Pocket Banks and Out-of-Pocket Losses: Links between Corruption and Contagion

The author describes a model with a corrupt banking system, in which bankers knowingly lend at market interest rates to back projects riskier than the market rate indicates. Faced with early withdrawals, bankers turn to an interbank market, which may be available in an unfettered way, available but subject to screening, or unavailable. The presence of corruption increases the probability of contagious bank failure significantly. This fact holds in a perfect information environment, as well as in some environments with imperfect information. The model suggests that financial stability can be imperilled by corrupt lending.Financial institutions; Financial stability

When Bad Things Happen to Good Banks: Contagious Bank Runs and Currency Crises

The author develops a twin crisis model featuring multiple banks. At each bank, domestic and foreign depositors play a banking game. This game has a run and a no-run equilibrium. Bank failures drain reserves in addition to those drained when foreign agents convert domestic currency to foreign. The fixed exchange rate collapses if a threshold number of banks fail. Agents observe sunspots to aid their equilibrium selection. The numerical solution matches somewhat the Turkish financial sector prior to the crisis of 2001. The Turkish exchange rate appears to have exposed the financial system to a 10 per cent risk of collapse.Exchange rates, Financial institutions

Some results at Baker-Nunn tracking stations

Light curves and exposure data for Baker-Nunn cameras obtained during astronomical photography and satellite trackin

Control of lasing in fully chaotic open microcavities by tailoring the shape factor

We demonstrate experimentally that lasing in a semiconductor microstadium can be optimized by controlling its shape. Under spatially uniform optical pumping, the first lasing mode in a GaAs microstadium with large major-to-minor-axis ratio usually corresponds to a high-quality scar mode consisting of several unstable periodic orbits. Interference of waves propagating along the constituent orbits may minimize light leakage at particular major-to-minor-axis ratio. By making stadium of the optimum shape, we are able to maximize the mode quality factor and align the mode frequency to the peak of the gain spectrum, thus minimizing the lasing threshold. This work opens the door to control chaotic microcavity lasers by tailoring the shape factor

An economic assessment of STOL aircraft potential including terminal area environmental considerations, volume 1

The results of an economic and environmental study of short haul airline systems using short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft are presented. The STOL system characteristics were optimized for maximum patronage at a specified return on investment, while maintaining noise impact compatibility with the terminal area. Supporting studies of aircraft air pollution and hub airport congestion relief were also performed. The STOL concept specified for this study was an Augmentor Wing turbofan aircraft having a field length capability of 2,000 ft. and an effective perceived noise level of 95 EPNdB at 500 ft. sideline distance. An economic and environmental assessment of the defined STOL system and a summary of the methodology, STOL system characteristics and arena characteristics are provided

Multichannel visible spectroscopy diagnostic for particle transport studies in the H-1 heliac

A multichannel spectroscopy diagnostic has been developed to study cross-field particle transport in the radiation-dominated low-temperature plasmas (Te<100 eV) in the H-1 heliac. The optical setup covers the full plasma minor radius in the poloidal plane collecting light from ten parallel chords arranged tangentially to the flux surfaces. The light collected from the plasma is coupled into optical fibers and through interference filters into photomultipliers. Two such ten-fiber arrays are aligned parallel to one another to allow the simultaneous monitoring of two different spectral lines. The net radial electron particle flux is determined from the continuity equation by integrating over the ionization source term in the steady-state partially ionized plasma. The diagnostic measures the neutral line intensities and their ratios (in case of helium using the line ratio technique) and also measures excited neutral and ion spectral lines (in case of the argon plasma transport studies). A comparative analysis of the radial particle transport in the low- and high-confinement regimes is presented