The unequal treatment of racial minorities by police is by no means a new concept. The debate over racial profiling centers on two questions. Does racial profiling actually occur? If so, is racial profiling being used and is profiling a legitimate tool of law enforcement? There are those who debate whether race is or is not a factor in police discretion and there are those who argue that race is a factor that is appropriate for use in profiling. The purpose of this research is to determine whether race is a significant factor in the likelihood of being involved in a traffic stop. In addition to race, other variables, such as gender and age, are explored as possible control variables. This is done by analyzing data collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics' "Contact between Police and the Public" national survey. By examining several dependent variables that also may be associated with traffic stops, this study determines whether there is or is not a disparity in treatment by race, and whether this is consistent with the alleged purposes of using race in criminal profiles. / Master of Science

[pt] Apesar de existirem argumentos simples e usuais de que reservas seriam uma proteção em sudden stops, encontramos poucos trabalhos sobre esse assunto na literatura. O objetivo deste estudo é justamente tentar identificar e quantificar os reais benefícios (ou custos) de se ter reservas nesse tipo de crise. Iniciamos construindo um modelo que, ao contrário do usual, permite que o estoque de reservas impacte a dinâmica do fluxo de capital, via expectativas. Ele sugere que reservas reduzem a probabilidade de ocorrência da crise, mas que, uma vez iniciada, ela tende a ser mais forte. Pesquisamos, então, essas relações empiricamente, com um painel de países. Não encontramos efeito sobre a probabilidade de sudden stop, mas, de fato, as regressões sugerem que reservas tendem a acentuar a queda do fluxo de capital nas crises. Ainda assim, não encontramos evidência de que esse instrumento afete o custo do sudden stop (medido como queda no produto). / [en] Although there are simple and usual arguments claiming that reserves might offer protection at sudden stops, few papers about this subject are found in the literature. The goal of this study is to try to identify and quantify the real benefits (or costs) of having reserves at this kind of crisis. We begin with the construction of a model that, contrary to what is usually done, allows the stock of reserves to impact the dynamics of capital flows, through expectations. It suggests that reserves reduce the probability of occurrence of crisis, but, once it is starts, it tends to be stronger. We therefore study these relations empirically, with a panel of countries. We don´t find effects upon the probability of sudden stop, but, indeed, the regressions suggest that reserves tend to increase the fall in capital flows at crises. Nevertheless, we find no evidence that this instrument affects the cost of the sudden stop (measured by the product fall).

xiii, 123 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / The current dissertation investigated clear speech production of Korean stops to examine the proposal that the phonetic targets of phonological categories are more closely approximated in hyperarticulated speech. The investigation also considered a sound change currently underway in Korean stops: younger speakers of the Seoul dialect produce the aspirated and lenis stops differently from older speakers of the same dialect. Hyperarticulated, clear speech provided evidence for difference in the phonetic targets of the stops between the two age groups. Compared with conversational and citation-form speech, younger speakers primarily enhanced the F0 difference between the aspirated and lenis stops in clear speech, with only a small VOT enhancement, whereas older speakers solely enhanced VOT difference between the two stops. These different clear speech enhancement strategies were interpreted to indicate that younger speakers have developed different phonetic targets for stop production than older speakers. The results from a perceptual experiment using re-synthesized stimuli indicated that the production differences between the younger and older speakers are linked to perceptual differences. The perceptual processing of the stops differed between the groups in a manner parallel to the production differences. When identifying aspirated and lenis stops, younger listeners evidenced greater cue weight for F0 than older listeners, whereas older listeners evidenced greater cue weight than younger listeners for VOT and H1-H2. In addition, the results from a perceptual experiment using noise-masked stimuli confirmed an intelligibility improvement effect of clear speech and also indicated that the three speaking styles were on a continuum from the most casual, conversational speech, to the most careful, clear speech, with citation-form speech in the middle. In the final chapter, the different findings of the current study were discussed in view of various theoretical models and hypotheses. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material. / Committee in charge: Susan Guion, Chairperson, Linguistics; Eric Pederson, Member, Linguistics; Melissa Redford, Member, Linguistics; Kaori Idemaru, Outside Member, East Asian Languages & Literature

