Herbicide tolerant crops provide farmers access to a new weed control option of nonselective herbicide such as Roundup1 A wheat transgenic event 33391 was produced via Agrobacterium‐mediated transformation of a donor cultivar Bobwhite wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and was identified as a commercial candidate to develop Roundup Ready wheat2 The objective of this study was to assess field efficacy of the transgenic event in spring wheat production regions in North America. Transgenic event 33391 was tested in field trials at 14 locations in 1999, 13 locations in 2000, and 14 locations in 2001. All trials were split‐plot designs with multiple rates of Roundup treatment. No vegetative or reproductive damage was observed with the application of 4 L ha−1 Roundup at the 3‐ to 5‐leaf stages. No yield reduction was observed with Roundup treatment. The transgenic event with or without Roundup application yielded as high as the nontransgenic Bobwhite. These results indicate that the wheat transgenic event 33391 has at least 2× tolerance to the nonselective herbicide Roundup.

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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Banco de España or the Eurosystem. We would like to thank seminar participants at the Banco de España and an anonymous referee for their comments, as well as Masashige Hamano for sharing his codes with us.

a b s t r a c tSize matters in banking. In this paper, we explore whether shocks originating at large banks affect the probability of distress of smaller banks and thus the stability of the banking system. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. In a first step, we follow Gabaix [Gabaix, X., 2008a. The Granular Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111765] and construct a measure of idiosyncratic shocks at large banks, the so-called Banking Granular Residual. This measure documents the importance of size effects for the German banking system. In a second step, we incorporate this measure of idiosyncratic shocks at large banks into an integrated stress-testing model for the German banking system following De Graeve et al. (2008). We find that positive shocks at large banks reduce the probability of distress of small banks.

International bank portfolios constitute a large component of international country portfolios. Yet, banks' response to international macroeconomic conditions remains largely unexplored. We use a novel dataset on banks' international portfolios to answer three questions. First, what are the long-run determinants of banks' international portfolios? Second, how do banks' international portfolios adjust to short-run macroeconomic developments? Third, does the speed of adjustment change with the degree of financial integration? We find that, in the long-run, market size has a positive impact on foreign assets and liabilities. An increase in the interest differential between the home and the foreign economy lowers foreign assets and increases foreign liabilities. Foreign trade has a positive impact on international bank portfolios, which is independent from the effect of other macroeconomic variables. Short-run dynamics show heterogeneity across countries, but these dynamics can partly be explained with gravity-type variables. Copyright � 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.