Was the Federal Reserve Fettered? Devaluation Expectations in the 1932 Monetary Expansion

A key question about the Great Depression is whether expansionary monetary policy in the United States would have led to a loss of confidence in the U. S. commitment to the gold standard. This paper uses the $1 billion expansionary open market operation undertaken in the spring of 1932 as a crucial case study of the link between monetary expansion and expectations of devaluation. Data on forward exchange rates are used to measure expectations of devaluation during this episode. We find little evidence that the large monetary expansion led investors to believe that the United States would devalue. The financial press and the records of the Federal Reserve also show little evidence of expectations of devaluation or fear of a speculative attack. We find that a flawed model of the effects of monetary policy and conflict among the twelve Federal Reserve banks, rather than concern about the gold standard, led the Federal Reserve to suspend the expansionary policy in the summer of 1932.

Does Nationality Influence Neutrality? The Ethical Standards and Expectations of International Mediators

This Comment examines how a mediator’s nationality can influence the mediating parties’ and communities’ perceptions of his neutrality and how cultural differences play a role in the ethical expectations of a cross-cultural mediator. Part I discusses the role of neutrality in cross-cultural mediation and how neutrality is required and interpreted by codified ethical standards for mediators in the United States and in several international organizations. Part II discusses the role of culture in mediation, how culture influences ethical expectations, and the case studies of George Mitchell, a mediator in Ireland and Israel-Palestine, and Lakhdar Brahimi, a mediator in Syria. Mitchell and Brahimi are examples of mediators who worked with cultures that had different ethical expectations of the mediator’s role than they were accustomed to in their respective cultures. They both resigned in frustration and experienced great difficulty and public ridicule during their terms. Part III analyzes Mitchell and Brahimi’s trials and failures in their mediations, and provides suggestions for mediators involved in cross-cultural mediations. Through this analysis this Comment clarifies the role of neutrality in mediation and how a mediator’s nationality influences how mediating parties and their communities perceive his neutrality

Vote expectations and pre-electoral tariff cuts in Flemish municipalities

Using data covering 3 election moments (1988-2000) for 294 Flemish municipalities we examine whether the decision to cut tariffs before elections depends on the government’s expectations of staying into office. Election moments are central to both the political budget cycle literature and the strategic debt models. The combination of both theories could suggest that, at least in theory, both winning and loosing governments seem to benefit from pre-electoral tariff reductions and as such we expect to find a great many municipalities to engage into tariff cuts. The dataset however shows this is clearly not the case. We argue that the differences in the fiscal policy reaction of governments facing elections might have to do with their expectations of staying into office. In our analysis we make the decision to change tariffs dependent on the expected vote percentage of the government party (parties). As we do not possess reliable ex ante data on the perceived re-election probability, we estimate a vote-function to predict the percentage of votes. Our analysis shows that tariff reductions in election years are more prone when governments expect not to reach majority again in next elections

Vote expectations and pre-electoral tariff cuts in Flemish municipalities

Using data covering 3 election moments (1988-2000) for 294 Flemish municipalities we examine whether the decision to cut tariffs before elections depends on the government’s expectations of staying into office. Election moments are central to both the political budget cycle literature and the strategic debt models. The combination of both theories could suggest that, at least in theory, both winning and loosing governments seem to benefit from preelectoral tariff reductions and as such we expect to find a great many municipalities to engage into tariff cuts. The dataset however shows this is clearly not the case. We argue that the differences in the fiscal policy reaction of governments facing elections might have to do with their expectations of staying into office. In our analysis we make the decision to change tariffs dependent on the expected vote percentage of the government party (parties). As we do not possess reliable ex ante data on the perceived re-election probability, we estimate a vote-function to predict the percentage of votes. Our analysis shows that tariff reductions in election years are more prone when governments expect not to reach majority again in next elections

Special education GOALS program : a case study of great expectations

vi, 149 leaves ; 29 cm. --Accountability to the students in special education classrooms is critical and in today's uncertain political climate it becomes mandatory to ensure that these programs are successful. How then is it possible to evaluate these programs to determine whether or not they are successful, given their complexity? Specifically, would an evaluation of the GOALS (Generating Occupations Academics and Living Skills) program, a special education classroom designed for students considered EMH (Educable Mentally Handicapped) demonstrate that the program was successful? An evaluation of this program was undertaken using triangulation and the hermeneutic phenomenological human science research method. In this particular triangulation, multiple observers of the same object are used: the "object" in this case being the ex-students from the GOALS program. Interviews were conducted with four of the students who passed through the program; interviews were conducted with significant others of these students; and research on successful practices employed in special education classrooms was conducted and the research was compared to the practices employed in the GOALS program. Finally, the ex-students are narratively researched by the author as teacher, in the stories written. These narratives are presented in order to speak to "the groundless ground of ambiguity that marks the human condition, a site of vibrant original difficulty, at times agonizingly difficult" and the "question of how life together can go on in such a way that even in difficulties, new life is possible" (Aoki, 1996). The author determined that the students leaving the program enjoy a high quality of life, and they consider themselves successful. They appreciated the programming provided in the classroom and the relationship they had with the teacher in the program. The significant others of the students interviewed felt the relationship with the teacher was the most important aspect of the program. The research indicates that the teachers in GOALS are using special education best practices successfully in the program. As a result of these findings the author finds that GOALS is a successful, meaningful program

