In the last fifty years, many countries have moved toward broad-based and flat-rate tax systems such as the value-added tax (VAT) and the flat-rate income tax. The main rationale for introducing a broad-based and flat-rate tax system is the belief that such a system increases the incentive to work, save, and invest, leading to a higher aggregate income and a higher standard of living. Yet, empirical evidence on the actual effectiveness of broad-based and flat-rate taxes is very limited. This dissertation combines novel methodologies with newly available data to provide causal estimates of the economic effects of broad-based and flat-rate tax systems. The first essay analyzes the impact of the flat tax reforms on GDP per capita and its main drivers. I identify 8 Eastern and Central European countries that adopted flat tax systems between 1994 and 2005 and apply synthetic control methods to estimate their counterfactual trajectory of GDP per worker in the absence of a flat tax. I find positive impacts in all 8 countries, with 7 out of 8 cases significant at the conventional level. The second essay estimates the efficiency gains of adopting a VAT in a worldwide sample of countries using synthetic control methods. I find that the VAT has, on average, positive and economically meaningful impact on economic efficiency. However, I find that this result is driven by richer countries only. There is no significant impact of the VAT on poorer countries. I find similar results when estimating the impact of the VAT on total factor productivity and capital stock per worker â"u20ac"u201c two important channels through which a VAT affects economic efficiency. The third essay estimates the causal impact of a VAT on productivity, capital accumulation, and input cost using Regression Discontinuity Design and firm-level data from France. I find no significant impact of a VAT on firms' productivity or input cost. However, I find some evidence that the VAT increases firms' capital accumulation. In addition, I also find that the impact of a VAT is heterogeneous across different sectors of the economy. / Bibek Adhikari

A two-mass model with a spring and a damper in the vertical direction, accounting for vertical translational motion and a torsional spring and a damper connecting the rotational motion of two masses is used to simulate the dynamics of a tennis ball as it comes into contact with a flat surface. The model is supposed to behave as a rigid body in the horizontal direction. The model is used to predict contact of the ball with the ground and applies from start of contact to end of contact. The springs and dampers for both the vertical and the rotational direction are linear. Differential equations of motion for the two-mass system are formulated in a plane. Two scenarios of contact are considered: Slip and no-slip. In the slip case, Coulomb??s law relates the tangential contact force acting on the outer mass with the normal contact force, whereas in the no-slip case, a kinematic constraint relates the horizontal coordinate of the center of mass of the system with the rotational coordinate of the outer mass. Incorporating these constraints in the differential equations of motion and applying initial conditions, the equations are solved for kinematics and kinetics of these two different scenarios by application of the methods for the solutions of second-order linear differential equations. Experimental data for incidence and rebound kinematics of the tennis ball with incidence zero spin, topspin and backspin is available. The incidence angles in the data range from 17 degrees up to 70 degrees. Simulations using the developed equations are performed and for some specific ratios of inner and outer mass and mass moments of inertia, along with the spring-damper coefficients, theoretical predictions for the kinematics of rebound agree well with the experimental data. In many cases of incidence, the simulations predict transition from sliding to rolling during the contact, which is in accordance with the results obtained from available experimental measurements conducted on tennis balls. Thus the two-mass model provides a satisfactory approximation of the tennis ball dynamics during contact.

An m charge in the n dimensional Euclidean space is a linear functional acting on m dimensional polyhedral chains and satisfying the following continuity condition. The value of the linear functional approaches zero on chains whose normal masses are bounded and whose flat norms asymptotically vanish. Our main theorem relates m charges to pairs of continuous differential forms. Luzin's theorem states that every measurable function on the line is the derivative of a continuous, almost everywhere differentiable function. We show this can be improved in several dimensions. Finally we prove that a compact subset C of the n dimensional Euclidean space does not support the distributional divergence of a bounded measurable vector field if and only if C has vanishing (n-1) dimensional Hausdorff measure.

