General equilibrium restrictions for dynamic factor models

This paper proposes the use of dynamic factor models as an alternative to the VAR-based tools for the empirical validation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) theories. Along the lines of Giannone et al. (2006), we use the state-space parameterisation of the factor models proposed by Forni et al. (2007) as a competitive benchmark that is able to capture weak statistical restrictions that DSGE models impose on the data. Beyond the weak restrictions, which are given by the number of shocks and the number of state variables, the behavioural restrictions embedded in the utility and production functions of the model economy contribute to achieve further parsimony. Such parsimony reduces the number of parameters to be estimated, potentially helping the general equilibrium environment improve forecast accuracy. In turn, the DSGE model is considered to be misspecified when it is outperformed by the state-space representation that only incorporates the weak restriction

In Defense of Posthuman Vulnerability

We are indebted to Michael Hauskeller for his helpful remarks on a previous version of the manuscript. We also thank the comments made by Txetxu Ausin, Janet Delgado, Pablo Garcia-Barranquero, Francisco Lara, David Martin, Daniel Rueda, and the two anonymous reviewers of Scientia et Fides. Belen Liedo thanks the funding of the Spanish Ministry of Universities for the Training of University Professors (FPU), grant number: FPU19/06027. Jon Rueda thanks the funding of an INPhINIT Retaining Fellowship of the La Caixa Foundation (grant number LCF/BQ/DR20/11790005).Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life (ontological vulnerability) or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations (social vulnerability). Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller (2019) argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project.Spanish Ministry of Universities for the Training of University Professors (FPU) FPU19/06027INPhINIT Retaining Fellowship of the La Caixa Foundation LCF/BQ/DR20/1179000

Deleterious effect of suboptimal diet on rest-activity cycle in Anastrepha ludens manifests itself with age.

Activity patterns and sleep-wake cycles are among the physiological processes that change most prominently as animals age, and are often good indicators of healthspan. In this study, we used the video-based high-resolution behavioral monitoring system (BMS) to monitor the daily activity cycle of tephritid fruit flies Anastrepha ludens over their lifetime. Surprisingly, there was no dramatic change in activity profile with respect to age if flies were consistently fed with a nutritionally balanced diet. However, if flies were fed with sugar-only diet, their activity profile decreased in amplitude at old age, suggesting that suboptimal diet affected activity patterns, and its detrimental effect may not manifest itself until the animal ages. Moreover, by simulating different modes of behavior monitoring with a range of resolution and comparing the resulting conclusions, we confirmed the superior performance of video-based monitoring using high-resolution BMS in accurately representing activity patterns in an insect model

Vulnerabilidad

The notion of vulnerability is increasingly present in normative, legal and ethical documents of various kinds. The academic literature on the concept is recent and still in its consolidation stage. In general terms, a distinction can be made between two trends: the first, which reflects on «ontological vulnerability», shared by all human beings; and the second, on «social» or «situational vulnerability», generated in certain specific situations of injustice or oppression. This article presents a general approach to the use of the concept of vulnerability and the most prominent versions of the last decades. It also explores the relationship between vulnerability and three key ethical ideas: relational autonomy, responsibility and care. Emphasis is placed on the practical dimension of the discussion, related to the design of public policies and other tools for democratic governance.La idea de vulnerabilidad está cada vez más presente en documentos normativos, jurídicos y éticos, de diversa índole. La literatura académica relativa al concepto es reciente y aún está en proceso de consolidación. En términos generales, se puede distinguir entre dos corrientes: la primera, que reflexiona sobre la «vulnerabilidad ontológica», compartida por todos los seres humanos; y la segunda, sobre la «vulnerabilidad social» o «situacional», generada en determinadas situaciones de injusticia u opresión específicas. En este artículo se presenta una aproximación general al uso del concepto de vulnerabilidad y a las versiones más destacadas de las últimas décadas. Asimismo, se reflexiona sobre la relación de la vulnerabilidad con tres ideas éticas clave: autonomía relacional, responsabilidad y cuidado. Se hace hincapié en la vertiente práctica de la reflexión, relativa al diseño de políticas públicas y otras herramientas de gobernanza democrática

Diet Shapes Mortality Response to Trauma in Old Tephritid Fruit Flies.

Despite the importance of trauma in healthspan and lifespan in humans as well as in non-human species, with one important exception the literature in both gerontology and ecology contains virtually no experimental demographic studies concerned with trauma in any species. We used dietary manipulation [full diet (F) versus sugar-only (S)] to produce four levels of frailty in 55-day old tephritid fruit flies (Anastrepha ludens) that were then subject to the trauma of cage transfer stress (n = 900/sex in each of the 4 treatments). The key results included the following: (1) there is a trauma effect caused by the transfer that depends on previous diet before transfer, new diet after transfer and gender of the fly; (2) males are more vulnerable than females; (3) if initial diet was F, flies are relatively immune against the trauma, and the subsequent diet (F or S) does not matter; (4) however if initial diet was S, then the effect of the trauma depends largely on the diet after the transfer; (5) flies transferred from S to F diets do very well in terms of remaining longevity (i.e. greatest remaining longevity), while flies transferred from S to S diet do poorly (i.e. shortest remaining longevity). We discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of this study and implications of the results

