"Can European Banks Survive a Unified Currency in a Nationally Segmented Capital Market?"

The euro was expected to become a substitute for the U.S. dollar as an international currency. However, compromises made during its creation make it a less than perfect substitute in the medium term. Among these compromises was the application of macro convergence and micro diversity in financial markets and supervision at the national level. This now prevents the creation of a unified capital market and places EU banks at a disadvantage when competing with U.S. banks in global markets. There were also peculiarities in the integration process that led to a single currency in the United States that suggest further institutional changes will be necessary.

Can European Banks Survive a Unified Currency in a Nationally Segmented Capital Market?

The euro was expected to become a substitute for the U.S. dollar as an international currency. However, compromises made during its creation make it a less than perfect substitute in the medium term. Among these compromises was the application of macro convergence and micro diversity in financial markets and supervision at the national level. This now prevents the creation of a unified capital market and places EU banks at a disadvantage when competing with U.S. banks in global markets. There were also peculiarities in the integration process that led to a single currency in the United States that suggest further institutional changes will be necessary.

"Krugman on the Liquidity Trap: Why Inflation Won't Bring Recovery In Japan"

Paul Krugman has argued that Japan is in a liquidity trap and that it can recover only if the central bank there follows a policy of "credible inflation." This paper argues that Krugman's proposal, which is similar to what Fisher proposed during the depression, is based on a different interpretation of the liquidity trap from that proposed by Keynes and as a result his policy recommendations can result in neither the elimination of the trap nor in Japan's economic recovery.

The Relevance of Ragnar Nurkse and Classical Development Economics

In this essay we aim to show, first, how the classical development economics, that of Ragnar Nurkse's (1907-1957) generation, epitomized the best development practices of the past 500 years and crafted them into what Krugman rightly calls high development theory. It is not a coincidence that the post-World-War-II era, when Nurkse and others ruled the development mainstream, is one of exceptionally good performance for many poor countries. Second, we argue that the alleged death of the classical development economics and subsequent rise of the Washington Consensus has to do not so much with increasing modeling in economics, a way of research purposely discarded by many classical development thinkers, but much more with misunderstanding the reasons for East Asia's success and Latin America's demise; we show that the root cause of this misunderstanding - that goes in fact back to 'misreading' key passages in Adam Smith - is the role of technology, or of increasing returns activities, and of finance, in development. Third, we aim to indicate key areas of further research that the current development mainstream should pursue in order to re-learn how to create middle-income economies and middle-class jobs.

Entre la profunda recesión y la gran crisis. Nuevas interpretaciones teóricas y alternativas

El logro de un desarrollo propio desde una perspectiva latinoamericana ha estado latente a partir del a inserción de nuestro países al mercado mundial. Cómo sembrar dicho desarrollo y cómo evaluar el desempeño de las economías latinoamericanas en el contexto actual es el reto de las instituciones académicas y de quienes comprometidos con el bienestar social ponen a discusión el cómo y el por qué del curso actual de nuestras sociedades. El rumbo del desarrollo hacia el futuro se nutre del o que se ha sembrado durante las últimas décadas. El desarrollo basado en las ideas de Prebisch y en la influencia del pensamiento keynesiano tuvo su fin en los años setenta; el pensamiento hegemónico promovió un Estado minimalista y la preeminencia del mercado sobre los intereses del bienestar social

Renal Endothelial Cytotoxicity Assay to Diagnose and Monitor Renal Transplant Recipients for Anti-Endothelial Antibodies

Tissue-specific nonhuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) antigens can play crucial roles in allograft immunity and have been shown to trigger humoral responses leading to rejection of HLA-matched kidney allografts. Interest in the role of endothelial-specific antigens has grown over the past years, and several case reports have been described in which antibodies reacting with endothelial cells (ECs) are associated with rejection. Such antibodies escape the detection in conventional crossmatch tests as they do not react with lymphocytes. However, due to the heterogeneity of endothelial cells from different vascular beds, it remains difficult to draw organ-specific conclusions from studies describing endothelial crossmatch assays. We present a case of a 69-year-old male patient whose kidney allograft was rejected as hyperacute, despite the absence of pretransplant HLA-specific antibodies. To place findings from previous studies in a kidney-related context, we performed crossmatch assays with primary renal endothelial cells. The patient's serum was reactive with primary renal ECs, demonstrated by antibody binding and complement-dependent cytotoxicity. Antibodies from this patient did not react with lymphocytes nor were HLA donor-specific antibodies (DSAs) found. Two years later, the patient successfully received a second kidney transplant after treatment with rituximab and plasmapheresis before and after transplantation. We demonstrated that the removal of antibodies against non-HLA EC-specific molecules can be monitored using a primary renal EC crossmatch test, possibly contributing to a successful transplantation outcome