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This study investigates how agricultural policy distortions cause countries to deviate from optimal production levels, thereby widening agricultural productivity gaps both within and between nations. Using the Leontief production function under a comparative framework, we examine how country-specific national endowments shape agricultural policies, bringing about varied misallocations and distinct agricultural productivity gaps across countries. Developing countries typically misallocate excessive labor to farmland, resulting in small-scale farming, whereas developed countries often allocate surplus capital to farmland, favoring large-scale operations. This divergence in resource allocation not only widens agricultural productivity gaps within nations but also amplifies them between developing and developed countries.

This paper studies the interaction of market concentration and licensing royalty for an innovator following RAND terms under an asymmetric oligopoly in which the technology transfer takes place from the innovator to firms having asymmetric cost. Taking cost variance as a proxy to evaluate market concentration, this paper shows that the nexus of market concentration and licensing royalty is highly sensitive to the curvature of market demand. When market demand is concave (convex) to the origin, the nexus of market concentration and royalty rate is positive (negative), whereas in the case of linear demand the royalty is independent of market concentration. As a result, market concentration and market demand crucially affect the licensing royalty.

Purpose Third-party payments were first introduced by the US firm PayPal. Soon after, China developed a localized version of PayPal – Alipay, which became the main payment method for online transactions in China. Currently, the number of global transactions conducted with Alipay is three times that of PayPal. In addition to online transactions, Alipay also integrates with mobile payment applications to provide offline services, making physical transactions more convenient for users. The authors, in this paper, aim to address how third-party payments technology seems to be playing out an innovation-imitation-catch up story. Design/methodology/approach Krugman (1966) proposed a general-equilibrium model of product cycles under perfect competition where high-tech products are innovated by an “advanced” country and imitated by a “developing” country. The competition between US–China online technologies (e.g. third-party payments) seems to be playing out this innovation-imitation-catch up story. Findings The USA has already put a lot of effort into the operations of credit cards and checks, as well as other infrastructure such as human resources and installation of relevant systems. China lacks the infrastructure for payments made with credit cards and checks, and therefore China’s opportunity cost of moving directly from cash transactions to third-party payments is much less than that of the USA, which is why China holds follower advantage in third-party payment markets. Originality/value The third-party payment technologies appear to be a good example of the argument made by Krugman (1966) regarding the US–China competition on advanced technology, which states that an imitator can catch up with an inventor when the former acquires comparative advantages against the latter.

The paper employs a duopolistic model to analyze the optimal environmental policy for an exporting country given that the exporting firms may emit local pollution and transboundary pollution to the neighboring countries. We find that the optimal environmental policy for the exporting country is to levy tax on firms that only emit local pollution; whereas it is optimal to subsidize (tax) the exporting firms that may cause local and transboundary pollution in the circumstance that the marginal damage of transboundary pollution is relatively large (small). Furthermore, the importing country should impose a higher tax on the higher-cost exporting firm if the higher-cost exporting firm emits pollution that causes relatively smaller marginal damage to the importing country.

This paper analyzes how market concentration and pollution pattern affect the environmental policy in an asymmetric oligopoly. When the environmental damage function is linear, whether polluting firms are aggregate or dispersed, it does not affect the optimal environment policy. However, when the environmental damage function is quadratic, aggregated firms should face a higher pollution tax than dispersed firms as long as the market demand function is not too convex. Moreover, the pollution tax for aggregated firms decreases (increases) with a higher market concentration when the demand function is convex (concave). However, the pollution tax for dispersed firms increases (decreases) with a higher market concentration and a relatively large damage parameter when the demand function is convex (concave). Therefore, the pollution pattern and market concentration crucially affect the optimal environmental policy.

