Sovereign Debt Restructuring: A Model-Law Approach

The existing contractual framework for sovereign debt restructuring is sorely inadequate. Whether or not their fault, nations sometimes take on debt burdens that become unsustainable. Until resolved, the resulting sovereign debt problem hurts not only those nations (such as Greece) but also their citizens, their creditors, and—by posing serious systemic risks to the international financial system—the wider economic community. The existing contractual framework functions poorly to resolve the problem because it often leaves little alternative between a sovereign debt bailout, which is costly and creates moral hazard, and a default, which raises the specter of systemic financial contagion. Most observers therefore want to strengthen the legal framework for resolving sovereign debt problems. International organizations, including the United Nations, have been contemplating strengthening that framework through treaties. The political economy of treaty-making, however, makes that approach highly unlikely to succeed in the near future. This article argues, in contrast, that a model-law approach should not only strengthen that legal framework but also should be politically and economically feasible. Model laws have long been used in cross-border lawmaking, but they are different than treaties. Unlike a treaty, a model law would not require general acceptance for its implementation. Only one or two jurisdictions, for example, need enact the text of this article’s proposed model law for it to become widely effective. Once that occurs, a debtor-state whose debt contracts are governed by those jurisdictions’ laws, or by its own laws, could restructure that debt without needing to amend any of those contracts. A model-law approach should also be desirable. This article’s model law, for example, would reduce uncertainty and should also achieve significant cost advantages—both to debtor-states and to their creditors—over the sovereign-debt-restructuring status quo. Because it would require only a ministerial supervisory process, the model law would not interfere with the exercise of a sovereign’s political discretion. Moreover, the model law provides incentives to motivate fair bargaining on behalf of debtor-states and their creditors, while restricting rent-seeking holdouts. It also enables the type of interim funding of day-to-day debts that a debtor-state needs during its debt restructuring. Debtor-states should therefore want (and creditors, other than rent-seeking holdouts, should want them) to enact into law this article’s proposed model-law text. Regardless of whether that enactment occurs, however, the article should serve its underlying purpose: to provide a conceptual and legal analysis of how a model law could be structured and how a model-law approach could be used to solve the problem of unsustainable sovereign debt burdens, and to help develop the norms required to facilitate those goals

The influence of forest regrowth, original canopy cover and tree size on saproxylic beetles associated with old oaks

Abandoned management has caused many sites with free-standing, large oaks (Quercus robur) to become more shaded. This study shows how forest regrowth affects beetle species associated with old oaks in south-eastern Sweden. Beetles were trapped by pitfall traps placed in hollows and window traps placed near hollows in oak trunks in pasture woodlands. We assessed the influence of forest regrowth, tree size and original canopy cover on the species richness of saproxylic beetles (a total of 120 species identified) and the occurrence of 68 saproxylic beetle species in particular. Species richness was greatest in stands with large, free-standing trees. Large girth as well as low canopy cover increased frequency of occurrence for several species. Forest regrowth was found to be detrimental for many beetle species. As most localities with endangered beetles living in old oaks are small and isolated, ongoing management and the restoration of abandoned pasture woodlands should have a high priority in nature conservation

Two Ways of Estimating a Transport Model

In this article, it is shown how the parameters of a transport model can be estimated in a way that, in contrast to previously used methods, utilizes observations of regional prices as well as of trade costs. The proposed method uses bi-level programming to minimize a weighted least squares criterion under the restriction that the estimated parameters satisfy the Kuhn-Tucker conditions for an optimal solution of the transport model. We use Monte-Carlo simulations to trace out some properties of the estimator and compare it with a traditional calibration method. The analysis shows that the proposed technique estimates prices as well as trade costs more efficiently.spatial equilibrium, transport model, bi-level programming, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, C15, F11,

A comparison of three methods to survey saproxylic beetles in hollow oaks

One of the most endangered assemblages of species in Europe is insects associated with old trees. For that reason there is a need of developing methods to survey this fauna. This study aims at comparing three methods — window trapping, pitfall trapping and wood mould sampling — to assess species richness and composition of the saproxylic beetle fauna in living, hollow oaks. We have used these methods at the same site, and to a large extent in the same trees. Useful information was obtained from all methods, but they partially target different assemblages of species. Window trapping collected the highest number of species. Pitfall trapping collected beetles associated with tree hollows which rarely are collected by window traps and therefore it is profitable to combine these two methods. As wood mould sampling is the cheapest method to use, indicator species should preferrably be chosen among species which are efficiently collected with this method

Towards a General Large Sample Theory for Regularized Estimators

We present a general framework for studying regularized estimators; such estimators are pervasive in estimation problems wherein "plug-in" type estimators are either ill-defined or ill-behaved. Within this framework, we derive, under primitive conditions, consistency and a generalization of the asymptotic linearity property. We also provide data-driven methods for choosing tuning parameters that, under some conditions, achieve the aforementioned properties. We illustrate the scope of our approach by presenting a wide range of applications

Judicial Attitudes and Voting Behavior: The 1961 Term of the United States Supreme Court

For small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to operate indoor, in urban canyons or other scenarios where signals from global navigation satellite systems are denied or impaired, alternative estimation and control strategies must be applied. In this paper a system is proposed that estimates the self-motion and wind velocity by fusing information from airspeed sensors, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a monocular camera. Such estimates can be used in control systems for managing wind disturbances or chemical plume based tracking strategies. Simulation results indicate that while the inertial dead-reckoning process is subject to drift, the system is capable of separating the self-motion and wind velocity from the airspeed information.QC 20110412</p