Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relationship between Price Dispersion and Inflation: A Reassessment

The positive relationship between inflation and relative price variability has been taken as a proven case, but recent evidence casts doubt on the verdict. This paper shows that theory can support positive or negative relationships, while past empirical evidence may have been contaminated by aggregation bias and our measures of price dispersion and inflation. We re-examine the empirical evidence for ten years of data over nine commodity groups and seven European countries using a non-parametric approach to estimate the functional form. Our results suggest that the results offer strong support for the model of Danziger (1987) which predicts a nonlinear functional form for within-commodity across-countries data.
FRACTIONAL COINTEGRATING REGRESSION IN THE PRESENCE OF LINEAR TIME TRENDS

We consider regressions of nonstationary fractionally integrated variables dominated by linear time trends. The regression errors can be short memory, long memory, or even nonstationary, and hence allow for a very flexible cointegration model. Our main contributions are two: First, we analyze the limiting behaviour of the regression estimators. We find in case of simple regressions that limiting normality arises at a rate of convergence that is independent of the order of integration of the regressor. This result does not carry over to the multivariate case, where the limiting distribution is more complicated. Second, we investigate a residual-based, log-periodogram regression. We state conditions that allow consistent estimation of the memory parameter of the error term. This estimator follows a limiting normal distribution and is therefore suitable for cointegration testing. The applicability of this asymptotic result to finite samples is established by means of Monte Carlo experiments.
Embodying Democracy: Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe

List of Tables List of Party Acronyms Preface Explaining the Design and Redesign of Electoral Systems Poland: Experimenting with the Electoral System Hungary: The Politics of Negotiated Design The Czech and Slovak Republics: The Surprising Resilience of Proportional Representation Romania: Stability without Consensus Bulgaria: Engineering Legitimacy through Electoral System Design Russia: The Limits of Electoral Engineering Ukraine: The Struggle for Democratic Change Conclusion: Embodying Democracy Bibliography Glossary Index
Decorrelation Sensitivity of Auditory Nerve and Anteroventral Cochlear Nucleus Fibers to Broadband and Narrowband Noise

Binaural neurons show remarkable sensitivity to temporal differences in the waveforms at the two ears. This ability obviously requires temporal coding of sound waveforms in the monaural afferents that converge on such binaural neurons. We introduce a new analysis to investigate how well responses of single monaural neurons support discrimination of decorrelations in waveforms. Spike trains from auditory nerve (AN) and anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) neurons of cats to many repetitions of a set of broadband and narrowband noise tokens were obtained. The normalized correlation between the noise tokens ranged from 0.99 to –1. A coincidence and signal detection analysis was used to perform a correlation discrimination task using the monaural spike trains. The correlation discrimination thresholds derived from AVCN neurons were lower than those derived from AN fibers and sometimes as low as human psychophysical just noticeable differences. Importantly, low detection thresholds required comparisons of spike trains at small internal delays. Bandwidth dependence of neural decorrelation thresholds agreed with psychophysical data when large internal delays contributed to the detection. We conclude that, in the context of correlation discrimination, coding by AVCN fibers is superior to that by AN fibers and that these discriminations require a distribution of internal or best delays in binaural processing that differs from the predictions from studies of discrimination in interaural time delays.
IL-6 Inhibition Reduces STAT3 Activation and Enhances the Antitumor Effect of Carboplatin

Recent studies suggest that tumor-associated macrophage-produced IL-6 is an important mediator within the tumor microenvironment that promotes tumor growth. The activation of IL-6/STAT3 axis has been associated with chemoresistance and poor prognosis of a variety of cancers including colorectal carcinoma and thus serves as a potential immunotherapeutic target for cancer treatment. However, it is not fully understood whether anticytokine therapy could reverse chemosensitivity and enhance the suppressive effect of chemotherapy on tumor growth. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of IL-6 inhibition therapy on the antitumor effect of carboplatin. Enhanced expression of IL-6 and activation of STAT3 were observed in human colorectal carcinoma samples compared to normal colorectal tissue, with higher levels of IL-6/STAT3 in low grade carcinomas. Treatment of carboplatin (CBP) dose-dependently increased IL-6 production and STAT3 activation in human colorectal LoVo cells. Blockade of IL-6 with neutralizing antibody enhanced chemosensitivity of LoVo cells to carboplatin as evidenced by increased cell apoptosis. IL-6 blockade abolished carboplatin-induced STAT3 activation. IL-6 blockade and carboplatin synergistically reduced cyclin D1 expression and enhanced caspase-3 activity in LoVo cells. Our results suggest that inhibition of IL-6 may enhance chemosensitivity of colon cancers with overactive STAT3 to platinum agents.
Impact of tax structure system on GDP and progressivity: The case of Vietnam

