Household finance, housing, and monetary policy

Household finance has been known to be a challenging research area in economics due to difficulties in measuring household behavior and the numerous unpredictable conditions each household faces, such as borrowing constraints and uninsurable income. This dissertation studies how the household consumption behavior has been changed along with the housing market and monetary policy shocks. In Chapter one, the big events and changes that have had huge impacts on consumer finance are presented in chronological order and results from them are examined based on the literature. Tax policies, monetary policies, housing policy and housing markets, and mortgages are chosen as topics that have affected consumer finance and are related to the rest of chapters. Chapter two finds a dynamic linkage between household consumption expenditures and housing prices based on the structural breaks and how the relation has changed along with structural changes. By employing two structural equations, it is tested that any detected structural breaks in relation between housing prices and household consumption appears to make changes in consumer's behaviors. The estimated break dates are 1982Q2 and 1981Q4 with consumer credit from two structural equations. When the mortgage debt is included in the equation, estimated break dates are 2013Q2 and 2013Q1 from each structural equations. This result is in line with the big tax cut in 1981 and housing price crash in 2012 mentioned in the chapter one. Before the 1982Q2, the predictive powers of interest rate and consumer credit for consumption appear. The mortgage debt is statistically significant to explain the total personal consumption expenditures after 2013Q1 which is close to the structural breaks in the volatility of housing price, 2011Q1 where housing prices were the lowest. Thus, this paper finds the apparent evidence of changes in consumption behaviors after the break dates. In chapter three, I use a structural VAR using Gibbs sampling with sign restrictions estimated on quarterly data to investigate the impulse response of households' assets and credits in balance sheets to a monetary policy shock. This paper studies if households may change their consumption behaviors or adjust their portfolios when the value of assets in households' balance sheet changes unexpectedly and borrowing constraints change due to a monetary policy shock. In other words, changes would be expected in the composition of asset portfolios and balance sheets through the credit market after a monetary policy shock. Results show that the reaction of PCE was positive and kept its positive impact for quite a long period, which supports the idea that households do not cut their spending after a monetary policy shock. Also, financial wealth showed a negative impact on the impulse response function. This is consistent with the basic schematic suggested by Elbourne (2008) and added the possibility that households rebalanced their portfolios after a shock rather than cut their expenditures.Includes bibliographical references

Describing Gambling Affinity: The Role of Personality Traits

This study was undertaken to determine the degree to which personality dimensions provide insights into who is likely to gamble a significant dollar amount at a casino. Using measures of the Big Five, respondents were grouped into one of the following four personality clusters: (a) Moderate Trait Scores, in which no trait dimension was dominant; (b) Elevated Trait Scores, where a respondent scored highly across trait dimensions; (c) Agreeably Conscientious, in which a respondent scored highly on the agreeableness and conscientious trait domains; and (d) Highly Extraverted, where a respondent’s dominant trait dimension was extraversion. Respondents who were classified as Highly Extraverted were the most likely to gamble a day’s wages at a casino. Those classified into the Moderate Trait Scores cluster also exhibited a gambling affinity. Other factors associated with gambling affinity included subjective financial knowledge, financial satisfaction, and risk tolerance. Results from this study show that personality traits are important descriptors of gambling affinity; however, rather than there being a direct relationship with individual trait factors, the willingness to gamble appears to be based on unique combinations of personality. Findings from this study provide direct insights into who is more likely to require financial advice regarding gambling expenditures at the household level

Personalized Cinemagraphs using Semantic Understanding and Collaborative Learning

Cinemagraphs are a compelling way to convey dynamic aspects of a scene. In these media, dynamic and still elements are juxtaposed to create an artistic and narrative experience. Creating a high-quality, aesthetically pleasing cinemagraph requires isolating objects in a semantically meaningful way and then selecting good start times and looping periods for those objects to minimize visual artifacts (such a tearing). To achieve this, we present a new technique that uses object recognition and semantic segmentation as part of an optimization method to automatically create cinemagraphs from videos that are both visually appealing and semantically meaningful. Given a scene with multiple objects, there are many cinemagraphs one could create. Our method evaluates these multiple candidates and presents the best one, as determined by a model trained to predict human preferences in a collaborative way. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with multiple results and a user study.Comment: To appear in ICCV 2017. Total 17 pages including the supplementary materia

Debt Begets Debt: Examining Negative Credit Card Behaviors and Other Forms of Consumer Debt

The effect of negative credit card behaviors is examined for association with other forms of consumer debt (automobile debt, installment debt, and personal loan debt). Data were collected using a combination of random digit dialing and convenience sampling from two cities. Respondents\u27 median age is 48 years old, ranging from 20-87. Results indicate that despite controlling for income, not paying off the monthly balance and reaching the maximum limit on credit cards are associated with a variety of other debts. Although consumers can increase lifetime utility by borrowing, less educated consumers are more vulnerable to less favorable sources of credit. Negative credit card behaviors can be easily identifiable signals of larger lurking issues related to consumer behavior or lack of financial literacy. Controlling for income, younger adults accrue significantly more installment debt, possibly suggesting that younger generations perceive a larger number of required appliances and electronics as being necessary to run the household than previous generations

