Reforming the World's Money. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 29 1965(?)

The author advances his main thesis in his second sentence: the question of the amount and nature of the reserves (external currencies and gold) held by countries is "a major problem and indeed the most important problem confronting those responsible for economic affairs of the free world". One senses exaggeration here: is it because the author is an Englishman, for no other country seems to experience in degree of intensity these recurrent balance of payments' crises - the latest still with us - in the manner of the U.K.? Ireland cannot take a detached view of these U.K. difficulties since, because of our preponderant and increasing trade relations with our great neighbour, parity of exchange rates must continue unaltered. The quotation is puzzling for other reasons. It is quite obvious from the author's excellent chapter (the best in the book) on the International Monetary Fund that the author aspires, as every sensible man must, towards converting the International Monetary Fund into a world bank in which the cash reserves would be lodgments by countries of whatever currencies they care to hold, pending the establishment of an international currency unit. On such cash reserves could be built a large volume of credit to tide countries over temporary balance of payments difficulties. Exactly as in the case of a commercial bank vis-a-vis its customers, the International Monetary Fund could build a large volume of credit on its cash reserves. With a world bank, existing reserves would then be more than adequate and the present absurdity of each country sitting on its little store of reserves in fear and trembling, like the insects in Capek’s Insect play, would cease. Even as matters stand, however, the reviewer has doubts about the validity of the author's supporting argument, which is simply that international trade has increased since pre-war much more than reserves. Surely one would expect that~ with increasing intimacy of relationship between central banks, international trade can now be conducted on a lower volume of reserves? The author does not attempt to evolve a formula relating minimum level of reserves necessary for the conduct of international trade

The Methodology of Modern Macroeconomics and the Descriptive Approach to Discounting

Critics of modern macroeconomics often raise concerns about unwarranted welfare conclusions and data mining. This paper illustrates these concerns with a thought experiment, based on the debate in environmental economics about the appropriate discount rate in climate change analyses: I set up an economy where a social evaluator wants to determine the optimal time path of emission levels, and seeks advice for this from an old-style neo-classical macroeconomist and a new neo-classical (modern) macroeconomist; I then describe how both economists analyze the economy, their policy advice, and their mistakes. I then use the insights from this thought experiment to point out some pitfalls of the modern macroeconomic methodology

Exhaled Aerosol Transmission of Pandemic and Seasonal H1N1 Influenza Viruses in the Ferret

Person-to-person transmission of influenza viruses occurs by contact (direct and fomites) and non-contact (droplet and small particle aerosol) routes, but the quantitative dynamics and relative contributions of these routes are incompletely understood. The transmissibility of influenza strains estimated from secondary attack rates in closed human populations is confounded by large variations in population susceptibilities. An experimental method to phenotype strains for transmissibility in an animal model could provide relative efficiencies of transmission. We developed an experimental method to detect exhaled viral aerosol transmission between unanesthetized infected and susceptible ferrets, measured aerosol particle size and number, and quantified the viral genomic RNA in the exhaled aerosol. During brief 3-hour exposures to exhaled viral aerosols in airflow-controlled chambers, three strains of pandemic 2009 H1N1 strains were frequently transmitted to susceptible ferrets. In contrast one seasonal H1N1 strain was not transmitted in spite of higher levels of viral RNA in the exhaled aerosol. Among three pandemic strains, the two strains causing weight loss and illness in the intranasally infected ‘donor’ ferrets were transmitted less efficiently from the donor than the strain causing no detectable illness, suggesting that the mucosal inflammatory response may attenuate viable exhaled virus. Although exhaled viral RNA remained constant, transmission efficiency diminished from day 1 to day 5 after donor infection. Thus, aerosol transmission between ferrets may be dependent on at least four characteristics of virus-host relationships including the level of exhaled virus, infectious particle size, mucosal inflammation, and viral replication efficiency in susceptible mucosa