Measuring the diffusion of housing prices across space and over time

How fast and how long (and to what magnitude) does a change in housing prices in one region affect its neighbors? In this paper, I apply a time series technique for measuring impulse response functions from linear projections to a spatial autoregressive model of housing prices. For a dynamic panel of California counties, the data reveal that spatial autocorrelation between regional housing prices is highly persistent over time, lasting up to two and half years. This result, and the econometric techniques employed, should be of interest to not only housing and regional economists, but to a variety of applied econometricians as well.

Credit Cards and Monetary Policy: Are Households still liquidity-constrained?

That the lending channel is alive and well for consumer lending is at first glance a compelling notion given the growth in consumer credit. However, this paper demonstrates with disaggregated monthly and quarterly consumer credit data that households are awash in liquidity. Contrary to assumptions motivating the lending channel, households are not constrained in accessing credit from any lender (or in any form) in response to a monetary shock. The findings of this paper have important implications for research on the monetary transmission mechanism beyond the lending channel and for business cycle research in general.

Vacuum Polarisation and the Black Hole Singularity

In order to investigate the effects of vacuum polarisation on mass inflation singularities, we study a simple toy model of a charged black hole with cross flowing radial null dust which is homogeneous in the black hole interior. In the region $r^2 \ll e^2$ we find an approximate analytic solution to the classical field equations. The renormalized stress-energy tensor is evaluated on this background and we find the vacuum polarisation backreaction corrections to the mass function $m(r)$. Asymptotic analysis of the semiclassical mass function shows that the mass inflation singularity is much stronger in the presence of vacuum polarisation than in the classical case.Comment: 12 pages, RevTe

Cosmic Censorship: As Strong As Ever

Spacetimes which have been considered counter-examples to strong cosmic censorship are revisited. We demonstrate the classical instability of the Cauchy horizon inside charged black holes embedded in de Sitter spacetime for all values of the physical parameters. The relevant modes which maintain the instability, in the regime which was previously considered stable, originate as outgoing modes near to the black hole event horizon. This same mechanism is also relevant for the instability of Cauchy horizons in other proposed counter-examples of strong cosmic censorship.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX style, 1 figure included using epsfi

Pressure-driven flow of suspensions: simulation and theory

Dynamic simulations of the pressure-driven flow in a channel of a non-Brownian suspension at zero Reynolds number were conducted using Stokesian Dynamics. The simulations are for a monolayer of identical particles as a function of the dimensionless channel width and the bulk particle concentration. Starting from a homogeneous dispersion, the particles gradually migrate towards the centre of the channel, resulting in an homogeneous concentration profile and a blunting of the particle velocity profile. The time for achieving steady state scales as (H/a)3a/[left angle bracket]u[right angle bracket], where H is the channel width, a the radii of the particles, and [left angle bracket]u[right angle bracket] the average suspension velocity in the channel. The concentration and velocity profiles determined from the simulations are in qualitative agreement with experiment. A model for suspension flow has been proposed in which macroscopic mass, momentum and energy balances are constructed and solved simultaneously. It is shown that the requirement that the suspension pressure be constant in directions perpendicular to the mean motion leads to particle migration and concentration variations in inhomogeneous flow. The concept of the suspension ‘temperature’ – a measure of the particle velocity fluctuations – is introduced in order to provide a nonlocal description of suspension behaviour. The results of this model for channel flow are in good agreement with the simulations

Dynamic simulation of an electrorheological fluid

A molecular-dynamics-like method is presented for the simulation of a suspension of dielectric particles in a nonconductive solvent forming an electrorheological fluid. The method accurately accounts for both hydrodynamic and electrostatic interparticle interactions from dilute volume fractions to closest packing for simultaneous shear and electric fields. The hydrodynamic interactions and rheology are determined with the Stokesian dynamics methodology, while the electrostatic interactions, in particular, the conservative electrostatic interparticle forces, are determined from the electrostatic energy of the suspension. The energy of the suspension is computed from the induced particle dipoles by a method previously developed [R. T. Bonnecaze and J. F. Brady, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 430, 285 (1990)]. Using the simulation, the dynamics can be directly correlated to the observed macroscopic rheology of the suspension for a range of the so-called Mason number, Ma, the ratio of viscous to electrostatic forces. The simulation is specifically applied to a monolayer of spherical particles of areal fraction 0.4 with a particle-to-fluid dielectric constant ratio of 4 for Ma=10^−4 to [infinity]. The effective viscosity of the suspension increases as Ma^−1 or with the square of the electric field for small Ma and has a plateau value at large Ma, as is observed experimentally. This rheological behavior can be interpreted as Bingham plastic-like with a dynamic yield stress. The first normal stress difference is negative, and its magnitude increases as Ma^−1 at small Ma with a large Ma plateau value of zero. In addition to the time averages of the rheology, the time traces of the viscosities are presented along with selected "snapshots" of the suspension microstructure. In particular, at small Ma, the suspension dynamics exhibit two distinct motions: a slow elastic-body-like deformation where electrostatic energy is stored, followed by a rapid microstructural rearrangement where energy is viscously dissipated. It is suggested that the observed dynamic yield stress is associated with these dynamics