Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interaction: What is the Role of the Transaction Cost of the Tax System in Stabilisation Policies?

In the theory of monetary and fiscal policy interaction, the assumption of Ricardian households isolates the determinants of fiscal policy instrument from the price stabilization policies carried out by the central bank. One of the main implications of the above mentioned Ricardian assumption is that the fiscal policy does not have any distortionary effect for the economy, i.e. it does not affect the behaviour of the households, supporting that way the fiscal policy’s neutrality. The argument for this view comes if one assumes that fiscal policy has a distortionary effect on the behaviour of the agents. We relax the above non distortionary assumption by assuming that the imposition of the taxes is consistent with a transaction cost of the tax system that underlies the state - tax payer interaction. In this way we develop a channel through which the stability of prices carried out by the independent central bank is, within optimality, also a function of the fiscal policy determinants (the transaction cost, the tax rates and the debt level). The analysis is carried out in a framework of a monetary union, with two different countries. Within this framework, the effectiveness of a numerical fiscal rule is also examined.Monetary and fiscal policy interactions; Transaction cost of the tax system; Probability of re-election; Stability and growth pact

'Assessing market dominance': a comment and an extension

Melnik et al. [Melnik, A., Shy, Oz, Stenbacka, R. Assessing market dominance. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 68, 63-72] have proposed a new statistic to assess market dominance. In this comment we expand their discussion of certain mathematical properties in their analysis and link their methodology to some previous approaches.Firm's dominance, dominant position, measure of dominance

“Assessing market dominance”: a comment and an extension

Melnik et al. [Melnik, A., Shy, Oz, Stenbacka, R., 2008. Assessing market dominance. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 68, 63-72] have proposed a new statistic to assess market dominance. In this comment we expand their discussion of certain mathematical properties in their analysis and link their methodology to some previous approaches.Firm’s dominance; Dominant position; Measure of dominance

An evaluation of policies for fiscal and external sustainability during the recent Greek economic crisis

The scope of this note is to point out that high growth rates must be accompanied by current account surpluses financing the internal debt service as a necessary and sufficient condition for a debt-reduction strategy. The recipe is applied in the case of Greece which, looking back at the pre-crisis period, has been experiencing substantial consumptionled growth following extensive foreign borrowing.peer-reviewe

Geometry-material coordination for passive adaptive solar morphing envelopes

The cost-intensive and mechanical complexity natures of the adaptive facades of the past decades drifted designers and researchers’ interest towards passive material-based actuation systems. Architectural applications using the latter showed, however, a few limitations restricting the output possibility space to options that rely entirely on one material’s phase characteristic. This study aims to investigate the potential of expanding a shape memory alloy-actuated facade’s output from one that is limited and hardly controllable in the case of entirely passive actuation to one that can produce a specific desired performative target. This is explored through coordinating between geometry movement connections of an adaptive component of four integrated shape memory alloys, which work on tailoring the geometry-material-climate relations of the responsive system. The research findings suggest that the integration of geometry, material, and their connections in the design of a SMA solar morphing envelope lead to the development of a wider range of behavioural system outputs. The variety instilled through these added dimensions promoted diversity and adaptability of output for a flexible range of responses and higher performative gains

A doublet microlens array for imaging micron-sized objects

We present a high-numerical aperture, doublet microlens array for imaging micron-sized objects. The proposed doublet architecture consists of glass microspheres trapped on a predefined array of silicon microholes and covered with a thin polymer layer. A standard silicon microfabrication process and a novel fluidic assembly technique were combined to obtain an array of 56 µm diameter microlenses with a numerical aperture of ~0.5. Using such an array, we demonstrated brightfield and fluorescent image formation of objects directly on a CCD sensor without the use of intermediate lenses. The proposed technology is a significant advancement toward the unmet need of inexpensive, miniaturized optical modules which can be further integrated with lab-on-chip microfluidic devices and photonic chips for a variety of high-end imaging/detection applications.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90795/1/0960-1317_21_10_105024.pd

Sketch-based navigation for mobile robots using qualitative landmark states

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 19, 2007)Vita.Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2007.In this work, a system for navigating a mobile robot along a sketched route is proposed. The sketch is drawn on a PDA screen by a human operator and contains approximate landmarks and a path, similar to a sketch provided to another person to reach a goal. The robot receives the sketch and detects the objects and route. The robot proceeds to extract spatial relations between the robot and surrounding objects at crucial nodes along the sketched route. Based on the extracted spatial relations, a sequence of Qualitative Landmark States (QLS's) and associated robot commands serves as a guide for robot navigation in the real world. The robot then executes the sketched route by matching landmark states in the real world to the extracted states. The approach is validated and tested using sketches by independent study participants both with a real robot and in a simulator. Special sketches and robot operating environments are used to illustrate results in extreme cases and to independently test extraction, identification and matching of QLS's. We show that QLS's based on spatial relations can be used as a common route representation between a sketched route map and a physical environment. The selection of QLS's is crucial to the success of such an approach and the algorithm shows a way to pick the correct states for successful navigation. The approach is not dependent on the number or type of sensors on the robot and does not assume a particular type of robot; the strategy can work with any sensory method that can provide an object representation in two dimensions (top view). The approach is not dependent on the route chosen, the size or shape of objects, or the position of the objects. The algorithm can account for a certain degree of uncertainty and inconsistencies in sketching (scaling of object size and position, distortions, completeness of object representation.Includes bibliographical reference

An evaluation of policies for fiscal and external sustainability during the recent Greek economic crisis

The scope of this note is to point out that high growth rates must be accompanied by current account surpluses financing the internal debt service as a necessary and sufficient condition for a debt-reduction strategy. The recipe is applied in the case of Greece which, looking back at the pre-crisis period, has been experiencing substantial consumptionled growth following extensive foreign borrowing.peer-reviewe