Inflation-Unemployment Tradeoff and Regional Labor Market Data

We estimate a linear and a piecewise linear Phillips curve model with regional labor market data for West German and Neue Länder. Employing regional observations allows us to country difference the data. This eliminates, under the assumption of homogeneous Länder, supply shocks and changes in the formation of expectations as possible identification failures. With seemingly unrelated regressions we find a flat Phillips curve in the Neue Länder. For the West German Länder a piecewise linear model with a higher inflation-unemployment tradeoff for the regime of low unemployment rates fits the data very well. The results hold true if we control for endogeneity of the unemployment rate. With a kinked but upward sloping aggregate supply curve there seems to be room for stabilization policies, at least in the range of aggregate demand shifts that our data covers.inflation-unemployment tradeoff, NAIRU, regional labor market data, seemingly unrelated regression

Who Do We Think We Are? A Qualitative Exploration of Social Work Identity

Since the inception of the profession, social workers have struggled to identify a common understanding of social work, its fundamental activity, and the role of the worker. Utilizing a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explored the following questions: 1) What is the participant’s lived experience of social work identity? and 2) How is this understanding of identity similar to or different from that of other helping professionals who perform similar activities? Semi-structured interviews, conducted with 22 social workers in the field, diverse in education, practice area, and experience, highlighted parallels among the various experiences, and advanced the exploration of the essence of social work identity. The interviews investigated the presence of role ambiguity and/or role conflict in the experience of each social work participant, as well as their response orientation to conflict (i.e., expedient, moral, and moral-expedient) and the possible effects of ambiguity (i.e., super and sub identities) on their understanding of their own social work identity. While saturation was not reached, the analysis indicated that the participant’s job description, workplace expectations, and their inability to adequately distinguish their role and activity from that of other helping professional preforming the same task or occupying the same role affected the understanding many had of their own social work identity. Themes included super and subordinate orientations, role or activity dominance, identity modifiers, and conflict resolution orientations. These findings may be used to inform future research of social work identity as well as the unifying element(s) of the profession

Non-associative Deformations of Geometry in Double Field Theory

Non-geometric string backgrounds were proposed to be related to a non-associative deformation of the space-time geometry. In the flux formulation of double field theory (DFT), the structure of mathematically possible non-associative deformations is analyzed in detail. It is argued that on-shell there should not be any violation of associativity in the effective DFT action. For imposing either the strong or the weaker closure constraint we discuss two possible non-associative deformations of DFT featuring two different ways how on-shell associativity can still be kept.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure, v2: major revision of section 4, discussion of closure constraint change

Chapter 2: A New Crisis Mechanism for the Euro Area

The European debt crisis followed the US financial crisis with a delay of one and a half years. While its first signs were visible in November and December of 2009 when the rating agency Fitch downgraded Ireland and Greece, it culminated on 28 April 2010 when the intra-day interest rate for two-year Greek government bonds peaked at 38 percent. Since then capital markets have been extremely unstable, showing signs of distrust in the creditworthiness of the GIPS countries: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The European Union reacted by preparing voluminous rescue plans that, at this writing (January 2011), have been resorted to by Greece and Ireland.

Sleep disturbances and circadian CLOCK genes in borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterised by a deep-reaching pattern of affective instability, incoherent identity, self-injury, suicide attempts, and disturbed interpersonal relations and lifestyle. The daily activities of BPD patients are often chaotic and disorganized, with patients often staying up late while sleeping during the day. These behavioural patterns suggest that altered circadian rhythms may be associated with BPD. Furthermore, BPD patients frequently report suffering from sleep disturbances. In this review, we overview the evidence that circadian rhythms and sleep are disturbed in BPD, and we explore the possibility that personality traits that are pertinent for BPD may be associated with circadian typology, and perhaps to circadian genotypes. With regards to sleep architecture, we review the evidence that BPD patients display altered non-REM and REM sleep. A possible cue to a deeper understanding of this temporal dysregulation might be an analysis of the circadian clock at the molecular and cellular level, as well as behavioural studies using actigraphy and we suggest avenues for further exploration of these factors

Chapter 1: The Macroeconomic Outlook

The structural problems brought to light by the financial crisis have largely remained in place or shifted from the private (banking) sector to the public sector. In the United States, despite increased saving, household debt remains high; their wealth position has deteriorated substantially due to the bursting of the house price bubble. The real estate sector has shrunk, and the financial sector has still not fully recovered.

Chapter 3: Greece

As most European countries were coming out of recession at the end of 2009, Greece was entering a tumultuous period. The announcement of the newly elected Greek government in October 2009 that the projected budget deficit for 2009 would be 12.7 percent of GDP2 (rather than the 5.1 percent projection that appeared in the 2009 Spring Commission forecast), was initially met with shock and opprobrium in Brussels and other euro-area capitals. The initial reaction of policymakers across the European Union was that the risk of contagion was minimal, and that the right way to deal with the situation was to let Greece “swing in the wind”.

Chapter 4: Spain

Spain has suffered a lot from the current crisis and is the first large economy that may find itself in need of fiscal rescue. If this happens it may prove quite damaging to the euro. Yet, since the mid-1990s, Spain was a champion of growth and fiscal stability; its unemployment had fallen rapidly to the levels that prevailed in the rest of the European Union. This chapter discusses the reasons why such a virtuous initial situation deteriorated so sharply since the start of the crisis. Was this just bad luck or were the booming years just a mirage?