To find out impacts of tax structure system in Vietnam on GDP and progressivity, models employed are Fixed-Effects and Two-Stage Least Squares, together with the regression model of tax progressivity. Data's source is from Vietnam General Statistics Office. It is cross-sectional time series over the period 1997-2010 for different 61 provinces in Vietnam. Findings present that Vietnam's tax policies are progressive, their integration policy impacts on the economic growth positively. In addition, the result is proved there is a significant relationship between the state budget and GDP. As a result, the budgetary expenses must be paid attention strictly. Because coefficients of value-added tax and corporate income tax are positive and significant, an increase in value-added tax or/and corporate income tax causes an increase in GDP. However, this view for a long-term is a negative impact on the economic growth, because the country can lose competitive advantages to attract foreign development investment, if keeping high tax rates. Note that several inadequacies in policies need reforms in both policies and tax structure system, in which corporate income tax must be focused, because of mobilization of financial outside the state is unstable. Currently, tax policies in Vietnam combine so many goals in each form of encouragement while the policy objectives are conflict, which makes difficulties to carry out. Existing lack of harmony among the taxes in the tax policy can cause a main reason of a decrease in the revenue target of the state and in regulating macro economy.
Essays on Information and Debt

These essays attempt to explain why debt contracts are so common, and to explore the consequences resulting from the use of debt contracts. In the first essay, “Moral Hazard and the Optimality of Debt,” I use tools from information theory to study a novel form of moral hazard, and show that debt contracts are the optimal security design in this setting. In the second essay, “Generalized Rational Inattention,” written with Michael Woodford, we develop a generalized version of rational inattention, based on an axiomatic characterization, using the same theorems employed in the first essay. In the third essay, “The Costs of Sovereign Default: Evidence from Argentina,” written with Jesse Schreger, we estimate the costs that Argentina’s 2014 sovereign default imposed on Argentine firms.
Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in the Radiation Response of Human Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells

Hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), which are present in small numbers in hematopoietic tissues, can differentiate into all hematopoietic lineages and self-renew to maintain their undifferentiated phenotype. HSPCs are extremely sensitive to oxidative stressors such as anti-cancer agents, radiation, and the extensive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The quiescence and stemness of HSPCs are maintained by the regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis, ROS, and energy homeostasis in a special microenvironment called the stem cell niche. The present study evaluated the relationship between the production of intracellular ROS and mitochondrial function during the proliferation and differentiation of X-irradiated CD34+ cells prepared from human placental/umbilical cord blood HSPCs. Highly purified CD34+ HSPCs exposed to X-rays were cultured in liquid and semi-solid medium supplemented with hematopoietic cytokines. X-irradiated CD34+ HSPCs treated with hematopoietic cytokines, which promote their proliferation and differentiation, exhibited dramatically suppressed cell growth and clonogenic potential. The amount of intracellular ROS in X-irradiated CD34+ HSPCs was significantly higher than that in non-irradiated cells during the culture period. However, neither the intracellular mitochondrial content nor the mitochondrial superoxide production was elevated in X-irradiated CD34+ HSPCs compared with non-irradiated cells. Radiation-induced gamma-H2AX expression was observed immediately following exposure to 4 Gy of X-rays and gradually decreased during the culture period. This study reveals that X-irradiation can increase persistent intracellular ROS in human CD34+ HSPCs, which may not result from mitochondrial ROS due to mitochondrial dysfunction, and indicates that substantial DNA double-strand breakage can critically reduce the stem cell function.
Self-Reference Effect and Autonoetic Consciousness in Alzheimer Disease: Evidence for a Persistent Affective Self in Dementia Patients

Episodic memory deficits are predominately the first cognitive impairment in Alzheimer disease (AD). Previous studies have demonstrated that these deficits are specifically linked to autonoetic consciousness impairment, whereas noetic consciousness remains preserved in AD. This study focused on the self-reference effect and examined emotional valence, as it has been shown that emotional content can enhance memory in AD. A task involving recognition of emotional versus neutral adjective traits after self-reference versus semantic encoding, and using the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm was administered to 22 AD patients and 18 normal controls. Results for AD patients show that self-reference increased autonoetic consciousness only for emotional and particularly negative trait adjectives. This interesting result indicates that neutral valence does not allow properties of the self to emerge in AD patients because of the progressive loss of the sense of self-linked to the disease, whereas emotional valence does.
Essays in applied microeconomics

