Average inflation in the post-war period in developed countries was moderately different from zero and varied across countries.1 Nonetheless, most of the vast literature on monetary policy rules worked with models log-linearized around a zero inflation steady state (see e.g., Clarida et al., 1999, Galí, 2003, Woodford, 2003, or the book edited by Taylor, 1999). This paper aims to accomodate this clear inconsistency.
We generalize a standard Neo-Keynesian model with Calvo staggered price by taking a log-linear approximation around a general level of steady state inflation.2 Then we use a Taylor rule to close the model and address the question of how the properties of our economy change as the trend inflation level varies.
Two representative terrestrial rocks, San Marcos granite and Bedford limestone, are chosen as test target. Impacts into the rock targets with different combinations of projectile material, size, impact angle, and impact velocity are carried out at cm scale in the laboratory.
Shock-induced damage and fracturing would cause large-scale compressional wave velocity reduction in the recovered target beneath the impact crater. The shock-induced damage is measured by mapping the compressional wave velocity reduction in the recovered target.
This chapter presents a multi-period stochastic network model for integrating corporate financial and pension planning. Pension planning in the United States has gained importance with the population aging and the growth of retirement accounts. In certain cases, the pension plan assets are several times larger than the value of the company itself (e.g. General Motors – Market cap: $19 billion, Pension plan assets: $67 billion, Estimated pension fund deficit: $25 billion – in December 31, 2002; see General Motors Corporation (2003)). Thus, pension investment decisions can have a sizeable impact on a company’s long-term financial health. However, pension planning is rarely linked to general corporate planning systems since the domain falls outside traditional corporate budgeting and planning processes.
We develop a consistent framework for combining the pension plan with the corporate financial plan via a stochastic optimization model. The approach can be specialized as a stochastic network, providing possible improvements in computational efficiency and ease of understanding. The goals of the integrated planning model can be readily tailored to the company’s environment to be consistent with the existing corporate strategy. For example, there are numerous measures of risks for a large corporation, such as volatility of earnings, downside risks with respect to target earnings, share price, etc. The developed framework can be adapted to these objectives. In any event, we suggest that several risk measures be displayed to the senior managers so that they better understand the inherent tradeoffs, especially regarding temporal issues.
