Political crisis and suspension of duty-free access in Madagascar : assessment of impacts on the garment industry

The export-oriented garment industry in Madagascar has displayed robust growth, thus both contributing to the economy and creating formal employment opportunities. However, it experienced a critical situation after the political turmoil that occurred in 2009. Our investigation using the trade data demonstrates that suspension of duty-free access to the US market (AGOA) resulting from the turmoil had a greater impact on exports, 64%–78% reduction, than the turmoil itself. Our original factory-level data demonstrates that AGOA suspension increased the probability of closure by 57.8% for the factories supplying exclusively to US market, and reduced 6405 jobs for low-skilled positions during the post turmoil period. The factory-level adverse impacts are much less than those on export value at the industry level because of the maintained duty-free access to EU, which has provided an alternative market. It suggests that if EU also had cancelled duty-free access, adverse impacts would have been enormous. Given the general pattern of comparative advantage in low-income countries, unplanned cancellation of duty-free access for them hurts labor-intensive industries and low-skilled workers.

Did the least developed countries benefit from duty-free quota-free access to the Japanese market?

Countries classified as least developed countries (LDCs) were granted duty-free quota-free (DFQF) access to the Japanese market. This study examines the impact of that access and finds that, in general, it did not benefit the LDCs. The construction of concordance tables for Japan's 9 digit tariff line codes enables analysis at the tariff line level, which overcomes a possible aggregation bias. The exogenous nature of DFQF access mitigates the endogeneity problem. Various estimation models, including the triple difference estimator, show that in general the LDCs did not benefit from DFQF access to the Japanese market. The total value of imports from LDCs has been increasing, but the imports granted both zero tariffs and substantial preference margins over non-LDC countries were not successful. These findings suggest that for LDCs the tariff barrier is a relatively small obstacle: Trade is affected more strongly by other factors, such as infrastructure, nontariff barriers, geographic distance, and cultural differences.

Probable economic effect redesignation of certain articles from certain countries as eligible for duty-free treatment under the U.S. generalized system of preferences : report to the President on investigation no. 332-284

Mode of access: Internet.

Including airport duty-free shopping in arriving passenger simulation and the opportunities this presents

Simulating passenger flows within airports is very important as it can provide an indication of queue lengths, bottlenecks, system capacity and overall level of service. To date, visual simulation tools such as agent based models have focused on processing formalities such as check-in, and not incorporate discretionary activities such as duty-free shopping. As airport retail contributes greatly to airport revenue generation, but also has potentially detrimental effects on facilitation efficiency benchmarks, this study developed a simplistic simulation model which captures common duty-free purchasing opportunities, as well as high-level behaviours of passengers. It is argued that such a model enables more realistic simulation of passenger facilitation, and provides a platform for simulating real-time revenue generation as well as more complex passenger behaviours within the airport. Simulations are conducted to verify the suitability of the model for inclusion in the international arrivals process for assessing passenger flow and infrastructure utilization.

An economic case for providing free access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive people in South Australia

Background As financial constraints can be a barrier to accessing HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART), we argue for the removal of copayment requirements from HIV medications in South Australia. Methods Using a simple mathematical model informed by available behavioural and biological data and reflecting the HIV epidemiology in South Australia, we calculated the expected number of new HIV transmissions caused by persons who are not currently on ART compared with transmissions for people on ART. The extra financial investment required to cover the copayments to prevent an HIV infection was compared with the treatment costs saved due to averting HIV infections. Results It was estimated that one HIV infection is prevented per year for every 31.4 persons (median, 24.0–42.7 interquartile range (IQR)) who receive treatment. By considering the incremental change in costs and outcomes of a change in program from the current status quo, it would cost the health sector $17 860 per infection averted (median, $13 651–24 287 IQR) if ART is provided as a three-dose, three-drug combination without requirements for user-pay copayments. Conclusions The costs of removing copayment fees for ART are less than the costs of treating extra HIV infections that would result under current conditions. Removing the copayment requirement for HIV medication would be cost-effective from a governmental perspective.

TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS THE BEST CHORAL REPERTOIRE FROM THE GREAT COMPOSERS: MASTERWORKS AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE, FREE ACCESS FROM THE CHORAL PUBLIC DOMAIN LIBRARY

Studying the choral works of the great composers of the past is always a worthy endeavor. For those aspiring to create an excellent high school choral program, it is critical to a student's musical foundation and heritage. Choral educators who teach high school are often bombarded with the most recently published new choral works, when they have a trove of excellent pieces right at their fingertips through websites like the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), all available at no cost. This project will explore the pedagogical reasons why this canon of public domain choral music should be taught at the high school level. A thorough guide to CPDL and an anthology of 200 works available on CPDL will provide the conductor with resources for programming this music. Though choral music in the public domain is free to all, publishers still publish this music and adhere copyright claims. This can create mistrust of legitimate editions on CPDL; why are they available at no cost when publishers are claiming copyright on similar editions? These issues will be thoroughly discussed in this project. For any given work on CPDL, there may be multiple editions available on the site. Choosing the right edition requires knowledge about basic editorial principles, especially for works written during the Renaissance period. A detailed discussion of these principles will provide the conductor with the tools needed to choose the best edition for his or her ensemble.

You have free access to this content 5.8 GHz full duplex amplitude shift keying retrodirective interrogator array

This article describes a practical demonstration of a complete full-duplex “amplitude shift keying (ASK)” retrodirective radio frequency identification (RFID) transceiver array.The interrogator incorporates a “retrodirective array (RDA)” with a dual-conversion phase conjugating architecture in order to achieve better performance than is possible with conventional RFID solutions. Here mixers phase conjugate the incoming signal and a carrier recovery circuit recovers incoming angle of arrival phase information of an encoded amplitude shift keyed signal. The resulting interrogator provides a receiver sensitivity level of -109 dBm. A four element square patch RDA gives a 3 dB automatic beam steering angle of acceptance of ±45°. When compared to an RFID system operating by conventional (non-retrodirective) means retrodirective action leads to improved range extension of up to 16 times at ±45°. Operator pointing accuracy requirements are also reduced due to automatic retrodirective self-pointing. These features significantly enhance deployment opportunities requiring long range low equivalent isotropic radiation power (EIRP) and/or RFID tagging of moving platforms. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:160–164, 2013; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.27258

Young adults' preferences and satisfaction levels in Duty-free shopping in airports

This study aims to explore and understand what young adults’ duty free shoppers (18-26 years old) want and are getting from travel retail shopping on airport environments and to evaluate their satisfaction levels with the service. It has important managerial contributions since it is an important target in a fast growing market. An online survey was conducted with 188 young adults and its results show that young adults’ are somewhat satisfied with the overall service on duty free stores mainly in what concerns quality of the products and physical evidence of the stores. Results also show that the majority of buyers within this segment are price driven and strongly influenced by promotions associated with price reductions, and do not seem very satisfied with respect to that. Keywords: Young

An Egalitarian Argument in Favour of Free Access to Healthcare and Rationing

La pensée égalitariste a traditionnellement promu l’idéal d’un système de santé universel, gratuit et accessible à tous les membres de la société. J’appuie cette position en répliquant tout d’abord à la critique qui prétend que les riches tireraient plus d’avantages que les pauvres de la gratuité du système de santé. J’ouvre ensuite la réflexion sur ce qui me semble être un enjeu crucial pour l’avenir des systèmes modernes de santé : le rationnement de l’offre. Cette idée ne plaît généralement pas à la population, aux décideurs politiques et à de nombreux égalitaristes. Je considère pourtant que les principaux arguments invoqués contre le rationnement sont incohérents ou faussement égalitaristes. La gratuité des services de santé n’est pas incompatible avec la limitation de l’offre publique.