Die interdisziplinäre Debatte um 'Moderne' und 'Modernisierung' krankt vielfach an einem Unverständnis bzw. Nichtwissen von disziplinär unterschiedlichen Begriffsverständnissen. Der Beitrag weist auf die verschiedenen Bedeutungen von 'Moderne' in der Literaturwissenschaft und in den Sozialwissenschaften hin und setzt sie zueinander ins Verhältnis. Aus der Sicht ästhetischer Modernebegriffe werden allzu eindimensionale Fortschritts- und Entwicklungskonzepte von Moderne und Modernisierung kritisch in Frage gestellt. ; The interdisciplinary debate on 'Modernity' and 'Modernisation' very often lacks awareness and knowledge of different disciplinary understandings of the terms. The article highlights disparate concepts of 'Modernity' in Literary Studies and Social Studies and discusses their mutual relations. From the perspective of an aesthetic notion of modernity unidimensional and linear concepts of progress and development are read critically.
In the theoretical literature on tolerance a distinction is proposed between coexistence and respect tolerance. In three studies with four national samples of Dutch majority members, we demonstrate that these two forms of tolerance can be distinguished empirically in relation to different immigrant target groups. The findings of all studies further show that the more principled respect tolerance was negatively associated with prejudice towards immigrants, and positively associated with the acceptance of concrete minority practices, above and beyond prejudice. However, the positive association between respect tolerance and acceptance of practices was weaker for people who were more strongly concerned about the continuity of their national cultural identity. Overall, the more pragmatic coexistence tolerance was found to have no independent association with prejudicial feelings and with the acceptance of minority practices. The findings indicate that stimulating respect tolerance might be particularly helpful for improving intergroup relations in culturally diverse societies.
Along with a number of other countries, particularly those in southern Europe, Italy has only been a receiving country for international immigration for about 25 years. Italy itself has a long tradition of emigration and it is estimated that there are currently about 60 million Italian emigrants all over the world. In Italian Law, the concept of "immigrant" first appeared as recently as 1986. Previously there was only the general juridical type of the "foreigner", whose residence within the national boundaries was governed by public security law. In the Italian public discourse, up to the end of the 1980s, "immigrants" were internal migrants from less developed southern regions ("Mezzogiorno") who moved towards the more dynamic areas of Northern Italy, a huge phenomenon throughout the twentieth century, and particularly intense in the "golden period" of the industrial development (from the 1950s and the first half of the 1970s): initially migration was mainly towards the so called "industrial triangle" (Milan-Turin-Genoa), afterwards it was also towards the central and north-eastern regions, characterized by the growth of small companies and industrial districts. Based on a historical analysis, we know that today's aversions and oppositions towards foreign immigrants were directed to migrants from the south of Italy in the past. However, in those times immigration was not a central issue in the political debate, essentially because the internal migrants were citizens and voters and they might be employed as civil servants. The phenomenon of international migration has therefore developed in a national context characterized by certain aspects that should be taken into account throughout the analysis.
Der Sammelband "Religion – Imagination – Ästhetik" nimmt Imagination als bislang zu Unrecht vernachlässigte religiöse und religionswissenschaftliche Schlüsselkategorie in den Blick. Zugrunde gelegt ist die These 'Keine Religion ohne Imagination', denn beiden eignet die Kraft, Sinneswelten in Sinnsysteme zu überführen und Sinnsysteme in Sinneswelten zu übersetzen. Erstmals wird das enge Verhältnis von Religion und Imagination bearbeitet – mit einem Hauptfokus auf ihr Wechselspiel mit der Ästhetik, den der Sinneswahrnehmung zugänglichen Verkörperungen und Medien. Vorwort und Einleitung führen in diese Programmatik ein. Das Inhaltsverzeichnis bietet einen Überblick über die Beiträge und vier Teile des Bandes (Imaginationstechniken, Imaginationsräume, Imaginationspolitiken, Imaginationsgeschichte), die in großer inhaltlicher und theoretischer Breite die zentrale Rolle von Imagination und ihrer sinnlichen Verkörperungen in unterschiedlichen Religionskulturen belegen.
