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Books > Business & Economics > Finance & accounting > Finance > Public finance > General
After the recent financial crisis has hooked the banking system to its very foundations, Hartmut Brinkmeyer contributes to the question of how bank characteristics influence bank loan supply during crisis periods by developing a well-founded theoretical framework. The econometrical design deploys a number of remarkably innovative ideas such as the implementation of a bank-specific, self-chosen target capital ratio or a very convincing approach to the disentanglement of loan supply and demand. The results of this study deliver a profound insight into the lending behavior of European banks and explicitly urge academic and practical discussion.
This book examines and analyzes issues related to public finance in subnational governments, along with a discussion of case studies on decentralization. Most of the analysis applies to all public goods and services provided by subnational governments, with some placed on the role of subnational governments in the management of environmental resources, notably water and waste Coverage includes optimal arrangements for sharing fiscal responsibilities among different levels of government, the potential impact of decentralization on the quality of public goods delivery, local governments' expenditure and revenue choices, and the effect of decentralization on accountability, governance and policy outcomes. The scope of discussion extends to both public finance theory and applied policy debates. The first chapter, on trends in financing of public services, opens with an explanation of the how and why of government intervention in the economy, the nature and purposes of transfers between and among governments and trends in decentralization. Case studies examine the impact of decentralization in such areas as service delivery, water and sanitation, education and health, and on poverty and income inequality. Chapter 2 examines public budgets: governance structures, norms and organizational practices, building up understanding of budgets, budget cycles, fiscal revenues from fees and taxes, expenses, debt and political economy issues, rules mandating balanced budgets in government and more. Chapter 3 discusses issues of accountability and policy outcomes, offering important lessons from recent international experience, including ways to strengthen political, administrative and financial accountability. The concluding chapter recounts lessons from recent international experience and surveys implications for the nexus approach to management of environmental resources. The information, analysis and expert advice presented here is particularly relevant for developing and emerging countries, where well designed decentralization reforms have a higher potential to improve efficiency in the provision of public services, and to enhance the development of integrated and sustainable strategies for the use of water, soil and waste resources and applications that advance the nexus approach.
The tithe surveys of the early Victorian Age, after the great Domesday Book of the eleventh century, represent the most detailed and important national inventory to be taken before our own times. This 1986 book reconstructs elements of mid-nineteenth-century rural landscapes and farming systems by analysing the wealth of quantitative data which these tithe surveys contain, communicated cartographically by a set of 582 computer-generated maps, and statistically by a series of tables. The book also reveals the richness and variety of written evidence which the 14,829 parish tithe files (P.R.O. Class IR 18) contain, by means of analytical place and subject indexes for each English and Welsh county (some 200,000 entries in all) and by essays in which themes commonly encountered in the tithe file papers of each county are described. These sections of the book will be an essential tool for historians and historical geographers.
What role should regulation play in financial markets? What have been the ramifications of financial regulation? To answer these and other questions regarding the efficacy of legislation on financial markets, this book examines the impact of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), also called the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, which fundamentally changed the financial landscape in the United States. The GLBA allows the formation of financial holding companies that can offer an integrated set of commercial banking, securities and insurance products. The tenth anniversary of the most sweeping financial legislation reform in the industry's structure is a natural benchmark for assessing the effects of the law and for questioning whether changes are necessary in the working of this historic legislation. The importance of this review is reinforced by a variety of proposals in the last several years to reform the regulation of financial institutions that have attracted considerable attention among regulators and in the financial firms that they regulate. Most recently, the financial crisis and the failure of some large financial institutions have called into question the legitimacy of America's current financial structure and its regulation, including to some degree the GLBA. There is no doubt that regulatory reform is front and center on today's policy agenda. The lessons of the GLBA experience and its effects, both domestic and international, on financial markets and competitiveness, risk-taking and risk management by financial services firms and their regulators will be critical to the direction the country takes and the effort to ensure that future financial crises do not occur or have less costly damage. With contributions from academics, policy experts, and a sponsor of the GLBA, Congressman James Leach, this book is invaluable to anyone interested in financial system reform.
