Recession Phase Research Articles

Performance of a zero-inertia model for irrigation with rapidly varied inflow discharges

The zero-inertia model is widely used for simulating surface flow in irrigation systems. This model is accurate when inflow discharge is constant. However, simulation of irrigation systems with rapidly varied inflow discharge is needed due to the development of real time control irrigation technology. Hence, the objective of this study is to validate the zero-inertia model with rapidly varied inflow discharge. For this purpose, twenty-three border irrigation tests at a range of inflow changes on different field slopes and roughness coefficients were conducted. Then, the sensitivity analyses of bed slope, infiltration parameters, and roughness coefficient were examined. The results indicate that the zero-inertia model predictions are in good agreement with field data in both advance/recession times and flow depths. The infiltration parameters were the most sensitive input variable of the zero-inertia model. The input variables have a more considerable impact on the recession phase than the advance phase. Keywords: zero-inertia model, rapidly varied inflow, border irrigation, sensitivity analysis DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20201302.5228 Citation: Liu K H, Jiao X Y, Li J, An Y H, Guo W H, Salahou M K, et al. Performance of a zero-inertia model for irrigation with rapidly varied inflow discharges. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2020; 13(2): 175–181.

Is Legislation Grease or Sand to Economic Growth? An Econometric Analysis Using Data From Italian Regions Before and After the 2008 Crisis

In this paper the impact of legislation on the GDP growth rate is investigated, both before and after the great economic and financial crisis of 2007-2008. The analysis has been performed using data from the twenty Italian regions from 1995 to 2016. Using several econometric models, the most significant result shows that flows of legislation can push economic growth into a recovery phase of the business cycle, while they should be reduced during recession phases, as they constitute a constraint to economic growth.

Mitigating Recessions: Incorporating Macroeconomic Levers into Bankruptcy Law in India

The role of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 in India, as foreseen by the Bankruptcy Law Reforms Committee Report 2015, was to facilitate a sound bankruptcy system in case of a major macroeconomic recession. India’s economy presently is undergoing its worst phase of the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, at a time when we need the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 desperately for insolvency resolution, the Government of India suspended the filing of any new insolvency cases through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020. This was done mainly to save debtors from multiple insolvency claims in a difficult time like the present. The author argues that such a blanket provision was counter-intuitive, as it refuses the opportunity of resolution to the firms, and would push them to the brink of liquidation. The author uses statistical methods and macroeconomic variables to forecast the number of insolvency cases that would have been admitted in India, had the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 not been suspended. The statistical analysis forecasts an exponential growth in number of insolvency cases which would have been filed, but were not due to the suspension of the insolvency law itself. The author also analyses that counter cyclical insolvency law is the need of the hour in the present recession, as the focus of insolvency law must shift towards protecting jobs and not doggedly go after protecting only secured creditors.As a solution, the author proposes an important concept of a macroeconomic trigger clause which can be incorporated into the insolvency legislation itself. This macroeconomic trigger clause will be crucial to practicably effect a counter-cyclical insolvency law framework. The state’s role increases manifold during a crisis or a recession. At the same time, arbitrariness creeps in due to the number of crucial decisions to be made. This arbitrariness is observed in the Government of India’s recent actions to suspend the filing of fresh insolvency cases altogether. A macroeconomic trigger clause can root out arbitrary state action like the one in India, by incorporating macroeconomic variables directly into the insolvency law.Hence, the author has conceptualised the macroeconomic trigger clause which is a novel concept in law and economics, to link the insolvency law to certain macroeconomic variables. The author also proposes certain changes in the Indian insolvency law framework to suit it to future economic crises.

