The role of foreign and domestic factors in the evolution of the Brazilian EMBI spread and debt dynamics.

This paper examines the relative importance of global and domestic factors as a source of macroeconomic fluctuations in Brazil from 1995 to 2004. US and Brazilian credit spreads are encompassed in a near-VAR model, including the main debt-related domestic variables. The US corporate bond spread is used as a measure of international risk aversion. The relative importance of global factors to the volatility of Brazilian domestic series is singled out by means of a partial identification strategy, whereby foreign variables are treated as block exogenous. The estimates reveal that foreign investors’ appetite for risk is an important determinant of the volatility of the macroeconomic Brazilian series and affects the monetary policy transmission channel, as recently suggested by Olivier Blanchard.External factors, Credit spreads, External debt, Fiscal dominance.

Household's Preferences and Monetary Policy Inertia

The estimation of monetary policy rules suggests that the interest rates set by central banks move with a certain inertia. Although a number of hypotheses have been suggested to explain this phenomenon, its ultimate origin is unclear, thus delineating this issue as a modern "puzzle" in monetary economics. We show that household's preferences can play an important role in determining optimal interest rate inertia. Importantly, this can occur even when the central bank has egligible preferences for smoothing the interest rate

Saccades influence the visibility of targets in rapid stimulus sequences: the roles of mislocalization, retinal distance and remapping

Briefly presented targets around the time of a saccade are mislocalized towards the saccadic landing point. This has been taken as evidence for a remapping mechanism that accompanies each eye movement, helping maintain visual stability across large retinal shifts. Previous studies have shown that spatial mislocalization is greatly diminished when trains of brief stimuli are presented at a high frequency rate, which might help to explain why mislocalization is rarely perceived in everyday viewing. Studies in the laboratory have shown that mislocalization can reduce metacontrast masking by causing target stimuli in a masking sequence to be perceived as shifted in space towards the saccadic target and thus more easily discriminated. We investigated the influence of saccades on target discrimination when target and masks were presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), as well as with forward masking and with backward masking. In a series of experiments, we found that performance was influenced by the retinal displacement caused by the saccade itself but that an additional component of un-masking occurred even when the retinal location of target and mask was matched. These results speak in favor of a remapping mechanism that begins before the eyes start moving and continues well beyond saccadic termination

Household’s Preferences and Monetary Policy Inertia

The estimation of monetary policy rules suggests that the interest rates set by central banks move with a certain inertia. Although a number of hypotheses have been suggested to explain this phenomenon, its ultimate origin is unclear, thus delineating this issue as a modern "puzzle" in monetary economics. We show that household's preferences can play an important role in determining optimal interest rate inertia. Importantly, this can occur even when the central bank has negligible preferences for smoothing the interest rate.Optimal monetary policy; interest rate smoothing; household's preferences

Pre-saccadic perception: separate time courses for enhancement and spatial pooling at the saccade target

We interact with complex scenes using eye movements to select targets of interest. Studies have shown that the future target of a saccadic eye movement is processed differently by the visual system. A number of effects have been reported, including a benefit for perceptual performance at the target (“enhancement”), reduced influences of backward masking (“unmasking”), reduced crowding (“un-crowding”) and spatial compression towards the saccade target. We investigated the time course of these effects by measuring orientation discrimination for targets that were spatially crowded or temporally masked. In four experiments, we varied the target-flanker distance, the presence of forward/backward masks, the orientation of the flankers and whether participants made a saccade. Masking and randomizing flanker orientation reduced performance in both fixation and saccade trials. We found a small improvement in performance on saccade trials, compared to fixation trials, with a time course that was consistent with a general enhancement at the saccade target. In addition, a decrement in performance (reporting the average flanker orientation, rather than the target) was found in the time bins nearest saccade onset when random oriented flankers were used, consistent with spatial pooling around the saccade target. We did not find strong evidence for un-crowding. Overall, our pattern of results was consistent with both an early, general enhancement at the saccade target and a later, peri-saccadic compression/pooling towards the saccade target

Chinese reserves accumulation and US monetary policy: Will China go on buying US financial assets?

It has been argued that China may stop financing the US external deficit, appreciate the currency, increase consumption and move its economy away from tradables and towards nontradables. Our two-country model shows that paradoxically this policy option is unattractive if the US authorities keep monetary policy sufficiently loose, thus reducing the real value of the US liabilities held by China. As long as the American and Chinese authorities pursue complementary objectives, the current China-US arrangement continues. In addition, an untimely appreciation of China’s real exchange rate may have negative consequences on employment in the US and in China.China-US co-dependency; global imbalances; reserve accumulation; external debt

Spin-isospin nuclear response using the existing microscopic Skyrme functionals

Our paper aims at providing an answer to the question whether one can reliably describe the properties of the most important spin-isospin nuclear excitations, by using the available non-relativistic Skyrme energy functionals. Our method, which has been introduced in a previous publication devoted to the Isobaric Analog states, is the self-consistent Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation (QRPA). The inclusion of pairing is instrumental for describing a number of experimentally measured spherical systems which are characterized by open shells. We discuss the effect of isoscalar and isovector pairing correlations. Based on the results for the Gamow-Teller resonance in $^{90}$Zr, in $^{208}$Pb and in few Sn isotopes, we draw definite conclusions on the performance of different Skyrme parametrizations, and we suggest improvements for future fits. We also use the spin-dipole resonance as a benchmark of our statements.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Taking Keller seriously: trade and distance in international R&D spillovers

In a much cited paper, Wolfgang Keller (Are international R&D spillovers trade-related? Analyzing spillovers among randomly matched trade partners, European Economic Review, 48, 1469-1481, 1998) claims that international R&D spillovers are global and trade-unrelated. In following works, Keller revisits his position and maintains that spillovers are localized because the tacit nature of knowledge favors the direct interaction among agents. Whether the international R&D spillovers are global and trade-related still remains a debated issue in the empirical literature. By adopting two empirical specifications that nest Keller’s models, we i) reject the hypothesis that international R&D spillovers are global and ii) show that these latter depend on both geographical distance and international trade.International R&D spillovers, International technology diffusion,Localized knowledge spillovers, Total Factor Productivity