Macroeconomic Fluctuations, Inequality, and Human Development

This paper examines the two-way relationship between inequality and economic fluctuations, and the implications for human development. For years, the dominant paradigm in macroeconomics, which assumed that income distribution did not matter, at least for macroeconomic behavior, ignored inequality--both its role in causing crises and the effect of fluctuations in general, and crises in particular, on inequality. But the most recent financial crisis has shown the errors in this thinking, and these views are finally beginning to be questioned. Economists who had looked at the average equity of a homeowner--ignoring the distribution--felt comfortable that the economy could easily withstand a large fall in housing prices. When such a fall occurred, however, it had disastrous effects, because a large fraction of homeowners owed more on their homes than the value of the home, leading to waves of foreclosure and economic stress. Policy-makers and economists alike have begun to take note: inequality can contribute to volatility and the creation of crises, and volatility can contribute to inequality. Here, we explore the variety of channels through which inequality affects fluctuations and fluctuations affect inequality, and explore how some of the changes in our economy may have contributed to increased inequality and volatility both directly and indirectly. After describing the two-way relationship, the paper discusses hysteresis--the fact that the consequences of an economic downturn can be long-lived. Then, it examines how policy can either mitigate or exacerbate the inequality consequences of economic downturns, and shows how well-intentioned policies can sometimes be counterproductive. Finally, it links these issues to human development, especially in developing countries

Fast Low-to-High Confinement Mode Bifurcation Dynamics in a Tokamak Edge Plasma Gyrokinetic Simulation

Transport barrier formation and its relation to sheared flows in fluids and plasmas are of fundamental interest in various natural and laboratory observations and of critical importance in achieving an economical energy production in a magnetic fusion device. Here we report the first observation of an edge transport barrier formation event in an electrostatic gyrokinetic simulation carried out in a realistic diverted tokamak edge geometry under strong forcing by a high rate of heat deposition. The results show that turbulent Reynolds-stress-driven sheared E×B flows act in concert with neoclassical orbit loss to quench turbulent transport and form a transport barrier just inside the last closed magnetic flux surface

Simultaneous observations of the cusp with IMAGE Low Energy Neutral Atom Imager and SuperDARN radar

The Low Energy Neutral Atom (LENA) imager on the IMAGE spacecraft observed significant emission in the high-latitude magnetosheath direction during an extreme solar wind condition on April 11, 2001. The emission was modulated in such a manner that the sources shifted equatorward in the high-latitude sheath while sometimes undergoing brief poleward returns. This modulation and the IMF BZ tend to have correlative variations. During this interval of interest, SuperDARN was receiving strong backscattered signals from large potions of the dayside ionosphere. This observation indicates that the equatorward motion of the cusp latitude consists of rapid and slow phases. This kind of equatorward shift appears to correlate with the motion of the emission observed by LENA in the direction of the high-latitude sheath, which gives evidence for a means for monitoring the high-altitude cusp using IMAGE/LENA. It thus appears that the two remote sensing observations, i.e., IMAGE/LENA and SuperDARN radar would provide promising opportunities to understand the detailed dynamics of the polar cusp extending from the low-altitudes to the high-altitudes