The RoboFlag SURF competition: results, analysis, and future work

The culmination of the 2002 RoboFlag Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, jointly operated between California Institute of Technology and Cornell University, was a final competition between two teams of three undergraduate researchers. After ten weeks of preparation, Team Pasadena defeated Team Ithaca in two of the three final games. This paper provides the detailed results of the competition, an analysis of the competition, and reviews the future work

Challenges Confronting Central Bankers Today

Part Two of the Changing Politics of Central Banking SeriesThe role of central banks in today’s global economy cannot be understated. These institutions hold great influence over important pieces of the economic engine, which in turn impact financial flows, access to credit, prices and global trade. Since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the influence of central bank policymakers has only grown greater. Unprecedented actions and emergency measures have been taken to stabilize what otherwise could have been a global economic depression to rival the 1930’s. This paper reviews five questions that today’s central bankers face: whether to adhere to a rules-based monetary policy; if central banks should step into stabilize markets (e.g. QE); the importance of inflation targeting; the role of central bank independence; and the use of negative interest rates. Each of these issues is presented with arguments both in favor and against, empirical evidence to their effectiveness, as well as their possible unintended consequences and interconnectedness

Decentralized Banking: Monetary Technocracy in the Digital Age

Bitcoin has ushered in the age of blockchain-based digital currency systems. Secured by cryptography and computing power, and distributed across a decentralized network of anonymous nodes, these novel systems could potentially disrupt the way that monetary policy is administered – moving away from today’s human-fallible central bankers and towards a technocratic, rules-based algorithmic approach. It can be argued that modern central banks have failed to stem macro-economic crises, and may have, in fact, exacerbated negative outcomes by incentivizing excessive risktaking and moral hazard via unconventional monetary tools such as quantitative easing and negative interest rates. A central bank typically serves three primary functions: to issue and regulate the supply of money; to serve as clearinghouse for settlement of payments transactions; and to serve as lender of last resort. Could a digital currency system serve as a rational substitute for a central bank? This perspective paper examines that question, and then suggests that indeed it could be plausible. While Bitcoin in its current form will prove to be inadequate to function as monetary authority, I put forward what an operative case could resemble

Cryptocurrency Value Formation: An Empirical Analysis Leading to a Cost of Production Model for Valuing Bitcoin

This paper aims to identify the likely source(s) of value that cryptocurrencies exhibit in the marketplace using cross sectional empirical data examining 66 of the most used such \u27coins\u27. A regression model was estimated that points to three main drivers of cryptocurrency value: the difficulty in \u27mining \u27for coins; the rate of unit production; and the cryptographic algorithm employed. These amount to relative differences in the cost of production of one coin over another at the margin, holding all else equal. Bitcoin-denominated relative prices were used, avoiding much of the price volatility associated with the dollar exchange rate. The resulting regression model can be used to better understand the drivers of relative value observed in the emergent area of cryptocurrencies. Using the above analysis, a cost of production model is proposed for valuing bitcoin, where the primary input is electricity. This theoretical model produces useful results for both an individual producer, by setting breakeven points to start and stop production, and for the bitcoin exchange rate on a macro level. Bitcoin production seems to resemble a competitive commodity market; in theory miners will produce until their marginal costs equal their marginal product

World monies or money-worlds: A new perspective on cryptocurrencies and their moneyness

This essay makes the case that current debates about the ‘moneyness’ of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are occurring at the incorrect scale. Rather than being some form of trans-national digital money to be used alongside or compete with national fiat currencies, I argue that, instead, each cryptocurrency represents its own self-contained ‘money-world’. Put differently, a cryptocurrency is the uniquely specified unit of account and medium of exchange within the socio-technical bounds of its own blockchain. This new perspective can open new lines of intellectual dialogue and inform better policy choices for regulating cryptocurrencies

Travelling Salesman Problem with a Center

We study a travelling salesman problem where the path is optimized with a cost function that includes its length $L$ as well as a certain measure $C$ of its distance from the geometrical center of the graph. Using simulated annealing (SA) we show that such a problem has a transition point that separates two phases differing in the scaling behaviour of $L$ and $C$, in efficiency of SA, and in the shape of minimal paths.Comment: 4 pages, minor changes, accepted in Phys.Rev.

Re-examining the rationale for strategic assessment : an evaluation of purpose in two systems

Strategic forms of impact assessment have seen increased application around the world since their conception. Expansion has produced considerable variation and this range of tools and processes can create practitioner confusion and blurred boundaries in practice. This research draws on empirical data from England and Scotland to examine different systems to understand how the purposes of strategic assessment are framed and to consider how purposes are translated into practice. Four key purposes of strategic assessment are examined; overcoming EIA shortcomings, strategic thinking, representation of the environment and consideration of sustainability. It is concluded that various scales (international, national, local and individual) influence how strategic assessment purpose is framed. We find that as multiple purposes come together they interact, with regulatory compliance potentially dominating. Strategic assessment is also found to be described as information provider, and excluded or distant from strategic thinking as part of plan formulation