7,781 research outputs found

    Essays on monetary policy and financial stability

    Get PDF
    Doutoramento em EconomiaBy focusing on the relationship between financial stability and monetary policy for the cases of Chile, Colombia, Japan, Portugal and the UK, this thesis aims to add to the existing literature on the fundamental issue of the relationship between financial stability and monetary policy, a traditional topic that gained importance in the aftermath of the GFC as Central Banks lowered policy rates in an effort to rescue their economies. As the zero-lower bound loomed and the reach of traditional monetary policy narrowed, policy makers realised that alternative frameworks were needed and hence, macroprudential policy measures aimed at targeting the financial system as a whole were introduced. The second chapter looks at the relationship between monetary policy and financial stability, which has gained importance in recent years as Central Bank policy rates neared the zero-lower bound. We use an SVAR model to study the impact of monetary policy shocks on three proxies for financial stability as well as a proxy for economic growth. Monetary policy is represented by policy rates for the EMEs and shadow rates for the AEs in our chapter. Our main results show that monetary policy may be used to correct asset mispricing, to control fluctuations in the real business cycle and also to tame credit cycles in the majority of cases. Our results also show that for the majority of cases, in line with theory, local currencies appreciate following a positive monetary policy shock. Monetary policy intervention may indeed be successful in contributing to or achieving financial stability. However, the results show that monetary policy may not have the ability to maintain or re-establish financial stability in all cases. Alternative policy choices such as macroprudential policy tool frameworks which are aimed at targeting the financial system as a whole may be implemented as a means of fortifying the economy. The third chapter looks at the institutional setting of the countries in question, the independence of the Central Bank, the political environment and the impact of these factors on financial Abstract stability. I substantiate the literature review discussion with a brief empirical analysis of the effect of Central Bank Independence on credit growth using an existing database created by Romelli (2018). The empirical results show that there is a positive relationship between credit growth and the level of Central Bank Independence (CBI) due to the positive and statistically significant coefficient on the interaction term between growth in domestic credit to the private sector and the level of CBI. When considering domestic credit by deposit money banks and other financial institutions, the interaction term is positive and statistically significant for the case of the UK for the third regression equation. A number of robustness checks show that the coefficient is positive and statistically significant for a number of cases when implementing a variety of estimation methods. Fluctuations in credit growth are larger for higher levels of CBI and hence, in periods of financial instability or ultimately financial crises, CBI would be reined back in an effort to re-establish financial stability. Based on the empirical results, and in an effort to slow down surging credit supply and to maintain financial stability, policy makers and governmental authorities should attempt to decrease the level of CBI when the economy shows signs of overheating and credit supply continues to increase. The fourth chapter looks at the interaction between macroprudential policy and financial stability. The unexpected interconnectedness of the global economy and the economic blight that occurred as a result of this, recapitulated the need to implement an alternative policy framework aimed at targeting the financial system as a whole and hence, targeting the maintenance of financial stability. In this chapter, an index of domestic macroprudential policy tools is constructed and the effectiveness of these tools in controlling credit growth, managing GDP growth and stabilising inflation growth is studied using a dynamic panel data model for the period between 2000 and 2017. The empirical analysis includes two panels namely an EU panel of 27 countries and a Latin American panel of 7 countries, the chapter also looks at a case study of Japan, Portugal and the UK. Our main results find that a tighter macroprudential policy tool stance leads to a decrease in both credit growth and GDP growth while, a tighter macroprudential policy tool stance results in higher inflation in the majority of cases. Further, we find that capital openness plays a more important role in the case of Latin America, this may be due to the region’s dependence on foreign capital flows and exchange rate movements. Lastly, we find that, in times of higher perceived market volatility, GDP growth tends to be higher and inflation growth tends to be lower in the EU. In the other cases, higher levels of perceived market volatility result in higher inflation, higher credit growth and lower GDP Abstract growth. This is in line with expectations as an increase in perceived market volatility is met with an increased flow of assets into safer markets such as the EU. This thesis establishes a relationship between financial stability and monetary policy by studying the response of Chile, Colombia, Japan, Portugal and the UK in the aftermath of the GFC as Central Banks lowered policy rates in an effort to rescue their economies. In short, the results of the work conducted in this thesis may be summarised as follows. Our results show that monetary policy contributes to the achievement of financial stability. Still, monetary policy alone is not sufficient and should be reinforced by less traditional policy choices such as macroprudential policy tools. Secondly, we find that the level of CBI should be reined in in times of surging credit supply in an effort to maintain financial stability. Finally, we conclude that macroprudential policy tools play an important role in the achievement of financial stability. These tools should complement traditional monetary policy frameworks and should be adapted for each region.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Examples of works to practice staccato technique in clarinet instrument

