Investment-specific technology shocks and consumption

Modern business cycle models systematically underestimate the correlation between consumption and investment. One reason for this failure is that, generally, positive investment-specific technology shocks induce a negative consumption response. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether a positive consumption response to investment-specific technology shocks can be obtained in a modern business cycle model. We find that the answer to this question is yes. With a combination of nominal rigidities and non-separable preferences, the consumption response is positive for very general parameterisations of the model.

Labour Market Asymmetries in a Monetary Union

This paper takes a first step in analysing how a monetary union performs in the presence of labour market asymmetries. Differences in wage flexibility, market power and country sizes are allowed for in a setting with both country-specific and aggregate shocks. The implications of asymmetries for both the overall performance of the monetary union and the country-specific situation are analysed. It is shown that asymmetries can have important effects, and that there are substantial spill-over effects. Among other things, it is found that aggregate output volatility is not strictly increasing in nominal rigidity but hump-shaped. A disproportionate share of the consequences of wage inflexibility may fall on small countries. In the case of country-specific shocks a country unambiguously benefits in terms of macroeconomic stability by becoming more flexible, but in general an inflexible country does not necessarily achieve more output stability by becoming more flexible. As this may be desirable for the monetary union as a whole, there is a risk of a ?reform deficit? in an asymmetric monetary union

Labour market asymmetries in a monetary union

This paper takes a first step in analysing how a monetary union performs in the presence of labour market asymmetries. Differences in wage flexibility, market power and country sizes are allowed for in a setting with both country-specific and aggregate shocks. The implications of asymmetries for both the overall performance of the monetary union and the country-specific situation are analysed. It is shown that asymmetries are not only critical for country-specific performance but also for the overall performance of the monetary union. A striking finding is that aggregate output volatility is not strictly increasing in nominal rigidities but hump-shaped. Moreover, a disproportionate share of the consequences of wage inflexibility may fall on small countries. In the case of country-specific shocks, a country unambiguously benefits in terms of macroeconomic stability by becoming more flexible, while this is not necessarily the case for aggregate shocks. There may thus be a tension between the degree of flexibility considered optimal at the country level and at the aggregate level within the monetary union

A DSGE model for Iceland

This paper presents a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for a small open economy fitted to Icelandic data. The model has been developed at the Central Bank of Iceland as a tool for policy analysis and forecasting purposes in support of inflation targeting. As the existing macroeconometric model at the Central Bank, the model is a dynamic quarterly model. But it differs by being fully founded on well-defined microeconomic decision problems of agents in the economy. This allows for a structural interpretation of shocks to the economy. The model features endogenous capital accumulation subject to investment adjustment costs, variable capacity utilisation, habit formation in consumption, monopolistic competition in goods and labour markets, as well as sticky prices and wages. The home economy engages freely in international trade, while international financial intermediation is subject to endogenous costs. Monetary policy is conducted by an inflation targeting central bank. The model is fitted to Icelandic data for the sample period 1991-2005 through a combination of calibration and formal Bayesian estimation. The paper presents the estimation results, and it discusses the model's properties. Finally, first applications are shown to illustrate the model's potential in guiding monetary policy.

Competitive Spirit

The ISU crops team helps prepare students for a career as agronomists by teaching them skills such as plant, insect and disease identification as well as problem solving. Each year the team competes against other four-year universities at the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA) contest which is held at various locations across the country. During the competition the team also travels to farms and agricultural businesses to learn about the area\u27s agriculture. In 2012 the ISU Crops Team finished first in the Knowledge Bowl and second in the Crops competition. Erik Christian and Josh Enderson, agronomy, are coach and assistant coach of the team

A Sampling Of Student Clubs And Activities

For the past six years, Iowa State University\u27s Agricultural Business Club has been recognized as the National Outstanding Chapter. This award distinguishes the club as the best agricultural business club in the nation. The club has more than 150 members, with about 30 of those serving each year as chairs for eight committees. The club strives to provide agricultural business students with opportunities to develop their leadership skills, recognize their accomplishments and create unity among the students and faculty. Agricultural business students are given the chance to participate in an industry golf tournament, Pre-Career Day panel discussion, roadside cleanup, industry tours and attend the National Agriculture and Applied Economics Association conference each year

