Measuring the diffusion of housing prices across space and over time

How fast and how long (and to what magnitude) does a change in housing prices in one region affect its neighbors? In this paper, I apply a time series technique for measuring impulse response functions from linear projections to a spatial autoregressive model of housing prices. For a dynamic panel of California counties, the data reveal that spatial autocorrelation between regional housing prices is highly persistent over time, lasting up to two and half years. This result, and the econometric techniques employed, should be of interest to not only housing and regional economists, but to a variety of applied econometricians as well.

Credit Cards and Monetary Policy: Are Households still liquidity-constrained?

That the lending channel is alive and well for consumer lending is at first glance a compelling notion given the growth in consumer credit. However, this paper demonstrates with disaggregated monthly and quarterly consumer credit data that households are awash in liquidity. Contrary to assumptions motivating the lending channel, households are not constrained in accessing credit from any lender (or in any form) in response to a monetary shock. The findings of this paper have important implications for research on the monetary transmission mechanism beyond the lending channel and for business cycle research in general.

How the Housing and Financial Wealth Effects have changed over Time

We measure the “evolution” of the housing and financial wealth effects over time by estimating the dynamic responses of consumption to both forms of wealth in the United States over different time periods from 1952 to 2009. To understand how the housing and financial wealth effects have changed over time, we use a combination of recent time series techniques, including system structural break tests and linear projections to estimate impulse response functions over relatively short sub-samples. Our key results are that the housing wealth effect gets larger over time, with the largest effect apparent after 1998; while the financial wealth effect diminishes over the same sub-samples, even over periods that include the equities boom of the 1990s. Our results provide insight into what mechanisms may explain the differing responses of consumption to wealth.

Competing Explanations of U.S. Defense Industry Consolidation in the 1990s and Their Policy Implications

Was the consolidation of defense industry in the 1990s driven by U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) directives, or was it driven instead by the same forces that drove consolidation in many other sectors of the U.S. economy in the 1990s? To better understand the roles of DOD policy and economy-wide forces in shaping the U.S. defense industry, we test for structural breaks in defense industry and spending data and compare our findings to those relating to other sectors and the general economy. We identify structural breaks in the defense-related data in the early 1980s and throughout the 1990s, roughly consistent with changes in the U.S. economy, including broader merger trends. Overall, our results are more consistent with the view that economy-wide factors drove defense industry consolidation, largely independent of the DOD policy changes that occurred early in the 1990s.

Structural Breaks and Consumer Credit: Is Consumption Smoothing Finally a Reality?

Has structural change in consumer credit made consumption smoother? Given recent empirical analysis the consumer's inability to smooth consumption appears as prevalent as ever. In this paper, however, I show that structural change in consumer credit appears to have made consumption smoothing a reality. First, using the statistical methods of Bai and Perron (1998, 2003), I find structural breaks in the series for consumer credit and consumption at various points from 1959 through 2005. Most notably, structural breaks occur in total consumer credit and revolving consumer credit in the 1990s. Based on the break date estimates, I estimate a structural equation of consumption growth in line with previous empirical tests of the permanent income hypothesis. Consumption smoothing is evident in the data after the mid-1980s and into the 2000s. The findings of this paper have important implications for a variety of economic research. The evidence for consumption smoothing bears directly on the efficacy of monetary policy and fiscal policy, as well as on the recent discussion of the decline in macroeconomic volatility since the 1980s.

Effects of Feeding a Novel Alfalfa Leaf Pellet Product (ProLEAF MAX) and Alfalfa Stems (ProFiber Plus) on Performance in the Feedlot and Carcass Quality of Beef Steers

Alfalfa is often included in the diets of beef animals; however, the nutrient content of alfalfa is variable depending on the region in which it is grown, climate, soil, and many other factors. The leaf portion of alfalfa has a less variable nutrient composition than the stem portion of the plant. The variability that is present in the alfalfa plant can make the development of total mixed rations of consistent nutrient content difficult. As such, the purpose of this study was to determine how the inclusion of fractionated alfalfa leaves and alfalfa stems impacts performance and carcass quality of finishing beef steers. Twenty-four steers were allocated to one of three treatments: a control group fed a typical finishing diet with alfalfa as the forage (CON; n = 8), a typical diet that replaced alfalfa with fractionated alfalfa leaf pellets and alfalfa stems (ProLEAF MAX™ + ProFiber Plus™; PLM+PFP; n = 8), or a typical diet that replaced alfalfa with alfalfa stems (PFP; n = 8) for 63 days. Steers were fed individually once daily, weighed every 14 days and ultrasound images were collected every 28 days. At the end of the feeding trial, steers were harvested at a commercial facility and carcass data was obtained. Analysis of dry matter intake demonstrated that steers receiving the PFP and CON diets consumed more feed (P \u3c 0.001) than steers consuming the PLM+PFP diet. Steers receiving the PLM+PFP diet gained less (P \u3c 0.001) weight than the steers receiving the other two dietary treatments. No differences (P \u3e 0.10) in feed efficiency or carcass characteristics were observed. Steers receiving the PFP diet had improved (P = 0.016) cost of gain ($0.93 per kg) when compared with steers receiving PLM+PFP ($1.08 per kg) diet. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the inclusion of PFP in place of alfalfa hay in a finishing diet has the potential to improve cost of gain, without negatively affecting growth, performance, or carcass characteristics of finishing feedlot steers

Nucleation of β-FeSi2 nanostructures at pinned step bunches on the Si(111) surface

This article discusses nucleation of β-FeSi2 nanostructures at pinned step bunches on the Si(111) surface

Co-Targeting PIM Kinase and PI3K/mTOR in NSCLC

PIM kinases are constitutively active proto-oncogenic serine/threonine kinases that play a role in cell cycle progression, metabolism, inflammation and drug resistance. PIM kinases interact with and stabilize p53, c-Myc and parallel signaling pathway PI3K/Akt. This study evaluated PIM kinase expression in NSCLC and in response to PI3K/mTOR inhibition. It investigated a novel preclinical PI3K/mTOR/PIM inhibitor (IBL-301) in vitro and in patient-derived NSCLC tumor tissues. Western blot analysis confirmed PIM1, PIM2 and PIM3 are expressed in NSCLC cell lines and PIM1 is a marker of poor prognosis in patients with NSCLC. IBL-301 decreased PIM1, c-Myc, pBAD and p4EBP1 (Thr37/46) and peIF4B (S406) protein levels in-vitro and MAP kinase, PI3K-Akt and JAK/STAT pathways in tumor tissue explants. IBL-301 significantly decreased secreted pro-inflammatory cytokine MCP-1. Altered mRNA expression, including activated PIM kinase and c-Myc, was identified in Apitolisib resistant cells (H1975GR) by an IL-6/STAT3 pathway array and validated by Western blot. H1975GR cells were more sensitive to IBL-301 than parent cells. A miRNA array identified a dysregulated miRNA signature of PI3K/mTOR drug resistance consisting of regulators of PIM kinase and c-Myc (miR17-5p, miR19b-3p, miR20a-5p, miR15b-5p, miR203a, miR-206). Our data provides a rationale for co-targeting PIM kinase and PI3K-mTOR to improve therapeutic response in NSCLC