Common Currency Research Articles

Research on digital currency based on encryption technology

Digital currencies have become an increasingly popular topic of discussion in recent years. Digital currencies are virtual forms of currency that operate outside the traditional banking system. They are based on cryptographic technologies and are often decentralized, meaning they are not controlled by a central authority. The most well-known digital currency is Bitcoin, but there are many other types of digital currencies in existence. Digital currencies can be used to purchase goods and services online or transferred between users directly without intermediaries like banks. They have gained popularity due to their potential for increased security, transparency, and efficiency in financial transactions. In today's digital currency, a variety of digital currencies emerge in an endless stream, and crypto technology is also constantly developing to improve the security of digital currency payments. In section 2, this paper briefly introduces several common digital currencies and encryption algorithms, and in section 3, this paper introduces these typical digital currencies in detail through the analysis of representative literature. Bitcoin is mainly encrypted based on blockchain technology, and its encryption principle is mainly divided into three parts: public key encryption, hash function, and proof of work. Ethereum is a distributed blockchain platform with encryption principles similar to Bitcoin, including public key encryption and hashing algorithms. Ripple is a distributed cryptocurrency. Its encryption principle mainly adopts the public-private key encryption system. In terms of encryption technology, blockchain technology, the Hash algorithm and symmetric and asymmetric encryption are also popular encryption algorithms in digital currencies.

Economic and social values in the brain: evidence from lesions to the human ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Making good economic and social decisions is essential for individual and social welfare. Decades of research have provided compelling evidence that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is associated with dramatic personality changes and impairments in economic and social decision-making. However, whether the vmPFC subserves a unified mechanism in the social and non-social domains remains unclear. When choosing between economic options, the vmPFC is thought to guide decision by encoding value signals that reflect the motivational relevance of the options on a common scale. A recent framework, the "extended common neural currency" hypothesis, suggests that the vmPFC may also assign values to social factors and principles, thereby guiding social decision-making. Although neural value signals have been observed in the vmPFC in both social and non-social studies, it is yet to be determined whether they have a causal influence on behavior or merely correlate with decision-making. In this review, we assess whether lesion studies of patients with vmPFC damage offer evidence for such a causal role of the vmPFC in shaping economic and social behavior.

Misconceptions about quantifying animal encounter and interaction processes

The ability to quantify when and where animals interact is key to the understanding of a plethora of ecological processes, from the structure of social communities and predator–prey relations to the spreading of pathogens and information. Despite the ubiquity of interaction processes among animals and the revolution in tracking technologies that now allows for the monitoring of multiple individuals simultaneously, a common theoretical framework with which to analyze movement data and extract interaction events is still lacking. Given the wide spectrum of mechanisms that governs how a biological organism detects the proximity of other organisms, most of the proposed theoretical approaches have been tailored to specific species or empirical situations and so far have been lacking a common currency with which to evaluate and compare findings across taxa. Here, we propose such general framework by borrowing techniques from statistical physics, specifically from the theory of reaction diffusion processes. Some of these techniques have already been employed to predict analytically pathogen transmission events between pairs of animals living within home ranges, but have not yet pervaded the movement ecology literature. Using both continuous and discrete variables, we present the mathematical framework and demonstrate its suitability to study interaction processes. By defining interactions whenever a token of information is transferred from one individual to another, we show that the probability of transferring information for the first time is equivalent to the first-passage probability of reacting in a multi-target environment. As interaction events reduce to encounter events when information transfer is perfectly efficient, we compare our formalism to a recently proposed approach to study encounters. Such approach takes the joint occupation probability of two animals over a region of interaction as a measure of the probability of encounter, rather than the first-encounter probability. We show the discrepancy of the two approaches by analytically comparing their predictions with continuous variables, while with discrete space–time variables, we quantify their difference over time. We conclude by pointing to some of the open problems that the reaction diffusion formalism, alternatively, the reaction motion formalism, as it should be more appropriately called, might be able to tackle.