Secondary implementation of interactive engagement teaching techniques: Choices and challenges in a Gulf Arab context

We report on a "Collaborative Workshop Physics" instructional strategy to deliver the first IE calculus-based physics course at Khalifa University, UAE. To these authors' knowledge, this is the first such course on the Arabian Peninsula using PER-based instruction. A brief history of general university and STEM teaching in the UAE is given. We present this secondary implementation (SI) as a case study of a novel context and use it to determine if PER-based instruction can be successfully implemented far from the cultural context of the primary developer and, if so, how might such SIs differ from SIs within the US. With these questions in view, a pre-reform baseline of MPEX, FCI, course exam and English language proficiency data are used to design a hybrid implementation of Cooperative Group Problem Solving. We find that for students with high English proficiency, normalized gain on FCI improves from = 0.16+/-0.10 pre- to = 0.47+/-0.08 post-reform, indicating successful SI. We also find that is strongly modulated by language proficiency and discuss likely causes. Regardless of language skill, problem-solving skill is also improved and course DFW rates drop from 50% to 24%. In particular, we find evidence in post-reform student interviews that prior classroom experiences, and not broader cultural expectations about education, are the more significant cause of expectations at odds with the classroom norms of well-functioning PER-based instruction. This result is evidence that PER-based innovations can be implemented across great changes in cultural context, provided that the method is thoughtfully adapted in anticipation of context and culture-specific student expectations. This case study should be valuable for future reforms at other institutions, both in the Gulf Region and developing world, facing similar challenges involving SI of PER-based instruction outside the US.Comment: v1: 28 pages, 9 figures. v2: 19 pages, 6 figures, includes major reorganization and revisions based on anonymous peer review. v3: 19 pages, 6 figures, minor revisions based on anonymous peer revie

Consumers’ perceptions of organic food processing – first insights in milk and juice processing

Little research has been done on consumers’ expectations and preferences related to processing technologies. This is also the case for processed organic food. Nevertheless, consumers may have specific expectations of processing in organic food. Thus, this study explores consumers’ knowledge, expectations, and opinions of processing technologies in organic foods. Fo- cus group discussions were conducted with occasional buyers of organic products. For organic products, partic- ipants preferred physical technologies over thermal tech- nologies, because ‘nothing is added to or changed the product’. However, they showed a great uncertainty re- garding the complexity and opacity of the topic. Thus, communicating processing technologies in a transparent way is crucial to ensure a further growth of and trust in the organic market

Shorting the Future: Capital Markets and the Launch of the British Electrical Industry, 1880-1892

Drawing on a comprehensive data set consisting of dividend payments, security prices, and stock exchange disclosures, this paper argues that, contrary to common interpretation, potentially damaging government regulations imposed in 1882 cannot explain the retarded development of the nascent British electrical industry in its first decade. Instead, as informed opinion at the time maintained, wildly inflated expectations had by the spring of 1882 driven the publicly-traded security prices of putative electrical enterprises to manifestly unsustainable levels. When initial demand and operating profits failed to meet these grossly extravagant expectations, �irrational exuberance� quickly turned to equally undisciplined pessimism in a classic case of stock market boom and bust - with predictable consequences, most notably a collapse of subsequent investment and development at a time of great technological ferment, when durable early-mover advantages were being established among electrical manufacturers globally. This debilitating sequence of market boom and bust was further exacerbated by the fact that during the brief boom surprisingly little money was invested in the promising technologies that were available. Technological rather than regulatory risk was the dominant factor in the 1882 electrical debacle, with long lasting consequences.

Exact likelihood computation for nonlinear DSGE models with heteroskedastic innovations

Phenomena such as the Great Moderation have increased the attention of macro-economists towards models where shock processes are not (log-)normal. This paper studies a class of discrete-time rational expectations models where the variance of exogenous innovations is subject to stochastic regime shifts. We first show that, up to a second-order approximation using perturbation methods, regime switching in the variances has an impact only on the intercept coefficients of the decision rules. We then demonstrate how to derive the exact model likelihood for the second-order approximation of the solution when there are as many shocks as observable variables. We illustrate the applicability of the proposed solution and estimation methods in the case of a small DSGE model. JEL Classification: E0, C63DSGE Models, Regime switching, second-order approximation, time-varying volatility