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The term structure of interest rates, also known as yield curve, is defined as the relationship between the yield to maturity on a zero coupon bond and the bond's maturity. Zero yield curves play an essential role in the valuation of all financial products. Yield curves can be derived from government bonds or LIBOR/swap instruments. The LIBOR/swap term structure offers several advantages over government curves, and is a robust tool for pricing and hedging financial products. Correlations among governments and other fixed income products have declined, making the swap term structure a more efficient hedging and pricing vehicle. ; https://ia801406.us.archive.org/33/items/ir-curve-introduction-1_202105/IrCurveIntroduction-1.pdf

When Americans think about private education, what likely comes to mind are posh-sounding names like Milton or Collegiate, where the elites of Boston and Manhattan -- for the low, low price of $40,000 a year -- send their offspring to give them a small leg up in the race to Harvard or Yale. For many countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, one of the most dramatic changes over the past couple of generations has been the number of children who go to school. Take the West African country of Guinea-Bissau, where practically all of the country's primary-school-age kids had entered the formal education system in 2010 and nearly two-thirds were completing the full six years of primary school. The pressure on developing-country education systems to deliver learning results is growing. They are shamed by published test results from international organizations like the OECD and by local civil society groups like Uwezo in East Africa and Pratham in India. Adapted from the source document.

Growth curve analysis provides important informational benefits regarding intervention outcomes over time. Rarely, however, should outcome trajectories be assumed to be linear. Instead, both the shape and the slope of the growth curve can be estimated. Non-linear growth curves are usually modeled by including either higher-order time variables or orthogonal polynomial contrast codes. Each has limitations (multicollinearity with the first, a lack of coefficient interpretability with the second, and a loss of degrees of freedom with both) and neither encourages direct testing of alternative hypothesized curve shapes. Especially in studies with relatively small samples it is likely to be useful to preserve as much information as possible at the individual level. This article presents a step-by-step example of the use and testing of hypothesized curve shapes in the estimation of growth curves using hierarchical linear modeling for a small intervention study. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v3i2_herman

Since the emerging of the "novel coronavirus" SARS-CoV-2 and the corresponding respiratory disease COVID-19, the virus has spread all over the world. Being one of the most affected countries in Europe, in March 2020, Germany established several nonpharmaceutical interventions to contain the virus spread, including the closure of schools and child day care facilities (March 16-18, 2020) as well as a full "lockdown" with forced social distancing and closures of "nonessential" services (March 23, 2020). The present study attempts to analyze whether these governmental interventions had an impact on the declared aim of "flattening the curve", referring to the epidemic curve of new infections. This analysis is conducted from a regional perspective. On the level of the 412 German counties, logistic growth models were estimated based on daily infections (estimated from reported cases), aiming at determining the regional growth rate of infections and the point of inflection where infection rates begin to decrease and the curve flattens. All German counties exceeded the peak of new infections between the beginning of March and the middle of April. In a large majority of German counties, the epidemic curve has flattened before the "lockdown" was established. In a minority of counties, the peak was already exceeded before school closures. The growth rates of infections vary spatially depending on the time the virus emerged. Counties belonging to states which established an additional curfew show no significant improvement with respect to growth rates and mortality. Furthermore, mortality varies strongly across German counties, which can be attributed to infections of people belonging to the "risk group", especially residents of retirement homes. The decline of infections in absence of the "lockdown" measures could be explained by 1) earlier governmental interventions (e.g., cancellation of mass events, domestic quarantine), 2) voluntary behavior changes (e.g., physical distancing and hygiene), 3) seasonality of the virus, and 4) a rising but undiscovered level of immunity within the population. The results raise the question whether formal contact bans and curfews really contribute to curve flattening within a pandemic.

We provide evidence that industries' supply curves are convex. To guide our empirical analysis, we develop a model in which capacity constraints at the firm level generate supply curves that are convex in logs at the industry level. The industry's capacity utilization rate is a sufficient statistic for the supply elasticity. Using data on capacity utilization and three different instruments, we estimate the supply curve and find robust evidence for an economically sizable degree of convexity. The nonlinearity we identify has several macroeconomic implications, including that responses to shocks are state dependent and that the Phillips curve is convex. (JEL D21, E22, E23, E32, E62, L60)

Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Ways in to the Text -- Who are Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray? -- What Does The Bell Curve Say? -- Why Does The Bell Curve Matter? -- Section 1: Influences -- Module 1 The Author and the Historical Context -- Module 2 Academic Context -- Module 3 The Problem -- Module 4 The Author's Contribution -- Section 2: Ideas -- Module 5 Main Ideas -- Module 6 Secondary Ideas -- Module 7 Achievement -- Module 8 Place in the Author's Work -- Section 3: Impact -- Module 9 The First Responses -- Module 10 The Evolving Debate -- Module 11 Impact and Influence Today -- Module 12 Where Next? -- Glossary of Terms -- People Mentioned in the Text -- Works Cited