Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, 71st Annual Report, July 2004 - June 2005

Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, 71st Annual Report, July 2004 - June 2005

Business Cycles, Unemployment Insurance, and the Calibration of Matching Models

This paper points out an empirical puzzle that arises when an RBC economy with a job matching function is used to model unemployment. The standard model can generate sufficiently large cyclical fluctuations in unemployment, or a sufficiently small response of unemployment to labor market policies, but it cannot do both. Variable search and separation, finite UI benefit duration, efficiency wages, and capital all fail to resolve this puzzle. However, both sticky wages and match-specific productivity shocks help the model reproduce the stylized facts: both make the firm's flow of surplus more procyclical, thus making hiring more procyclical too.

Department of Commerce - Alcoholic Beverages Division, Agency Performance Plan, 2007

Annual Report, Agency Performance Plan

Iowa Department of Commerce - Division of Banking, Agency Performance Plan, 2007

Annual Report, Agency Performance Plan

Business cycle measurement with some theory

A method to evaluate cyclical models not requiring knowledge of the DGP and the exact specificationof the aggregate decision rules is proposed. We derive robust restrictions in a class of models; use someto identify structural shocks in the data and others to evaluate the class or contrast sub-models. Theapproach has good properties, even in small samples, and when the class of models is misspecified. Themethod is used to sort out the relevance of a certain friction (the presence of rule-of-thumb consumers)in a standard class of models.

Mandatory accounting disclosure by small private companies

This article analyzes how mandatory accounting disclosure is grounded on differentrationales for private and public companies. It also explores technological changes, such ascomputerised databases and the Internet, which have recently made disclosure of companyaccounts by small companies potentially less costly and more valuable, thanks to electronicfiling and universal online access to credit information systems. These recent developmentsfavour policies that would expand the scope of mandatory publication for small companies incountries where it is voluntary. They also encourage policies to reduce the costs and enhancethe value of disclosure through administrative reforms of filing, archive and retrieval systems.Survey and registry evidence on how the information in the accounts is valued and used bycompanies is consistent with these claims about the evolution of the tradeoff of costs andbenefits that should guide policy in this area.

Does money matter in shaping domestic business cycles? An international investigation (with appendices)

We study the contribution of money to business cycle fluctuations in the US,the UK, Japan, and the Euro area using a small scale structural monetary business cycle model. Constrained likelihood-based estimates of the parameters areprovided and time instabilities analyzed. Real balances are statistically importantfor output and inflation fluctuations. Their contribution changes over time. Models giving money no role provide a distorted representation of the sources of cyclicalfluctuations, of the transmission of shocks and of the events of the last 40 years.

Business cycles, unemployment insurance and the calibration of matching models

This paper theoretically and empirically documents a puzzle that arises when an RBC economy with a job matching function is used to model unemployment. The standard model can generate sufficiently large cyclical fluctuations in unemployment, or a sufficiently small response of unemployment to labor market policies, but it cannot do both. Variable search and separation, finite UI benefit duration, efficiency wages, and capital all fail to resolve this puzzle. However, either sticky wages or match-specific productivity shocks can improve the model's performance by making the firm's flow of surplus more procyclical, which makes hiring more procyclical too.

Credit constraints, firms' precautionary investment and the business cycle

This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of firms' investment composition choices in the presence of credit constraints. Following a negative andpersistent aggregate productivity shock, firms shift into short-term investments because they produce more pledgeable output and because they help alleviate futureborrowing constraints. This produces a short-run dampening of the effects of theshock, at the expense of lower long-term investment and future output, relativeto an economy with no credit market imperfections. The effects are exacerbatedby a steepening of the term structure of interest rates that further encourages ashift towards short-term investments in the short-run. Small temporary shocks tothe severity of financing frictions generate large and long-lasting effects on outputthrough their impact on the composition of investment. A positive financial shockproduces much stronger effects than an identical negative shock, while the responsesto positive and negative shocks to aggregate productivity are roughly symmetric.Finally, the paper introduces a novel explanation for the countercyclicality of financing constraints of firms.

R&D in the pharmaceutical industry: A world of small innovations

It is commonly argued that in recent years pharmaceutical companies have directed theirR&D towards small improvements of existing compounds instead of more risky drastic innovations. In this paper we show that the proliferation of these small innovations is likely to be linked to the lack of market sensitivity of a part of the demand to changes in prices. Compared to their social contribution, small innovations are relatively more profitable than large ones because they are targeted to the smaller but more inelastic part of the demand. We also study the effect of regulatory instruments such as price ceilings, copayments and reference prices and extend the analysis to competition in research.

Business Sphere, Vol. 19, no.4

We keep in touch with insurance leaders throughout the nation, as well as in our state, to promote Iowa as one of the most competitive locations for insurance operations. These ongoing efforts have produced strong growth that is the envy of other states. The insurance industry in the state of Iowa is expanding for all the right reasons. With the support of the State of Iowa, domestic insurers and the insurance division, the environment is favorable for companies looking for a competitive location in the U.S. insurance market.

Business Sphere, Vol. 21, no.2

In the fall of 2007, a group of individuals representing a wide range of aspects of the wind industry gathered together and voted to establish the Iowa Wind Energy Association (IWEA). Now in its second year and operated out of Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville, our association’s increasing membership rolls parallel the phenomenal growth of the wind energyindustry in our state. IWEA has just concluded our second annual meeting which brought together a host of wind energy experts to share their knowledge and expertise. Attending were wind energy companies, wind developers, agricultural landowners, large- and small-scale wind farm producers, construction companies, energy companies, educators and students. This broad range of interests pursuing common goals has made the Iowa WindEnergy Association one of the largest state wind organizations in the nation.

Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, Annual Report, 2010

Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, Annual Report 2010

Generator of ultrashort optical pulses for time division multiplexing

The performance of a device based on modified injection-locking techniques is studied by means of numerical simulations. The device incorporates master and slave configurations, each one with a DFB laser and an electroabsortion modulator (EAM). This arrangement allows the generation of high peak power, narrow optical pulses according to a periodic or pseudorandom bit stream provided by a current signal generator. The device is able to considerably increase the modulation bandwidth of free-running gain-switched semiconductor lasers using multiplexing in the time domain. Opportunities for integration in small packages or single chips are discussed.

Business Plan Chicago to Iowa City Intercity Passenger Rail Route, March 21, 2012

Overview of the Passenger Service Connects Iowa City, Quad Cities and Chicago, 219.5 miles Twice‐daily service each way, 4 hours and 15 minutes travel time 246,800 passengers first year (676 per day) Project construction cost $310 million (80% federal, 14.5% Illinois, 5.4% Iowa) On‐time performance 90% or better (trains arrive within 10 minutes of schedule) Competitive passenger rail service operator selection Iowa’s annual share of operating cost support averages $3 million