What Happened to the Bondholding Class? Public Debt, Power and the Top One Per Cent

In 1887 Henry Carter Adams produced a study demonstrating that the ownership of government bonds was heavily concentrated in the hands of a ‘bondholding class’ that lent to and, in Adams's view, controlled the government like dominant shareholders control a corporation. The interests of this bondholding class clashed with the interests of the masses, whose burdensome taxes financed the interest payments on government bonds. Since the late nineteenth century there has been plenty of debate about the ownership of the public debt. But the empirical evidence offered to support the various arguments has been scant. As a result, political economists have few answers to questions first raised by Adams over century ago: how has the pattern of public debt ownership changed? Can we still speak of a powerful ‘bondholding class’? Does public debt redistribute income from taxpayers to public creditors? This article develops a new framework to address these questions. Anchored within a ‘capital as power’ approach, the research indicates a staggering pattern of concentration in the ownership of US public debt in the hands of the top one per cent of US households over the past three decades. Accordingly, the bondholding class is still alive and well in contemporary US capitalism

Volatility forecasting in the Chinese commodity futures market with intraday data

Given the unique institutional regulations in the Chinese commodity futures market as well as the characteristics of the data it generates, we utilize contracts with three months to delivery, the most liquid contract series, to systematically explore volatility forecasting for aluminum, copper, fuel oil, and sugar at the daily and three intraday sampling frequencies. We adopt popular volatility models in the literature and assess the forecasts obtained via these models against alternative proxies for the true volatility. Our results suggest that the long memory property is an essential feature in the commodity futures volatility dynamics and that the ARFIMA model consistently produces the best forecasts or forecasts not inferior to the best in statistical terms

Properties of a simple bilinear stochastic model: estimation and predictability

We analyze the properties of arguably the simplest bilinear stochastic multiplicative process, proposed as a model of financial returns and of other complex systems combining both nonlinearity and multiplicative noise. By construction, it has no linear predictability (zero two-point correlation) but a certain nonlinear predictability (non-zero three-point correlation). It can thus be considered as a paradigm for testing the existence of a possible nonlinear predictbility in a given time series. We present a rather exhaustive study of the process, including its ability to produce fat-tailed distribution from Gaussian innovations, the unstable characteristics of the inversion of the key nonlinear parameters and of the two initial conditions necessary for the implementation of a prediction scheme and an analysis of the associated super-exponential sensitivity of the inversion of the innovations in the presence of a large impluse. Our study emphasizes the conditions under which a degree of predictability can be achieved and describes a number of different attempts, which overall illuminates the properties of the process. In conclusion, notwithstanding its remarkable simplicity, the bilinear stochastic process exhibits remarkably rich and complex behavior, which makes it a serious candidate for the modeling of financial times series and of other complex systems.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figures, 8 table

Can the Consumption-Free Nonexpected Utility Model Solve the Risk Premium Puzzle? An Empirical Study of the Japanese Stock Market

This paper investigates whether the consumption-free two-beta intertemporal capital asset-pricing model developed by Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004) is able to solve the risk premium puzzle in the Japanese stock market over the period 1984-2002. Using the cash flow and discount rate betas as risk factors, the model is able to explain about half of the market returns by selection of suitable vector autoregression variables. On this basis, the model proposed solves the risk premium puzzle in Japan, thereby suggesting that Japanese investors are less risk averse than US investors. However, a model including only the cash flow beta better explains returns than a model with both betas. The analysis also tests and rejects the simple capital asset-pricing model in Japan

Cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy monitoring (NIRS) in children and adults:a systematic review with meta-analysis

