The High Sensitivity of Employment to Agency Costs: The Relevance of Wage Rigidity

This paper studies the interaction of financing constraints and labor market imperfections on the labor market and economic activity. My analysis builds on the agency cost framework of Carlstrom and Fuerst [1998. Agency costs and business cycles. Economic Theory, 12(3):583-597]. The aim of this article is to show that financing constraints can substantially amplify and propagate total factor productivity shocks in cyclical labor market dynamics. I find that under the Nash bargaining solution financing constraints increase substantially the volatility of wages, and in turn, amplification for the labor variables falls short of the observed volatilities in the data. Atop of this, the comovement between output and labor share is counterfactual. However, there is substantial scope for any type of wage rigidity and financing constraints to reinforce each other, and to generate the observed volatilities in the labor market, moreover, to produce a wide range of comovements between output and labor share.Credit and search frictions, Labor market, Unemployment

Nature-Inspired Algorithm for Solving NP-Complete Problems

Proceedings of: Second International Workshop on Sustainable Ultrascale Computing Systems (NESUS 2015). Krakow (Poland), September 10-11, 2015.High-Performance Computing has become an essential tool in numerous natural sciences. The modern highperformance computing systems are composed of hundreds of thousands of computational nodes, as well as deep memory hierarchies and complex interconnect topologies. Existing high performance algorithms and tools already require courageous programming and optimization efforts to achieve high efficiency on current supercomputers. On the other hand, these efforts are platform-specific and non-portable. A core challenge while solving NP-complete problems is the need to process these data with highly effective algorithms and tools where the computational costs grow exponentially. This paper investigates the efficiency of Nature-Inspired optimization algorithm for solving NP-complete problems, based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) metaheuristic. Parallel version of the algorithm have been proposed based on the flat parallel programming model with message passing for communication between the computational nodes in the platform and parallel programming model with multithreading for communication between the cores inside the computational node. Parallel communications profiling is made and parallel performance parameters are evaluated on the basis of experimental results.The results reported in this paper are part of the research project, Center of excellence "Supercomputing Applications" - DCVP 02/1, supported by the National Science Fund, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science

Credit Frictions and Labor Market Dynamics

We outline the case for credit frictions and a demand side aspect to labor market fluctuations. To illustrate the above proposition, we present a simple framework to analyze the joint dependence between a labor search problem in the labor market and a costly state verification problem in the credit market in the presence of price rigidities. Credit market imperfections amplify volatility of labor market variables to both supply and demand shocks, but to a much higher extent to demand shocks under rigid prices. The reason is that demand disturbances provide for a strong incentive to demand-constrained firms to adjust production and thereby labor factor