    Get PDF
    Klarnetin staccato tekniğini güçlendirme aşamaları eser çalışmalarıyla uygulanmıştır. Staccato geçişlerini hızlandıracak ritim ve nüans çalışmalarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın en önemli amacı sadece staccato çalışması değil parmak-dilin eş zamanlı uyumunun hassasiyeti üzerinde de durulmasıdır. Staccato çalışmalarını daha verimli hale getirmek için eser çalışmasının içinde etüt çalışmasına da yer verilmiştir. Çalışmaların üzerinde titizlikle durulması staccato çalışmasının ilham verici etkisi ile müzikal kimliğe yeni bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Sekiz özgün eser çalışmasının her aşaması anlatılmıştır. Her aşamanın bir sonraki performans ve tekniği güçlendirmesi esas alınmıştır. Bu çalışmada staccato tekniğinin hangi alanlarda kullanıldığı, nasıl sonuçlar elde edildiği bilgisine yer verilmiştir. Notaların parmak ve dil uyumu ile nasıl şekilleneceği ve nasıl bir çalışma disiplini içinde gerçekleşeceği planlanmıştır. Kamış-nota-diyafram-parmak-dil-nüans ve disiplin kavramlarının staccato tekniğinde ayrılmaz bir bütün olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırmada literatür taraması yapılarak staccato ile ilgili çalışmalar taranmıştır. Tarama sonucunda klarnet tekniğin de kullanılan staccato eser çalışmasının az olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Metot taramasında da etüt çalışmasının daha çok olduğu saptanmıştır. Böylelikle klarnetin staccato tekniğini hızlandırma ve güçlendirme çalışmaları sunulmuştur. Staccato etüt çalışmaları yapılırken, araya eser çalışmasının girmesi beyni rahatlattığı ve istekliliği daha arttırdığı gözlemlenmiştir. Staccato çalışmasını yaparken doğru bir kamış seçimi üzerinde de durulmuştur. Staccato tekniğini doğru çalışmak için doğru bir kamışın dil hızını arttırdığı saptanmıştır. Doğru bir kamış seçimi kamıştan rahat ses çıkmasına bağlıdır. Kamış, dil atma gücünü vermiyorsa daha doğru bir kamış seçiminin yapılması gerekliliği vurgulanmıştır. Staccato çalışmalarında baştan sona bir eseri yorumlamak zor olabilir. Bu açıdan çalışma, verilen müzikal nüanslara uymanın, dil atış performansını rahatlattığını ortaya koymuştur. Gelecek nesillere edinilen bilgi ve birikimlerin aktarılması ve geliştirici olması teşvik edilmiştir. Çıkacak eserlerin nasıl çözüleceği, staccato tekniğinin nasıl üstesinden gelinebileceği anlatılmıştır. Staccato tekniğinin daha kısa sürede çözüme kavuşturulması amaç edinilmiştir. Parmakların yerlerini öğrettiğimiz kadar belleğimize de çalışmaların kaydedilmesi önemlidir. Gösterilen azmin ve sabrın sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan yapıt başarıyı daha da yukarı seviyelere çıkaracaktır

    Marvellous real in the Middle East: a comparative study of magical realism in contemporary women’s fiction

