The case of the undying debt

The French government currently honors a very unusual debt contract: an annuity that was issued in 1738 and currently yields €1.20 per year. I tell the story of this unique debt, which serves as an anecdotal but symbolic summary of French public finances since the 18th century.Debts, Public

Government equity and money: John Law’s system in 1720 France

John Law’s System was a radical restructuring of French public finances, carried out from 1716 to 1720. It involved on the one hand a conversion of the existing French public debt into something like government equity, on the other hand the replacement of commodity money with fiat money. For strategic reasons, Law supported the equity at too high a level, resulting in uncontrolled money creation. The System ended with the recreation of a public debt at, surprisingly, the same level as before.France ; Debts, Public ; Money

The crime of 1873: back to the scene

Milton Friedman's (1990) counterfactual analysis of what would have happened if the United States had not abandoned bimetallism in 1873 is revisited in a general equilibrium model of bimetallism. I find that bimetallism would have survived and the gold-silver ratio would have remained stable for another twenty years. If countries such as India that abandoned silver because of its depreciation are assumed not to, bimetallism survives to World War I. But the United States would have experienced a sharp bout of inflation in the early 20th century, although milder if India stays on silver.Bimetallism ; Silver

The oxalato complexes of titanium(IV)—I : Mononuclear Ti(OH)2(C2O4)22− in solution

Molecular weight, electrodialysis and anion exchange measurements between pH 1 and 4 showed that the titanyl oxalate anion is present in solution as mononuclear Ti(OH)2(C2O4)22 units. pH studies of solutions of (NH4)2TiO(C2O4)2·H2O in 0.5 M NaClO4 medium and computer evaluation and simulation by LETAGROP and HALTAFALL showed that the behaviour of such solutions can be simulated by applying stability constants of log β1 = 7.90 ± 0.02 and log β2 = 13.24 ± 0.07, when using hydrolysis constants given by Nazarenko et al.\ud \ud In an attempt to determine the stability constant β2 spectrophotometrically using an exchange method with pyrocatechol, a mixed ligand complex was found with a Ti:pyrocatechol:oxalate ratio of 1 : 1 : 1

An alternative measure of inflation

The author proposes an alternative measure of inflation that captures the intuition behind the use of "core" measures. Inflation is modeled as an unobserved factor affecting the components of an aggregate price index (including food and energy). The common component, estimated using Kalman filtering, resembles usual measures of core inflation; its extrapolation can be used to improve performance in forecasting core inflation.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy

Lessons from the history of money

This article looks at eight centuries of monetary history and asks: What happened and what have we learned? Money evolved from commodity-based to purely fiduciary, and in the trial-and-error process, governments learned some basic truths about price stability and the management of a sound currency.Money ; Coinage

Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition

Human cognition is unique in the way in which it relies on combinatorial (or compositional) structures. Language provides ample evidence for the existence of combinatorial structures, but they can also be found in visual cognition. To understand the neural basis of human cognition, it is therefore essential to understand how combinatorial structures can be instantiated in neural terms. In his recent book on the foundations of language, Jackendoff described four fundamental problems for a neural instantiation of combinatorial structures: the massiveness of the binding problem, the problem of 2, the problem of variables and the transformation of combinatorial structures from working memory to long-term memory. This paper aims to show that these problems can be solved by means of neural ‘blackboard’ architectures. For this purpose, a neural blackboard architecture for sentence structure is presented. In this architecture, neural structures that encode for words are temporarily bound in a manner that preserves the structure of the sentence. It is shown that the architecture solves the four problems presented by Jackendoff. The ability of the architecture to instantiate sentence structures is illustrated with examples of sentence complexity observed in human language performance. Similarities exist between the architecture for sentence structure and blackboard architectures for combinatorial structures in visual cognition, derived from the structure of the visual cortex. These architectures are briefly discussed, together with an example of a combinatorial structure in which the blackboard architectures for language and vision are combined. In this way, the architecture for language is grounded in perception

Poor hand or poor play? the rise and fall of inflation in the U.S.

Inflation in the U.S. rose in the 1970s and fell in the 1980s and 1990s. The conventional story attributes this pattern to changes in monetary policy. Policymakers made errors and learned from them. This article presents the story and existing alternatives that emphasize instead changes beyond the Fed's control. The author also reviews the recent empirical literature on the role played by changes in luck versus changes in policy and finds substantial evidence for both.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy

Connectivity between coastal habitats of two oceanic Caribbean islands as inferred from ontogenetic shifts by coral reef fishes

Mangroves and seagrass beds are considered important nursery habitats for juveniles of coral reef fishes. Studies have mostly focused on the fish community of just one habitat, so the connectivity between different coastal habitats is often unclear. In this study, density and size of reef fish were determined using a single sampling technique in four non-estuarine bay habitats and four reef zones in Curaçao and Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles). The data indicate that of the complete reef fish community at least 21 species show ontogenetic crossshelf shifts in habitat utilization. The 21 species mainly utilized shallow-water habitats (mangroves, seagrass beds, channel and shallow reef) as nursery habitats and the deeper coral reef zones (\u3e 5 m depth) as adult lifestage habitats. Fish species utilized 1–3 different nursery habitats simultaneously, but habitat utilization clearly differed between species. Previous studies showed that the dependence on these nursery habitats is very high, based on reduced density or absence of adults on coral reefs where these habitats were absent. The strong connectivity between several coastal habitats during the ontogeny of various commercially important reef fish species is evidence for the inclusion of bay habitats within boundaries of fishery reserves or marine protected areas

Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders