Has the Euro-Mediterranean partnership affected Mediterranean business cycles?

We date turning points of the reference cycle for 19 Mediterranean countries and analyze their structure and interdependences. Fluctuations are volatile and not highly correlated across countries; recessions are deep but asynchronous making average output losses in the area limited. Heterogeneities across countries and regions are substantial. Mediterranean cycles are time varying but their evolution is not linked with the Euro-Mediterranean partnership process. The concordance of cyclical fluctuations is poorly related to trade and financial linkages and to their evolution over time.Turning point dates, Reference cycles, Euro-Mediterranean partnership, trade and financial interdependences

Landscape homogenization due to agricultural intensification disrupts the relationship between reproductive success and main prey abundance in an avian predator

Selecting high-quality habitat and the optimal time to reproduce can increase individual fitness and is a strong evolutionary factor shaping animal populations. However, few studies have investigated the interplay between land cover heterogeneity, limitation in food resources, individual quality and spatial variation in fitness parameters. Here, we explore how individuals of different quality respond to possible mismatches between a cue for prey availability (land cover heterogeneity) and the actual fluctuating prey abundance.Peer reviewe

Essays on uncertainty, monetary policy and financial stability

In the first chapter, I examine both theoretically and empirically how income uncertainty affects the effectiveness of monetary policy. I consider income risk from potential unemployment, and find that monetary policy has a smaller influence on aggregate demand when unemployment risk is high. I build on the fact that saving arising from a precautionary motive has a smaller interest elasticity. As a consequence, aggregate demand reacts less to the interest rate when uncertainty is high. The second chapter links the build-up of financial risk that led to the recent financial crisis to the preceding period of exceptionally low macroeconomic volatility. The degree of stability that a country has enjoyed before 2007 predicts robustly how much it suffered from the crisis, a result that also holds for individual firms. In the final chapter, I connect this period of low volatility to the conduct of monetary policy. Building on a stylized model, I show empirically that monetary policy may have been `too successful' in stabilizing inflation, as this has contributed to excessive financial risk taking.En el primer capítol, aquesta Tesi Doctoral estudia com la incertesa en els ingressos afecta l'eficàcia de les polítiques monetàries. Considerant el risc en els ingressos de la desocupació potencial, la investigació conclou que les polítiques monetàries tenen una influència menor en la demanda agregada quan el risc de desocupació és elevat. Parteixo del fet que l’estalvi sorgit de motius preventius té una menor elasticitat respecte el tipus d'interès. Com a conseqüència, la demanda agregada reacciona menys als tipus d’interès quan la incertesa és alta. En el segon capítol s’enllaça el risc financer que va precedir la crisi financera recent amb el període precedent caracteritzat per una volatilitat macroeconòmica baixa. El grau d’estabilitat que un país va gaudir abans del 2007 prediu de forma robusta el grau en què va patir durant la crisi econòmica, un resultat que també es manté quan s’analitzen les empreses. En l’últim capítol de la Tesi, connecto aquest període de volatilitat baixa amb la manera en què s’han desenvolupat les polítiques monetàries. A través d’un model, mostro com les polítiques monetàries han estat massa “exitoses” en estabilitzar la inflació, la qual cosa ha contribuït en una excessiva aversió al risc financer

Data from: The emergence and selection of reputation systems that drive cooperative behaviour

Reputational concerns are believed to play a crucial role in explaining cooperative behaviour among non-kin humans. Individuals cooperate to avoid a negative social image if being branded as defector reduces pay-offs from future interactions. Similarly, individuals sanction defectors to gain a reputation as punisher, prompting future co-players to cooperate. But reputation can only effectively support cooperation if a sufficient number of individuals condition their strategies on their co-players' reputation, and if a sufficient number of group members are willing to record and transmit the relevant information about past actions. Using computer simulations, this paper argues that starting from a pool of non-cooperative individuals, a reputation system based on punishment is likely to emerge and to be the driver of the initial evolution of cooperative behaviour. However, once cooperation is established in a group, it will be sustained mainly through a reputation mechanism based on cooperative actions

Simulation code

Python code (Python 3) used to run all simulations discussed in the paper. The code is fully commented and can be executed as is

Simulation output data

Simulation data using benchmark parameters and from all three scenarios as described in the paper. Contains data for generations 15001-20000 of 20 simulations for each scenario

Has the Euro-Mediterranean partnership affected Mediterranean business cycles?

We date turning points of the reference cycle for 19 Mediterranean countries and analyze their structure and interdependencies. Fluctuations are volatile and not highly correlated across countries; recessions are deep but asynchronous, making average output losses in the area limited. Heterogeneities across countries and regions are substantial. Mediterranean cycles are time varying but their evolution is not linked with the Euro-Mediterranean partnership process. The concordance of cyclical fluctuations is poorly related to trade and financial linkages and to their evolution over time

Has the Euro-Mediterranean partnership affected Mediterranean business cycles?

We date turning points of the reference cycle for 19 countries in the Mediterranean, for selected regions, and for the area. Cycles phases are asymmetric, with expansions lasting, on average, much longer than recessions. Cyclical fluctuations are volatile and not highly correlated across countries. Recessions are not very deep and output losses limited. Heterogeneities across countries and regions are substantial. There are time variations in features of Mediterranean business cycles not clearly linked with the Euro-Mediterranean partnership process. The concordance of cyclical fluctuations in the region is poorly linked to trade as is its evolution over time