The Rise of Digital Money

Author(s):  
Tobias Adrian ◽  
Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli

Payments systems around the world are evolving with the emergence of digital money issued by private firms and central banks. We provide a conceptual framework to compare and contrast traditional forms of money with their new digital equivalents. We suggest that some forms of digital money, while less stable as a store of value, could be rapidly adopted given their advantages as a means of payment. We review the benefits and risks that would emerge. One approach to managing risks would be to require full backing of selected digital money with central bank reserves. We call the arrangement synthetic central bank digital currency (sCBDC), a private-public partnership that combines the advantages of private sector innovation and customer orientation with the safety and stability of central bank–backed money. We offer policy considerations, directions for research, and an overview of the literature to date. The analysis of digital currencies is an exciting new field crossing into monetary and financial economics that will reshape the monetary and financial systems for many years to come. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Author(s):  
Stephen J. Brown ◽  
Philip H. Dybvig ◽  
William N. Goetzmann ◽  
Jonathan E. Ingersoll

Stephen A. Ross was one of the most influential scholars in the field of financial economics in the late twentieth century. Ross's work was central to several novel domains of economic inquiry. His contributions included the arbitrage pricing theory (APT), the risk-neutral pricing of contingent claims, the binomial option pricing model, a theory of the term structure of interest rates, a seminal contribution to the economic theory of agency, and insights about conditioning biases in ex post performance measurement. In this article, we discuss his seminal papers and the broad scope of his curiosity within the arc of a remarkably productive and influential career that spanned five decades and yet ended sooner than most who knew him expected. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Hale ◽  
Luca Campanelli ◽  
Jixing Li ◽  
Shohini Bhattasali ◽  
Christophe Pallier ◽  
...  

Efforts to understand the brain bases of language face the Mapping Problem: At what level do linguistic computations and representations connect to human neurobiology? We review one approach to this problem that relies on rigorously defined computational models to specify the links between linguistic features and neural signals. Such tools can be used to estimate linguistic predictions, model linguistic features, and specify a sequence of processing steps that may be quantitatively fit to neural signals collected while participants use language. Progress has been helped by advances in machine learning, attention to linguistically interpretable models, and openly shared data sets that allow researchers to compare and contrast a variety of models. We describe one such data set in detail in the Supplementary Appendix. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 8 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Schilke ◽  
Martin Reimann ◽  
Karen S. Cook

Trust is key to understanding the dynamics of social relations, to the extent that it is often viewed as the glue that holds society together. We review the mounting sociological literature to help answer what trust is and where it comes from. To this end, we identify two research streams—on particularized trust and generalized trust, respectively—and propose an integrative framework that bridges these lines of research while also enhancing conceptual precision. This framework provides the springboard for identifying several important avenues for future research, including new investigations into the radius of trust, the intermediate form of categorical trust, and the interrelationships between different forms of trust. This article also calls for more scholarship focusing on the consequences (versus antecedents) of trust, addressing more fully the trustee side of the relation, and employing new empirical methods. Such novel approaches will ensure that trust research will continue to provide important insights into the functioning of modern society in the years to come. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


Author(s):  
Sheng Luan ◽  
Chao Wang

Calcium (Ca2+) is a unique mineral that serves as both a nutrient and a signal in all eukaryotes. To maintain Ca2+ homeostasis for both nutrition and signaling purposes, the toolkit for Ca2+ transport has expanded across kingdoms of eukaryotes to encode specific Ca2+ signals referred to as Ca2+ signatures. In parallel, a large array of Ca2+-binding proteins has evolved as specific sensors to decode Ca2+ signatures. By comparing these coding and decoding mechanisms in fungi, animals, and plants, both unified and divergent themes have emerged, and the underlying complexity will challenge researchers for years to come. Considering the scale and breadth of the subject, instead of a literature survey, in this review we focus on a conceptual framework that aims to introduce to readers to the principles and mechanisms of Ca2+ signaling. We finish with several examples of Ca2+-signaling pathways, including polarized cell growth, immunity and symbiosis, and systemic signaling, to piece together specific coding and decoding mechanisms in plants versus animals. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, Volume 37 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Paulo Rupino Cunha ◽  
Paulo Melo ◽  
Helder Sebastião

We analyze the path from cryptocurrencies to official Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), to shed some light on the ultimate dematerialization of money. To that end, we made an extensive search that resulted in a review of more than 100 academic and grey literature references, including official positions from central banks. We present and discuss the characteristics of the different CBDC variants being considered—namely, wholesale, retail, and, for the latter, the account-based, and token-based—as well as ongoing pilots, scenarios of interoperability, and open issues. Our contribution enables decision-makers and society at large to understand the potential advantages and risks of introducing CBDCs, and how these vary according to many technical and economic design choices. The practical implication is that a debate becomes possible about the trade-offs that the stakeholders are willing to accept.


Author(s):  
Elliott S. Chiu ◽  
Sue VandeWoude

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) serve as markers of ancient viral infections and provide invaluable insight into host and viral evolution. ERVs have been exapted to assist in performing basic biological functions, including placentation, immune modulation, and oncogenesis. A subset of ERVs share high nucleotide similarity to circulating horizontally transmitted exogenous retrovirus (XRV) progenitors. In these cases, ERV–XRV interactions have been documented and include ( a) recombination to result in ERV–XRV chimeras, ( b) ERV induction of immune self-tolerance to XRV antigens, ( c) ERV antigen interference with XRV receptor binding, and ( d) interactions resulting in both enhancement and restriction of XRV infections. Whereas the mechanisms governing recombination and immune self-tolerance have been partially determined, enhancement and restriction of XRV infection are virus specific and only partially understood. This review summarizes interactions between six unique ERV–XRV pairs, highlighting important ERV biological functions and potential evolutionary histories in vertebrate hosts. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 9 is February 16, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


Author(s):  
Sarah Knuckey ◽  
Joshua D. Fisher ◽  
Amanda M. Klasing ◽  
Tess Russo ◽  
Margaret L. Satterthwaite

The human rights movement is increasingly using interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, mixed-methods, and quantitative factfinding. There has been too little analysis of these shifts. This article examines some of the opportunities and challenges of these methods, focusing on the investigation of socioeconomic human rights. By potentially expanding the amount and types of evidence available, factfinding's accuracy and persuasiveness can be strengthened, bolstering rights claims. However, such methods can also present significant challenges and may pose risks in individual cases and to the human rights movement generally. Interdisciplinary methods can be costly in human, financial, and technical resources; are sometimes challenging to implement; may divert limited resources from other work; can reify inequalities; may produce “expertise” that disempowers rightsholders; and could raise investigation standards to an infeasible or counterproductive level. This article includes lessons learned and questions to guide researchers and human rights advocates considering mixed-methods human rights factfinding. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon Floyd

Conversation analysis is a method for the systematic study of interaction in terms of a sequential turn-taking system. Research in conversation analysis has traditionally focused on speakers of English, and it is still unclear to what extent the system observed in that research applies to conversation more generally around the world. However, as this method is now being applied to conversation in a broader range of languages, it is increasingly possible to address questions about the nature of interactional diversity across different speech communities. The approach of pragmatic typology first applies sequential analysis to conversation from different speech communities and then compares interactional patterns in ways analogous to how traditional linguistic typology compares morphosyntax. This article discusses contemporary literature in pragmatic typology, including single-language studies and multilanguage comparisons reflecting both qualitative and quantitative methods. This research finds that microanalysis of face-to-face interaction can identify both universal trends and culture-specific interactional tendencies. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 50 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


Author(s):  
Yonit Maroudas-Sacks ◽  
Kinneret Keren

Morphogenesis is one of the most remarkable examples of biological pattern formation. Despite substantial progress in the field, we still do not understand the organizational principles responsible for the robust convergence of the morphogenesis process across scales to form viable organisms under variable conditions. Achieving large-scale coordination requires feedback between mechanical and biochemical processes, spanning all levels of organization and relating the emerging patterns with the mechanisms driving their formation. In this review, we highlight the role of mechanics in the patterning process, emphasizing the active and synergistic manner in which mechanical processes participate in developmental patterning rather than merely following a program set by biochemical signals. We discuss the value of applying a coarse-grained approach toward understanding this complex interplay, which considers the large-scale dynamics and feedback as well as complementing the reductionist approach focused on molecular detail. A central challenge in this approach is identifying relevant coarse-grained variables and developing effective theories that can serve as a basis for an integrated framework for understanding this remarkable pattern-formation process. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, Volume 37 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Kobaly ◽  
Caroline S. Kim ◽  
Susan J. Mandel

Thyroid nodules are common in the general population, with higher prevalence in women and with advancing age. Approximately 5% of thyroid nodules are malignant; the majority of this subset represents papillary thyroid cancer. Ultrasonography is the standard technique to assess the underlying thyroid parenchyma, characterize the features of thyroid nodules, and evaluate for abnormal cervical lymphadenopathy. Various risk stratification systems exist to categorize the risk of malignancy based on the ultrasound appearance of a thyroid nodule. Nodules are selected for fine-needle aspiration biopsy on the basis of ultrasound features, size, and high-risk clinical history. Cytology results are classified by the Bethesda system into six categories ranging from benign to malignant. When cytology is indeterminate, molecular testing can further risk-stratify patients for observation or surgery. Surveillance is indicated for nodules with benign cytology, indeterminate cytology with reassuring molecular testing, or non-biopsied nodules without a benign sonographic appearance. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Medicine, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


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