The relationship between default and economic cycles for retail portfolios across countries

In this paper, we collect consumer delinquency data from several economic shocks in order to study the creation of stress-testing models. We leverage the dual-time dynamics modeling technique to better isolate macroeconomic impacts whenever vintage-level performance data is available. The stress-testing models follow a framework described here of focusing on consumer-centric macroeconomic variables so that the models are as robust as possible when predicting the impacts of future shocks

Economic Issues of Invasive Pests and Diseases and Food Safety

The problem of invasive pests and diseases has become more urgent and far more complex today than in the recent past. Increased trade and movement of people, and the opening up of new trade routes have increased opportunities for the spread of invasive species. In addition, mono-cropping systems of cultivation; globalization; increased resistance of pests to pesticides and food safety and environmental concerns have all contributed to the growing complexity of the problem on hand. The economic dimensions of the problem can be viewed from at least two perspectives. First, with regard to the spread and impact of invasive species, particularly how best to provide more comprehensive assessments of impacts of invasions, so as to improve the cost effectiveness and efficiency of publicly funded programs aimed at eradication, control or mitigation of invasive pests and diseases. Second, from the perspective of incorporating more economic analysis and use of economic instruments in designing sanitary and phytosanitary measures. The paper explores some of these issues from an economic perspective. It concludes that incorporating more economic analysis in matters related to biological invasions is desirable, but presents a challenge to economists. Measurement requires data, and success in measurement will require that economists and biological scientists work closer together than they have in the past.sanitary and phytosanitary measures, SPS, invasive species, WTO, economic impact of invasive species, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,

SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research) Annual Report 1995/1996

The Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research (SOAR) was a facility of the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs whose mission is to make airborne geophysical observations available to the broad research community of geology, glaciology and other sciences. The central office of the SOAR facility is located in Austin, Texas within the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Other institutions with significant responsibilities are the Lamont­ Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Geophysics Branch of the U.S . Geological Survey. This report summarizes the goals and accomplishments of the SOAR facility during 1995/1996 and plans for the next year.National Science Foundation's Office of Polar ProgramsInstitute for Geophysic

Tracer Measurements in Growing Sea Ice Support Convective Gravity Drainage Parameterizations

Gravity drainage is the dominant process redistributing solutes in growing sea ice. Modeling gravity drainage is therefore necessary to predict physical and biogeochemical variables in sea ice. We evaluate seven gravity drainage parameterizations, spanning the range of approaches in the literature, using tracer measurements in a sea ice growth experiment. Artificial sea ice is grown to around 17 cm thickness in a new experimental facility, the Roland von Glasow air‐sea‐ice chamber. We use NaCl (present in the water initially) and rhodamine (injected into the water after 10 cm of sea ice growth) as independent tracers of brine dynamics. We measure vertical profiles of bulk salinity in situ, as well as bulk salinity and rhodamine in discrete samples taken at the end of the experiment. Convective parameterizations that diagnose gravity drainage using Rayleigh numbers outperform a simpler convective parameterization and diffusive parameterizations when compared to observations. This study is the first to numerically model solutes decoupled from salinity using convective gravity drainage parameterizations. Our results show that (1) convective, Rayleigh number‐based parameterizations are our most accurate and precise tool for predicting sea ice bulk salinity; and (2) these parameterizations can be generalized to brine dynamics parameterizations, and hence can predict the dynamics of any solute in growing sea ic

Leptoquarks at Future Lepton Colliders

In this talk I summarize the capability of future lepton colliders to discover leptoquarks and to determine their electroweak quantum numbers. This analysis is an updated discussion based on the results presented in the Snowmass 1996 New Phenomena Working Group report as well as some more recent work that has appeared in the literature as a result of the HERA high-$Q^2$ excess.Comment: 12 pages, 3 Figs. Uses e-e-ijmpa.sty. To appear in the Proceedings of the $2^{nd}$ International Workshop on $e^-e^-$ Interactions at TeV Energies}, Santa Cruz, CA, 22-24 September 199

Janus and the Future of Collective Bargaining: Rhetorically Predicting a First Amendment Right to Negotiation

The importance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has been widely recognized for its effect on reducing the power and influence of public unions. A close reading of the majority opinion provides a clue that compulsory collective bargaining itself may be settling into the court’s crosshairs. Collective bargaining is an important tool, by which labor can reduce the often-inherent power imbalance it has with ownership and management. Yet as this Article outlines, the interests of individual workers can often be at odds with those other workers workers, particularly those who do not feel the union represents their interests. This Article will explore the history of unions and collective bargaining, the variety of worker rights that are affected by compulsory collective bargaining, why the Supreme Court might choose to eliminate compulsory collective bargaining via the First Amendment, and what may ultimately replace it. or even the union itself. When the law designates a union as the exclusive bargaining agent for a group of workers, it prohibits individual workers from advocating for their own interests. As the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Janus, this results in a substantial reduction of the rights o

Evaluation of reduced oxygen display and storage of watercolours

Reduced-oxygen display and storage, through the limitation of oxidative processes, can enhance the preservation of works on paper. By limiting photo-oxidative processes, access to objects can be increased, allowing their display at higher light levels and/or for longer periods. Published research indicates that most artists’ materials will either benefit from or suffer no detrimental effect from reduced-oxygen environments. However, some colourants have been found to undergo accelerated change in the absence of oxygen. Therefore, evaluation of benefits to heritage objects prior to reduced-oxygen treatment is required. The Anoxic Frames Project at Tate, of which this Thesis is an outcome, aimed to develop reduced-oxygen framing solutions, test their efficacy, identify materials that undergo accelerated change in a reducedoxygen environment and develop methods to identify candidate objects for anoxic storage. The scope of my research at Tate and for this Thesis was limited to 19th-century watercolour drawings, with a focus on J.M.W. Turner. My research contributed to several publications, conference papers, posters, reproduction of a 19th- century paper, a prototype reaction cell and was, in part, patented. This Thesis presents: a literature review of both the behaviour of artists’ materials in zero oxygen (anoxia) and of analytical methods; a technical study leading to the reproduction of a paper used by Turner; analytical studies of the photo-reactivity of madder lakes and Prussian blues; the design and testing of a prototype reaction cell for operando spectroscopy studies of heritage materials; an outline of the field of heritage degradomics; the application of heritage degradomics with advanced chemometric methods to evaluate the headspace profiles of watercolours aged in both anoxia and room atmosphere. The Thesis concludes with an evaluation of reduced-oxygen treatment, and a proposal of how heritage institutions can both select objects suitable for reduced-oxygen storage and display and implement low-cost reducedoxygen cassettes in their display practice