Economic Growth in the Caribbean and Other Topics

Income differences across country, banking crises and oil price shocks are the dominant macroeconomic features of our age and main economic difficulties faced by economies. This paper attempts to discuss these three topics one by one. In the first Chapter, using a PPP-adjusted series of GDP per capita for the entire Caribbean over 1960-2013 period, we examine why some countries in this area are so rich and some others are not. We employ a Bayesian Model Averaging Framework and surprisingly find that the identity of last colonizer and the length of history after achieving independence matter most in determining the income differentials there. Caribbean islands that are finally colonized by UK or have longer timing of independence receive much lower levels of per capita GDP. Our results also show that the timing of colonial experience does not seem to matter too much in terms of income differentials in the Caribbean, which is opposite to the findings of some existing literature. In the second chapter, we examine the output costs and deposits costs associated with 116 banking crises using cross country data for years after 1970 and develop an severity index of crises based on the deposits loss. Many banking crises do not lead to contractions in output and deposits, a result that holds for cases with/without deposit insurance schemes. We find that 1) middle and low income economies seem have received the most severe banking crises since 1970s; 2) the banking crises are not getting worse across time; 3) crises with deposit insurance schemes are slightly less severe than that without deposit insurance. In the third chapter, we examine the relationship between output growth and oil prices change using one linear and two major non-linear specifications. We include eight OECD countries in our dataset and two of them, the UK and Norway, are oil exporters. Under linear specification, a positive standard deviation innovation in oil prices has a strong positive effect on real GDP growth for almost all oil importing countries, a finding that is against theoretical intuition. However, the results obtained from the two non-linear approaches tell the opposite stories and confirm the inaccuracy of linear specification

MORAL TEACHINGS AT HOME AS SEEN IN LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S LITTLE WOMEN

The objective of this research is to see the morals taught in the novel Little Women by American white writer Louisa May Alcott. Through these morals, it also aims to study the roots of these morals as part of social values as well as the society of mid-19th century mirrored in the novel.Since the emphasis is on the cultural study, the research is done in the perspective of American Studies. In this case, historical, sociological and cultural approaches are, inevitably, used besides literary approach. All the data used in this research are written text, library research methodology is applied. Books, journals, and many written materials, including internet-based materials, are treated as secondary data, while the novel itself is considered as the primary one. There are three steps in this library research, namely, collecting data, selecting data, and analyzing data. The other method used in this research is analytical-descriptive method, by which all the data obtained are analyzed and presented descriptively. The research shows that American socio-cultural situation in the mid-19th century is basic environment and driving force for the characters’ love, emotion as well as behavior. Its writer Louisa May Alcott arranges the novel structure and preaches proper morals also in accordance with that. A detailed analysis of the American culture here includes its social reform thinking — transcendentalism, literary traditions, women’s social status in the time, and the religious origins behind these values. These cultural heritages reflected in Little Women point out the room for further research on this topic

Single Particle Transport in Two-dimensional Heterojunction Interlayer Tunneling Field Effect Transistor

The single particle tunneling in a vertical stack consisting of monolayers of two-dimensional semiconductors is studied theoretically and its application to a novel Two-dimensional Heterojunction Interlayer Tunneling Field Effect Transistor (Thin-TFET) is proposed and described. The tunneling current is calculated by using a formalism based on the Bardeen's transfer Hamiltonian, and including a semi-classical treatment of scattering and energy broadening effects. The misalignment between the two 2D materials is also studied and found to influence the magnitude of the tunneling current, but have a modest impact on its gate voltage dependence. Our simulation results suggest that the Thin-TFETs can achieve very steep subthreshold swing, whose lower limit is ultimately set by the band tails in the energy gaps of the 2D materials produced by energy broadening. The Thin-TFET is thus very promising as a low voltage, low energy solid state electronic switch

Molecular basis for a toluene monooxygenase to govern substrate selectivity

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Psychological Health and Help-Seeking Behavior Decision Model for New Generation of Migrant Workers

At present, new generation of migrant workers is gradually becoming the subjects of migrant worker group and industrial workers. These subjects are difficult to blend in urban life due to various reasons. Thus, many help-seeing difficulties and psychological health problems are caused. This paper mainly discusses psychological health problems faced by new generation of migrant workers in urban life and their help-seeking behavior decision, lays a foundation for studying psychological help-seeking behavior of new generation of migrant workers and hopes to help them better blend in urban life, boost their psychological health development level and facilitate harmonious and healthy development of society

Mining Parallel Text from the Web based on Sentence Alignment

PACLIC 21 / Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea / November 1-3, 200