Capital Account Openness and the Varieties of Growth Experience

The effects of capital account openness on economic growth may vary across countries. Some countries may not have in place the constellation of institutions required to fully benefit from open capital accounts. Other countries may realize only small marginal improvements in the wake of capital account liberalization. This paper presents evidence of an inverted-U shaped relationship between the responsiveness of growth to capital account openness and income per capita. Middle-income countries benefit significantly from capital account openness. However, neither rich nor poor countries exhibit statistically significant positive effects. A similar inverted-U shaped relationship is found between the responsiveness of growth to capital account openness and various indicators of government quality.

Efficient current-induced domain-wall displacement SrRuO3

We demonstrate current-induced displacement of ferromagnetic domain walls in sub-micrometer fabricated patterns of SrRuO3 films. The displacement, monitored by measuring the extraordinary Hall effect, is induced at zero applied magnetic field and its direction is reversed when the current is reversed. We find that current density in the range of 10^9 - 10^10 A/m^2 is sufficient for domain-wall displacement when the depinning field varies between 50 to 500 Oe. These results indicate relatively high efficiency of the current in displacing domain walls which we believe is related to the narrow width ~3 nm of domain walls in this compound

Clusters and Fluctuations at Mean-Field Critical Points and Spinodals

We show that the structure of the fluctuations close to spinodals and mean-field critical points is qualitatively different than the structure close to non-mean-field critical points. This difference has important implications for many areas including the formation of glasses in supercooled liquids. In particular, the divergence of the measured static structure function in near-mean-field systems close to the glass transition is suppressed relative to the mean-field prediction in systems for which a spatial symmetry is broken.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

A study of the factors of mimicry.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Establishing Credibility: Evolving Perceptions of the European Central Bank

The credibility of a central bank’s anti-inflation stance, a key determinant of its success, may reflect institutional structure or, more dynamically, the history of policy decisions. The first years of the European Central Bank (ECB) provide a natural experiment for considering whether, and how, central bank credibility evolves. In this paper, we present a model demonstrating how the high-frequency response of asset prices to news reflects market perceptions of the anti-inflation stance of a central bank. Empirical tests of this model on high frequency data, regressing both the change in the slope of the German yield curve and the change in the euro/dollar exchange rate on the surprise component of price news, suggest significant instability in the market’s perception of the policy stance of the ECB during its first five years of operation. Estimated smoothed paths of the coefficients linking news to asset prices show that these coefficients change with policies undertaken by the ECB. In contrast, there is no evidence of parameter instability for the response of the slope of the United States yield curve to price news during this period, suggesting no comparable evolution in the market perceptions of the commitment to inflation fighting by the Federal Reserve.Central Banking, European Central Bank, Federal Reserve, inflation, exchange rate, credibility, yield curve

Approaching equilibrium and the distribution of clusters

We investigate the approach to stable and metastable equilibrium in Ising models using a cluster representation. The distribution of nucleation times is determined using the Metropolis algorithm and the corresponding $\phi^{4}$ model using Langevin dynamics. We find that the nucleation rate is suppressed at early times even after global variables such as the magnetization and energy have apparently reached their time independent values. The mean number of clusters whose size is comparable to the size of the nucleating droplet becomes time independent at about the same time that the nucleation rate reaches its constant value. We also find subtle structural differences between the nucleating droplets formed before and after apparent metastable equilibrium has been established.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figure

Interplanetary magnetic clouds at 1 AU

Magnetic clouds are defined as regions with a radial dimension approximately 0.25 AU (at 1 AU) in which the magnetic field strength is high and the magnetic field direction changes appreciably by means of rotation of one component of B nearly parallel to a plane. The magnetic field geometry in such a magnetic cloud is consistent with that of a magnetic loop, but it cannot be determined uniquely. Forty-five clouds were identified in interplanetary data obtained near Earth between 1967 and 1978; at least one cloud passed the Earth every three months. Three classes of clouds were identified, corresponding to the association of a cloud with a shock, a stream interface, or a CME. There are approximately equal numbers of clouds in each class, and the three types of clouds might be different manifestations of a coronal transient. The magnetic pressure inside the clouds is higher than the ion pressure and the sum is higher than the pressure of the material outside of the cloud