Profits and balance sheet developments at U.S. commercial banks in 2004

U.S. commercial banks continued to be highly profitable in 2004. Return on assets and return on equity declined moderately, but the economy's continued expansion and supportive financial conditions helped keep bank profits in the elevated range that has prevailed since the mid-1990s. Profits were trimmed a bit by a narrowing of banks' net interest margins as the yield curve flattened and competition put pressure on loan spreads. In addition, gains in non-interest income were less pronounced than in 2003, and non-interest expenses increased. However, the continued improvement in the overall credit quality of business and household loans allowed banks to reduce their provisioning for loan and lease losses, and delinquency and charge-off rates for all loan categories trended down. Bank balance sheets also expanded. A robust housing sector and generally low interest rates supported residential mortgage lending, and increases in demand along with an easing of lending standards and terms throughout the year boosted commercial and industrial loans. Banks also reported easing their standards and terms on commercial real estate loans, and such loans increased despite soft conditions in some markets. Still-low interest rates supported the continued growth of core deposits, but the greater rise in bank assets required banks to rely more heavily on managed liabilities, which rose strongly last year.Banks and banking ; Bank profits ; Bank assets

External Constraints on Monetary Policy and the Financial Accelerator

We develop a small open economy macroeconomic model where financial conditions influence aggregate behavior. We use this model to explore the connection between the exchange rate regime and financial distress. We show that fixed exchange rates exacerbate financial crises by tieing the hands of the monetary authorities. We then investigate the quantitative significance by first calibrating the model to Korean data and then showing that it does a reasonably good job of matching the Korean experience during its recent financial crisis. In particular, the model accounts well for the sharp increase in lending rates and the large drop in output, investment and productivity during the 1997-1998 episode. We then perform some counterfactual exercises to illustrate the quantitative significance of fixed versus floating rates both for macroeconomic performance and for welfare. Overall, these exercises imply that welfare losses following a financial crisis are significantly larger under fixed exchange rates relative to flexible exchange rates.

Political culture in Kirchnerism: Two hypotheses about the politicization

La propuesta de este artículo es analizar los cambios ocurridos en la cultura política en el kirchnerismo, específicamente en términos de la politicidad. Para esto se analizarán las trayectorias organizacionales y los debates generados en el espacio multiorganizacional militante a partir de dos hipótesis. La primera: el kirchnerismo como posibilidad identificatoria; la segunda: la demanda del salto a la política. El argumento central es que en una primera temporalidad (2003-2006) se produjo un proceso de politización manifestado en la emergencia de una nueva generación militante, de discusiones y propuestas por parte de las organizaciones. Este aparejó la formulación de la demanda del salto a la política que implicaba no sólo el otorgamiento de reivindicaciones de inclusión económica, sino fundamentalmente la constitución como sujeto político. Esta por motivos diversos no puedo concretarse, conllevando la dispersión del espacio militante kirchnerista.The purpose of this article is to analyze the changes in the political culture in Kirchnerism, specifically in terms of their politicity. For this organizational trajectories and debates generated in the space multiorganizational militant from two hypotheses are discussed. The first: Kirchnerism as identifying opportunity; the second: demand “leap into politics”. The central argument is that in a first timing (2003-2006) there was a process of politicization manifested in the emergence of a new militant generation of discussions and proposals from organizations. This formulation rigged demand “leap into politics” which involved not only the granting of claims for economic inclusion, but fundamentally the constitution as a political subject. This for various reasons I cannot materialize, leading to the spread of militant Kirchnerist space.Fil: Natalucci, Ana Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales. Instituto de Investigaciones ; Argentin

Metacognition and headache: which Is the role in childhood and adolescence?

Headache, in particular migraine, is one of the most frequent neurological symptoms in children and adolescents and it affects about 60% of children and adolescents all over the world. Headache can affect several areas of child’s functioning, such as school, physical activities, peer, and family relationship. The global and severe burden of this disease requires a multidisciplinary strategy and an effective treatment addressed all of the patient’s needs and based on cutting-edge scientific research. In recent years, research has focused on cognitive factors specifically in functions called metacognitive processes. Metacognition can be defined as the knowledge, beliefs, and cognitive processes involved in monitoring, control, and assessment of cognition. Metacognition seems to be closely related to the ability of theory of mind, the ability to infer, and reason about the mental states of other people in order to predict and explain own behavior. Recent studies found a relationship between metacognitive skills and anxiety, depression, motivation, academic performance, human social interactions, and stress symptoms. This relationship is very interesting for headache treatment, because these factors are the most commonly reported triggers in this disorder and there is a high comorbidity with anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with headache. So, headache and these comorbidities, in particular anxiety and depression, may have in common persistent and maladaptive patterns of thinking which are related to maladaptive metacognitive beliefs. Further research should assess metacognitive processes of children and adolescents with headache in order to increase their ability to control their own cognitive processes and consequently monitor factors which may trigger the attacks

Explicit inflation objectives and macroeconomic outcomes

We find evidence that adopting an explicit inflation objective plays a role in anchoring long-run inflation expectations and in reducing the intrinsic persistence of inflation. For the period 1994-2003, private-sector long-run inflation forecasts exhibit significant correlation with lagged inflation for a number of industrial economies, including the United States. In contrast, this correlation is largely absent for the five countries that maintained explicit inflation objectives over this period, indicating that these central banks have been reasonably successful in delinking expectations from realized inflation. We also show that the null hypothesis of a random walk in core CPI inflation can be clearly rejected for four of these five countries, but not for most of the other industrial countries. Finally, we provide some evidence concerning the initial effects of the adoption of explicit inflation objectives in a number of emerging-market economies. JEL Classification: E31, E52, E58Consensus Forecasts, inflation expectations, inflation persistence

The macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting

Macroeconomics ; Inflation (Finance)