In recent years, growing system complexity and shrink-ing time-to-market requirements have resulted in a strong need for new design methods and tools. In order to keep pace with the increased system complexity, designers must work at a higher level of abstraction [1]. Depending on the abstraction level (namely, the number of details used to model the system) different concerns can be addressed and solved. At each step of the design process, the key to cope with complexity is to model the systems, only with the minimum number of details needed. Abstraction hides complexity and accelerates design process. Tools support is needed throughout all steps of the design flow, from the formal specification of the system to its physical implementation.
Traditionally, the design of embedded systems has been carried out by decomposing and allocating the system to hardware and software, then allowing separate hardware and software design teams to design their respective parts, and finally integrating hardware and software. This separation of design tasks leads to the potential for initial design mistakes to be carried until the integration phase, where they are much more difficult and costly to correct. This issue has been widely addressed by development of high level languages, that describe both hardware and software, thus keeping their design flow tightly coupled.
Financial contracting literature argues that banks have significant access to private information about firms’ operating performance and utilize this information to create optimal contracts. Accrual of new information about the firm, such as changes in investment opportunities, credit quality, and macroeconomic conditions, contributes to the determination of contractual terms. In this paper, we investigate whether lenders also utilize unexpected changes in the accounting reporting systems (i.e., financial restatements) of suppliers, customers, and peer firms when setting private loan spreads. Specifically, we explore how financial restatements within an industry and along the supply chain impact the contract terms of a borrower.
To us, who have written this work, the study of the Argentinean foreign debt does not need justification. For almost three decades, the foreign debt was continuously one of the main concerns of economic policy. On the other hand, both the record amount of the defaulted debt and the novel characteristics of its restructuring may be sufficient reasons to include an analysis of Argentina in a selection of studies about sovereign debt. Therefore, the processes that led to the default of the debt and its subsequent restructuring constitute one of the focuses of this work. However, the case also presents other singular aspects that call for attention. Our analysis is also focused on some of them.
References to the country are frequently found in the recent literature. It is often used as an example of general arguments that take Argentina as a notable particular case. The rhetoric power of the example precisely comes from its supposedly well-known characteristics, that sometimes seem to exempt the quote of solid proofs. Many are second hand references and in some cases not even that but the mere mentioning of a ‘consensual image’. This is a motivation to take a close look at what happened in Argentina.
