Investment Bank Welfare?

This study produces calculations of the amount of money being dispersed by the government to the 16 primary dealers and investment banks who qualify to borrow through the special lending facilities created in the last year by the Federal Reserve Board under the assumption that each borrows in proportion to its assets. The study then uses Fed data on the interest rate charged for loans from these lending facilities to calculate the potential subsidy in this lending. The report calls attention to the fact that few details have been given about the specific loan amounts, recipients, or collateral posted

Predicting the Output From a Stochastic Computer Model When a Deterministic Approximation is Available

The analysis of computer models can be aided by the construction of surrogate models, or emulators, that statistically model the numerical computer model. Increasingly, computer models are becoming stochastic, yielding different outputs each time they are run, even if the same input values are used. Stochastic computer models are more difficult to analyse and more difficult to emulate - often requiring substantially more computer model runs to fit. We present a method of using deterministic approximations of the computer model to better construct an emulator. The method is applied to numerous toy examples, as well as an idealistic epidemiology model, and a model from the building performance field

The Potential Revenue from Financial Transactions Taxes

This joint report by CEPR and the Political Economy Research Institute (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) gives an estimate of $177-354 billion in revenue that could be raised by taxing financial transactions in the United States.financial taxes, financial transactions, economic crisis, financial crisis

Bitangents of tropical plane quartic curves

We study smooth tropical plane quartic curves and show that they satisfy certain properties analogous to (but also different from) smooth plane quartics in algebraic geometry. For example, we show that every such curve admits either infinitely many or exactly 7 bitangent lines. We also prove that a smooth tropical plane quartic curve cannot be hyperelliptic.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Minor revisions; accepted for publication in Mathematische Zeitschrif

The Potential Revenue from Financial Transactions Taxes

The economic crisis of the last two years has led to serious concerns about the sharp growth in the federal government’s fiscal deficit as well as the government’s overall debt burden as a share of total U.S. GDP. Many analysts also believe that an excessive share of the economy’s resources is being consumed by the financial sector. A financial transactions or trading tax is a policy tool that can address both issues: raising a substantial amount of revenue and reducing the size of financial trading in the U.S. economy relative to the economy’s level of productive activity. This paper calculates the revenue potential from a set of financial trading taxes. It updates an earlier set of calculations, using a similar methodology.

Lipopolysaccharide is a frequent contaminant of plasmid DNA preparations and can be toxic to primary cells in the presence of adenovirus

Endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) is commonly found as a contaminant in plasmid DNA preparations. We demonstrate here that the quantities of LPS typically contaminating DNA preparations can generate a toxicity to primary cells (primary human skin fibroblasts, primary human melanoma cells) in the presence of entry-competent adenovirus particles. Toxicity can be observed with as little as 100 ng/ml free LPS or 100 pg/ml LPS when the LPS is assembled into polylysine/adenovirus complexes. Simple and effective methods of removing the contaminating LPS using either a polymyxin B resin or Triton X-114 extraction are described. Treatment of DNA samples to remove LPS eliminates the toxicity to primary cells

Response Patterns: Effect of Day of Receipt of an E-Mailed Survey Instrument on Response Rate, Response Time, and Response Quality

Are you seeking ways to improve response to e-mailed survey instruments? We examined effects of day of receipt of an e-mailed survey instrument on 1) response rate, 2) length of time lapsed in responding, and 3) quality of response. No significant differences were explained by day of receipt of an e-mailed survey instrument on response rate, response time, or response quality. Two recommendations evolved: 1) use a complement of best practices, including advanced notice and multiple follow-up to increase participation of potential nonrespondents, and 2) understand the audience\u27s preferred modality, organizational values, communication patterns, and medium to elicit information