The thesis uses empirical tools to investigate causal effects in labor economics and politics. The first chapter analyzes the effects of commercial television in Norway. Matching data on cable television networks with individual-level administrative register data, we find that the expansion of commercial television reduced ability test scores as well as high school graduation rates. We find stronger effects on sons of low-income parents and particularly large effect for children in elementary school. Aggregate data show a substantial drop in time spent reading by young people in the same period, suggesting that television watching may have crowded out more cognitively stimulating activities such as reading. This chapter is joint work with Simen Markussen and Knut Roed. The second chapter investigates how sickness absence behavior in Norwegian municipalities was affected by the terrorist attack in Norway on July 22, 2011. Using register data covering the complete Norwegian population, I find that sickness absence rates declined substantially in municipalities affected more intensely by the attack. In municipalities from which a resident was killed in the attack, sickness absence rates declined by 4 % compared to municipalities without victims. The effect is precisely estimated, stable across several challenging specifications, and persists for as long as there is available data. The effect for people in their 20's is more than twice that for the population at large -for this group, local exposure to the attack decreased absence rates by around 10 %. The third chapter exploits a natural experiment in the Norwegian political system. I find that obtaining the right to vote at a lower age is associated with substantially higher turnout among first-time voters, and that this is driven by parental influence. Counter to conventional wisdom about the habitual nature of voting, this difference in political participation does not persist for subsequent elections.
Oil Prices, Profits, and Recessions: An Inquiry Using Terrorism as an Instrumental Variable

Nearly all post-war recessions were preceded by oil-price shocks, but is this because spikes in the price of oil cause economic downturns? At the heart of this question lies an identification problem: oil prices and the state of the world economy are endogenously determined. This paper uses terrorist incidents as an instrumental variable. In an international panel of industries, we show that, after correction for simultaneity bias -- though not before -- the price of oil has large negative effects upon profitability. We test for weak instruments and check sub-sample robustness. Our findings seem to lend support to the claim that oil-price spikes can be a source of recessions.
Abnormal Phrenic Motoneuron Activity and Morphology in Neonatal Monoamine Oxidase A-Deficient Transgenic Mice: Possible Role of a Serotonin Excess

In rodent neonates, the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT) modulates the activity of both the medullary respiratory rhythm generator and the cervical phrenic motoneurons. To determine whether 5-HT also contributes to the maturation of the respiratory network, experiments were conducted in vitro on the brainstem–spinal cord preparation of neonatal mice originating from the control strain (C3H) and the monoamine oxidase A-deficient strain, which has a brain perinatal 5-HT excess (Tg8). At birth, the Tg8 respiratory network is unable to generate a respiratory pattern as stable as that produced by the C3H network, and the modulation by 5-HT of the network activity present in C3H neonates is lacking in Tg8 neonates. In addition, the morphology of the phrenic motoneurons is altered in Tg8 neonates; the motoneuron dendritic tree loses the C3H bipolar aspect but exhibits an increased number of spines and varicosities. These abnormalities were prevented in Tg8 neonates by treating pregnant Tg8 dams with the 5-HT synthesis inhibitor p-chlorophenylalanine or a 5-HT2A receptor antagonist but were induced in wild-type neonates by treating C3H dams with a 5-HT2A receptor agonist. We conclude that 5-HT contributes, probably via 5-HT2A receptors, to the normal maturation of the respiratory network but alters it when present in excess. Disorders affecting 5-HT metabolism during gestation may therefore have deleterious effects on newborns.
Formal and informal patient payments for public health care services in Bulgaria

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Use of meta-formations for cooperative control

This paper reviews a number of very recent results in rigid graph theory and their extension for directed graphs to persistence theory, with an application focus on the cooperative control of formations. Particular attention is paid to issues related to the merging of formations, where the internal structure of each of the individually merging formations is, to the maximum extent possible, downplayed in the calculation. The meta-formation framework is then introduced in light of merging process for its construction. The ideas also have application to sensor network localization, where there is potential to make great computational saving.
The Clusters-in-a-Liquid Approach for Solvation: New Insights from the Conformer Specific Gas Phase Spectroscopy and Vibrational Optical Activity Spectroscopy

