The global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting deterioration in many countries’ public finances have increased risk of sovereign debt crises. Although crisis prevention remains paramount, these developments made it imperative to re-examine adequacy current toolkit for management resolution, a context where changes creditor base composition instruments brought about new chall...

Historically, the banking multiplier has been in a range of 4 to 100, with 25% to 1% reserve ratios at most layers of the banking system encompassing the majority of its range in recent centuries. Here it is shown that multipliers over 1 000 can occur from a new mechanism in banking. This new multiplier uses a default insurance note to insure an outstanding loan in order to return the value of ...

The role of movements in real rates in explaining the relationship between longand short-term interest rates is explored within a model of optimal government debt management. The government's incentives to resort in the future to in ̄ation and ex post debt taxation in order to reduce the real value of its nominal liabilities have an impact on term premia and hence on the short±long spread. In pa...

Governments in emerging markets often behave like a “tormented insurer,” who would like to smooth government outlays given the randomness of public revenues in an imperfect world where the only public debt instrument is a non-state-contingent bond denominated in units of tradable goods. How can a fiscal authority tell if the stock of public debt is consistent with fiscal solvency in this enviro...

Is a balanced-budget rule compatible with a government honoring its debt obligations? According to the conventional explanation, governments honor their debt obligations to maintain a good reputation for future borrowing. The ability to borrow is desirable because it allows for greater tax smoothing. However, a balanced-budget rule limits the ability to smooth taxes, rendering a large class of ...

Government Debt as Insurance against Macroeconomic Risk Is there a role for debt beyond curing overaccumulation of capital? Does dynamic efficiency and the infeasibility of debt Ponzi schemes eliminate any Pareto-improving role for a government in a competitive economy with complete markets? Is there an optimal maturity structure of public debt? Using a stochastic Diamond OLG model, we tackle t...

Deletion or repression of Aspergillus nidulans ugmA (AnugmA), involved in galactofuranose biosynthesis, impairs growth and increases sensitivity to Caspofungin, a β-1,3-glucan synthesis antagonist. The A. fumigatus UgmA (AfUgmA) crystal structure has been determined. From that study, AfUgmA mutants with altered enzyme activity were transformed into AnugmA▵ to assess their effect on growth and w...

Polyamine binding to 23S rRNA was investigated, using a photoaffinity labeling approach. This was based on the covalent binding of a photoreactive analog of spermine, N1-azidobenzamidino (ABA)-spermine, to Escherichia coli ribosomes or naked 23S rRNA under mild irradiation conditions. The cross-linking sites of ABA-spermine in 23S rRNA were determined by RNase H digestion and primer-extension a...

Estimates are presented for the impact of debt accumulation by the central and subcentral governments of a federation on the creditworthiness of other federation member governments. The estimates, calculated using an ordered probit model and Canadian provincial data, indicate that debt accumulation by the central government has reduced the creditworthiness of indebted provincial governments. In...

Nelson MB, Swensen AC, Winden DR, Bodine JS, Bikman BT, Reynolds PR. Cardiomyocyte mitochondrial respiration is reduced by receptor for advanced glycation end-product signaling in a ceramide-dependent manner. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 309: H63–H69, 2015. First published May 8, 2015; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00043.2015.—Cigarette smoke exposure is associated with an increased risk of cardiovas...