The International Wealth Effect: A Global Error-Correcting Analysis

This paper analyzes the empirical link between asset prices, consumption and the trade balance using a global macroeconometric model developed by Pesaran, Schuermann, and Weiner (2004). The model is estimated for 29 countries with quarterly data over the period 1981Q1 - 2006Q4. Motivated by increasing international financial and real integration, and pronounced cycles in stock and housing prices, we employ generalized impulse response functions for a group of five of the world''s most industrialized countries and show that shocks to asset prices transmit into consumption decisions and subsequently into the trade balance. We refer to this transmission channel as the international wealth effect and find it to be present in the US, UK and, to a lesser extent, in France, but absent in Japan and Germany.macroeconomics ;

The Impact of International Portfolio Composition on Consumption Risk Sharing

Recent empirical work has shown that ongoing international financial integration facilitates cross-country consumption risk-sharing. These studies typically find that countries with high equity home bias exhibit relatively low international consumption risk sharing. We extend this line of research and demonstrate that it is not only a country's equity home bias that prevents consumption risk sharing. In addition, the composition of a country's foreign asset portfolio plays an important role. Using panel-data regression for a group of OECD countries over the period 1980-2007, we show that foreign investment bias has additional explanatory power for consumption risk sharing.international financial integration, foreign investment bias, geography of international investment, equity home bias, international portfolio diversification

Taking Home Bias Seriously: Absolute and Relative Measures Explaining Consumption Risk-Sharing

Recent empirical work has shown that ongoing international financial integration facilitates cross-country consumption risk-sharing. While these studies typically employ absolutemeasures to account for a country''s integration in international capital markets, we devise a relative measure that is motivated by the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (I-CAPM) literature. Our measure captures the composition of a country''s international portfolio relative to the world portfolio, which all countries should optimally hold according to the I-CAPM. Using panel-data regression for a group of OECD countries during the financial globalization period 1980-2007, we show that the geography of international portfolioshelps to explain the degree of consumption risk-sharing obtained.macroeconomics ;

International Portfolio Balance – Modeling the External Adjustment Process

Unprecedented growth in private cross-border asset trade and asymmetric internationalbalance sheets are well-documented stylized facts of financial integration. Moreover, weobserve that current accounts are no longer the number one determinant of external balances. Advancing the work of Blanchard et al. (2005), this paper develops a portfolio-balance model that recognizes these stylized facts and shows how they influence the joint dynamics of the current account, the exchange rate and relative asset prices. Calibrating the model to the external adjustment process of the US, the model produces results that are broadly consistent with recent empirical trends. In particular, we find that the composition of its international balance sheet helps the US to better cope with external shocks.international economics and trade ;

Origins of persistent macroeconomic imbalances in the Euro area

In this paper we document the growing dispersion of external and internal balances between countries in the North and South of the Euro area over the time period 1992 to 2007. We find a persistent divergence process that seems to have started with the introduction of the common currency and has its roots in the savings and investment behavior of private sectors. We dismiss the common argument in the literature that imbalances are the temporary outcome of an overall European economic convergence process and argue that future research should place greater emphasis on country heterogeneity in behavior to fully understand economic developments in the Euro area and to derive policy implications.macroeconomics ;

Persistent macroeconomic imbalances in the Euro area: causes and consequences

In this paper, the authors document a growing divergence between current account imbalances in northern and southern euro area countries from 1992 to 2007. The imbalance occurred without a concomitant rise in productivity and growth in the southern (deficit) countries. The authors argue that systematic monitoring of external imbalances and implementation of better coordinated policies to prevent the emergence of unsustainably large imbalances in the euro area is advisable because (i) country heterogeneity and the absence of optimal currency area characteristics may lead to the emergence of large cur- rent account imbalances without automatic gains in productivity and economic growth to sustain these imbalances, (ii) the absence of sufficient market-based adjustment mechanisms substantially increases the costs of ultimate adjustment toward more sustainable current account positions, and (iii) large external imbalances—particularly through the major role of the banking system—potentially have strong negative consequences for fiscal policy.Balance of payments ; Macroeconomics ; European Union countries

