Convertible bonds are bonds that can be converted into equity at the option of the investor. Convertibles are an important source of finance for U.S. firms: U.S. convertible debt issuance amounted to $61.6 billion in 2007, compared with $71.8 million raised from seasoned equity offerings and $388.5 million from straight debt issues.
The issue of optimal and market allocation of economic activity across space has always been a central issue in economic theory from the seminal works of Hotelling (1929) and Salop (1979). Many authors have already investigated in depth the existence (and sometimes the non-existence) of optimal and/or market allocation in static models (among them, Starrett, 1974 and 1978). Recently, some authors have tried to tackle the issue of the spatial allocation of economic activity in dynamic frameworks, namely within economic growth frameworks (thus, with capital accumulation).
This research line, initiated by Brito (2004), is nicely surveyed by Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg (2010). Two aspects turn out to be crucial: factor mobility and space modelling. On the first aspect, Brito and Boucekkine, Camacho and Zou (2009) consider frictionless capital mobility while Brock and Xepapadeas (2008) use the trick of a spatial externality to model the spatial component (without capital mobility). In the former papers, the production function at any place is neoclassical (decreasing returns in capital): capital flow from regions with low marginal productivity of capital to regions with high marginal productivity.
Broadband seismic arrays have provided unprecedented data sets for seismologists to image the slips on faults and velocity structure beneath Earth's surface at all scales. In particular, plate boundary zones are the most complicated regions on the surface and full of complexities. Often that great earthquakes occur and rapid structural changes take place.
