Introduction: The high-resolution Al-Mg extinct chronometer (t1/2 = 0.72 Myr) has been applied extensively towards constraining the chronology of the early Solar System. In particular, there have been many investigations of the Al-Mg systematics in the calciumaluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs), which has been used to infer the age of the Solar System since these objects represent the earliest-form...

This paper offers additional insights on the interactions between economics and politics in Portugal. We use an unexplored data set consisting of monthly polls on vote intentions for the main political parties in Portugal, since 1986. Results indicate that: (1) socialist governments had less electoral support than social democratic governments; (2) social democratic governments enjoyed a honeym...

This paper analyses the e¤ects of reducing unfunded social security in a closed economy that consists of a service sector and a commodity sector. It is shown that if old agents mainly demand labour intensive services, a modest decrease of the pay-as-you-go pension scheme still raises long-run utility as long as the economy is dynamically e¢cient. However, entirely privatising the social securit...

We study the interplay between competition and trust as efficiencyenhancing mechanims in the private provision of money. With commitment, trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency. Without commitment, competition plays no role. Trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency. Stationary inflation must be non-negative and, therefore, the Friedman rule cannot be...

Inflation targeting needs to be supplemented by an economic growth target so that central banks will not adopt monetary policy which results in stagnation. There is no guarantee that the economy will move towards full employment by itself when the inflation rate is kept between two to three per cent. Monetary policy does not have a comparative advantage in achieving price stability. Svensson's ...

We study the interplay between competition and trust as efficiencyenhancing mechanims in the private provision of money. With commitment, trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency. Without commitment, competition plays no role. Trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency. Stationary inflation must be non-negative and, therefore, the Friedman rule cannot be...

Affordable infrared (IR) cameras provide a unique opportunity to motivate and enhance the education of engineering students. We used both IR and visible images from a FLIR E60 camera as an instructional vehicle in a digital image processing course, where students came from several engineering majors. These IR and visible images were used as the basis for an openended final project in the course...

This paper studies under which conditions the share of profit in value added, financial constraints on investment and capital shortage may foster unemployment and may limit the growth of capital and/or the growth of aggregate demand, in a stock-flow consistent model. The efficiency of demand side versus supply side economic policies (decrease of the real interest rate and/or of the real wage, i...