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According to Japan Mitsubishi Research Forecast, 2005 worldwide TFT LCD sale amount will reach 45.5 BillionsUSD. Display Research indicates 2004 Q3 TFT LCD display sales volume will exceed CRT Monitor sales volume and the growth of TFT LCD will be 50% per year. Taiwan TFT LCD sales amount exceeded Japan in 2001 Q4 and became the 2nd biggest TFT LCD manufacturing country in the world. Worldwide market share reached 36.6% in Q1 2003 for Taiwan. Comparing with 40.6% market share of Korea, it is 4 % difference less. In 2004, Taiwan market demands are expected to exceed Korea market demands, becoming the number 1 manufacturing country of TFT-LCD manufacturing. The TFT-LCD industry is the newly arisen one after semi-conductor industry in Taiwan and government has considered TFT-LCD as the core advantage industrial and expect to create 1 trillion NT dollars business in 2006 to become worldwide FDP research and development country.Under the current all TFT LCD panel makers for vertical & horiozon integration with key upstream component, Taiwan panel makers componet localization are expected to reach to 60%, which is going to fully integrate TFT LCD upstream and down stream together. Upstrem and down stream integration is the key strength of AMLCD. So to understand upstream and down stream is the most important subject for us. However, LCD module process is labor intensive business.All Taiwan panel makers moved LCD Module fab to Mainland to compete with competitors.Labor cost consisit of 6-8% of overall LCD manufacturing cost. Module is the most high labor cost process of LCF processes. That is the main strategy of Taiwan investor to set up module fab in Mainland China in the very beginning. As to Array and Cell process due to government policy, in near future there is no possibility to move to Mainland China, but in recent May 2004, Taiwan Government release the constraint investment of smaller size TFT LCD maker in Mainland Chian. Possibility of bigger size LCD investment in Mainland China will gradually increase given the more and more Taiwan makers of Monitor and Laptop manufacturing move to facitlies to mainland China. We foresee that Taiwan Panel Makers should consider global positioning and new business model as more global competion and Mainland China market emerging.How Taiwan maker can compete with japan and Korea? What is the next step for Taiwan LCD makers. We need to consider Taiwan Strait collaboration of TFT LCD business model and provide information for companies reference and suggestions.

Abstract The aim of the thesis is to examine equality ,efficiency and legitimacy of public housing policy in Singapore from 1960 to now. The major point of the research is to analyse equality of public housing policy in Singapore. A ruling party at every country operates policys to gain the advantageous position.Therefore, there is a normal condition in politics that a ruling party often fulfills some policy to ingratiate people. Althoug the PAP government obtain people¡¦s surport and enhance its legitimacy by the means of the Upgrading Programe ,the promise of public housing policy and other issues as the elections , it still takes equality and efficiency of public housing policy into consideration. There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter one is introduction and it illustrated the study motivation ,the study background ,the study goal ,document reversal and research methods. Chapter two is the public polciy theory adopted in this thesis. Chapter three is the backgroud of public housing policy in Singapore. Chapter four is the building of the laws and systems of public housing policy ing Singapore. Chapter five is the operation of public housing policy in Singapore. Chapter six evaluates public housing policy in Singapore. Chapter seven is the concluion.

