"Political Aspects of European Monetary Integration After WW II"

It is nearly impossible to fully understand the developments and problems of European economic and monetary integration without examining its historical and political background. European monetary integration has at times been propelled, at times been hindered by political motives and developments. Political motivations were already of great importance for the first stage of European economic and monetary integration in the framework of the OEEC and the European Payments Union in the forties and fifties. Even more for the creation of the European Communities (ECSC, EURATOM, EEC) in the fifties. However, considerations of national sovereignty and diverse if not conflicting concepts of economic and monetary policy priorities resulted in the virtual exclusion of economic and monetary policies from any serious attempts of coordination and harmonization. The completion of the EEC customs union and the monetary crises in the late sixties led to a major effort in economic and monetary policy integration culminating in the Werner Plan of 1970. The only result of these efforts was the "snake" which, while in the end shrinking to not much more than a DM zone, provided some framework for monetary cooperation. and The economic difficulties of the seventies on a European and global scale but also the desire to boost the political momentum behind European integration led to the EMS. Political considerations played an important role not only in reviving the process toward Economic and Monetary Union which led to the Delors Report but also in the specific design of the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty and in the premature notion of the EMS as a de facto monetary union. Contrary to many expectations, the EMS crises in 1992 and 1993 did not lead to an abandonment of the objectives of the Maastricht Treaty but resulted in efforts - for political as well as economic reasons - to salvage the EMS and to continue with efforts aimed at economic convergence for the core of the EMS countries. Strong adherence to national sovereignty, insufficient economic convergence, and difficulties in agreeing on meaningful elements of political union undermined until now attempts to create EMU. The substitution of national currencies - powerful symbols of national sovereignty and achievements - by an untested European currency requires progress in the mentioned areas

Infrared emission and excitation in LMC HII regions

The infrared excess (IRE) of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) HII nebulae is found to correlate positively with the temperature of the ambient radiation field or with the He(+)/H(+) abundance ratio. This result is discussed in terms of a selective absorption of the photons in the range 504 to 912 A relative to the He ionizing photons. This interpretation may explain the paradox of finding highly excited nebulae with only relatively moderate equivalent width of their Balmer lines

Essays on markets with frictions: applications to the housing, labour and financial markets

The classical treatment of market transactions in economics presumes that buyers and sellers engage in transactions instantly and at no cost. In a series of applications in the housing market, the labour market and the market for corporate bonds, this thesis shows that relaxing this assumption has important implications for Macroeconomics and Finance. The first chapter combines theory and empirical evidence to show that search frictions in the housing market imply a housing liquidity channel of monetary policy transmission. Expansionary monetary policy attracts buyers to the housing market, raising housing liquidity. Higher housing sale rates in turn allow lenders to threaten foreclosure more effectively, because the expected carrying costs on foreclosure inventory are lower. Ex-ante, this makes banks willing to offer larger loans, stimulating aggregate demand. The second chapter uses a heterogeneous firm industry model to explore how the macroeconomic response to a temporary employer payroll tax cut depends on the hiring and firing costs faced by firms. Controversially, the presence of non-convex labour adjustment costs suggests that tax cuts create fewer jobs in recessions. When firms hoard labour during downturns, they do not respond to marginal tax cuts by hiring additional workers. The third chapter develops a theory in which trader career concerns generate an endogenous transaction friction. Traders are reluctant to sell assets below historical purchase price, since realizing a loss signals to the employer that the trader is incompetent. The chapter documents empirically several properties of corporate bond transaction data consistent with this theory of career-concerned traders

Transcriptional Regulation of Nitrogenase and Identification of a Fructose Transport System in Anabaena variabilis

Little is known about the regulation of nitrogenase genes in cyanobacteria. Transcription of the nifH1 and vnfH genes, encoding dinitrogenase reductases for the heterocyst-specific Mo-nitrogenase and the alternative V-nitrogenase, respectively, was studied using a lacZ reporter. Two promoters were found to be responsible for expression of nifHDK; a weak promoter within nifU1 and a strong promoter upstream of nifB (the nifB1 promoter). The region immediately upstream of vnfH did not drive expression of lacZ, however the region that included the promoter for the upstream gene, ava4055 did. Characterization of the previously reported nifH1 and vnfH transcriptional start sites by 5\u27 RACE revealed that these 5\u27 ends resulted from processing of larger transcripts rather than by de-novo transcription initiation. Anabaena variabilis grows heterotrophically using fructose while the close relative Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 does not. Introduction of a cluster of genes encoding a putative ABC-transporter, herein named frtRABC, into Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 on a replicating plasmid allowed that strain to grow in the dark using fructose, indicating that these genes were necessary and sufficient for heterotrophic growth. FrtR, a putative LacI-like regulatory protein, was essential for heterotrophic growth of both cyanobacterial strains. Transcriptional analysis revealed that the transport system was induced by fructose and that in the absence of FrtR, frtA was very highly expressed with or without fructose. In the frtR mutant, high-level expression of the fructose transporter resulted in cells that were extremely sensitive to fructose. A. variabilis grew better with increasing concentrations of fructose up to 50 mM, showing increased cell size and heterocyst frequency. Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 did not show any of these changes when growing with fructose. Thus, although Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 could take up fructose and use it in the dark, fructose did not improve growth in the light

The intelligence reform agenda: what next?

Intelligence is now at the forefront of our national security effort. Recent reforms have delivered more money and more people to the intelligence community but limited structural changes. This Policy Analysis, by Carl Ungerer, offers an assessment of the intelligence reform agenda and proposes some further steps towards restructuring the intelligence community and its activities to meet the national security challenges of the next decade. It argues that reforms to the coordination mechanisms, community engagement, education, training and accountability regimes are necessary to ensure that intelligence continues to play a central role in Australia’s national security