The Nexus between Public Debt and the Government Spending Multiplier: Fiscal Adjustments Matter

This paper studies the evolution of government spending multipliers in the post-war U.S. using a time-varying parameter VAR model. We achieve identification by imposing sign and zero restrictions on the systematic component of policy rules and impulse responses. Our results show that the U.S. multipliers in the post-OBRA93 period are smaller than those in the 1970s. The multipliers are found to be more strongly correlated with the estimated coefficients of the debt-stabilizing rule than the debt-to-GDP ratios. The increased magnitude of fiscal adjustments appears to be the major driving force behind the decline in multipliers rather than debt accumulation itself

Surgical intervention for anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery: The Tokyo experience

AbstractBackground: Few studies after surgical repair of the anomalous origin of the left coronary artery have reported the importance of the mitral annuloplasty or the long-term results. Methods: Between January 1982 and March 2000, 29 patients with anomalous origin underwent surgical intervention at our institution (direct aortic reimplantation in 19 and Takeuchi procedure in 10). Age at the time of operation ranged from 2 months to 24 years (median, 29.3 months), and 9 patients were infants. Twenty-four patients had varying degrees of mitral incompetence. Simultaneous mitral annuloplasty at the anterolateral commissure was performed in all 24 patients with incompetence. Results: There were 2 hospital deaths among the infants, and no late deaths. Mean follow-up was 100 ± 57 months, and the actuarial survival was 93.1% at 10 years (70% confidence limits, 87-99). Cardiothoracic ratio at discharge was not decreasing significantly (P =.35); however, this value 5 years after the operation showed the significant decrease (P =.003) versus preoperative value. Preoperative mitral incompetence decreased in all but one of the operative survivors with mitral annuloplasty at the last follow-up. The left ventricular fractional shortening z-score was not normalized at discharge but was normalized in the late period. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that impaired left ventricular function normalized in the long term (even if it was below normal immediately after operation) after 2-coronary repair. We recommend that the simultaneous mitral annuloplasty should be performed at the time of operation for patients who have mitral incompetence with anomalous origin of the left coronary artery. (J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2001;121:792-7

Time-varying Fiscal Multipliers Identified by Systematic Component: A Bayesian Approach to TVP-SVAR model

Abstract This study estimates time varying fiscal multipliers from the aspect of fiscal policy rules derived from the systematic component along the line of “Agnostic Identification Procedure” proposed by Caldara and Kamps (2017) for the US economy between 1952:Q1-2018:Q1. To do so, we adopt time-varying parameter structural vector autoregressive (TVP-SVAR) with MCMC procedure by a Bayesian approach, and identify both of government spending and tax cut shocks using the zero and sign restrictions method proposed by Arias, Rubio-Ramirez and Waggoner (2018). And we compare those values with time varying version identified by standard sign restriction along the line of Mountford and Uhlig (2009). Our estimation reports that time-varying fiscal multipliers of output by government spending rule could be nearly double for one year but decline to unity after eight years, and seem to have been very stable for long terms such as sixty years. By contrast, those of tax cut rule are more fluctuate and negative for long run except the 1990’s

RNA-sequencing reveals positional memory of multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells from oral and maxillofacial tissue transcriptomes

訂正あ

The ASTRO-H X-ray Observatory

The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly successful X-ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). ASTRO-H will investigate the physics of the high-energy universe via a suite of four instruments, covering a very wide energy range, from 0.3 keV to 600 keV. These instruments include a high-resolution, high-throughput spectrometer sensitive over 0.3-2 keV with high spectral resolution of Delta E < 7 eV, enabled by a micro-calorimeter array located in the focal plane of thin-foil X-ray optics; hard X-ray imaging spectrometers covering 5-80 keV, located in the focal plane of multilayer-coated, focusing hard X-ray mirrors; a wide-field imaging spectrometer sensitive over 0.4-12 keV, with an X-ray CCD camera in the focal plane of a soft X-ray telescope; and a non-focusing Compton-camera type soft gamma-ray detector, sensitive in the 40-600 keV band. The simultaneous broad bandpass, coupled with high spectral resolution, will enable the pursuit of a wide variety of important science themes.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Fiscal Policy in an Estimated DSGE Model of the Japanese Economy

This paper studies how the …scal authority’s …nancing behavior a¤ects dynamic responses to a government spending shock using an estimated medium-scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of the Japanese economy. The estimated model successfully delivers a positive consumption response regardless of its low share of non-Ricardian households. It points to the importance of the tax rule combination in determining …scal policy e¤ectiveness, which has been largely omitted in the literature. By conducting some policy experiments, I …nd that …scal policy becomes more e¤ective if its …nance is allocated lightly on labor-dampening taxes. I also show that a choice of tax rule combination can actually dominate the non-Ricardian share in its e¤ect on …scal multipliers. JEL classi…cation: E32, E62