Nowcasting real economic activity in the euro area: Assessing the impact of qualitative surveys. National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 331

This paper analyses the contribution of survey data, in particular various sentiment indicators, to nowcasts of quarterly euro area GDP. It uses a genuine real-time dataset that is constructed from original press releases in order to transform the actual dataflow into an interpretable flow of news. The latter is defined as the difference between the released values and the prediction of a mixedfrequency dynamic factor model. Our purpose is twofold. First, we aim to quantify the specific value added for nowcasting GDP from a set of heterogeneous data releases including not only sentiment indicators constructed by Eurostat, Markit, the National Bank of Belgium, IFO, ZEW, GfK or Sentix, but also hard data regarding industrial production or retail sales in the aggregate euro area and individually in some of the largest euro area countries. Second, our quantitative analysis is used to draw up an overall ranking of the indicators, on the basis of their average contribution to updates of the nowcast. Among the survey indicators, we find the strongest impact for the Markit Manufacturing PMI and the Business Climate Indicator in the euro area, and the IFO Business Climate and IFO Expectations in Germany. The widely monitored consumer confidence indicators, on the other hand, typically do not lead to significant revisions of the nowcast. In addition, even if euro area industrial production is a relevant predictor, hard data generally contribute less to the nowcasts: they may be more closely correlated with GDP but their relatively late availability implies that they can to a large extent be anticipated by nowcasting on the basis of survey data and, hence, their ‘news’ component is smaller. Finally, we also show that, in line with the previous literature, the NBB’s own business confidence indicator appears to be useful for predicting euro area GDP. The prevalence of survey data remains also under a counterfactual scenario in which hard data are released without any delay. This finding confirms that, in addition to being available in a more timely manner, survey data also contain relevant information that does not seem to be captured by hard data

Levantarse del sillón: un acercamiento a la ética experimental

Peer reviewe

Cuidar en común

The commons and care are two topics that have gained presence in public and political discourses in recent years and seem to have a special affinity to one another. In this article, I propose that there are two different approaches to the relationship between the commons and care, arguing in favor of one of them: care in common or community care. In this way, I claim that care can be defined as what is done to maintain certain commons, forging the bonds that shape communities according to ethical standards. These standards can be established in accordance with the ethics of care and in continuity with the political tradition of the commons.Los comunes y los cuidados son dos temas que han ganado presencia en los discursos públicos y políticos de los últimos años, y parecen guardar una especial afinidad entre sí. En este artículo, propongo que hay dos formas diferentes de entender la relación entre los comunes y los cuidados, argumentando a favor de una de ellas: el cuidado en común o cuidado comunitario. De esta forma, planteo que los cuidados pueden ser definidos como aquello que se hace para mantener ciertos comunes, forjando los vínculos que dan forma a las comunidades de acuerdo con unos estándares éticos. Estos estándares pueden ser establecidos de acuerdo con la ética del cuidado y en continuación con la tradición política de los comunes

Derecho a la negociación colectiva de los funcionarios públicos = The right of the civil servants to bargain collectivelly

El presente trabajo ofrece un análisis del derecho a la negociación colectiva de los funcionarios públicos. Este estudio muestra una visión global de la situación en que se encuentra la regulación actual, así como una crítica de ciertos aspectos de la misma. Descritos los objetivos y la metodología, la investigación comienza con una introducción que ofrece un acercamiento a la materia. A continuación, el trabajo se divide en dos bloques: el primero dedicado al reconocimiento constitucional del derecho a la negociación colectiva de los funcionarios públicos, a quienes históricamente había sido negado pero que, que a la vista de las recientes sentencias, actualmente si es reconocido como derivado del texto constitucional; el segundo relativo al completo régimen jurídico-legal que se aplica a este derecho, poniendo de manifiesto también como la situación de crisis introduce variaciones en el contexto, haciendo especialmente importante que la negociación colectiva sea reforzada. Finaliza con la exposición de las conclusiones alcanzadas a lo largo de la investigación, así como la bibliografía utilizad

Can inflation expectations in business or consumer surveys improve inflation forecasts? National Bank of Belgium, Working Paper No. 348

In this paper we develop a new model that incorporates inflation expectations and can be used for the structural analysis of inflation, as well as for forecasting. In this latter connection, we specifically look into the usefulness of real-time survey data for inflation projections. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, our model extracts the inflation trend and its cycle, which is linked to real economic activity, by exploiting a much larger information set than typically seen in this class of models and without the need to resort to Bayesian techniques. The reason is that we use variables reflecting inflation expectations from consumers and firms under the assumption that they are consistent with the expectations derived from the model. Thus, our approach represents an alternative way to shrink the model parameters and to restrict the future evolution of the factors. Second, the inflation expectations that we use are derived from the qualitative questions on expected price developments in both the consumer and the business surveys. This latter source, in particular, is mostly neglected in the empirical literature. Our empirical results suggest that overall, inflation expectations in surveys provide useful information for inflation forecasts. In particular for the most recent period, models that include survey expectations on prices tend to outperform similar models that do not, both for Belgium and the euro area. Furthermore, we find that the business survey, i.e. the survey replies by the price-setters themselves, contributes most to these forecast improvements