sufficiently low, which can be viewed asa form of risk sharing between the retailer and consumers. In contrast, if the refund is sufficiently high, orwhen returns are disallowed, optimal assortment is composed of only the most popular products (a commonfinding in the literature). We provide preliminary empirical evidence for one of the key drivers of our results:more eccentric products have higher probability of return conditional on purchase. In light of our analyticalfindings and managerial insights, we conclude that retailers should take their return policies into accountwhen merchandising.

Common cleaning products can be dangerous when mixed, 2008

Common household cleaning products can cause injury when mixed. Some combinations produce harmful fumes and other dangerous by-products.

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2007

On the accuracy of Latin American trade statistics: A nonparametric test for 1925

This paper proposes a nonparametric test in order to establish the level of accuracy of theforeign trade statistics of 17 Latin American countries when contrasted with the trade statistics of the main partners in 1925. The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Ranks test is used to determine whether the differences between the data registered by exporters and importers are meaningful, and if so, whether the differences are systematic in any direction. The paper tests for the reliability of the data registered for two homogeneous products, petroleum and coal, both in volume and value. The conclusion of the several exercises performed is that we cannot accept the existence of statistically significant differences between the data provided by the exporters and the registered by the importing countries in most cases. The qualitative historiography of Latin American describes its foreign trade statistics as mostly unusable. Our quantitative results contest this view.

Hazardous substances in frequently used professional cleaning products.

A growing number of studies have identified cleaners as a group at risk for adverse health effects of the skin and the respiratory tract. Chemical substances present in cleaning products could be responsible for these effects. Currently, only limited information is available about irritant and health hazardous chemical substances found in cleaning products. We hypothesized that chemical substances present in cleaning products are known health hazardous substances that might be involved in adverse health effects of the skin and the respiratory tract. We performed a systematic review of cleaning products used in the Swiss cleaning sector. We surveyed Swiss professional cleaning companies (n = 1476) to identify the most used products (n = 105) for inclusion. Safety data sheets (SDSs) were reviewed and hazardous substances present in cleaning products were tabulated with current European and global harmonized system hazard labels. Professional cleaning products are mixtures of substances (arithmetic mean 3.5 +/- 2.8), and more than 132 different chemical substances were identified in 105 products. The main groups of chemicals were fragrances, glycol ethers, surfactants, solvents; and to a lesser extent, phosphates, salts, detergents, pH-stabilizers, acids, and bases. Up to 75% of products contained irritant (Xi), 64% harmful (Xn) and 28% corrosive (C) labeled substances. Hazards for eyes (59%) and skin (50%), and hazards by ingestion (60%) were the most reported. Cleaning products potentially give rise to simultaneous exposures to different chemical substances. As professional cleaners represent a large workforce, and cleaning products are widely used, it is a major public health issue to better understand these exposures. The list of substances provided in this study contains important information for future occupational exposure assessment studies.

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2008

Audit report on the Iowa Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Board (UST Board) for the year ended June 30, 2008

Borcherds products and arithmetic intersection theory on Hilbert modular surfaces

We prove an arithmetic version of a theorem of Hirzebruch and Zagier saying that Hirzebruch-Zagier divisors on a Hilbert modular surface are the coefficients of an elliptic modular form of weight 2. Moreover, we determine the arithmetic selfintersection number of the line bundle of modular forms equipped with its Petersson metric on a regular model of a Hilbert modular surface, and we study Faltings heights of arithmetic Hirzebruch-Zagier divisors.