Heterosensory and Heterocortical Activation of the Purkinje Neuron

Bioelectric potential measurements of convergence of heterogeneous afferents at single neuron level in cerebellar corte

The U.K.'s rocky road to stability

This paper provides an overview, using extensive documentary material, of developments in U.K. macroeconomic policy in the last half-century. Rather than focusing on well-known recent changes in policy arrangements (such as the introduction of inflation targeting in 1992 or central bank independence in 1997), we instead take a longer perspective, which characterizes the favorable economic performance in the 1990s and 2000s as the culmination of an overhaul of macroeconomic policy since the late 1970s. We stress that policymaking in recent decades has discarded various misconceptions about the macroeconomy and the monetary transmission mechanism that officials held in earlier periods. The misconceptions included: an underestimation of the importance of monetary policy in demand management until 1970; a failure to distinguish real and nominal interest rates until the late 1960s; the deployment until the mid-1980s of ineffective monetary control devices that did not alter the monetary base; and the adherence by policymakers in the 1960s and 1970s to nonmonetary views of the inflation process. We also consider developments in fiscal policy in light of changes in the doctrines underlying U.K. macroeconomic decisions.Monetary policy - Great Britain ; Inflation (Finance) - Great Britain

Robust Control Rules to Shield Against Indeterminacy

We address robustness of inflation targeting rules in a New Keynesian model using two approaches. Firstly we use the Hansen-Sargent method, borrowed from the control theory literature, to design robust rules on the basis of the policymaker playing a game against malign nature. This welfare-based approach is intended to deal with worst case scenarios, but does not directly address stability robustness. Furthermore, in the case of forward-looking systems, it does not address indeterminacy robustness; thus a system may have good stability properties, but a small parameter change could lead to indeterminacy. Secondly, we address this latter issue by imposing a probability distribution on problematic parameters, and investigate both the probability of instability and the probability of indeterminacy of the robust rule. For comparison, we apply the same idea to inflation forecast based rules, which have the potential to perform well provided that there is enough interest rate smoothing and that the forecast horizon is not too far aheadInflation Targeting, Indeterminicy

Euro area inflation persistence

This paper presents evidence on the lag between monetary policy actions and the response of inflation in the euro area as a whole as well as in Germany, Italy and France. In line with previous findings for the US and the UK, results here show that this lag is longer than one year both in the euro area and in individual countries, and that a lag of this length has existed in Europe at least since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, despite the numerous changes in European monetary policy regime thereafter. Results based on alternative definitions of inflation persistence support these findings, although, they suggest that at the country level, a drop in German inflation persistence and a sizeable shift in the mean of inflation particularly in Italy and France are beyond doubt. The paper shows that euro area inflation persistence could well be an intrinsic phenomenon rather than a ?statistical fluke? due to aggregation. JEL Classification: E4, E5inflation

The Costs and Benefits of Informality

We explore the costs and benefits of informality associated with the informal sector lying outside the tax regime in a two-sector New Keynesian model. The informal sector is more labour intensive, has a lower labour productivity, is untaxed and has a classical labour market. The formal sector bears all the taxation costs, produces all the government services and capital goods, and wages are determined by a real wage norm. We identify two welfare costs of informalization: (1) long-term costs restricting taxes to the formal sector and (2) short-term fluctuation costs of tax changes to finance fluctuations in government spending. The benefit of informality derives from its wage flexibility. We investigate whether taxing the informal sector and thereby reducing its size sees a net welfare improvement.Informal economy, labour market, tax policy, interest rate rules

A Floating versus managed exchange rate regime in a DSGE model of India.

