Firms in international trade: importers’ and exporters’ heterogeneity in Italian manufacturing industry

Combining data on structural characteristics and economic performance for a large sample of Italian firms with data on exporting and importing activity, we uncover evidence supporting recent theories on firm heterogeneity and international trade, together with some new facts. In particular, we find that importing is associated with substantial firm heterogeneity. First, we document that trade is more concentrated than employment and sales, and show that importing is even more concentrated than exporting both within sectors and along the sector- and country-extensive margins. Second, while supporting the fact that firms involved in both are the best performers, we also find that firms involved only in importing activities perform better than those involved only in exporting. Our evidence suggests there is a strong self-selection effect in the case of importers and the performance premia of internationalised firms correlate relatively more with the degree of geographical and sectoral diversification of imports.

Balkanisation of banking damages international trade and UK GDP

Balkanisation is a way to describe the breakdown of cross-border banking, as nervous lenders retreat in particular from the more troubled parts of the Eurozone or at least try to isolate operations within national boundaries. It is increasing at the Bank level, however the senior policy makers consider this a negative trend – Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, has talked of the need to “repair this financial fragmentation” and Mark Carney, head of global regulatory body the Financial Stability Board, [and now Governor of the Bank of England] has warned that deglobalising finance will hurt growth and jobs by “reducing financial capacity and systemic resilience”. In this article I would like to examine the impact of banking balkanisation on international trade and provide some initial thoughts about remedies for excessive risk in a banking non-balkanising world.

Independent uncertainty estimates for coefficient based sea surface temperature retrieval from the Along-Trck Scanning Radiometer instruments

We establish a methodology for calculating uncertainties in sea surface temperature estimates from coefficient based satellite retrievals. The uncertainty estimates are derived independently of in-situ data. This enables validation of both the retrieved SSTs and their uncertainty estimate using in-situ data records. The total uncertainty budget is comprised of a number of components, arising from uncorrelated (eg. noise), locally systematic (eg. atmospheric), large scale systematic and sampling effects (for gridded products). The importance of distinguishing these components arises in propagating uncertainty across spatio-temporal scales. We apply the method to SST data retrieved from the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) and validate the results for two different SST retrieval algorithms, both at a per pixel level and for gridded data. We find good agreement between our estimated uncertainties and validation data. This approach to calculating uncertainties in SST retrievals has a wider application to data from other instruments and retrieval of other geophysical variables.

High-precision measurements of the co-polar correlation coefficient: non-Gaussian errors and retrieval of the dispersion parameter µ in rainfall

The co-polar correlation coefficient (ρhv) has many applications, including hydrometeor classification, ground clutter and melting layer identification, interpretation of ice microphysics and the retrieval of rain drop size distributions (DSDs). However, we currently lack the quantitative error estimates that are necessary if these applications are to be fully exploited. Previous error estimates of ρhv rely on knowledge of the unknown "true" ρhv and implicitly assume a Gaussian probability distribution function of ρhv samples. We show that frequency distributions of ρhv estimates are in fact highly negatively skewed. A new variable: L = -log10(1 - ρhv) is defined, which does have Gaussian error statistics, and a standard deviation depending only on the number of independent radar pulses. This is verified using observations of spherical drizzle drops, allowing, for the first time, the construction of rigorous confidence intervals in estimates of ρhv. In addition, we demonstrate how the imperfect co-location of the horizontal and vertical polarisation sample volumes may be accounted for. The possibility of using L to estimate the dispersion parameter (µ) in the gamma drop size distribution is investigated. We find that including drop oscillations is essential for this application, otherwise there could be biases in retrieved µ of up to ~8. Preliminary results in rainfall are presented. In a convective rain case study, our estimates show µ to be substantially larger than 0 (an exponential DSD). In this particular rain event, rain rate would be overestimated by up to 50% if a simple exponential DSD is assumed.

Agribusiness Opportunity Costs and Environmental Legal Protection: Investigating Trade-Off on Hotspot Preservation in the State of So Paulo, Brazil

Prior to deforestation, So Paulo State had 79,000 km(2) covered by Cerrado (Brazilian savanna) physiognomies, but today less than 8.5% of this biodiversity hotspot remains, mostly in private lands. The global demand for agricultural goods has imposed strong pressure on natural areas, and the economic decisions of agribusiness managers are crucial to the fate of Cerrado domain remaining areas (CDRA) in Brazil. Our aim was to investigate the effectiveness of Brazilian private protected areas policy, and to propose a feasible alternative to promote CDRA protection. This article assessed the main agribusiness opportunity costs for natural areas preservation: the land use profitability and the arable land price. The CDRA percentage and the opportunity costs were estimated for 349 municipal districts of So Paulo State through secondary spatial data and profitability values of 38 main agricultural products. We found that Brazilian private protected areas policy fails to preserve CDRA, although the values of non-compliance fines were higher than average opportunity costs. The scenario with very restrictive laws on private protected areas and historical high interest rates allowed us to conceive a feasible cross compliance proposal to improve environmental and agricultural policies.

Mean Motion in Stochastic Plasmas With a Space-Dependent Diffusion Coefficient

Radial transport in the tokamap, which has been proposed as a simple model for the motion in a stochastic plasma, is investigated. A theory for previous numerical findings is presented. The new results are stimulated by the fact that the radial diffusion coefficients is space-dependent. The space-dependence of the transport coefficient has several interesting effects which have not been elucidated so far. Among the new findings are the analytical predictions for the scaling of the mean radial displacement with time and the relation between the Fokker-Planck diffusion coefficient and the diffusion coefficient from the mean square displacement. The applicability to other systems is also discussed. (c) 2009 WILEY-VCH GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Students Working on Telephone Poles at the New York Trade School

A group of twelve students are learning how to work on telephone poles at the New York Trade School. Black and white photograph with some minor damage to the image in the bottom left hand corner.

New York Trade School Administration [1]

A group of administrators from the New York Trade School posing in front of a building. Black and white photograph.

New York Trade School Administration [2]

A group of administrators from the New York Trade School pose in front of the school's building on East 67th Street. The photograph is black and white.

New York Trade School Administration [3]

This black and white photograph features two administrators positioned at desk.

New York Trade School Administration [4]

A New York Trade School administrator is posed for a formal photo. Black and white photograph.

New York Trade School Administration [5]

This New York Trade School administrator is posed in front of a wall plaque dedicated to the founder of the school. Photograph is black and white.

Students working in a class at the New York Trade School

A group of four students are working in a classroom at the New York Trade School while a professor looks on.

Students Working in Carpentry Shop at the New York Trade School

This black and white photograph shows students at work benches in part of the carpentry workshop at the New York Trade School. Beyond the benches two students can be seen working on framing in the rear of the classroom.