Landscapes of violence: women surviving family violence in regional and rural Victoria

In this research, family violence survivors have identified issues and barriers they have encountered, and have provided suggestions in regards to how both the criminal justice system and the broader Victorian community might assist survivors and help prevent family violence. Overview This project combines the findings of two studies undertaken by the Centre for Rural and Regional Law and Justice. Drawing on and extending the findings in Women\u27s experience of surviving family violence and accessing the Magistrate\u27s court in Geelong, Victoria (2013), this report extends the research in terms of geographic areas, issues covered and range of participants. It examines the experiences of, and outcomes for, women survivors of family violence in regional and rural Victoria, considering their contact with, and perceptions of, government agencies (including Victoria Police, the Victorian Magistrate\u27s courts and the Department of Human Services) as well as private and community advocates (legal services, women\u27s services and family violence services) and healthcare professionals. Through this research, survivors have identified issues and barriers they have encountered in escaping family violence, and have provided suggestions in regards to how both the criminal justice system and the broader Victorian community might assist survivors and help prevent family violence. As well as being informed by survivors, this publication includes insights provided by government and non-government practitioners and organisations who have offered their views on this report\u27s key findings and recommendations. In addition to the generous contributions of these participants, this report utilises relevant data and emerging research in an effort to identify best practice responses to family violence; improve access to justice, support and safety; and protect and promote women\u27s rights and entitlements

An Optimum-Currency-Area Odyssey

The theory of optimum-currency-areas was conceived and developed in three highly influential papers, written by Mundell (1961), McKinnon (1963) and Kenen (1969). Those authors identified characteristics that potential members of a monetary union should ideally possess in order to make it feasible to surrender a nationally- tailored monetary policy and the adjustment of an exchange rate of a national currency. We trace the development of optimum currency- area theory, which, after a flurry of research into the subject in the 1960s, was relegated to intellectual purgatory for about 20 years. We then discuss factors that led to a renewed interest into the subject, beginning in the early 1990s. Milton Friedman plays a pivotal role in our narrative; Friedman’s work on monetary integration in the early 1950s presaged subsequent optimum-currency-area contributions; Mundell’s classic formulation of an optimal currency area was aimed, in part, at refuting Friedman’s ‘‘strong’’ case for floating exchange rates; and Friedman’s work on the role of monetary policy had the effect of helping to revive interest in optimum-currency-area analysis. The paper concludes with a discussion of recent analytical work, using New Keynesian models, which has the promise of fulfilling the unfinished agenda set-out by the original contributors to the optimum-currency-area literature, that is, providing a consistent framework in which a country’s characteristics can be used to determine its optimal exchange-rate regimeOptimum-currency-areas; Exchange-rate regimes; New Keynesian models

Wage Rigidity and Monetary Union

We compare monetary union to flexible exchange rates in an asymmetric, three- country model with active monetary policy. Unlike the traditional OCA literature, we find that countries with high nominal wage rigidities benefit from monetary union, specially when they join other, similarly rigid countries. Countries with relatively more flexible wages lose when they form a union with more rigid wage countries. We study the France, Germany and the UK and find that wage asymmetries across these three countries dominate other types of asymmetries (in shocks, monetary policy etc.) in welfare comparisons. And that, if the UK had a substantially higher degree of wage flexibility than France and Germany, then her participation in EMU would be costly.monetary union; wage rigidity; asymmetry; multi-country model

Wage Rigidity and Monetary Union

We compare monetary union to flexible exchange rates in an asymmetric, threecountry model with active monetary policy. Unlike the traditional OCA literature, we find that countries with a high degree of nominal wage rigidity benefit from monetary union, specially when they join other, similarly rigid countries. Countries with relatively more flexible wages tend to be worse off in unions with countries that have more rigid wages. We examine France, Germany and the UK and find that the welfare implications of alternative monetary arrangements depend more on the degree of wage asymmetry than on other types of asymmetries (in shocks, monetary policy etc.). And that, higher degree of wage flexibility in the UK relative to France and Germany would make its participation in EMU costly.Monetary union, wage rigidity, asymmetry, multi-country model

The fatal flaw: the revived Bretton-woods system, liquidity creation, and commodity-price bubbles

