Reconsidering the Role of Money for Output, Prices and Interest Rates

New Keynesian models of monetary policy assign no role to monetary aggregates, in the sense that the level of output, prices, and interest rates can be determined without knowledge of the quantity of money. We evaluate the empirical validity of this prediction by studying the effects of shocks to monetary aggregates using an identified VAR. Shocks to monetary aggregates are isolated by means of identifying restrictions suggested by this class of models. Contrary to the theoretical predictions, shocks to broad monetary aggregates have substantial and persistent effects on output and prices.New-Keynesian models; LM shocks; VAR; Block-exogeneity

Practice-dependent political theory and the boundaries of political imagination

It is often claimed that in normative political theory political imagination should remain unaffected by real-world contingencies: our idea of how the world “ought to be” should be independent from how the world “actually is”. According to the practice-dependent thesis, instead, “[t]he content, scope, and justification of a conception of justice depends on the structure and form of the practices that the conception is intended to govern” (Sangiovanni 2008). This methodological approach conceives the relationship between theory and practice as an interplay: normative theory applies to practice, but practices are also able to affect the content of normative theory. In this paper, I argue that the interplay between theory and practices that the practice-dependent method generates has not been fully understood. Though it may – at a superficial look – appear as a method compliant with the status quo, I will show that this method implies an idea of political theory as an activity of continuous critical engagement. Given an extended account of the method, political imagination has boundaries but these are not fixed nor easilydefinable: the real-world fact that constrains practice-dependent principles is the point and purpose of the practice they are meant to apply to, but this fact in itself is partly shaped and critically assessed by the theorist

Caratterizzazione della qualità dell'aria per la conservazione degli affreschi del Camposanto Monumentale di Pisa: monitoraggio di composti organici volatili

Dato il cattivo stato di conservazione delle opere custodite al Camposanto Monumentale di Pisa è stata effettuata un’indagine per caratterizzare la qualità dell’aria interna al monumento. In particolare questo studio ha riguardato il monitoraggio di composti organici volatili, mediante l’impiego di fibre SPME e cartucce a carbone attivo

Reconsidering the role of money for output, prices and interest rates

New Keynesian models of monetary policy assign no role to monetary aggregates, in the sense that the level of output, prices, and interest rates can be determined without knowledge of the quantity of money. We evaluate the empirical validity of this prediction by studying the effects of shocks to monetary aggregates using an identified VAR. Shocks to monetary aggregates are isolated by means of identifying restrictions suggested by this class of models. Contrary to the theoretical predictions, shocks to broad monetary aggregates have substantial and persistent effects on output and prices

Il Parco Centrale di Cisanello a Pisa. Progetto di una Clinica neuropsichiatrica infantile

La tesi ha come tema la valorizzazione del cosiddetto Parco Centrale, uno degli ambiti incompiuti nel cuore del quartiere Cisanello a Pisa. Il tema viene affrontato sia dal punto di vista urbanistico che architettonico. Dopo la ricostruzione della genesi insediativa del quartiere, la valutazione delle previsioni urbanistiche e l’analisi dello stato attuale, viene proposto un progetto urbanistico che si pone l’obiettivo di risolvere le criticità riscontrate e di dare attuazione, con attitudine critica, alle previsioni vigenti. Il progetto include la Clinica neuropsichiatrica infantile, che il Regolamento Urbanistico prevede nella porzione sudorientale dell’area: tale tema viene sviluppato con un approfondimento della progettazione a scala architettonica

Test of the τ-model of Bose–Einstein correlations and reconstruction of the source function in hadronic Z-boson decay at LEP

Bose–Einstein correlations of pairs of identical charged pions produced in hadronic Z decays are analyzed in terms of various parametrizations. A good description is achieved using a Lévy stable distribution in conjunction with a model where a particle’s momentum is correlated with its space–time point of production, the τ-model. Using this description and the measured rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, the space–time evolution of particle emission in two-jet events is reconstructed. However, the elongation of the particle emission region previously observed is not accommodated in the τ-model, and this is investigated using an ad hoc modification

Continental degassing of helium in an active tectonic setting (northern Italy): the role of seismicity

In order to investigate the variability of helium degassing in continental regions, its release from rocks and emission into the atmosphere, here we studied the degassing of volatiles in a seismically active region of northern Italy (MwMAX = 6) at the Nirano-Regnano mud volcanic system. The emitted gases in the study area are CH4–dominated and it is the carrier for helium (He) transfer through the crust. Carbon and He isotopes unequivocally indicate that crustal-derived fluids dominate these systems. An high-resolution 3-dimensional reconstruction of the gas reservoirs feeding the observed gas emissions at the surface permits to estimate the amount of He stored in the natural reservoirs. Our study demonstrated that the in-situ production of 4He in the crust and a long-lasting diffusion through the crust are not the main processes that rule the He degassing in the region. Furthermore, we demonstrated that micro-fracturation due to the field of stress that generates the local seismicity increases the release of He from the rocks and can sustain the excess of He in the natural reservoirs respect to the steady-state diffusive degassing. These results prove that (1) the transport of volatiles through the crust can be episodic as function of rock deformation and seismicity and (2) He can be used to highlight changes in the stress field and related earthquakes

Psychosocial competencies and risky behaviours in Peru

We use a unique longitudinal dataset from Peru to investigate the relationship between psychosocial competencies related to the concepts of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and aspirations, and a number of risky behaviours at a crucial transition period between adolescence and early adulthood. First of all, we document a high prevalence of risky behaviours with 1 out of 2 individuals engaging in at least one risky activity by the age 19 with a dramatic increase between age 15 and 19. Second, we find a pronounced pro-male bias and some differences by area of residence particularly in drinking habits which are more prevalent in urban areas. Third, we find a negative correlation between early self-esteem and later risky behaviours which is robust to a number of specifications. Further, aspiring to higher education at the age of 15 is correlated to a lower probability of engaging in criminal behaviours at the age of 19. Similarly, aspirations protect girls from risky sexual behaviours

Tectonic evolution of the Sicilian Thrust System (central Mediterranean)

The Sicilian Thrust System (STS) is a south-verging (Africa-verging) fold-and-thrust belt including a Mesozoic-Paleogene sedimentary sequence. This thrust stack owes its origin to the deformation of pre-orogenic strata deposited in different palaeogeographic domains belonging to passive margins of the African plate. The STS was deformed during the Neogene, following the closure of the Tethys Ocean and the continental collision between the Sardo-Corso Block and the North Africa margins. The thrust pile was detached from the underlying basement during the Miocene-Pleistocene. The regional-scale structural setting recognized allows us to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the STS as follows: I - piggy-back thrusting from the Late Oligocene to the Langhian, inducing the building of the Inner Sicilian Chain (ISC); II - piggy-back thrusting from the Langhian to the Tortonian, inducing the formation of the Middle Sicilian Chain (MSC); III - generalized extensional deformation in the chain-foredeep-foreland system from the Tortonian to the Early Pliocene; IV - a new onset of piggy-back thrusting after the Early Pliocene allowed the building of the Outer Sicilian Chain and out-of sequence thrusting in the previously developed ISC and MSC