Dampened expectations in the Phillips Curve: a note

Dampened inflation expectations have a significant impact on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve. This dampening not only flattens the long run Phillips Curve, but it can also lead to a bias in the estimation of its short run slope. It also affects the response of a small NK model to demand shocks, and affects the optimal monetary policy: in particular, the price targeting result of the Ramsey policy is violated when there is dampening

Monopsony with nominal rigidities: An inverted Phillips Curve

With nominal wage rigidities, it is crucial to distinguish whether wages are set by workers or firms — whether we have monopoly or monopsony power. This paper provides a model of monopsony power in the labour market and a monopsonistic Phillips Curve. If wages are set by firms who face nominal rigidities, and there is inflation, firms cannot adjust their wages fully. The real wage falls, and labour supply hence output decreases. This provides a Phillips Curve where the output gap is negatively correlated with wage inflation. In such a world monetary policy affects the intertemporal labour supply, while the Phillips Curve is a labour demand curve. Interest rate cuts reduce the labour supply instead of boosting demand: they are contractionary

Featherbedding and labour market reforms

When labour unions are able to use first-best price discrimination, they can extract a wage above the marginal product of labour. In other words,employment is above the firm's own optimum -- this is featherbedding or overmanning. This effect can capture the importance that unions put on maximizing employment. While labour market reforms are usually beneficial in the long run, they can be detrimental in the short run if investment does not pick up quickly enough

Analysis of Hypersonic Boundary Layer Second Mode Instability over a 7° Cone

This paper presents the results of the analysis of Mach 8.0 flow over a seven degree half-angle cone. The purpose of this analysis was to develop techniques to examine boundary layer transition at hypersonic velocities. The specific objectives were to look for second mode instability waves characteristic of the transition process and to quantify the percentage of turbulent flow. Two sets of data were used in this analysis. The first set of data was taken at several axial positions at a freestream Reynolds number 4.265 million per meter. This data was used to develop the analysis techniques. The second set of data was taken at station 35 for Reynolds numbers of 3.28, 3.94,4.92, and 6.56 million per meter. Spectral analysis was used to identify 2nd mode disturbances, if they existed. The energy associated with the disturbances was then removed from the data signal to produce a new signal. The new signal was then evaluated using conditional sampling techniques. Additional methods used to assess turbulent intermittency were histogram analysis and examination of the power spectrum of the data signal. It was determined that removal of the disturbances from the raw data signal produced a cleaner signal. However, the new signals were not amenable to conditional sampling techniques. The histogram analysis proved to be inconclusive. Examination of the power spectrum showed that a laminar flow could be identified by the presence of a strong peak corresponding to the 2nd mode disturbances, but could not be used to identify a flow as being turbulent by the absence of this peak

Evaluating the Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Bile Pigments in Early and Later Life

The heme degradation pathway has been conserved throughout phylogeny and allows for the removal of a pro-oxidant and the generation of unique molecules including bile pigments with important cellular functions. The impact of bile pigments on health and disease are reviewed, as is the special circumstance of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. In addition, the importance of promoter polymorphisms in the UDP-glucuronosyl transferase gene (UGTA1), which is key to the elimination of excess bilirubin and to the prevention of its toxicity, are discussed. Overall, the duality of bile pigments as either cytoprotective or toxic molecules is highlighted

Search templates for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds

Several earth-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors are actively pursuing the quest for placing observational constraints on models that predict the behavior of a variety of astrophysical and cosmological sources. These sources span a wide gamut, ranging from hydrodynamic instabilities in neutron stars (such as r-modes) to particle production in the early universe. Signals from a subset of these sources are expected to appear in these detectors as stochastic GW backgrounds (SGWBs). The detection of these backgrounds will help us in characterizing their sources. Accounting for such a background will also be required by some detectors, such as the proposed space-based detector LISA, so that they can detect other GW signals. Here, we formulate the problem of constructing a bank of search templates that discretely span the parameter space of a generic SGWB. We apply it to the specific case of a class of cosmological SGWBs, known as the broken power-law models. We derive how the template density varies in their three-dimensional parameter space and show that for the LIGO 4km detector pair, with LIGO-I sensitivities, about a few hundred templates will suffice to detect such a background while incurring a loss in signal-to-noise ratio of no more than 3%.Comment: Revtex, 7 pages, 18 eps figure

Essays on macroeconomic implications of the labour market

This thesis examines some features of the labour market, and their macroeconomic consequences. The first paper relates the observed flatter Phillips Curve to the rise in labour turnover and temporary employment. In a New Keynesian model of sticky wages, workers or unions discount future wage income with a low discount factor if there is a strong flow of job turnover. In the New Keynesian wage Phillips Curve, this implies that future inflation is discounted more heavily than without job turnover. In the long run, the Phillips Curve is much flatter, and is no longer vertical or near-vertical; in the middle and long run, the curve appears flatter as turnover creates a bias if it is not accounted for. The second paper studies the impact of a rise in monopsony in the labour market: wages are set by employers instead of workers/unions. If rigid wages are set by monopsonistic employers and there is inflation, the fall in the real wage lowers the labour supply. In such a world, inflation is contractionary: the Phillips curve is inverted. The paper then examines a model where employers and employees both have market power, and use it to bargain over wages. The slope of the bargained Phillips Curve depends on each side’s relative power. An increase in employers’ power flattens the Phillips Curve. The last paper accounts for the possibility of featherbedding (or overmanning) in the labour market. In such a case, unions are able to impose a level of employment above the firm’s optimum. In other words, the wage is above the worker’s marginal rate of substitution, and above the firm’s marginal product of labour. In this case labour market rigidities act as a distortionary tax on profits rather than employment; this generates a different source of inefficiency. While these distortions are very costly in the long run, removing them can be detrimental to employment in the short run