On the Stability of the Excess Sensitivity of Aggregate Consumption Growth in the USA

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerdie Everaert ◽  
Lorenzo Pozzi ◽  
Ruben Schoonackers
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Till D. Frank

As of December 2020, since the beginning of the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed worldwide more than 1 million lives and has changed human life in unprecedented ways. Despite the fact that the pandemic is far from over, several countries managed at least temporarily to make their first-wave COVID-19 epidemics to subside to relatively low levels. Combining an epidemiological compartment model and a stability analysis as used in nonlinear physics and synergetics, it is shown how the first-wave epidemics in the state of New York and nationwide in the USA developed through three stages during the first half of the year 2020. These three stages are the outbreak stage, the linear stage, and the subsiding stage. Evidence is given that the COVID-19 outbreaks in these two regions were due to instabilities of the COVID-19 free states of the corresponding infection dynamical systems. It is shown that from stage 1 to stage 3, these instabilities were removed, presumably due to intervention measures, in the sense that the COVID-19 free states were stabilized in the months of May and June in both regions. In this context, stability parameters and key directions are identified that characterize the infection dynamics in the outbreak and subsiding stages. Importantly, it is shown that the directions in combination with the sign-switching of the stability parameters can explain the observed rise and decay of the epidemics in the state of New York and the USA. The nonlinear physics perspective provides a framework to obtain insights into the nature of the COVID-19 dynamics during outbreak and subsiding stages and allows to discuss possible impacts of intervention measures. For example, the directions can be used to determine how different populations (e.g., exposed versus symptomatic individuals) vary in size relative to each other during the course of an epidemic. Moreover, the timeline of the computationally obtained stages can be compared with the history of the implementation of intervention measures to discuss the effectivity of such measures.


Rusin ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 132-148
Author(s):  
K. V. Shevchenko ◽  

The article analyzes the publications of a leading Rusin periodical in North America, Amerikansky russky viestnik, which during the interwar period was the official bulletin of the Greek Catholic Union of Rusin Brotherhoods based in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In its numerous publications, Amerikansky russky viestnik paid great attention to the genesis and further development of the Ukrainian movement and to different aspects of Czechoslovak policy towards Rusin population in Subcarpathian Rus and Eastern Slovakia. In particular, Amerikansky russky viestnik voiced criticism about different aspects of the Ukrainian movement emphasizing its totally artificial character, anti- Slavic and anti-Russian orientation as well as its total dependence on German and Austrian politics during the First World War. As Amerikansky russky viestnik pointed out, the Ukrainian movement played a role of a mere tool of the German anti-Slavic policy in Central Europe. As far as the Rusin politics of interwar Czechoslovakia is concerned, Amerikansky russky viestnik and other Rusin periodicals in the USA criticized the Czechoslovak authorities for their wide-scale and generous support of the Ukrainian movement in the Carpathian region pointing out that such attitude might endanger the stability of Czechoslovak state in future. Apart from that, Amerikansky russky viestnik was extremely critical of the language, educational, and cultural policy of Czechoslovak government, which supported the policy of the “soft ukrainization” of the indigenous Rusin population in the south of the Carpathian region. The American newspaper voiced concerns about the absence of the true autonomy of Subcarpathian Rus within Czechoslovakia, which violated international treaties and Czechoslovak Constitution.


1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
T R Smith

An important problem of general interest concerns the aggregate response of a system to increasing density (or decreasing effective distance between units). An analysis is made for a system in which the individual responses to changing density are smooth. The analysis is presented in terms of the ‘overbanked’ situation of the USA in the 1920s. Models are derived from micro-economic principles concerning the interaction of two banks in competition for deposits as road transportation decreases in relative cost. The conclusion drawn from analysis of the models is that aggregate deposits may increase in a smooth or in a discontinuous (jump) fashion, the jump depending on the nature of an individual banker's response function and occurring despite smooth individual responses. In the case where the system is always in equilibrium, the jump may be a catastrophe in the sense described by Thorn. The analysis indicates that improvements in road transportation may have significantly reduced the stability of the banking system to a point of catastrophic collapse (as well as, for example, overzealous chartering by the authorities). The analysis should have application to many other situations in which decreasing effective distance is an important fact.


