The Discounted Economic Stock of Money with VAR Forecasting

We measure the United States capital stock of money implied by the Divisia monetary aggregate service flow, in a manner consistent with the present-value model of economic capital stock. We permit non-martingale expectations and time varying discount rates. Based on Barnett’s (1991) definition of the economic stock of money, we compute the U.S. economic stock of money by discounting to present value the flow of expected expenditure on the services of monetary assets, where expenditure on monetary services is evaluated at the user costs of the monetary components. As a theoretically consistent measure of money stock, our economic stock of money nests Rotemberg, Driscoll, and Poterba’s (1995) currency equivalent index as a special case, under the assumption of martingale expectations. To compute the economic stock of money without imposing martingale expectations, we use forecasts based on the asymmetric vector autoregressive model and the Bayesian vector autoregressive model. We find the resulting capital-stock growth-rate index to be surprisingly robust to the modeling of expectations.monetary aggregation, econommic stock of money, aggregation theory, index number theory, VAR forecasting, wealth effect, Pigou effect, real balance effect, measurement

Forecast Design in Monetary Capital Stock Measurement

We design a procedure for measuring the United States capital stock of money implied by the Divisia monetary aggregate service flow, in a manner consistent with the present-value model of economic capital stock. We permit non-martingale expectations and time varying discount rates. Based on Barnett’s (1991) definition of the economic stock of money, we compute the U.S. economic stock of money by discounting to present value the flow of expected expenditure on the services of monetary assets, where expenditure on monetary services is evaluated at the user costs of the monetary components. As a theoretically consistent measure of money stock, our economic stock of money nests Rotemberg, Driscoll, and Poterba’s (1995) currency equivalent index as a special case, under the assumption of martingale expectations. To compute the economic stock of money without imposing martingale expectations, we define a procedure for producing the necessary forecasts based on an asymmetric vector autoregressive model and a Bayesian vector autoregressive model. In application of this proposed procedure, Barnett, Chae, and Keating (2005) find the resulting capital-stock growth-rate index to be surprisingly robust to the modeling of expectations. Similarly the primary conclusions of this supporting paper regard robustness. We believe that further experiments with other forecasting models would further confirm our robustness conclusion. Different forecasting models can produce substantial differences in forecasts into the distant future. But since the distant future is heavily discounted in our stock formula, and since alternative forecasting formulas rarely produce dramatic differences in short term forecasts, we believe that our robustness result obviates prior concerns about the dependency of theoretical monetary capital stock computations upon forecasts of future expected flows. Even the simple martingale forecast, which has no unknown parameters and is easily computed with current period data, produces a discounted stock measure that is adequate for most purposes. Determining an easily measured extended index that can remove the small bias that we identify under the martingale forecast remains a subject for our future research. At the time that Milton Friedman (1969) was at the University of Chicago, the “Chicago School” view on the monetary transmission mechanism was based upon the wealth effect, called the “real balance effect” or “Pigou (1943) effect,” of open market operations. Our research identifies very large errors in the wealth effects computed from the conventional simple sum monetary aggregates and makes substantial progress in the direction of accurate measurement of monetary-policy wealth effects.Monetary aggregation, Divisia money aggregate, economic stock of money, user cost of money, currency equivalent index, Bayesian vector autoregression, asymmetric vector autoregression.

Fandom: A Study on How College Students Selected a Favorite Professional Sports Team

This research aimed to uncover key factors in how college students select a favorite sports team. An important issue in today’s sport industry is recognizing fans motives for supporting their favorite sport teams. Sport managers need to better understand fan’s motives in order to address the team\u27s needs and increase the fan base. Also, the team needs to cultivate a relationship for fan involvement to garner economic benefits. The subjects for this study were college students at St. John Fisher College. Using an online survey, the results of this uncovered that team factors were the most important in someone supporting their favorite sports team

Resonant absorption of kink magnetohydrodynamic waves by a magnetic twist in coronal loops

