Short-term Imbalances Research Articles

Exchange Rate Pass-Through into Import Prices: Evidence from Türkiye during 2010-2020 Period

This article analyses pass through of exchange rates into the import prices for an emerging economy, Türkiye, which faced severe fluctuations in the nominal exchange rate in the recent years, and experienced significant increases in domestic prices. The Turkish economy continues to struggle due to high inflationary pressures and a steep Turkish Lira (TL) devaluation particularly after 2017. This study aimed at examining the relationship between exchange rate and import prices using quarterly data for the period of 2010q1-2019q1, while the empirical methodology is framed in the multivariate cointegration analysis, along with the application of the Johansen cointegration test and the development of an autoregressive error correction vector for the determination of the pass-through in the long term. Our findings show that 85.6% of the fluctuations of the nominal exchange rate are transmitted to the import prices in the mentioned period, slower than the findings of the study by Akgunduz and his colleagues as the difference of import prices from its long-run relationship implied by the real exchange rate is likely dominated by energy prices in a strong manner. Second significant finding derives from the parameter that measures the speed of the pass-through, whose estimate has been found as -0.0125, inferring that the adjustment in short-term imbalances between import prices and the nominal exchange rate through changes in import prices is rather slow.

Validity of the Phillips curve in the Agricultural Sector: The Case of Turkey

Agriculture, which has historically been the main employment generating sector, is still very important in newly industrializing countries such as Turkey. Theoretically, it is thought that its share in GNP will decrease over time, but the depth of the decrease will depend on the economic impact of agriculture. One way to measure this effect is to adapt the Phillips curve for the agricultural sector. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse the validity of the Phillips curve in the Turkish agricultural sector. The study is conducted by the Augmented Dickey Fuller, Phillips Perron and Zivot-Anders Unit Root Tests as well as Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Autoregressive Distributed Lag tests via TURKSTAT 2014Q1-2020Q3 dataset. Reviewing these test, we find that the cointegration coefficient calculated by the NARDL model is negative, yet statistically significant. Accordingly, the short-term imbalances are eliminated in the long-run and the system converges to the long-run equilibrium values. Nonetheless, since the coefficient is greater than one, it is a sign of significant fluctuations in the convergence of the system to the long-term equilibrium. Additionally, the long-run negative cointegrated relationship of unemployment and inflation indicates that the Phillips Curve is valid in Turkish agricultural sector.

Investigating the Relationship between Misery Index and Patients' Out-of-pocket Payments in Iran's Health System

Background: One of the criteria for measuring the performance of governments and their survival is the degree of success in reducing and stabilizing the misery index. The misery index is obtained from the sum of inflation and unemployment. Inflation and unemployment are the most important factors affecting family's income. If the misery index is high, families will have less money to buy their consumer goods, including the use of healthcare services and treatment. Therefore, this research has evaluated the relationship between misery index and patients' out-of-pocket payments in Iran's health system.
 Methods: Using time series data of 1998-2019, this study has investigated the relationship between misery index and patients' out-of-pocket payments in Iran's health system. For this purpose, the Dickey-Fuller test was used to check the durability of the variables, the Todayamamoto causality test was used to check the causality relationship between the variables, and the autoregression method with distribution breaks was used to check the existence of a long-term relationship. In addition, the data and results were analyzed using Eview 9 software.
 Results: The results showed that there was a bi-directional causal relationship between the misery index and the out-of-pocket payments of patients in the health system. Furthermore, with increasing 1 unit of misery index 1.27 units of out-of-pocket payments increased. The correction error coefficient was 0.312, which meant this amount was adjusted each period by 0.312 from short-term imbalance to achieve long-term balance. In other words, it takes more than 3 years and less than 4 years to eliminate the short-term imbalances and reach its long-term relationship.
 Conclusion: As the misery index increases, patients' out-of-pocket payments also increase. Therefore, the government should reduce the out-of-pocket payments of patients in the health system by adopting appropriate policies to reduce unemployment and inflation. Basic insurance coverage for essential services for patients should be increased. The extent of complementary medical insurance should be increased at the community level, especially in the lower deciles. In fact, the government should bear the cost of this part of the insurance for the four lower deciles. This is done in order to reduce the patients' out-of-pocket payments.

Is Foreign Debt Management in Gabon Efficient?