In this dissertation, I study international financial crises. For this purpose, I build two models. In the first model, I focus on financial crises in developing, large open economies where foreign debt with various maturities and issue dates is available. The objective is to measure the vulnerability of the domestic financial system to domestically triggered bank runs and externally triggered sudden stops. The main contribution of this model is that both types of crises are treated as rational responses of domestic depositors and international creditors. Such vulnerability measures are linked to fundamentals and equilibrium term structure of foreign debt. Banks’ vulnerability to runs increases if they hold a relatively shorter term debt. Also, a larger cost of liquidating the long-term investment before maturity makes the banks more fragile. In the next step, given a domestic banking crisis, I allow international creditors to decide whether they want to stop lending to domestic banks (in which case a “sudden stop” takes place) or not. A sudden stop is more likely if (i) creditors highly discount future consumption, (ii) creditors’ current income is small relative to their future income, and (iii) the cost of liquidating the long-term investment before maturity is small. In the second model, I investigate the merits of alternative monetary policies with respect to financial fragility. In this monetary model of an explicit financial system, I motivate the demand for two fiat currencies by spatial separation and limited communication of agents. There is a domestic and a foreign currency freely traded without restrictions. I analyze the policy of a constant growth rate of domestic money supply with a floating exchange rate regime. Both currencies are held in positive amounts at the steady-state only if the growth rate of domestic money supply is equal to the world inflation rate (WIR). If the former rate is larger than the WIR, domestic currency is not held at the steady-state. Also, total real money balances held is negatively related with WIR. Finally, monetary policy in the form of a constant growth rate of domestic money supply is neutral with respect to welfare.

In this dissertation, I study international financial crises. For this purpose, I build two models. In the first model, I focus on financial crises in developing, large open economies where foreign debt with various maturities and issue dates is available. The objective is to measure the vulnerability of the domestic financial system to domestically triggered bank runs and externally triggered sudden stops. The main contribution of this model is that both types of crises are treated as rational responses of domestic depositors and international creditors. Such vulnerability measures are linked to fundamentals and equilibrium term structure of foreign debt. Banks’ vulnerability to runs increases if they hold a relatively shorter term debt. Also, a larger cost of liquidating the long-term investment before maturity makes the banks more fragile. In the next step, given a domestic banking crisis, I allow international creditors to decide whether they want to stop lending to domestic banks (in which case a “sudden stop” takes place) or not. A sudden stop is more likely if (i) creditors highly discount future consumption, (ii) creditors’ current income is small relative to their future income, and (iii) the cost of liquidating the long-term investment before maturity is small. In the second model, I investigate the merits of alternative monetary policies with respect to financial fragility. In this monetary model of an explicit financial system, I motivate the demand for two fiat currencies by spatial separation and limited communication of agents. There is a domestic and a foreign currency freely traded without restrictions. I analyze the policy of a constant growth rate of domestic money supply with a floating exchange rate regime. Both currencies are held in positive amounts at the steady-state only if the growth rate of domestic money supply is equal to the world inflation rate (WIR). If the former rate is larger than the WIR, domestic currency is not held at the steady-state. Also, total real money balances held is negatively related with WIR. Finally, monetary policy in the form of a constant growth rate of domestic money supply is neutral with respect to welfare.

This dissertation attempts in three essays to contribute to the growing body of research on the problems associated with sudden stops of capital inflows, known to have been at the heart of many recent emerging market crises. It does this by developing basic models that can incorporate sudden stops and hopefully make policy relevant recommendations. The first essay develops a simple three date representative agent model of a small open endowment economy without money. It allows sudden stops to occur at date two and asks whether individuals in such a shock-prone world are still better off borrowing than in autarky. Unambiguously, this chapter shows that individuals are better off borrowing than in autarky and provides a tractable core model on which the later chapters build. The second essay then includes a long-term borrowing option as well as country-specific risk premia based on an information asymmetry between domestic borrowers and international lenders. This allows analysis of optimal maturity choices in a meaningful way. The intent is to address questions in the literature concerning whether emerging economies could enhance welfare by imposing short-term capital controls to encourage the use of longer-maturing debt and thus avoid the sudden stop. The results imply that short-term capital controls would generally lower welfare, even when sudden stops are fully anticipated. Finally, the third essay extends the horizon of the model and includes a much wider range of maturities. This allows one to start making sense of maturity bunching (when a country's debt all matures around a given date) which is known to exacerbate sudden-stop related problems. The model shows that maturity bunching can occur endogenously when both risk premia and uncertainty over the duration of the sudden stop are present.