Dooley, Folkerts-Landau and Garber (DFG) argue that the present constellation of global exchange-rate arrangements constitutes a revived Bretton-Woods system. DFG ALSO argue that the revived system will be sustainable, despite its large global imbalances. We argue that, to the extent that the present system constitutes a revived Bretton-Woods system, it is vulnerable to the same set of destabilizing forces - - including asset price bubbles and global financial crises - - that led to the breakdown of the earlier regime.Bretton-Woods system;international liquidity;price bubbles;Markov switching model

The Global Implications of Regional Exchange Rate Regines

We examine the implications of a regional, fixed exchange rate regime for global exchange rate volatility. The concept of the optimum currency area turns out to play an important role. The formation of a regional regime tends to decrease global volatility when countries are symmetric. The effects tend to be ambiguous in the case of asymmetries. The reduction in global volatility is larger when the rest of the world has more rigid labor markets than the peggers. When the exchange rate management is done mostly by countries with relatively more flexible labor markets. And in the presence of a negative correlation in productivity shocks across countries.Regional exchange rate systems, global exchange rate volatility, optimum currency area

Establishing the behavioural limits for countershaded camouflage

Countershading is a ubiquitous patterning of animals whereby the side that typically faces the highest illumination is darker. When tuned to specific lighting conditions and body orientation with respect to the light field, countershading minimizes the gradient of light the body reflects by counterbalancing shadowing due to illumination, and has therefore classically been thought of as an adaptation for visual camouflage. However, whether and how crypsis degrades when body orientation with respect to the light field is non-optimal has never been studied. We tested the behavioural limits on body orientation for countershading to deliver effective visual camouflage. We asked human participants to detect a countershaded target in a simulated three-dimensional environment. The target was optimally coloured for crypsis in a reference orientation and was displayed at different orientations. Search performance dramatically improved for deviations beyond 15 degrees. Detection time was significantly shorter and accuracy significantly higher than when the target orientation matched the countershading pattern. This work demonstrates the importance of maintaining body orientation appropriate for the displayed camouflage pattern, suggesting a possible selective pressure for animals to orient themselves appropriately to enhance crypsis

Is countershading camouflage robust to lighting change due to weather?

Countershading is a pattern of coloration thought to have evolved in order to implement camouflage. By adopting a pattern of coloration that makes the surface facing towards the sun darker and the surface facing away from the sun lighter, the overall amount of light reflected off an animal can be made more uniformly bright. Countershading could hence contribute to visual camouflage by increasing background matching or reducing cues to shape. However, the usefulness of countershading is constrained by a particular pattern delivering ‘optimal’ camouflage only for very specific lighting conditions. In this study, we test the robustness of countershading camouflage to lighting change due to weather, using human participants as a ‘generic’ predator. In a simulated three-dimensional environment, we constructed an array of simple leaf-shaped items and a single ellipsoidal target ‘prey’. We set these items in two light environments: strongly directional ‘sunny’ and more diffuse ‘cloudy’. The target object was given the optimal pattern of countershading for one of these two environment types or displayed a uniform pattern. By measuring detection time and accuracy, we explored whether and how target detection depended on the match between the pattern of coloration on the target object and scene lighting. Detection times were longest when the countershading was appropriate to the illumination; incorrectly camouflaged targets were detected with a similar pattern of speed and accuracy to uniformly coloured targets. We conclude that structural changes in light environment, such as caused by differences in weather, do change the effectiveness of countershading camouflage

Factors Influencing Trade Area Capture in the Great Basin Area

International Relations/Trade,

The Classification and Perfomance of Alternative Exchange-Rate Systems

Owing to dissatisfaction with the IMF’s de jure classification of exchange-rate regimes, a substantial literature has emerged presenting de facto classifications of exchange-rate systems and using the latter classifications to compare performances of alternative regimes in terms of key macroeconomic variables. This paper critically reviews the literature on de facto regimes. In particular the paper (1) describes the main methodologies that have been used to construct de facto codings, (2) surveys the empirical literature generated by de facto regime codings, and (3) lays-out the problems inherent in constructing de facto classifications. The empirical literature is found to yield few robust findings. We argue that the as-yet unfulfilled objective of this literature, and the major research agenda for the future in this area, lies in the need of a more thorough investigation of the degree of monetary-policy independence without relying exclusively on movements in exchange rates, an agenda the attainment of which is made especially challenging because of the lack of comprehensive and reliable data on reserves and interest rates.Exchange-rate regimes; Economic growth; Inflation; Bipolar hypothesis