Abstract The objective of this paper is to show whether external debt management in Gabon is effective. Our study period is from 1989 to 2019 and we use error correction modeling. The significance and positive sign of the recall force shows that short-term imbalances do not correct in the long run, implying that debt management is inefficient as exchange rate fluctuations create changes in the shares of debt denominated in U.S. dollars, Japanese yen, and special drawing rights in both the short and long run. It is difficult for the debt manager to balance his portfolio. The originality of the article is to show that the management of the debt, in particular the external debt, is difficult to be seen inefficient by taking the example of a small economy opened on the outside. It is then a question of rethinking public policies and especially of carrying out structural reforms in the economy in order to minimize the consequences of a high external debt. In this context, the literature recommends either dollarizing all of its debt or allowing the development of a domestic bond market to protect against (or at least minimize) the effects of exchange rate fluctuations on external debt. While we find the latter proposal relevant, we believe that the former is not. Furthermore, we would add that Gabon should implement reforms to boost its industrial sector in order to improve its integration into international trade. The goal is to counter (even partially) the effects of currency fluctuations through export gains.

Metabolic and endocrine responses to short-term nutrient imbalances in the feed ration of mid-lactation dairy cows

Short-term imbalances of dietary nutrients occur during natural fluctuations in roughage quality (e.g. on pasture) or temporal shortages of supplementary feed components. In contrast to a deficiency, macronutrients (i.e. carbohydrates, proteins, lipids) beyond the adequate supply with other nutrients may, for instance, alter milk composition, increase BW or result in a greater excretion of nitrogen. Especially dairy cows with a moderate performance, in mid- or late lactation, or in extensive farming systems may be exposed to imbalanced rations. A better understanding of metabolic and endocrine responses depending on macronutrient supply may help to precisely feed dairy cows. The present study investigated short-term metabolic and endocrine responses to different levels of concentrates formulated to particularly provide one major macronutrient source (carbohydrates, proteins or lipids). Based on parity number, lactational stage, milk yield and BW, nine mid-lactating cows (211 ± 19 days in milk) were grouped into three blocks of three animals each. Concentrates (aminogenic: rich in CP and nitrogen sources; glucogenic: high content of carbohydrates and glucogenic precursors; lipogenic: high lipid content) were fed in addition to hay in a factorial arrangement at increasing levels from 2.5 to 7.5 kg/d during 9 d. Milk yield, BW and feed intake were recorded daily. Blood and milk were sampled every 3 d at the end of each concentrate level. Milk fat, protein, lactose and urea contents were determined. In blood, concentrations of various metabolites, endocrine factors and enzyme activities (e.g. glucose, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs), β-hydroxybutyrate, urea, cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin, glucagon, aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and glutamate dehydrogenase activity (GLDH)) were measured. Milk yield, milk composition and BW were not affected by type and level of concentrates. Feed intake increased in cows with greater amounts of the aminogenic and lipogenic concentrate compared with the glucogenic concentrate. Milk and plasma urea concentrations were elevated in the aminogenic and to a lesser extent in the lipogenic treatment compared with the glucogenic treatment. Glucose concentrations in plasma were not affected by treatments, whereas insulin and glucagon increased, and NEFA concentrations decreased only in cows fed 7.5 kg/d aminogenic concentrate compared with the glucogenic and lipogenic treatment. Activities of ASAT, GGT and GLDH as well as the total antioxidant capacity were not affected by diets. In conclusion, immediate metabolic and endocrine responses were observed due to the short-term dietary changes. Particularly, a surplus of nitrogen supply via the aminogenic diet affected metabolic responses and stimulated insulin and glucagon secretion.

Effect of Hybrid Power Station Installation in the Operation of Insular Power Systems

Greece has a large number of islands that are isolated from the main interconnected Greek power system; however, a majority of them are to be interconnected in the mainland grid over the next decade. A large number of these islands present a significant amount of wind and solar potential. The nature of load demand and renewable production is stochastic; thus, the operation of such isolated power systems can be improved significantly by the installation of a large-scale energy storage system. The role of storage is to compensate for the long and short-term imbalances between power generation and load demand. Pumped hydro storage (PHS) systems represent one of the most mature technologies for large-scale energy storage. However, their advantages have not been proven in practice for cases of medium and small-sized isolated insular systems. Regarding Greece, which contains a large number of isolated insular systems, a PHS system in the island of Ikaria started its test operation in 2019, whereas in Europe only one PHS system operates in El Hierro (Canary Islands). This paper studies the effect of installing a wind-PHS hybrid power station in the operation of the insular power system of Samos, Greece, according to the latest regulatory framework. The implemented analysis uses real hourly data for a whole year, and examines the effects of such an installation considering investors’ and power system operators’ viewpoints. More specifically, the economic viability of this project under different billing scenarios is compared, and its impact on the insular power system operation for various PHS sizes is examined.

