Treasures from UCL

UCL has one of the foremost university Special Collections in the UK. It is a treasure trove of national and international importance, comprising over a million items dating from the 4th century AD to the present day. Treasures from UCL draws together detailed descriptions and images of 70 of the most prized individual items. Between the magnificent illuminated Latin Bible of the 13th century and the personal items of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, George Orwell, the many highlights of this remarkable collection will delight and intrigue anyone who picks up this book

SPIT IN MY MOUTH: Queer Intimacies, Material Intra-actions, and Sensuous Becoming

This document describes my multidisciplinary art practice as it intersects with New Materialism, Queer and Affect theory, Ecology, and my embodied and experiential knowledge as a queer subject. The writing is divided into two categories. One is more theoretical, thinking through these different discourses. The other realizes them through relationships and intra-actions between my material kin and me. With these two modes of writing,I propose that embodied and felt knowing is as valid and illuminating as more traditional forms of knowledge. These sections are interdependent and resist linear logic, offering relational meanings to each reader as they find their way through a terrain of text and image offering a multiplicity of readings. Renaming difficulties with articulation as a legitimate tension within my own way of thinking and experiencing, this document pushes against such exactitude of ideas. Ultimately the artworks in my thesis exhibition and this outlining document work to reveal queerness, or queering, as a basic tenet for existence. This text uses Open Dyslexic, an open-source font designed for readers with dyslexia, a learning difference whose wide range of effects alters the way a person takes in, processes, and utilizes language and graphic symbols

Real exchange rates in latin america: The ppp hypothesis and fractional integration

This paper tests for PPP in a group of seventeen Latin American (LA) countries by applying fractional integration techniques to real exchange rate series. Compared to earlier studies on these economies, this approach has the advantage of allowing for non-integer values for the degree of integration, and thus for the possibility of PPP not holding continuously but as a long-run equilibrium condition. Further, breaks in the series are endogenously determined using a procedure based on the least-squares principle. This is particularly crucial in the Latin American countries, which have been affected by several exchange rate crises and policy regime changes. The results, based on different assumptions about the underlying disturbances, are in the majority of cases inconsistent with PPP, even more so when breaks are incorporated: Argentina is the only country for which clear evidence of mean reversion is found in the model including a break, albeit only in the second subsample

Black market and official exchange rates: Long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamics

This paper provides further empirical results on the relationship between black market and official exchange rates in six emerging economies (Iran, India, Indonesia, Korea, Pakistan, and Thailand). First, it applies both time series techniques and heterogeneous panel methods to test for the existence of a long-run relation between these two types of exchange rates. Second, it tests formally the validity of the proportionality restriction implying a constant black-market premium. Third, in addition to the long-run equilibrium, it also analyses the short-run dynamic responses of both markets to shocks. Evidence of market inefficiency and incomplete (or long-lived) reversion to long-run equilibrium is found. This implies that financial managers can only partially reduce the exchange rate risk, whilst monetary authorities can effectively pursue their policy objectives by imposing foreign exchange or direct controls

Employment growth, inflation and output growth: Was phillips right? Evidence from a dynamic panel

Copyright @ 2011 Brunel UniversityIn this paper we analyse the short- and long-run relationship between employment growth, inflation and output growth in Phillips’ tradition. For this purpose we apply FMOLS, DOLS, PMGE, MGE, DFE, and VECM methods to a nonstationary heterogeneous dynamic panel including annual data for 119 countries over the period 1970-2010, and also carry out multivariate Granger causality tests. The empirical results strongly support the existence of a single cointegrating relationship between employment growth, inflation and output growth with bidirectional causality between employment growth and inflation as well as output growth, giving support to Phillips’ Golden Triangle theory

Fiscal spillovers in the Euro area

Copyright @ 2011 Brunel UniversityThis paper analyses the dynamic effects of fiscal imbalances in a given EMU member state on the borrowing costs of other countries in the euro area. The estimation of a multivariate, multi-country time series model (specifically a Global VAR, or GVAR) using quarterly data for the EMU period suggests that euro-denominated government yields are strongly linked with each other. However, financial markets seem to be able to discriminate among different issuers. Consequently, fiscal imbalances in Italy and in other peripheral countries should be closely monitored by their EMU partners and the European institutions

Non-normality and recursive unit root test for PPP: Solving the PPP puzzle?

In this paper we carry out unit root tests on real exchange rates recursively as in Caporale et al (2003), but, following Arghyrou and Gregoriou (2007), we adjust the residuals for non-normality using a wild bootstrap method. The results are striking: the correction for non-normality dramatically increases the rejection percentages of the unit root null, and attenuates the erratic behaviour of the t-statistic, thus providing strong evidence in favour of PPP, and suggesting that such a correction might at least go some way towards solving the “PPP puzzle”

Consumption, wealth, stock and housing returns: Evidence from emerging markets

Copyright @ 2011 Brunel UniversityIn this paper, we show, using the consumer's budget constraint, that the residuals of the trend relationship among consumption, aggregate wealth, and labour income should predict both stock returns and housing returns. We use quarterly data for a panel of 31 emerging economies and find that, when agents expect future stock returns to be higher, they will temporarily allow consumption to rise. Regarding housing returns, if housing assets are complementary to stocks, then investors react in the same way. If, however, the increase in the exposure through risky assets is achieved by lowering the share of wealth held in the form of housing (i.e., when stock and housing assets are substitutes), then they will temporarily reduce their consumption

Short- and long- run linkages between employment growth, inflation and output growth: Evidence from a large panel

Copyright @ 2011 Brunel UniversityThis study examines the short- and long-run linkages between employment growth, inflation and output growth applying panel cointegration and causality tests to data for 119 countries over the period 1970-2010. We find evidence of positive Granger causality running from output growth to employment growth in the short run. Employment growth Granger causes output growth with a negative sign in the long run. Inflation Granger causes employment and output growth positively in the short run and negatively in the long run

Obesity prevention for junior high school students: An intervention programme

Background: Generally, schools are an important setting to provide programmes for obesity prevention for children because the vast majority of children attend school. This study investigates how an intervention programme in the school subject of Physical Education can help reduce obesity for junior high school students in combination with information on dietary and health matters in school and family. Materials and Methods: A quantitative study for junior high school students (N = 250) and a questionnaire were used as research methods. Results: A large number of the participants was found to be overweight (24.4) and the boys outnumbered the girls both in the group of overweight students and the group of obese students. Also, the parents' obesity is an important factor to whether a child will become obese or overweight as the bodymetrics of the parents showed that obese parents tend to have obese children. Finally, physical activity (for an extra two hours per week) and the dietary instructions that the parents give their children can reduce the number of overweight and obese students. Conclusion: Schools and physical activity are crucial factors for childhood obesity prevention strategies