To the classical driving forces of migration such as poverty, oppression and war, yet another is being added: globalization. With the increasing economic interdependence between countries migration has become one of the important links. Many less developed countries (LDCs) accept migration of their workers to developed countries (DCs) because it reduces the pressure on unemployment, and remittances increase the capital inflow to the country. On the other hand, some of the DCs see migration as a threat to their employment and system of social security. Participants of the Second Annual Workshop of the Network EU-LDC Trade and Capital Relations gave a broad view of the problem which both DCs and LDCs are facing in connection with the globalization of labour markets. This volume consists of 10 chapters by scholars from the European Union (EU) and LDCs. Each paper is discussed in terms of its policy relevance by a policy maker as well as by an academic specializing in the field. In the opening chapter we aim to do justice to the discussion during the Workshop in Rotterdam in May 1995 at which preliminary versions of all chapters were presented. Edited versions of the interven tions by the policy makers and experts are included as far as possible af ter the chapters. The opinions expressed in this volume are those of the authors and not necessarily those of their organizations.
Economic cooperation between the CMEA countries is implemented according to the monetary and financial regulations worked out collectively. The regulations cover the organizational structure of international settlements; the choice of currency for settlements; the principles of international credit transactions; the determination ofthe exchange rate of the currency used in international settlements to national currencies and to convertible currencies outside the CMEA; the principles and rules ofinternational exchange and transfers; mIes for the currency allotments of citizens (roles of international transfers for citizens). The regulations also contain provisions for international settlements and credit transactions which are concluded through an independent international bank or banks. These regulations, the instruments and institutions together, form the international payments and monetary system of the CMEA. * The financial and monetary regulations of the CMEA community were formed in several stages, depending on the prevailing. conditions and the targets to be attained. In the years between 1949 and 1963 the general form of economic cooperation and of international settlements was the bilateral clearing agreement. In the bilateral agreements which the Soviet Union concluded with the other CMEA countries the currency of settlements was the Soviet rouble. The prices applied in foreign trade were not the internal producer prices of the Soviet Union, but world market prices (main international market prices) expressed in roubles, with the he]p ofthe exchange rate ofthe Soviet rouble to the US dollar, as quoted in the Soviet Union."
The 17 chapters in this book, which evolved from a conference on measuring the contributions of ITS sponsored by the California Department of Transportation in February 2002, examine the costs and benefits of ITS in an economic and business policy context. Section 1 examines the broad theme of how and what ITS contributes to the economy and how one makes a business case for ITS. Section 2 includes three chapters on ITS applications in mass transit. Section 3 explores ITS applications in the automobile/highway system. Section 4 considers integrative issues including how ITS is perceived and how it can be positioned to improve surface transportation. This volume will be especially useful to researchers and policy makers working in transportation, transportation engineering, and the economic analysis of transportation systems.
The new, updated edition of the 2017 bestseller! Coming to grips with money, making wise decisions and setting ourselves on a path to wealth can be daunting. Some women excel at this; others battle from payday to payday. What do ‘smart women’ know that the rest of us can learn? In this updated edition, Smartwoman reveals who is competing for your money (black tax and other family pressures), how to create a designer life (as opposed to filling up space with designer stuff), and how to start a side hustle. It also covers major life events, such as marriage, divorce and death, and how you can make smart financial decisions at these times. Knowing how and where to invest is crucial to building wealth, and this book covers the full spectrum of investment options, including equities, property, offshore investment and alternative investments, such as art. New chapters include how Covid-19 impacts our cash flow and investments; side hustles; investing offshore; and cryptocurrencies and how they fit into an investment portfolio. Whatever your life stage or circumstances, being in financial control, owning your destiny and building long-term wealth is within every woman’s reach.
