The benefits and costs of adjusting bank capitalisation: evidence from Euro Area countries

El artículo propone un marco para evaluar el impacto de los colchones de capital a nivel de todo el sistema y a nivel bancario. La evaluación se basa en un modelo FAVAR (Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression) que relaciona los ajustes bancarios individuales con la dinámica macroeconómica. El modelo FAVAR se estima individualmente para once economías de la zona del euro y se identifican impactos estructurales, lo que permite diagnosticar las principales vulnerabilidades de los sistemas bancarios nacionales y al mismo tiempo estimar los costes económicos a corto plazo del aumento de capital de los bancos. Sobre esta base, se realiza una evaluación completa de la relación coste-beneficio de un incremento en los colchones de capital. Los beneficios están relacionados con un aumento en la capacidad de resistencia de los bancos a perturbaciones adversas. Una mayor capitalización permite a los bancos hacer frente a impactos negativos y modera la reducción del crédito a economía real que se produce en circunstancias adversas. Los costes se relacionan con pérdidas transitorias de crédito y producción que son evaluadas tanto a nivel agregado como bancario. Se obtiene que un aumento en los ratios de capital tienen un impacto muy diferente en la actividad crediticia y económica, dependiendo de la forma en que los bancos se ajustan, es decir, bien a través de cambios en los activos o en capital.The paper proposes a framework for assessing the impact of system-wide and bank-level capital buffers. The assessment rests on a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model that relates individual bank adjustments to macroeconomic dynamics. We estimate FAVAR models individually for eleven euro area economies and identify structural shocks, which allow us to diagnose key vulnerabilities of national banking systems and estimate short-run economic costs of increasing banks’ capitalisation. On this basis, we run a fullyfledged cost-benefit assessment of an increase in capital buffers. The benefits are related to an increase in bank resilience to adverse shocks. Higher capitalisation allows banks to withstand negative shocks and moderates the reduction of credit to the real economy that ensues in adverse circumstances. The costs relate to transitory credit and output losses that are assessed both on an aggregate and bank level. An increase in capital ratios is shown to have a sharply different impact on credit and economic activity depending on the way banks adjust, i.e. via changes in assets or equity

Is it really advantageous to operate proximal femoral fractures within 48 h from diagnosis? – A multicentric retrospective study exploiting COVID pandemic-related delays in time to surgery

Objectives: Hip fractures in the elderly are common injuries that need timely surgical management. Since the beginning of the pandemic, patients with a proximal femoral fracture (PFF) experienced a delay in time to surgery. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate a possible variation in mortality in patients with PFF when comparing COVID-19 negative versus positive. Methods: This is a multicentric and retrospective study including 3232 patients with PFF who underwent surgical management. The variables taken into account were age, gender, the time elapsed between arrival at the emergency room and intervention, pre-operative American Society of Anesthesiology score, pre-operative cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and 10-day/1-month/6-month mortality. For 2020, we had an additional column, “COVID-19 swab positivity.” Results: COVID-19 infection represents an independent mortality risk factor in patients with PFFs. Despite the delay in time-to-surgery occurring in 2020, no statistically significant variation in terms of mortality was detected. Within our sample, a statistically significant difference was not detected in terms of mortality at 6 months, in patients operated within and beyond 48 h, as well as no difference between those operated within or after 12/24/72 h. The mortality rate among subjects with PFF who tested positive for COVID-19 was statistically significantly higher than in patients with PFF who tested. COVID-19 positivity resulted in an independent factor for mortality after PFF. Conclusion: Despite the most recent literature recommending operating PFF patients as soon as possible, no significant difference in mortality was found among patients operated before or after 48 h from diagnosis

Hellenic Music Education and Practice in Macedonia during the Ottoman Empire

This paper focuses on the study of the original proliferation of western music in the Hellenic population of Macedonia, which took place during the late Ottoman Empire. Greek schools, in which music was taught, are examined from a historical and musical-pedagogical point of view. The proposal also examines the contributions of the Associations and Philharmonic Societies, where various musical groups were operating and, with the help of specialized music instructors, taught their members (adult and minors) music theory and practice. The study involves significant urban centers of Macedonia, in which Hellenic communities developed substantial educational and cultural activities, such as Thessaloniki, Serres, Veria, Monastir, Kozani, Choristi, and Kavala, notwithstanding whether those cities were eventually incorporated into the Hellenic national space or not

Radiation Tolerant Programmable Power Supply for the LHC Beam Screen Heaters

For the next LHC run, it is required to install 200 W ofheating capacity per LHC beam screen heater to regenerate the beamscreen by desorption of gas trapped on its walls. In the LHC, thereare 272 beam screen heaters and the associated electronics limitpresently the heating capacity to 25 W. Those electronics are, forthe most part, installed inside the LHC tunnel and exposed to itsradiation environment.This paper describes the development of a new programmable powersupply card that will be integrated into the existing LHC radiationtolerant electronic infrastructure used by the cryogenicsystem. Radiation tests were undertaken to qualify a power switchcapable of coping with the 230 Vrms grid voltage and an analogsignal multiplexer; these components are required respectively forsatisfying the higher power requirements and for reducing theoverall cost by using a single analog to digital converter to sampleall the signals