A statistical measure of core inflation

This paper examines alternative statistically-based measures of core inflation in Ireland over the period 1976-1999. A highly disaggregated (approximately 500 price series) dataset from the Irish HICP is used. The distribution of quarterly price changes is shown, in common with other international studies, to be highly kurtotic (i.e., fat-tailed) and right skewed. This would suggest there is considerable ‘statistical noise’ in the measured inflation rate, motivating the use of ‘limited influence’ estimators of central tendency over the mean measure on the grounds of statistical efficiency. It is found that even a relatively small amount of trim from both ends of the distribution of price changes results in considerable improvement in root mean square error (RMSE) relative to a benchmark measure of core inflation. This improvement is even larger when monthly data are examined.core inflation; trimmed mean; Ireland

A Statistical Measure Of Core Inflation

This paper examines alternative statistically-based measures of core inflation in Ireland over the period 1976-1999. A highly disaggregated (approximately 500 price series) dataset from the Irish HICP is used. The distribution of quarterly price changes is shown, in common with other international studies, to be highly kurtotic (i.e., fat-tailed) and right skewed. This would suggest there is considerable 'statistical noise' in the measured inflation rate, motivating the use of 'limited influence' estimators of central tendency over the mean measure on the grounds of statistical efficiency. It is found that even a relatively small amount of trim from both ends of the distribution of price changes results in considerable improvement in root mean square error (RMSE) relative to a benchmark measure of core inflation. This improvement is even larger when monthly data are examined.

Technology and Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland

Two routes by which foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) may transfer technology - direct R&D undertaken in Ireland or through the transfer of the fruits of R&D work undertaken by the parent firm - are examined. Direct R&D undertaken by MNEs in Ireland now accounts for two-thirds of all R&D in Ireland but does not appear to differ significantly, in terms of application or orientation, from the R&D work undertaken by Irish-owned industry. Using US tax rules on the allocation of parent firm R&D expenditures between the parent firm and the host firm, technology transfer from US parent firms is estimated. It is found that incorporating technology transfer from parent firms doubles the level of R&D expenditure attributable to US firms for use in Ireland.

Results of a special questionnaire for participants in the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF)

This document provides a summary of the aggregate results of a special questionnaire which was sent to the participants in the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) in autumn 2008, in the context of the ten-year anniversary of the SPF’s launch in January 1999. In summary, the results show that the SPF responses are quite timely and that the forecasts are based on heterogeneous assumptions that are predominantly generated in house. In addition, although both structural and time series models are widely used, judgement also plays a key role, in particular for the reported probability distributions. It is thus very important to consider the heterogeneity of the SPF forecasts when analysing and interpreting the results of the SPF.SPF; Survey; Forecasts; Expectations; Formation

Job Generation and Regional Industrial Policy in Ireland

Irish industrial policy explicitly encouraged job generation in certain “designated” areas via, amongst other things, preferential grant treatment, job targets and the building of advance factories in the IDA’s (Industrial Development Authority) regional industrial plans of 1973-1977 and 1978-1982. To assess the impact of these regional plans, this paper compares the employment performance of the designated and the non-designated areas in Ireland since 1972 by employing the job flow methodology pioneered by Davis and Haltiwanger (1992). We find that the convergence in aggregate industrial employment levels between designated and non-designated areas observed since 1972 has been largely driven by a higher rate of job creation without an accompanying higher rate of job destruction in the designated areas. Our econometric study attributes an annual 27 per cent of the job generation in the designated areas during the relevant period to the explicit regional industrial policy.