The results of the work of the Conference on Tax Coordination in the European Community appear at a time when the Community has undertaken, as a priority task, the completion of the internal market. The Commission's programme and proposed timetable for the achievement of that goal are spelt out in the White Paper, which was endorsed by the European Council at Milan in June 1985, an endorsement which was repeated at the Council's subsequent meeting in Luxemburg in December 1985. The Commission wholly endorses the views of the Conference as regards the need for urgent action to remove the grave restrictions on the free movement of the factors of production which continue to exist within the Community. It is the Commission's firm view that only a true dismantling of fiscal frontiers can permit the creation of an area without internal frontiers for which the Single European Act provides. To that end a certain approximation of rates of indirect taxation is indispensable if unacceptable distortion of competition is to be avoided. It is noteworthy that the Conference attaches great importance to the Community's problems in the field of direct taxation. This work will be particularly useful to the Commission, which intends to produce a further White Paper on company taxation in the near future. As the Conference rightly notes, action in this field is important for equalisation of the conditions of competition necessary for the completion of the internal market.
The likelihood of observing Condorcet's Paradox is known to be very low for elections with a small number of candidates if voters' preferences on candidates reflect any significant degree of a number of different measures of mutual coherence. This reinforces the intuitive notion that strange election outcomes should become less likely as voters' preferences become more mutually coherent. Similar analysis is used here to indicate that this notion is valid for most, but not all, other voting paradoxes. This study also focuses on the Condorcet Criterion, which states that the pairwise majority rule winner should be chosen as the election winner, if one exists. Representations for the Condorcet Efficiency of the most common voting rules are obtained here as a function of various measures of the degree of mutual coherence of voters' preferences. An analysis of the Condorcet Efficiency representations that are obtained yields strong support for using Borda Rule.
This book champions the view that economics is a social science, and that, moreover, it may serve as a new paradigm for the social sciences. Economics is taken to be part of those sciences which deal with actual problems of society by providing insights, improving our understanding and suggesting solutions. I am aware that the way problems are addressed here has little in common with economics as it is generally understood today; most economists make strong efforts to imitate the exact sciences. Economics tends to become a branch of applied mathematics; the majority of all publications in professional journals and books are full of axioms, lemmas and proofs, and they are much concerned with purely formal deductions. Often, when the results are translated into verbal language, or when they are applied empirically, disappointingly little of interest remains. The book wants to show that another type of economics exists which is surprisingly little known. This type of economics has its own particular point of view. It centres on a concept of man, or a model of human behaviour, which differs from those normally used in other social sciences such as sociology, political science, law, or psychology. I do not, how ever, claim that economics is the only legitimate social science. On the vii viii PREFACE contrary, economics can provide useful insights only in collaboration with the other social sciences-an aspect which has been disregarded by mathematically oriented economics."
The worldwide deployment of wind power plants is soaring. Yet the availability of their construction materials could be a potential bottleneck. As rare earth elements represent the most critical materials, Anja Brumme provides a market analysis of rare earths, ascertaining that geological scarcity is not the main problem. Instead, the author identifies four kinds of market failure: market power, co-production, by-production and negative externalities. It becomes apparent that the market for rare earth metals is in a state of severe disequilibrium. Subsequently, her estimate of future rare earth demand patterns based on the wind power industry by 2050 reveals that the current level of supply is unlikely to be sufficient in the long run. To allow for a more elaborate analysis, the author suggests two options of including a rare earth side condition in an integrated assessment model.
My first serious thought about a scientific approach to politics was in Communist China. When the Communists seized China, the American Department of State, which was planning to recognize them, left its entire diplomatic establishment in place. At the time, I was a Vice Consul in Tientsin, so I found myself living under the Communists. While the Department of State was planning on recognizing the Communists, the Communist plans were obscure. In any event, they weren't going to recognize us in the Consulate General until formal relations were established between the two governments, so I had a great deal of leisure. As a man who then intended to spend his life as a political officer in the Department of State, I decided to fill in this time by reading political science. I rapidly realized, not only that the work was rather unsatisfactory from a scientific standpoint, but also that it didn't seem to have very much relevance to the Communist government under which I was then living. ! I was unable to solve the problem at the time, and after a number of vicissitudes which included service in Hong Kong and South Korea, neither of which was really a model of democracy, I resigned and switched over to an academic career primarily concerned with that mixture of economics and political science which we call Public Choice. Most of my work in Public Choice has dealt with democratic governments.
