Peculiar Velocity Limits from Measurements of the Spectrum of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in Six Clusters of Galaxies

We have made measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect in six galaxy clusters at z > 0.2 using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Infrared Experiment (SuZIE II) in three frequency bands between 150 and 350 GHz. Simultaneous multi-frequency measurements have been used to distinguish between thermal and kinematic components of the SZ effect, and to significantly reduce the effects of variations in atmospheric emission which can otherwise dominate the noise. We have set limits to the peculiar velocities of each cluster with respect to the Hubble flow, and have used the cluster sample to set a 95% confidence limit of < 1410 km/s to the bulk flow of the intermediate-redshift universe in the direction of the CMB dipole. This is the first time that SZ measurements have been used to constrain bulk flows. We show that systematic uncertainties in peculiar velocity determinations from the SZ effect are likely to be dominated by submillimeter point sources and we discuss the level of this contamination.Comment: Submitted to Astrophysical Journal. 32 pages, 13 tables, 9 figure

Financial and monetary policy responses to oil price shocks: evidence from oil-importing and oil-exporting countries

In this study, we investigate the financial and monetary policy responses to oil price shocks using a Structural VAR framework. We distinguish between net oil-importing and net oil-exporting countries. Since the 80s, a significant number of empirical studies have been published investigating the effect of oil prices on macroeconomic and financial variables. Most of these studies though, do not make a distinction between oil-importing and oil-exporting economies. Overall, our results indicate that the level of inflation in both net oil-exporting and net oil-importing countries is significantly affected by oil price innovations. Furthermore, we find that the response of interest rates to an oil price shock depends heavily on the monetary policy regime of each country. Finally, stock markets operating in net oil-importing countries exhibit a negative response to increased oil prices. The reverse is true for the stock market of the net oil-exporting countries. We find evidence that the magnitude of stock market responses to oil price shocks is higher for the newly established and/or less liquid stock market