Inequality and Sovereign Default under Democracy

Do differences in the inequality of income affect the likelihood that democratic governments decide not to honor their foreign debt contracts? I argue that sovereign default involves an intertemporal tradeoff between an immediate consumption boost and a future tax increase. Since a poorer voter internalizes less of the future cost of default, as the median is poorer, the majority’s demand for default increases. Therefore, greater income inequality implies a higher default risk. I then present a signaling game that models strategic selection that a sovereign must go through to get to the default decision node. I show that sovereign default is most likely to actually occur when the level of income inequality is intermediate. The intuition is that sovereign default occurs when risky sovereigns successfully induce creditors to provide a loan, but the most risky ones are among those least able to do so. Empirical findings support the claim

The political economy of sovereign debt: domestic politics, strategic choices, and suboptimal outcomes

I explore the political dimension of developing countries' foreign debt problems, one of the key issues in international political economy. I address the issue by examining three sovereign debt problems that have been salient over the past few decades. First, I examine the political determinants of sovereign default and, using a signaling game, show that it is most likely to actually occur when the level of default risk that a country's observable characteristics suggest is intermediate. It is because sovereign default occurs when risky sovereigns successfully induce creditors to provide a loan, but the most risky ones are among those least able to do so. Second, I explore the impacts of political institutions on the likelihood of a sudden stop of loan rollover and show that more transparent governments, by providing more accurate public information about the economy, help reduce individual creditors' uncertainty about each others' beliefs, thereby mitigating the likelihood of sudden stop of bond flows when good times, but worsening it when bad. Finally, I seek to explain why some countries are more heavily indebted than others. Democratic institutions that hold the leaders accountable may effectively constrain them from borrowing too much at the expensive of the voters at large, but only do so when other conditions are right. When the distribution of income is highly skewed, however, democracy empowers the poor majority who do not share the stake that the representative citizen has at the long-run health of the economy, thereby exacerbating the problem of debt overaccumulation

Conceptual Design of a Low-Energy Ion Beam Storage Ring and a Recoil Separator to Study Radiative Neutron Capture by Radioactive Ions

Recently, the TRIUMF Storage Ring (TRISR), a storage ring for the existing Isotope Separator and Accelerator-I (ISAC-I) radioactive ion beam facility at TRIUMF, was proposed. It may be possible to directly measure neutron-induced radiative capture reactions in inverse kinematics by combining the ring with a high-flux neutron generator as the neutron target. Herein, we present the conceptual design of a low-energy ion storage ring as well as a fusion product extraction system with a Wien filter and recoil separator for detecting neutron capture products based on ion optical calculations and particle-tracking simulations.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figure

Electronic Commerce Strategy for Small and Medium Enterprises: Case Studies of Korean Firms

Business firms are increasingly taking part in online business activities through internet as the size of the e-commerce market is rapidly growing in the recent years. Electronic commerce (EC) activities now become an essential part of the business strategy for survival as well as growth for both large enterprises and small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Previous studies on e-commerce mostly focused on the adoption of EC by business firms, and also have been carried out with the data from big enterprises. More often than not, the results obtained from the large business firms are used to provide the guidelines for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are, however, different from large business firms in many aspects, and need to be studied on their own. This paper extends the previous research on EC in two aspects. Firstly, we study the e-commerce issues in the area of implementation in relation to the business firm\u27s performance, beyond the adoption and diffusion of IT technology which has been the research issues in many previous research. Secondly, we focus on small and medium enterprises which comprise a large portion of national economy with significant influenc

The minimal prime spectrum of rings with annihilator conditions

AbstractIn this paper, we study rings with the annihilator condition (a.c.) and rings whose space of minimal prime ideals, Min(R), is compact. We begin by extending the definition of (a.c.) to noncommutative rings. We then show that several extensions over semiprime rings have (a.c.). Moreover, we investigate the annihilator condition under the formation of matrix rings and classical quotient rings. Finally, we prove that if R is a reduced ring then: the classical right quotient ring Q(R) is strongly regular if and only if R has a Property (A) and Min(R) is compact, if and only if R has (a.c.) and Min(R) is compact. This extends several results about commutative rings with (a.c.) to the noncommutative setting

Wireless sEMG System with a Microneedle-Based High-Density Electrode Array on a Flexible Substrate

Surface electromyography (sEMG) signals reflect muscle contraction and hence, can provide information regarding a user's movement intention. High-density sEMG systems have been proposed to measure muscle activity in small areas and to estimate complex motion using spatial patterns. However, conventional systems based on wet electrodes have several limitations. For example, the electrolyte enclosed in wet electrodes restricts spatial resolution, and these conventional bulky systems limit natural movements. In this paper, a microneedle-based high-density electrode array on a circuit integrated flexible substrate for sEMG is proposed. Microneedles allow for high spatial resolution without requiring conductive substances, and flexible substrates guarantee stable skin-electrode contact. Moreover, a compact signal processing system is integrated with the electrode array. Therefore, sEMG measurements are comfortable to the user and do not interfere with the movement. The system performance was demonstrated by testing its operation and estimating motion using a Gaussian mixture model-based, simplified 2D spatial pattern.111Ysciescopu

(E)-2,2′-[3-(2-Nitro­phen­yl)prop-2-ene-1,1-di­yl]bis­(3-hy­droxy­cyclo­hex-2-en-1-one)

In the title compound, C21H21NO6, each of the cyclo­hexenone rings adopts a half-chair conformation. Each of the pairs of hy­droxy and carbonyl O atoms are oriented to allow for the formation of intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, which are typical of xanthene derivatives