The Volatility Costs of Procyclical Lending Standards: An Assessment Using a DSGE Model

The ongoing financial turmoil has triggered a lively debate on ways of containing systemic risk and lessening the likelihood of future boom-and-bust episodes in credit markets. Particularly, it has been argued that banking regulation might attenuate procyclicality in lending standards by affecting the behavior of banks capital buffers. This paper uses a two-country DSGE model with financial frictions to illustrate how procyclicality in borrowing limits reinforces the ”overreaction” of asset prices to shocks described by Aiyagari and Gertler (1999), and to quantify the stabilization gains from policies aimed at smoothing cyclical swings in credit conditions. Results suggest that, in financially constrained economies, the ensuing volatility reduction in equity prices, investment, and external imbalances would be sizable. In the presence of cross-border spillovers, gains would be even higher.Credit Cycles; Collateral Constraints; DSGE Models

Regime Switching Interest Rates and Fluctuations in Emerging Markets

We estimate regime switching models for emerging market interest rates and embed the obtained nonlinear dynamics in a small open economy model with a financial friction. We show that the presence of an infrequent regime characterized by high level/high volatility of interest rates and the tightening of financial constraints is key to account for the empirical regularities specific to emerging markets, including the high volatility of consumption relative to output and a strongly countercyclical trade balance-to-output ratio. The model accounts for the dynamics of sudden stops and matches the autocorrelation function of the trade balance-to-output ratio as well as the cross-correlations between the main macroeconomic aggregates and interest rates. Our findings suggest that interest rate shocks and financial frictions are essential for explaining emerging market fluctuations, but mostly because of their effects in crisis episodes.regime switching model, peso problem, sudden stops, small open economy

Freedom of Information Act and Federal Licensing Procedures: Invoking Exemption 7(F) to Protect Examination Materials

The United States Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Milner v. Department of the Navy shut the door on an expansive interpretation of one of the nine enumerated exemptions to the public disclosure requirements mandated under the Freedom of Information Act. No longer can federal agencies seek cover behind the judicially crafted interpretation of Exemption 2 known as the “High 2” that permitted agencies to withhold documents from the public eye solely because disclosure of the information contained therein could risk circumvention of an individual agency’s regulations or statutes. However, Justice Alito’s concurring opinion in Milner hinted at the Court’s possible acceptance of an alternative option available to federal agencies that previously employed the High 2 to rebuff public requests for information. This Note focuses on federal agencies involved in the licensing and certification of individuals in public safety-sensitive positions—principally the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration—that prior to Milner either actively used or could have used the High 2 exemption to protect information relating to examination questions and answers used to evaluate license and certificate applicants’ competencies. This Note first examines the rise of the High 2interpretation through the circuit courts, its application by federal agencies, and the Supreme Court decision sounding the High 2’s death knell. This Note then argues that courts should embrace an interpretation of another Freedom of Information Act exemption, Exemption 7(F), to permit federal agencies involved in the licensing and certification of individuals in public safety-sensitive positions to withhold information relating to examination questions and answers

Freedom of Information Act and Federal Licensing Procedures: Invoking Exemption 7(F) to Protect Examination Materials

The United States Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Milner v. Department of the Navy shut the door on an expansive interpretation of one of the nine enumerated exemptions to the public disclosure requirements mandated under the Freedom of Information Act. No longer can federal agencies seek cover behind the judicially crafted interpretation of Exemption 2 known as the “High 2” that permitted agencies to withhold documents from the public eye solely because disclosure of the information contained therein could risk circumvention of an individual agency’s regulations or statutes. However, Justice Alito’s concurring opinion in Milner hinted at the Court’s possible acceptance of an alternative option available to federal agencies that previously employed the High 2 to rebuff public requests for information. This Note focuses on federal agencies involved in the licensing and certification of individuals in public safety-sensitive positions—principally the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration—that prior to Milner either actively used or could have used the High 2 exemption to protect information relating to examination questions and answers used to evaluate license and certificate applicants’ competencies. This Note first examines the rise of the High 2interpretation through the circuit courts, its application by federal agencies, and the Supreme Court decision sounding the High 2’s death knell. This Note then argues that courts should embrace an interpretation of another Freedom of Information Act exemption, Exemption 7(F), to permit federal agencies involved in the licensing and certification of individuals in public safety-sensitive positions to withhold information relating to examination questions and answers

Ciudades en la literatura

Tanto la prosa como la poesia se han valido de escenarios para contextualizar el emplazamiento y la vida de sus personajes. Referentes reales, como el Madrid de Fortunata y Jacinta, e imagianrios, como la Vetusta de La Regenta, a menudo son esenciales en el desarrollo de relatos y poemas