Monetary policy and cross-border interbank market fragmentation : lessons from the crisis

The paper was based on work written while Jonathan was a doctoral candidate; he gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500148/1] received during this period.We present a two-country model featuring risky lending and cross-border interbank market frictions. We find that (i) the strength of the financial accelerator, when applied to banks operating under uncertainty in an interbank market, will critically depend on the economic and financial structure of the economy; (ii) adverse shocks to the real economy can be the source of banking crisis, causing an increase in interbank funding costs, aggravating the initial shock; and (iii) asset purchases and central bank long-term refinancing operations can be effective substitutes for, or supplements to, conventional monetary policy.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The predictability of monetary policy.

Current best practice in central banking views a high level of monetary policy predictability as desirable. A clear distinction, however, has to be made between short-term and longer-term predictability. While short-term predictability can be narrowly defined as the ability of the public to anticipate monetary policy decisions correctly over short horizons, the broader, ultimately more meaningful concept of longerterm predictability also encompasses the ability of the private sector to understand the monetary policy framework of a central bank, i.e. its objectives and systematic behaviour in reacting to different circumstances and contingencies. In this broader sense, longer-term predictability is also closely related to the credibility of the central bank. This paper reviews the main conceptual issues relating to predictability, both in its short and longer-term dimensions, and discusses how a transparent monetary policy strategy can be – and indeed has been – instrumental in achieving this purpose. This latter aspect is investigated in an overview of the empirical literature, highlighting how financial markets have been increasingly able to correctly anticipate monetary policy decisions for a number of large central banks, including the ECB. The paper also reviews several possible empirical proxies for the less-explored concept of longer-term predictability, which is inherently more diffi cult to measure. JEL Classification: E52, E58, E61.Predictability, central bank transparency, central bank communication.

Fundamental Rights for Primates: Policy Paper by Sentience Politics

Nichtmenschliche Primaten sind hochkomplexe Wesen und besitzen ein fundamentales Interesse daran, zu leben und körperlich und geistig unversehrt zu bleiben. Die bestehenden rechtlichen Bestimmungen in der Schweiz tragen diesen Interessen aber kaum Rechnung, weshalb Primaten des Schutzes durch Grundrechte bedürfen. Um die Forderung nach Grundrechten umzusetzen, wird ein konkreter Vorschlag für eine kantonale Initiative gemacht, die die Verankerung von Grundrechten auf Leben und auf körperliche und geistige Unversehrtheit für nichtmenschliche Primaten auf kantonaler Verfassungsstufe verlangt

Welfare Enhancing Direct Investment

Abstract This paper provides a model to consider the conditions under which an acceptance of foreign direct investment is welfare enhancing in a multi-commodity multi-factor framework. Contrary to the pessimistic conventional wisdom of capital imports and welfare, we provide a justification for the acceptance of foreign capital and the diversification of industrial structure in developing countries. A sufficient condition for an acceptance of foreign capital to be welfare enhancing is that all domestic factors move into the new export sector in equal proportion to the endowments of factors

Enhancing the Translational Capacity of E. coli by Resolving the Codon Bias

Escherichia coli is a well-established and popular host for heterologous expression of proteins. The preference in the choice of synonymous codons (codon bias), however, might differ for the host and the original source of the recombinant protein, constituting a potential bottleneck in production. Codon choice affects the efficiency of translation by a complex and poorly understood mechanism. The availability of certain tRNA species is one of the factors that may curtail the capacity of translation. Here we provide a tRNA-overexpressing strategy that allows the resolution of the codon bias, and boosts the translational capacity of the popular host BL21(DE3) when rare codons are encountered. In the BL21(DE3)-derived strain, called SixPack, copies of the genes corresponding to the six least abundant tRNA species have been assembled in a synthetic fragment and inserted into a rRNA operon. This arrangement, while not interfering with the growth properties of the new strain, allows dynamic control of the transcription of the extra tRNA genes, providing significantly elevated levels of the rare tRNAs in the exponential growth phase. Results from expression assays of a panel of recombinant proteins of diverse origin and codon composition showed that the performance of SixPack surpassed that of the parental BL21(DE3) or a related strain equipped with a rare tRNA-expressing plasmid

Competitiveness and the export performance of the euro area

Chapter 1 provides an overview and assessment of the price competitiveness and export performance of the euro area and the larger euro area countries, as well as an evaluation of how standard equations have been able to explain actual export developments. Chapter 2 carries out a constant market share analysis for the euro area and thereby sheds light on the reasons for movements in aggregate export market shares by looking at the sectoral and geographical composition of euro area exports. Chapter 3 looks at the evolution of the technological competitiveness of the euro area and major competitors – proxied by patenting activity and R&D expenditure – and analyses some structural indicators of competitiveness using survey data. Chapter 4 then looks at the impact of FDI on competitiveness and export performance. Finally, Chapter 5 summarises the main findings of the report, but also critically evaluates their importance and implications.