Reserves, Money Supply and Prices: The International Adjustment Mechanism in Sweden under the Silver and Gold Standards, 1834 – 1913

This paper explores how international capital movements affected the domestic money supply. This requires that the causality at work in the adjustment process be analyzed. For this purpose, series of central bank reserves, the monetary base, the money supply and the balance of payments were constructed. The methodological problems encountered in estimating such monetary measures in a transitional economy where much of the circulating money consists of private banks notes, and which is dependent on foreign loans, is discussed. The relationship between central bank (Riksbank) reserves and international capital flows is then studied. The overall growth of the money supply, while not accompanied by a growth in reserves, is found to correspond to such growth in other countries operating under a specie standard. This growth also was related to the growth of the real economy. Qualitative evidence aside, statistical results indicate a relationship among reserves, the money supply and prices that is consistent with the price specie flow mechanism. Changes in reserves were positively related to the money supply and changes in the money supply had a lagged positive effect on changes in the level of consumer prices.Balance of Payments; Central Bank Reserves; Classical Silver and Gold Standards; Monetary Base; Money Supply; Prices

Financial Revolution and Economic Modernization in Sweden

The development of a well adapted financial system was a main part of the successful Swedish economic modernization in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this paper it is shown that this development followed the pattern of a financial revolution. Major institutional and organizational changes that took place roughly between the late 1850s and early 1870s led to a rapid increase in liquidity and financial services. This financial revolution preceded the acceleration in economic growth in general and in the modern, industrial sector in particular. Especially the monetization encouraged growth, both in the industrial sector and in GDP as a whole. The basis of the financial system, measured as commercial bank assets and equity capital, was on the other hand also a result of GDP growth.Financial Development; Growth; Institutions; Liquidity; Monetization; Nineteenth Century; Silver and Gold Standards; Structural Change

Lender of Last Resort in a Peripheral Economy with a Fixed Exchange Rate: Financial Crises and Monetary Policy in Sweden under the Silver and Gold Standards, 1834 – 1913

According to the classical view, an economy’s lender of last resort should be its central bank. For brief periods of time, the bank might suspend convertibility in order to provide the liquidity needed to support the domestic credit market. Recent experience of financial crises demonstrates the conflict between maintaining a fixed exchange rate and serving as a lender of last resort. The lesson of Sweden’s history of crises under the classical specie standard is that a transitional, capital importing economy has to pay closer attention to the specie standard rules than do capital exporting economies. While the Swedish central bank, for a limited time, could support the credit market within the limits of the specie standard, if the crises persisted support mechanisms other than abandoning convertibility were required. The solution adopted was to import high powered money through loans guaranteed by the Swedish State.Classical silver and gold standards; Financial Crises; Fractional Reserves; Lender of Last Resort; Monetary Policy

Expansion of the Money Supply with a Fixed Exchange Rate: “Free Banking” in Sweden under the Silver and Gold Standards, 1834 – 1913

This paper studies the role of bank notes issued by the private Enskilda banks in the expansion of the Swedish monetary stock under the classic specie standard maintained during the period 1834-1913. The use of balance sheets has made possible the estimation of more accurate and continuous series of the Swedish money stock and bank reserves. The conclusion of the paper is that the Enskilda banks contributed to Swedish economic expansion and integration, through the provision both of credit and of generally accepted means of payment, beyond what would have been possible for the central bank, constrained as the latter was by specie convertibility requirements. But, the Enskilda banks did not operate according to free banking theory. The re-establishment of the silver standard guaranteed by the central bank was crucial for this process, since it allowed the Enskilda banks to hold central bank notes instead of specie as reserves. The notes issued by the Enskilda banks were accepted as deposits in the banking system but not as reserves. The fact that more Enskilda than Riksbank notes circulated among the public was a result of the law of adverse monetary selection: Gresham’s Law.Classical Silver and Gold Standards; Endogenous Money; Fractional Reserves; Free banking; Money Supply

Commercial Note Issuing Banks and Capital Market Development: An Empirical Test of the Enskilda Banks’ Assets, Liabilities and Reserves in Relation to Evolving Capital Market Liquidity in Sweden, 1834 – 1913