Vibrational optical activity spectroscopies, namely vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and Raman optical activity (ROA), have been emerged in the past decade as powerful spectroscopic tools for stereochemical information of a wide range of chiral compounds in solution directly. More recently, their applications in unveiling solvent effects, especially those associated with water solvent, have been explored. In this review article, we first select a few examples to demonstrate the unique sensitivity of VCD spectral signatures to both bulk solvent effects and explicit hydrogen-bonding interactions in solution. Second, we discuss the induced solvent chirality, or chiral transfer, VCD spectral features observed in the water bending band region in detail. From these chirality transfer spectral data, the related conformer specific gas phase spectroscopic studies of small chiral hydration clusters, and the associated matrix isolation VCD experiments of hydrogen-bonded complexes in cold rare gas matrices, a general picture of solvation in aqueous solution emerges. In such an aqueous solution, some small chiral hydration clusters, rather than the chiral solutes themselves, are the dominant species and are the ones that contribute mainly to the experimentally observed VCD features. We then review a series of VCD studies of amino acids and their derivatives in aqueous solution under different pHs to emphasize the importance of the inclusion of the bulk solvent effects. These experimental data and the associated theoretical analyses are the foundation for the proposed “clusters-in-a-liquid” approach to account for solvent effects effectively. We present several approaches to identify and build such representative chiral hydration clusters. Recent studies which applied molecular dynamics simulations and the subsequent snapshot averaging approach to generate the ROA, VCD, electronic CD, and optical rotatory dispersion spectra are also reviewed. Challenges associated with the molecular dynamics snapshot approach are discussed and the successes of the seemingly random “ad hoc explicit solvation” reported before are also explained. To further test and improve the “clusters-in-a-liquid” model in practice, future work in terms of conformer specific gas phase spectroscopy of sequential solvation of a chiral solute, matrix isolation VCD measurements of small chiral hydration clusters, and more sophisticated models for the bulk solvent effects would be highly valuable.
Debt Sustainability in India: Empirical Evidence Estimating Time-Varying Parameters

We employed Fincke and Greiner's (2011, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics) approach for testing sustainability of public debt in the case of India. Their approach was based on the framework of Bohn (1998) who showed how the primary surplus reacts to variations in debt and which has received great attention in economics literature recently. In this contribution, we applied that test to the India for the period 1970-2009, where we allowed for a time-varying reaction coefficient. We did not find the clear-cut result on the sustainability of public debt for the India during study period.
An examination of the relationship between school climate and student growth in select Michigan charter schools

The purpose of this study was to determine what relationship exists between school climate and student growth in Michigan charter schools. Data were collected through the use of a school climate survey and standardized assessment results. The Organizational Climate Descriptive Questionnaire for Elementary Schools (OCDQ-RE) developed by Hoy, Tarter, and Kottkamp (1991) was used to assess teacher perceptions of school climate. Student growth data were calculated using the fall and spring reading and math results from the Performance Series test by Scantron, and the MAP test by NWEA. The population of this study consisted of 355 teachers from 11 participating schools serving students in grades 3 through 8, selected from a purposeful sample of 35 charter schools in Michigan. Data were analyzed through the Pearson Product-Moment correlation analysis and linear regression analysis. The results indicated a significant relationship between both principal openness and student growth, and teacher openness and student growth with p-value <0.01. Additionally, these results indicated a significant relationship between whether a school was open or closed and student growth. In short, the results of this study conclude that there is a significant relationship between school climate and student growth with p-value < 0.01. School Climate & Student Growth in Charter Schools ii
Corporate Governance: Corporate Governance and Competition

Introduction In most countries, managers of corporations are legally responsible to the shareholders. In their seminal contribution on the separation of ownership and control, Berle and Means (1932) argue that in practice managers do not pursue the interests of shareholders. Instead they pursue their own interests, which results in waste and inefficiency. The contrast between the legal rights of shareholders and the de facto control of managers highlighted by Berle and Means led to the development of the agency approach to corporate governance (see, among others, Coase 1937; Jensen and Meckling 1976; Fama and Jensen 1983a,b; and Hart 1995). An excellent survey is contained in Shleifer and Vishny (1997). The agency theory of corporate governance focuses on the question: “How can shareholders ensure that managers pursue the shareholders' interests. ” We argue that this focus is much too narrow. A comparison of governance mechanisms in different countries and in different sectors of the economy suggests that an alternative approach is called for. In Section 2, we review the actual operation of corporate governance in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan. In the United States and United Kingdom, the mechanisms for ensuring that managers operate in the interests of shareholders are the strongest. The main internal governance system is the board of directors; the main external governance system is the market for corporate control. The effectiveness of both mechanisms has been widely questioned.