Short-term headline-core inflation dynamics

This article investigates empirically short-term dynamics between headline and core measures of consumer price index and personal consumption expenditure inflation over three sample periods: 1959:1-1979:1, 1979:2-2001:2, and 1985:1-2007:2. Headline and core inflation measures are co-integrated, suggesting long-run co-movement. However, the ways these two variables adjust to each other in the short run and generate co-movement have changed across these sample periods. In the pre-1979 sample period, when a positive gap opens up with headline inflation rising above core inflation, the gap is eliminated mainly as a result of headline inflation not reverting and core inflation moving toward headline inflation. These dynamics suggest headline inflation would be better than core inflation in assessing the permanent component of inflation. In post-1979 sample periods, however, the positive gap is eliminated as a result of headline inflation reverting more strongly toward core inflation than core inflation moving toward headline inflation, suggesting core inflation would be better than headline inflation in assessing the permanent component of inflation. This change in headline-core inflation dynamics may be due to the Federal Reserve having convinced the public it would no longer accommodate shocks to food and energy prices.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy

Consumption smoothing and the measured regressivity of consumption taxes

In this article, we address two questions. First, how will a move to pure consumption taxation matter for aggregate outcomes? Second, how regressive are consumption taxes? We find as follows. First, a move to a consumption tax will increase savings taken into retirement but will not alter either labor supply or consumption variability substantially. Second, we show that regressivity is a measure that is quantitatively sensitive to the frequency of income being used. In particular, we show that when measures of tax incidence are based on annual income, successful consumption smoothing leads to the appearance of high regressivity. Our preferred measure, which is based on lifetime earnings, shows that consumption taxes are proportional taxes.Taxation ; Consumption (Economics)

Changes in monetary policy and the variation in interest rate changes across credit markets

This article uses principal component methods to assess the importance of changes in the federal funds rate in driving interest rate changes across a broad array of credit markets. We find that most of the variability in interest rate changes across these markets is explained by a small number of common components. Furthermore, for many of the interest rate series in our sample, changes that reflect common movements are highly correlated with changes in the federal funds rate. However, in some credit markets associated with longer maturities, such as the mortgage market, common movements are less correlated with changes in the federal funds rate. Therefore, interest rate changes in those markets are i) more likely to reflect aggregate disturbances somewhat unrelated to monetary policy, or ii) related to contemporaneous monetary policy more indirectly through changes in expected future short rates. We also find evidence that movements in the auto loan market are almost entirely driven by idiosyncratic considerations rather than changes in the federal funds rate.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy ; Financial markets

Essays in Political Economy

This dissertation consists of two chapters on topics in political economy. In the first chapter, using hand-collected data from collective bargaining agreements for state-level public sector unions, I develop and calibrate a stochastic bargaining model as in Merlo and Wilson (1995) and investigate the effects of political and economic variables on wages, pensions, and delay in reaching agreement. In the model, a governor and a union bargain over a wage and pension outcome. The economic state, as measured by the unemployment rate, evolves stochastically and affects the propensity of the governor and union to reach agreement in any given period. Furthermore, political variables, including party of the governor, partisanship of the district, and incumbency, affect the relative payoffs and therefore the wage, pension, and time to agreement. I find that negotiated wage and pension growth is higher under Democratic governors, while increases in the unemployment rate at the beginning of bargaining have a negative impact on compensation levels, the magnitude of which varies by party and time before the next election. In the second chapter, which is co-authored with Ekim Cem Muyan, I develop a model of campaign strategies, namely the choice to campaign negatively or positively. In particular, I construct a model of political campaigns, based off of Skaperdas and Grofman (1995), in which candidates allocate their budget between positive and negative campaigning. Elections vary according to politician- and district-specific characteristics, as well as the unobservable (to the econometrician) measure of voter types. I calibrate the model to match stylized facts on campaign tone that we document using a wide array of sources, including data on advertising tone from Wisconsin Advertising Project, campaign contributions from the Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections, and election results. The calibrated model implies that, overall, campaign spending is not particularly effective at increasing votes -- a 10% increase in the average candidate\u27s budget, corresponding to about $240,000, raises his or her expected vote share by about 0.4 percentage points. The model also implies that negativity is marginally more useful for candidates who are trailing than those leading, though not by a wide margin

Earned income tax credit recipients: income, marginal tax rates, wealth, and credit constraints

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has evolved into the largest anti-poverty program in the United States by providing tax credits for low and moderate income working families. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of EITC recipients at various ages using Current Population Survey data. In addition, we discuss the relevance of the EITC in affecting marginal income tax rates in the United States and discuss the effects of the EITC on household labor supply decisions. Lastly, using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we estimate wealth distributions for EITC recipients and analyze the extent to which EITC recipients are credit constrained.Credit ; Taxation

Comparing labor markets across recessions: a focus on the age composition of the population

Simply looking at unadjusted versions of traditional statistics may not be the best way to compare the state of the current economy to previous periods. When comparing recessions, it is important to account for demographic changes.Labor market ; Demography

RANTES/CCL5 and risk for coronary events:Results from the MONICA/KORA Augsburg case-cohort, Athero-express and CARDIoGRAM studies