СОЦІАЛЬНО-ЕКОНОМІЧНЕ ТА ФІСКАЛЬНЕ СЕРЕДОВИЩЕ УКРАЇНИ В УМОВАХ ЕКОНОМІЧНИХ ДИСБАЛАНСІВ

The economic situation in Ukraine over the last twenty-eight years has been characterized by considerable variability. The level of GDP growth was extremely low, the incomes of citizens were lower than in developed and developing countries, the level of social protection of citizens was and still remains insufficient to ensure the quality of life of citizens, such indicators did not allow Ukraine to occupy a prominent place in the global economic rankings. While unstable fiscal policies, unbalanced public finances, and monetary policy problems did not allow us to form an effective institutional environment that would ensure a steady socio-economic development of Ukraine. To study the macroeconomic situation in Ukraine, analysis of the chosen fiscal strategy and tactics, it is advisable to analyze individual «markers» – fiscal instruments that provided such fiscal indicators, from which sources they were formed and which led to the need for their formation at that level. It is also important to determine how the fiscal policy was influenced, GDP changed, what factors influenced its dynamics. To understand the socioeconomic situation of the country, it is necessary to determine whether the standard of living of the population has changed, the welfare of citizens, the investment climate, or the distribution of income in Ukraine is uniform, it is necessary to analyze the indicators of inflation and the level of GDP per capita in Ukraine.The aim of the work is to study the socio-economic situation, to analyze the impact of fiscal instruments on the welfare of citizens and to suggest ways to increase social and economic development in Ukraine.As a result of the socio-economic indicators study, indicators of well-being of citizens were obtained that confirm the existence of significant imbalances of social character in Ukraine. This study confirms the existence of three stages of the Ukrainian economy, with clearly defined phases of growth, recession and crises. It has been proved that only during the third period the government of the country began to fully implement its main function – social and economic development, as evidenced in particular by the growth of social indicators and welfare of the population, as well as improving the quality of the measures taken in the economic and fiscal spheres. It has also been proved that the social sphere is directly related to fiscal policy, which manifests itself through the redistribution of income through taxes and financing of the social sphere through budget expenditures and under the critical state of state borrowing.

General Equation for Advance and Recession of Water in Border Irrigation

AbstractAdvance and recession curves are of great importance for assessing the performance of border irrigation. In recent years, scaling techniques have helped to reduce the required measurements and to provide formulation of soil–water relations. The purpose of this study was to develop an invariant equation for calculating advance and recession curves in border irrigation using scaling techniques. The kinematic wave model and the Philip infiltration equation were used to simulate border irrigation. Scale factors were defined such that the kinematic wave equation remained independent of the initial and boundary conditions of the soil. Scaled advance and recession curves showed certain patterns, which led us to introduce a power and a binomial equation for advance and recession phases, respectively. The scaled equations were applied on 25 vegetated and non‐vegetated borders. Four performance indices were calculated for each border, including application efficiency (Ea), deep percolation ratio (DPR), tail water ratio (TWR) and water requirement efficiency (Er). Results showed that the maximum differences between measured and estimated values were 4% for Ea, 9% for DPR and 4% for Er. Considering the simplicity and soil‐condition independence of the proposed method, it can be concluded that scaled advance and recession curves could provide a reasonable estimate of border irrigation performance. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The role of spillovers in Okun’s law: Empirical evidence from Spain

The Great Recession of the late 2000s has brought to the fore, once again, the relevance of the relationship between output performance and labour market developments all over the world. This paper analyses the validity of Okun?s law in Spain by using regional data from 2000 to 2014, which roughly encompasses a complete business cycle. By estimating a Spatial Panel Durbin Model, the results not only show that a robust, inverse relationship between unemployment and output holds for Spain but also the existence of regional spillovers (indirect effects). In addition, they reveal that there are no time asymmetries between the expansion and recession phases of the business cycle and that human capital, the share of the construction sector, and the share of temporary workers are key factors in explaining unemployment changes. From a policy perspective, our findings support the idea of implementing region-specific policies, since indirect effects are less relevant than direct ones. In any case, national policies would also be effective. These policies, whatever their scope, should be mainly supply-side oriented in expansions (largely labour market policies) and demand-side focused in contractions.

Shoreline Evolution of Lagoon Sandy Spits and Adjacent Beaches, Lagoa dos Patos, Brazil

The development of lagoon sandy spits is dependent on sediment supply (mainly through longshore transport) and is often related to erosion of updrift beaches under high-angle waves. This paper provides an understanding of the short- to medium-term shoreline evolution of three symmetrical lagoon sandy spits and the related erosion of the adjacent bay beaches of Lagoa dos Patos, Brazil. To do so, two of the most widely used methods to quantify shoreline changes were applied: the transects-from-baseline method and the change polygon method. A historical analysis of the shoreline movement of approximately three decades (1984–2013), was carried out, aiming to track the source of sediments to the spits. Alternate phases of shoreline stability, deposition, and recession (less frequent) in short time intervals (years) showed correlation with the El Nino–Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode indexes. Shoreline stability along beaches in the medium term (60.4% of Arambare and 73.9% of Graxaim beaches, by the linear regression rate calculation), together with the very low average shoreline change rate of +0.7 m y–1 found using both methods, demonstrates that the sediment supply to the spits has been significantly reduced in the past three decades. Furthermore, the large-scale subaqueous portions of the spits are under wave-induced sedimentary reworking accompanied by the up-building of sandbanks from the submerged bars, followed by its landward migration and merging to the spit's shoreline. These results suggest that the spits of Lagoa dos Patos have their growth limited once the amount of sediment supply has been significantly reduced.

