Aggregate Investment Expenditures on Traded and

It is a well-established empirical regularity in the macroeconomic literature that the relative price of nontraded goods (expressed in terms of traded goods) correlates positively with income and exhibits large differences across space and time. This paper shows that, despite the large differences in the relative price, aggregate investment expenditure shares on traded and nontraded goods are remarkably similar in rich and poor countries. Furthermore, the two expenditure shares have remained close to constant over time, with the average nontraded expenditure share varying between 0.54-0.60 over the 1960-2002 period. Empirical results of this paper offer a new restriction for the two-sector growth model. We show that, with the restriction imposed on the model, only around 25 percent of the differences in PPP adjusted investment rates between rich and poor countries can be attributed to differences in relative productivity between traded and nontraded sectors, i.e., the Balassa-Samuelson effect

Catalytic C(sp3)-H bond activation in tertiary alkylamines.

The development of robust catalytic methods to assemble tertiary alkylamines provides a continual challenge to chemical synthesis. In this regard, transformation of a traditionally unreactive C-H bond, proximal to the nitrogen atom, into a versatile chemical entity would be a powerful strategy for introducing functional complexity to tertiary alkylamines. A practical and selective metal-catalysed C(sp3)-H activation facilitated by the tertiary alkylamine functionality, however, remains an unsolved problem. Here, we report a Pd(II)-catalysed protocol that appends arene feedstocks to tertiary alkylamines via C(sp3)-H functionalization. A simple ligand for Pd(II) orchestrates the C-H activation step in favour of deleterious pathways. The reaction can use both simple and complex starting materials to produce a range of multifaceted γ-aryl tertiary alkylamines and can be rendered enantioselective. The enabling features of this transformation should be attractive to practitioners of synthetic and medicinal chemistry as well as in other areas that use biologically active alkylamines

A general carbonyl alkylative amination for tertiary amine synthesis.

The ubiquity of tertiary alkylamines in pharmaceutical and agrochemical agents, natural products and small-molecule biological probes1,2 has stimulated efforts towards their streamlined synthesis3-9. Arguably the most robust method for the synthesis of tertiary alkylamines is carbonyl reductive amination3, which comprises two elementary steps: the condensation of a secondary alkylamine with an aliphatic aldehyde to form an all-alkyl-iminium ion, which is subsequently reduced by a hydride reagent. Direct strategies have been sought for a 'higher order' variant of this reaction via the coupling of an alkyl fragment with an alkyl-iminium ion that is generated in situ10-14. However, despite extensive efforts, the successful realization of a 'carbonyl alkylative amination' has not yet been achieved. Here we present a practical and general synthesis of tertiary alkylamines through the addition of alkyl radicals to all-alkyl-iminium ions. The process is facilitated by visible light and a silane reducing agent, which trigger a distinct radical initiation step to establish a chain process. This operationally straightforward, metal-free and modular transformation forms tertiary amines, without structural constraint, via the coupling of aldehydes and secondary amines with alkyl halides. The structural and functional diversity of these readily available precursors provides a versatile and flexible strategy for the streamlined synthesis of complex tertiary amines

Optimal Risk Taking with Flexible Income

We study the portfolio selection problem of an investor who can optimally exert costly effort for more income. The possibility of generating more income, if necessary, increases the risk-taking appetite of the investor. We find the optimal allocation to the risky security as a proportion of financial wealth and as a proportion of the total wealth, defined as the combination of the financial wealth and the human capital of the investor. When the investor's objective is the maximization of the terminal wealth, we show that the optimal allocation to the risky security is a hump-shaped function of the investment horizon. However, when the investor maximizes utility from intertemporal consumption, the optimal allocation in the risky security is a constant proportion of the total wealth of the investor.utility maximization, optimal portfolio selection, intertemporal consumption, optimal effort

Multicomponent Synthesis of α-Branched Amines via a Zinc-Mediated Carbonyl Alkylative Amination Reaction.

Publication status: PublishedMethods for the synthesis of α-branched alkylamines are important due to their ubiquity in biologically active molecules. Despite the development of many methods for amine preparation, C(sp3)-rich nitrogen-containing compounds continue to pose challenges for synthesis. While carbonyl reductive amination (CRA) between ketones and alkylamines is the cornerstone method for α-branched alkylamine synthesis, it is sometimes limited by the sterically demanding condensation step between dialkyl ketones and amines and the more restricted availability of ketones compared to aldehydes. We recently reported a "higher-order" variant of this transformation, carbonyl alkylative amination (CAA), which utilized a halogen atom transfer (XAT)-mediated radical mechanism, enabling the streamlined synthesis of complex α-branched alkylamines. Despite the efficacy of this visible-light-driven approach, it displayed scalability issues, and competitive reductive amination was a problem for certain substrate classes, limiting applicability. Here, we report a change in the reaction regime that expands the CAA platform through the realization of an extremely broad zinc-mediated CAA reaction. This new strategy enabled elimination of competitive CRA, simplified purification, and improved reaction scope. Furthermore, this new reaction harnessed carboxylic acid derivatives as alkyl donors and facilitated the synthesis of α-trialkyl tertiary amines, which cannot be accessed via CRA. This Zn-mediated CAA reaction can be carried out at a variety of scales, from a 10 μmol setup in microtiter plates enabling high-throughput experimentation, to the gram-scale synthesis of medicinally-relevant compounds. We believe that this transformation enables robust, efficient, and economical access to α-branched alkylamines and provides a viable alternative to the current benchmark methods