The Enlargement of the European Union and the Redistribution of Seigniorage Wealth

In the course of the EU enlargement process, the participation of accession countries in the European Monetary Union might lead to a significant redistribution of seigniorage wealth if current regulations prevail. In general, accession countries will be winners from this redistribution, for example Poland with 12.9 billion euros, Romania with 9.9 billion euros or Hungary with 3.3 billion euros. Correspondingly, the current member countries of the European Union face costs of 35.3 billion euros in total, the biggest part of which has to be borne by Germany.European Currency Union ; Transition Economies ; European Integration ; Central Banks ; Seigniorage

The Enlargement of the European Union and the Redistribution of Seigniorage Wealth

In the course of the EU enlargement process, the participation of accession countries in the European Monetary Union might lead to a significant redistribution of seigniorage wealth if current regulations prevail. In general, accession countries will be winners from this redistribution, for example Poland with 12.9 billion euros, Romania with 9.9 billion euros or Hungary with 3.3 billion euros. Correspondingly, the current member countries of the European Union face costs of 35.3 billion euros in total, the biggest part of which has to be borne by Germany.European Currency Union, transition economies, European integration, central banks, seigniorage

On the path of time: Temporal motion in typological perspective

The Moving Ego and Moving Time metaphors have provided a fertile testing ground for the psychological reality of space–time metaphors. Despite this, little research has targeted the linguistic patterns used in these two mappings. To fill that gap, the current study uses corpus data to examine the use of motion verbs in two typologically different languages, English and Spanish. We first investigated the relative frequency of the two metaphors. Whereas we observed no difference in frequency in the Spanish data, our findings indicated that in English, Moving Time expressions are more prevalent than are Moving Ego expressions. Second, we focused on the patterns of use of the verbs themselves, asking whether well-known typological patterns in the expression of spatial motion would carry over to temporal motion. Specifically, we examined the frequencies of temporal uses of path and manner verbs in English and in Spanish. Contra the patterns observed in space, we observed a preference for path verbs in both languages, with this preference more strongly evident in English than in Spanish. In addition, our findings revealed greater use of motion verbs in temporal expressions in Spanish compared to English. These findings begin to outline constraints on the aspects of spatial conceptualization that are likely to be reused in the conceptualization of time

Workfare in Germany and the Problem of Vertical Fiscal Externalities

Social assistance to the poor is increasingly subject to compulsory work requirements in Germany. Municipalities have started to offer temporary employment in their job-creation companies to claimants who are able to work. These claimants earn wages and social insurance contributions if they accept the offer, but lose social assistance if they reject it. Further savings to local funds arise from the fact that when a worker's temporary employment ends, he or she is entitled to federal unemployment benefits which involve no costs for the municipality. The paper analyses this vertical fiscal externality and shows that in the long run, municipalities tend to employ a suboptimal number of welfare recipients in their companies.Social assistance, unemployment insurance, fiscal federalism

What do cells actually want?

Genome-scale models require an objective function representing what an organism strives for. A method has been developed to infer this fundamental biological function from data.Please see related Research article: www.dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13059-016-0968-2

Extraordinary exciton conductance induced by strong coupling

We demonstrate that exciton conductance in organic materials can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude when the molecules are strongly coupled to an electromagnetic mode. Using a 1D model system, we show how the formation of a collective polaritonic mode allows excitons to bypass the disordered array of molecules and jump directly from one end of the structure to the other. This finding could have important implications in the fields of exciton transistors, heat transport, photosynthesis, and biological systems in which exciton transport plays a key role.Comment: Main text: 5 pages, 4 figures; Supplemental: 2 pages, 1 figure. Version 2: Updated reference to related work arXiv:1409.2550. Version 3: Updated to version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Seignorage Wealth in the Eurosystem: Eurowinners and Eurolosers Revisited

The rules laid down in Article 32 of the Protocol No. 18 on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank of the Maastricht Treaty will significantly redistribute European seignorage income and hence the implicit entitlement to the € 352 billion stock of interest bearing assets which the central banks contributed to the currency union as of 1 January 1999. According to current plans, the redistribution will start by 1 January 2002. In terms of wealth equivalents and anticipating the Greek participation, Germany will lose € 30 billion (or 59 billion deutschmarks) and France will gain € 31 billion (or 202 billion French francs). Portugal will gain € 3.9 billion (or 792 billion escudos) and Spain will lose € 11 billion (or 1 879 billion pesetas). In per capita terms, Luxembourg, Finland and France will be the main winners with gains of € 1 309, € 627 and € 527, respectively, whereas a German will lose € 366 and a Spaniard € 287. The paper argues that this redistribution was not intended by the signing parties and recommends a revision of the Maastricht Treaty to correct the mistake.Central banks, European integration, European Monetary Union, seignorage

The accidental redistribution of seignorage wealth in the Eurosystem

Währungsunion, Münzgewinn, EU-Staaten, Monetary union, Seigniorage, EU countries