Author(s):  
Nataliia S. Latypova

Certainty in law is a category that is ambiguously perceived by the scientific legal community. We make an attempt to analyze the meaning and role of the category of certainty in the process of creating a stable legal system with historical continuity. On the example of the US and France legislation, we give polar examples of the implementation of certainty of lawprinciple. We conclude about the undoubted usefulness and necessity of preserving this principle in the Russian legal system. However, a study of the French experience of legal regulation has shown that the desire for certainty, achieved through an overly detailed regulation of public relations, only cre-ates additional problems of interpretation and law enforcement, strengthening legal nihilism and citizens' distrust of law. At the same time, the American model, implying some uncertainty of law, has shown its effectiveness in its historical example. The ambiguity and framework nature of the American Constitution and basic federal laws makes it possible to interpret and concretize their provisions in judicial precedents in different ways, depending on the era and socio-political situation, which contributes to the flexibility and stability of the US legal system. In conclusion, it is noted that domestic legislators need to strive for a gradual transition to the American model of implementing the principle of certainty of law, while providing for detailed regulation of public relations at the level of bylaws. Such an approach will preserve the historical continuity and existence of basic normative acts for several decades, preserve the stability and predictability of legal regulation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332110185
Author(s):  
Francesco Bailo ◽  
Benjamin E Goldsmith

This article contributes to both the theoretical elaboration and empirical testing of the ‘stability–instability paradox’, the proposition that while nuclear weapons deter nuclear war, they also increase conventional conflict among nuclear-armed states. Some recent research has found support for the paradox, but quantitative studies tend to pool all international dyads while qualitative and theoretical studies focus almost exclusively on the USA–USSR and India–Pakistan dyads. This article argues that existing empirical tests lack clearly relevant counterfactual cases, and are vulnerable to a number of inferential problems, including selection on the dependent variable, unintentionally biased inference, and extrapolation from irrelevant cases. The limited evidentiary base coincides with a lack of consideration of the theoretical conditions under which the paradox might apply. To address these issues this article theorizes some scope conditions for the paradox. It then applies synthetic control, a quantitative method for valid comparison when appropriate counterfactual cases are lacking, to model international conflict between India–Pakistan, China–India, and North Korea–USA, before and after nuclearization. The article finds only limited support for the paradox when considered as a general theory, or within the theorized scope conditions based on the balance of resolve and power within each dyad.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (85) ◽  
pp. 64-88
Author(s):  
Janez Juvan

Abstract The article presents research on the international community’s engagement in the countries of the Western Balkans in the past and their possible approach in the future. The focus of our research is on the functioning of mechanisms through which the international community performs certain tasks in the region. These interventions are primarily political, in the form of conferences, political programmes, consultations, pressures and continuous persuasion. Economic initiatives follow afterwards. By using different reform approaches, international institutions try to improve cooperation with the European Union (EU) and countries such as the USA, Russia, Turkey and China. Our research attempts to identify possible methods and new solutions for individual cases of conflict in Western Balkans countries, especially where the international community is actively involved. On this basis, we created a more holistic approach. The application of these measures could make the necessary reforms of the future easier. Our approach emphasises all the elements of security that are essential to the stability of the region and for the prevention of conflicts in the future.


Author(s):  
Adam Petrie ◽  
Xiaopeng Zhao

The stability of a dynamical system can be indicated by eigenvalues of its underlying mathematical model. However, eigenvalue analysis of a complicated system (e.g. the heart) may be extremely difficult because full models may be intractable or unavailable. We develop data-driven statistical techniques, which are independent of any underlying dynamical model, that use principal components and maximum-likelihood methods to estimate the dominant eigenvalues and their standard errors from the time series of one or a few measurable quantities, e.g. transmembrane voltages in cardiac experiments. The techniques are applied to predicting cardiac alternans that is characterized by an eigenvalue approaching −1. Cardiac alternans signals a vulnerability to ventricular fibrillation, the leading cause of death in the USA.


FEDS Notes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (2127) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Feiveson ◽  
◽  
Alvaro Mezza ◽  
Kamila Sommer ◽  
◽  
...  

Subject West Africa cocoa outlook. Significance Strong demand for chocolate is helping to lessen the global cocoa supply glut. This could underpin a more stable recovery in prices amid bumper crops in the world’s top two cocoa growers, the Ivory Coast and Ghana. On the supply side, efforts to reduce production will likely face headwinds over practical fiscal and livelihoods considerations. Impacts The stability of global consumption growth may be clouded by one-off domestic factors driving growth in some countries. Output restrictions in Ivory Coast and Ghana may be undermined if planned Nigerian and Cameroonian increases of cocoa materialise. Quality issues will be a natural hedge against smuggling in Nigeria and Cameroon where beans are sold at a discount.


1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 902-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Baxter ◽  
Urban J Jermann

Empirical research on the permanent-income hypothesis (PIH) has found that consumption growth is excessively sensitive to predictable changes in income. This finding is interpreted as strong evidence against the PIH. We propose an explanation for apparent excess sensitivity that is based on a quantitative equilibrium model of household production in which permanent-income consumers respond to shifts in sectoral wages and prices by substituting work effort and consumption across home and market sectors. Although the PIH is true, this mechanism generates apparent excess sensitivity because market consumption responds to predictable income growth. (JEL D13, E10, E21).


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