Effectiveness of Trade and Exchange Rate Policies on Exporting Garden Products: Evidences from Iran

The current research intends to study the effectiveness of trade and exchange rate policies on exporting garden products in Iran. For the policies on exchange rate, the instability of the exchange rate and the dummy variable of exchange rate unification were considered in relation to trade policies, trade diversion and economic openness. To do so, the short term and long term relation between the variables of the export supply logarithmic function was determined according to ARDL model and the error correction model. The data was collected from the international trade database, the statistics of the agriculture ministry and the central bank’s site for 1997-2015. The results showed that, for long term, such variables as trade diversion, exchange rate instability, economic openness, export value of the stone fruits during previous years and the dummy variable of exchange rate unification were positively influencing on exporting Iran’s stone fruits. The value of error correction factor was estimated as -0.42 which is significant and indicates a more highly increased adjustment for long term equilibrium. Also, when a shock or diversion from equilibrium occurs, 0.58 of the short term imbalances are adjusted to reach the long term equilibrium.

IMPACTOS DO SETOR MINERO-SIDERÚRGICO SOBRE AS CONCENTRAÇÕES DE PARTÍCULAS INALÁVEIS E DE DIÓXIDO DE ENXOFRE, NA REGIÃO DA GRANDE VITÓRIA, ESPÍRITO SANTO, BRASIL

This study aimed to verify the impacts of mining and steel industries on concentrations of particulate matter (PM10) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), in the Region of Grande Vitória (RGV), Espírito Santo, Brazil, using the Vector autoregressive/Vector error correction (VAR/VECM) method. The results showed that i) the concentrations of the pollutants PM10 and SO2 are significantly impacted by mining and steel industries, being the sectors represented in this study by the export of iron ore pellets and concentrates and other semi-manufactured products of iron/steel; ii) the influence of the mining and steel industries is higher on the pollutant SO2 than on PM10; and, iii) short-term estimates of the cointegration vector revealed that the short-term imbalances for PM10 concentrations are corrected more quickly than for SO2 concentrations.

“Cut Me Some Slack”

This article examines the functioning of team charters in teamwork. We argue that the psychological contract literature serves as a theoretical foundation for understanding team charters. We examine what types of psychological contracts are established and developed during interactions between team members and whether these psychological contracts are related to team functioning. Through in-depth interviews and objective performance measures, we find some distinct patterns of psychological contracts that can be related to team functioning. Our results indicate that teams may benefit from early and explicit discussions about standards for work effort and work quality, and about the importance of being tolerant with each other. More particularly, we find that teams that are able to “cut each other some slack,” that is, the ability to live with short-term imbalances in give-and-take relationships, are more functional teams.

Tools to support sustainable entrepreneurship in energy positive neighbourhoods

In an Energy Positive Neighbourhood (EPN) the annual energy demand is lower than annual energy supply from local renewable energy sources. Short-term imbalances in energy supply and demand are corrected with national energy supplies. In this paper the early stages of the development - the specifications - of the tools for intelligent management of energy positive neighbourhoods are presented. These tools include an energy management tool for real-time management of the energy flows, user interfaces that support energy efficient behavior of the users in the neighbourhood and an urban planning decision support tool. The specifications and tools are the result of European co-operation, and are designed so that they can easily be adopted in different European countries with minimum changes.

Medicare and the U.S. Unfunded Liability

Corresponding author: Gilbert Berdine MD Contact Information: Gilbert.Berdine@ttuhsc.edu DOI: 10.12746/swrccc 2014.0205.055 The recent U.S. government shutdown has brought disagreements over U.S. government fiscal policy to public attention. These discussions focus most often on the short term imbalances between government revenues and expenditures known as the budget deficit. As the deficit has increased both in nominal terms and as a fraction of GDP, more people are looking at the sustainability of the situation or the longer term picture. Given that retirement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, are becoming larger determinants of both the short term and long term imbalances, increasing attention is being drawn to the actuarial concepts of unfunded liabilities. The long term imbalances are derived from projections of the short term imbalances over time using actuarial methods. This article will explain the concept of unfunded liability and analyze the contribution of Medicare to this long term problem.

