Using monthly data from 1978:M1 to 2019:M9, this paper provides empirical evidence concerning the role that monetary policy plays in the US housing market. We first show that shocks to short-run interest rates have significant impacts on house prices and that these effects are persistent. Our findings also provide evidence supporting the claim that too-low-for-too-long interest rates are responsible for the 2002–2006 US housing boom. We further investigate the different channels through which an easing monetary policy fuels the house price boom and find that faster sales and lower inventory levels in the housing market most amplify the policy effects. Lastly, we provide compelling evidence of the asymmetric effects of contractionary and expansionary monetary policies on house prices.

This paper examines whether changes in US presidential administration and central bank turnover during the period 1976–2016 caused regime shifts in Taylor rule deviations. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to construct the welfare-maximizing policy rule and deviations from the optimal rule, we find evidence that politics indeed play a key role in explaining these deviations. In addition to politics, unemployment rates and the interest rate spread significantly account for regime shifts in Taylor rule deviations.

Whole-mount immunofluorescence technique provides a way to reveal integrated expression patterns of biological molecules in individuals. Well-documented morphological preservation ability in biology makes aldehydes the fixative of choice. Cross-linking among biocomponents and aldehydes is the key for maintaining morphology but masks the biological molecules for immunodetection. This study performs an easily accessible method by applying heat-induced retrieval, which can rescue the antigenicity of the proteins and also enhance the labeling sensitivity of the fluorescence dye in overfixed zebrafish embryos. The results show that the immunoreactivities of antibodies to myosin in the muscles, green fluorescent protein in the blood vessels and the nuclei in the cells can be recovered significantly, and the morphology of the zebrafish embryos, even the fragile mutants, is at the same time well maintained. Therefore, we provide a choice for antigen retrieval, which is effective for whole-mount immunofluorescence microscopy.

A series of tetrahedral tetramers of 2,5-diphenyl substituted 1,3,4-oxadiazole compounds were synthesized and characterized for electron-transporting layer (ETL) in organic light-emitting diode (OLED). The multiple-branch design of the oxadiazole tetramers intends to increase the melting temperature and to generate glass phase of the low molar mass derivative such as 2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (PBD). We observed temperatures of the glass phase transition for the oxadiazole tetramer with appropriate peripheral substituents, indicative of amorphous characteristics of the molecule in spite of highly symmetrical molecular framework. The luminescence-current-voltage characteristics of multilayer OLED devices containing the oxadiazole tetramer or PBD as ETL were examined to evaluate the efficiency of our multiple-branch molecular design.