Uncertainty, Price Stabilization, and Welfare

This paper investigates whether a small country facing foreign price instability benefits from active stabilization of the domestic price of the importable. For example, the European Community can be treated as a small open economy facing price instability of agricultural products originating in the United States. A tariff is out of the question because it is not optimal for a small open economy. However, the European Community may stabilize the domestic price of the importable. It is shown that, if the random tariff revenue ex post, domestic price stabilization increases income instability and nonintervention is optimal. If an ex ante rebating scheme is employed, a small country can benefit from domestic price stabilization and there exists a partial stabilization policy that dominates free trade. Partial stabilization of the domestic price with the ex ante rebate requires a variable import levy inversely related to the foreign price of the importable. However, complete stabilization of domestic price, which requires setting a target price and a variable import levy as currently used in the European Community, is not optimal

Demand Uncertainty and Price Stabilization

Price stabilization is an important policy goal of government intervention in competitive markets. These policies are primarily directed at raising producer income and stabilizing market prices at levels acceptable to consumers and producers (Fox 1956, Turnovsky 1978, Newbery and Stiglitz 1979). Many of the stabilization policy results have been developed from the study of agricultural commodity markets. In these markets, prices tend to be highly variable due to uncertain and inelastic supply and demand (Schultz 1945, Gardner 1981)

Ethical issues concerning the experience of representational predicaments at work

Representational predicaments refer to situations in which job incumbents believe that dominant authorities are holding incomplete or otherwise incorrect work-related assumptions about them. We carried out qualitative interviews with a diverse and gender-balanced sample of 55 Hong Kong Chinese job incumbents, from whose perspective we identified three broad categories of representational predicament: (1) doing unvalued work; (2) doing thankless work; and (3) being subject to distorted representation. Each category of representational predicament was reported both by female and male informants, with females reporting more representational predicaments than males. Stories of unvalued work referred either to unnoticed and unvalued work, which entailed voluntary care work, or to noticed but unvalued work. Stories of thankless work fell into four subcategories: carrying out a superior’s request believed to be illegitimate; pacifying uncivil service recipients; dealing with subterranean internal obstacles; and conducting informal negotiations with troublesome service recipients/suppliers. Stories about being subject to distorted representation fell into six subcategories: being publicly ridiculed or humiliated; having flaws spotlighted but merits downplayed; receiving misattributed blame; being subject to false or misleading uncorrected allegations; suffering prejudicial stereotyping; and receiving reprimands perceived as unfounded. All but two of the representational predicament stories alleged or implied at least one type of ethical problem that concerned breaches of interpersonal justice; violations of, or threats to procedural justice; or indifference toward, or neglect of, the ethics of care. It is inferred that representational predicaments are symptoms of poor ethical climates

Graft Suturing for Lenticule Dislocation after Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty

Purpose: To report the mid-term outcomes of graft suturing in a patient with lenticule dislocation after Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK). Case Report: A 78-year old woman was found to have graft dislocation involving the nasal half of the cornea after uneventful DSAEK. Graft repositioning, refilling the anterior chamber with air, and placement of four full-thickness 10/0 nylon sutures over the detached area were performed two weeks after the initial surgery. The sutures were removed 6 weeks later. Serial specular microscopy and anterior segment optical coherence tomography were performed. At 18 months, there was good lenticule apposition and a clear graft. Conclusion: Anchoring sutures seem to be effective for management of graft detachment following DSAEK

Quantitative law describing market dynamics before and after interest-rate change

We study the behavior of U.S. markets both before and after U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings, and show that the announcement of a U.S. Federal Reserve rate change causes a financial shock, where the dynamics after the announcement is described by an analogue of the Omori earthquake law. We quantify the rate n(t) of aftershocks following an interest rate change at time T, and find power-law decay which scales as n(t-T) (t-T)^-$\Omega$, with $\Omega$ positive. Surprisingly, we find that the same law describes the rate n'(|t-T|) of "pre-shocks" before the interest rate change at time T. This is the first study to quantitatively relate the size of the market response to the news which caused the shock and to uncover the presence of quantifiable preshocks. We demonstrate that the news associated with interest rate change is responsible for causing both the anticipation before the announcement and the surprise after the announcement. We estimate the magnitude of financial news using the relative difference between the U. S. Treasury Bill and the Federal Funds Effective rate. Our results are consistent with the "sign effect," in which "bad news" has a larger impact than "good news." Furthermore, we observe significant volatility aftershocks, confirming a "market underreaction" that lasts at least 1 trading day.Comment: 16 pages (2-column), 9 Figures, 1 Table; Changes in final version made in response to referee comment