Persistent institutional malfunctioning in the Eurozone

Institutional change in the Eurozone is driven by the need to ensure the immediate survival of the euro rather than confronting the structural weaknesses of the common currency. The failure to deal with underlying weaknesses is demonstrated by the policy of “selective support”, whereby markets and instruments considered vital for the survival of the euro are often adopted under pressure. This type of support is most prominently demonstrated by the TARGET2 clearing system within the Eurosystem of central banks. The system allows the euro to survive but also facilitates the rise of intra-EMU imbalances, as is reflected in divergent claims and liabilities of member states, leading Germany to accumulate intra-EMU claims on others. Instability thus becomes entrenched in the Union, while Germany maintains a hegemonic position.

Exchange Rate Fluctuation and Management of Foreign Donor-Funded Program Budget

The study was about the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on the management of foreign donor-funded program budgets. Humanitarian and development agencies receive funding from foreign donors, who require the program budgets and financial reports in their respective country currencies although the actual utilization of the budget in the host country’s local currency during the program implementation. The study explored currency conversion methods and identified the best principles for effective management of the effect of exchange rate fluctuation. The research design used was both quantitative and qualitative where relevant literature related to exchange methods, donor requirements, and average monthly exchange rate data were reviewed. The sampling year used in this study is 3 years, 2021 to 2023 and the currency sample selected was Uganda Shillings (UGX) and United States Dollars (USD). First In and First Out (FIFO), Weighted average exchange rate methods, and daily spot rate methods were the most common currency conversion methods identified during the study. The study further noted the currency conversion method chosen should be documented in the written financial manual of the grant holder for reference. The study identified budget monitoring, requests for budget amendment, effective planning, provision for contingency reserves in the budget, and constant communication with the donors among the best ways to manage the effect of exchange rate fluctuation. The Study, therefore concluded that exchange rate fluctuation has either adverse or favorable effects on foreign donor-funded program budget and needed to be closely monitored and communicated to the donor for further guidance. Keywords: Exchange rate, Fluctuation, Foreign Donor- funded, Program and Budget.

Mental Gravity: Depression as Spacetime Curvature of the Self, Mind, and Brain.

The principle of mental gravity contends that the mind uses physical gravity as a mental model or simulacrum to express the relation between the inner self and the outer world in terms of "UP"-ness and "DOWN"-ness. The simulation of increased gravity characterises a continuum of mental gravity which states includes depression as the paradigmatic example of being down, low, heavy, and slow. The physics of gravity can also be used to model spacetime curvature in depression, particularly gravitational time dilation as a property of MG analogous to subjective time dilation (i.e., the slowing of temporal flow in conscious experience). The principle has profound implications for the Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC) with regard to temporo-spatial alignment that establishes a "world-brain relation" that is centred on embodiment and the socialisation of conscious states. The principle of mental gravity provides the TTC with a way to incorporate the structure of the world into the structure of the brain, conscious experience, and thought. In concert with other theories of cognitive and neurobiological spacetime, the TTC can also work towards the "common currency" approach that also potentially connects the TTC to predictive processing frameworks such as free energy, neuronal gauge theories, and active inference accounts of depression. It gives the up/down dimension of space, as defined by the gravitational field, a unique status that is connected to both our embodied interaction with the physical world, and also the inverse, reflective, emotional but still embodied experience of ourselves.

Incomparability and Incommensurability in Choice: No Common Currency of Value?

Models of decision-making typically assume the existence of some common currency of value, such as utility, happiness, or inclusive fitness. This common currency is taken to allow comparison of options and to underpin everyday choice. Here we suggest instead that there is no universal value scale, that incommensurable values pervade everyday choice, and hence that most existing models of decision-making in both economics and psychology are fundamentally limited. We propose that choice objects can be compared only with reference to specific but nonuniversal “covering values.” These covering values may reflect decision-makers’ goals, motivations, or current states. A complete model of choice must accommodate the range of possible covering values. We show that abandoning the common-currency assumption in models of judgment and decision-making necessitates rank-based and “simple heuristics” models that contrast radically with conventional utility-based approaches. We note that if there is no universal value scale, then Arrow’s impossibility theorem places severe bounds on the rationality of individual decision-making and hence that there is a deep link between the incommensurability of value, inconsistencies in human decision-making, and rank-based coding of value. More generally, incommensurability raises the question of whether it will ever be possible to develop single-quantity-maximizing models of decision-making.

