Financial stability, economic growth, and the banking sector

Dit proefschrift bevat vier studies op het gebied van financiële stabiliteit, economische groei, bankenconcurrentie en marktconcentratie in de financiële sector. Een belangrijke bevinding is dat de liquiditeit van banken een belangrijke rol speelt bij de bepaling van de liquidatiekosten van banken tijdens financiële crises. Deze uitkomst impliceert dat de maatschappelijke kosten van financiële instabiliteit beperkt kunnen worden door regelgeving die banken dwingt een buffer van liquiditeit aan te houden. Een andere bevinding is dat toenemende marktconcentratie in de financiële sector van de Europese Unie geen noemenswaardig effect lijkt te hebben gehad op de financiële stabiliteit van deze sector. Deze bevinding impliceert dat, in tijden van financiële turbulentie, herstructurering van banken door middel van fusies een interessant alternatief is voor het redden van banken door middel van overheidsinjecties. Ten slotte toont dit proefschrift aan dat het loslaten van concurrentiebeperkende regelgeving in de bancaire sector van de Verenigde Staten tot positieve effecten op de economische groei heeft geleid. Deze positieve effecten beperken zich niet tot de staten in de V.S. die de betreffende regelgeving hebben afgeschaft, maar strekken zich ook uit tot omliggende staten. Deze uitkomst suggereert dat concurrentiebeperkende maatregelen in de financiële sector een remmende werking hebben op de economische groei.This thesis comprises four studies on the issues of financial stability, economic growth, banking competition and market concentration in the banking sector. An important finding is that the liquidity of banks plays an important role as a determinant of the costs of the liquidation of banks during financial crises. This outcome implies that the societal costs of financial instability can be reduced by regulation which requires banks to hold a liquidity buffer. Another finding is that increases in the degree of market concentration in the financial sector of the European Union have not had an economically meaningful effect on the financial stability of this sector. This finding implies that, in episodes of financial distress, restructuring mergers of banks are an attractive alternative to governmental bailouts. Finally, this thesis shows that the deregulation of competitive restrictions in the banking sector of the United States has had positive effects on economic growth. These positive growth effects are not restricted to deregulated states themselves, but have spilled over to neighboring states. This outcome implies that competitive restrictions in the banking sector hamper economic growth

Åse tunanlegg i tid og rom. Tunanlegget i lys av tingsted-hypotesen

Denne oppgaven tar for seg tunanlegg i lys av tingsted-hypotesen, med et særfokus på den sosio-politiske konteksten til tunanlegget på Åse (Andøy kommune, Nordland). I oppgaven settes de nordnorske tunanleggene i en kontekstuell ramme, og Tingets plass i et lagdelt samfunn diskuteres. I denne diskusjonen står sosio-politiske endringer sentralt. Tinginstitusjonen bandt mennesker sammen i et sosialt, politisk og kulturelt felleskap. Anleggene har vært i bruk både i eldre og i yngre jernalder, og kan slik indikere kontinuitet gjennom mange århundrer. Gjelder dette også anleggets funksjon og den institusjonen som anleggene representerte? Hvordan skapte tinginstitusjonen kontinuitet til tross for omfattende samfunnsmessige endringer som fant sted i jernalderen

The angular momentum of disc galaxies at z=1

We investigate the relation between stellar mass and specific stellar angular momentum, or `Fall relation', for a sample of 17 isolated, regularly rotating disc galaxies at z=1. All galaxies have a) rotation curves determined from Halpha emission-line data; b) HST imaging in optical and infrared filters; c) robust determinations of their stellar masses. We use HST images in f814w and f160w filters, roughly corresponding to rest-frames B and I bands, to extract surface brightness profiles for our systems. We robustly bracket the specific angular momentum by assuming that rotation curves beyond the outermost Halpha rotation point stay either flat or follow a Keplerian fall-off. By comparing our measurements with those determined for disc galaxies in the local Universe, we find no evolution in the Fall relation in the redshift range 0<z<1, regardless of the band used and despite the uncertainties in the stellar rotation curves at large radii. This result holds unless stellar masses at z=1 are systematically underestimated by more than 50%. Our findings are compatible with expectations based on a LCDM cosmological framework and support a scenario where both the stellar Tully-Fisher and mass-size relations for spirals do not evolve significantly in this redshift range.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted by A&

Insulinoma Manifesting Early Postpartum:Case Report and Review of the Literature

Objective: Insulinomas are insulin-producing neuroendocrine tumors. Insulinomas presenting during pregnancy and the early postpartum period are very rare. Methods: A 33-year-old woman with hypoglycemia early postpartum is described. Abdominal computed tomography and endoscopic ultrasound showed 2 lesions of the pancreas. An 11C-5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan (11CHTP) positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scan demonstrated additional uptake in lymph nodes and liver, suggesting malignant insulinoma. Six months after pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy and excision of liver and lymph node metastases, tumor progression was noted on repeated 11C-HTP PET-CT scans without recurrent hypoglycemia. She was enrolled in a clinical trial and was randomized for dual pan-class I phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor and mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor treatment, on which there was no tumor progression during 21 months follow-up. A systematic search of PubMed and Medline with the search strategy ‘insulinoma AND pregnancy’ OR ‘insulinoma AND postpartum’ was performed to identify English-, Dutch-, and German-language publications. All publications about (malignant) insulinoma during pregnancy and in the early postpartum period (≤3 months postpartum) were reviewed in addition to the described case report. Results: Insulinoma manifesting during pregnancy or early after delivery has been described in 31 cases, including only 3 cases of malignant insulinoma. Management of malignant insulinoma requires an individualized approach; optimal medical treatment is evolving. Conclusion: The usefulness of 11C-HTP PET-CT in the diagnosis of malignant insulinoma was demonstrated in the present case. Hypoglycemia may particularly become manifest in the postpartum period when insulin action increases consequent to decreased levels of placenta-derived counterregulatory hormones after delivery.</p

The Survival Paradox of Elderly Patients After Major Liver Resections

The objective of this study is to assess the outcome of liver resections in the elderly in a matched control analysis. From a prospective single center database of 628 patients, 132 patients were aged 60 years or over and underwent a primary major liver resection. Of these patients, 93 could be matched one-to-one with a control patient, aged less than 60 years, with the same diagnosis and the same type of liver resection. The mean age difference was 16.7 years. Patients over 60 years of age had a significantly higher American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) grade. All other demographics and operative characteristics were not different. In-hospital mortality and morbidity were higher in the patients over 60 years of age (11% versus 2%, p=0.017 and 47% versus 31%, p=0.024). One-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates in the patients over 60 years of age were 81%, 58%, and 42%, respectively, compared to 90%, 59%, and 42% in the control patients (p=0.558). Unified model Cox regression analysis showed that resection margin status (hazard ratio 2.51) and ASA grade (hazard ratio 2.26), and not age, were determining factors for survival. This finding underlines the important fact that in patient selection for major liver resections, ASA grade is more important than patient age

Modeling Contingency Management in Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management

Contingency management in future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Traffic Management (UTM) requires a variety of distributed and interdependent functions and services—such as flight tracking and conformance monitoring, weather detection and prediction, and ground-based detection and avoidance— that need to be coordinated across multiple roles and organizations. This paper describes a combination of cognitive walkthroughs and computational modeling of work to analyze edge case scenarios and assess resiliency in future UTM operations. We discuss how the walkthrough and modeling inform each other and present early results. The ultimate goal of this work is to identify requirements for robust and resilient system responses in future UTM contingency management