Off the cliff and back? Credit conditions and international trade during the global financial crisis

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

China's exporters and importers: firms, products, and trade partners

This paper provides a detailed overview of China's participation in international trade using newly available data on the universe of globally engaged Chinese firms over the 2003-2005 period. We document the distribution of trade flows and product- and trade-partner intensity across both exporting and importing firms and study the relationship between firms' intensive and extensive margins of trade. We also compare trade patterns across firms of different organizational structure, distinguishing between domestic private firms, domestic state-owned firms, foreign-owned firms, and joint ventures. We explore the variation in foreign ownership across sectors, and find results consistent with recent theoretical and empirical work on the role of credit constraints and contractual imperfections in international trade and investment. Finally, we examine the rapid expansion of China's trade over the 2003-2005 period, and decompose it into its extensive and intensive margins. We also use monthly data and study the frequent churning and reallocation of trade flows across firms and across products and trade partners within firms.

A Framework for Design-Time Testing of Service-Based Applications at BPEL Level

Software applications created on top of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) are increasingly popular but testing them remains a challenge. In this paper a framework named TASSA for testing the functional and non-functional behaviour of service-based applications is presented. The paper focuses on the concept of design time testing, the corresponding testing approach and architectural integration of the consisting TASSA tools. The individual TASSA tools with sample validation scenarios were already presented with a general view of their relation. This paper’s contribution is the structured testing approach, based on the integral use of the tools and their architectural integration. The framework is based on SOA principles and is composable depending on user requirements.The work reported in this paper was supported by a research project funded by the National Scientific Fund, Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science, via agreement no. DOO2-182

Volatility and growth: credit constraints and productivity-enhancing investment

We examine how credit constraints affect the cyclical behavior of productivity-enhancing investment and thereby volatility and growth. We first develop a simple growth model where firms engage in two types of investment: a short-term one and a long-term productivity-enhancing one. Because it takes longer to complete, long-term investment has a relatively less procyclical return but also a higher liquidity risk. Under complete financial markets, long-term investment is countercyclical, thus mitigating volatility. But when firms face tight credit constraints, long-term investment turns procyclical, thus amplifying volatility. Tighter credit therefore leads to both higher aggregate volatility and lower mean growth for a given total investment rate. We next confront the model with a panel of countries over the period 1960-2000 and find that a lower degree of financial development predicts a higher sensitivity of both the composition of investment and mean growth to exogenous shocks, as well as a stronger negative effect of volatility on growth

On some recent Pomak writing activities in Greece: ethno-cultural context and linguistic peculiarities

Despite numerous attempts at codifying their language, the Pomaks in Greece, a linguistic as well as religious minority, do not generally put into writing this variety, which is considered to be a Bulgarian dialect. Up until about fifteen years ago, there was an absence of any kind of lexicographic tradition. The grammars, dictionaries etc. that appeared in Greece in the mid-1990’s can be classified as “external” codifications, since most of them were made by the majority. Over the last few years, however, an increasing minority-activism has changed the situation somewhat. Some writing has begun to emerge from the community, but the variety is still far from fitting the criteria for micro-literacy, the codification of which is difficult due to the different idiolectal varieties of the language actors, which are far away from a uniform orthographical norm as well as an alphabet. However, the publications in the minority language are seen as evidence of cultural emancipation and linguistic vitality. This article deals with the issues of language and literacy among the Pomaks in Greece and presents a case study of the ethno-linguistic orientation of the currently most productive Pomak language activist’s writings

Host Country Financial Development and MNC Activity

We present evidence that the level of financial development in FDI recipient countries systematically aects the spatial distribution of multinational corporations' (MNCs) sales. Using detailed proprietary survey data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on US multinational activity abroad, we find that stronger financial development in the host country has a negative effect on the share of MNC affiliate sales that remain in the host country, indicating a reduced propensity towards horizontal FDI. Conversely, the share of affiliate sales that is re-exported to third-country destinations increases, suggesting an increased propensity towards export-platform FDI. We provide a three-country model with heterogenous firms that rationalizes these observations : More financially developed host countries foster entry by domestic firms, making the local market more competitive for MNC products. This leads MNCs to orient their affiliates away from servicing the local market towards third-country markets instead.

