Credit Market Distortions, Asset Prices and Monetary Policy

In this paper we develop a sticky price DSGE model to study the role of capital market imperfections for monetary policy implementation. Recent empirical and theoretical studies have stressed the effect of firms’ external finance on their pricing decisions. The so-called cost channel of the transmission mechanism has been explored within New Keynesian frameworks that pose particular emphasis on inflation dynamics. These models generally disregard the role of external …nance for the dynamics of asset prices. We ask whether monetary policy should respond to deviations of asset prices from their frictionless level and, more importantly, if the answer to this question changes when financial frictions are properly taken into account. We analyze these issues from the vantage of equilibrium determinacy and stability under adaptive learning. We show that usual conditions for equilibrium uniqueness and E-stability are significantly altered when the cost channel matters. Nevertheless, we find that responding to actual or expected asset price misalignments helps at restoring determinacy and stability under learning. These conclusions are further enforced in the presence of a high degree of pass-through from policy to bank lending rates

Credit Market Distortions, Asset Prices and Monetary Policy

Abstract: We study the conditions that ensure rational expectations equilibrium (REE) determinacy and expectational stability (E-stability) in a standard sticky-price model augmented with the cost channel. We allow for varying degrees of pass-through of the policy rate to bank-lending rates. Strong cost-side effects heavily constrain the policy rate response to inflation from above, so that inflation tar- geting policies may not be capable of ensuring REE uniqueness. In such cases, it is advisable to combine inflation responses with an appropriate reaction to the output gap and/or firm profitability. The negative reaction of real activity and asset prices to inflationary shocks adds a negative force to inflation responses that counteracts the borrowing cost effect and avoids expectations of higher inflation to become self-fulfilling.Monetary Policy;Cost Channel;Asset Prices;Determinacy;E-stability

Minor salivary gland sialolithiasis: a clinical diagnostic challenge

Sialolithiasis is a non-neoplastic salivary gland disease that rarely affects the minor salivary glands. There are no guidelines in the literature which can suggest which is the best surgical approach to treat Minor Salivary Glands Sialolithiasis (MSGL). The present case was of a 48-year-old male patient complaining of painful swelling localized in the left back-commissural zone which was 0.5 mm in diameter, for which surgical enucleation approach was done and in that some small calcific masses ranging from 0.2 to 4 mm in diameter were found. They were surrounded by granulation tissue and associated with small pus oozing. Histopathological examination was carried out leading to a final diagnosis of MSGL

Replaceable blade turbine and stationary specimen corrosion testing facility

A facility was constructed to provide relatively low cost testing of hot section turbine blade and vane materials under hot corrosion conditions more akin to service environments. The facility consists of a small combustor whose pressurized gas flow can be directed to either a test section consisting of three small cascaded specimens or to a partial admittance single-stage axial flow turbine. The turbine rotor contains 28 replaceable turbine blades. The combustion gases resulting from the burning of Jet A-l fuel can be seeded with measured amounts of alkali salts. This facility is described here along with preliminary corrosion test results obtained during the final checkout of the facility

Rosso, Enrico

Biografia di Enrico Rosso, conte di Aidone, protagonista della vita politica messinese negli anni centrali del XIV secolo. Uomo dal temperamento inquieto, ambiguo e calcolatore, Rosso si ritrov\uf2 a oscillare tra latini e catalani, le due parzialit\ue0 che divisero l'isola, tra fedelt\ue0 e ribellione al potere regio. Sul suo agire pes\uf2 anche l'esclusione dal vicariato collettivo che vide l'affermazione, a partire del 1377, di quattro grandi famiglie baronali.Biography of Enrico Rosso, count of Aidone, protagonist of the political life of Messina in the central years of the fourteenth century. A man of restless, ambiguous and calculating temperament, Rosso found himself swinging between Latins and Catalans, the two partialities that divided the island, between fidelity and rebellion against the royal power. The exclusion from the collective vicariate weighed on his actions

MeV Neutron Production from Thermal Neutron Capture in {6}^Li Simulated with Geant4

