291 research outputs found
Currency crises and uncertainty about fundamentals
This paper extends some theoretical results of Morris and Shin (1998) concerning the role of uncertainty about fundamentals in currency crises and tests their empirical relevance using a novel approach based on the distribution of survey expectations. Econometric evidence from the Asian crisis confirms the prediction that the dispersion of expectations affects the probability of a speculative attack and that the sign of this effect depends on whether expected fundamentals are "good" or "bad". Extensive robustness checks support the findings.speculative attack, exchange rate crisis, public and private information
What is the Most Effective Monetary Policy for Aid-Receiving Countries?
This paper analyses how monetary policy can enhance the effectiveness of volatile aid fl ows. We find that monetary policy is effective in reducing trade balance volatility. We propose the following taxonomy, excluding the case of emergency assistance. Monetary policy should slow down consumption growth and build up international reserves when aid is abundant and deplete them to finance imports and support consumption when aid is scarce. If foreign aid also affects productivity growth, monetary policy should take this productivity effect into account in responding to aid flows.Aid effectiveness, monetary policy, real exchange rate, Dutch disease
Signaling Fiscal Regime Sustainability
This paper proposes a signaling model of fiscal stabilizations that offers a new perspective on why governments deviate from optimal tax smoothing. In our model, dependable - but not fully credible - governments have an incentive to tighten the fiscal regime when the signaling effect on credit ratings is larger (that is, when a sufficiently large stock of debt has been accumulated). At this point, they may deviate from tax smoothing in order to avoid being mimicked by weak governments. We show that a testable prediction of our model is that primary balances and debt stocks are complementary inputs in the credit rating function and we successfully test it on Irish, Belgian, and Danish data from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.fiscal policy, taxation, debt, credit, economic models
Aid, Exports, and Growth: A Time-Series Perspective on the Dutch Disease Hypothesis
The available evidence on the effects of aid on growth is notoriously mixed. We use a novel empirical methodology, a heterogeneous panel vector-autoregression model identified through factor analysis, to study the dynamic response of exports, imports, and per capita GDP growth to a "global" aid shock (the common component of individual country aid-to-GDP ratios). We find that the estimated cumulative resposive of exports and per capita GDP growth to a global aid shock are strongly positively correlated, and both responses are inversely related to exchange rate overvaluation measures. We interpret this evidence as consistent with the Dutch disease hypothesis. However, we also find that, in countries with less overvalued real exchange rates, exports and per capita GDP growth respond positively to a global aid shock. This evidence suggests that preventing exchange rate overvaluations may allow aid-receiving countries to avoid the Dutch disease.Aid, Common factors, Dutch Disease, Growth Panel VARs, Exchange rate overvaluation
Extrinsic electromagnetic chirality in all-photodesigned one-dimensional THz metamaterials
We suggest that all-photodesigned metamaterials, sub-wavelength custom
patterns of photo-excited carriers on a semiconductor, can display an exotic
extrinsic electromagnetic chirality in terahertz (THz) frequency range. We
consider a photo-induced pattern exhibiting 1D geometrical chirality, i.e. its
mirror image can not be superposed onto itself by translations without
rotations and, in the long wavelength limit, we evaluate its bianisotropic
response. The photo-induced extrinsic chirality turns out to be fully
reconfigurable by recasting the optical illumination which supports the
photo-excited carriers. The all-photodesigning technique represents a feasible,
easy and powerful method for achieving effective matter functionalization and,
combined with the chiral asymmetry, it could be the platform for a new
generation of reconfigurable devices for THz wave polarization manipulation.Comment: 11 page
Terahertz optically tunable dielectric metamaterials without microfabrication
We theoretically investigate the terahertz dielectric response of a
semiconductor slab hosting an infrared photoinduced grating. The periodic
structure is due to the charge carries photo-excited by the interference of two
tilted infrared plane waves so that the grating depth and period can be tuned
by modifying the beam intensities and incidence angles, respectively. In the
case where the grating period is much smaller than the terahertz wavelength, we
numerically evaluate the ordinary and extraordinary component of the effective
permittivity tensor by resorting to electromagnetic full-wave simulation
coupled to the dynamics of charge carries excited by infrared radiation. We
show that the photoinduced metamaterial optical response can be tailored by
varying the grating and it ranges from birefringent to hyperbolic to
anisotropic negative dielectric without resorting to microfabrication.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
Microwave Irradiation Effects on Random Telegraph Signal in a MOSFET
We report on the change of the characteristic times of the random telegraph
signal (RTS) in a MOSFET operated under microwave irradiation up to 40 GHz as
the microwave field power is raised. The effect is explained by considering the
time dependency of the transition probabilities due to a harmonic voltage
generated by the microwave field that couples with the wires connecting the
MOSFET. From the dc current excited into the MOSFET by the microwave field we
determine the corresponding equivalent drain voltage. The RTS experimental data
are in agreement with the prediction obtained with the model, making use of the
voltage data measured with the independent dc microwave induced current. We
conclude that when operating a MOSFET under microwave irradiation, as in single
spin resonance detection, one has to pay attention into the effects related to
microwave irradiation dependent RTS changes.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure
Reconfigurable photoinduced metamaterials in the microwave regime
We investigate optically reconfigurable dielectric metamaterials at gigahertz
frequencies. More precisely, we study the microwave response of a subwavelength
grating optically imprinted into a semiconductor slab. In the homogenized
regime, we analytically evaluate the ordinary and extraordinary component of
the effective permittivity tensor by taking into account the photo-carrier
dynamics described by the ambipolar diffusion equation. We analyze the impact
of semiconductor parameters on the gigahertz metamaterial response which turns
out to be highly reconfigurable by varying the photogenerated grating and which
can show a marked anisotropic behavior.Comment: 6 figures, 7 page
Higher-Order Permanent Scatterers Analysis
The permanent scatterers (PS) technique is a multi-interferogram algorithm for DInSAR analyses developed in the late nineties to overcome the difficulties related to the conventional approach, namely, phase decorrelation and atmospheric effects. The successful application of this technology to many geophysical studies is now pushing toward further improvements and optimizations. A possible strategy to increase the number of radar targets that can be exploited for surface deformation monitoring is the adoption of parametric super-resolution algorithms that can cope with multiple scattering centres within the same resolution cell. In fact, since a PS is usually modelled as a single pointwise scatterer dominating the background clutter, radar targets having cross-range dimension exceeding a few meters can be lost (at least in C-band datasets), due to geometrical decorrelation phenomena induced in the high normal baseline interferograms of the dataset. In this paper, the mathematical framework related to higher-order SAR interferometry is presented as well as preliminary results obtained on simulated and real data. It is shown how the PS density can be increased at the price of a higher computational load
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