Savings of Hungarian Households 1995 – 2000

The knowledge of the effect of decision making mechanisms of households on consumption and savings is crucial for the conduct of monetary policy, as household consumption accounts for 60-65% of the absorption side of GDP. In the narrow sense, monetary policy concerns itself with the following two questions in the analysis of saving decisions: - What, if any, effect do (real) interest rate changes have on the consumption of households? - What kind of factors influence the changes in the structure of savings? This paper also deals with broader issues, as apart from an analysis of the saving patterns of Hungarian households over the period 1995-2000, one of its main objectives is to pinpoint prospective developments in household sector saving over the medium term. It is based on the analysis of prevailing trends and international experience. Modern economics studies the potential effects of interest rate changes on household consumption and saving patterns in the framework of the life cycle theory (and its variants). Most central banks analyse the mechanism of monetary transmission using a macromodel which allows the simulation of the effect of interest rates changes on households. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Hungarian data do not enable a similar econometric analysis to be made of the interest rate elasticity of consumption. First, there are no sufficiently long time series possessing the typical properties of such series: for example, quarterly data are only available for the period after 1995. Second, due to the transitional state of the Hungarian economy, the assumption of stable parameters seems unrealistic, and the shortness of the series makes the treatment of structural breaks rather cumbersome. Although it is possible to study consumption and saving patterns in the absence of a macromodel, the Hungarian data do not allow the use of other sophisticated econometric methods either, due to the above-noted problems. Short of the analytical study of this issue of vital relevance to monetary transmission, this paper aims to collect and present the available information relating to Hungary and describe relevant international experience. The first chapter sums up the international experience on household saving patterns in a number of countries discussed at length in the Appendix. The next chapter describes the main features of household financial wealth, i.e. financial assets and liabilities, and saving patterns in Hungary. It is followed by the assessment of the (potential) effect of interest rate change on saving decisions via an analysis of the substitution, income and wealth effects. Chapter four gives a detailed description of the changes in the structure of savings, touching upon the underlying reasons and the outlook for households’ financial wealth. The Appendix gives an in-depth analysis of the experiences of some countries which have taken a similar course. These case studies form broadly the basis of our conclusions about the prospective development of financial wealth. In respect of Hungary, we focus on the period 1995 to date, as all important long-term trends are believed to have originated during that period. Furthermore, there are also quarterly data available on this period, which enables us to examine developments within the real economy. When we found it relevant from the point of view of potential future developments, we have also added the experience of the early nineties.

Photon counting statistics of a microwave cavity

The development of microwave photon detectors is paving the way for a wide range of quantum technologies and fundamental discoveries involving single photons. Here, we investigate the photon emission from a microwave cavity and find that distribution of photon waiting times contains information about few-photon processes, which cannot easily be extracted from standard correlation measurements. The factorial cumulants of the photon counting statistics are positive at all times, which may be intimately linked with the bosonic quantum nature of the photons. We obtain a simple expression for the rare fluctuations of the photon current, which is helpful in understanding earlier results on heat transport statistics and measurements of work distributions. Under non-equilibrium conditions, where a small temperature gradient drives a heat current through the cavity, we formulate a fluctuation-dissipation relation for the heat noise spectra. Our work suggests a number of experiments for the near future, and it offers theoretical questions for further investigation.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, final version as published in Phys. Rev.

Thermochromic display materials for use under wide variations in ambient illumination levels Final report

