Spartan Daily, April 3, 1984

Volume 82, Issue 45https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/7163/thumbnail.jp

The New Keynesian Microfoundations of Macroeconomics

New Keynesian Macroeconomics (NKM) obeys to the new dogma that macroeconomics should be firmly grounded in First Principles of micro theory. Households are assumed to run an intertemporal optimization calculus with respect to leisure and consumption by making use of perfect financial markets. The supply side is organized so that full employment prevails. Macroeconomic coordination problems between saving and investment are absent. In order to make model predictions more compatible with empirical facts, NKM chooses "ad hoc" microfoundations: utility functions and market structures are designed arbitrarily to allow for persistence of macro variables. NKM's reduced hybrid macro model, with lags and expectational leads, is a useful "work horse", compatible with various micro reasoning. However, NKM's insistence on the representative agent obstructs an understanding of heterogeneous beliefs and learning.Representative Agent, Ramsey Saving, Calvo Pricing, Sticky Information, Rational Expectations, Heterogeneous Beliefs

Contagion of currency crises: Some theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper investigates contagion effects. In a model with highly and lowly informed investors we show that a currency crisis in one country can trigger a crisis in another country. Portfolio losses of the highly informed investors in one country will force them to withdraw capital from the other country. The behavior of the lowly informed investors multiplies this effect and the other country becomes more and more vulnerable. In the empirical part we focus on the Asian crisis (1997/98). Using a LOGIT approach we can show that contagion, in the sense of a crisis not explainable by economic fundamentals but by exchange rate losses resulting from investment in other countries, seems to have caused the currency crises of the Philippines and especially of Singapore. --Contagion,Currency crises,Asian crisis

Mathematics anxiety in children with developmental dyscalculia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Math anxiety, defined as a negative affective response to mathematics, is known to have deleterious effects on math performance in the general population. However, the assumption that math anxiety is directly related to math performance, has not yet been validated. Thus, our primary objective was to investigate the effects of math anxiety on numerical processing in children with specific deficits in the acquisition of math skills (Developmental Dyscalculia; DD) by using a novel affective priming task as an indirect measure.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants (12 children with DD and 11 typically-developing peers) completed a novel priming task in which an arithmetic equation was preceded by one of four types of priming words (positive, neutral, negative or related to mathematics). Children were required to indicate whether the equation (simple math facts based on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) was true or false. Typically, people respond to target stimuli more quickly after presentation of an affectively-related prime than after one that is unrelated affectively.</p> <p>Result</p> <p>Participants with DD responded faster to targets that were preceded by both negative primes and math-related primes. A reversed pattern was present in the control group.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results reveal a direct link between emotions, arithmetic and low achievement in math. It is also suggested that arithmetic-affective priming might be used as an indirect measure of math anxiety.</p

Trinity Tablet, June 26, 1906

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/tablets/1553/thumbnail.jp

Optical illusions: Directing the audience’s perspective in Spain’s golden age theatre

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Spanish and Portuguese, 2000.As with many changes of government, Philip IV's succession to the Spanish throne in 1621 carried with it an inherent sense of hope. The young monarch and his loyal minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, assumed control to miraculously turn aside Philip III's reckless course towards destruction and to regain Spain's former glory. At least that was the image that the ambitious, fledgling monarchy wished to portray to an audience who was all too willing to believe. The monarchy's discourse proclaimed stability and prosperity for the Spanish empire, an empire straining against debt, corruption, foreign and domestic wars, continuing religious strife, and rapidly changing demographics. In this cosmetic environment, interpreting signs both on a national and an individual level became increasingly important. Theatre, as an institutionalized art form, was regulated by the government and promoted a common language ( castellano) and a commonly understood semiotics of theatre in a common place (los corrales). The theatre therefore had the opportunity to disseminate a dominant discourse—the Count-Duke of Olivares's rhetoric of renovation—to an extensive viewing public. However, relegating the comedia to the status of an ideological tool that maintained order and social norms does not recognize its full potential. Theatre functions to draw attention to and magnify certain aspects of society, and these aspects were not necessarily the same ones championed by the Crown. This study will consider how Golden Age theatre, particularly during the years of Olivares's influence (1621–1643), directed the public's perspective by focusing on the openness of signs and their potential manipulation. The optical illusions created by certain characters' performance opened a space where non-conformist discourse and social criticism could be interpreted by those who had learned to see beyond the signs

"Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun": fool-characters and comic dramatic structures in Hamlet, Twelfth night and Troilus and Cressida

The thesis analyses fool-characters and comic structures in Shakespeare's three plays-each play representing a different dramatic genre. The chapter on Hamlet primarily focuses on Hamlet's fool-role originating from his "antic disposition." In Twelfth Night, the study examines the topsy-turvydom dominant in Olivia's household. Sir Toby Belch, as a Lord of Misrule, and Feste, as a professional jester, are the central characters in the analysis. In the chapter on Troilus and Cressida--a dramatic work frequently categorized as a "problem play"-the dramatic functions of two fool-characters, Pandarus and Thersites, are explored. The thesis examines the sources and theatrical traditions relevant to the analysed characters. It also investigates the various ways in which these characters create a counterweight to the social and political status quo of their respective plays, as a result of which they eventually become expelled, muted, or forced to adjust to the final social and political constellation emerging at the conclusion of the plays

Endogenous rates of time preference in monetary growth models: stability and comparative dynamics

Two optimal monetary growth models are analyzed. In the first (Model C), the rate of time preference is assumed constant; and in the other (Model V) the rate of time preference is endogenous;In Model C, the constancy of the rate of time preference is found to drive the long-run super-neutrality of money in the model. Changes in (theta), the growth rate of money supply, have no long-run effects on the real sector. The long-run capital-labor ratio is such that its marginal product is the sum of the rate of time preference, the growth rate of the population, and the rate of capital depreciation. A change in (theta) does not affect these parameters, leaving the long-run capital-labor ratio unchanged;In Model V, changes in (theta) are not neutral in the long-run. The endogeneity of the rate of time preference allows changes in (theta) to affect the optimality condition for the long-run capital-labor ratio. An increase in (theta) increases the long-run (steady state) values of the capital-labor ratio and consumption;In both models, the increase in (theta) increases the long-run inflation rate, reducing the real rate of return on holding real money balances; this induces agents to hold less money at the new steady state. In Model C, the reduction in holdings of money is all that happens in the long-run. However, in Model V the rate of time preference provides a link between the monetary and real sectors of the economy; agents are induced, through adjustments in the rate of time preference, to shift from the asset with the relatively lower real rate of return (money) to that with the relatively higher real rate of return (capital);Also, in both models the increase in (theta) lowers the long-run achievable utility level. However, the reduction in utility is smaller in Model V. Stability analysis shows that both models display saddle point behavior