Asymmetric Sovereign Risk: Implications for Climate Change Preparation

Sovereign risk exhibits significantly asymmetric reactions to its determinants across the conditional distribution of credit spreads. This aspect, previously overlooked in the literature, carries relevant policy implications. Countries with elevated risk levels are disproportionately affected by climate change vulnerability compared to their lower-risk counterparts, especially in the short term. Factors such as inflation, natural resource rents, and the debt-to-GDP ratio exert different effects between low and high-risk spreads as well. Real growth and terms of trade have a stable but modest impact across the spread distribution. Notably, investing in climate change preparedness proves effective in mitigating vulnerability to climate change, in terms of sovereign risk, particularly for countries with low spreads and long-term debt (advanced economies), where readiness and vulnerability tend to counterbalance each other. However, for countries with high spreads and short-term debt, additional measures are essential as climate change readiness alone is insufficient to offset vulnerability effects in this case. Results also demonstrate that the actual occurrence of natural disasters is less influential than vulnerability to climate change in determining spreads

Does economic complexity reduce the probability of a fiscal crisis?

Higher economic complexity of a country reduces the probability of suffering a fiscal crisis between 46% and 57%. Along with institutional factors, complexity is shown to be sufficient to describe the risk of facing episodes of fiscal distress. On the contrary, the role of variables frequently emphasized by the literature and policy markets, such as the debt-output ratio, real growth, inflation, terms of trade or fiscal balance, is very modest or insignificant. Development strategies that aim for greater economic complexity also promise to reduce countries’ fiscal vulnerabilit

Risk Spillovers between Global Corporations and Latin American Sovereigns: Global Factors Matter

We study volatility spillovers between the corporate sector’s and Latin American countries’ CDS. Daily data from October 14 2006 to August 23 2021 are employed. Spillovers are computed both for the raw data and for filtered series which factor out the effect of global common factors on the various CDS series. Results indicate that most spillovers occur within groups, i.e., within countries and within global corporations. However, considerable spillovers are also registered from LAC sovereigns to corporations and vice versa. Interesting differences are encountered between filtered and unfiltered data. Specifically, spillovers from countries to corporations are overestimated (in about 4.3 percentage points) and spillovers from corporations to sovereigns are underestimated (in about 5.8 percentage points) when unfiltered data is used. This result calls for a revision of results obtained from studies that do not consider the role of global common factors on system spillovers. Like in most related studies, spillovers show considerable time-variation, being larger during times of financial or economic distress. When looking at total system spillovers over time, those corresponding to unfiltered series are always larger than those corresponding to filtered series. The difference between the two time-series is largest in times of distress, indicating that global factors play a major role in times of crises. Similar conclusions are derived from network analysis

Sovereign Risk and Economic Complexity: Machine Learning Insights on Causality and Prediction

We investigate how a country’s economic complexity influences its sovereign yield spread with respect to the US. We analyze various maturities across 28 countries, consisting of 16 emerging and 12 advanced economies. Notably, a one-unit increase in the economic complexity index is associated to a reduction of about 87 basis points in the 10-year yield spread (p<0.01). However, this effect is largely non-significant for maturities under 3 years and, when significant (p<0.1), the reduction is around 54 bps. This suggests that economic complexity affects not only the level of the sovereign yield spreads but also the curve slope. Our first set of models utilizes Advanced causal machine learning tools, allowing us to control for a large set of potential confounders. This is crucial given our relatively small dataset of countries and roughly 15 years of data, as well as the low frequency of annual variables. In the second part of our analysis, we shift our focus to economic complexity’s predictive power. Our findings reveal that econòmic complexity is a robust predictor of sovereign spreads at 5-year and 10-year maturities, ranking among the top three predictors, alongside inflation and institutional factors like the rule of law. We also discuss the potential mechanisms through which economic complexity reduces sovereign risk and emphasize its role as a long-run determinant of productivity, output and income stability, and the likelihood of fiscal crises