Upon hearing that Ronald Coase had been awarded the Nobel Prize, a fellow economist's first response was to ask with whom Coase had shared the Prize. Whether this response was idiosyncratic or not, I do not know; I expect not. Part of this type of reaction can no doubt be explained by the fact that Coase has often been characterized as an economist who wrote only two significant or influential papers: "The Nature of the Firm" (1937) and "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960). And by typical professional standards of "significant" and "influential" (i. e. , widely read and cited), this perception embodies a great deal of truth, even subsequent to Coase's receipt of the Prize. This is not to say that there have not been other important works - "The Marginal Cost Controversy" (1946) and "The Lighthouse in Economics" (1974) come immediately to mind here - only that in a random sample of, say, one hundred economists, one would likely find few who could list a Coase bibliography beyond the two classic pieces noted above, in spite of Coase's significant publication record. ' The purpose of this collection is to assess the development of, tensions within, and prospects for Coasean Economics - those aspects of economic analysis that have evolved out of Coase's path-breaking work. Two major strands of research can be identified here: law and economics and the New Institutional Economics.
The commercial banking industry in the United States has
dramatically restructured. While concentration has increased, banks
no longer dominate financial services. Instead, they have become
part of holding companies that own a broad range of closely related
financial services companies that are both complementary and
competitive. Historical prohibitions against interstate banking
have been liberalized as have the regulatory barriers that strictly
separate banking, insurance, and securities market activities. As
risk and complexity in the financial system increases and
traditional sources of returns in banking diminish, pressure for
further change will mount.
The central question addressed in Financial Innovations and the Welfare of Nations is how the transfer of financial innovations from developed to developing economies can nurture the dynamics of emerging capital markets. National capital markets can be positioned along a continuum ranging from embryonic to mature and emerged markets according to a decreasing "national cost of capital" criterion. In the introductory chapter Laurent Jacque argues that newly emerging countries are handicapped by a high cost of capital due to "incomplete" and inefficient financial markets. As capital markets graduate to higher level of "emergedness", their national firms avail themselves of a lower cost of capital that makes them more competitive in the global economy and spurs economic growth. Skillful transfer of financial innovations to emerging markets often encourages the deregulation of the country's financial services sector. This results into new conduits for a more efficient capital allocation process such as commercial paper, securitized consumer finance and other disintermediated modes of financing which out-compete traditional financial intermediaries (mostly commercial banks), reduce households' cost of living and conjointly fuel the dynamics of emerging markets. Our response to the central question of how the transfer of financial innovations can enhance the Wealth of Nations is to show that it reduces the cost of capital while not unduly increasing systemic risk. Part I examines the relationship between financial innovations and systemic risk of the international financial system.
Public Accountability: Evaluating Technology-Based Institutions presents guidelines for evaluating the research performance of technology-based public institutions, and illustrates these guidelines through case studies conducted at one technology-based public institution, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The aim of this book is to demonstrate that a clear, more precise response to the question of performance accountability is possible through the systematic application of evaluation methods to document value. The authors begin with a review of the legislative history of fiscal accountability beginning with the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, and ending with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. A discussion of existing applicable economic models, methods, and associated metrics follows. The book concludes with evaluation case studies.
The book presents the economic policy model known as "Social Market Economy" in Germany, the country where it originated. Although the model has since been adopted as core objective in the EU Treaty of Lisbon, experts still disagree on its exact nature. The author contributes to this debate by presenting the German economic system from an external perspective and looking at the extent to which it enabled the country increase its weight in international relations. The systems history, identity, political and economic concepts, including ordoliberalism, are analyzed. Its potential and shortcomings are assessed by comparing it to other forms of capitalism. A brief enquiry is made into whether the "Social Market Economy", or aspects of it, are applicable to other countries, including in Eastern Europe. Providing both theoretical and practical aspects, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers, public administration professionals, and policymakers.