    Get PDF
    Magical realism has been studied extensively in relation to Latin America and subsequently in other parts of the world, yet the Middle East has not received adequate attention in academic scholarship. This PhD study examines a selection of contemporary female-authored narratives from the Middle East to establish an understanding of the practice of magical realism in this region. The selected texts for this study are: Raja Alem’s Fatma and My Thousand and One Nights; Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women Without Men and Touba and the Meaning of Night; Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul and Gina B. Nahai’s Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith. This study firstly explores the concept of magical realism as a mode of writing and determines its relationship to the Middle Eastern context. It then evaluates the texts under scrutiny by examining how the narrative of magical realism is constructed and what the sources are of the magical component in these texts, specifically in relation to Middle Eastern mythology. It also investigates the ideological aspect behind the employment of magical realism and whether it serves any political goal. The analysis of the selected texts is approached from three standpoints, that is, from literary, mythological and ideological perspectives. I argue that magical realism serves various purposes and that it is applied from perspectives that can be regarded as marginal to their communities’ dominant values, to subvert mainstream ideology. I also demonstrate that the Middle East is a crucial place to investigate magical realism because of the numerous complex cultural values that interact with each other in this region, and which enrich the practice of magical realism

    Graphical scaffolding for the learning of data wrangling APIs

    Get PDF
    In order for students across the sciences to avail themselves of modern data streams, they must first know how to wrangle data: how to reshape ill-organised, tabular data into another format, and how to do this programmatically, in languages such as Python and R. Despite the cross-departmental demand and the ubiquity of data wrangling in analytical workflows, the research on how to optimise the instruction of it has been minimal. Although data wrangling as a programming domain presents distinctive challenges - characterised by on-the-fly syntax lookup and code example integration - it also presents opportunities. One such opportunity is how tabular data structures are easily visualised. To leverage the inherent visualisability of data wrangling, this dissertation evaluates three types of graphics that could be employed as scaffolding for novices: subgoal graphics, thumbnail graphics, and parameter graphics. Using a specially built e-learning platform, this dissertation documents a multi-institutional, randomised, and controlled experiment that investigates the pedagogical effects of these. Our results indicate that the graphics are well-received, that subgoal graphics boost the completion rate, and that thumbnail graphics improve navigability within a command menu. We also obtained several non-significant results, and indications that parameter graphics are counter-productive. We will discuss these findings in the context of general scaffolding dilemmas, and how they fit into a wider research programme on data wrangling instruction

    Buddhist Poetics, Beat “Cosmo-Politics,” and the Maker Ethos: Asian Americanist Critiques of Whiteness in Midcentury American Beat Writing

    Get PDF
    Buddhist Poetics, Beat “Cosmo-Politics,” and the Maker Ethos: Asian Americanist Critiques of Whiteness in Midcentury American Beat Writing employs Walter Benjamin’s notion of the “ruin”—which is not just a noun or notion, but also a verb, a mode of criticism—to intervene in the ostensibly well-trodden ground of what is known as “Beat literature.” The project broadly argues for the “ruination” of Beat literature, where ruination means not destruction or annihilation, but a return to an unkempt state (as in the image of a ruined building) that more accurately reflects this literature’s many layers of cultural, interpersonal, and transpacific exchange and extraction. Though many have rightly suggested that Beat literature is broadly Orientalist and transpacific in nature, I reveal the specific cultural appropriations, adaptations, and translations that occurred in this period and in these literary texts: the broadly East Asian cultural materials (like Zen Buddhism) so valued in Beat literature and its social communities were derived not solely from “the East” nor from translated Chinese and Japanese texts, but also from the Asians in America with whom Euro Americans were friends and worked alongside. My chapters on Asian diasporic poetry, letters, and autobiographical writing highlight Beat literature’s connections to ethnic studies, settler colonial studies, gender studies, and critical race theory, applying an interdisciplinary approach to text and culture and bringing forward the cultural productions and expertise of Asian/Americans during this midcentury period. Because I am suggesting the work of Asian/Americans be read alongside other canonical Beat texts, their work destabilizes or “ruins” Beat literature, which has been seen as a body of texts that articulate a political, anticapitalist critique of post-WWII and Cold War-era America, but which I show to be reflective of a specific, European American identity grounded in a politics that does not accommodate the effects of settler colonialism and imperialism. The seeming stability and coherence of the category of “Beat” has only been possible because the work of Asian/Americans in this period was erased, unacknowledged. My project’s major intervention may be found in its combination of critique—where I show how whiteness influenced Euro Americans’ artistic choices and cultural appropriations—and recovery, where I reveal from whom and how these appropriations occurred. Further, I suggest that we begin to analyze American Buddhist writing beyond the limited rubrics formerly available to us in “Beat” and avant-garde literatures and in their communities of reception

