Is There a Desirable Rate of Inflation? A Theoretical and Empirical Survey

In this paper, I survey the existing literature and examine three related questions: (1) What inflation rate constitutes the appropriate target for the central bank? (2) What is an operational definition of price stability for the conduct of monetary policy? (3) What is the policy framework for pursuing price stability in practice? In doing so, I emphasize that it is crucially important for a central bank to seek to maintain a price environment that is neither inflationary nor deflationary and is consistent with stability of the economy in the long run. I propose two definitions of price stability, gmeasured price stabilityh and gsustainable price stability.h I argue that g sustainable price stabilityh should be the fundamental goal for monetary policy. Although, from the viewpoint of accountability, gmeasured price stabilityh is important as a quantitative yardstick by which to evaluate policy achievement, it should not be the justification for preventing the central bank from its pursuit of gsustainable price stability.h Since observed changes in price indices are affected by various types of external shocks and measurement errors, it is indeed quite difficult to assess whether the underlying rate of inflation is stable or not. Therefore, even if gmeasured price stabilityh seems to be maintained, a central bank may need to alter interest rates promptly if it judges that the maintenance of gsustainable price stabilityh is at risk. In this sense, it is deemed important to construct a framework for monetary policy designed to maintain policy flexibility with a high degree of transparency by properly ensuring consistency between g measured price stabilityh and gsustainable price stability.h The current policy framework adopted by the Bank of Japan can be viewed as aiming at a kind of gconstrained discretionh by restricting pure discretion under open independence in line with this direction.

Evolutionary models and the normative significance of stability

Many have expected that understanding the evolution of norms should, in some way, bear on our first-order normative outlook: How norms evolve should shape which norms we accept. But recent philosophy has not done much to shore up this expectation. Most existing discussions of evolution and norms either jump headlong into the is/ought gap or else target meta-ethical issues, such as the objectivity of norms. My aim in this paper is to sketch a different way in which evolutionary considerations can feed into normative thinking—focusing on stability. I will discuss two forms of argument that utilize information about social stability drawn from evolutionary models, and employs it to assess claims in political philosophy. One such argument treats stability as feature of social states that may be taken into account alongside other features. The other uses stability as a constraint on the realization of social ideals, via a version of the ought-implies-can maxim. These forms of argument are not new; indeed they have a history going back at least to early modern philosophy. But their marriage with evolutionary information is relatively recent, has a significantly novel character, and has received little attention in recent moral and political philosophy

The strategy & goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian Revolution

Issue title: Preludes to the Islamic State: contextualizing the rise of extremism in the Syrian UprisingSince the Hama events of 1982 that led to the Muslim Brotherhood’s forced exile from Syria, the group’s aim has been the return to Syria. To achieve their goals, they have made use of different negotiation channels with the Assad regime during the past three decades. However, at one point, those channels were cut, and, being ostracized not only by the Syrian authorities, but also by many in the political opposition to the regime, the Brotherhood has crossed the threshold of relative and discontinuous passivity to full-blown oppositional activity. This paper examines the different strategies they have followed, such as political activity, provision of humanitarian aid, the exertion of influence on armed groups combating the regime, and the benefitting from the ideological similarities they bear with the newly elected regimes as well as the Turkish ruling party. Building on the information we examine, it is our hypothesis that the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood seemed to be the best-organized and coherent oppositional group might not necessarily lead them to power, especially when more radical groups with a jihadist strategy have taken the lead of the Islamist field and the situation remains extremely complex.Publisher PD

Health of people who travel to work: the effect of travel time and mode of transport on health: What have we learnt from the Kent and Medway health and lifestyle survey?

This is the first study of the health of people travelling to work. The paper describes a study from the 2001 Kent & Medway Health and Lifestyle Survey. It focusses on the health of people commuting to London and those working elsewhere who were travelling for more than 45 minutes

The Development Methodology Of Operational Dashboard As A Tool For Organizational Performance Monitoring (A Case Study: Telkom Polytechnic)

The management needs to monitor and measure the performance of the organization continuously to restrain that business processes aims at the organization's mission and vision. This study assist management to monitor the organization performance continuously to restrain that business processes aims at the organization's goals. Providing the information about the achievement on KPIs that really fit the needs of its users, conveying the information are accurately and timely in the comfortable presentation format that effective. The information comes from various units within organization, so the management can take action or strategic decision-making quickly and precisely targeted for the improvement of the organization. The problems can be solved with information provider tools of the dashboard software. Dashboard software to be built is operational dashboard for the study program. Operational dashboard provides information on the ongoing activities, along with changes in real time to provide awareness to the things that need to be responded quickly, the information presented is very specific to the sufficient depth detail level, it is dynamic because it uses the data with higher frequency real time updates. The methodology proposed by Eva Hariyanti [5] was modified to suitable with environment condition. Her methodology aimed to develop dashboard at strategic and tactical level, while this study to produced operational dashboard. Her methodology concerns in provide data/information, personalized and collaboration among user. The methodology to develop operational dashboard was not cover analytical and trackability characteristic. Keywords : monitor, KPI, performance, operational dashboar