Bequests and heterogeneity in retirement wealth

Households hold vastly heterogeneous amounts of wealth when they reach retirement, and differences in lifetime earnings explain only part of this variation. This paper studies the role of intergenerational transmission of ability, voluntary bequest motives, and the recipiency of accidental and intended bequests (both in terms of timing and size) in generating wealth dispersion at retirement, in the context of a rich quantitative model. Modeling voluntary bequests, and realistically calibrating them, not only generates more wealth dispersion at retirement and reduces the correlation between retirement wealth and lifetime income, but also generates a skewed bequest distribution that is close to the one in the observed data

Identifying Unconventional E6_{\bf 6} Models at e+e−e^+ e^- Colliders

Recently it was shown that, in the framework of superstring inspired \E models, the presence of generation dependent discrete symmetries allows us to construct a phenomenologically viable class of models in which the three generations of fermions do not have the same embedding within the fundamental {\bf 27} dimensional representation of E$_6$. In this scenario, these different embeddings of the conventional fermions imply that the left-handed charged leptons and the right-handed $d$-type quarks are coupled in a non--universal way to the new neutral gauge bosons $(Z_\theta)$ present in these models. It was also shown that a unique signature for this scenario, would be a deviation from unity for the ratio of cross sections for the production of two different lepton species in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. However, several different scenarios are possible, depending on the particular assignment chosen for $e_L$, $\mu_L$ and $\tau_L$ and for the right-handed $d$-type quarks, as well as on the type of $Z_\theta$ boson. Such scenarios can not be disentangled from one another by means of cross section measurements alone. In this paper we examine the possibility of identifying the pattern of embeddings through measurements of polarized and unpolarized asymmetries for fermion pair-production at the 500 GeV $e^+e^-$ Next Linear Collider (NLC). We show that it will be possible to identify the different patterns of unconventional assignments for the left-handed leptons and for the $b_R$ quark, for $Z_\theta$ masses as large as $\sim 1.5$ TeV.Comment: Plain Tex, 15 pages, + 9 figure available upon request ([email protected] or [email protected]), UM-TH 93--1

Asymptotically exponential hitting times and metastability: a pathwise approach without reversibility

We study the hitting times of Markov processes to target set $G$, starting from a reference configuration $x_0$ or its basin of attraction. The configuration $x_0$ can correspond to the bottom of a (meta)stable well, while the target $G$ could be either a set of saddle (exit) points of the well, or a set of further (meta)stable configurations. Three types of results are reported: (1) A general theory is developed, based on the path-wise approach to metastability, which has three important attributes. First, it is general in that it does not assume reversibility of the process, does not focus only on hitting times to rare events and does not assume a particular starting measure. Second, it relies only on the natural hypothesis that the mean hitting time to $G$ is asymptotically longer than the mean recurrence time to $x_0$ or $G$. Third, despite its mathematical simplicity, the approach yields precise and explicit bounds on the corrections to exponentiality. (2) We compare and relate different metastability conditions proposed in the literature so to eliminate potential sources of confusion. This is specially relevant for evolutions of infinite-volume systems, whose treatment depends on whether and how relevant parameters (temperature, fields) are adjusted. (3) We introduce the notion of early asymptotic exponential behavior to control time scales asymptotically smaller than the mean-time scale. This control is particularly relevant for systems with unbounded state space where nucleations leading to exit from metastability can happen anywhere in the volume. We provide natural sufficient conditions on recurrence times for this early exponentiality to hold and show that it leads to estimations of probability density functions

Generi dominanti e generi periferici: la “maraviglia” del comico alle soglie della modernità

Saggio sul rapporto tra i generi letterari della poesia drammatica (tragedia e commedia) tra il Cinque e il Seicent

Baryonic masses based on the NJL model

We employ the Nambu Jona--Lasinio model to determine the vacuum pressure on the quarks in a baryon and hence their density inside. Then we estimate the baryonic masses by implementing the local density approximation for the mean field quark energies obtained in a uniform and isotropic system. We obtain a fair agreement with the experimental masses.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. to be published on EPJ

Z', new fermions and flavor changing processes, constraints on E6_6 models from μ\mu --> eee

We study a new class of flavor changing interactions, which can arise in models based on extended gauge groups (rank $>$4) when new charged fermions are present together with a new neutral gauge boson. We discuss the cases in which the flavor changing couplings in the new neutral current coupled to the $Z^\prime$ are theoretically expected to be large, implying that the observed suppression of neutral flavor changing transitions must be provided by heavy $Z^\prime$ masses together with small $Z$-$Z^\prime$ mixing angles. Concentrating on E$_6$ models, we show how the tight experimental limit on $\mu \rightarrow eee$ implies serious constraints on the $Z^\prime$ mass and mixing angle. We conclude that if the value of the flavor changing parameters is assumed to lie in a theoretically natural range, in most cases the presence of a $Z^\prime$ much lighter than 1 TeV is unlikely.Comment: plain tex, 22 pages + 2 pages figures in PostScript (appended after `\bye'), UM-TH 92-1