在同時有區域性污染及跨界污染的情況下，本文利用Brander and Spencer（1985）的三國兩廠商出口模型來分析開放經濟體系下出口國之最適環境政策與進口國的最適關稅政策。本文發現：一、若本國遭受外國排放的跨界污染，此污染造成本國環境的邊際損害相對小（大），則本國應對本國出口商課環境稅（補貼）；二、若本國對外國排放的跨界污染，其邊際損害相對大（小）於外國對本國排放的跨界污染的邊際損害時，則本國應對本國廠商課環境稅（補貼），而外國應對其廠商補貼（課稅）；三、進口國課徵之關稅大小不但取決於出口廠商的生產成本，也取決兩出口廠商排放區域污染的邊際損害、以及跨界污染的邊際損害。

本研究利用一個Cournot數量競爭之寡占模型，探討環境污染塑式與市場集中度對一國環境政策之影響。本文發現當污染損害函數為二次式時，其結果與污染損害函數為一次式時截然不同。污染損害函數為一次式的情形下，環境政策並不會因廠商為聚集型廠商或是分散型廠商而有所不同。然而，污染損害函數為二次式的情形下，當市場需求為線性時，聚集型廠商所面對的最適污染稅率會大於分散型廠商所面對的。此外，當需求曲線凸向（凹向）原點時，若廠商為「聚集型廠商」，則產業集中程度愈高，最適污染稅率愈小（大），若廠商為「分散型廠商」且污染損害係數相對較大，則市場集中度愈高，最適污染稅率愈大（小）。本文結果顯示污染損害的函數型式與市場集中度對最適環境政策具有關鍵性影響。

Poloxamers are negatively temperature-sensitive hydrogels and their hydrophilic groups interact with water molecules at lower temperatures (liquid phase) while their hydrophobic groups interact more strongly with increases in temperature causing gelation. To investigate the factors affecting the rheological properties of poloxamers, various parameters including different poloxamer P407 concentrations, poloxamers P407/P188 blending ratios and additives were examined. The results presented a clear trend of decreasing gelling temperature/time when P407 was at higher concentrations. Moreover, the addition of P188 enhanced the gelling temperature regardless of poloxamer concentration. Polysaccharides and their derivatives have been widely used as components of hydrogel and we found that alginic acid (AA) or carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) reduced the gelling temperature of poloxamers. In addition, AA-containing poloxamer promoted cell proliferation and both AA -and CMC-containing poloxamer hydrogels reduced cell migration. This study investigated the intriguing characteristics of poloxamer-based hydrogel, providing useful information to compounding an ideal and desired thermo-sensitive hydrogel for further potential clinical applications such as development of sprayable anti-adhesive barrier, wound-healing dressings or injectable drug-delivery system for cartilage repair.

Abstract Context Extremely early age at menarche, also called precocious puberty, has been associated with various cardiometabolic traits, but their shared heritability remains unclear. Objectives This work aimed to identify new shared genetic variants and their pathways for age at menarche and cardiometabolic traits and to investigate the influence of central precocious puberty on childhood cardiometabolic traits. Methods Using the conjunction false discovery rate method, this study analyzed genome-wide association study data from the menarche-cardiometabolic traits among 59 655 females of Taiwanese ancestry and systemically investigated pleiotropy between age at menarche and cardiometabolic traits. To support the novel hypertension link, we used the Taiwan Puberty Longitudinal Study (TPLS) to investigate the influence of precocious puberty on childhood cardiometabolic traits. Results We discovered 27 novel loci, with an overlap between age at menarche and cardiometabolic traits, including body fat and blood pressure. Among the novel genes discovered, SEC16B, CSK, CYP1A1, FTO, and USB1 are within a protein interaction network with known cardiometabolic genes, including traits for obesity and hypertension. These loci were confirmed through demonstration of significant changes in the methylation or expression levels of neighboring genes. Moreover, the TPLS provided evidence regarding a 2-fold higher risk of early-onset hypertension that occurred in girls with central precocious puberty. Conclusion Our study highlights the usefulness of cross-trait analyses for identifying shared etiology between age at menarche and cardiometabolic traits, especially early-onset hypertension. The menarche-related loci may contribute to early-onset hypertension through endocrinological pathways.