Echoes is a fantasy told in verse by the young shapeshifter poet Christopher Crow. In a realm where Griffins and Centaurs prowl, Crow navigates a harsh interior landscape of barren rock and dry deserts. He is driven by his quest to find "the Other", the light half of his own dark soul. In this private quest mirrors are abundant and Crow uses them as doorways to weave in and out of reality and fictional worlds,all the while keeping a diary of verse that translates to the reader a lif...

Narrator Christopher Crow takes the reader on a dark odyssey into realms where he has been given The Dark Gift by a fallen angel; it is the ability to enter other's dreams and bring back their most private memories, filling the angel's being with other's memories, which she feeds on. Crow writes from a single room cell below ground; physically he goes nowhere, but by the viaducts of his imagination we journey with him into timeless, mythic landscapes, delving further and further until we c...

Macrofinancial linkages have long been at the core of the IMF's mandate to oversee the stability of the global financial system. With the advent of the economic crisis, the Fund has drawn on this research in order to contribute to critical debates on the nature of appropriate policy responses at both the national and multilateral levels. The current juncture offers a good opportunity to take stock of this body of research by IMF staff and to share it with a wider audience, particularly sin...

The crisis has shifted the policy consensus away from the “benign neglect” view that it is better to pick up the pieces after a bust than try to prevent a real-estate boom in the first place. Yet, a call for a more preventive policy action raises more questions than it provides answers. What kind of indicators should trigger policy intervention to stop or slow down a real estate boom? Even assuming policymakers were fairly certain that intervention were warranted, what would be the policy ...

After a long absence from his native southern Appalachians, Thomas Rain Crowe returned to live alone deep in the North Carolina woods. This is Crowe’s chronicle of that time when, for four years, he survived by his own hand without electricity, plumbing, modern-day transportation, or regular income. It is a Walden for today, paced to nature’s rhythms and cycles and filled with a wisdom one gains only through the pursuit of a consciously simple, spiritual, environmentally responsib...

Ecosystem services are emerging as a key driver of conservation policy and environmental management. Delivery of ecosystem services depends on the efficient functioning of ecosystems, which in turn depends on biodiversity and environmental conditions. Many marine ecosystems are extremely productive and highly valued, but they are increasingly threatened by human activities. With contributions from leading researchers, this volume synthesises current understanding of the effects on biodiver...

First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this critical and practical volume challenges policy theory scholars to change the way they produce and communicate research.Leading academics propose eight ways to synthesise and translate state of the art knowledge to equip scholars to communicate their insights with each other and a wider audience. Chapters consider topics such as narratives as tools for influencing policy change, essential habits of successful policy entr...

Love. An essential and important part of the human experience. And in Feel the Love, editor Mark Leslie takes readers on a journey through the various forms of that powerful emotion. From the heartwarming to the heartbreaking, these eighteen talented writers brilliantly capture the concept of love. Comforting and thoughtful, uplifting and warm, these stories might just restore your faith in humanity.Table of Contents“Thief” by Michael Kowal“Death’s ...

This paper describes recently established deposit insurance systems, identifying emerging trends. In line with previous IMF work on the subject, it argues against the development of "best practices" applicable to all systems. Rather, it stresses the importance of incorporating each country’s individual objectives in adopting a deposit insurance system, as well as that country’s characteristics, to ensure an effective system that minimizes disincentives and distortions to financial sector i...

This book examines the reasons for the unprecedented weak recovery following the recent US recession and explores the possibility that government economic policy is the problem. Drawing on empirical research that looks at issues from policy uncertainty to increased regulation, the volume offers a broad-based assessment of how government policies are slowing economic growth and provides a framework for understanding how those policies should change to restore prosperity in America.

The April 2014 Global Financial Stability Report finds that, despite much progress, the global financial system remains in a transitional period with stability conditions far from normal. Advanced and emerging market economies alike need to make a successful shift from liquidity- to growth-driven markets, which will require a number of elements, including a normalization of U.S. monetary policy; financial rebalancing in emerging markets; further progress in the euro area integration; and c...