This paper uses competitive equilibrium theory to analyze the economic efficiency of international “fair trade” between ethical consumers and low-income producers. The main analytical innovations are the reconsideration of the labor supply decision in a state of Keynesian involuntary unemployment as a choice between work and, not leisure, but inferior production activities; and the application of Pigou and Robinson's theory of employer monopsony, leading to a focus on the “local fair trade organization”, which has a similar effect to a labor union or minimum wage in eliminating monopsony rents. A price premium is found neither necessary nor sufficient for fair trade, and in a state of involuntary unemployment a premium does not lead to inefficient allocation. The conclusion is that fair trade improves welfare by strengthening competition for labor, and should be encouraged as a complementary element of an enlightened trade liberalization policy.fair trade, efficiency, involuntary unemployment, monopsony,

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The GridPP Collaboration is building a UK computing Grid for particle physics, as part of the international effort towards computing for the Large Hadron Collider. The project, funded by the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), began in September 2001 and completed its first phase 3 years later. GridPP is a collaboration of approximately 100 researchers in 19 UK university particle physics groups, the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils and CERN, reflecting the strategic importance of the project. In collaboration with other European and US efforts, the first phase of the project demonstrated the feasibility of developing, deploying and operating a Grid-based computing system to meet the UK needs of the Large Hadron Collider experiments. This note describes the work undertaken to achieve this goal. S Supplementary documentation is available from stacks.iop.org/JPhysG/32/N1. References to sections S1, S2.1, etc are to sections within this online supplement.

Abstract

While mainstream policies may be beyond improvement in the enchanted ›op-timizable‹ world, Post Keynesians have to manage without a magic wand in our uncertain world. We discuss the alternative policies proposed in the recent Post Keynesian literature and argue that control of interest rates is too imperfect for such policies to be feasible in general, although they provide useful guidelines and may be successful in favourable circumstances. Consequently, the question of credibility is irrelevant, if this means whether policy-makers will honour their commitment to an unfeasible ideal target. Th e right question is whether policy is convincing enough to make the conventional state of expectation (and the related interest rate) consistent with full employment. It is all a matter of confi dence. Th e basic principles involved in such an approach to monetary policy are discussed.

Keynes's principle of effective demand conceives competitive equilibrium in terms of the choices of entrepreneurs, investors and consumers, rather than of the optimal allocation of factors of production. In The General Theory, effective demand is distinguished from aggregate demand and from income, expected or realised, and there is no suggestion that equilibrium means the convergence of expectations. Reconsideration of Keynes's use of time and equilibrium periods leads to the conclusion that he treats employment as in continuous equilibrium, at the point of effective demand, determined by the state of expectation, the correctness of which is strictly irrelevant. The nature of the equilibrium represented by the point of effective demand is here described, not in terms of the multiplier, but in terms of the continuous equilibrium of supply and demand in short-term forward markets. This reading is faithful to Keynes's conception of aggregate demand as dependent upon the expectations of entrepreneurs, and it resolves the meaning of his 'long-period employment.' Formal appendices identify the differences between Keynes and Walras and the nature of the multiplier. The paper concludes that the Keynesian cross and 'Swedish' analysis should be abandoned, and the Walrasian conception recognised as only the limiting case of general competitive equilibrium in a monetary economy.

Abstract. The Cambridge CFD (computational fluid dynamics) Web Portal (CamCFDWP) has been set up in the Cambridge eScience Centre to provide transparent integration of CFD applications to non-computer scientist end users who have access to the Cambridge CFD Grid. Besides the basic services provided as other web portals such as authentication, job submission and file transfer through a web browser, the CamCFDWP makes use of the XML (extensible markup language) techniques which make it possible to easily share datasets between different groups of users.

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