Fiscal Policy and the Term Premium in Real Interest Rate Differentials

This paper seeks to identify the source of the risk premium in real interest rate differentials across European countries. In particular, we examine the link between real interest rate differentials, existing between various European countries and Germany, and domestic fiscal policy as proxied by the Debt/GDP ratios in these countries. Our results provide strong evidence that this variable exerts a significant influence on the determination of both the level and the volatility of the differential for both long term and short term interest rates. This is a noteworthy result bearing in mind the Maastricht criteria for European Monetary Union and the importance attached to convergence of Debt/GDP ratios.Fiscal policy, interest rate differentials.

Improved Measurement of Inclusive Radiative B-meson decays

We report a fully inclusive measurement of the flavor changing neutral current decay $B\to X_s\gamma$ in the energy range 1.7 \GeV\le E^\mathrm{c.m.s}_\gamma\le 2.8 \GeV, covering 97% of the total spectrum, where c.m.s is the center of mass system. Using 605\ifb of data, we obtain in the rest frame of the $B$-meson ${\mathcal B}(B\to X_s\gamma : E^B_\gamma>1.7 \mathrm{GeV})= (3.31 \pm 0.19 \pm 0.37 \pm 0.01)\times 10^{-4}$, where the errors are statistical, systematic and from the boost correction needed to transform from the rest frame of the $\Upsilon(4S)$ (c.m.s) to that of the $B$-meson, respectively. We also measure the first and second moments of the photon energy spectrum as functions of various energy thresholds, which extend down to 1.7 \GeV. The results are preliminary.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Long distance effects in semi-inclusive B decays

We discuss some issues on factorization of long distance effects for semi-inclusive B decay spectra in full QCD and in the effective theory.Comment: Contribution to the Proceedings of 1st Workshop on Theory, Phenomenology and Experiments in Heavy Flavour Physics, Anacapri, Italy, 29-31 May, 2006, to be published on Nucl. Phys. B Proceeding

Enabling Global Robot Navigation Based on a Cloud Robotics Approach

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Credit risk contagion and systemic risk on networks

This paper proposes a model of the dynamics of credit contagion through non-performing loans on financial networks. Credit risk contagion is modeled in the context of the classical SIS (Susceptibles-Infected-Susceptibles) epidemic processes on networks but with a fundamental novelty. In fact, we assume the presence of two different classes of infected agents, and then we differentiate the dynamics of assets subject to idiosyncratic risk from those affected by systemic risk by adopting a SIIS (Susceptible-Infected1-Infected2-Susceptible) model. In the recent literature in this field, the effect of systemic credit risk on the performance of the financial network is a hot topic. We perform numerical simulations intended to explore the roles played by two different network structures on the long-term behavior of assets affected by systemic risk in order to analyze the effect of the topology of the underlying network structure on the spreading of systemic risk on the structure. Random graphs, i.e., the Erdös-Rényi model, are considered "benchmark" network structures while core-periphery structures are often indicated in the literature as idealized structures, although they are able to capture interesting, specific features of real-world financial networks. Moreover, as a matter of comparison, we also perform numerical experiments on small-world networks.Fil: Dolfin, Marina. University Of Messina. Department of Engineering; ItaliaFil: Knopoff, Damián Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Estudios de Matemática. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Estudios de Matemática; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; ArgentinaFil: Limosani, Michele. University Of Messina. Department Of Economics; ItaliaFil: Xibilia, Maria Gabriella. University Of Messina. Department Of Engineering; Itali