Inflation, Investment Composition and Total Factor Productivity

This paper employs a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with a financial market friction to rationalize the empirically observed negative relationship between inflation and total factor productivity (TFP). Specifically, an empirical analysis of US macroeconomic time series establishes that there is a negative causal effect of inflation on aggregate productivity. Rather than taking the productivity process as exogenous, the model is therefore set up to feature an endogenous component of TFP. This is achieved by allowing physical investment to be channelled into two distinct technologies: a safe, but return-dominated technology and a superior technology which is subject to idiosyncratic liquidity risk. An agency problem prevents complete insurance against liquidity risk, and the scope for insurance is endogenously determined via the relevant liquidity premium. Since the liquidity premium is positively related to the rate of inflation, the model demonstrates how nominal fluctuations have an influence not only on the overall amount, but also on the qualitative composition of aggregate investment and hence on TFP. The quantitative relevance of the underlying transmission mechanism which links nominal fluctuations to TFP via corporate liquidity holdings and the composition of aggregate investment is corroborated by means of the quantitative analysis of the calibrated model economy as well as a detailed analysis of industry-level and firm-level panel data. Notably, the empirical findings are consistent with both the properties of the agency problem postulated in the theoretical model and its implications for corporate liquidity holdings and physical investment portfolios.

A case study on adaptability problems of the separation of user interface and application semantics

A large number of software architectures for interactive have been described in literature, like the Seeheim, PAC-Amodeus, and Model-View-Controller architectures. Most of these architectures are based on the traditional view of interactive software, namely the view that an interactive software system can be separated in an application part and a user interface part. The application part contains the functionality of the software – what the system does – and the user interface part contains the representation of this functionality to the user(s) of the system. The motivation behind these architectures is to improve, among others, adaptability, portability, complexity handling, and separation of concerns of interactive software. The principle of separating interactive software in application and user interface parts has its merits. It can however lead to serious adaptability problems in software that provides fast, frequent and intensive feedback, in particular semantic feedback. Semantic feedback refers to feedback the system gives to the user concerning the semantics of the application, i.e. the objects that the user perceives and manipulates. In these systems, the boundary between application and user interface becomes less sharp and the semantics of the interface and the application tend to be highly coupled. Examples of such interactive systems are direct manipulation systems, virtual reality systems, and systems with natural language interfaces. The problem of semantic feedback is that it is functionality that has both application and user interface aspects and crosses the application-interface boundary. It requires excessive use of semantic information from the application part and in this way, it compromises the separation of application and user interface concerns. As a result, it becomes more difficult to modify or extend functionality related to semantic feedback. In other words, the adaptability of the interactive software is decreased. In this report, a case study concerning an interactive CD database system is used to illustrate the adaptability problems of separation-based architectures for interactive software

Inflation, Liquidity Risk and Long-run TFP - Growth

This paper demonstrates a negative relation between inflation and long-run productivity growth. Inflation generates long-run real effects due to a link from the short-run nominal and financial frictions to a firm's qualitative investment portfolio. We develop an endogenous growth model whose key ingredients are (i) a nominal short-run portfolio choice for households, (ii) an agency problem which gives rise to financial market incompleteness, (iii) a firm-level technology choice between a return-dominated but secure and a more productive but risky project. In this framework, inflation increases the costs of corporate insurance against productive but risky projects and hence a firm's choice of technology. It follows that each level of inflation is associated with a different long-run balanced growth path for the economy as long as financial markets are incomplete. Finally, we apply U.S. industry and firm level data to examine the relevance of our specific microeconomic mechanism. We find that (i) firms insure systematically against risky R&D investments by means of corporate liquidity holdings, (ii) periods of higher inflation restrain firm-level R&D investments by reducing corporate liquidity holdings.

