The Lucas Paradox and the quality of institutions: then and now

In the first era of financial globalization (1880-1914), global capital market integration led to substantial net capital movements from rich to poor economies. The historical experience stands in contrast to the contemporary globalization where gross capital mobility is equally high, but did not incite a substantial transfer of savings from rich to poor economies. Using data for the historical and modern periods we extend Lucas (1990) original model and show that differences in institutional quality between rich and poor countries can account for the sharply divergent patterns of international capital movements. --capital market integration,financial globalization,economic history

Does Financial Integration Spur Economic Growth? New Evidence from the First Era of Financial Globalization

Does international financial integration boost economic growth? The question has been discussed controversially for a long time, and a large number of studies has been devoted to its empirical investigation. As of yet, robust evidence for a positive impact of capital market integration on economic growth is lacking, as documented by Edison et al. (2002). However, there is substantial narrative evidence from economic history that highlights the contribution European capital made to economic growth of peripheral economies during the so-called first age of financial globalization before 1914. For this paper, we have compiled the first comprehensive data set to test econometrically if capital market integration had a positive impact on economic growth before WW1. Using the same models and techniques as contemporary studies, we show that there was indeed a significant and robust growth effect of international financial integration in the first era of financial globalization. Our temptative explanation for this marked difference between now and then stresses property rights protection as a prerequisite for the standard neoclassical model to work properly.International financial integration; Economic growth; First era of globalization.

Detecting multi-atomic composite states in optical lattices

We propose and discuss methods for detecting quasi-molecular complexes which are expected to form in strongly interacting optical lattice systems. Particular emphasis is placed on the detection of composite fermions forming in Bose-Fermi mixtures. We argue that, as an indirect indication of the composite fermions and a generic consequence of strong interactions, periodic correlations must appear in the atom shot noise of bosonic absorption images, similar to the bosonic Mott insulator [S. F\"olling, et al., Nature {\bf 434}, 481 (2005)]. The composites can also be detected directly and their quasi-momentum distribution measured. This method -- an extension of the technique of noise correlation interferometry [E. Altman et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79}, 013603 (2004)] -- relies on measuring higher order correlations between the bosonic and fermionic shot noise in the absorption images. However, it fails for complexes consisting of more than three atoms.Comment: 9 revtex page

When credit bites back: leverage, business cycles, and crises

This paper studies the role of leverage in the business cycle. Based on a study of nearly 200 recession episodes in 14 advanced countries between 1870 and 2008, we document a new stylized fact of the modern business cycle: more credit-intensive booms tend to be followed by deeper recessions and slower recoveries. We find a close relationship between the rate of credit growth relative to GDP in the expansion phase and the severity of the subsequent recession. We use local projection methods to study how leverage impacts the behavior of key macroeconomic variables such as investment, lending, interest rates, and inflation. The effects of leverage are particularly pronounced in recessions that coincide with financial crises, but are also distinctly present in normal cycles. The stylized facts we uncover lend support to the idea that financial factors play an important role in the modern business cycle.Business cycles ; Financial crises

Controlled quantum stirring of Bose-Einstein condensates

By cyclic adiabatic change of two control parameters of an optical trap one can induce a circulating current of condensed bosons. The amount of particles that are transported per period depends on the "radius" of the cycle, and this dependence can be utilized in order to probe the interatomic interactions. For strong repulsive interaction the current can be regarded as arising from a sequence of Landau-Zener crossings. For weaker interaction one observes either gradual or coherent mega crossings, while for attractive interaction the particles are glued together and behave like a classical ball. For the analysis we use the Kubo approach to quantum pumping with the associated Dirac monopoles picture of parameter space.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Complexity in parametric Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians and structural analysis of eigenstates

We consider a family of chaotic Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians (BHH) parameterized by the coupling strength $k$ between neighboring sites. As $k$ increases the eigenstates undergo changes, reflected in the structure of the Local Density of States. We analyze these changes, both numerically and analytically, using perturbative and semiclassical methods. Although our focus is on the quantum trimer, the presented methodology is applicable for the analysis of longer lattices as well.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Nonlinear cavity feeding and unconventional photon statistics in solid-state cavity QED revealed by many-level real-time path-integral calculations

The generation of photons in a microcavity coupled to a laser-driven quantum dot interacting with longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons is studied in the regime of simultaneously strong driving and strong dot-cavity coupling. The stationary cavity photon number is found to depend in a non-trivial way on the detuning between the laser and the exciton transition in the dot. In particular, the maximal efficiency of the cavity feeding is obtained for detunings corresponding to transition energies between cavity-dressed states with excitation numbers larger than one. Phonons significantly enhance the cavity feeding at large detunings. In the strong-driving, strong-coupling limit, the photon statistics is highly non-Poissonian. While without phonons a double-peaked structure in the photon distribution is predicted, phonons make the photon statistics thermal-like with very high effective temperatures $\sim 10^5$ K, even for low phonon temperatures $\sim 4$ K. These results were obtained by numerical calculations where the driving, the dot-cavity coupling and the dot-phonon interactions are taken into account without approximations. This is achieved by a reformulation of an exact iterative path-integral scheme which is applicable for a large class of quantum-dissipative systems and which in our case reduces the numerical demands by 15 orders of magnitude.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure