The Pricing of Payments

The pricing of payments has received increasing attention of regulators. In many cases, regulators are concerned that consumers do not face cost based prices. They argue that without cost based prices consumers will make inefficient choices. In this paper, it is argued that both, economics of scale and the particular laws governing pricing in two-sided markets provide a case against cost based pricing.Two-sided markets, interchange fees, surcharging, pricing strategies

Money: A Market Microstructure Approach

The current discussion about the future of the financial system draws heavily on a set of theories known as the ‘New Monetary Economics’. The New Monetary Economics predicts that deregulation and financial innovation will lead to a moneyless world. This paper uses a market microstructure approach to show that a common medium of exchange that serves as unit of account will remain a necessary instrument to reduce transaction costs. This finding is supported by empirical evidence from foreign exchange markets.New monetary economics, monetary separation, market microstructure theory, monetary theory, moneyless world, financial innovation

Money: A Market Microstructure Approach

The current discussion about the future of the financial system draws heavily on a set of theories known as the ‘New Monetary Economics’. The New Monetary Economics predicts that deregulation and financial innovation will lead to a moneyless world. This paper uses a market microstructure approach to show that a common medium of exchange that serves as unit of account will remain a necessary instrument to reduce transaction costs. This finding is supported by empirical evidence from foreign exchange markets

Sezession: Ein gefährliches Spiel

The problem posed by a potential exit from a political union or federation of states is not a new one. In the current crisis the potential exit from a monetary union is particularly relevant. Not long ago, potential exit has been an important topic in Canada. The analyses of the consequences of a potential exit of the province of Quebec can also be applied to the actual crisis of the European Monetary System. The results of the Canadian analyses show that exit involves the risk of major conflicts – even if both sides have strong preferences for a mutual agreement

The Pricing of Payments

The pricing of payments has received increasing attention of regulators. In many cases, regulators are concerned that consumers do not face cost based prices. They argue that without cost based prices consumers will make inefficient choices. In this paper, it is argued that both, economics of scale and the particular laws governing pricing in two-sided markets provide a case against cost based pricing

Extra-Thymic Physiological T Lineage Progenitor Activity Is Exclusively Confined to Cells Expressing either CD127, CD90, or High Levels of CD117

T cell development depends on continuous recruitment of progenitors from bone marrow (BM) to the thymus via peripheral blood. However, both phenotype and functional characteristics of physiological T cell precursors remain ill-defined. Here, we characterized a putative CD135+CD27+ T cell progenitor population, which lacked expression of CD127, CD90, and high levels of CD117 and was therefore termed triple negative precursor (TNP). TNPs were present in both BM and blood and displayed robust T lineage potential, but virtually no myeloid or B lineage potential, in vitro. However, TNPs did not efficiently generate T lineage progeny after intravenous or intrathymic transfer, suggesting that a physiological thymic microenvironment does not optimally support T cell differentiation from TNPs. Thus, we propose that physiological T cell precursors are confined to populations expressing either CD127, CD90, or high levels of CD117 in addition to CD135 and CD27 and that TNPs may have other physiological functions

Paternal chronic colitis causes epigenetic inheritance of susceptibility to colitis.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) arises by unknown environmental triggers in genetically susceptible individuals. Epigenetic regulation of gene expression may integrate internal and external influences and may thereby modulate disease susceptibility. Epigenetic modification may also affect the germ-line and in certain contexts can be inherited to offspring. This study investigates epigenetic alterations consequent to experimental murine colitis induced by dextran sodium sulphate (DSS), and their paternal transmission to offspring. Genome-wide methylome- and transcriptome-profiling of intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) and sperm cells of males of the F0 generation, which received either DSS and consequently developed colitis (F0(DSS)), or non-supplemented tap water (F0(Ctrl)) and hence remained healthy, and of their F1 offspring was performed using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) and RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq), respectively. Offspring of F0(DSS) males exhibited aberrant methylation and expression patterns of multiple genes, including Igf1r and Nr4a2, which are involved in energy metabolism. Importantly, DSS colitis in F0(DSS) mice was associated with decreased body weight at baseline of their F1 offspring, and these F1 mice exhibited increased susceptibility to DSS-induced colitis compared to offspring from F0(Ctrl) males. This study hence demonstrates epigenetic transmissibility of metabolic and inflammatory traits resulting from experimental colitis.This study was carried out as part of the Research Training Group “Genes, Environment and Inflammation”, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (RTG 1743/1) of which A.F. is the spokesperson, the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC Grant agreement no. 260961 (A.K.), the Austrian Science Fund and Ministry of Science P21530-B18 and START Y446-B18 (A.K.), the Wellcome Trust (investigator award 106260/Z/14/Z) to A.K., the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (A.K.), a fellowship from the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (M.T. and T.E.A.) and a DOC fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (J.K.).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep3164

Money: A Market Microstructure Approach

The current discussion about the future of the financial system draws heavily on a set of theories known as the ‘New Monetary Economics’. The New Monetary Economics predicts that deregulation and financial innovation will lead to a moneyless world. This paper uses a market microstructure approach to show that a common medium of exchange that serves as unit of account will remain a necessary instrument to reduce transaction costs. This finding is supported by empirical evidence from foreign exchange markets