ONGOING RESEARCH ON SPECIES OF DINOPHYSIS: ALTERNATIVES WITH UNCULTURABLE DINOFLAGELLATES

Dinophysis 200

Elastolisis de la dermis media: reporte de un caso

La elastolisis de la dermis media (EDM) es una afección rara y adquirida del tejido elástico, caracterizada histológicamente por la disminución o ausencia de fibras elásticas en la porción media de la dermis. Afecta con mayor frecuencia a mujeres jóvenes, es asintomática y no se acompaña de compromiso extra cutáneo. Se presenta el caso de una paciente con finas arrugas en piel de ambas axilas y región lumbar

DEVELOPMENT OF A SCADA SYSTEM FOR ACCESS, PROCESSING AND SUPERVISION OF DATA COMING FROM A WIRELESS SENSORS NETWORK IN AGRO-ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS

Wireless sensors networks appeared in the 1970’s for military and industrial use. They have since undergone a major evolution, particularly since the 90’s, thanks to the improvements in wireless communications. These changes have allowed them to participate in a wide variety of applications in different sectors such as agriculture and environment. This paper shows the development of a SCADA application programmed with LabVIEW® 8.6 (National Instruments), which allows management of data received by wireless sensors networks through a friendly interface for users. For the application shown in this paper we have worked with a MEP 510 sensors network (Crossbow). The functionalities implemented are the following: Network configuration; Data storage into database; Statistical processing of historical data with polynomial adjustment and spline interpolation; Visualization by data graphics in real time and historical data; Visualization of 2D intensity diagrams from the spatial distribution of sensors; and Creation of a users registry system that allows, depending on the category assigned, receiving or not access privileges in the application. As a complement we have developed the possibility of remote access. Sensors network implemented and the applications developed have been checked by operational tests for each functionality, as well as sensors joining and leaving the network situations, range of variables and working modes. The results obtained show the robustness of the SCADA application and the limitations of wireless sensors networks operating on field conditions

Prepubertal Children With Metabolically Healthy Obesity or Overweight Are More Active Than Their Metabolically Unhealthy Peers Irrespective of Weight Status: GENOBOX Study

Background and Aim: The association of a metabolically healthy status with the practice of physical activity (PA) remains unclear. Sedentarism and low PA have been linked to increased cardiometabolic risk. The aim of this study was to evaluate the PA levels in metabolically healthy (MH) or unhealthy (MU) prepubertal children with or without overweight/obesity. Methods: A total 275 children (144 boys) with 9 ± 2 years old were selected for the GENOBOX study. PA times and intensities were evaluated by accelerometry, and anthropometry, blood pressure, and blood biochemical markers were analyzed. Children were considered to have normal weight or obesity, and further classified as MH or MU upon fulfillment of the considered metabolic criteria. Results: Classification resulted in 119 MH children (21% with overweight/obesity, referred to as MHO) and 156 MU children (47% with overweight/obesity, referred to as MUO). Regarding metabolic profile, MHO showed lower blood pressure levels, both systolic and diastolic and biochemical markers levels, such as glucose, Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance, triglycerides and higher HDL-c levels than MUO (P < 0.001). In addition, MHO children spent more time in PA of moderate intensity compared with MUO children. In relation to vigorous PA, MH normal weight (MHN) children showed higher levels than MUO children. Considering sex, boys spent more time engaged in moderate, vigorous, and moderate–vigorous (MV) PA than girls, and the number of boys in the MH group was also higher. Conclusion: Prepubertal MHO children are less sedentary, more active, and have better metabolic profiles than their MUO peers. However, all children, especially girls, should increase their PA engagement, both in terms of time and intensity because PA appears to be beneficial for metabolic health status itself. Copyright © 2022 Llorente-Cantarero, Leis, Rupérez, Anguita-Ruiz, Vázquez-Cobela, Flores-Rojas, González-Gil, Aguilera, Moreno, Gil-Campos and Bueno