Estimating Optimal Level of Taxation for Growth Maximization in Asia

What level of tax revenue in GDP is suitable for a country to maximize the growth rate in Asia? To address this question, this paper estimates the optimal size of taxes which maximizes growth rate, using Scully and quadratic models, from the unbalanced panel data of 32 Asian countries. Both methods approve that tax revenue around 18 percent of GDP maximizes the growth rate. However, quadratic model provides more consistent result than the Scully model. Most importantly, the findings clearly show the existence of inverse U-shaped relationship between taxes and growth.

Nutrition and the Economics of Swine Management

Current methods of formulating animal rations lead to excess nutrient excretion which can potentially lead to excess manure nutrients and an increase in economic costs. These methods do not recognize the impact of diminishing returns. The objective is to simultaneously optimize feed ration composition and replacement. The results, when compared against results from a survey of feed companies, indicate that using a profit maximization rather than live weight growth maximization criterion targets nutrients to an animal's actual needs and, hence, fewer nutrients are excreted and higher returns for producers are obtained.

A Bioenergetics Analysis of Diel Vertical Migration by Kokanee Salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka

Diel vertical migration of fishes is probably a result of the combined effects of several selective forces, including predator avoidance, foraging efficiency, and bioenergetic efficiency. We considered both foraging efficiency and energetic efficiency as a combined effect which we called growth maximization. The importance of growth maximization as a selective force was evaluated with a bioenergetics-based model to estimate growth rates of various migration scenarios of kokanee salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka. Environmental parameters (temperature and zooplankton distributions) in the model were obtained from a North Carolina reservoir with an established population of kokanee. The simulations demonstrated that vertical migrations can be energetically advantageous when kokanee and their prey are thermally segregated and that ontogenetic and seasonal differences in the optimal migration strategy should be expected. The general rule for vertical migration as determined from the simulations is to feed where net energy intake is maximized and then reside when not feeding where energetic costs are minimized and food is digested to the point that consumption during the next feeding period is not limited by the amount of undigested food remaining in the stomach. Data obtained from vertical gill nets and hydroacoustics were compared with model predictions.