Effectivity of dissolved SF6 tracer for clarification of rainfall–runoff processes in a forested headwater catchment

AbstractUnderstanding rainfall‐runoff processes is crucial for prevention and prediction of water‐related natural disasters. Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a potential tracer, but few researches have applied it for rainfall‐runoff process studies. We observed multiple tracers including SF6 in spring water at 1‐ to 2‐hr intervals during rainstorm events to investigate the effectivity of SF6 tracer in rainfall–runoff studies through the clarification of rainfall–runoff process. The target spring is a perennial spring in a forested headwater catchment with an area of 0.045 km2 in Fukushima, Japan. The relationship between the SF6 concentration in spring water and the spring discharge volume was negative trend; the SF6 concentration in spring water becomes low as the spring discharge volume increases especially during rainstorms. The hydrograph separation using SF6 and chloride ion tracers was applied for determining the contribution of principal sources on rainfall–runoff water. It suggested more than 60% contribution of bedrock groundwater at the rainfall peak and high percentage contribution continued even in the hydrograph recession phase. Based on observed low SF6 concentration in groundwater after heavy rainfall, the replacement of groundwater near the spring with bedrock groundwater is indicated as a mechanism for water discharge with low SF6 concentration during rainfall events. Consequently, rainstorm events play an important role as triggers in discharging water stored in the deeper subsurface area. In addition, SF6 tracer is concluded as one of the strongest tracers for examining rainfall–runoff process studies. And, therefore, this study provided new insights into the dynamics of groundwater and its responses to rainfall in terms of SF6 concentration variance in water in headwater regions.

Механізм державного регулювання космічної галузі України

The effective functioning of any sector of the economy is the result of the balanced mechanism of government regulation. However today, the space industry of Ukraine is in a recession phase. This situation is a consequence of the inefficient government policy concerning the distribution of budget expenditures, the lack of adaptive management mechanisms to the market economy, and the government's distrust to this sector through the corruption component. The purpose of the article is to analyze the formation and disclosure of the practical basis of the mechanism of government regulation of the space industry of Ukraine. The objectives of sustainable development were highlighted for the achievement of which space technologies are used. The basics of the legislative regulation of the development of the space industry in the developed countries of the world and in Ukraine were investigated. The analysis of the funding volumes of the National Targeted Scientific and Technical Space Program of Ukraine during 2013-2017 has been carried out. It was revealed that the government's unawareness of the importance of developing high-tech enterprises leads to ineffective government regulation of the space industry. The mechanism of cooperation between the state and private enterprises does not have a development strategy that affects the competitiveness of Ukrainian space technologies at the world level. The basic principles and indicators of the effective functioning of the space industry were defined. The conceptual foundations of the mechanism of government regulation of Ukraine's space activities were substantiated. It was determined that government regulation should be directed at creating a closed production cycle based on specialized enterprises without interfering in the process of the political component, this will ensure effective activity in market conditions. Such result can be achieved by creating a state corporation (concern), which should combine enterprises and institutions of the defense and space industry.

Funding Fragility And Commercial Bank Failures

I examine the link between funding composition and the hundreds of failures of US commercial banks that followed the 2007-2008 funding phase of the Great Recession. I test whether these failures were induced by market-wide funding freezes that were unrelated to policy fundamentals, or by funding freezes that were idiosyncratic to failed banks but unrelated to bank fundamentals. The empirical evidence rejects both propositions. Funding structures remained relatively stable during the crisis. Intertemporal variation in aggregate funding costs can be explained by shifts in policy rates. Variation in the spread in funding costs between failed and nonfailed banks ,at the time that failure rates peaked, can be explained almost entirely by differences in solvency risk.

Relations between present relief on the border of lowlands and highlands and geological structures of the Paleozoic Platform – a case study from central Poland

The article is an attempt to find relations between geology and the dynamics of the Mesozoic surface of the Łodź Synclinorium, the Radomsko Elevation and the Belchatow Graben and the present relief on the border of the Polish Lowlands and Uplands in its central part. Fossil relief has been compared with the present one as related to the extent of the recession phases of the Saalian (Wartanian) ice-sheet. A significant convergence has been found between the Mesozoic surface plain and the main morphologic elements. The role of elevations and fossil valleys has been stressed as stable forms in the pre-Pleistocene and contemporary landscape. Also stressed has been the meaning of grabens and elevations enforcing longer stoppages of the Wartanian stadial of the Middle Polish Glaciations.

