Troika of Fortune Tellers

This film is an oral history about the intergenerational relationship between three women: my grandmother, my mother, and I. Through our connection I explore the Russian traditions that my grandmother has cultivated and shared among the three of us, in particular, the tradition of fortune telling. I also explore my grandmother\u27s struggle with dementia. Although her memory is fading, she can still remember the practice of reading fortunes and that tradition has preserved our bond and her legacy

Financial frictions and the monetary transmission mechanism: theory, evidence and policy implications

This paper provides a brief survey of the role of financial frictions in the monetary transmission mechanism. After noting some of the key stylised facts that any model of the transmission mechanisms must be consistent with, we discuss both the classical interest rate channel and the credit and bank lending channels of monetary transmission. We then review the empirical evidence relating to the relative importance of these channels. Finally we consider what impact the presence of significant financial frictions might have on the conduct of monetary policy JEL Classification: E52, E58, E44bank-lending channel, credit channel, monetary policy, transmission mechanism

Universal I-Q relations for rapidly rotating neutron and strange stars in scalar-tensor theories

We study how rapid rotation influences the relation between the normalized moment of inertia $\bar{I}$ and quadrupole moment $\bar{Q}$ for scalarized neutron stars. The questions one has to answer are whether the EOS universality is preserved in this regime and what are the deviations from general relativity. Our results show that the $\bar{I}-\bar{Q}$ relation is nearly EOS independent for scalarized rapidly rotating stars, but the differences with pure Einstein's theory increase compared to the slowly rotating case. In general, smaller negative values of the scalar field coupling parameters $\beta$ lead to larger deviations, but these deviations are below the expected accuracy of the future astrophysical observations if one considers values of $\beta$ in agreement with the current observational constraint. An important remark is that although the normalized $\bar{I}-\bar{Q}$ relation is quite similar for scalar-tensor theories and general relativity, the unnormalized moment of inertia and quadrupole moment can be very different in the two theories. This demonstrates that although the $\bar{I}-\bar{Q}$ relations are potentially very useful for some purposes, they might not serve us well when trying to distinguish between different theories of gravity.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Static and slowly rotating neutron stars in scalar-tensor theory with self-interacting massive scalar field

Binary pulsar observations and gravitational wave detections seriously constrained scalar-tensor theories with massless scalar field allowing only small deviations from general relativity. If we consider a nonzero mass of the scalar field, though, significant deviations from general relativity are allowed for values of the parameters that are in agreement with the observations. In the present paper we extend this idea and we study scalar-tensor theory with massive field with self-interaction term in the potential. The additional term suppresses the scalar field in the neutron star models in addition to the effect of the mass of the scalar field but still, large deviations from pure GR can be observed for values of the parameters that are in agreement with the observations.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Multi-scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity: scalarized black holes beyond spontaneous scalarization

Recently, a new nonlinear mechanism for black hole scalarization, different from the standard spontaneous scalarization, was demonstrated to exist for scalar Gauss-Bonnet theories in which no tachyonic instabilities can occur. Thus Schwarzschild black hole is linearly stable but instead nonlinear instability can kick-in. In the present paper we extend on this idea in the case of multi-scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity with exponential coupling functions of third and fourth leading order in the scalar field. The main motivation comes from the fact that these theories admit hairy compact objects with zero scalar charge, thus zero scalar-dipole radiation, that automatically evades the binary pulsar constraints on the theory parameters. We demonstrate numerically the existence of scalarized black holes for both coupling functions and for all possible maximally symmetric scalar field target spaces. The thermodynamics and the stability of the obtained solution branches is also discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

The Failure of Public Company Bankruptcies in Delaware and New York: Empirical Evidence of a Race to the Bottom

In the early 1990s, Delaware replaced New York as the jurisdiction of choice for the bankruptcy reorganization of large, public companies. In an empirical study of 188 companies emerging from bankruptcy reorganization from 1983 through 1996, the authors found that the refiling rates for public companies reorganized in Delaware and New York were about five to seven times the refiling rates for companies reorganized in other courts. Nine of the thirty large, public companies emerging in Delaware from 1991 to 1996 (30%) have already refiled. New York rates were higher during the period of New York\u27s dominance than during the period of Delaware\u27s dominance and higher for the judge who attracted cases to New York in the 1980s than for other judges on the New York court. Delaware and New York rates were highest for prepackaged bankruptcies; the opposite was true for other courts\u27 rates. The authors argue that Delaware refiling rates are probably higher than efficient. They conclude that New York, and later Delaware, each won its dominance of bankruptcy reorganization at least in part by confirming plans likely to lead to the necessity for further reorganization. Based on their conclusion that companies probably are seeking inefficient reorganizations in Delaware, the authors speculate that companies may also be seeking inefficient incorporations there. The authors also found that public companies emerging from bankruptcy are more than four times as likely to file for bankruptcy reorganization as are public companies generally. The refiling rate for emerging companies is double the background rate for the first year after confirmation. It climbs to more than four times the background rate by the third year after confirmation and then declines to about three times the background rate by the eighth year after confirmation