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The UC Research Repository collects, stores and makes available original research from postgraduate students, researchers and academics based at the University of Canterbury.

 

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Central Bank Stabilisation Policy when Capital Flows Matter: Instruments, Targets, and Trade-offs
(2024) Guender, Alfred
This paper examines how policy instruments shape the trade-off between core macroeconomic and financial stability in an open economy where speculative capital flows affect financial market conditions. We derive and contrast the target rules that underpin optimal discretionary policy in four different instrument scenarios, each of which involves one, two or three of the following instruments: the policy rate, an interest rate equalisation tool, and intervention in the foreign exchange market. The analysis reveals a one-to-one correspondence between the policy instruments deployed and the number of target rules that guide the optimal policy. Using more instruments leads to simpler target rules, sharper trade-offs, and increased welfare. The three-instrument case produces the same output-inflation trade-off as the canonical closed-economy New Keynesian model and ensures complete insulation from foreign monetary policy and other demand-side shocks.
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OCHT pilot in Ōtautahi
(2024) Kingham, Simon; Curl , Angela; Carroll, Liam
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The effects of environmental pollution on bacterial conjugation.
(2024) McCabe, Andrew W.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are an anthropogenically caused threat to medicine and social cohesion. Whilst some of the drivers are known, such as the use and overuse of antibiotics, others are just being discovered. Evidence that the vast number of environmental contaminants is also an important driver is gaining acceptance. The lack of thorough testing of the unintended antimicrobial effects of most of these contaminants leads to a severe lack of knowledge on the impact of pollution on antibiotic resistance. Bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance via multiple mechanisms, including horizontal gene transfer. One vector of transmission is conjugation. Conjugation (or “mating”) is the process by which plasmids move between cells. It is an important pathway through which many bacteria acquire resistance. Compounds known to be commonly found as contaminants/pollutants in waterways can also have properties that could affect the frequency of conjugation. Some were chosen to test whether exposure to them altered either or both inter- or intra- species plasmid transmission frequencies. Interesting patterns were observed indicating that the effect of exposure cannot necessarily be predicted by the known chemistry of the contaminant or biochemistry of plasmid transfer. Future research will determine if the hypothesised effect of each compound explains observed effects on plasmid transmission frequencies. I also examined if the plasmid transfer complex, which in this case is a type IV secretion system, could confer resistance to heavy metal compounds. Whilst some plasmids have been shown to carry heavy metal resistance genes, recent evidence suggests an independent effect of the type IV secretion system on resistance. Heavy metals are common environmental contaminants, due to leaching from plastics amongst other sources, making exposures also common. If plasmid transfer genes have a pleiotropic effect on heavy metal resistance, then heavy metals could substitute for antibiotics to select for plasmids. Heavy metals would enrich for antibiotic resistance by linkage. The hypothesis was not supported in this research. However, a surprising observation was made. One conjugative plasmid, RP4, increased susceptibility to zinc sulphate. I have identified a zinc permease gene carried by RP4 that might increase zinc sulphate uptake. Future research could determine if the permease gene is necessary and sufficient for increased susceptibility to zinc sulphate.