    Assessing the Benefits, Challenges and Scientific Value of Community Science Programs: A Case Study Using Bumble Bee Watch

    Get PDF
    We are experiencing a biodiversity crisis but resources to help species are limited. Scientists are turning to community science to complement traditional scientific methods. Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators in temperate regions, but many are in decline, and more information is needed to conserve them. The Bumble Bee Watch (BBW) program collects this through photos submitted by volunteers and identified by experts. Yet many community science programs struggle. Chapter 2 reviews common successes and challenges, offering best practices for developing and running programs. To determine whether BBW is filling knowledge gaps, Chapter 3 compares its data to the Bumble Bees of North America database (BBNA) over all years and 2010-2020. BBW recorded 41 species (BBNA had 48) from all parts of the continental US and Canada, confirmed persistence, and provided novel locations for species outside of and within the known extent of occurrence. BBW showed its greatest impact from 2010-2020 by contributing 25% of all records, 28% of all unique locations, and 32% new plant forage genera. BBW does not replace traditional surveys, but does complement them. Chapter 4 shows that B. pensylvanicus is critically endangered in Canada according to IUCN Red List criteria. BBW provided 20% of all B. pensylvanicus records and 36% of its sites over the 2007-2016 period assessed, and thus provided important information on its current abundance and distribution. No experience is required to participate in BBW, but having participants able to accurately identify species is beneficial. Chapter 5 explores the percent agreement and veracity of participant species identifications compared to experts, with the average being 53% and 56%, respectively. With better educational resources, participants may be better trained to identify species more accurately. Understanding the motivations and insights of community science participants is important. Chapter 6 discusses the results of a BBW user and expert survey: participants want to contribute to science and save the bees, and report an increase in knowledge and skills after participating. Although areas for improvement are noted, BBW is an important tool for Bombus researchers, and demonstrates the value that community science has for species conservation

    To the ends of the earth: Post-Anthropocene cosmopolitanism in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and David Mitchell

    Get PDF
    This thesis examines the ethics and politics of cosmopolitanism beyond the Anthropocene by interrogating the presentation of the human in relation to other-than-humans in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and David Mitchell. The mounting global uncertainty and environmental crises have heightened fears that humanity may not survive beyond the third millennium, but these apocalyptic predictions reveal an anthropocentric concern with the planet’s ability to sustain human life in capitalist societies rather than the wellbeing of the planet. I argue that ensuring the survival of humanity and the planet demands a new vision of cosmopolitanism that recognises the planetary interconnectedness and interdependence of all present and future beings who share the biosphere. This proposition calls for a redefinition of the human and an expansion of the communities that humans belong to and coheres with the aim of eco-cosmopolitanism to connect the human, nonhuman, and the ecological. Using the lenses of posthumanism, ecocriticism, and cosmopolitanism, I examine how, despite their speculative content, the three authors’ novels convincingly portray the experience of ‘dislocation’ brought about by globalisation and provoke fundamental questions about what constitutes the human and how this human subject might relate to nonhuman and posthuman others ethically and equitably. Through the interrogation of these issues, this thesis also shows how these works transcend the confines of fiction to inspire and challenge our current practices of cosmopolitanism
    corecore