Origins of persistent macroeconomic imbalances in the Euro area

In this paper we document the growing dispersion of external and internal balances between countries in the North and South of the Euro area over the time period 1992 to 2007. We find a persistent divergence process that seems to have started with the introduction of the common currency and has its roots in the savings and investment behavior of private sectors. We dismiss the common argument in the literature that imbalances are the temporary outcome of an overall European economic convergence process and argue that future research should place greater emphasis on country heterogeneity in behavior to fully understand economic developments in the Euro area and to derive policy implications.Euro area, current acccount imbalances, Stability and Growth Pact

Analysis of complex stability and allosteric interaction in the imidazole glycerol phosphate synthase complex

Imidazole glycerol phosphate synthase (ImGPS) is a bi-enzyme complex that consists of the glutaminase subunit HisH and the cyclase subunit HisF. HisH hydrolyzes glutamine to glutamate and ammonia, which is transported through a channel to the active site of HisF where it reacts with N´-[(5´-phosphoribulosyl)formimino]-5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-ribonucleotide (PRFAR) to imidazole glycerol phosphate (ImGP) and 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribotide (AICAR). ImGP and AICAR are further used in histidine and de novo purine biosynthesis, rendering ImGPS a key metabolic enzyme. The sequential HisH and HisF reactions are tightly coupled: glutaminase HisH activity is allosterically induced by the binding of PRFAR to the active site of HisF. The structural bases for complex formation between HisH and HisF and for the coupling of their catalytic activities are poorly understood. Thus, HisF:HisH is a paradigm for the study of protein-protein interactions and allosteric regulation. Moreover, only plants, fungi, bacteria, and archaea are able to synthesize histidine. Thus, the inhibiton of ImGPS might be a potential therapeutic strategy to fight pathogenic microorganisms. In this context, recently, a peptide was identified that impedes the glutaminase activity in ImGPS from Thermotoga maritima (tm). It has been hypothesized that the peptide inhibits the catalytic activity of HisF:HisH by binding to tmHisF in the complex interface, however, the exact HisF:peptide interaction sites and the mode of inhibition remained elusive. Within the first part of this thesis, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) titration experiments demonstrated that the inhibitory peptide mainly interacts with structural elements and residues around positions 71-77 and 90-99 in HisF. Parts of this set of residues belong to the HisF:HisH interface and are thought to be involved in allosteric signal transduction, based on previous NMR and molecular dynamics data. This suggests that the peptide inhibits glutaminase activity by perturbing the interaction and allosteric communication between the HisF and HisH subunits. Within the second part of this thesis, residues of HisF that are crucial for its structural and functional interaction with HisH should be identified. For this purpose, it was planned to analyze the interaction of various combinations of HisF and HisH enzymes. However, these experiments could not be performed due to the insolubility of most of the tested proteins. In order to produce proteins that can be characterized, the primordial HisF and HisH enzymes from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) were resurrected by ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR). LUCA-HisF and LUCA-HisH formed a high-affinity complex; however, LUCA-HisH was catalytically inactive, probably due to inaccuracies of ASR. In contrast, LUCA-HisF was catalytically active and could be used for further analysis, which was performed as follows: Initial experiments showed that HisH from Zymomonas mobilis (zmHisH) tightly binds to LUCA-HisF but not to the present-day HisF from Pyrobaculum arsenaticum (paHisF), which are separated by 103 residues. Following the characterization of a reconstructed evolutionary intermediate linking LUCA-HisF and paHisF and the inspection of the ImGPS interface, the number of candidate HisF residues crucial for binding to zmHisH could be narrowed to nine. Subsequent in silico mutagenesis based on homology modeling indicated that a single phenylalanine at position 74 in HisF was most important for binding to zmHisH. The decisive role of this “hot spot” residue for complex formation between HisF and zmHisH was confirmed by extensive experimental site-directed mutagenesis. Subsequently, primordial HisF proteins were also utilized to disentangle mechanistic principles of allosteric communication with HisH. In this context, no glutaminase activity was observed for tmHisH when bound to LUCA-HisF with PRFAR. However, the crystal structure of LUCA-HisF:tmHisH with bound glutamine revealed no significant differences compared to the catalytically active tmHisF:tmHisH complex. LUCA-HisF and tmHisF are separated by 79 residues. Although the number of potentially important residue differences could be reduced to 69 with the help of a primordial enzyme that links LUCA-HisF and tmHisF and by means of computational analysis, residues that are decisive for allostery could not be identified by this approach. Taken together, the results of this thesis show that peptides interrupting allosteric inter-subunit communication and molecular fossils being resurrected by ASR can contribute to unraveling the structure-function relationship of multi-enzyme complexes such as ImGPS

