Real Exchange Rates, Preferences, and Incomplete Markets: Evidence, 1961-2001

Many international macroeconomic models link the real exchange rate to a ratio of marginal utilities. We examine this link empirically, allowing the marginal utility of consumption to depend on government expenditure, real money balances, or external habit. We also consider two environments with incomplete asset markets; one with exogenously missing markets but an endogenous discount rate that anchors the distribution of wealth and one with endogenous market segmentation. Although none of these satisfies theoretical and over-identifying restrictions for every country, utility with external habit persistence provides the best match with real exchange rates for OECD countries between 1961 and 2001.real exchange rate, consumption, marginal utility

The CCAPM meets euro-interest rate persistence, 1960-2000

Euro-interest rates are well-known to be persistent, as are their differentials across countries for a given maturity. The international CCAPM implies that the rates are persistent because forecasts of national consumption growth or inflation are persistent too. We examine this prediction for a panel of countries. The standard CCAPM with power utility is augmented to allow for external habit, government consumption, and adaptive learning. In all cases, we find little evidence that the persistence in Euro-rates is consistent with the CCAPM

Real exchange rates, preferences, and incomplete markets: Evidence, 1961-2001

Many international macroeconomic models link the real exchange rate to a ratio of marginal utilities. We examine this link empirically, allowing the marginal utility of consumption to depend on government expenditure, real money balances, or external habit. We also consider two environments with incomplete asset markets; one with exogenously missing markets but an endogenous discount rate that anchors the distribution of wealth and one with endogenous market segmentation. Although none of these satisfies theoretical and over-identifying restrictions for every country, utility with external habit persistence provides the best match with real exchange rates for OECD countries between 1961 and 2001

Transcriptomes of parents identify parenting strategies and sexual conflict in a subsocial beetle

This work was funded by UK NERC grants to M.G.R. and A.J.M. an NERC studentship to D.J.P. the University of Georgia and a US NSF grant to A.J.M. and M.G.R.Parenting in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides is complex and, unusually, the sex and number of parents that can be present is flexible. Such flexibility is expected to involve specialized behaviour by the two sexes under biparental conditions. Here, we show that offspring fare equally well regardless of the sex or number of parents present. Comparing transcriptomes, we find a largely overlapping set of differentially expressed genes in both uniparental and biparental females and in uniparental males including vitellogenin, associated with reproduction, and takeout, influencing sex-specific mating and feeding behaviour. Gene expression in biparental males is similar to that in non-caring states. Thus, being ‘biparental’ in N. vespilloides describes the family social organization rather than the number of directly parenting individuals. There was no specialization; instead, in biparental families, direct male parental care appears to be limited with female behaviour unchanged. This should lead to strong sexual conflict.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Representability problems for coarse-grained water potentials

The use of an effective intermolecular potential often involves a compromise between more accurate, complex functional forms and more tractable simple representations. To study this choice in detail, we systematically derive coarse-grained isotropic pair potentials that accurately reproduce the oxygen-oxygen radial distribution function of the TIP4P-Ew water model at state points over density ranges from 0.88-1.30g/cc and temperature ranges from 235K-310K. Although by construction these effective potentials correctly represent the isothermal compressibility of TIP4P-Ew water, they do not accurately resolve other thermodynamic properties such as the virial pressure, the internal energy or thermodynamic anomalies. Because at a given state point the pair potential that reproduces the pair structure is unique, we have therefore explicitly demonstrated that it is impossible to simultaneously represent the pair-structure and several key equilibrium thermodynamic properties of water with state-point dependent radially symmetric pair potentials. We argue that such representability problems are related to, but different from, more widely acknowledged transferability problems, and discuss in detail the implications this has for the modeling of water and other liquids by coarse-grained potentials. Nevertheless, regardless of thermodynamic inconsistencies, the state-point dependent effective potentials for water do generate structural and dynamical anomalies.Comment: 22 page

Sensitivity of the stress response function to packing preparation

A granular assembly composed of a collection of identical grains may pack under different microscopic configurations with microscopic features that are sensitive to the preparation history. A given configuration may also change in response to external actions such as compression, shearing etc. We show using a mechanical response function method developed experimentally and numerically, that the macroscopic stress profiles are strongly dependent on these preparation procedures. These results were obtained for both two and three dimensions. The method reveals that, under a given preparation history, the macroscopic symmetries of the granular material is affected and in most cases significant departures from isotropy should be observed. This suggests a new path toward a non-intrusive test of granular material constitutive properties.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, some numerical data corrected, to appear in J. Phys. Cond. Mat. special issue on Granular Materials (M. Nicodemi Editor

Liquid State Anomalies for the Stell-Hemmer Core-Softened Potential

We study the Stell-Hemmer potential using both analytic (exact $1d$ and approximate $2d$) solutions and numerical $2d$ simulations. We observe in the liquid phase an anomalous decrease in specific volume and isothermal compressibility upon heating, and an anomalous increase in the diffusion coefficient with pressure. We relate the anomalies to the existence of two different local structures in the liquid phase. Our results are consistent with the possibility of a low temperature/high pressure liquid-liquid phase transition.Comment: 4 pages in one gzipped ps file including 11 figures; One RevTex and 11 gzipped eps figure

Effect of simplicity and attractiveness on route selection for different journey types

This study investigated the effects of six attributes, associated with simplicity or attractiveness, on route preference for three pedestrian journey types (everyday, leisure and tourist). Using stated choice preference experiments with computer generated scenes, participants were asked to choose one of a pair of routes showing either two levels of the same attribute (experiment 1) or different attributes (experiment 2). Contrary to predictions, vegetation was the most influential for both everyday and leisure journeys, and land use ranked much lower than expected in both cases. Turns ranked higher than decision points for everyday journeys as predicted, but the positions of both were lowered by initially unranked attributes. As anticipated, points of interest were most important for tourist trips, with the initially unranked attributes having less influence. This is the first time so many attributes have been compared directly, providing new information about the importance of the attributes for different journeys. © 2014 Springer International Publishing

Invasive pleural malignant mesothelioma with rib destruction and concurrent osteosarcoma in a dog

A 7-year-old Dachshund was clinically examined because of a 10-day history of lameness in the left hind limb. On the basis of radiological and cytological findings, an osteosarcoma of the left acetabular region was suspected. The dog underwent a hemipelvectomy and osteosarcoma was diagnosed by subsequent histopathological examination. An immovable subcutaneous mass was noted on the left chest wall during the physical examination and non-septic neutrophilic inflammation was diagnosed by cytology. Forty days later, the dog showed signs of respiratory distress with an in-diameter increase of the subcutaneous mass up to 4 cm. Thoracic radiography and ultrasonography revealed pleural effusion and a lytic process in the fourth left rib. Furthermore, ultrasound examination revealed a mixed echogenic mobile structure with a diameter of around 2 cm floating within the pleural fluid of the left hemithorax close to the pericardium. The dog underwent surgery for an en bloc resection of the subcutaneous mass together with the fourth rib and the parietal pleura. Moreover, the left altered lung lobe, corresponding to the mobile structure detected by ultrasound, was removed. Based on cytological, histopathological, and immunohistochemical examinations, an invasive epithelioid pleural malignant mesothelioma was diagnosed