Various Li compounds are commonly used at neutron facilities as neutron absorbers. These compounds provide one of the highest ratios of neutron attenuation to $\gamma$-ray production. Unfortunately, the usage of these compounds can also give rise to fast neutron emission with energies up to almost 16 MeV. Historically, some details in this fast neutron production mechanism can be absent from some modeling packages under some optimization scenarios. In this work, we tested Geant4 to assess the performance of this simulation toolkit for the fast neutron generation mechanism. We compare the results of simulations performed with Geant4 to available measurements. The outcome of our study shows that results of the Geant4 simulations are in good agreement with the available measurements for $^6$Li fast neutron production, and suitable for neutron instrument background evaluation at spallation neutron sources.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proceeding of The Sixth European Conference on Neutron Scattering, Zaragoza Spain, August 30 to September 4 201

Prima della riforma ospedaliera. Il sistema assistenziale di Palermo dai Normanni agli Aragonesi (XI-XV secolo)

Il saggio ricostruisce le origini del sistema assistenziale palermitano nei secoli precedenti la riforma ospedaliera quattrocentesca. Attraverso la rilettura di fonti edite e l'utilizzo di documenti inediti, si rivedranno gli assunti di una storiografia erudita spesso non verificata. Seguendo le molteplici fasi vissute dalla città nel corso dei secoli, verranno distinte le realtà caritative legate all'arrivo e allo stabilizzarsi del potere normanno (secoli XI-XII) da quelle successive (secoli XIII-XV), frutto di dinamiche politiche, sociali e culturali del tutto differentiThe essay reconstructs the origins of the Palermo assistance system before the Fifteenth-century hospital reform. Through the rereading of published sources and the use of unpublished documents, we will review the assumptions of an erudite historiography that often has not been verified. By following the multiple phases experienced by the city trough the centuries, we will distinguish the charitable realities linked to the arrival and stabilisation of the Normans in the 11th-12th centuries from the following ones (13th-15th centuries), result of political, social and cultural dynamics, completely different

In-Beam Background Suppression Shield

The long (3ms) proton pulse of the European Spallation Source (ESS) gives rise to unique and potentially high backgrounds for the instrument suite. In such a source an instrument capabilities will be limited by it's Signal to Noise (S/N) ratio. The instruments with a direct view of the moderator, which do not use a bender to help mitigate the fast neutron background, are the most challenging. For these beam lines we propose the innovative shielding of placing blocks of material directly into the guide system, which allow a minimum attenuation of the cold and thermal fluxes relative to the background suppression. This shielding configuration has been worked into a beam line model using Geant4. We study particularly the advantages of single crystal sapphire and silicon blocks .Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, proceeding of NDS 2015, 4th International Workshop on Neutron Delivery Systems, 28 -30 September 2015, ILL Grenoble, Franc

Quantum annealing of the Traveling Salesman Problem

We propose a path-integral Monte Carlo quantum annealing scheme for the symmetric Traveling Salesman Problem, based on a highly constrained Ising-like representation, and we compare its performance against standard thermal Simulated Annealing. The Monte Carlo moves implemented are standard, and consist in restructuring a tour by exchanging two links (2-opt moves). The quantum annealing scheme, even with a drastically simple form of kinetic energy, appears definitely superior to the classical one, when tested on a 1002 city instance of the standard TSPLIB.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Reference-dependent Preferences and the Transmission of Monetary Policy

This paper proposes a novel explanation of the vast empirical evidence showing that output and prices react asymmetrically to monetary policy innovations over contractions and expansions in the business cycle. We use VAR techniques to show that monetary policy exerts stronger e¤ects on the U.S. GDP during contractionary phases, as compared to expansionary ones. As to prices, their response is not statistically different across different cyclical stages. We show that these facts are consistent with a New Neoclassical Synthesis model based on the assumption that households' utility partly depends on deviations of their consumption from a reference level below which aversion to loss is displayed. In line with the theory developed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979), losses in consumption utility loom larger than gains. This implies state-dependent degrees of real rigidity and elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption that generate competing effects on the responses of output and inflation following a monetary innovation. The key predictions of the model are in line with the data. We then explore the state-dependent trade-off between inflation and output stabilization that naturally arises in this context. Greater elasticity of inflation to real activity during expansionary stages of the cycle promotes a stronger degree of policy activism in the response to the expected rate of inflation under discretion, compared to what is otherwise prescribed during contractions.Reference-dependent Preferences;Asymmetry;Monetary policy.