Model responses to crisis: an investigation of a behavioural finance model and a financial frictions model using U.S. data

This thesis aims to examine the response of a behavioural finance model and a financial frictions model to the financial crisis which was triggered in 2007.This thesis will test both models by using indirect inference as an evaluation method.The results of this study show that,when compared with the rational expectation model, behavioural expectation does not improve the model's ability to explain the real world. Therefore, behavioural expectation is unable to respond to the current crisis to form expectations .However,the financial frictions model which is suggested by the literature is found to be an efficient model that improves the model's overall performance. This thesis finds that although financial shocks contribute to the out put gap variation during the crisis, it does not respond so much to the variations of inflation and policy. interest rate

Comparison of fibre migration in different yarn bodies

The qualities of yarn have been studied by analyzing the fibre migration in the yarn body. The effects of spinning method and raw fibre property on fibre migration have been studied using the tracer fibre technique. Compact-spun (60s Ne), ring-spun (60s and 10s Ne) and rotor-spun (10s Ne) (cotton) yarns have been prepared. However, for the compact-spun yarns, both pure cotton and polyester/cotton blended yarns have been prepared. Two mixing steps have been used, namely (i) the dyed cotton fibre mass is homogeneously mixed with the undyed cotton fibre mass by hand, and (ii) the mixed fibre agglomerates are then subjected to carding to obtain a more uniform mixture. Finally, five sets of yarns are obtained through the consequent spinning process. Fibre measuring system is used to watch the movement of tracer fibres and to get the migration parameters as well as their envelope lines. The results show that the fibre migration of the ring spinning yarn is the most obvious, followed by the compact spinning yarn. The rotor spinning yarn has so many wrapped structures that the fibre migration is not obvious. Polyester/cotton blended yarn, which has better yarn levelness, higher breaking strength and less hairiness, shows higher degree of fibre migration than the yarn made of pure cotton

Institutions and the Resource Curse in GCC countries

This paper investigates whether natural resource revenues in the GCC countries lead to economic growth or if the resource curse is evident. Using panel data for six countries during 1996-2019, we investigate the indirect relationship in which natural resources and economic growth operate through different institutional qualities. Using two different classifications of export composition, we show that point-source resources, particularly fuel exportation, worsen the economic performance of a country. In contrast, diffuse-source resources do not follow this pattern. Nevertheless, the results also provide the threshold level of institutional, beyond which fuel wealth enhances economic growth. This result suggests that for fuel exportation to have a meaningful impact on economic growth, GCC countries must attain a certain threshold of institutional quality. The results confirm our hypothesis that institutions are decisive for the resource curse, therefore contrasting the claims of Sachs and Warner (1995, 2001) that institutions do not play a role. It, therefore, suggests that countries must adopt appropriate policy measures to improve their levels of institutional quality and soften the impact of a resource curse

Numerical analysis of the slub yarn breaking strength using finite element method

The numerical analysis of the slub yarn breaking strength has been made by using the finite element method (FEM). The slub yarn has been considered as skeletal structures since the yarn longitudinal length is much larger than its horizontal cross-section. Then, the accuracy of the proposed FEM model in calculating the slub yarn breaking strength has been validated by comparing the calculated results with the experimental data. This model can be used to calculate the slub yarn breaking strength normally and provides a theoretical support for product design

How important is the credit channel? An empirical study of the US banking crisis

We examine whether by adding a credit channel to the standard New Keynesian model we can account better for the behaviour of US macroeconomic data up to and including the banking crisis. We use the method of indirect inference which evaluates statistically how far a model's simulated behaviour mimics the behaviour of the data. We find that the model with credit dominates the standard model by a substantial margin. Credit shocks are the main contributor to the variation in the output gap during the crisis

edge2vec: Representation learning using edge semantics for biomedical knowledge discovery

Representation learning provides new and powerful graph analytical approaches and tools for the highly valued data science challenge of mining knowledge graphs. Since previous graph analytical methods have mostly focused on homogeneous graphs, an important current challenge is extending this methodology for richly heterogeneous graphs and knowledge domains. The biomedical sciences are such a domain, reflecting the complexity of biology, with entities such as genes, proteins, drugs, diseases, and phenotypes, and relationships such as gene co-expression, biochemical regulation, and biomolecular inhibition or activation. Therefore, the semantics of edges and nodes are critical for representation learning and knowledge discovery in real world biomedical problems. In this paper, we propose the edge2vec model, which represents graphs considering edge semantics. An edge-type transition matrix is trained by an Expectation-Maximization approach, and a stochastic gradient descent model is employed to learn node embedding on a heterogeneous graph via the trained transition matrix. edge2vec is validated on three biomedical domain tasks: biomedical entity classification, compound-gene bioactivity prediction, and biomedical information retrieval. Results show that by considering edge-types into node embedding learning in heterogeneous graphs, \textbf{edge2vec}\ significantly outperforms state-of-the-art models on all three tasks. We propose this method for its added value relative to existing graph analytical methodology, and in the real world context of biomedical knowledge discovery applicability.Comment: 10 page

Can Modern Monetary Theory fit the post-Crisis US facts? Evidence from a full DSGE model

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) claims that a monetarily sovereign government like the US is never confronted by a real budget constraint since it can always monetise any deficit by printing money; and this need not be inflationary since it can always drain excess money from circulation by taxing. MMT economists claim that their theory is in line with the behaviour of the US data since the Financial Crisis, and argue that policy in the post-COVID recovery period should continue to be guided by MMT principles. We set out the MMT policy rules within a full DSGE model and test this model version against the data by indirect inference, side by side with a standard New Keynesian rival version, to evaluate these claims. We find that the MMT model is rejected by the data, while the standard model is not; and that the MMT policy rules imply a material loss of welfare compared to the standard ones

How important is the credit channel? An empirical study of the US banking crisis

We examine whether by adding a credit channel to the standard New Keynesian model we can account better for the behaviour of US macroeconomic data up to and including the banking crisis. We use the method of indirect inference which evaluates statistically how far a model's simulated behaviour mimics the behaviour of the data. We find that the model with credit dominates the standard model by a substantial margin. Credit shocks are the main contributor to the variation in the output gap during the crisis

Comparing behavioural and rational expectations for the US post-war economy

The banking crisis has caused a resurgence of interest in behavioural models of expectations in macroeconomics. Here we evaluate behavioural and rational expectations econometrically in a New Keynesian framework, using US post-war data and the method of indirect inference. We find that after full reestimation the model with behavioural expectations is strongly rejected by the data, whereas the standard rational expectations version passes the tests by a substantial margin