This dissertation addresses the causes of and policy responses to the 1990s current account crises. The first chapter explores the relative importance of external shocks as key determinants of the significant increase of foreign reserves accumulated in many emerging market economies, and provides a comprehensive framework to assess the adequacy of reserve holdings. Using the case of Mexico, I find that more than two thirds of the increase in international reserves can be replicated by a linear combination of external shocks, without an abrupt regime shift after the Tequila crisis. I also find that Mexico has historically adopted an appropriate reserves policy, with 1994 being an exception. However, under the current reserves policy, there is a positive probability of a current account crisis in the near future. In chapter Two, I investigate the optimal reserves policy. The analysis predicts an optimal level of reserves in Mexico that is considerably higher than the actual level. When I account for the possibility of a bailout by the outside world in case of a crisis, Mexico's current reserves policy is in the range of my model's predictions. The final chapter proposes a new explanation for the existence and nature of sudden stops. In my model, a sudden stop forms a necessary solution to the moral hazard problem in investment and can be rationalized as part of an optimal lending strategy in the face of asymmetric information. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-13 22:52:26.219

This thesis reports voice onset time (VOT) of word–initial ejectives, implosives, and plain stops in Mopan, Itzaj, and Yukateko Maya. In this study, implosive bilabials and bilabial, alveolar, and velar ejectives and plain stops in word–initial position from Mopan, Itzaj, and Yukateko speakers were measured from the stop release to the onset of voicing of the following vowel, and results were compared to VOT of other languages with the same phonemes. All three languages have long average (negative) VOTs for implosives, contradicting Schumann–Galvez's claim that both Itzaj (2000) and Mopan (1997) have unaspirated rather than implosive voiced bilabials. Among other results, Yukateko had a very long VOT for plain velar stops, only slightly shorter than its velar ejective, and the average VOT of the plain bilabial voiceless stop in Mopan was actually longer than the corresponding ejective. Further study of these anomalies is warranted.

94f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-03-08T14:40:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Jamilly%20Dias%20dos%20Santosseg.pdf: 1233139 bytes, checksum: 994f8ab66286afdd209b346a7bce84f2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vania Magalhaes(magal@ufba.br) on 2013-03-14T12:39:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Jamilly%20Dias%20dos%20Santosseg.pdf: 1233139 bytes, checksum: 994f8ab66286afdd209b346a7bce84f2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-03-14T12:39:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jamilly%20Dias%20dos%20Santosseg.pdf: 1233139 bytes, checksum: 994f8ab66286afdd209b346a7bce84f2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / O objetivo do trabalho é verificar empiricamente qual o impacto dos Fundos Soberanos de Riqueza (FSR – RN) de recursos naturais sobre a estabilidade econômica. Os fundos soberanos de recursos naturais têm sido um mecanismo utilizado pelas economias ricas em recursos naturais para gerir as receitas provenientes da exploração desses recursos, com objetivos que vão desde poupança para gerações futuras, incremento da taxa de retorno das reservas internacionais e apoio a projetos socioeconômicos, principalmente em infraestrutura, à estabilização econômica. Os efeitos dos FSR - RN podem ser tanto estabilizadores como desestabilizadores sobre variáveis macroeconômicas. Desse modo, o trabalho analisa se os FSR – RN podem ou não reforçar o papel das reservas internacionais sobre a volatilidade cambial. Para tanto, serão analisados os objetivos declarados pelos fundos soberanos, o histórico de constituição desses fundos em seus países, os tipos de fundos existentes e sua classificação. A fundamentação teórica do problema de pesquisa está baseada nas teorias do Sudden Stops e do Motivo Precaução. De acordo com o Motivo Precaução, a demanda por ativos no exterior leva em consideração que a posse de bens estrangeiros altera a probabilidade e a magnitude de Sudden Stops, ou seja, da parada súbita do influxo de capitais. Nesse contexto, o trabalho apresenta os efeitos estabilizadores e desestabilizadores dos fundos de recursos naturais sobre as economias de seus países. Para testar os efeitos do FSR - RN sobre a estabilidade cambial dos países, será utilizado um modelo de painel dinâmico, estimado através dos métodos Arellano e Bover (1995). O principal resultado é que os FSR - RN possuem efeito estabilizador sobre as economias que possuem exploração de recursos naturais em suas fronteiras. / Salvador

The master´s thesis deals with the design of the transfer terminal on the proposed high speed railway Prague - Hradec Kralove - Wroclaw near the town of Podebrady and exit 39 from the D11 motorway. The work includes the design of station layout, platforms, access roads, bus stops and parking house. As part of the railway station design naintenance base with the loading area. The integral parts of the thesis is design of the railway superstructure, substructure and drainage system.