Relationship and Transaction Lending in a Crisis by Patrick Bolton, Xavier Freixas, Leonardo Gambacorta and Paolo Emilio Mistrulli – Working Papers No 417, July 2013 “We study how relationship lending and transaction lending vary over the business cycle. We develop a model in which relationship banks gather information on their borrowers, which allows them to provide loans for profitable firms during a crisis. Due… Continue Reading
Should monetary policy lean against the wind? – an analysis based on a DSGE model with banking by Leonardo Gambacorta and Federico M Signoretti – Working Papers No 418, July 2013 “The global financial crisis has reaffirmed the importance of financial factors for macroeconomic fluctuations. Recent work has shown how the conventional pre-crisis prescription that monetary policy should pay no attention to… Continue Reading
Holding Distribution Utilities Liable for Outage Costs: An Economic Look – Timothy J. Brennan – Resources for the Future – July 5, 2013. Resources for the Future DP 13-16, July 2013 “Storm-related service outages in electricity and telecommunications have created public controversies regarding the adequacy of ex ante efforts to prevent outages and ex post… Continue Reading
“[On July 8, 2013] the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), along with 22 other good-government groups, sent a letter to the US Department of Justice urging Attorney General Eric Holder to make public any reports by Inspector General Michael Horowitz regarding the collection of Americans’ telephone records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.… Continue Reading
Transforming Our Conversation of Information Architecture with Structure by Nathaniel Davis “Information architecture has been characterized as both an art and a science. Because there’s more evidence of the former than the latter, the academic and research community is justified in hesitating to give the practice of information architecture more attention. If you probe the… Continue Reading
CRS – Foreign Surveillance and the Future of Standing to Sue Post-Clapper – Andrew Nolan, Legislative Attorney, July 10, 2013 “Recent news accounts (and government responses to those news accounts) have indicated that the government is reportedly engaged in a surveillance program that gathers vast amounts of data, including records regarding the phone calls, emails,… Continue Reading
Cluster Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress – Andrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces; Paul K. Kerr, Analyst in Nonproliferation, July 9, 2013 “Cluster munitions are air-dropped or ground-launched weapons that release a number of smaller submunitions intended to kill enemy personnel or destroy vehicles. Cluster munitions were developed in World War II and… Continue Reading
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: United Nations, 2013 World Drug Report, May 2013 “The findings of the World Drug Report 2013 deliver important lessons for the forthcoming high-level review of the commitments that countries reaffirmed in 2009 on the measures for drug control. These measures are laid out in the Political Declaration and… Continue Reading
Transparency International – Global corruption barometer 2013 “More than one person in two thinks corruption has worsened in the last two years, according to the world’s largest public opinion survey on corruption from Transparency International, but survey participants also firmly believe they can make a difference and have the will to take action against graft.… Continue Reading
“A new USGS report [Ecological Health in the Nation’s Streams, 1993—2005] describes how the health of our Nation’s streams is being degraded by streamflow modifications and elevated levels of nutrients and pesticides. The national assessment of stream health was unprecedented in the breadth of the measurements—including assessments of multiple biological communities as well as streamflow… Continue Reading