The Lending Channel in Emerging Economics: Are Foreign Banks Different?

This paper assembles a dataset comprising 1,565 banks in 20 Asian and Latin American countries during 1989-2001 and compares the response of the volume of loans, deposits, and bank-specific interest rates on loans and deposits, to various measures of monetary conditions, across domestic and foreign banks. It also looks for systematic differences in the behavior of domestic and foreign banks during periods of financial distress and tranquil times. Using differences in bank ownership as a proxy for financial constraints on banks, the paper finds weak evidence that foreign banks have a lower sensitivity of credit to monetary conditions relative to their domestic competitors, with the differences driven by banks with lower asset liquidity and/or capitalization. At the same time, the lending and deposit rates of foreign banks tend to be smoother during periods of financial distress, albeit the differences with domestic banks do not appear to be strong. These results provide weak support to the existence of supply-side effects in credit markets and suggest that foreign bank entry in emerging economies may have contributed somewhat to stability in credit markets.

Student Performance may not Improve when Universities are Choosier

We use unique administrative data from a leading Italian University to estimate whether the use of admission tests and conditional progression schemes are effective strategies to select high-performing students. Previous work has mainly focused on the effect of selectivity policies on widening university access by individuals from ethnic minorities and disadvantaged background.college student performance, college admission, institutional selectivity, difference-in-difference design

Co-existence Between a Radar System and a Massive MIMO Wireless Cellular System

In this paper we consider the uplink of a massive MIMO communication system using 5G New Radio-compliant multiple access, which is to co-exist with a radar system using the same frequency band. We propose a system model taking into account the reverberation (clutter) produced by the radar system at the massive MIMO receiver. Then, we propose several linear receivers for uplink data-detection, ranging by the simple channel-matched beamformer to the zero-forcing and linear minimum mean square error receivers for clutter disturbance rejection. Our results show that the clutter may have a strong effect on the performance of the cellular communication system, but the use of large-scale antenna arrays at the base station is key to provide increased robustness against it, at least as far as data-detection is concerned.Comment: To be presented at 2018 IEEE SPAWC, Kalamata, Greece, June 201

A New Approach for Bounding Awards in Bankruptcy Problems

The solution for the "Contested Garment Problem" proposed in the BabylonicTalmud, one of the most important sources of inspiration for solving situations where demand overcomes supply of some resources, suggests that each agent should receive at least some part of the available amount when facing these situations. Thisidea has been underlied the theoretical analysis of bankruptcy problems from its beginning (O'Neill, 1982) to present day (Dominguez and Thomsom, 2006). In this context, starting from the fact that a society establishes its own set of "Commonly Accepted Equity Principles", we propose a new award bound by providing each agent her minimum amount according to all the admissible bankruptcy rules for such a society. Moreover, we analyze the recursive application of this new bound, since it will not exhaust the resources, in general.Bankruptcy problems, bankruptcy rules, lower bound, recursive process.

Vibrations of free and embedded anisotropic elastic spheres: Application to low-frequency Raman scattering of silicon nanoparticles in silica

Vibrational mode frequencies and damping are calculated for an elastic sphere embedded in an infinite, homogeneous, isotropic elastic medium. Anisotropic elasticity of the sphere significantly shifts the frequencies in comparison to simplified calculations that assume isotropy. New low frequency Raman light scattering data are presented for silicon spheres grown in a SiO2 glass matrix. Principal features of the Raman spectrum are not correctly described by a simple model of the nanoparticle as a free, isotropic sphere, but require both matrix effects and the anisotropy of the silicon to be taken into account. Libration, not vibration, is the dominant mechanism

BANKRUPTCY GAMES AND THE IBN EZRA'S PROPOSAL

This paper follows the interpretation of the bankruptcy problems in terms of TU games given in O'Neill (1982). In this context we propose the analysis of the Transition Game associated to each bankruptcy problem. We explore an old solution described by Ibn Ezra in the XII century. Firstly, we study the extension of the Ibn Ezra's proposal by O'Neill (1982), the Minimal Overlap solution. We provide a characterization of this value and show that it can be understood as the composition of the Ibn Ezra solution and the Constrained Equal Loss rule. Secondly, we introduce a new way of extending the Ibn Ezra's proposal, the Generalized Ibn Ezra solution, by imposing that the general distribution principle in which is inspired remains fixed. The characterization of our proposal clarifies the analogies and differences between the two ways of generalizing the Ibn Ezra's proposal.Bankruptcy Problems, Cooperative Games, Ibn Ezra's proposal, Minimal Overlap solution.

Analytical Modeling of Interference Aware Power Control for the Uplink of Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Inter-cell interference is one of the main limiting factors in current Heterogeneous Cellular Networks (HCNs). Uplink Fractional Power Control (FPC) is a well known method that aims to cope with such limiting factor as well as to save battery live. In order to do that, the path losses associated with Mobile Terminal (MT) transmissions are partially compensated so that a lower interference is leaked towards neighboring cells. Classical FPC techniques only consider a set of parameters that depends on the own MT transmission, like desired received power at the Base Station (BS) or the path loss between the MT and its serving BS, among others. Contrary to classical FPC, in this paper we use stochastic geometry to analyze a power control mechanism that keeps the interference generated by each MT under a given threshold. We also consider a maximum transmitted power and a partial compensation of the path loss. Interestingly, our analysis reveals that such Interference Aware (IA) method can reduce the average power consumption and increase the average spectral efficiency. Additionally, the variance of the interference is reduced, thus improving the performance of Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) since the interference can be better estimated at the MT.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table and 7 figures. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

VDAC, The early days

AbstractVDAC is now universally accepted as the channel in the mitochondrial outer membrane responsible for metabolite flux in and out of mitochondria. Its discovery occurred over two independent lines of investigation in the 1970s and 80s. This retrospective article describes the history of VDAC's discovery and how these lines merged in a collaboration by the authors. The article was written to give the reader a sense of the role played by laboratory environment, personalities, and serendipity in the discovery of the molecular basis for the unusual permeability properties of the mitochondrial outer membrane. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: VDAC structure, function, and regulation of mitochondrial metabolism