Identifying fiscal shocks and policy regimes in OECD countries

JEL Classification: E62, H30Fiscal Policy, SVAR

5-[4'-(2,2,5,5-Tetramethyl-3-pyrroline-1-oxyl-3-carbonyl)biphenyl-4-ylethynyl]-2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethylporphyrinato}copper(II) benzene solvate : corrigendum

In the paper by Bolte [Acta Cryst. (2006), E62, m1609-m1610], the chemical name in the title and the chemical diagram are incorrect. The correct title is {5-[4'-(2,2,5,5-Tetramethyl-3-pyrroline-1-oxyl-3-carbonyloxy)biphenyl-4-ylethynyl]-2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethylporphyrinato}copper(II) benzene solvate' and the correct diagram is given below

Government spending volatility and the size of nations

This paper provides empirical evidence showing that smaller countries tend to have more volatile government spending for a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000. We argue that the larger size of a country decreases the volatility of government spending because it acts as an insurance against idiosyncratic shocks, and it leads to increasing returns to scale due to the higher ability of the government to spread its cost of financing over a larger pool of taxpayers. The results are robust to different time and country samples, different econometric techniques and to several sets of control variables. The analysis also evinces that country size is negatively related to the discretionary part of government spending and to the volatilities of most of the government spending items. JEL Classification: E62, H10Country Size, Fiscal Policy, fiscal volatility, government size, H10, JEL: E62

Understanding the effects of government spending on consumption

Recent evidence on the effect of government spending shocks on consumption cannot be easily reconciled with existing optimizing business cycle models. We extend the standard New Keynesian model to allow for the presence of rule-of-thumb (non-Ricardian) consumers. We show how the interaction of the latter with sticky prices and deficit financing can account for the existing evidence on the effects of government spending. JEL Klassifikation: E32, E62

Measuring the Success of Fiscal Consolidations

We measure the success of fiscal consolidation, with alternative definitions, based on ad-hoc quantitative approaches and on a policy-action approach. The cyclically adjusted primary balance, and the duration of the consolidation contribute for its success, and the opposite applies for revenue based consolidations.fiscal episodes, panel data, logit Classification-C23, E62, H50, H62

(Dimethyl sulfoxide-κO)[3-hydr­oxy-2-hydroxy­methyl-2-(3-meth­oxy-2-oxido­benzyl­ideneamino-κ2 O 2,N)propanolato-κO]dioxomolybdenum(VI). Corrigendum

Corrigendum to Acta Cryst. (2006), E62, m1994–m1996

The Role of Taxes as Automatic Destabilizers in New Keynesian Economics

This paper analyses the effects of taxation in New Keynesian economics. The results show that taxes contribute to price and wage stickiness and, moreover, that the resulting fluctuations in welfare are magnified by the presence of taxes. These results are at odds with the old Keynesian idea of automatic stabilizers.New Keynesian economics, taxation, automatic stabilizersJEL Classification: E32, E62

Sticky information Phillips curves: European evidence

We estimate the sticky information Phillips curve model of Mankiw and Reis (2002) using survey expectations of professional forecasters from four major European economies. Our estimates imply that inflation expectations in France, Germany and the United Kingdom are updated about once a year, in Italy about once each six months. JEL Classification: E62, H20, H50, H62inflation expectations, Inflation persistence, Phillips curve, sticky information

Identification of the catalytic motif of the microbial ribosome inactivating cytotoxin colicin E3

Colicin E3 is a cytotoxic ribonuclease that specifically cleaves 16S rRNA at the ribosomal A-site to abolish protein synthesis in sensitive Escherichia coli cells. We have performed extensive mutagenesis of the 96-residue colicin E3 cytotoxic domain (E3 rRNase), assayed mutant colicins for in vivo cytotoxicity, and tested the corresponding E3 rRNase domains for their ability to inactivate ribosome function in vitro. From 21 alanine mutants, we identified five positions where mutation resulted in a colicin with no measurable cytotoxicity (Y52, D55, H58, E62, and Y64) and four positions (R40, R42, E60, and R90) where mutation caused a significant reduction in cytotoxicity. Mutations that were found to have large in vivo and in vitro effects were tested for structural integrity through circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy using purified rRNase domains. Our data indicate that H58 and E62 likely act as the acid–base pair during catalysis with other residues likely involved in transition state stabilization. Both the Y52 and Y64 mutants were found to be highly destabilized and this is the likely origin of the loss of their cytotoxicity. The identification of important active site residues and sequence alignments of known rRNase homologs has allowed us to identify other proteins containing the putative rRNase active site motif. Proteins that contained this active site motif included three hemagglutinin-type adhesins and we speculate that these have evolved to deliver a cytotoxic rRNase into eukaryotic cells during pathogenesis