Summum and the Establishment Clause

Chief Justice Roberts: [T]he more you say that the monument is Government speech to get out of the first, free speech—the Free Speech Clause, the more it seems to me you’re walking into a trap under the Establishment Clause. If it’s Government speech, it may not present a free speech problem, but what is the Government doing speaking—supporting the Ten Commandments? Justice Kennedy: [I]t does seem to me that if you say it’s Government speech that in later cases, including the case of the existing monument, you’re going to say it’s Government speech and you have an Establishment Clause problem. I don’t know if—I’m not saying it would necessarily be resolved one way or the other, but it certainly raises . . . an Establishment Clause problem. Justice Souter: But . . . [t]he Government isn’t disclaiming [the Ten Commandments monument]. And the difference[,] it seems to me[,] between you and your friends on the other side is you want this clear statement [that the city has adopted the monument]. You want a statement—for example if you took Justice Scalia’s statement, that would satisfy you, and it would also be the poison pill in the Establishment Clause. Isn’t that what’s—I mean, that’s okay with me. I don’t see that as an illegitimate object. I was a Van Orden dissenter . . . . I. A Ghostly Dialogue A specter haunts Pleasant Grove City v. Summum—the specter of religion. Although both sides insistently litigated the case under the Free Speech Clause, the prospect of an Establishment Clause violation continually emerged during oral argument, slightly beyond the Supreme Court’s purview. The written statements that the Court ultimately produced conjured a similar ghostly apparition located just outside the boundaries of the holding. Whereas Justice Alito’s majority opinion simply determined that the display of the Ten Commandments monument constituted government speech, a circumstance that precluded the possibility of a free speech-based challenge, the concurring opinions of Justices Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas) and Souter again raised the Establishment Clause specter

Triangular nanobeam photonic cavities in single crystal diamond

Diamond photonics provides an attractive architecture to explore room temperature cavity quantum electrodynamics and to realize scalable multi-qubit computing. Here we review the present state of diamond photonic technology. The design, fabrication and characterization of a novel triangular cross section nanobeam cavity produced in a single crystal diamond is demonstrated. The present cavity design, based on a triangular cross section allows vertical confinement and better signal collection efficiency than that of slab-based nanocavities, and eliminates the need for a pre-existing membrane. The nanobeam is fabricated by Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) patterning. The cavity is characterized by a confocal photoluminescence. The modes display quality factors of Q ~220 and are deviated in wavelength by only ~1.7nm from the NV- color center zero phonon line (ZPL). The measured results are found in good agreement with 3D Finite-Difference-Time-Domain (FDTD) calculations. A more advanced cavity design with Q=22,000 is modeled, showing the potential for high-Q implementations using the triangular cavity design. The prospects of this concept and its application to spin non-demolition measurement and quantum computing are discussed.Comment: 18 pages,7 figure

Commerce in Religion

As this Symposium Article contends, religion increasingly overlaps with the commercial sphere, and courts are obligated to determine whether or not to adopt an entirely hands-off approach simply because the specter of religion lurks on the horizon. Whereas the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights tends to accept its member states\u27 separation of commercial elements out from the protections more generally accorded to religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated the two spheres as overlapping. To the extent that each court does consider religious transactions in terms of commercial relations, each also arrives at a very different conception of the connection between religious institutions and the current or potential religious believer. While the ECHR seems more concerned with protecting others against the incursion of possibly misleading or offensive religious representations, the Supreme Court appears to view religious value as generated through a complex interaction between religious entities and individual adherents

Originalism and a Forgotten Conflict over Martial Law

This Symposium Essay asks what a largely forgotten conflict over habeas corpus and martial law in mid-eighteenth-century New York can tell us about originalist methods of constitutional interpretation. The episode, which involved Abraham Yates, Jr.—later a prominent Antifederalist—as well as Lord Loudoun, the commander of the British forces in America, and New York Acting Governor James De Lancey, furnishes insights into debates about martial law prior to the Founding and indicates that they may have bearing on originalist interpretations of the Suspension Clause. It also demonstrates how the British imperial context in which the American colonies were situated shaped discussions about rights in ways that originalism should address. In particular, colonists argued with colonial officials both explicitly and implicitly about the extent to which statutes as well as common law applied in the colonies. These contested statutory schemes should affect how we understand constitutional provisions: for example, they might suggest that statutes pertaining to martial law should be added to those treating habeas corpus as a backdrop against which to interpret the Suspension Clause. Furthermore, the conflict showed the significance to members of the Founding generation of the personnel applying law, whether military or civilian, rather than the substantive law applied; this emphasis could also be significant for how we interpret constitutional rights