Natural monopolies are not subject to the market-based principle of competition. Consequently, it is necessary to control companies in such monopoly positions with regard to their pricing. In the future, it will become more and more important to consider a possible change in the regulation regime when the future-oriented costs of equity - both in terms of price regulation and for conducting capital market-oriented business valuations - are to be determined. Based on the principal-agent problem, the book explains this topic. The effect of a change in the regulation regime is presented in the form of two studies: an international secondary analysis of the effects on cost of equity based on event studies of the Anglo-Saxon area and a primary analysis based on the Austrian regulation policy for electricity and gas supply systems. The two studies arrive at similar results: The change from a rate-of-return regulation to incentive regulation systems leads to a significant increase in systematic risk.

Sebastian Werner examines aggregate short sales and convertible bond arbitrage, which is a typical hedge fund strategy that involves a significant short position in the underlying stock of a long convertible bond position for hedging purposes. He provides insightful and new observations of the significant difference in the trading pattern, information content and resulting impact on stock returns of arbitrage- versus valuation-based short selling activities.

This open access book offers unique and novel views on the social innovation landscape, tools, practices, pedagogies, and research in the context of higher education. International, multi-disciplinary academics and industry leaders present new developments, research evidence, and practice expertise on social innovation in higher education institutions (HEIs), across academic and professional disciplines. The book includes a selected set of peer-reviewed chapters presenting different perspectives against which relevant actors can identify and analyse social innovation in HEIs. The volume demonstrates how HEIs can respond to societal challenges, support positive social change, and contribute to the development of international public policy discourse. It answers the question 'how does the present higher education system, in different countries, promote social innovation and create social change and impact'. In answering this question, the book identifies factors driving success as well as obstacles. Furthermore, it examines how higher education innovation assists societal challenges and investigates the benefits of effective social innovation engagement by HEIs. The interdisciplinary approach of the volume makes it a must-read for scholars, students, policy-makers, and practitioners of economics, education, business and management, political science, and sociology interested in a better understanding of social innovation.

This book explains how financial institutions, such as banks and finance houses, manage their portfolios of credit cards, loans, mortgages and other types of retail credit agreements. The second edition has been substantially updated, with new chapters on capital requirements, Basel II, scorecard and portfolio monitoring.

The allocation of subsidies is often regarded as a fundamental role of governments in order to realise and maintain benefits to society. The possibility that public subsidies could actually be counterproductive contradicts common perception. The authors of this challenging book present recent evidence which, in their view, suggests that subsidies may in fact turn out to be a contemporary plague. Public Subsidies and Policy Failures provides extensive analysis of the theory and political economy of public support policies, demonstrating how subsidies can harm the environment, distort trade, and benefit those in society who do not require support. Furthermore, they often fail to achieve the desired and expected goals. The authors employ a theoretical framework to illustrate the impact of subsidies on developed and developing economies, as well as on international trade. They examine public subsidies in various natural resource and industrial sectors and discover that many turn out to be policy failures. They also investigate the various barriers and lock-in mechanisms by which subsidies become entrenched in economic and political structures. The book goes on to propose concrete actions, policy strategies and international 'Grand Deals' which will engender effective subsidy reforms. Scholars, researchers and students will welcome this rigorous investigation into the political and economic costs and benefits of public subsidies. International trade organisations and policymakers will also benefit from the strategic emphasis.

nomic activity. The paper highlights how the interaction of domestic informational frictions, perfect capital mobility, and foreign interest rates can combine to provoke a sudden depreciation of the exchange rate and a prolonged decline in output. In particular, theauthorsdescribeconditionsunderwhichtwodifferentequilibriaexist. One has a high level of outputand a minorcostly-state-veri?cationproblem, and the other equilibrium has a higher level of output and a severe costly-state-veri?cation problem. In addition, the authors show how their model can successfully simulate a crisispaththatisqualitativelyconsistentwithoccurrencessuchastheMexican?n- cial crisis in 1994. An importantlesson emergingfromthis work is that even a small change in external factors can generate a "crisis" path, when this initial shock hits a small open monetary economy, if the economy features a combination of domestic informational frictions with international capital ?ows. The next paper, by Hernandez-Verme, also focuses on the study of small open economieswithinthe contextofan overlappinggenerationsmodel. Unlike Antinol? and Huybens, however, her main concern is the relative merits of different methods for achievingprice stability. To do so she mergesthe overlappinggenerationsmodel with a spatial model of Townsendto comparethe meritsof alternativeexchangerate regimes-namely, ?xed and ?exible. This analysis is carried out within a context where ?nancial intermediaries perform a real allocative function, there are multiple reserverequirements, andtheeconomyissubjecttocreditmarketfrictions. She?nds there is scope for endogenousvolatility, independent of the exchange rate regime in place. Another key ?nding is that under ?oating exchange rates, a positive trade-off between domestic in?ation and output can be exploited under credit rationing but only if in?ation is small. In fact, there exists an in?ation threshold beyond which domestic output suffers.

