The Media, Risk Assessment and Numbers: They Don\u27t Add Up

Professor Friedman argues that, for risks to be reported accurately, journalism educators must help their students understand science, numbers and statistics

Stabilization of lactate dehydrogenase

Addition of substances such as dimethylsulfoxide, glycerol, and gelatin to aqueous solutions of lactate dehydrogenase maintains enzymes in stable and fully active form when stored at 2 - 6 C

Debt Restructuring

What difference does it make, and for whom, whether the nonperforming debts of emerging market borrowers are restructured? This paper begins by positing a set of counterfactual conditions under which restructuring would not matter, and then shows how several ways in which the actual world of international lending departs from these conditions give both lenders and borrowers ample reason to care whether nonperforming debts are restructured. One implication of the way in which debt restructuring matters is that restructuring should not be too' easy. Further, with a greater frequency of defaults, some credit flows to emerging market countries would not be extended in the first place. An important element driving this line of argument is moral hazard, but (unlike in much of the recent literature of emerging market debt problems) what is central here is not the availability of credit from the IMF or other official lenders but the more fundamental moral hazard inherent in all uncollateralized borrower-lender relationships.

A critical survey of upper-atmosphere density measurements by means of ionization gauges

Critical survey of upper atmosphere density measurements by ionization gauge

New Directions in the Relationship Between Public and Private Debt

Until the 1980s the outstanding indebtedness of government and private-sector borrowers in the United States exhibited sufficient negative covariation that total outstanding debt remained steady relative to nonfinancial economic activity. Three hypotheses -- one based on lenders' behavior, one on borrowers? behavior, and one on credit market institutional arrangements -- provide potential explanations for this phenomenon. Since 1980 the U.S. debt markets have departed from these previously prevailing patterns, however, as both government and private borrowing have risen sharply.

The Greenspan Era: Discretion, Rather Than Rules

What stands out in retrospect about U.S. monetary policy during the Greenspan Era is the ongoing movement away from mechanistic restrictions on the conduct of policy, together with a willingness on occasion to depart even from what more flexible guidelines dictated by contemporary conventional wisdom would imply, in the interest of carrying out the Federal Reserve System%u2019s dual mandate to pursue both stable prices and maximum employment. Part of this change was procedural %u2013 for example, the elimination of money growth targets. The most substantive demonstration of policy flexibility came in the latter half of the 1990s, as unemployment fell below 6% (in 1994), then below 5% (in 1997), and then remained below 5% for more than four years, yet the Federal Reserve did not tighten monetary policy. This policy stance was consistent with a view of the economy, including faster productivity growth and increased exposure to international competition, that Chairman Greenspan had articulated nearly a decade before.