Der Artikel bearbeitet den Zusammenhang von Imagination und Transformation und analysiert die kreativen und disziplinierenden Aspekte der Imagination und des Imaginierens. Anhand eines bis heute noch wirkmächtigen Ritualmanuals aus dem 16. Jahrhundert wird dargestellt, in welcher Dichte und multimedialen Fülle im indischen Tantra von der menschlichen Vorstellungskraft bewusst und methodisch Gebrauch gemacht wird. Aktive Imagination wird als machtvolle Technik eingesetzt, um eine neue Selbst- und Wirklichkeitswahrnehmung gemäß dem schuleigenen Erlösungsideal zu erzeugen und die 'normalen' Grenzen von Körper und menschlichem Bewusstsein zu sprengen.
Der Sammelband "Religion – Imagination – Ästhetik" nimmt Imagination als bislang zu Unrecht vernachlässigte religiöse und religionswissenschaftliche Schlüsselkategorie in den Blick. Zugrunde gelegt ist die These 'Keine Religion ohne Imagination', denn beiden eignet die Kraft, Sinneswelten in Sinnsysteme zu überführen und Sinnsysteme in Sinneswelten zu übersetzen. Erstmals wird das enge Verhältnis von Religion und Imagination bearbeitet – mit einem Hauptfokus auf ihr Wechselspiel mit der Ästhetik, den der Sinneswahrnehmung zugänglichen Verkörperungen und Medien. Vorwort und Einleitung führen in diese Programmatik ein. Das Inhaltsverzeichnis bietet einen Überblick über die Beiträge und vier Teile des Bandes (Imaginationstechniken, Imaginationsräume, Imaginationspolitiken, Imaginationsgeschichte), die in großer inhaltlicher und theoretischer Breite die zentrale Rolle von Imagination und ihrer sinnlichen Verkörperungen in unterschiedlichen Religionskulturen belegen.
The Repo Handbook, 2nd edition presents an overview of repo vehicles and markets with sufficient depth for those seeking detailed explanations. In three parts it demonstrates how these secured loans fit into global capital markets and why they account for up to 50% of daily settlement activity in non-US government bonds worldwide. This new edition replaces≤old examples and introduces new developments, such as structured finance repo and associated topics such as Basel II regulatory rules. In addition, ≤12 of 18 chapters feature new sections and≤4 have been substantially rewritten
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The repo market hit some road bumps last week. Trading pressures in this key funding market pushed repo interest rates well above the Fed's target interest rate range. This development caused some observers to worry that it was a 2008-type run on the repo market all over again. Bill Dudley and others, however, noted this was a technical blip, not the beginning of a financial crisis. Moreover it was something the Fed could easily fix with an old fashion tool, temporary open market operations, even if the Fed got off to a slow start doing so last week.
There have been great Twitter discussions and explanations of this repo market stress, including ones from Nathan Tankus, Bauhinia Capital, Guy LeBas, and George Selgin. There are also have been many good pieces from journalists and think tanks. Here, I want to echo a few of their points and speak to where I hope this experience takes the Fed's operating system in the long run. Let's begin with what happened.
Stumbling Back into a Corridor System
The standard explanation for what happened has two parts. First, the Fed's quantitative tightening (QT) put the U.S. banking system close to the point of reserve scarcity given the new post-crisis regulations. Second, the Treasury recently auctioned off new securities and at the same time collected corporate tax receipts. These two developments further reduced bank reserves and pushed the banking system back into a reserve-scarce environment. Put differently, the Fed unintentionally stumbled from its floor operating system of the past decade back into a corridor operating system, the framework it intentionally left in late 2008.
This story can be illustrated using a simple supply and demand model of bank reserves. Using this framework, the figure below on the left shows what the Fed's operating system looked like before the fall of 2008. This was a simpler time when the Fed kept minimal reserves and banks traded for them on the interbank market. The Fed would conduct open market operations (OMOs) to adjust the supply of bank reserves so that a particular interest rate target was hit. Graphically, this meant moving the red line (reserve supply) along the downward slopping part of the blue line (reserve demand). Changes in the supply of reserves directly influenced the interest rate target. Monetary policy and money were directly linked.
This changed in late 2008 when the Fed expanded the supply of reserve such that the reserves were now on the flat (perfectly elastic) portion of the demand curve. The Fed's floor operating system had emerged. This can be seen below in the figure on the right. Here, the quantity of reserves could change with no effect on the interest rate target. Monetary policy was now divorced from money. The Fed, in other words, could adjust its balance sheet independent of the stance of monetary policy. This was the appeal of the floor system.
The Fed's floor system got further refined after the crisis with changes in reserve demand brought about by Dodd-Frank and Basel III. New regulations likes the leverage coverage ratio (LCR), supplemental liquidity ratio (SLR), and resolution planning for global systematically important banks (G-SIBs) increased demand for reserves. This can be seen below with the shifting out of the reserve demand curve (blue line) in the figure on the left.
Finally, the Fed reduced bank reserves via the shrinking of its balance sheet or QT from 2017 to 2019. The goal was to keep the banking system on the flat part of the reserve demand curve, but with the lowest level of reserves possible. No one knew for sure where that would be, but if it were passed it would be made evident by overnight interest rates rising up. That is exactly what happened this past week with the Treasury sales and collection of corporate tax receipts and can be seen below in the figure to the right. The Fed's temporary OMO's is an attempt by the Fed to offset these recent Treasury actions and push the banking system back onto the flat portion of the demand curve.
What is the Fed Doing Now?
The Fed is now engaging in temporary open market operations (OMOs) via overnight and term repos to bring the repo rate in line with its interest rate target. Some are calling this a bailout of the banking system, but these responses are what normally happens in a corridor system. It is what the Bank of Canada currently does with its corridor system and it is what the Fed did from the 1920s up until 2008. This is not a bailout, but a temporary provision of liquidity to the banking system.
The figure below shows that $75 billion of overnight repos this past week are relatively small as a percent of the Fed's total assets. At 1.95% of total assets, they are small compared to the temporary OMOs in the decades leading up to the crisis. If we add in the additional $90 billion in term repo to be disbursed this week, it still is about where the temporary OMOs typically were as a percent of total assets prior to 2008.
The most striking part of the figure, if anything, is the absence of temporary OMOs over the past decade under the floor system. This absence of repo activity by the Fed apparently has led many observers to forget the Fed engaged in this type of activity for most of its history. Maybe it also led to some repo atrophy at the New York Fed as discussed below.
Why Did the Fed Stumble?
So, why did the Fed not see this Treasury-related reduction in bank reserves coming? It should not have been a surprise and the fact that it was has some questioning the competence of the New York Fed. Some are even wondering if the absence of Simon Potter, the former head of the New York Fed's Market Group, was a reason for the misstep.
This criticism seems off to me. Yes, Simon Potter's presence would have been nice this past week, but the Market Group is more than one person. There are other talented people in this group who are also well informed. I also find it a reach to blame the market inexperience of New York Fed President John Williams. This too puts too much weight on one person and ignores the collective wisdom of the New York Fed staff.
I think a simpler explanation is that a floor system is just hard to run in the United States. First, no one knew for sure when the reserve scarcity point would hit because no one knew exactly how the regulations would manifest themselves in each bank. Even if they did know this regulatory part, they still would not know for certain if they had hit reserve scarcity until overnight rates shot up.
Second, the New York Fed's slow response to the repo market stress might itself also be the fault of the floor system. The floor system has meant no need for temporary OMOs for almost a decade. Maybe the New York Fed was simply out of practice--no repo muscle memory--and caught off guard.
Third, as noted by George Selgin, the floor system encourages the Treasury to use its TGA balance at the Fed. For a fixed Fed balance sheet, this growth in the TGA requires a reduction in bank reserves. If the Treasury had instead used the TT&L accounts this could have been avoided. But the floor system discourages their use. Maybe the Fed's choice of a floor system needs a rethink.
Longterm Solution for the Fed
This repo market bump in the road should encourage the Fed to rethink the longterm future of its operating system. The floor system was supposed to bring greater interest rate control to the Fed, but this experience suggest that this is not the case. Moreover, as I noted in a previous post, the Bank of Canada appears to have better interest rate control with its symmetric corridor system. This, in my view, should be the longrun destination for the Fed's operating system.
As George Selgin notes, the Fed's adoption of a standing repo facility could be a step in that direction. There will also need to be tweaks to the regulatory front as well. The sooner we start this journey the better.
The Repo Man Cometh
Some commentators worry these funding problems will continue to plague the Fed's floor system in the future given the Fed's desire to keep its balance sheet as small as possible while still being on the flat portion of the reserve demand curve. Since it is hard to know exactly where that sweet spot is on the curve, I agree that we may see strains again in the repo market. Eventually, this discomfort should move us toward adopting the standing repo facility, but until that time get used to seeing more temporary OMOs and Bill Dudley explainers. The Fed's repo man will come again.
P.S. There was some discussion as to who was holding the remaining reserves. This chart partly answers that question.