A general framework for modelling trade-offs in adaptive behaviour.

An animal's behaviour can influence many variables, such as its energy reserves, its risk of injury or mortality, and its rate of reproduction. To identify the optimal action in a given situation, these various effects can be compared in the common currency of reproductive value. While this idea has been widely used to study trade-offs between pairs of variables, e.g. between energy gain versus survival, here we present a unified framework that makes explicit how these various trade-offs fit together. This unification covers a wide range of biological phenomena, highlighting similarities in their logical structure and helping to identify knowledge gaps. To fill one such gap, we present a new model of foraging under the risk of predation and damage accumulation. We conclude by discussing the use and limitations of state-dependent optimisation theory in predicting biological observations.

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex represents subjective value across effort-based and risky decision-making

Decisions that require taking effort costs into account are ubiquitous in real life. The neural common currency theory hypothesizes that a particular neural network integrates different costs (e.g., risk) and rewards into a common scale to facilitate value comparison. Although there has been a surge of interest in the computational and neural basis of effort-related value integration, it is still under debate if effort-based decision-making relies on a domain-general valuation network as implicated in the neural common currency theory. Therefore, we comprehensively compared effort-based and risky decision-making using a combination of computational modeling, univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, and data from two independent studies. We found that effort-based decision-making can be best described by a power discounting model that accounts for both the discounting rate and effort sensitivity. At the neural level, multivariate decoding analyses indicated that the neural patterns of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) represented subjective value across different decision-making tasks including either effort or risk costs, although univariate signals were more diverse. These findings suggest that multivariate dmPFC patterns play a critical role in computing subjective value in a task-independent manner and thus extend the scope of the neural common currency theory.

Menstrual Equity in the Criminal Legal System.

Background: Menstrual equity, that is, access to menstrual products and safe menstruating environments, is a basic human right not available to many vulnerable populations. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey with a convenience sample of women involved in the criminal legal system to document experiences with access to hygiene and menstrual products while incarcerated. Results: Of the 156 respondents, 62.6% had to trade or barter to receive even basic hygiene products such as soap or shampoo; food and personal favors were used as the common currency. More than half (53.8%) received less than five menstrual products at intake/initial processing; 29.5% had to trade or barter menstrual hygiene products. Almost one-quarter (23.1%) suffered negative health consequences from prolonged use of products because of limited supply. Discussion: Findings document the lack of menstrual equity among women involved in the criminal legal system. Assuring the human right of menstrual equity in this population requires changes at the legal, the policy, the institutional, and the individual level.

Long-term ecological research in freshwaters enabled by regional biodiversity collections, stable isotope analysis, and environmental informatics.

Biodiversity collections are experiencing a renaissance fueled by the intersection of informatics, emerging technologies, and the extended use and interpretation of specimens and archived databases. In this article, we explore the potential for transformative research in ecology integrating biodiversity collections, stable isotope analysis (SIA), and environmental informatics. Like genomic DNA, SIA provides a common currency interpreted in the context of biogeochemical principles. Integration of SIA data across collections allows for evaluation of long-term ecological change at local to continental scales. Challenges including the analysis of sparse samples, a lack of information about baseline isotopic composition, and the effects of preservation remain, but none of these challenges is insurmountable. The proposed research framework interfaces with existing databases and observatories to provide benchmarks for retrospective studies and ecological forecasting. Collections and SIA add historical context to fundamental questions in freshwater ecological research, reference points for ecosystem monitoring, and a means of quantitative assessment for ecosystem restoration.