Hope, Powerlessness, and Agency

Hope is hard to characterise because of the exceptional diversity of its applications, to the point that one may wonder whether there is continuity between ordinary cases of hope and what is often called 'hope against hope'. In this paper, I shall follow the relatively small but growing literature on hope and examine propositional hopes, i.e. hopes of the form 'hoping that p', with a particular focus on recent work by Philip Pettit and Adrienne Martin. I shall do this first by identifying a significant difficulty encountered by what has become known as the 'orthodox definition' (Martin 2014, henceforth 'OD'). The OD defines hope by means of two necessary and sufficient conditions: A hopes that p if and only if (1) A desires that p and (2) A assigns to p a degree of probability between (and excluding) 0 and 1. On this definition, to hope is to desire an outcome we deem neither certain nor impossible. Note that the relevant probability assignment is subjective: the OD allows, for example, that children can hope for Father Christmas to visit them on Christmas Eve

Mitochondrial mosaics in the liver of 3 infants with mtDNA defects

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In muscle cytochrome oxidase (COX) negative fibers (mitochondrial mosaics) have often been visualized.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>COX activity staining of liver for light and electron microscopy, muscle stains, blue native gel electrophoresis and activity assays of respiratory chain proteins, their immunolocalisation, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three unrelated infants showed a mitochondrial mosaic in the liver after staining for COX activity, i.e. hepatocytes with strongly reactive mitochondria were found adjacent to cells with many negative, or barely reactive, mitochondria. Deficiency was most severe in the patient diagnosed with Pearson syndrome. Ragged-red fibers were absent in muscle biopsies of all patients. Enzyme biochemistry was not diagnostic in muscle, fibroblasts and lymphocytes. Blue native gel electrophoresis of liver tissue, but not of muscle, demonstrated a decreased activity of complex IV; in both muscle and liver subcomplexes of complex V were seen. Immunocytochemistry of complex IV confirmed the mosaic pattern in two livers, but not in fibroblasts. MRI of the brain revealed severe white matter cavitation in the Pearson case, but only slight cortical atrophy in the Alpers-Huttenlocher patient, and a normal image in the 3rd. MtDNA in leucocytes showed a common deletion in 50% of the mtDNA molecules of the Pearson patient. In the patient diagnosed with Alpers-Huttenlocher syndrome, mtDNA was depleted for 60% in muscle. In the 3rd patient muscular and hepatic mtDNA was depleted for more than 70%. Mutations in the nuclear encoded gene of <it>POLG </it>were subsequently found in both the 2nd and 3rd patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Histoenzymatic COX staining of a liver biopsy is fast and yields crucial data about the pathogenesis; it indicates whether mtDNA should be assayed. Each time a mitochondrial disorder is suspected and muscle data are non-diagnostic, a liver biopsy should be recommended. Mosaics are probably more frequent than observed until now. A novel pathogenic mutation in <it>POLG </it>is reported.</p> <p>Tentative explanations for the mitochondrial mosaics are, in one patient, unequal partition of mutated mitochondria during mitoses, and in two others, an interaction between products of several genes required for mtDNA maintenance.</p

Dynamics of magnetization at infinite temperature in a Heisenberg spin chain

Understanding universal aspects of quantum dynamics is an unresolved problem in statistical mechanics. In particular, the spin dynamics of the 1D Heisenberg model were conjectured to belong to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class based on the scaling of the infinite-temperature spin-spin correlation function. In a chain of 46 superconducting qubits, we study the probability distribution, $P(\mathcal{M})$, of the magnetization transferred across the chain's center. The first two moments of $P(\mathcal{M})$ show superdiffusive behavior, a hallmark of KPZ universality. However, the third and fourth moments rule out the KPZ conjecture and allow for evaluating other theories. Our results highlight the importance of studying higher moments in determining dynamic universality classes and provide key insights into universal behavior in quantum systems