We first develop a two-bloc model of an emerging open economy interacting with the rest of the world calibrated using Indian and US data. The model features a financial accelerator and is suitable for examining the effects of financial stress on the real economy. Three variants of the model are highlighted with increasing degrees of financial frictions. The model is used to compare two monetary interest rate regimes: domestic Inflation targeting with a floating exchange rate (FLEX(D)) and a managed exchange rate (MEX). Both rules are characterized as a Taylor-type interest rate rules. MEX involves a nominal exchange rate target in the rule and a constraint on its volatility. We find that the imposition of a low exchange rate volatility is only achieved at a significant welfare loss if the policymaker is restricted to a simple domestic inflation plus exchange rate targeting rule. If on the other hand the policymaker can implement a complex optimal rule then an almost fixed exchange rate can be achieved at a relatively small welfare cost. This finding suggests that future research should examine alternative simple rules that mimic the fully optimal rule more closely.DSGE model, Indian economy, Monetary interest rate rules, Floating versus managed exchange rate, Financial frictions

Euro area inflation persistence

This paper presents evidence on the lag between monetary policy actions and the response of inflation in the euro area as a whole as well as in Germany, Italy and France. In line with previous findings for the US and the UK, results here show that this lag is longer than one year both in the euro area and in individual countries, and that a lag of this length has existed in Europe at least since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, despite the numerous changes in European monetary policy regime thereafter. Results based on alternative definitions of inflation persistence support these findings, although, they suggest that at the country level, a drop in German inflation persistence and a sizeable shift in the mean of inflation particularly in Italy and France are beyond doubt. The paper shows that euro area inflation persistence could well be an intrinsic phenomenon rather than a 'statistical fluke' due to aggregation

GLI ACCORDI DI RISTRUTTURAZIONE DEI DEBITI

La tesi affronta le problematiche che hanno portato alla introduzione dell'istituto dell'a.r.d. Esamina i suoi presupposti soggettivi ed oggettivi. Verifica le varie tipologie e strutture, le formalita' della sottoscrizione e sua autenticazione. Valuta gli aspetti processuali, nella competenza del giudice, nella sua valutazione e nei rapporti tra procedimenti. Individua i vari aspetti che riguardano la valutazione del professionista. Prende in considerazione le operazioni di nuova finanza,la prededucibilità, le deroghe alla normativa societaria, gli effetti per coobbligati e fideiussori, gli accordi di gruppo, i rapporti degli accordi con imprese bancarie ed assicurative, la transazione fiscale, gli aspetti patologici, l'esenzione da opa obbligatoria, l'utilizzo del trust ed, infine, gli aspetti penali

Monetary and Fiscal Policy in the Presence of Informal Labour Markets

How does informality in emerging economies affect the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy? To answer this question we construct a two-sector, formal-informal new Keynesian closed-economy. The informal sector is more labour intensive, is untaxed, has a classical labour market, faces high credit constraints in financing investment and is less visible in terms of observed output. We compare outcomes under welfare- optimal monetary policy, discretion and welfare-optimized interest-rate Taylor rules alongside a balanced-budget fiscal regime. We compare the model, first with no frictions in these two markets, then with frictions in only the formal labour market and finally with frictions on both credit markets and the formal labour market. Our main conclusions are first, labour and financial market frictions, the latter assumed to be stronger in the informal sector, cause the time-inconsistency problem to worsen. The importance of commitment therefore increases in economies characterized by a large informal sector with the features we have highlighted. Simple implementable optimized rules that respond only to observed aggregate inflation and formal-sector output can be significantly worse in welfare terms than their optimal counterpart, but are still far better than discretion. Simple rules that respond, if possible, to the risk premium in the formal sector result in a significant welfare improvement.Informal economy ; Emerging economies ; Labour market ; Credit market ; Tax policy ; Interest rate rules

Indeterminacy with inflation-forecast-based rules in a two-bloc model

We examine the performance of forward-looking inflation-forecast-based rules in open economies. In a New Keynesian two-bloc model, a methodology first employed by Batini and Pearlman (2002) is used to obtain analytically the feedback parameters/horizon pairs associated with unique and stable equilibria. Three key findings emerge: first, indeterminacy occurs for any value of the feedback parameter on inflation if the forecast horizon lies too far into the future. Second, the problem of indeterminacy is intrinsically more serious in the open economy. Third, the problem is compounded further in the open economy when central banks respond to expected consumer, rather than pro- ducer price inflation. JEL Classification: E52, E37, E58in°ation-forecast-based rules, indeterminacy, open economy, Taylor rules