There is ample evidence of twisted magnetic structures in the solar corona. This motivates us to consider the magnetic twist as the cause of Alfven frequency continuum in the coronal loops, which can support the resonant absorption as a rapid damping mechanism for the observed coronal kink magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) oscillations. We model a coronal loop with a straight cylindrical magnetic flux tube which has constant but different densities in the interior and exterior regions. The magnetic field is assumed to be constant and aligned with the cylinder axis everywhere except a thin layer near the boundary of the flux tube which has an additional small magnetic field twist. Then, we investigate a number of possible instabilities that may arise in our model. In the thin tube thin boundary approximation, we derive the dispersion relation and solve it analytically to obtain the frequencies and damping rates of the fundamental (l=1) and first/second overtone (l=2,3) kink (m=1) MHD modes. We conclude that the resonant absorption by the magnetic twist can justify the rapid damping of kink MHD waves observed in coronal loops. Furthermore, the magnetic twist in the inhomogeneous layer can cause deviations from P1/P2=2 and P1/P3=3 which are comparable with the observations.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, matched to published versio

Theoretical Implementation of a Police Officer Suicide Prevention Program

Since 1990, the Los Angeles Police Department has lost 52 of its valuable officers: 30 of these were killed in the line of duty, and a stunning 22 (42.31%) took their own lives. While the reasons why these officers ended their lives prematurely vary, the implications of their deaths remain the same; it is of paramount importance to take action to address this problem. This department has made efforts in recent years to decrease the number of police officer suicides, but the officers who have taken their own lives since then are a testament to the failure of those efforts. The problem, therefore, persists. There is a need for intentional and evidence-based initiatives in the LAPD to improve officer well-being and decrease officer depression and suicide rates

Boston University Chamber Orchestra, November 18, 2008

This is the concert program of the Boston University Chamber Orchestra performance on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 7:30 p.m., at the Boston University Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. Works performed were Serenade No. 2 in A major, op. 16 by Johannes Brahms and Divertimento for Strings by Béla Bartók. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Center for the Humanities Library Endowed Fund

Radio Frequency Magneto-Optical Trapping of CaF with High Density

We demonstrate significantly improved magneto-optical trapping of molecules using a very slow cryogenic beam source and RF modulated and DC magnetic fields. The RF MOT confines $1.1(3) \times 10^5$ CaF molecules at a density of $4(1) \times 10^6$ cm$^{-3}$, which is an order of magnitude greater than previous molecular MOTs. Near Doppler-limited temperatures of $340(20)$ $\mu$K are attained. The achieved density enables future work to directly load optical tweezers and create optical arrays for quantum simulation.Comment: 5 Pages, 4 Figure

Quantifying Diachronic Variability: The 'Ain Difla rockshelter (Jordan) and the Evolution of Levantine Mousterian Technology

Condette Jean-François. RAYNAL Pierre, voir CHAUDRU de RAYNAL Pierre. In: , . Les recteurs d'académie en France de 1808 à 1940. Tome II, Dictionnaire biographique. Paris : Institut national de recherche pédagogique, 2006. p. 327. (Histoire biographique de l'enseignement, 12

Tangled Magnetic Fields in Solar Prominences

Solar prominences are an important tool for studying the structure and evolution of the coronal magnetic field. Here we consider so-called "hedgerow" prominences, which consist of thin vertical threads. We explore the possibility that such prominences are supported by tangled magnetic fields. A variety of different approaches are used. First, the dynamics of plasma within a tangled field is considered. We find that the contorted shape of the flux tubes significantly reduces the flow velocity compared to the supersonic free fall that would occur in a straight vertical tube. Second, linear force-free models of tangled fields are developed, and the elastic response of such fields to gravitational forces is considered. We demonstrate that the prominence plasma can be supported by the magnetic pressure of a tangled field that pervades not only the observed dense threads but also their local surroundings. Tangled fields with field strengths of about 10 G are able to support prominence threads with observed hydrogen density of the order of 10^(11) cm^(-3). Finally, we suggest that the observed vertical threads are the result of Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Simulations of the density distribution within a prominence thread indicate that the peak density is much larger than the average density. We conclude that tangled fields provide a viable mechanism for magnetic support of hedgerow prominences.Comment: 14 pages (emulateapj style), 10 figures, ApJ, in pres