A two-mass model with a spring and a damper in the vertical direction, accounting for vertical translational motion and a torsional spring and a damper connecting the rotational motion of two masses is used to simulate the dynamics of a tennis ball as it comes into contact with a flat surface. The model is supposed to behave as a rigid body in the horizontal direction. The model is used to predict contact of the ball with the ground and applies from start of contact to end of contact. The springs and dampers for both the vertical and the rotational direction are linear. Differential equations of motion for the two-mass system are formulated in a plane. Two scenarios of contact are considered: Slip and no-slip. In the slip case, Coulomb??s law relates the tangential contact force acting on the outer mass with the normal contact force, whereas in the no-slip case, a kinematic constraint relates the horizontal coordinate of the center of mass of the system with the rotational coordinate of the outer mass. Incorporating these constraints in the differential equations of motion and applying initial conditions, the equations are solved for kinematics and kinetics of these two different scenarios by application of the methods for the solutions of second-order linear differential equations. Experimental data for incidence and rebound kinematics of the tennis ball with incidence zero spin, topspin and backspin is available. The incidence angles in the data range from 17 degrees up to 70 degrees. Simulations using the developed equations are performed and for some specific ratios of inner and outer mass and mass moments of inertia, along with the spring-damper coefficients, theoretical predictions for the kinematics of rebound agree well with the experimental data. In many cases of incidence, the simulations predict transition from sliding to rolling during the contact, which is in accordance with the results obtained from available experimental measurements conducted on tennis balls. Thus the two-mass model provides a satisfactory approximation of the tennis ball dynamics during contact.

Laminar, two-dimensional, constant-property numerical simulations of flat tube heat exchanger devices operating in flow regimes in which self-sustained oscillations occur were performed. The unsteady flow regimes were transition flow regimes characterized by cyclic variations of flow parameters such as stream-wise or cross-stream velocity. A computer code was developed to perform the numerical simulations. Spatial discretization was based upon a Control Volume Finite Element Method (CVFEM). Temporal discretization was based upon a semi-implicit Runge-Kutta method. Double Cyclic conditions were used to limit the numerical domains to one repeating geometric module. Nine geometric domains representing flat tube heat exchanger devices were tested over a range of Reynolds numbers. A maximum Reynolds number (Re) of 2000 was established to keep the study within the transition range. For each domain, a critical Reynolds number (Re_crit) was found such that for Re < Re_crit the flow was steady, laminar flow and for Re > Re_crit the flow exhibited cyclic oscillations. For the cases tested, the variation in longitudinal pitch had little impact on the Re_crit value for a fixed transverse pitch. However, for a fixed longitudinal pitch, the Re_crit was increased for decreasing transverse pitch. The results demonstrate the importance of using unsteady simulation methods for these cases. Nusselt numbers predicted by the unsteady method were on the order of 65% higher than predicted by steady methods for the same Reynolds numbers. Data for required pumping power versus resultant Nusselt number were collected which showed four distinct operating regions for these devices spanning the low Reynolds number, steady flow region through the self-sustained oscillating flow region. Based on the data, the recommended operating region is the region of self-sustained oscillations as this region is characterized by the highest increase in Nusselt number per increase in required pumping power.

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A numerical model based on the discrete element (DE) method, for modelling the flow of irregularly shaped, smooth-surfaced particles in a 3-D system is presented. An existing DE program for modelling the contact between spherical particles in periodic space (without real walls or boundaries) was modified to model non-spherical particles in a system with containing walls. The new model was validated against analytical calculations of single particle movements and also experimentally against data from physical experiments using synthetic non-spherical particles at both a particle and bulk scale. It was then used to study the effect of particle shape on the flow behaviour of assemblies of particles with various aspect ratios discharging from a flat-bottomed hopper. The particles were modelled using the Multi-Sphere Method (MSM) which is based on the CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) technique for construction of complex solids by combining primitive shapes. In this method particle geometry is approximated using overlapping spheres of arbitrary diameter which are fixed in position relative to each other. The contact mechanics and contact detection method are the same as those used for spheres, except that translation and rotation of element spheres are calculated with respect to the motion of the whole particle. Numerical simulations of packing and flow of particles from a flat-bottomed hopper with a range of aspect ratios were performed to investigate the effect of particle shape on packing and flow behaviour of a particulate assembly. It was found that the particle shape influenced both bed structure and flow characteristics such as flow pattern, shear band strength and the occurrence of bridging. The flow of the bed of spherical particles was smoother than the flow of beds of elongated particles in which flow was fluctuating and there was more resistance to shear.