Mössbauer study of nanodimensional nickel ferrite-mechanochemical synthesis and catalytic properties

Iron-nickel spinel oxide NiFe2O4 nanoparticles have been prepared by the combination of chemical precipitation and subsequent mechanical milling. For comparison, their analogue obtained by thermal synthesis is also studied. Phase composition and structural properties of iron-nickel oxides are investigated by X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Their catalytic behavior in methanol decomposition to CO and methane is tested. An influence of the preparation method on the reduction and catalytic properties of iron-nickel samples is established

NAME CHOICE AND SYMBOLISM IN LITERATURE – AN OVERVIEW OF WILLIAM THACKERAY'S „THE BOOK OF SNOBS“

The paper has the intention to unveil the hidden meaning of proper names in William Thackeray's „The Book of Snobs“. The analysis involves characteristics related to proper names. Upon analyzing the meaning of proper names, a major ambition is to try to prove the importance of name giving and symbolism in literature. A summarized categorization of characters based on the meaning of anthroponyms is to be formed.The paper has the intention to unveil the hidden meaning of proper names in William Thackeray's „The Book of Snobs“. The analysis involves characteristics related to proper names. Upon analyzing the meaning of proper names, a major ambition is to try to prove the importance of name giving and symbolism in literature. A summarized categorization of characters based on the meaning of anthroponyms is to be formed

Volatility and Growth: Credit Constraints and Productivity-Enhancing Investment

We examine how credit constraints affect the cyclical behavior of productivity-enhancing investment and thereby volatility and growth. We first develop a simple growth model where firms engage in two types of investment: a short-term one and a long-term productivity-enhancing one. Because it takes longer to complete, long-term investment has a relatively less procyclical return but also a higher liquidity risk. Under complete financial markets, long-term investment is countercyclical, thus mitigating volatility. But when firms face tight credit constraints, long-term investment turns procyclical, thus amplifying volatility. Tighter credit therefore leads to both higher aggregate volatility and lower mean growth for a given total investment rate. We next confront the model with a panel of countries over the period 1960-2000 and find that a lower degree of financial development predicts a higher sensitivity of both the composition of investment and mean growth to exogenous shocks, as well as a stronger negative effect of volatility on growth.

Porządek sufiksów w wielokrotnych zdrobnieniach : na materiale języka polskiego i bułgarskiego

Artykuł prezentuje opis kombinacji sufiksów występujących w deminutywach drugiego i trzeciego stopnia w języku polskim i bułgarskim. Wykazujemy w nim, że tworzenie deminutywów pierwszego i drugiego stopnia w obu językach zależy od czynników fonologicznych, morfologicznych, semantycznych i psycholingwistycznych. Spośród wielu hipotetycznych kombinacji sufiksów deminutywnych wykorzystywanych jest w rzeczywistości zaledwie kilka. Oba języki filtrują swoje względnie obszerne zasoby sufiksów DIM1 i używają bardzo niewielu z nich do tworzenia rzeczowników DIM2 (w języku bułgarskim również do tworzenia rzeczowników DIM3). Ponadto tylko sufiksy pojawiające się w rzeczownikach DIM2 mogą derywować rzeczowniki DIM3. Kombinacje sufiksów w deminutywach pierwszego i drugiego stopnia są stałe i przypominają szablon. Artykuł jest przyczynkiem do teorii morfologicznej - do właściwego rozumienia procesów deminutywizacji, próbą ustalenia listy sufiksów kończących procesy derywacyjne i odkrycia zasad, które rządzą układem afiksów w językach naturalnych.In this article we investigate suffix combinations in second- and third-grade diminutive nouns in Polish and Bulgarian. We show that the formation of double and multiple diminutives in both languages is subject to phonological, morphological, semantic and psycholinguistic constraints. Although diminutive suffixes constitute a semantically homogeneous set, they do not combine freely with each other and of all possible combinations of diminutive suffixes in a language only a very few exist. Both languages under scrutiny in this paper 'filter' their relatively large sets of DIM1 suffixes and use a very few of them for the formation of DIM2 nouns, and Bulgarian also for DIM3 nouns. Moreover, only suffixes that occur in DIM2 nouns can derive DIM3 nouns in Bulgarian. The combinations of diminutive suffixes in double and multiple diminutives are fixed and resemble to some extent a template order. The paper also contributes to morphological theory: to the proper understanding of diminutivization, to the definition of closing suffixation, and to revealing the way affix order is constrained in human languages