Currency change and capital structure decisions: evidence from the birth of the Euro area

PurposeThe paper investigates if the process that led to the birth of the Euro Area had a significant impact in homogenizing the capital structure decisions of European firms since the first introduction of the common currency.Design/methodology/approachA large sample of firms was constructed, and a Tobit-censored regression model was utilized to investigate the determinants of firms' observed capital structures. The Black–Scholes–Merton model was used to infer market values of assets, as well as the volatility of those values, from the observed market values of equity and the corresponding volatility. The existing differences in national tax rules were considered for estimating firm-specific marginal tax rates.FindingsIt was found that, despite the currency union and the institutional harmonization process, certain factors still play a different role. In particular, the impact of profitability is consistent with the pecking order view in some countries, and with the trade-off theory in others. Assets risk, measured as the annualized volatility of the market enterprise value, is the best predictor of observed leverage ratios. The sector of activity is significant in determining leverage decisions even when assets' risk is taken into account. Despite the monetary union and the increased financial and institutional integration in the Euro Area, the country of origin still plays a significant role in capital structure decisions, suggesting that other country-level factors may affect firms' financing behaviour.Practical implicationsThe paper indicates that, despite the long harmonization process of institutions, regulations and public budget required to join the Euro, firms' financing decisions are still affected by country-specific factors once the common currency is introduced. Therefore, new entrant countries in the Euro area should not expect their companies to immediately conform with those located in other countries within the common currency area.Originality/valueThis article investigated the impact of the currency change from national currencies to the Euro on the determinants of capital structure choices. It was shown that, despite the long harmonization process that led to the birth of the Euro Area, national factors still affect firms' financing decisions. This provides guidance for policymakers in countries that are planning to join the Euro about the impact this will have on firms' financing decisions in the entrant country.

Many Unions, One Estimate? Disaggregating the Currency Union Effect on Trade

ABSTRACT A large literature estimates the impact of currency unions on trade. Often ignored in these estimates are the dramatic differences in the characteristics of countries adopting common currencies, hidden by aggregation into a single currency union effect. I show that currency unions have substantial differences in their observable characteristics, relative to non-unions, making them a poor comparison group for estimation of policy treatment. Further, these differences are heterogeneous across individual currency unions, making one aggregate estimate likely inappropriate. Using inverse propensity score methods, I find that adjusting these gravity equation estimates to account these differences, both via weighting and via sample adjustment, meaningfully impacts the estimated policy effects. I find a wide range of currency union effects across individual, disaggregated, currency unions. My results suggest that future work on currency unions, and other macroeconomic policies, should be careful to check for such underlying heterogeneity when estimating policy effects.

The welfare impact of Euro on European consumers

This research uses a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, combined with a Difference-in-Differences model with time-varying staggered treatments, to assess the impact of the European common currency on consumers’ welfare. Based on a panel of 29 European Union member countries from 1996 to 2022, results indicate that consumers in the Eurozone lost between 1.13% and 2.26% in annual per capita consumer welfare after adopting the euro.

Monetary policy shocks and resource misallocations in the Periphery: Evidence from Chinese provincial bond yields

We examine the effects of monetary expansions in the center on the excess yields of government bonds in the periphery. We show that the excess yields widen, and the widening is larger, the larger the misallocation of resources in the periphery. Specifically, we examine a panel of over 2500 local Chinese government bonds in 31 provinces, and find that the expansion of Chinese money supply surprisingly raises the excess yields of local bonds over Chinese sovereign bonds, and the gap is larger, the higher the degree of misallocation or other institutional failures in the province. By treating Chinese provinces as small emerging market open economies, we can draw implications for periphery countries in a common currency area, of an expansion in money supply in the center. Our results suggest that the increase in global liquidity post the 2009 and Covid-19 crises can lead to future fragility in the periphery countries.

