Spatial and Temporal Diffusion of House Prices in the UK

This paper provides a method for the analysis of the spatial and temporal diffusion of shocks in a dynamic system. We use changes in real house prices within the UK economy at the level of regions to illustrate its use. Adjustment to shocks involves both a region specific and a spatial effect. Shocks to a dominant region - London - are propagated contemporaneously and spatially to other regions. They in turn impact on other regions with a delay. We allow for lagged effects to echo back to the dominant region. London in turn is influenced by international developments through its link to New York and other financial centers. It is shown that New York house prices have a direct effect on London house prices. We analyse the effect of shocks using generalised spatio-temporal impulse responses. These highlight the diffusion of shocks both over time (as with the conventional impulse responses) and over space.House Prices, Cross Sectional Dependence, Spatial Dependence

Business Cycle Effects of Credit and Technology Shocks in a DSGE Model with Firm Defaults

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to analyze the impacts of credit and technology shocks on business cycle dynamics, where firms rely on banks and households for capital financing. Firms are identical ex ante but differ ex post due to different realizations of firm specific technology shocks, possibly leading to default by some firms. The paper advances a new modelling approach for the analysis of financial intermediation and firm defaults that takes account of the financial implications of such defaults for both households and banks. Results from a calibrated version of the model highlights the role of financial institutions in the transmission of credit and technology shocks to the real economy. A positive credit shock, defined as a rise in the loan to deposit ratio, increases output, consumption, hours and productivity, and reduces the spread between loan and deposit rates. The effects of the credit shock tend to be highly persistent even without price rigidities and habit persistence in consumption behaviour

China’s Emergence in the World Economy and Business Cycles in Latin America

The international business cycle is very important for Latin America's economic performance as the recent global crisis vividly illustrated. This paper investigates how changes in trade linkages between China, Latin America, and the rest of the world have altered the transmission mechanism of international business cycles to Latin America. Evidence based on a Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model for 5 large Latin American economies and all major advanced and emerging economies of the world shows that the long-term impact of a China GDP shock on the typical Latin American economy has increased by three times since mid-1990s. At the same time, the long-term impact of a US GDP shock has halved, while the transmission of shocks to Latin America and the rest of emerging Asia (excluding China and India) GDP has not undergone any significant change. Contrary to common wisdom, we find that these changes owe more to the changed impact of China on Latin America's traditional and largest trading partners than to increased direct bilateral trade linkages boosted by the decade-long commodity price boom. These findings help to explain why Latin America did so well during the global crisis, but point to the risks associated with a deceleration in China's economic growth in the future for both Latin America and the rest of the world economy. The evidence reported also suggests that the emergence of China as an important source of world growth might be the driver of the so called "decoupling" of emerging markets business cycle from that of advanced economies reported in the existing literature.Latin Americ

PHEV Energy Storage and Drive Cycle Impacts

Plug-in Hybrid vehicles energy storage and drive cycle impacts, presented at the 7th Advanced Automotive Battery Conference

PHEV Energy Storage Performance/Life/Cost Trade-Off Analysis

Developed linked parametric modeling tools to mathematically evaluate battery designs to satisfy challenging operational requirements for a PHEV

Analysis of Fuel Cell Vehicles Hybridization and Implications for Energy Storage Devices

Presents an analysis of hybridization and implications energy storage devices concerning fuel cell vehicles

Analysis of Ultracapacitor-VRLA Energy Storage Systems for Mild Hybrids

Presents an analysis of VRLA + ultracapacitor use as energy storage systems in mild hybrid vehicles

Impact of the 3Cs of Batteries on PHEV Value Proposition: Cost, Calendar Life, and Cycle Life

Battery cost, calendar life, and cycle life are three important challenges for those commercializing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; battery life is sensitive to temperature and solar loading

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Plug-In Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Technology

Presents a cost-benefit of analysis of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle technology, including potential petroleum use reduction