Dynamically Efficient Urban Water Policy

Many urban communities are considering infrastructure investments to augment their water supply in response to actual or expected shortages due to weather variability and, in some cases, due to climate change. To address short-term imbalances between supply and demand, water utilities frequently use mandatory water restrictions to curb demand. By contrast, adjustments to the volumetric price of water are rarely used as a demand-management tool in response to variability in catchment inflows. To evaluate the welfare losses from the typical water restrictions approach to demand management and supply augmentation, we compare ‘business as usual’ to the use of dynamically efficient water pricing to determine: (1) the volumetric price and (2) the optimal time to invest in additional supply given variability in water availability. To calculate welfare losses a practical method is used that simultaneously calculates the optimal dynamic volumetric price, the optimal time to invest in new supplies, and the optimal use of water restrictions while accounting for climate variability, the costs of supply augmentation, and the demand for water by households. Using actual data from a large metropolitan center, model results show that the present value of the expected costs from using supply-inflexible volumetric water pricing generates large welfare losses in excess of the annual average household water bill. These losses are attributable to: (1) on-going water restrictions and (2) premature supply augmentation, but could be avoided if dynamically efficient volumetric pricing were to be adopted by price regulators or water utilities in response to variability in water availability. The results are both important and of general interest because global expenditures on water infrastructure are estimated to be some $75 billion/year and there is no jurisdiction, as far as we are aware, that employs dynamically efficient water pricing.

Animal temperature limits and ecological relevance: Effects of size, activity and rates of change

1. Climate change is affecting species distributions and will increasingly do so. However, current understanding of which individuals and species are most likely to survive and why is poor. Knowledge of assemblage or community level effects is limited and the balance of mechanisms that are important over different time-scales is poorly described. Laboratory experiments on marine animals predominantly employ rates of change 10-100 000 times faster than climate induced oceanic warming. To address this failure we investigated differences in individual and species abilities to tolerate warming, and also how rate of warming affected survival. 2. This study identifies community level effects of thermal biology by applying a multi-species, multi-trophic level approach to the analysis of temperature limits. 3. Within species analyses of 14 species from 6 phyla showed smaller individuals survived to higher temperatures than large animals when temperatures were raised acutely. If this trend continues at slower warming rates, the early loss of larger individuals has marked consequences at the population level as larger individuals form the major reproductive component. 4. Between species comparisons showed active species survived to higher temperatures than sessile or low activity groups. Thus active groups (e.g. predators) and juvenile or immature individuals should fare better in rapid warming scenarios. This would be expected to produce short-term ecological imbalances in warming events. 5. The rate of warming markedly affected temperature limits in a wide range of Antarctic marine species. Different species survived to temperatures of 8.3-17.6 degrees C when temperatures were raised by around 1 degrees C day(-1). However they only survived to temperatures between 4.0 degrees C and 12.3 degrees C when temperatures were raised by around 1-2 degrees C week(-1), and temperatures of only 1.0-6.0 degrees C were tolerated for acclimations over periods of months. 6. Current models predicting range changes of species in response to climate change are either correlative or mechanistic. Mechanistic models offer the potential to incorporate the ecophysiological adaptation and evolutionary processes which determine future responses and go beyond simple correlative approaches. These models depend on the incorporation of data on species capacities to resist and adapt to change. This study is an important step in the provision of such data from experimental manipulations.

Estimation of Regional Evapotranspiration by Combining Aircraftand Ground-Based Measurements

Two methods are examined for combining measurements from instrumented aircraftand towers to estimate regional scale evapotranspiration. Aircraft data provided spatially averaged values of properties of the surface, the evaporative fraction and maximum stomatal conductance. These quantities are less sensitive to meteorological conditions than the turbulent fluxes of heat and water vapour themselves. The methods allowed aircraft data collected over several days to be averaged and thus to reduce the random error associated with the temporal under-sampling inherent in aircraft measurements. Evaporative fraction is estimated directly from the aircraft data, while maximum stomatal conductance is estimated by coupling the Penman–Monteith equation to a simple model relating surface conductance to the incoming shortwave radiation and specific humidity saturation deficit. The spatial averages of evaporative fraction and maximum stomatal conductance can then be used with routine tower data to estimate the regional scale evapotranspiration. Data from aircraft flights and six ground based sites during the OASIS field campaign in south–east New South Wales in 1995 have been used to check the methods. Both the evaporative fraction and the maximum stomatal conductance derived from the aircraft data give information on the spatial variability of the surface energy budget at scales from 10 to 100 km. Daily averaged latent heat fluxes estimated using these methods for the OASIS study region agree with the available observations in quasi-stationary conditions or in weakly non-stationary conditions when the data from several aircraft flights are averaged to reduce the impact of short term imbalances in the surface energy budget.