From Asset Price Bubbles to Liquidity Traps

This paper argues that it is useful to divide the cyclical behavior of modern mixed capitalist economies into four phases: expansion, upper turning period, recession, and lower turning period. This characterization of the business cycle is more demanding and potentially more beneficial than the one currently used by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which identifies only the peak and trough of the cycle. To illustrate the value of this approach, the recent global financial crisis is examined by reviewing the expansion driven by the development of the housing bubble. Then, the beginning of the crisis is regarded as the upper turning period. The initial financial instability evolved into a full crisis during the Great Recession due to its impact on unemployment. Finally, the ending of the crisis during the challenging period of the liquidity trap is analyzed as the lower turning period. Orthodox economic analysis offers valuable insights for both the expansion and recession phases, but can also benefit from behavioral finance and Minsky’s analysis, when fluctuations in the economy extend beyond the business cycle and become financial crises. For financial crises, the upper turning period is Minskyan and the lower turning period is an updated version of the Keynesian-Minskyan liquidity trap. Taleb’s concavity and convexity properties of the upper and lower turning periods also offer valuable insights.

From job creation and qualification schemes to activation strategies: the history of Germany’s labor market policy

ABSTRACTWith the implementation of the activation approach, formulated by the American political scientist Lawrence Mead and the British sociologist Anthony Giddens, the labor market policy has been reformed in Germany and many other industrialized countries, since the mid-1990s. A fundamental component of the realignment is that welfare payments are tied more strictly than previously to the acceptance of employment. While in the U.S.A., the new labor market policy is characterized by the ‘workfare’ motto, in Germany, the foundations of the activation are formulated with the guiding principle ‘support and demand’. Nevertheless, due to the shortage of public funds subsidies were cut sharply in recession phases but not increased adequately during the periods of economic recovery. As a result, the promotional elements of the activation concept are far outweighed by enforcement measures, leaving the unemployed to accept less attractive non-standard work. However, even with favorable economic conditions, even a relatively small number of atypical employees successfully made the transition to regular full-time employment. Therefore, in order to facilitate career advancement additional support would be required, which will not end with the recruitment.

Debt, economic growth, and interest rates: an empirical study of the Swiss case, presenting a new long-term dataset: 1894\u20132014

In this paper, relations between public debt, economic growth, and long-term interest rates in Switzerland from 1894 to 2014 are examined. For this purpose, an original long-term dataset on the general gross public debt in Switzerland, namely the aggregation of the Confederation gross debt, the cantons’ gross debts, and the municipal gross debts, was reconstructed. Three different statistical approaches are performed to study relations between this aggregated debt, economic growth, and interest rates. The first consists of the study of correlations between GDP-weighted variables, the second is the study of the correlation between residuals of ARIMA time series models, and the last one studies vector autoregression (VAR) models, allowing us to test Granger causalities between variables. Every approach is performed on the whole time period but also on boom phases and recession phases independently. All the results suggest that the public debt during this period in Switzerland did not have a negative impact on economic growth and did not raise long-term interest rates.

Chinese policy uncertainty shocks and the world macroeconomy: Evidence from STVAR

How far could a rise in uncertainty affecting China be transmitted to other economies? This paper investigates the possible spillovers from a shock to Chinese Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) to developed (the United States, the Euro Area, Japan and South Korea) and emerging economies (Brazil and Russia). To take into account the non-linear nature of uncertainty shocks, we estimate a Smooth-Transition Vector Auto-Regressive (STVAR) model differentiating phases of expansion and phases of recession. We find important asymmetries in the responses to Chinese uncertainty shocks of macro-variables especially for the United States (US), the Euro Area (EA) and South Korea. Indeed, these countries display almost no response to the identified shock during booms. However, when hit in downturns, they suffer from a fall in industrial production, inflation and exports together with an increase in unemployment (except for Korea). Emerging countries (Brazil and Russia) stand out in the extent to which they significantly respond to the Chinese shock in both identified regimes. Lastly, the Japanese economy seems to be less sensitive to the Chinese shock.

Improving nitrate load estimates in an agricultural catchment using Event Response Reconstruction.

