Wintrobe's (1990Wintrobe's ( , 1998 dictatorship model is adapted to examine the impacts of economic sanctions on an autocrat. It is shown that the dictator's choice of the level of power, and the quantities of loyalty and repression used as inputs in the production of power, are affected by the type and magnitude of sanctions and by the impact of sanctions on the political effectiveness of opposition groups. Sanctions have direct and indirect effects on the prices of loyalty and repression as well as potentially generating rents that might be captured either by the dictator or by the opposition.

Intumescent coatings, mainly composed of ammonium polyphosphate, pentaerythritol and melamine, are widely used in the field of fire protection of steel structures. The objective of this study was to investigate how the presence of two different inorganic fillers (titanium dioxide and mineral fibres) will affect the fire performance of an acrylic-based intumescent coating. In both cases, it was observed that the inorganic filler enabled improvement of the fire-protective behaviour of intumescent paints, maintaining their performance for a longer time. The mode of action was attributed to reinforcement of the char due to the presence of the fillers.

A two-sector model of the destination economy is developed in order to determine the distributional effects of immigration. In one sector, native and immigrant workers are substitutes in production, while in the other they are complements. The two industries are assumed to draw immigrants from the same pool, whose size is exogenous to employers and set by politicians. A political market for an endogenous immigration quota arises as a consequence of the conflicting interests of the two native worker groups, as well as those of lobbying groups organized along non-labor market lines. A reduced form expression for the equilibrium quota is derived. The size of the quota is determined by the levels of product and labor demand in the two industries, lobbying costs of native workers, the degree of substitutability or complementarity in production between native and immigrant labor, the proportions in which the immigrant workforce is divided between the two industries, the wage elasticities of demand for native and immigrant labor, the influence of groups opposed to immigration on non-economic grounds, and the size of the immigrant population in the destination country. The model is tested using annual data on employment visas issued by U.S. authorities. It is found that political pressure for tighter immigration controls is dominant during periods of economic expansion, while technological progress, a growing immigrant community and a larger share of immigrants from Europe lead to looser immigration restrictions.J.E.L. classification codes: D72, F22, J61

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