A framework for financial market modeling, the benchmark approach extends beyond standard risk neutral pricing theory. It permits a unified treatment of portfolio optimization, derivative pricing, integrated risk management and insurance risk modeling. This book presents the necessary mathematical tools, followed by a thorough introduction to financial modeling under the benchmark approach, explaining various quantitative methods for the fair pricing and hedging of derivatives.

An inside view of the forces which shaped SEPA and the PSD written from the unique perspective of someone closely involved throughout the process. It uncovers the strategic, legal and practical implications of the full harmonization agenda and provides an assessment of where these initiatives stand today, including key lessons learned.

The book presents arguments against the taxpayers'-funded bailing out of failed financial institutions, and puts forward suggestions to circumvent the TBTF problem, including some preventive measures. It ultimately argues that a failing financial institution should be allowed to fail without fearing an apocalyptic outcome.

Critics of referendums often lament that big money may buy success at the ballot box. But spending by interest groups may also be informative for citizens. This can only happen, however, if the financing of referendum campaigns is regulated. This book offers an overview of these regulations and presents research on their effects.

There has never been a more urgent need for governments to secure adequate and stable resources for social development: inequalities are on the rise, a severe global food crisis threatens to eliminate the achievements some countries have made over recent years, and the neoliberal policy toolkit has been largely discredited.
'Financing Social Policy' shifts the policy debates beyond examining expenditures and austerity, to revenues and resources. It examines financing options that would be conducive to social development, creating and strengthening sustainable social programmes that work together with economic policies.
The contributors in this volume explore the economic, social and political implications and the developmental impact of a wide range of potential resources - including taxation, aid, mineral rents, social insurance, pension funds and remittances - for financing social policy in development countries.

Moving beyond the 'post-Washington consensus', this book shifts the focus of development policy debates away from expenditures and austerity and towards revenues and resources. The book explores the potential and the developmental impact of different categories of resources for financing social policy in a development context.

China's emerging financial markets reflect the usual contrast between the country's measured approach toward policy, regulatory, and market reform, and the dynamic pace of rapid economic growth and development. But they also offer unusual challenges and opportunities. In the past five years, the pace of opening and reform has accelerated sharply. Recapitalization and partial privatization of the largest banks, and the allowance of some joint venture and branch operations for foreign financial institutions, are making rapid headway in developing and expanding financial services and improving access to domestic business and households. This book provides the most extensive look available at the evolving Chinese financial system. It begins with alternative perspectives on the evolution of the financial system and the broad outlines of its prospects and potential contribution to economic growth. Three articles review broad aspects of the financial system. Franklin Allen, Jun ''QJ'' Qian, Meijun Qian, and Mengxin Zhao lead off with overviews of the banking system and performance of the equity market and other institutions.

The 38th annual edition of the leading guide to taxation in Britain. This practical and user-friendly guide is a bestseller with students, professionals, accountants and private individuals, explaining in simple terms how the UK tax system works and how best to minimise tax liabilities

Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals - voters, consumers, shareholders - will favor themselves over the greater good when 'rules of the game' instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.

This book provides a clear and concise explanation of withholding tax and how to leverage best practice to generate improved investment performance. It gives practical guidance to financial service firms and investors to help them understand the issues involved, trends and practicalities of maximizing returns on investment.

Presenting capitalisms as open, system-like configurations, this book argues four ideal-typical varieties (liberal, statist, corporatist, meso-communitarian) and analyzes the socio-economic performances of advanced capitalisms.

This book is about bounded rationality and public policy. It is written from the p- spective of someone trained in public economics who has encountered the enormous literature on experiments in decision-making and wonders what implications it has for the normative aspects of public policy. Though there are a few new results or models, to a large degree the book is synthetic in tone, bringing together disparate literatures and seeking some accommodation between them. It has had a long genesis. It began with a draft of a few chapters in 2000, but has expanded in scope and size as the literature on behavioural economics has grown. At some point I realised that the geometric growth of behavioural - search and the arithmetic growth of my writing were inconsistent with an am- tion to be exhaustive. As such therefore I have concentrated on particular areas of behavioural economics and bounded rationality. The resulting book is laid out as follows: Chapter 1 provides an overview of the rest of the book, goes through some basic de?nitions and identi?es themes.