Fiscal policy and financial market imperfections

Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der Fragestellung, ob Fiskalpolitik die Gesamtnachfrage erhöhen kann, wenn eine Reihe von Haushalten und Unternehmen Finanzierungsbeschränkungen unterliegt. Das erste Essay liefert Evidenz zur Größe von Fiskalmultiplikatoren aus der Eurozone und den USA. Das Essay kommt zu dem Schluss, dass es in der Literatur hinreichend Hinweise gibt, dass expansive Fiskalpolitik, insbesondere in Form einer Erhöhung der Staatsausgaben oder in Form gezielter Transfers an liquiditätsbeschränkte Haushalte, die Wirtschaftstätigkeit in einer tiefen Rezession stark stimulieren kann. Das zweite Essay untersucht die Auswirkungen der Fiskalpolitik auf den privaten Konsum in Abhängigkeit vom Stadium des Konjunkturzyklus sowie dem Zustand der öffentlichen Finanzen. Die Untersuchung wird für ein jährliches Panel bestehend aus 16 OECD Ländern für den Zeitraum von 1970-2011 durchgeführt. Die Studie zeigt, dass Liquiditätsbeschränkungen bei den Haushalten die Wirksamkeit der Fiskalpolitik in den betrachteten Regimes verändern. Das dritte Essay geht der Frage nach der Größe des Staatsausgabenmultiplikators in einem DSGE-Modell mit Finanzintermediation nach. Als Hauptergebnis ist herauszustellen, dass der kumulierte Multiplikators einer vorübergehenden Erhöhung der Staatsausgaben in Regimen, in denen sich Banken Finanzierungsbeschränkungen gegenübersehen, größer als eins ist. Im Gegensatz dazu ist der Multiplikator kleiner als eins, wenn die Finanzierungsbeschränkungen gelockert sind. Das vierte Essay beschäftigt sich mit der Interaktion von Finanzierungsbeschränkungen und Arbeitsmarktimperfektionen. In der Modellökonomie wird ein positiver Produktivitätsschock durch endogene Fluktuationen an den Finanzmärkten verstärkt. Das Essay weist nach, dass, wenn Löhne über Nash-Verhandlungen gesetzt werden, ein Produktivitätsschock die Volatilität der Löhne substantiell erhöht.This dissertation asks whether fiscal policy can be effective in boosting aggregate demand when borrowing constraints bind tightly across a wide range of households and firms. The work consists of four essays. The first essay surveys evidence on fiscal multipliers from the Euro area and the United States. From this essay it can be concluded that there is ample evidence in the literature that expansionary fiscal policy, especially in the form of an increase in government purchases or in targeted transfers to liquidity-constrained households, may strongly stimulate economic activity in times of a deep recession. The second essay examines the effects of fiscal policy on private consumption conditional on the phase of the business cycle and the state of the public finances in a yearly panel of 16 OECD countries. The essay demonstrates that binding liquidity constraints on households can alter the efficacy of the policy changes in the four regimes---defined by the conditioning states. The third essay examines the size of the government purchases multiplier in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with financial intermediation. The main result is that the size of the cumulative multipliers of a temporary rise in government purchases is higher than one in regimes when financing constraints on banks bind tightly. In contrast, in times when financing constraints are loose the multipliers are smaller than one. The fourth essay studies the interaction between financing constraints and labor market imperfections and the role of this interaction in the labor market dynamics. In the model economy, a positive productivity shock is amplified through endogenous fluctuations in the financial market. The essay shows that if wages are set via Nash bargaining, the productivity shock increases substantially the volatility of wages

The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Consumption in Good and Bad Times

I examine the effects of fiscal policy actions on private consumption in a yearly panel of sixteen OECD countries conditional on the phase of the business cycle and the state of the public finances. I demonstrate that binding liquidity constraints on households can alter the efficacy of the policy changes in the four regimes—defined by the conditioning states—with expansionary fiscal policy boosting consumption in recessions, having a nil effect on it in normal times or in fiscal stress, and strongly displacing consumption in mixed states when recession and fiscal stress coincide. This happens because the liquidity constrained households consume the additional income generated by an expansionary fiscal policy in recession, and save it in normal times or in fiscal stress when liquidity constraints are not binding. If recession and fiscal stress coincide, fiscal action have an extra distortionary effect on income, and consequently on consumption

The Effects of Discretionary Fiscal Stimulus: A Survey

This paper surveys evidence on fiscal multipliers from the Euro area and the United States obtained by direct, cross-state or economywide measures of the effects of broad-based tax cuts and increases in government purchases. In view of the evidence in the literature I conclude that that fiscal policy may be substantially more effective when the proportion of households and firms that are liquidity constrained is high and when utilization of factors of production is low

The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Consumption in Good and Bad Times

I examine the effects of fiscal policy actions on private consumption in a yearly panel of sixteen OECD countries conditional on the phase of the business cycle and the state of the public finances. I demonstrate that binding liquidity constraints on households can alter the efficacy of the policy changes in the four regimes—defined by the conditioning states—with expansionary fiscal policy boosting consumption in recessions, having a nil effect on it in normal times or in fiscal stress, and strongly displacing consumption in mixed states when recession and fiscal stress coincide. This happens because the liquidity constrained households consume the additional income generated by an expansionary fiscal policy in recession, and save it in normal times or in fiscal stress when liquidity constraints are not binding. If recession and fiscal stress coincide, fiscal action have an extra distortionary effect on income, and consequently on consumption

Modular router architecture for high-performance interconnection networks

Usmjerivači (ruteri) velikog kapaciteta su temeljni moduli mreža za široku međupovezanost sustava u računalnim sustavima velikog kapaciteta. Kolektivnom interakcijom oni osiguravaju pouzdanu komunikaciju između računalnih čvorova i upravljaju komunikacijskim protokom podataka. Postupak razvoja specijalizirane arhitekture usmjerivača vrlo je složen i zahtijeva razmatranje mnogih čimbenika. Arhitektura usmjerivača velikog kapaciteta uvelike ovisi o mehanizmu za reguliranje protoka budući da on upravlja načinom na koji se paketi prenose kroz mrežu. U radu se predlaže nova visoko učinkovita arhitektura usmjerivača "Step-Back-On-Blocking".High performance routers are fundamental building blocks of the system wide interconnection networks for high performance computing systems. Through collective interaction they provide reliable communication between the computing nodes and manage the communicational dataflow. The development process of specialized router architecture has high complexity and it requires many factors to be considered. The architecture of the high-performance routers is highly dependent on the flow control mechanism, as it dictates the way in which the packets are transferred through the network. In this paper novel high-performance "Step-Back-On-Blocking" router architecture has been proposed

Application of dexamethasone as an adjuvant to the local anesthetic in the performance of a US-guided femoral block for postoperative analgesia on patients after total knee joint replacement

Introduction: The article discusses the use of dexamethasone as an adjuvant to local anesthetic solution for ultrasound (US)-guided femoral nerve block in patients after total knee joint replacement. A literature review on the clinical use of other adjuvants is also presented.Design: This was a clinical prospective randomized study.Aim: The aim of this article is to investigate the effect of dexamethasone adjuvant on the local anesthetic solution when performing a US-guided femoral block in patients after total knee joint replacement.Methods: The study included 53 patients, randomized into two groups:  Group 1: single shot femoral nerve block (FNB) + constant infusion through a perineural catheter 15 mL bolus (ropivacaine 0.5%/levobupivacaine 0.375%) with a subsequent infusion of 5-9 mL per hour, including 20 patients; Group 2: single shot FNB  20 mL bolus (ropivacaine 0.5%/levobupivacaine 0.375%) +/- dexamethasone 4 mg, including 33 patients.  In Group 2, 2 subgroups were formed: patients with single shot FNB with chirocain - 10 patients; patients with single shot FNB with ropivacaine - 23 patients. Of these, 15 patients were fasted with single shot FNB  with ropivacaine + dexamethasone 4 mg, and 8 patients with pure ropivacaine.Evaluation of effective control of pain relief symptoms was done on 2nd, 4th, 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 36th hours postoperatively according to the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS).Results: No statistically significant difference in VAS scores was observed between the two groups in the 2nd, 6th, 12th, 18th and 36th hours. Such was found only in the 24th hour. We did not detect statistically significant benefits of this adjuvant. We do not have clinically registered adverse drug reactions (ADRs). We have not established a correlation between these occurrences and the use of dexamethasone.Conclusion: Although our results correspond to those of authors who refute the benefits of dexamethasone as an adjuvant to the peripheral nerve block (PNB), we believe, based on clinical observation data, that it actually attenuated reversible hyperalgesia (patients did not report abruptly, acute, sudden onset of pain), therefore prolongation of the analgesic effect was observed until the 18th, 20th postoperative hour

An abnormally enlarged frontal sinus - a case of pneumosinus dilatans

During routine autopsy of a 62-y-old female cadaver, an unusually enlarged frontal sinus was observed. The sinus was abnormally over-developed in both width and height, as the sinus cavity spreads deeply into the frontal tubera. Numerous septa divided the sinus cavity. Because of the obvious dilation of the frontal sinus and the lack of localized bone destruction and hyperostosis, a rare condition called `pneumosinus dilatans` probably occurs in this interesting case