Between Supply and Demand: Permanent Skilled Migration to Australia

Research on skilled migration has dealt overwhelmingly with the contribution of migration to productivity growth, to changes in the income of migrants and the factors influencing their employment. Much less attention has been paid to the institutional mechanisms that mediate between the external supply and the host-country demand for skilled labour, even though these play a vital role in the selection of such migrants. Australia has maintained a selective, highly regulated permanent skilled migration program for much of its contemporary history. This program contains both general and specific skilled entry. The former is not linked to any particular needs of individual firms or industries. Rather, in seeking some balance between supply and demand, entry is on the basis of general criteria such as the possession of a qualification recognised in Australia and English-language proficiency. Short-term imbalances between the supply of general skills and occupational demand have led to changes in entry criteria in response to labour market information and pressure from professional associations and trade unions. Specific skilled migration is closely tied to employer nominations. They cannot proceed unless certain institutional processes are met. The firm concerned must demonstrate that the required human capital cannot be found in Australia, that the position is in fact a highly skilled one, and that the firm has a training strategy for Australians.

RIO

A multimedia object server must be ready to handle a variety of media object types (video, audio, image, 3D interactive, etc.) as well as non real-time workload. Even when a homogeneous set of object types are maintained in the store (e.g., all videos) the storage system workload is generally quite variable due to the need to provide for example, VCR functionality, multiple playout rates, different resolution levels for the same objects, etc. Attempting to carefully layout data and optimally schedule delivery to meet just-in-time delivery constraints is very difficult in the face of this heterogeneous workload. Our approach to the unpredictability of the I/O workload is to randomize the allocation of disk blocks. This turns all workloads into the same uniformly random access pattern and thus gives one problem to deal with. The main disadvantage of this approach is that statistical variation can result in short term imbalances in disk utilization which in turn, cause large variances in latencies. Our approach to this problem is to introduce limited redundancy and asynchronous scheduling for short term load balancing.This approach is being implemented in the RIO (Random I/O) multimedia object server. The RIO multimedia object server provides applications a guaranteed rate of storage access with bounded delay even at very high ( > 90% ) disk utilization.

Influence of variable rates of neritic carbonate deposition on atmospheric carbon dioxide and pelagic sediments.

Short-term imbalances in the global cycle of shallow water calcium carbonate deposition and dissolution may be responsible for much of the observed Pleistocene change in atmospheric carbon dioxide content. However, any proposed changes in the alkalinity balance of the ocean must be reconciled with the sedimentary record of deep-sea carbonates. The possible magnitude of the effect of shallow water carbonate deposition on the dissolution of pelagic carbonate can be tested using numerical simulations of the global carbon cycle. Boundary conditions can be defined by using extant shallow water carbonate accumulation data and pelagic carbonate deposition/dissolution data. On timescales of thousands of years carbonate deposition versus dissolution is rarely out of equilibrium by more than 1.5 x 10(13) mole yr-1. Results indicate that the carbonate chemistry of the ocean is rarely at equilibrium on timescales less than 10 ka. This disequilibrium is probably due to sea level-induced changes in shallow water calcium carbonate deposition/dissolution, an interpretation that does not conflict with pelagic sedimentary data from the central Pacific.

Relationship between Two Price Quotes for Eggs

Most transfers of shell eggs at all levels of the marketing channel from the production to the retail level are priced by formula based on published market quotations. Most pricing formulas in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains are based on prices quoted in Producers' Price-Current. West coast egg-pricing formulas most often use quotes by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Poultry Market News. The pervasive use of formula-pricing results in a thinly traded cash market and focuses attention on the price quotes. The validity and accuracy of quotes are major concerns of the trade. The problems of egg pricing are documented by Rogers and Voss and by Schrader, Larzelere, Rogers and Forker. The desire on the part of the trade for a means to facilitate price discovery and price reporting for eggs motivated the establishment of Egg Clearinghouse, Inc. (ECI). ECI is a cash exchange trading gradable nest-run eggs, where trades are matched by computer with the product moving directly from seller to buyer once a trade has been completed. Trading on ECI has been thin, representing less than 0.5% of all eggs produced in 1978. Yet trades on ECI and Defense Personnel Support Center purchases represent the only transactions for which quality and delivery are clearly specified and for which prices are available to the public. Other transactions are known to participants and, to some extent, to Urner Barry or USDA reporters. Both Urner Barry and Market News report prices paid by retailers for cartoned eggs; however, these prices usually are determined by formula using a prior quotation. Much of the trading on ECI represents trading among grading and packing firms to correct shortterm imbalances. As such, these relatively few trades may represent the marginal price-making transactions. The quality specifications are such that only eggs suitable for cartoning for table use are acceptable for delivery in the gradable nest-run classes.