Background: Cerebral oxygenation monitoring utilising near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is increasingly used to guide interventions in clinical care. The objective of this systematic review with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis is to evaluate the effects of clinical care with access to cerebral NIRS monitoring in children and adults versus care without. Methods: This review conforms to PRISMA guidelines and was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020202986). Methods are outlined in our protocol (doi: 10.1186/s13643-021-01660-2). Results: Twenty-five randomised clinical trials were included (2606 participants). All trials were at a high risk of bias. Two trials assessed the effects of NIRS during neonatal intensive care, 13 during cardiac surgery, 9 during non-cardiac surgery and 1 during neurocritical care. Meta-analyses showed no significant difference for all-cause mortality (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.51–1.10; 1489 participants; I2 = 0; 11 trials; very low certainty of evidence); moderate or severe, persistent cognitive or neurological deficit (RR 0.74, 95% CI 0.42–1.32; 1135 participants; I2 = 39.6; 9 trials; very low certainty of evidence); and serious adverse events (RR 0.82; 95% CI 0.67–1.01; 2132 participants; I2 = 68.4; 17 trials; very low certainty of evidence). Conclusion: The evidence on the effects of clinical care with access to cerebral NIRS monitoring is very uncertain. Impact: The evidence of the effects of cerebral NIRS versus no NIRS monitoring are very uncertain for mortality, neuroprotection, and serious adverse events. Additional trials to obtain sufficient information size, focusing on lowering bias risk, are required.The first attempt to systematically review randomised clinical trials with meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of cerebral NIRS monitoring by pooling data across various clinical settings.Despite pooling data across clinical settings, study interpretation was not substantially impacted by heterogeneity.We have insufficient evidence to support or reject the clinical use of cerebral NIRS monitoring.</p

Cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy monitoring (NIRS) in children and adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Background: Cerebral oxygenation monitoring utilising near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is increasingly used to guide interventions in clinical care. The objective of this systematic review with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis is to evaluate the effects of clinical care with access to cerebral NIRS monitoring in children and adults versus care without. Methods: This review conforms to PRISMA guidelines and was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020202986). Methods are outlined in our protocol (doi: 10.1186/s13643-021-01660-2). Results: Twenty-five randomised clinical trials were included (2606 participants). All trials were at a high risk of bias. Two trials assessed the effects of NIRS during neonatal intensive care, 13 during cardiac surgery, 9 during non-cardiac surgery and 1 during neurocritical care. Meta-analyses showed no significant difference for all-cause mortality (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.51–1.10; 1489 participants; I2 = 0; 11 trials; very low certainty of evidence); moderate or severe, persistent cognitive or neurological deficit (RR 0.74, 95% CI 0.42–1.32; 1135 participants; I2 = 39.6; 9 trials; very low certainty of evidence); and serious adverse events (RR 0.82; 95% CI 0.67–1.01; 2132 participants; I2 = 68.4; 17 trials; very low certainty of evidence). Conclusion: The evidence on the effects of clinical care with access to cerebral NIRS monitoring is very uncertain. Impact: The evidence of the effects of cerebral NIRS versus no NIRS monitoring are very uncertain for mortality, neuroprotection, and serious adverse events. Additional trials to obtain sufficient information size, focusing on lowering bias risk, are required.The first attempt to systematically review randomised clinical trials with meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of cerebral NIRS monitoring by pooling data across various clinical settings.Despite pooling data across clinical settings, study interpretation was not substantially impacted by heterogeneity.We have insufficient evidence to support or reject the clinical use of cerebral NIRS monitoring

Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Regulation of SPAST, the Gene Most Frequently Mutated in Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia

Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) comprise a group of neurodegenerative disorders that are characterized by progressive spasticity of the lower extremities, due to axonal degeneration in the corticospinal motor tracts. HSPs are genetically heterogeneous and show autosomal dominant inheritance in ∼70–80% of cases, with additional cases being recessive or X-linked. The most common type of HSP is SPG4 with mutations in the SPAST gene, encoding spastin, which occurs in 40% of dominantly inherited cases and in ∼10% of sporadic cases. Both loss-of-function and dominant-negative mutation mechanisms have been described for SPG4, suggesting that precise or stoichiometric levels of spastin are necessary for biological function. Therefore, we hypothesized that regulatory mechanisms controlling expression of SPAST are important determinants of spastin biology, and if altered, could contribute to the development and progression of the disease. To examine the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of SPAST, we used molecular phylogenetic methods to identify conserved sequences for putative transcription factor binding sites and miRNA targeting motifs in the SPAST promoter and 3′-UTR, respectively. By a variety of molecular methods, we demonstrate that SPAST transcription is positively regulated by NRF1 and SOX11. Furthermore, we show that miR-96 and miR-182 negatively regulate SPAST by effects on mRNA stability and protein level. These transcriptional and miRNA regulatory mechanisms provide new functional targets for mutation screening and therapeutic targeting in HSP