Interactions between inflation, monetary and fiscal policy.

In Chapter 1 I develop a simple model, that builds upon some previous work on financial innovation processes, to account for the main stylized facts observed during extreme hyperinflations. The modeling device used here helps to reconcile some conflicting views on the causes, development and end of a hyperinflation without departing from the rational expectations assumption. Specifically, it is shown that the effectiveness of a future orthodox reform to preclude the occurrence of a hyperinflation, either speculative or fundamental, is an endogenous outcome which depends on a wide array of policy choices (fiscal and monetary) and structural features of the economy. In Chapter 2 I examine the postulates of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL) under an interest rate peg. I show that the usual definition of a non-Ricardian plan involves a non-credible government policy commitment, thus confuting the interpretation of the FTPL as a policy-based equilibrium selection device. Then I identify the set of necessary conditions for the implementation of non-Ricardian fiscal plans that result in a unique equilibrium. A critical necessary condition for the credibility of a fiscalist plan is that the equilibrium level of seigniorage must be non-positive. I argue that the fiscalist stock-analogy is only meaningful, precisely, when money enters into the government constraint as a destination of funds, rather than as a source. In Chapter 3, I extend Buiter's (2001, 2002) criticism (non-Ricardian plans are generally non-implementable whenever the monetary authority sets a non-contingent sequence of money supplies) to an infinite horizon economy. In particular, it is shown that a fiscalist deflation involves the violation of a household's optimality condition and that the notion of a fiscally-induced speculative hyperinflation cannot be rationalized invoking a symmetry between the problem of pricing a potentially fiat non-convertible asset (like money) and that of pricing the stock of a private firm as advocated by the FTPL

Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial to assess safety of teleconsultation compared with face-to-face consultation: the ECASeT study

BackgroundThe use of remote consultation modalities has exponentially grown in the past few years, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although a huge body of the literature has described the use of phone (tele) and video consultations, very few of the studies correspond to randomized controlled trials, and none of them has assessed the safety of these consultation modalities as the primary objective. The primary objective of this trial was to assess the safety of remote consultations (both video and teleconsultation) in the follow-up of patients in the hospital setting.MethodsMulticenter, randomized controlled trial being conducted in four centers of an administrative healthcare area in Catalonia (North-East Spain). Participants will be screened from all individuals, irrespective of age and sex, who require follow-up in outpatient consultations of any of the departments involved in the study. Eligibility criteria have been established based on the local guidelines for screening patients for remote consultation. Participants will be randomly allocated into one of the two study arms: conventional face-to-face consultation (control) and remote consultation, either teleconsultation or video consultation (intervention). Routine follow-up visits will be scheduled at a frequency determined by the physician based on the diagnostic and therapy of the baseline disease (the one triggering enrollment). The primary outcome will be the number of adverse reactions and complications related to the baseline disease. Secondary outcomes will include non-scheduled visits and hospitalizations, as well as usability features of remote consultations. All data will either be recorded in an electronic clinical report form or retrieved from local electronic health records. Based on the complications and adverse reaction rates reported in the literature, we established a target sample size of 1068 participants per arm. Recruitment started in May 2022 and is expected to end in May 2024.DiscussionThe scarcity of precedents on the assessment of remote consultation modalities using randomized controlled designs challenges making design decisions, including recruitment, selection criteria, and outcome definition, which are discussed in the manuscript.Trial registrationNCT05094180. The items of the WHO checklist for trial registration are available in Additional file 1. Registered on 24 November 2021

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Reflections of fiscalist divergent price-paths

In this paper I analyze the classes of price-paths arising from a non-Ricardian fiscal monetary plan along the lines of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL), under a price invariant nominal money supply rule in a standard Sidrauski-Brock model. I first show that fiscalist speculative deflationary paths are irrational bubbles. Then I argue that a fully autonomous fiscal policy is, in most cases, no implementable, regardless of the time horizon, thus complementing Buiter's (2001, 2002) findings. Finally, I claim that, contrary to the FTPL's arguments, a speculative hyperinflation can never be a necessary result. This latter observation is taken as an evidence against the analogy drawn between the equilibrium value of a firm's stock and money, as recently suggested by some proponents of this new paradigm in monetary economics

Speculative hyperinflations: when can we rule them out?

Motivated by a strong degree of hysteresis in the stock of monetization observed after the end of hyperinflations, I provide a cash-and-credit model in which the use of money exhibits some persistence because individuals can establish long-lasting credit relationships. This feature helps to account for the main stylized facts of extreme hyperinflations and reconcile some conflicting views on their causes, development and end without departing from rational expectations. Unlike the existing literature, I show that when hysteresis is possible, an orthodox fiscal-monetary reform that successfully stops a speculative hyperinflation may not be sufficient to prevent it

The fiscal theory of the price level: a narrow theory for non-fiat money

I examine the postulates of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL) under a nominal interest rate peg. First, I show that the usual definition of a non-Ricardian plan involves a number of government¿s non-credible policy commitments, thus confuting the interpretation of the FTPL as a policy-based equilibrium selection device. The main novelty of this criticism is that it is based on the same core assumptions maintained by this theory: there is a positive stock of governmentissued assets at the beginning of the history owned by the households, flow of funds constraints must be respected in every contingency, although transversality conditions may be violated at off-equilibrium prices. Then I investigate some additional necessary conditions that allow the government to implement non-Ricardian fiscal plans that result in a unique equilibrium under an interest rate peg. A critical necessary condition for the credibility of such a fiscalist plan is that the equilibrium level of seigniorage must be non-positive. I argue that the fiscalist stock-analogy, under this monetary rule, is only meaningful, precisely, when money enters into the government constraint as a destination of funds, rather than as a source

El reto del sector exterior en la crisis de la economía cubana

La crisis de la economía cubana tiene causas más políticas que económicas. Hasta la desintegración del sistema de planificación socialista en la Unión Soviética, Cuba fue un país subvencionado, y con la pérdida de esta condición se desencadena una depresión de la economía sin precedentes en su intensidad y rapidez. Ante esta situación, a la que se une la imposibilidad de atender las cargas de la deuda externa, Cuba no tiene otra opción que potenciar sus exportaciones y la inversión externa. Toda la estrategia de desarrollo converge en los logros del sector exterior; es fuente de financiación ineludible, garantiza la demanda solvente y, sin su contribución es impensable mejorar la productividad. Sin embargo, en nuestra opinión la expansión del sector exterior, en particular las rubricas de exportación más importantes de minería y turismo, y la inversión extranjera están contribuyendo a crear una economía dual y más desigual, sin que el impacto sobre los sectores productivos internos sea significativo. A los defectos estructurales de naturaleza económica se añaden los condicionantes políticos, ya que el desarrollo económico y el político no pueden avanzar de modo independiente el uno del otro