Did Tax Policies mitigate US Business Cycles?

I study whether US Tax Policies affected economic volatility during the post World War II period. I employ a Real Business Cycle model with distorting taxation on household income and tax rules, and assume that taxes respond to the cyclical conditions of the economy. I estimate the deep parameters of the model using Bayesian techniques. My findings are; (a) fiscal policies display a strong countercyclical behavior, (b) help to reduce the cyclical and raw volatility of GDP, consumption, investment when the government can issue debt, and (c) unexpected changes in tax policies do not affect the volatility of the macroeconomic variables.Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Bayesian Methods.

Banks' financial conditions and the transmission of monetary policy: a FAVAR approach.

We propose a novel approach to assess whether banks' financial conditions, as reflected by bank-level information, matter for the transmission of monetary policy, while reconciling the micro and macro levels of analysis. We include factors summarizing large sets of individual bank balance sheet ratios in a standard factor-augmented vector autoregression model (FAVAR) of the French economy. We first find that factors extracted from banks' liquidity and leverage ratios predict macroeconomic fluctuations. This suggests a potential scope for macroprudential policies aimed at dampening the procyclical effects of adjustments in banks' balance sheets structure. However, we also find that fluctuations in bank ratio factors are largely irrelevant for the transmission of monetary shocks. Thus, there is little point monitoring the information contained in bank balance sheets, above the information already contained in credit aggregates, as far as monetary policy transmission is concerned.Monetary transmission; Credit channel; Factor Augmented Vector Autoregression (FAVAR).

The Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the New EU Member States

This paper aims to complete our understanding of the relationship between changes in nominal effective exchange rates and prices in the new EU member states. We investigate the exchange rate pass-through to import, producer and consumer prices for ten Central and Eastern European countries with quarterly data from January 1996 to June 2010. In a first step, the pass-through estimates are derived from a dynamic panel data model, through the generalized method of moments. A statistically significant exchange rate pass-through to import prices is found, while no statistically significant exchange rate pass-through is estimated to consumer and producer prices. We further investigate whether exchange-rate pass-through estimates have declined in response to a change in inflation environment and find evidence of such decline only for import prices, both in the short run and the long run. In a second step, we proceed to an individual analysis, country by country, and find support for an increased heterogeneity in the exchange rate pass-through estimates. We equally test for the stability of the estimated.inflation and prices, exchange rate pass-through, GMM, international topics.

The Evaluation of the Sensory and Microbiological Properties of the Yogurt Supplemented with Achillea melifolium and Solanum muricatum

This research explored the sensory characteristics and consumer acceptance of novel yogurt. The study aimed to develop a new type of yogurt through addition of microcapsules with Achillea melifolium infusion and jelly from the pepino fruit. The effect of yogurt supplementation with four different levels (0%,1%,3%,5%) of microcapsules with Achillea melifolium infusion (MI) and four levels (0%,3%,7%,11%) of pepino juice jelly (PJ) on sensory properties and the viability of lactic acid bacteria in yogurts during storage (21 days) at 4°C was evaluated. The yogurt supplementation with 3% microcapsules and 7% jelly significantly improves the stability of the lactic acid bacteria, that contained the recommended levels of 108 cfu/g lactic acid bacteria at the end of 21-days shelf life. All the yogurt samples, however, contained the recommended levels of (106–107 cfu/g) lactic acid bacteria at the end of 21-day shelf life.The yogurt with 3% microcapsules and 7% jelly was the most appreciated (6.78 points), followed by the classic yogurt (5.98 points). Total phenols content was 251 mg GAE/g for A. millefolium infusion and 117 mg GAE/g for pepino juice. The radical scavenging activity of A. millefolium infusion was 78% and for pepino extract 56.30%

Effect of Goji Berries and Honey on Lactic Acid Bacteria Viability and Shelf Life Stability of Yoghurt

Abstract The probiotic properties and the viability of lactic acid bacteria of fermented dairy products can be improved by addition of bioactive compounds originating from natural sources (e.g. goji berries). This study aimed to evaluate how goji berries and honey affect the sensorial quality of yoghurt, the chemical properties, the viability of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and the concurrent microflora development. Two types of yoghurts (yoghurt with goji berries and yoghurt with honey and goji berries) were developed. The addition of honey affected the entire yoghurt microflora including LAB, manifesting bactericidal effect. The addition of goji berries maintained the viability of LAB at probiotic levels (10 6 -10 7 log CFU/ml) during 21 days of storage; compared to classic yoghurt, LAB viability decreased during storage at 10 3 log CFU/ml. Goji berries also improved sensory acceptance of consumers. The results obtained in this study collect information that enables the use of goji berries as enhancer of probiotic levels in yoghurt, while honey can provide bacteriostatic/bactericidal effect for contaminants

Effect of Goji Berries and Honey on Lactic Acid Bacteria Viability and Shelf Life Stability of Yoghurt

The probiotic properties and the viability of lactic acid bacteria of fermented dairy products can be improved by addition of bioactive compounds originating from natural sources (e.g. goji berries). This study aimed to evaluate how goji berries and honey affect the sensorial quality of yoghurt, the chemical properties, the viability of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and the concurrent microflora development. Two types of yoghurts (yoghurt with goji berries and yoghurt with honey and goji berries) were developed. The addition of honey affected the entire yoghurt microflora including LAB, manifesting bactericidal effect. The addition of goji berries maintained the viability of LAB at probiotic levels (106-107 log CFU/ml) during 21 days of storage; compared to classic yoghurt, LAB viability decreased during storage at 103 log CFU/ml. Goji berries also improved sensory acceptance of consumers. The results obtained in this study collect information that enables the use of goji berries as enhancer of probiotic levels in yoghurt, while honey can provide bacteriostatic/bactericidal effect for contaminants