Monetary Policy and the Stock Market: Some International evidence

This paper investigates the impact of monetary policy on stock returns in thirteen OECD countries over the period 1972-2002. Our results indicate that monetary policy shifts significantly affect stock returns, thereby supporting the notion of monetary policy transmission via the stock market. Our contribution with respect to previous work is threefold. First, we show that our findings are robust to various alternative measures of stock returns. Second, our inferences are adjusted for the non-normality exhibited by the stock returns data. Finally, we take into account the increasing co-movement among international stock markets. The sensitivity analysis indicates that the results remain largely unchanged.

Should Monetary Policy Respond to Asset Price Misalignments?

This paper analyses the relationship between monetary policy and asset prices using a structural rational expectations model that allows for the effect of asset prices on aggregate demand. We assume that asset prices follow a partial adjustment mechanism whereas they are positively affected by past changes, thus allowing for ‘momentum trading’, while at the same time we allow for reversion towards fundamentals. We then conduct stochastic simulations using two alternative monetary policy rules, inflation-forecast targeting and the standard Taylor rule. The results indicate that, under both rules, interest rate setting that takes into account asset price misalignments leads to lower overall macroeconomic volatility, as measured by the postulated loss function of the central bank.Monetary policy; Asset prices

On the interaction between asset prices, inflation and interest rates

This thesis examines the interaction between monetary policy, inflation and asset prices. The role of asset prices in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy via consumption wealth effects and investment balance sheet effects is receiving a growing degree of attention nowadays. Financial asset prices respond quickly to new information about monetary policy shifts, while the transmission of policy actions to output and inflation exhibits significant lags. Therefore, it is important to examine the feedback between interest rates and asset prices, since it will provide important insights for central bankers and investors alike. This area of the literature draws from both the monetary economics and financial economics disciplines and has become quite important given the new challenges for monetary policyrnakers in the context of fundamental changes in the underlying financial and macroeconomic framework. In this respect, we are interested in three main issues: first, to investigate the impact of the, nowadays prevalent, inflation targeting monetary policy regime on average inflation and the related inflationary uncertainty (Chapter 2); second, to establish quantitatively the existence of a transmission link from changes in the monetary policy stance to the stock market (Chapter 1); third, to examine the monetary policy reaction to asset price fluctuations (Chapters 3-5). Chapter 2 looks at the significant changes that occurred in the inflation process over the 1990s using British data. We show that post-targeting, inflation is lower, less persistent and less volatile. In chapter 3, we use data from the UK and the US and find that lower expected inflation allows monetary policy to relax by decreasing short-term interest rates. In chapter 1, international evidence suggests that decreases in interest rates exert a significantly positive impact on stock prices in the majority of the countries under investigation. Hence, the empirical evidence in chapters 1-3 is consistent with the scenario underlying the so-called 'new environment' hypothesis. Inflation targets were successful in anchoring inflation expectations and subsequently boosting stock prices due to lower interest rates. In chapters 3-5 we focus on the role of asset prices for monetary policy formulation. We present empirical (chapter 3), theoretical (chapter 4), and simulation n(chapter 5) evidence indicating that monetary policy has responded and should, in principle, respond to asset price fluctuations. Particularly, in chapter 3 we augment the standard forward-looking Taylor rule with the change in asset prices (house prices, stock prices) and find that there is a positive and statistically significant weight attached to asset price fluctuations in both the UK and the US. The estimates suggest that policyrnakers in the US are more concerned about stock market developments, while in the UK about house market developments. In chapter 4, we utilise a structural backward-looking economic model, augmented for the effect of asset prices on aggregate demand, that allows us to derive the optimal interest rate rule via dynamic minimisation of the central bank's loss function. We show that under certain assumptions about the asset price evolution, monetary policy should react to asset price misalignments from their fundamental value. Finally, in chapter 5 we simulate a forward-looking model to examine the impact on macroeconomic volatility from reacting, or not, to asset price misalignments. We find that a policy reaction that is aggressive with respect to inflation, and mild (but not zero) with respect to asset price misalignments is able to promote overall macroeconomic stability.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

RAxML Grove: an empirical phylogenetic tree database

SUMMARY: The assessment of novel phylogenetic models and inference methods is routinely being conducted via experiments on simulated as well as empirical data. When generating synthetic data it is often unclear how to set simulation parameters for the models and generate trees that appropriately reflect empirical model parameter distributions and tree shapes. As a solution, we present and make available a new database called ‘RAxML Grove’ currently comprising more than 60 000 inferred trees and respective model parameter estimates from fully anonymized empirical datasets that were analyzed using RAxML and RAxML-NG on two web servers. We also describe and make available two simple applications of RAxML Grove to exemplify its usage and highlight its utility for designing realistic simulation studies and analyzing empirical model parameter and tree shape distributions. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: RAxML Grove is freely available at https://github.com/angtft/RAxMLGrove. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Joint Compressed Sensing and Manipulation of Wireless Emissions with Intelligent Surfaces