First established during the 1830's, the Enskilda banks were characterized by unlimited owner liability and the right to issue bank notes. Consequently, in Swedish banking history, these banks have been considered to be primitive relics. This paper utilizes new data to revise this picture of the Enskilda banks. Applying Douglas W. Diamond’s model (1997) of the cumulative contribution of banks to the creation of liquid asset markets in developing economies to the capital poor country of Sweden, indicates that the Enskilda banks made a contribution out of the reach of non-note issuing banks. In view of the crucial role of the Enskilda banks, the Banking Act of 1864, which effectively permitted the free establishment of such banks, must be judged to have been the most important institutional change facilitating the development of the Swedish credit market.Banking Fragility; Capital Market Development; Classical Silver and Gold Standards; Fractional Reserves; Free Banking; Liquidity

Behavior Trees in Robotics and AI: An Introduction

A Behavior Tree (BT) is a way to structure the switching between different tasks in an autonomous agent, such as a robot or a virtual entity in a computer game. BTs are a very efficient way of creating complex systems that are both modular and reactive. These properties are crucial in many applications, which has led to the spread of BT from computer game programming to many branches of AI and Robotics. In this book, we will first give an introduction to BTs, then we describe how BTs relate to, and in many cases generalize, earlier switching structures. These ideas are then used as a foundation for a set of efficient and easy to use design principles. Properties such as safety, robustness, and efficiency are important for an autonomous system, and we describe a set of tools for formally analyzing these using a state space description of BTs. With the new analysis tools, we can formalize the descriptions of how BTs generalize earlier approaches. We also show the use of BTs in automated planning and machine learning. Finally, we describe an extended set of tools to capture the behavior of Stochastic BTs, where the outcomes of actions are described by probabilities. These tools enable the computation of both success probabilities and time to completion

Riesz transforms for Jacobi expansions

We define and study Riesz transforms and conjugate Poisson integrals associated with multi-dimensional Jacobi expansions.Comment: 24 pages; the paper will appear in J. Anal. Math. (2008

Adding Neural Network Controllers to Behavior Trees without Destroying Performance Guarantees

In this paper, we show how Behavior Trees that have performance guarantees, in terms of safety and goal convergence, can be extended with components that were designed using machine learning, without destroying those performance guarantees. Machine learning approaches such as reinforcement learning or learning from demonstration can be very appealing to AI designers that want efficient and realistic behaviors in their agents. However, those algorithms seldom provide guarantees for solving the given task in all different situations while keeping the agent safe. Instead, such guarantees are often easier to find for manually designed model based approaches. In this paper we exploit the modularity of Behavior trees to extend a given design with an efficient, but possibly unreliable, machine learning component in a way that preserves the guarantees. The approach is illustrated with an inverted pendulum example.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Game

Charging the polluters: A pricing model for road and railway noise

This study outlines a method to estimate the short run marginal cost (SRMC) for road and railway noise. It is based on standardized calculation methods for total noise levels and monetary cost estimates from well established evaluation methods. Here official calculation methods and monetary values are used for Sweden, but the estimation method for the SRMC outlined can be directly applied using other standardized noise calculation methods and monetary values. This implies that the current knowledge regarding the calculation of total noise levels and the evaluation of the social cost of noise can be extended to estimate the marginal effect as well. This is an important finding since it enables policy makers to price noise externalities in an appropriate way. Several sensitivity tests run for the SRMC show that: (i) increasing the total traffic on the infrastructure has only a minor influence, (ii) estimates are quite sensitive to the number of exposed individuals, and (iii) to the monetary values used. Hence, benefits transfer, i.e. using monetary values elicited based on road noise for railway noise, should be done with caution or not at all. Results also show that the use of quiet technology can have a significant effect on the SRMC. The fact that this model is able to differentiate not only modes of transport, but also vehicles and even technologies is an important finding. It is essential that the noise charges give the operators the right incentives to choose their optimal allocation.Externalities; Marginal cost; Noise; Railway; Road

Multiple paper monies in Sweden, 1789-1903: Substitution or complementarity?

Complementarity of money mean that two or more kinds of monies together fulfil the demand of the users better than they would without the existence of the other(-s). In this paper we study complementarity between paper monies in Sweden. We address four questions: 1) What was used as money on a macro level (money supply) and on a micro level (monetary remittances)? 2) What was the relative value of different monies in parallel circulation? 3) Was there seasonal variations in use and/or value? 4) Was there geographical variations in use and value? What we find is that the complementarity helped to solve the problem of providing sufficient liquidity domestically over time and space and thus and to keep a stable value of the currency.Complementarity; Liquidity; Money Supply; Money Remittances; Paper Money; Parallel Circulation of Money; Variations in Money Demand