Low-frequency grab sampling cannot capture fine dynamics of stream solute concentrations, which results in large uncertainties in load estimates. The recent development of high-frequency sensors has enabled monitoring solute concentrations at sub-hourly time scales. This study aimed to improve nitrate (NO3) load estimates using high-resolution records (15-min time interval) from optical sensors to capture the typical concentration response to storm events. An empirical model was developed to reconstruct NO3 concentrations during storm events in a 100-km2 agricultural catchment in Germany. Two years (Jan 2002 to Dec 2002 and Oct 2005 to Sep 2006) of high-frequency measurements of NO3 concentrations, discharge and precipitation were used. An Event Response Reconstruction (ERR) model was developed using NO3 concentration descriptor variables and predictor variables calculated from discharge and precipitation records. Fourteen events were used for calibration, and 27 events from four periods of continuous records of high-frequency measurement were used for validation. During all selected storm events, NO3 concentration decreased during flow rise and increased during the recession phase of the hydrograph. Three storm descriptor variables were used to describe these dynamics: relative change in concentration between initial and minimum NO3 concentrations (rdN), time to maximum change in NO3 concentration (TdN) and time to 50% recovery of NO3 concentration (TN rec ). The ERR consisted of building linear models of discharge and precipitation to predict these three descriptors. The ERR approach greatly improved NO3 load estimates compared to linear interpolation of grab sampling data (error decreased from 10 to 1%) or flow-weighted estimation of load (error is 7%). This study demonstrated that ERR based on a few months of high-resolution data enables accurate load estimates from low-frequency NO3 data.

BRASILIAN ECONOMICS IN THE BEGINNING OF TWENTY FIRST CENTURY: ONE VIEW EXTENDED CRISIS AS 2015

Os anos 2000 foram peculiares para a economia brasileira em virtude das modificações de ordem político ideológicas que foram implementadas a partir do início do governo Lula, às quais impactaram o cenário político, social e, também, econômico. Procura-se,

Lithological diversity of the deposits of closed depressions in central Poland as a result of their origin conditions

Small closed-drainage depressions are a common element of the landscape of Central Poland. Their origin is mainly connected to the melting of blocks of dead ice in the phase of advanced recession of the ice-sheet in the Wartanian Stadial of the Odranian Glaciation. In the Łódź Upland, an analysis of four sites containing sets of depressions has been conducted to determine the lithological properties of their infillings. The analysis revealed that the frequently deep, steep-walled basins are filled in with deposits of various age and origin. Four lithological units, containing sediments ranging from a glacial base to the mineral sediments of the Vistulian, were formed. Many of the depressions do not contain biogenic sediments of the Eemian Interglacial. The lithological suggestions of the age of the deposits allowed to determine two types of depressions - fossil depressions of melting origin, and genetically complex ones that underwent deposition prior to the Eemian Interglacial and with a secondary deepening, most likely as a result of melting of ground ice under thermokarst conditions, during the Vistulian Glaciation (=Weichselian). The dominant views that connect the origin of the multiple depressions solely to the end of the Wartanian should be verified.

Tasa de interés de referencia, agregados monetarios y ciclos económicos

El presente Aatículo analiza cualitativamente y cuantitativamente los efectos del control de la tasa de interés de referencia y de los agregados monetarios (por parte del Banco Central de Reserva) sobre la estructura productiva y los procesos de coordinación e interacción económica de la sociedad. Se verifica cuantitativamente que la relación baja tasa de interés de referencia-alto nivel de los agregados monetarios y Comportamiento Cíclico del Producto Bruto Interno define las fases de recuperación y auge de los sectores productivos más intensivo en tiempo y capital; y las fases de ralentización y recesión de esos sectores productivos.

Measuring the Impact of Economic Crisis to the Greek Vehicle Market

The fallout of the global economic crisis has impacted Greece severely as the austerity measures that were implemented since 2009 have had a devastating effect on poverty and the level of living. The financial agreement of the Greek government with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave rise to a deep recession phase in the Greek market that started in early 2008. The automobile industry is among the sectors that have been severely affected by the economic crisis. Given that the demand for cars fell sharply and that the Greek car market is facing serious problems, mapping and understanding them can provide useful input to the Greek vehicle market. Regression analysis is being employed, and the interrelations of different variables, such as net disposable income, unemployment rate, fuel prices, the Greek crisis, loans directed to the vehicle market, as well as the inflation rate for the period of 2000–2016, are investigated. Analyzing the factors affecting car sales can provide policy-makers with knowledge in order to take legislative and economic measures, so as to boost sales of new environmental friendly vehicles not only in Greece, but in all EU states.