Noch einmal möchte morgens ich erwachen...: Spurensuche durch Pirna und Porschendorf: Eine Wandertour

Der Band ist so etwas wie ein Reisebuch – eine Empfehlung zum Spazierengehen. Er durchstreift Pirna und sein Umland. Wir begeben uns auf die Spuren einer vergessenen Familie: der Familie Scooler. Außerdem besuchen wir Orte der Zwangsarbeit, der Verfolgung von politischen Gegner*innen, der Bücherverbrennung und der »Euthanasie« im Nationalsozialismus. Die Shoah, die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Jüdinnen und Juden, und das Erinnern an sie ist nicht Teil unseres Alltags. Zu wenig bekannt und gekennzeichnet ist diese Geschichte. Wer hat hier gelebt und gewirkt, wer war Teil der Nachbarschaft? Wer musste gehen, wurde verfolgt und ermordet? Wessen Spuren suchen wir auf diesem Spaziergang? Redaktionsschluss: 31. März 202

Clinical outcome and hemodynamic behavior of the Labcor Dokimos Plus aortic valve

Background The Labcor Dokimos Plus (LDP) is a stented externally mounted pericardial aortic bioprosthesis, which was recently introduced in Europe. Aims of the study are evaluation of operative and postoperative results as well as hemodynamic performance. Methods One hundred consecutive patients with a mean age of 65.9 ± 10.7 years (range 35–87) and a mean EuroSCORE II of 3.1 ± 3.9 (range 0.67–24.5) underwent aortic valve replacement with the LDP. Mean valve-size was 25.2 ± 1.7 mm. Concomitant procedures were performed in 34% of the cases. Postoperative clinical data were analyzed and hemodynamic performance of the prostheses was evaluated by transthoracic echocardiography. Clinical follow-up was 100%, echocardiographic follow-up was 93% complete. Results Intraoperatively no peculiarities occurred. Mean cross clamp times for isolated and complex procedures were 74.5 ± 20.0 min and 103.7 ± 37.1 min, respectively. Patients were extubated after a mean of 9.4 ± 15.8 h. There were no perioperative strokes. Bleeding events occurred in 4 patients. 30-day- mortality was 2%. One case of early endocarditis occurred. Echocardiography showed maximum and mean pressure gradients of 18.1 ± 6.4 and 9.6 ± 3.7 mmHg, respectively. Correspondingly to valve sizes 21, 23, 25 and 27 mm, mean pressure gradients were 17.3, 9.5, 8.5 and 10.2 mmHg, effective orifice areas were 1.92, 1.79, 2.0, 2.16 cm2 and indexed effective orifice areas were 1.08, 0.95, 0.99 and 1.01 cm2/m2, respectively. No relevant regurgitations occurred. Conclusions The LDP showed operatively no peculiarities and a satisfactory clinical outcome with low perioperative morbidity and mortality. The hemodynamic performance of the implanted valve sizes was satisfactory