Substitution of Heavy Complementarity Determining Region 3 (CDR-H3) Residues Can Synergistically Enhance Functional Activity of Antibody and Its Binding Affinity to HER2 Antigen

To generate a biobetter that has improved therapeutic activity, we constructed scFv libraries via random mutagenesis of several residues of CDR-H3 and -L3 of hu4D5. The scFv clones were isolated from the phage display libraries by stringent panning, and their anti-proliferative activity against HER2-positive cancer cells was evaluated as a primary selection criterion. Consequently, we selected AH06 as a biobetter antibody that had a 7.2-fold increase in anti-proliferative activity (IC50: 0.81 nM) against the gastric cancer cell line NCI-N87 and a 7.4-fold increase in binding affinity (K-D : 60 pM) to HER2 compared to hu4D5. The binding energy calculation and molecular modeling suggest that the substitution of residues of CDR-H3 to W98, F100c, A101 and L102 could stabilize binding of the antibody to HER2 and there could be direct hydrophobic interactions between the aromatic ring of W98 and the aliphatic group of I613 within HER2 domain IV as well as the heavy and light chain hydrophobic interactions by residues F100c, A101 and L102 of CDR-H3. Therefore, we speculate that two such interactions were exerted by the residues W98 and F100c. A101 and L102 may have a synergistic effect on the increase in the binding affinity to HER2. AH06 specifically binds to domain IV of HER2, and it decreased the phosphorylation level of HER2 and AKT. Above all, it highly increased the overall level of p27 compared to hu4D5 in the gastric cancer cell line NCI-N82, suggesting that AH06 could potentially be a more efficient therapeutic agent than hu4D5.OAIID:RECH_ACHV_DSTSH_NO:T201620640RECH_ACHV_FG:RR00200001ADJUST_YN:EMP_ID:A002901CITE_RATE:2.67DEPT_NM:화학생물공학부EMAIL:[email protected]_YN:YCONFIRM:

Prevention of mitochondrial impairment by inhibition of protein phosphatase 1 activity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by progressive loss of motor neurons (MNs) and subsequent muscle weakness. These pathological features are associated with numerous cellular changes, including alteration in mitochondrial morphology and function. However, the molecular mechanisms associating mitochondrial structure with ALS pathology are poorly understood. In this study, we found that Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) was dephosphorylated in several ALS models, including those with SOD1 and TDP-43 mutations, and the dephosphorylation was mediated by the pathological induction of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) activity in these models. Suppression of the PP1-Drp1 cascade effectively prevented ALS-related symptoms, including mitochondrial fragmentation, mitochondrial complex I impairment, axonal degeneration, and cell death, in primary neuronal culture models, iPSC-derived human MNs, and zebrafish models in vivo. These results suggest that modulation of PP1-Drp1 activity may be a therapeutic target for multiple pathological features of ALS

Visfatin exerts angiogenic effects on human umbilical vein endothelial cells through the mTOR signaling pathway

AbstractThe biologically active factors known as adipocytokines are secreted primarily by adipose tissues and can act as modulators of angiogenesis. Visfatin, an adipocytokine that has recently been reported to have angiogenic properties, is upregulated in diabetes, cancer, and inflammatory diseases. Because maintenance of an angiogenic balance is critically important in the management of these diseases, understanding the molecular mechanism by which visfatin promotes angiogenesis is very important. In this report, we describe our findings demonstrating that visfatin stimulates the mammalian target of the rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, which plays important roles in angiogenesis. Visfatin induced the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in human endothelial cells. Inhibition of the mTOR pathway by rapamycin eliminated the angiogenic and proliferative effects of visfatin. The visfatin-induced increase in VEGF expression was also eliminated by RNA interference-mediated knockdown of the 70-kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K), a downstream target of mTOR. Visfatin inactivated glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β) by phosphorylating it at Ser-9, leading to the nuclear translocation of β-catenin. Both rapamycin co-treatment and p70S6K knockdown inhibited visfatin-induced GSK3β phosphorylation at Ser-9 and nuclear translocation of β-catenin. Taken together, these results indicate that mTOR signaling is involved in visfatin-induced angiogenesis, and that this signaling leads to visfatin-induced VEGF expression and nuclear translocation of β-catenin

Abdominal pain without bruising or sign of trauma: pancreatic injuries in children is difficult to predict

Pancreatic injuries due to trauma in children are rare. An early diagnosis is difficult as the signs and symptoms are insidious, but delays in diagnosis can lead to significant complications. We report a case of a child who visited the emergency department with aggravating abdominal pain. The physicians first diagnosed the abdominal pain as being caused by a disease in the emergency department, but the patient was subsequently diagnosed with pancreatic injury. Clinicians should be aware of a possible trauma in children who complain of vague abdominal pain even in the absence of corresponding history