Confronting the Inflationary Pressures of Introducing the Euro with the Effects of Negative External Shocks

Abstract Research background with the introduction of the euro as the domestic currency, economies have faced inflationary pressures caused by price convergence towards higher levels. During the last period of significant negative shocks from the environment, by entering the euro area, the negative effects of the likelihood of inflation caused by the introduction of the euro may be absent. Purpose the aim of this paper is to prove that inflation caused by joining the euro area will not materialize due to the negative effects of external shocks. Research methodology A panel analysis with a fixed effects model was conducted for two models. Model 1 represents the countries that introduced the euro before the escalation of the global financial crisis and Model 2 represents the countries that introduced the euro after the development of the global financial crisis. Results the research confirmed that due to current negative external shocks and rising long-term interest rates in financial markets, the effect of inflation due to the introduction of the euro will be absent among EU members that will adopt the euro as a common currency in the next few years. Novelty The results of the research contribute to the scientific prediction of business and financial trends. The creators of macroeconomic models and monetary policy can use the results to define measures, instruments and activities more precisely for achieving and maintaining macroeconomic balance.

Beyond Human Rights Due Diligence: What Else Do We Need?

After the unanimous endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) by the Human Rights Council in June 2011, human rights due diligence (HRDD) has become a common currency widely embraced among stakeholders operating in the business and human rights (BHR) field. The UNGPs envisage HRDD to be the primary tool for businesses to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse impacts of their activities on internationally recognized human rights.

Forecasting nonlinear dependency between cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange markets using dynamic copula: evidence from GAS models

PurposeThis paper examines and forecasts correlations between cryptocurrencies and major fiat currencies using Generalized Autoregressive Score (GAS) time-varying copulas. The authors examine to which extent the multivariate GAS method captures the volatility persistence and the nonlinear interaction effects between cryptocurrencies and major fiat currencies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors model tail dependence between conventional currencies and Bitcoin utilizing a Glosten-Jagannathan-Runkle Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic model (GJR-GARCH)-GAS copula specification, which allows detecting the leptokurtic feature and clustering effects of currency returns distribution.FindingsThe authors' results show evidence of multiple tail dependence regimes, implying the unsuitability of applying static models to entirely describe the extreme dependence between Bitcoin and fiat currencies. Compared to the most common constant copulas, the authors find that the multivariate GAS copulas better forecast the volatility and dependency between cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange markets. Furthermore, based on the value-at-risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) analyses, the authors show that the multivariate GAS models produce accurate risk measures by adding cryptocurrencies to a portfolio of fiat currencies.Originality/valueThis paper has two main contributions to the existing literature on cryptocurrencies. First, the authors empirically examine the tail dependence structure between common conventional currencies and bitcoin using GJR-GARCH GAS copulas which consider the leptokurtic feature and clustering effects of currency returns distribution. Second, by modeling VaR and ES, the authors test the implication of using time-varying models on the performance of currency portfolios, including cryptocurrencies.

UK or the Eurozone: which common currency area can work for Northern Ireland after Brexit?

ABSTRACT Brexit and the controversy concerning an Irish border makes the issue of whether Northern Ireland is a common currency area with the rest of UK or the Eurozone topical. We test the microeconomic foundations of a common currency area for Northern Ireland, UK, Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Eurozone. We provide evidence that all areas meet the microeconomic criteria for a common currency area. Banking data suggest that lending in Northern Ireland is different from lending in the rest of the UK, raising doubt on whether or not the UK forms a common currency area including Northern Ireland.

Der Schlüssel für eine zukunftsfeste deutsche Wirtschaft liegt in Europa

Abstract The German economy has been hit hard by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Higher energy prices, weaker global trade and supply chain disruptions have had a profound impact. In addition to this new geopolitical reality, Germany faces rapid demographic changes and the need to manage its transition to a carbon-neutral economy. With the world’s largest integrated single market, a common currency and the European Green Deal, the EU provides a powerful framework for Germany to maintain and renew its prosperity. Deeper integration of the German economy in the EU Single Market, close cooperation with European partners and a strong domestic reform and investment agenda would benefit both Germany and the EU.