Neither simple average nor import-weighted average tariff indexes are ideal measures of tariff barriers. In this paper, we propose a generalized trade restrictiveness index (GTRI) that extends Feenstra’s (1995) tariff restrictiveness index (TRI) by relaxing the crucial assumption of a small...

This paper investigates the asymptotic stability of a class of impulsive high-order neural networks, which can be considered as an expansion of Hopfield neural networks. By employing Lyapunov functions and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, sufficient conditions that guarantee the global...

China has made improving the thermal efficiencies of its coal-fired power plants a national priority. Official data show that the average thermal efficiency was enhanced from 31.3% in 2000 to 33.2% in 2005 and 36.9% in 2010. This paper aims to assess the validity of China's claimed improvement,...

Let A1, A2,..., An be events of a given probability space, and [nu]n be the number of events among them which occur. Some estimates are given of P([nu]n [greater-or-equal, slanted] j) by means of the binomial moments.

Using the goal of a 10% reduction of SO2 emissions in China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) as a case study, this paper analyses how environmental goals are used in a large country with multi-level governments and insufficient rule of law. After the central government set up the goal, the...

Goals on absolute emissions and intensity play key roles in CO2 mitigation. However, like cap-and-trade policies with price uncertainty, they suffer from significant uncertainty in abatement costs. This article examines whether an indicator could be established to complement CO2 mitigation goals...

The notion of diversity is an issue that is of relevance in several contexts. This paper provides an axiomatic approach to the measurement of diversity. We characterize two nested classes of ordinal measures of diversity and an important member of these classes.

In this paper we axiomatically characterize two recursive procedures for defining a social group.The first procedure starts with the set of all individuals who define themselves as members of the social group, while the starting point of the second procedure is the set of all individuals who are...

A number of authors have proposed theories of efficiency wages to explain the behaviour of aggregate labor markets. According to these theories, firms do not adjust wages downwards despite available unemployed job seekers, because lower wages would induce hired workers to shirk more often, which...

This paper presents the numerical results of the comparative and sensitive analysis for different parabolic trough solar collector (PTC) systems under different operating conditions, expecting to optimize the PTC system of better comprehensive characteristics and optical performance or to...