Inorganic thermochromatic material synthesis and utilization in display device

A spanyol nyelvterület avantgárd irányzatai = Hispanic Avant-garde Movements

2012 októberében sikeresen zártuk a négyéves kutatási projektünket: a vállalt feladatokat elvégeztük, egy-egy területen jóval túl is teljesítettük a célokat. Az ütemezésben jól tudtuk követni az eredeti tervet, csak az első kötet megjelenése csúszott főképp szerzői jogi és nyomdai nehézségek miatt, a rendelkezésre álló pénzügyi forrásokat hatékonyan felhasználtuk. Egy pont nem teljesült: a programszövegek kiadása szerzői jogi gondok miatt csak egynyelvű lett, nem kétnyelvű, ahogy terveztük. A fontosabb konkrét eredmények: 1) áttekintettük a spanyol nyelvű világ avantgárd programszövegeit, kiválogattuk, és 48 szöveget egy kötetben, bevezető tanulmánnyal megjelentettünk; 2) a kutatómunkába és a szerkesztésbe, fordításba bevontunk számos spanyol szakos egyetemi hallgatót és doktoranduszt; 3) tíz egyetemi kurzusba (BA, MA, Spanyol Tanszék, Romanisztikai Intézet) folyamatosan beépítettük az eredményeket; 4) nagy nemzetközi konferenciát rendeztünk és spanyolul megjelentettük az összes előadást. | The four-year research project ending in October 2012 is a success: we have completed all the proposed tasks, in one field we even surpassed our objectives. We were able to follow the original schedule, with some delay only in publishing our first volume, mainly due to copyright issues and problems with the printing house; the funds of the project were used efficiently. The most relevant results are: 1) we have reviewed most of the avant-garde program texts of the Spanish speaking world, then selected and published 48 of them in Hungarian with an introduction; 2) several students of the Department of Spanish got involved in our research, and also in the translation and edition of the texts; 3) the results were introduced progressively in ten courses (BA, MA, Department of Spanish, Center for Romance Languages); 4) we organized a major international conference, and published all the contributions in Spanish

CREACIÓN DE LO FANTÁSTICO: LA FUNCIÓN NARRATIVA DE LA DESCRIPCIÓN EN ”ALGO EN LA OSCURIDAD” DE JOSÉ EMILIO PACHECO

El castillo lúgubre y misterioso es uno de los tópicos del género fantástico, que sin embargo, en la segunda mitad del siglo XX supera definitivamente su estatus de mero trasfondo escenográfico. El presente estudio analiza la función narrativa de la descripción, mediante la cual el espacio cerrado y sus alrededores inmediatos consiguen un valor simbólico (Paul Ricoeur) generador del efecto fantástico. Me propongo ofrecer una lectura narratológico-discursiva del relato titulado “Algo en la oscuridad” de José Emilio Pacheco, donde precisamente la descripción del espacio y la focalización (actividad perceptivosensorial) narrativa se convierten en los primeros responsables del ritual cumplido

Carpe Diem: el incipit como espacio fantástico en los cuentos de Abelardo Castillo

El artículo propone un acercamiento narratológico-hermenéutico a los inicios textuales de los relatos de Abelardo Castillo, completado con algunas posibles lecturas de la estética de la recepción (Iser, 2001). A través del análisis detallado del cuento titulado “Carpe Diem”, publicado en el volumen Las maquinarias de la noche (Castillo, 1992), se presenta la estrategia narrativa puesta en marcha desde el incipit discursivo que lleva en sí los gérmenes de las instancias fundamentales del universo creado. This article pretends to offer a narratological-hermeneutical approach to the beginnings of Abelardo Castillo’s short stories, which is completed with a possible interpretation based on the premises of reception aesthetics (Iser, 2001). By means of the detailed analysis of the text “Carpe Diem”, published in the volume with the title of “Las maquinarias de la noche” (Castillo, 1992) this study shows the narrative strategy initiated from the very incipit of the short story, which contains all the principal instances of the created universe

“Oh pulso misterioso”. La creación poética de César Vallejo

The study examines Cesar Vallejo’s poetic conception based on the word –central trope of the text– and not so much on the concept. According to our hypothesis, in addition to conventional biographical-referential readings and metaphorical readings of universal emotions or the human condition, any one of Trilce’s 77 pieces can also be interpreted as paradigmatic representation of the poetic conception of the author. It is attempted to explore the transformation of the poetic sign of the biographical reference to the representation of the creative process itself and so, to the genesis of a new poetic subject. To illustrate this hypothesis, Trilce’s XLIV and XLV poems will primarily be focused on. In the analysis, attention will be drawn to some parallels between the poetics of the Peruvian poet and two of his Hungarian contemporaries of the early twentieth century, Endre Ady and Attila József.El estudio examina la concepción poética de César Vallejo, basada en la palabra –tropo central del texto– y no tanto en el concepto. Según nuestra hipótesis, además de las convencionales lecturas biográfico-referenciales y de las lecturas metafóricas de emociones universales o de la condición humana, cualquiera de las 77 piezas de Trilce puede interpretarse también como representación paradigmática de la concepción poética del autor. Se intenta explorar la transformación del signo poético de la referencia biográfica a la representación del propio proceso creativo y de tal forma, a la génesis de un nuevo sujeto poético. A modo de ilustración de tal hipótesis, se enfocarán sobre todo los poemas XLIV y XLV de Trilce. En el análisis se llamará la atención sobre algunos paralelismos entre la poética del vate peruano y de dos de sus contemporáneos húngaros de principios del siglo XX, Endre Ady y Attila József