Are Indexed Bonds a Remedy for Sudden Stops?

Recent policy proposals call for setting up a benchmark indexed bond market to prevent "Sudden Stops". This paper analyzes the macroeconomic implications of these bonds using a general equilibrium model of a small open economy with financial frictions. In the absence of indexed bonds, negative shocks to productivity or to the terms of trade trigger Sudden Stops through a debt-deflation mechanism. This paper establishes that whether indexed bonds can help to prevent Sudden Stops depends on the "degree of indexation", or the percentage of the shock reflected in the return. Quantitative analysis calibrated to a typical emerging economy suggests that indexation can improve macroeconomic conditions only if the level of indexation is less than a critical value due to the imperfect nature of the hedge provided by these bonds. When indexation is higher than this critical value (as with full-indexation), "natural debt limits" become tighter, leading to higher precautionary savings. The increase in the volatility of the trade balance that accompanies the introduction of indexed bonds outweighs the improvement in the covariance of the trade balance with income, increasing consumption volatility. Additionally, we find that at high levels of indexation, the borrowing constraint can become suddenly binding following a positive shock, triggering a debt-deflation.Indexed Bonds, Degree of Indexation

Review of "Emerging Markets Resilience and Growth Amid Global Turmoil by M. Ayhan Kose and Eswar S. Prasad"

Emerging Markets Resilience and Growth amid Global Turmoil provides an excellent contribution to the literature. The book covers a variety of important topics on emerging market economies and offers invaluable information for a wide range of audience; from academics to policy makers as well as anyone interested in learning about these countries. The vast amount of information provided in the book is, then, used to shed light on an important question: What explains the resilience of emerging market economies observed during and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis? This review presents a brief summary of the book and a discussion about its implications for future research.

Emerging Market Business Cycles Revisited: Learning about the Trend

We build an equilibrium business cycle model in which agents cannot perfectly distinguish between the permanent and transitory components of TFP shocks and learn about those components using the Kalman filter. Calibrated to Mexico, the model predicts a higher variability of consumption relative to output and a strongly negative correlation between the trade balance and output for a wide range of variability and persistence of permanent shocks vis-a-vis the transitory shocks. Moreover, our estimation for Mexico and Canada suggests more severe informational frictions in emerging markets than in developed economies.emerging markets, business cycles, learning, Kalman filter

Review of "Emerging Markets Resilience and Growth Amid Global Turmoil by M. Ayhan Kose and Eswar S. Prasad"

Emerging Markets Resilience and Growth amid Global Turmoil provides an excellent contribution to the literature. The book covers a variety of important topics on emerging market economies and offers invaluable information for a wide range of audience; from academics to policy makers as well as anyone interested in learning about these countries. The vast amount of information provided in the book is, then, used to shed light on an important question: What explains the resilience of emerging market economies observed during and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis? This review presents a brief summary of the book and a discussion about its implications for future research

Ion-acoustic solitons in warm magnetoplasmas with super-thermal electrons

In this work, the phenomenon of formation of localised electrostatic waves (ESW) or soliton is considered in a warm magnetoplasma with the possibility of non-thermal electron distribution. The parameter regime considered here is relevant in case of magnetospheric plasmas. We show that deviation from a usual relaxed Maxwellian distribution of the electron population has a significant bearing in the allowed parameter regime, where these ESWs can be found. We further consider the presence of more than one electron temperature, which is inspired by recent space-based observations[key-2].Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Estimate of CP Violation for the LBNE Project and $\delta_{CP}

Measurements of CP violation (CPV) and the basic $\delta_{CP}$ parameter are the goals of the LBNE Project, which is being planned. Using the expected energy and baseline parameters for the LBNE Project, CPV and the dependence of CPV on $\delta_{CP}$ are estimated, to help in the planning of this project.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Pulsed x-rays dose measurements from a hundred joules plasma focus device

Indexación: Scopus.Present work is aimed to perform dosimetric measurements to characterize dosis obtained from pulsed x-rays emitted from a hundred joules plasma focus device PF-400J using thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD-100). Two dosimeter arrays (containing 21 dosimeters in each) were used. One of the arrays was kept inside the PF-400J vacuum chamber and other outside the vacuum chamber, simultaneously. It was found that dosis obtained from the inside array (∼200.7 mGy) were hundred times larger than the outside array (∼1.1 mGy) for hundred pulses of x-rays. Later, the vacuum window of PF-400J, which was made of 1 mm aluminum, was replaced by a plastic window and a similar dosimeter array was kept outside the chamber over the plastic window. With this arrangement, the obtained doses (100 pulses of x-rays) were of the same order of magnitude (∼106 mGy) as it was inside the vacuum chamber. Later, a lead piece was inserted inside the hollow anode of PF-400J, which increased dose (∼250 mGy) per hundred pulses of x-ray outside the vacuum chamber using plastic vacuum window. Our results suggest that PF-400J could be a useful device to study low dose pulsed radiation effects on cancer cell lines in in vitro experiments. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.The work is supported by grant ACT-1115, CONICYT, Chile.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1043/1/01204

Effects of cold rolling (CR) and annealing time on microstructure and mechanical properties of AA 5052 aluminum alloy

In this paper, the influences of cold rolling and annealing time on the microstructure and mechanical behaviors of AA 5052 aluminum alloy were investigated. An aluminum sheet was cold-rolled at room temperature at 15, 30, and 45 % rolling reduction. The 45 % cold-rolled sample was subsequently annealed at 370 °C for 2, 4, and 6 h. The microstructure was observed using optical microscopy whereas the mechanical behaviors were evaluated through hardness and tensile tests. It was found that the equiaxed grains are severely elongated along the rolling direction with increased rolling reduction. The hardness and strength increase significantly with an increase of rolling reduction but the ductility decreases. The annealing treatment reduces hardness and strength but improves the ductility