In this volume are papers written by students and co-authors of Stanley Reiter. The collection reflects to some extent the range of his interests and intellectual curiosity. He has published papers in statistics, manage ment science, international trade, and welfare economics. He co-authored early papers in economic history and is reported to be largely responsible for giving the field its name of Cliometrics. He helped initiate, nurture and establish the area of economics now known as mechanism design which studies information decentralization, incentives, computational complexity and the dynamics of decentralized interactions. The quality, craft, depth, and innovative nature of his work has always been at an exceptionally high level. Stan has had a strong and important direct effect on many students at Purdue University and Northwestern University. He created and taught a course which all of his students have both dreaded and respected. Using the Socratic method in remarkably effective ways to teach theory skills, he has guided, prodded, and encouraged us to levels we did not think we were capable of. Some of his students are represented in this volume. But even those whose careers took directions other than mathematical economics still consider that training to be an important component of their success. Stan's students include department chairmen, business executives, Deans, a Secretary of the Air Force, and a College President. His guidance has been necessary and fundamental to whatever successes we have had.
Amartya Sen "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. Thus sang Bob Dylan in 1964. Approbation of equality varies not only with our age (though it is not absolutely clear in which direction the values may shift over one's life time), but also with the spirit of the times. The 1960s were good years for singing in praise of equality. The spirit of the present times would probably be better reflected by melodies in admiration of the Federal Reserve System. And yet the technical literature on the evaluation and measurement of economic inequality has grown remarkably over the last three decades. Even as actual economic policies (especially in North America and Europe) have tended to move towards focusing on virtues other than the avoidance of economic inequality, the professional literature on assessing and gauging economic inequality has taken quite a jump forward. A great many different problems have been addressed and effectively sorted out, and new problems continue to be posed and analyzed. The Contents: A Review Jacques Silber has done a great service to the subject by producing this collection of admirablyhelpful and illuminating papers on different aspects of the measurement of income inequality. The reach of this collection is quite remarkable. Along with a thorough overview from the editor himself, the major areas in this complex field have been carefully examined and accessibly discussed.
The health care sector has become a major component of the contemporary econo mies of Japan and the United States. It absorbs significant proportions of the GDP in both countries and places increasing stress on private, government and corporate budgets. As their income rises, the citizens ofJapan and the United States choose to allocate increasing portions of it on health care services because ofthe direct contri bution of health care services to prolonged life expectancy, reduced morbidity, or other indicators of improved health and well-being. The health care sector is a ma jor source ofemployment and affects the lives of all citizens. Adequate health care services are expected to have an important contribution to the quality of human life in any society. With so much at stake, arrangements for planning, financing, and operating health care service systems have increasingly come to be regarded as im portant economic and political issues. The political importance of health care is evidenced by the health care reform proposals of the Clinton administration in the United States and the deep involve ment of the government in the medical care security system in Japan. As policy makers in both countries look ahead to the coming decades, they realize that the imperatives of economic restructuring, globalization, and their rapidly aging socie ties will affect the way in which health care is organized, delivered, and financed.
The Japanese population is aging faster than any other in the world. The per centage of Japan's population aged 65 and above was only 7.1% in 1970, but just 30 years later, in 2000, it reached 17.2%. A declining birth rate and a rising average life expectancy will continue to push this trend further. This situation is causing serious problems for Japanese society.Structural reforms, especially tax and social security reforms, to accommodate this drastic demographic change have become an urgent policy issue. The purpose of this book is to establish guidelines for tax and social security reforms in Japan in terms that are both efficient and equitable. In this study, an extended life-cycle general equilibrium model is employed to rigorously take account of the rapidly aging Japanese population. The simulation approach adopted in our analysis permits us to calculate the effects of alternative policy packages on capital accumulation and economic welfare. This enables us to make proposals for concrete economic policies."
A thorough analysis of insider trading requires the integration of law and finance, and this book presents a theoretical and empirical examination of insider trading by incorporating a synthesis of securities law with that of financial theory. The book begins with a conceptual framework that explores the theoretical roles of markets, firms and publicly held corporations, including a discussion of corporate governance to determine both who may have access to nonpublic information, and their legal rights and responsibilities. The book then examines different aspects of the securities laws, including the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and a critique of the SEC disclosure rules and their ramifications for market efficiency. This is followed by a detailed chronology of insider trading regulations enacted in the U.S. since 1934 and an overview of the existing empirical literature on insider trading. Empirical evidence is presented on insider trading activities and the merit of anti-insider trading laws is evaluated on theoretical arguments and recent empirical developments. The authors conclude by arguing that insider trading laws and enforcement activities have failed and propose the decriminalization of insider trading. |
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