Background: The chemokine RANTES (regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted)/CCL5 is involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in mice, whereas less is known in humans. We hypothesised that its relevance for atherosclerosis should be reflected by associations between CCL5 gene variants, RANTES serum concentrations and protein levels in atherosclerotic plaques and risk for coronary events. Methods and Findings: We conducted a case-cohort study within the population-based MONICA/KORA Augsburg studies. Baseline RANTES serum levels were measured in 363 individuals with incident coronary events and 1,908 non-cases (mean follow-up: 10.2±4.8 years). Cox proportional hazard models adjusting for age, sex, body mass index, metabolic factors and lifestyle factors revealed no significant association between RANTES and incident coronary events (HR [95% CI] for increasing RANTES tertiles 1.0, 1.03 [0.75-1.42] and 1.11 [0.81-1.54]). None of six CCL5 single nucleotide polymorphisms and no common haplotype showed significant associations with coronary events. Also in the CARDIoGRAM study (&gt;22,000 cases, &gt;60,000 controls), none of these CCL5 SNPs was significantly associated with coronary artery disease. In the prospective Athero-Express biobank study, RANTES plaque levels were measured in 606 atherosclerotic lesions from patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy. RANTES content in atherosclerotic plaques was positively associated with macrophage infiltration and inversely associated with plaque calcification. However, there was no significant association between RANTES content in plaques and risk for coronary events (mean follow-up 2.8±0.8 years). Conclusions: High RANTES plaque levels were associated with an unstable plaque phenotype. However, the absence of associations between (i) RANTES serum levels, (ii) CCL5 genotypes and (iii) RANTES content in carotid plaques and either coronary artery disease or incident coronary events in our cohorts suggests that RANTES may not be a novel coronary risk biomarker. However, the potential relevance of RANTES levels in platelet-poor plasma needs to be investigated in further studies.</p

Genomic correlates of glatiramer acetate adverse cardiovascular effects lead to a novel locus mediating coronary risk

Glatiramer acetate is used therapeutically in multiple sclerosis but also known for adverse effects including elevated coronary artery disease (CAD) risk. The mechanisms underlying the cardiovascular side effects of the medication are unclear. Here, we made use of the chromosomal variation in the genes that are known to be affected by glatiramer treatment. Focusing on genes and gene products reported by drug-gene interaction database to interact with glatiramer acetate we explored a large meta-analysis on CAD genome-wide association studies aiming firstly, to investigate whether variants in these genes also affect cardiovascular risk and secondly, to identify new CAD risk genes. We traced association signals in a 200-kb region around genomic positions of genes interacting with glatiramer in up to 60 801 CAD cases and 123 504 controls. We validated the identified association in additional 21 934 CAD cases and 76 087 controls. We identified three new CAD risk alleles within the TGFB1 region on chromosome 19 that independently affect CAD risk. The lead SNP rs12459996 was genome-wide significantly associated with CAD in the extended meta-analysis (odds ratio 1.09, p = 1.58×10-12). The other two SNPs at the locus were not in linkage disequilibrium with the lead SNP and by a conditional analysis showed p-values of 4.05 × 10-10 and 2.21 × 10-6. Thus, studying genes reported to interact with glatiramer acetate we identified genetic variants that concordantly with the drug increase the risk of CAD. Of these, TGFB1 displayed signal for association. Indeed, the gene has been associated with CAD previously in both in vivo and in vitro studies. Here we establish genome-wide significant association with CAD in large human samples.This work was supported by grants from the Fondation Leducq (CADgenomics: Understanding CAD Genes, 12CVD02), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the e:Med research and funding concept (e:AtheroSysMed, grant 01ZX1313A-2014 and SysInflame, grant 01ZX1306A), and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVgenes-at-target). Further grants were received from the DFG as part of the Sonderforschungsbereich CRC 1123 (B2). T.K. was supported by a DZHK Rotation Grant. I.B. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) cluster of excellence ‘Inflammation at Interfaces’. F.W.A. is supported by a Dekker scholarship-Junior Staff Member 2014T001 - Netherlands Heart Foundation and UCL Hospitals NIHR Biomedical Research Centre

Abdominal aortic aneurysm is associated with a variant in low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality and has a significant heritability. We carried out a genome-wide association discovery study of 1866 patients with AAA and 5435 controls and replication of promising signals (lead SNP with a p value &lt; 1 × 10-5) in 2871 additional cases and 32,687 controls and performed further follow-up in 1491 AAA and 11,060 controls. In the discovery study, nine loci demonstrated association with AAA (p &lt; 1 × 10-5). In the replication sample, the lead SNP at one of these loci, rs1466535, located within intron 1 of low-density-lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) demonstrated significant association (p = 0.0042). We confirmed the association of rs1466535 and AAA in our follow-up study (p = 0.035). In a combined analysis (6228 AAA and 49182 controls), rs1466535 had a consistent effect size and direction in all sample sets (combined p = 4.52 × 10-10, odds ratio 1.15 [1.10-1.21]). No associations were seen for either rs1466535 or the 12q13.3 locus in independent association studies of coronary artery disease, blood pressure, diabetes, or hyperlipidaemia, suggesting that this locus is specific to AAA. Gene-expression studies demonstrated a trend toward increased LRP1 expression for the rs1466535 CC genotype in arterial tissues; there was a significant (p = 0.029) 1.19-fold (1.04-1.36) increase in LRP1 expression in CC homozygotes compared to TT homozygotes in aortic adventitia. Functional studies demonstrated that rs1466535 might alter a SREBP-1 binding site and influence enhancer activity at the locus. In conclusion, this study has identified a biologically plausible genetic variant associated specifically with AAA, and we suggest that this variant has a possible functional role in LRP1 expression

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms