The Role of Agriculture in Aggregate Business Cycle Fluctuations

The agricultural sector has certain distinctive features over the business cycle: it is more volatile than and not positively correlated with the rest of the economy and its employment is counter-cyclical. Because of these features and even though the agricultural sector represents less than 2% of the U.S. economy, we show that agriculture plays an essential role in understanding aggregate business cycles. The inclusion of agriculture into standard business cycle analysis resolves the longstanding problems of the standard theory in matching the observed volatility of aggregate labor and the correlation of aggregate labor and productivity (the so called Dunlop-Tharshis observation). In addition, the role of agriculture in the economy can account for the substantial differences observed in business cycle patterns across countries. This novel implication of the model is consistent with the systematic relationship observed between business cycle patterns and the share of agriculture across countries. Our theory has two important implications. First, the model implies that as the size of the agricultural sector falls, business cycle properties across countries should converge. Second, the role of agriculture provides a simple, measurable, and contrastable explanation for the historical properties of aggregate business cycles documented by Backus and Kehoe (1992).Business Cycles, Agriculture, Two-sector Model.

Money, Credit and Default

This paper develops a quantitative model of unsecured debt, default, and money demand for heterogenous agents economies. The paper generates a theory of money demand for the case in which money is a dominate asset that is not needed to carry-out transactions. In this environment holding money helps the agents to smooth their consumption during those periods in which they are excluded from credit markets following a default in their debts. In the model the welfare of the individuals is affected by the inflation rate: high inflation rates preclude individuals of using money as an asset that helps them smooth their consumption profile but low inflation rates tend to make softer the punishment for default making it diffcult to sustain high levels of debt at equilibrium. This two opposite effects imply that in equilibrium the inflation rate that maximizes individuals welfare is positive but not too high.Default, Inflation, Money, Endogenous Borrowing Constraint

Aggregate Employment Fluctuations and Agricultural Share

Differences in employment volatility and the correlation of employment with output across countries are often cited as examples of the limitation of standard real business cycle (RBC) theory to reproduce the observed labor market facts. These observations have lead researchers to argue for the necessity of Non-Walrasian features to reflect the labor institutions in European countries. In this paper, we show that the same labor market evidence is observed in regional economies with the same labor market institutions. We conjecture that differences in agricultural activity can generate the observed differences in labor market behavior. We show that a standard two-sector RBC model with agriculture and non-agriculture can account for the observed labor market facts. In particular, as the size of agricultural activity increases, aggregate employment volatility and the correlation between aggregate employment and output decrease. Moreover, contrary to the Non-Walrasian approach to business cycles, agricultural activity can account for the correlation between aggregate employment and output as reported by Danthine and Donaldson (1993) for Europe and the U.S.Business Cycles, Agriculture, Two-sector Model.

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A Manual for SDA Ministers of South Brazil to Train the Laity in Understanding How to Evangelize Roman Catholic Basic Ecclesial Communities

Problem. Roman Catholic Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil have been a socio-religious phenomenon during more than two decades. As militant Catholics, members of the communities share four fundamental premises, i.e., a new way of seeing reality, a new way of being the Church, a new way of approaching Scripture, and a new way of doing mission. These premises challenge Seventh-day Adventists to develop new strategies when attempting to evangelize Basic Ecclesial Community membership. To date, no specific study by SDAs addresses the evangelization of Basic Ecclesial Community members. This raises the question of how Basic Ecclesial Communities can be evangelized. This research intends to provide a manual for the Seventh-day Adventist ministry of South Brazil for the purpose of training the laity in understanding how to evangelize Roman Catholic Ecclesial Communities. Method. The method used to complete this project was a review of representative literature discussing Roman Catholic theology, Brazilian Basic Ecclesial Communities, and the evangelization of such communities. Selected bibliographic sources concerning the training of lay people and techniques used to evangelize small religious groups were also examined with special emphasis placed upon the lay people and their role as evangelists. Conclusions. Four conclusions of this study are: (1) that for Seventh-day Adventists to attain the evangelization of Basic Ecclesial Communities, they must begin by understanding who the members of the communities are and how they think; (2) that Adventists should build an approach based on the common theological ground between those communities and Seventh-day Adventist theology; (3) that those communities must be evangelized through a holistic and relational approach built through friendship; and (4) that the first and basic doctrinal point to be affirmed by Seventh-day Adventists is the absolute authority of the Bible as God\u27s revelation

Braided module and comodule algebras, Galois extensions and elements of trace 1

Let k be a field and let H be a rigid braided Hopf k-algebra. In this paper we continue the study of the theory of braided Hopf crossed products began in [J.A. Guccione, J.J. Guccione, Theory of braided Hopf crossed products, J. Algebra 261 (2003) 54-101]. First we show that to have an H-braided comodule algebra is the same that to have an H†-braided module algebra, where H† is a variant of H*, and then we study the maps [,] and (,), that appear in the Morita context introduced in the above cited paper.Fil: Da Rocha, Mauricio Omar. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Ciclo Básico Común; ArgentinaFil: Guccione, Jorge Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; ArgentinaFil: Guccione, Juan Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; Argentin

Unveiling the structure of the Marrakech Medina: Architecture History as a precedent for Contemporary Architectural Design

The population increase that occurred in North African and Middle-Eastern cities, has led to an uncontrolled urban growth that produced urban environments lacking the spatial richness from their historical vernacular towns. In order to alert and to change this context this paper illustrates work in progress for a design project at the city of Marrakech in Morocco. It describes from a historical and analytical point of view, research carried out at the Zaouiat Lakhdar quarter of the Marrakech Medina. The goal is to create the basis for a computational tool that could capture spatial features of the existing architectonic fabric and apply them at contemporary architectural scenarios. The methodology used is explained from the initial historical analysis and fieldwork realized in situ to the identification of social, religious and geometric set of laws and its codification into two different types of generative rules. These were than applied either at the urban level, or at the domestic level. At the urban scale the system generates options for new urban neighborhood layouts, and at the domestic level, proposes different housing typologies taking in consideration architectural precedents. Results from a class will be showed. The ultimate objective of this project is to illustrate how fruitful can be the interdisciplinary dialogue between history, culture, computation and architecture. It outcome is proved as a dynamic design process able to infer on the organization of a Design Studio, and in the formalization of a computational design methodology that contributes with architectural solutions to the building of the local environment

Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene with Interface-Induced Spin-Orbit Coupling

We consider an effective model for graphene with interface-induced spin-orbit coupling and calculate the quantum Hall effect in the low-energy limit. We perform a systematic analysis of the contribution of the different terms of the effective Hamiltonian to the quantum Hall effect (QHE). By analysing the spin-splitting of the quantum Hall states as a function of magnetic field and gate-voltage, we obtain different scaling laws that can be used to characterise the spin-orbit coupling in experiments. Furthermore, we employ a real-space quantum transport approach to calculate the quantum Hall conductivity and investigate the robustness of the QHE to disorder introduced by hydrogen impurities. For that purpose, we combine first-principles calculations and a genetic algorithm strategy to obtain a graphene-only Hamiltonian that models the impurity