A new sap beetle (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) to the United States with a revised key to the Camptodes Erichson occurring in America north of Mexico

A new beetle to the United States, Camptodes communis Erichson, is briefly described below. A diagnosis from the other Camptodes known to occur in the United States is provided. An updated key to the Camptodes of the United States is given

Renminbi Undervaluation, China's Surplus, and the US Trade Deficit

The impact of China's exchange rate on both its current account balance and the US-China bilateral trade balance is considerable. A 1 percent rise in the real effective exchange rate would cause a reduction in China's current account surplus of 0.30 to 0.45 percent of GDP. A 10 percent real effective appreciation would bring China's current account surplus down by roughly $170 billion to$250 billion annually with a corresponding improvement in the US current account balance ranging from $22 billion to$63 billion annually. William R. Cline also warns that the increasing trend for China's current account surplus, combined with the negative trend for the US deficit, indicate that adjustments accomplished through exchange rate correction at any one time will have a tendency to erode unless the renminbi successively appreciates by around 2 percent annually to reflect its rapid productivity growth. Special Chinese efforts to shift the economy away from external to domestic demand are important complements of exchange rate adjustment, without which the long-term trend toward a rising trade surplus could cause excess demand to grow and increase inflationary pressures on the economy.

Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country

How will global warming affect developing countries, which rely heavily on agriculture as a source of economic growth? William Cline asserts that developing countries have more at risk than industrial countries as global warming worsens. Using general circulation and agricultural impact models, Cline boldly examines 2070-99 to forecast the effects of global warming and its economic impact. This detailed study: * outlines existing studies on the agricultural impact of climate change; * estimates projected changes in temperature, precipitation, and agricultural capacity; and * concludes with policy recommendations. * Cline finds that agricultural production in developing countries may fall between 10 and 25 percent, and if global warming progresses unabated, India's agricultural capacity could fall as much as 40 percent. Thus, policymakers should address this phenomenon now before the world's developing countries are adversely and irreversibly affected.

Estimating Consistent Fundamental Equilibrium Exchange Rates

This paper sets forth a new methodology for obtaining a consistent set of exchange rate realignments needed to accomplish international adjustment in current account imbalances to reach fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs). The approach is named the symmetric matrix inversion method (SMIM). It is symmetric in that ir treats all countries considered equally rather than seeking exact adjustment for the United States and obtaining other adjustments residually. Country-specific impact parameters based on assumed trade elasticities are applied to a target set of changes in current accounts as percentages of GDP to obtain a corresponding set of target changes in real effective (trade-weighted) exchange rates. A matrix inversion technique is then applied to identify the corresponding set of changes in bilateral exchange rates against the dollar needed to approach as closely as possible the target set of effective exchange rate changes.Exchange Rates, Current Account Adjustment, Dollar

Aspects of brane-antibrane inflation

I describe a dynamical mechanism for solving the fine-tuning problem of brane-antibrane inflation. By inflating with stacks of branes and antibranes, the branes can naturally be trapped at a metastable minimum of the potential. As branes tunnel out of this minimum, the shape of the potential changes to make the minimum shallower. Eventually the minimum disappears and the remaining branes roll slowly because the potential is nearly flat. I show that even with a small number of branes, there is a good chance of getting enough inflation. Running of the spectral index is correlated with the tilt in such a way as to provide a test of the model by future CMB experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; proceedings of Theory Canada 1 conference, 2-5 June 2005, UBC, Vancouve

Currency Wars?

More than a dozen countries, including Brazil, China, India, Japan, and Korea, have been intervening in the foreign exchange market to prevent their currencies from appreciating. There are fears that the second dose of quantitative easing in the United States (dubbed QE2) may worsen currency appreciation. These developments raise the prospect of a currency war, which the Group of Twenty (G-20) fears is gathering steam. Because many countries are simultaneously seeking to improve their balance of payments position, many are seeking a more competitive exchange rate. The laws of mathematics mean that some must be disappointed: A weaker exchange rate of one country implies a stronger rate of some other country or countries. Cline and Williamson argue that any agreement reached at the G-20 summit in Seoul to prevent an exchange rate war should be based on a distinction between countries with overvalued and undervalued currencies. Any accord should be designed to seek appreciation of the latter but not to debar the former from taking actions to prevent their currencies from becoming even more overvalued. Countries that are already overvalued on an effective basis--primarily floating emerging-market economies, but also Australia and New Zealand--should not be condemned for resisting further appreciation. But if a currency is substantially undervalued and the country is aggressively engaging in intervention to prevent appreciation, it is reasonable to judge that its intervention is unjustifiable. The authors show that a handful of high-surplus economies are intervening in such a fashion: China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The currencies of these economies are substantially undervalued, and their current account surpluses are correspondingly excessive, pointing clearly to the desirability of currency revaluation by these countries. It would be very wrong for the G-20 to condemn all countries that are trying to prevent their exchange rates from appreciating. One needs to ask which currencies are undervalued and concentrate on preventing them from intervening and tightening capital controls.

The Current Currency Situation

The currency markets have been extremely disturbed for the last three months. The period witnessed a major strengthening of the US dollar in September, then the European currency crisis, a recovery of the euro when the markets believed that the crisis was being controlled, and then a rebound of the dollar. In view of these developments, those who follow currency movements need a new guide as to how the current values of currencies compare to our estimates of fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs). The first section is devoted to a brief exposition of the main changes that have occurred since April, which our previous publication used as the benchmark. The second section updates information on the levels of effective exchange rates consistent with the FEER targets identified in our most recent estimates (Cline and Williamson 2011), as well as the FEER-consistent dollar rates as of late October. The third section steps outside our normal frame of reference in order to make some comments about the situation within Europe in view of the sovereign debt crisis currently raging there.