Global transmission of interest rates : monetary independence and the currency regime

The authors empirically study the sensitivity of local interest rates to international interest rates and how that sensitivity is affected by a country's choice of exchange rate regime. To establish the empirical regularities, they use a reduced-form empirical approach to compute both panel and single-country estimates of interest rate sensitivity for a large sample of developing and industrial economies between 1970 and 1999. When using the full sample, they find that: 1) Interest rates are typically lower in economies with fixed exchange rates than in those with flexible exchange rates. 2) More rigid currency regimes tend to exhibit higher transmission than more flexible regimes. In many cases in the 1990s, however, the authors cannot reject full transmission (a slope coefficient equal to 1), even for several countries with floating regimes. The data suggest an upward time trend in the degree to which domestic interest rates are sensitive to international capital movements and developing economies'increased financial integration with the rest of the world. As a result, country-specific estimates for the 1990s reveal few cases of less-than-full transmission of international interest rates to domestic rates, regardless of the currency regime. Country-specific results suggestthat only large industrial countries can (or choose to) benefit from independent monetary policy. During the 1990s, interest rates in European countries were fully sensitive to German interest rates but insensitive to U.S. interest rates.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Stabilization,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Exchange Rate: Shock Generator or Shock Absorber?

The paper re-assesses the impact of exchange rate regimes on macroeconomic performance. We test for the relationship between de jure and de facto exchange rate classifications on the one hand, and inflation, output growth and output volatility on the other. We find that, once high-inflation outliers are excluded from the sample, only hard exchange rate pegs are associated with lower inflation compared to the floating regime. There is no significant relationship between output growth and exchange rate regimes, confirming results from previous studies. De jure pegged regimes (broadly defined) are correlated with higher output volatility, but this relationship is reversed for the de facto classification. The last result points to a potential endogeneity problem present when the de facto classification is used in testing for the relationship between exchange rate behavior and macroeconomic performance.exchange rate regimes, inflation, output volatility

Bots, Seeds and People: Web Archives as Infrastructure

The field of web archiving provides a unique mix of human and automated agents collaborating to achieve the preservation of the web. Centuries old theories of archival appraisal are being transplanted into the sociotechnical environment of the World Wide Web with varying degrees of success. The work of the archivist and bots in contact with the material of the web present a distinctive and understudied CSCW shaped problem. To investigate this space we conducted semi-structured interviews with archivists and technologists who were directly involved in the selection of content from the web for archives. These semi-structured interviews identified thematic areas that inform the appraisal process in web archives, some of which are encoded in heuristics and algorithms. Making the infrastructure of web archives legible to the archivist, the automated agents and the future researcher is presented as a challenge to the CSCW and archival community

Lower body design of the ‘iCub’ a human-baby like crawling robot

The development of robotic cognition and a greater understanding of human cognition form two of the current greatest challenges of science. Within the RobotCub project the goal is the development of an embodied robotic child (iCub) with the physical and ultimately cognitive abilities of a 2frac12 year old human baby. The ultimate goal of this project is to provide the cognition research community with an open human like platform for understanding of cognitive systems through the study of cognitive development. In this paper the design of the mechanisms adopted for lower body and particularly for the leg and the waist are outlined. This is accompanied by discussion on the actuator group realisation in order to meet the torque requirements while achieving the dimensional and weight specifications. Estimated performance measures of the iCub are presented

Exchange Rate Regimes and Monetary Discipline - Only Hard Pegs Make a Difference

Previous research has suggested that pegged exchange rates are associated with lower inflation than floating rates. In which direction does the causality run? Using data from a large sample of developing countries from 1984 to 2000, we confirm that "hard" pegs (currency boards or a shared currency) reduce inflation and money growth. There is no evidence that "soft" pegs confer any monetary discipline. The choice between soft pegs and floats is determined by inflation: when inflation is low, pegs tend to be chosen and sustained, and when inflation is high, either floats are chosen or there are frequent regime switches.

Collaboration Enabling Internet Resource Collection-Building Software and Technologies

Over the last decade the Library of the University of California, Riverside and its collaborators have developed a number of systems, service designs, and projects that utilize innovative technologies to foster better Internet finding tools in libraries and more cooperative and efficient effort in Internet link and metadata collection building. The open-source software and projects discussed represent appropriate technologies and sustainable strategies that we believe will help Internet portals, digital libraries, virtual libraries, library catalogs-with-portal-like-capabilities (IPDVLCs), and related collection-building efforts in academia to better scale and more accurately anticipate and meet the needs of scholarly and educational users.published or submitted for publicatio

Active elastic dimers: Cells moving on rigid tracks

Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional model cell made of two beads and an active spring moving along a rigid track. The active spring models the stress fibers with their myosin-driven contractility and alpha-actinin-driven extendability, while the friction coefficients of the two beads describe the catch/slip bond behavior of the integrins in focal adhesions. In the absence of active noise, net motion arises from an interplay between active contractility (and passive extendability) of the stress fibers and an asymmetry between the front and back of the cell due to catch bond behavior of integrins at the front of the cell and slip bond behavior of integrins at the back. We obtain reasonable cell speeds with independently estimated parameters. We also study the effects of hysteresis in the active spring, due to catch bond behavior and the dynamics of cross-linking, and the addition of active noise on the motion of the cell. Our model highlights the role of alpha-actinin in three-dimensional cell motility and does not require Arp2/3 actin filament nucleation for net motion.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure