The GALEX Extended Mission: Surveying UV Tracers of the Hidden Side of Galaxy Evolution

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) continues its surveys of the ultraviolet sky. GALEX surveys have supported the following galaxy evolution investigations: calibrating UV as a star formation rate tracer, using wide and deep surveys to measure star formation history, studying the evolution of dust extinction and metallicity, selecting and analyzing galaxies in transitory states, finding local analogs to Lyman Break Galaxies, probing and time-dating star formation in a wide variety of physical regimes. Our continuing mission is focussed on relating star formation history and galaxy evolution paths to the properties of dark matter halos and their assembly history, and on beginning to relate the evolution of galaxies to that of black holes and the intergalactic medium. GALEX has proven that the UV is an ideal band to find and map star formation in low mass, low density objects, and potentially in primordial gas. With future UV missions it may be possible to map emission from the intergalactic and circum-galactic medium, and make a definitive connection between galaxy evolution and the cooling, accretion, heating, and enrichment of gas in the cosmic web

Quenching Star Formation in the Green Valley: The Mass Flux at Intermediate Redshifts

We have obtained several hundred very deep spectra with DEIMOS/Keck in order to estimate the galactic mass flux density at intermediate redshifts (0.6 < z < 0.9) from the ”blue cloud” to the red sequence across the so-called ”green valley”, the intermediate region in the color-magnitude plot between those two populations. We use spectral indices (specifically D_n (4000) and H_(δ,A)) to determine star formation histories. Together with an independent measurement of number density of galaxies in each bin of the color-magnitude plot, one can infer the rate at which galaxies from a given sample are transiting through that bin. Measuring this value for all magnitude values, studies at lower redshift determined that the mass flux density in the green valley is comparable to both the mass build-up rate of the red sequence and the mass loss rate from the blue cloud. We show preliminary results for our intermediate redshift sample

International evidence on sticky consumption growth

We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky-consumption-growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978), and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model. In several countries, the sticky-consumption-growth and Campbell-Mankiw models work about equally well

Dissecting saving dynamics: measuring wealth, precautionary, and credit effects

We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate’s long stability (1960s–1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s–2007), and recent substantial rise (2008–2011) can be interpreted using a parsimonious ‘buffer stock’ model of consumption in the presence of labor income uncertainty and credit constraints. Saving in the model is affected by the gap between ‘target’ and actual wealth, with the target determined by credit conditions and uncertainty. An estimated structural version of the model suggests that increased credit availability accounts for most of the long-term saving decline, while fluctuations in wealth and uncertainty capture the bulk of the business-cycle variation

International Evidence On Sticky Consumption Growth

We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky-consumption-growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978), and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model. In several countries, the sticky-consumption-growth and Campbell-Mankiw models work about equally well.

Semileptonic decays of the Higgs boson at the Tevatron

We examine the prospects for extending the Tevatron reach for a Standard Model Higgs boson by including the semileptonic Higgs boson decays h --> WW --> l nu jj for M_h >~ 2 M_W, and h --> W jj --> l nu jj for M_h <~ 2 M_W, where j is a hadronic jet. We employ a realistic simulation of the signal and backgrounds using the Sherpa Monte Carlo event generator. We find kinematic selections that enhance the signal over the dominant W+jets background. The resulting sensitivity could be an important addition to ongoing searches, especially in the mass range 120 <~ M_h <~ 150 GeV. The techniques described can be extended to Higgs boson searches at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 68 pages, 19 figure

International evidence on sticky consumption growth.

We estimate the degree of ‘stickiness’ in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of auto-correlation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky-consumption-growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978), and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model. In several countries, the sticky-consumption-growth and Campbell–Mankiw models work about equally well. JEL Classification: C6, D9, E2Consumption Dynamics, Habit Formation, Sticky Expectations

International Evidence On Sticky Consumption Growth

We estimate the degree of ‘stickiness’ in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky-consumption-growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978), and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model. In several countries, the sticky-consumption-growth and Campbell-Mankiw models work about equally well.Sticky Expectations, Consumption Dynamics, Habit Formation.

OPEN ACCESS AND MISSING MARKETS IN ARTISANAL FISHING

This paper combines a model of open access fisheries exploitation with a distance-based approach to missing labor and product markets. The model generates predictions about the circumstances under which exploitation increases or decreases with distance. An econometric model is estimated with survey data from artisanal fishing households in Minahasa, Indonesia. The results can be used to assess the impacts of improved transportation infrastructure on fishery exploitation.Marketing,

The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Galaxy Evolution at 0.25 ≤ z ≤ 0.75 Using the Second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey

We study the evolution of galaxy populations around the spectroscopic WiggleZ sample of star-forming galaxies at 0.25 ≤ z ≤ 0.75 using the photometric catalog from the Second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS2). We probe the optical photometric properties of the net excess neighbor galaxies. The key concept is that the marker galaxies and their neighbors are located at the same redshift, providing a sample of galaxies representing a complete census of galaxies in the neighborhood of star-forming galaxies. The results are compared with those using the RCS WiggleZ Spare-Fibre (RCS-WSF) sample as markers, representing galaxies in cluster environments at 0.25 ≤ z ≤ 0.45. By analyzing the stacked color-color properties of the WiggleZ neighbor galaxies, we find that their optical colors are not a strong function of indicators of star-forming activities such as EW([O II]) or Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) near-UV luminosity of the markers. The galaxies around the WiggleZ markers exhibit a bimodal distribution on the color-magnitude diagram, with most of them located in the blue cloud. The optical galaxy luminosity functions (GLFs) of the blue neighbor galaxies have a faint-end slope α of ~ –1.3, similar to that for galaxies in cluster environments drawn from the RCS-WSF sample. The faint-end slope of the GLF for the red neighbors, however, is ~ –0.4, significantly shallower than the ~ –0.7 found for those in cluster environments. This suggests that the buildup of the faint end of the red sequence in cluster environments is in a significantly more advanced stage than that in the star-forming and lower galaxy density WiggleZ neighborhoods. We find that the red galaxy fraction (f_red) around the star-forming WiggleZ galaxies has similar values from z ~ 0.3 to z ~ 0.6 with f_red ~ 0.28, but drops to f_red ~ 0.20 at z gsim 0.7. This change of f_red with redshift suggests that there is either a higher rate of star-forming galaxies entering the luminosity-limited sample at z ≳ 0.7, or a decrease in the quenching rate of star formation at that redshift. Comparing to that in a dense cluster environment, the f_red of the WiggleZ neighbors is both considerably smaller and has a more moderate change with redshift, pointing to the stronger and more prevalent environmental influences on galaxy evolution in high-density regions