Inflation, liquidity and innovation

This paper presents a simple model with financial frictions where inflation increases the cost faced by firms holding liquid assets to hedge risky production against expenditure shocks. Inflation tilts firms' technology choice away from innovative activities and toward safer but return-dominated ones, and therefore reduces long-run growth. The theory makes specific predictions about how the severity of this adverse effect depends on industry characteristics. These predictions are tested with novel harmonized firm-level data from 139 developing countries, overcoming small sample problems constraining previous work. The analysis finds that inflation affects the composition but not the overall quantity of investment. A one percentage point increase in inflation reduces the establishment-level probability of innovation by 4.3 percent but does not affect total investment. Moreover, innovating firms display a stronger dependence on liquid assets, which, in turn, are negatively related to inflation. Generalized difference-in-differences estimations corroborate the sector-specific predictions of the theoretical model

Social and Affective Robotics Tutorial

Social and Affective Robotics is a growing multidisciplinary field encompassing computer science, engineering, psychology, education, and many other disciplines. It explores how social and affective factors influence interactions between humans and robots, and how affect and social signals can be sensed and integrated into the design, implementation, and evaluation of robots. With talks by renowned researchers in this area, Social and Affective Robotics Tutorial will help both new and experienced researchers to identify trends, concepts, methodologies and applications in this field, identified as a technological megatrend driving the fourth industrial revolution

Transportation Planning Through Mobile Mapping Technology

This report describes the development and testing of the Fix This Tool, a spatial, participatory, active transportation and built environment assessment tool created on an iPhone platform. The goal of this tool development was to create an instrument that could be widely distributed to communities across the country to develop a spatially based assessment of the micro-scaled elements of their local active transportation environment such that public officials and community members could focus energy in making appropriate improvements. The development of this tool emerged out of previous work with such tools built on a GIS platform and a workshop-based format to engage residents in data collection of their walking and biking environments. While this past work proved successful in both data collection tool use and in facilitating community conversations, the technological infrastructure had significant limitations in terms of being able to widely distribute the effort. In a GIS-based approach, GIS technicians must be present and when combined with community training and data processing, the cost of development, collection, and distribution is a significant limit to which communities could adopt such assessment tools for their own use. The Fix This Tool is designed to overcome these distribution and cost barriers by developing a tool that can be easily downloaded by community members using technology they already own. The report that follows outlines the philosophical positioning of a community-based data collection process, describes the tool itself, and provides some reflections between this smart phone based model and the previous GIS-based model of community-engaged active transportation assessment tools

Функциональная нагрузка обобщающе-выделительных местоимений в предложении

A range of silanes was synthesized by the reaction of HSiCl3 with iminopyrrole derivatives in the presence of NEt3. In certain cases, intramolecular hydrosilylation converts the imine ligand into an amino substituent. This reaction is inhibited by factors such as electron-donating substitution on Si and steric bulk. The monosubstituted (DippIMP)SiHMeCl (DippIMP=2-[N-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)iminomethyl]pyrrolide), is stable towards hydrosilylation, but slow hydrosilylation is observed for (DippIMP)SiHCl2. Reaction of two equivalents of DippIMPH with HSiCl3 results in the hydrosilylation product (DippAMP)(DippIMP)SiCl (DippAMP=2-[N-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)aminomethylene]pyrrolide), but the trisubsitituted (DippIMP)3SiH is stable. Monitoring the hydrosilylation reaction of (DippIMP)SiHCl2 reveals a reactive pathway involving ligand redistribution reactions to form the disubstituted (DippAMP)(DippIMP)SiCl as an intermediate. The reaction is strongly accelerated in the presence of chloride anions

2nd Workshop on Evaluating Child Robot Interaction

Many researchers have started to explore natural interaction scenarios for children. No matter if these children are normally developing or have special needs, evaluating Child-Robot Interaction (CRI) is a challenge. To find methods that work well and provide reliable data is difficult, for example because commonly used methods such as questionnaires donot work well particularly with younger children. Previous research has shown that children need support in expressing how they feel about technology. Given this, researchers often choose time-consuming behavioral measures from observations to evaluate CRI. However, these are not necessarily comparable between studies and robots. This workshop aims to bring together researchers from differentdisciplines to share their experiences on these aspects. The main topics are methods to evaluate child-robot interaction design, methods to evaluate socially assistive child-robot interaction and multi-modal evaluation of child-robot interaction. Connected questions that we would like to tackle are for example: i) What are reliable metrics in CRI' ii) How can we overcome the pitfalls of survey methods in CRI' iii) How can we integrate qualitative approaches in CRI' iv) What are the best practices for in the wild studies with children? Looking across disciplinary boundaries, we want to discuss advantages and short-comings of using different evaluation methods in order to compile guidelines for future CRI research. This workshop is the second in a series that started at the International Conference on Social Robotics in 2015

Urban Mobility Operating System (UMOS), the solution “beyond MaaS”:Is UMOS a threat to other MaaS initiatives or an opportunity?

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