Formal Executable Models for Automatic Detection of Timing Anomalies

A timing anomaly is a counterintuitive timing behavior in the sense that a local fast execution slows down an overall global execution. The presence of such behaviors is inconvenient for the WCET analysis which requires, via abstractions, a certain monotony property to compute safe bounds. In this paper we explore how to systematically execute a previously proposed formal definition of timing anomalies. We ground our work on formal designs of architecture models upon which we employ guided model checking techniques. Our goal is towards the automatic detection of timing anomalies in given computer architecture designs

Exit Timing Decisions under Land Speculation and Resource Scarcity in Agriculture

This paper explores the concept of agricultural resilience in the context of climate change related water scarcity. Specifically, the impact of water scarcity on agricultural production is analyzed to derive the timing of exit decisions for farmers faced with the prospect of declining profitability in agriculture but increasing benefits from land rezoning in future. The prospects of land rezoning are modeled as a poison process which may or may not be influenced by farmer’s water abstraction decisions. Selling out of agriculture before land rezoning has an impatience cost as the farmer does not gain the maximum speculative rewards. The analysis highlights the role of such speculative rewards in making farmers resilient to declining profitability in agriculture and also identifies the circumstances under which the water prices may be an ineffective policy tool for allocating water. An empirical application is performed using the above model for the case of a drought prone region in Western Australia.agricultural resilience, exit timing, water scarcity, climate change, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Perfecting the market's knowledge of monetary policy

The rational expectations revolution made clear that a complete macro model requires a specification of the government's economic policy. We argue that monetary policy should be conducted in such a way that the market can predict policy actions. An implication of market success in predicting policy actions is that interest rates move ahead of the policy actions, and such a timing relationship may appear to some as the central bank following the market instead of leading it. Another implication of the market predicting policy actions is that nominal interest rate changes provide no useful information to the central bank about the strength of aggregate demand or inflationary expectations. Finally, the failure of the market to predict policy actions reflects a problem that needs to be addressed. We explore the theoretical implications of a monetary policy that is completely specified and perfectly understood by the market. We construct a bare-bones model to illustrate the key concepts. Finally, we conduct an empirical investigation of these issues, especially in the context of monetary policy since 1988 when the establishment of the federal funds future market made available well-defined market information on expectations about Fed policy actions.Monetary policy ; Federal funds rate

Analysis of the phenomenon of speculative trading in one of its basic manifestations: postage stamp bubbles

We document and analyze the empirical facts concerning one of the clearest evidence of speculation in financial trading as observed in the postage collection stamp market. We unravel some of the mechanisms of speculative behavior which emphasize the role of fancy and collective behavior. In our conclusion, we propose a classification of speculative markets based on two parameters, namely the amplitude of the price peak and a second parameter that measures its ``sharpness''. This study is offered to anchor modeling efforts to realistic market constraints and observations.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures and 2 tables, in press in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Analysis of the phenomenon of speculative trading in one of its basic manifestations: postage stamp bubbles

We document and analyze the empirical facts concerning one of the clearest evidence of speculation in financial trading as observed in the postage collection stamp market. We unravel some of the mechanisms of speculative behavior which emphasize the role of fancy and collective behavior. In our conclusion, we propose a classification of speculative markets based on two parameters, namely the amplitude of the price peak and a second parameter that measures its ``sharpness''. This study is offered to anchor modeling efforts to realistic market constraints and observations.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures and 2 tables, in press in Int. J. Mod. Phys.