Programmable, intelligent surfaces can manipulate electromagnetic waves impinging upon them, producing arbitrarily shaped reflection, refraction and diffraction, to the benefit of wireless users. Moreover, in their recent form of HyperSurfaces, they have acquired inter-networking capabilities, enabling the Internet of Material Properties with immense potential in wireless communications. However, as with any system with inputs and outputs, accurate sensing of the impinging wave attributes is imperative for programming HyperSurfaces to obtain a required response. Related solutions include field nano-sensors embedded within HyperSurfaces to perform minute measurements over the area of the HyperSurface, as well as external sensing systems. The present work proposes a sensing system that can operate without such additional hardware. The novel scheme programs the HyperSurface to perform compressed sensing of the impinging wave via simple one-antenna power measurements. The HyperSurface can jointly be programmed for both wave sensing and wave manipulation duties at the same time. Evaluation via simulations validates the concept and highlight its promising potential.Comment: Published at IEEE DCOSS 2019 / IoT4.0 workshop (https://www.dcoss.org/workshops.html). Funded by the European Union via the Horizon 2020: Future Emerging Topics - Research and Innovation Action call (FETOPEN-RIA), grant EU736876, project VISORSURF (http://www.visorsurf.eu

Profiling Attitudes for Personalized Information Provision

PAROS is a generic system under design whose goal is to offer personalization, recommendation, and other adaptation services to information providing systems. In its heart lies a rich user model able to capture several diverse aspects of user behavior, interests, preferences, and other attitudes. The user model is instantiated with profiles of users, which are obtained by analyzing and appropriately interpreting potentially arbitrary pieces of user-relevant information coming from diverse sources. These profiles are maintained by the system, updated incrementally as additional data on users becomes available, and used by a variety of information systems to adapt the functionality to the users’ characteristics

Relationship between internal accuracy and load-bearing capacity of minimally invasive lithium disilicate occlusal veneers

Purpose: To test whether internal accuracy affects the load-bearing capacity of 0.5-mm-thick occlusal veneers made out of milled or heat-pressed lithium disilicate (LS2). Materials and methods: Extracted human molars (N = 80) were divided into four groups (n = 20 each) depending on the bonding substrate (enamel [E] or dentin [D]) and the fabrication method (milling [CAD] or heat pressing [PRE]) for the occlusal LS2 veneers: (1) E-CAD, (2) D-CAD, (3) E-PRE, or (4) D-PRE. After restoration fabrication, the abutment teeth and the corresponding restorations were scanned and superimposed in order to measure the marginal and internal accuracy. After adhesive cementation, the specimens were thermomechanically aged and thereafter loaded until fracture. The load-bearing capacities (Fmax) were measured. Fmax and the marginal and internal accuracy between the groups were compared using Kruskal-Wallis test (P < .05) and pairwise group comparisons. In addition, the relationship between Fmax and the internal accuracy was analyzed using Spearman rank correlation. Results: Median Fmax values (and first and third quartiles) per group were as follows: 1,495 N (Q1: 932; Q3: 2'318) for E-CAD; 1,575 N (Q1: 1,314; Q3: 1,668) for E-PRE; 1,856 N (Q1: 1,555; Q3: 2,013) for D-CAD; and 1,877 N (Q1: 1,566; Q3: 2,131) for D-PRE. No statistical difference was found between the groups (P = .0981). Overall, the internal accuracy in the areas of the cusp (P < .0007) and fossa (P < .0001) showed significant differences. While no significant differences were detected in the marginal area (P = .3518), a significant correlation with a negative linear relationship was found between the 3D internal accuracy and the Fmax values (P = .0007). Conclusion: An increase in the internal accuracy raised the load-bearing capacity of minimally invasive LS2 occlusal veneers. In general, the restorations bonded to dentin in the occlusal regions showed a better accuracy compared to those bonded to enamel

Dynamic Programmable Wireless Environment with UAV-mounted Static Metasurfaces

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are artificial planar structures able to offer a unique way of manipulating propagated wireless signals. Commonly composed of a number of reconfigurable passive cell components and basic electronic circuits, RISs can almost freely perform a set of wave modification functionalities, in order to realize programmable wireless environments (PWEs). However, a more energy-efficient way to realize a PWE is through dynamically relocating static metasurfaces that perform a unique functionality. In this paper, we employ a UAV swarm to dynamically deploy a set of lowcost passive metasurfaces that are able to perform only one electromagnetic functionality, but with the benefit of requiring no power. Specifically, the UAV-mounted static metasurfaces are carefully positioned across the sky to create cascaded channels for improved user service and security hardening. The performance evaluation results, based o