This book explains the nuts and bolts of affordable housing development. Divided into two complementary sections, the book first provides an overview of the effectiveness of existing federal and state housing programs in the United States, such as the LIHTC and TIF programs. In turn, the book's second section presents an extensive discussion of and insights into the financial feasibility of an affordable real estate development project. Researchers, policymakers and organizations in the public, private and nonprofit sectors will find this book a valuable resource in addressing the concrete needs of affordable housing development. "Luque, Ikromov, and Noseworthy's new book on Affordable Housing Development is a "must read" for all those seeking to address the growing and vexing problem of affordable housing supply. The authors provide important insights and practical demonstration of important financial tools often necessary to the financial feasibility of such projects, including tax-increment financing and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Further, the authors provide important backdrop to the affordability crisis and homelessness. I highly recommend this book to all who seek both to articulate and enhance housing access." By Stuart Gabriel, Arden Realty Chair, Professor of Finance and Director, Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA "Over several years Jaime Luque, Nuriddin Ikromov and William Noseworthy applied their analytical bent, and no small measure of empathy, to homelessness as actually experienced in Madison, Wisconsin - and they inspired multiple classes of urban economics students to join them. "Homelessness" is a complex web of issues affecting a spectrum of populations, from individuals struggling with addiction or emotional disorders, to families who've been dealt a bad hand in an often-unforgiving economy. Read this book to follow Jaime, Nuriddin, and William as they evaluate a panoply of housing and social programs, complementing the usual top-down design perspective with practical analysis of the feasibility of actual developments and their effectiveness. Analytical but written for a broad audience, this book will be of interest to anyone running a low-income housing program, private and public developers, students, and any instructor designing a learning-by-doing course that blends rigor with real-world application to a local problem." By Stephen Malpezzi, Professor Emeritus, James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dean, Weimer School of the Homer Hoyt Institute.

In recent times not only have traditional areas of public economics such as taxation, public expenditure, public sector pricing, benefit cost analysis, and fiscal federalism thrown up new challenges but entirely new areas of research and inquiry have emerged. This second edition builds upon the strengths of the previous edition and incorporates results of research on new areas such as global public goods, environmental taxation and carbon permits trading and the complexities of corporate taxation in a rapidly globalizing world.

The book is a modern and comprehensive exposition of public economics. It includes extended discussions on topics of particular interest to developing countries and covers subjects such as:

• taxation in an economy with a large informal sector
• the challenges of using VAT
• the use of randomized evaluation
• theory of public expenditure and public goods including global public goods
• incentive effects of taxation and tax incidence

This book discusses the major traditional areas of taxation and public expenditure as well as emerging issues relating to public economics in the globalized world economy. It will be useful as a reference and update on the modern literature on public economics for professional economists and policymakers, as well as providing invaluable information as a basic text for undergraduate and graduate students in public economics.

During the last 30 years, finance has increased not only its share of economic activity but also of people's aspirations. This has transformed society by increasingly organizing it around the search for financial efficiency. Is a society based on fundamental values of free judgment, responsibility and solidarity still possible?

During the last 30 years, finance has increased not only its share of economic activity but also of peoples aspirations. This has transformed society by increasingly organizing it around the search for financial efficiency. Is a society based on fundamental values of free judgment, responsibility and solidarity still possible? This book answers this crucial question.

This book develops current thinking on fiscal policy, emphasizing the role which fiscal policy can play in macroeconomic policy and challenging the view that macroeconomic policy should rely on monetary policy alone. This book offers theoretical insights in defence of fiscal policy as a valid macroeconomic instrument.

"Schedule-Based Modeling of Transportation Networks: Theory and Applications" follows the book Schedule-Based Dynamic Transit Modeling, published in this series in 2004, recognizing the critical role that schedules play in transportation systems.

Conceived for the simulation of transit systems, in the last few years the schedule-based approach has been expanded and applied to operational planning of other transportation schedule services besides mass transit, e.g. freight transport. This innovative approach allows forecasting the evolution over time of the on-board loads on the services and their time-varying performance, using credible user behavioral hypotheses. It opens new frontiers in transportation modeling to support network design, timetable setting, and investigation of congestion effects, as well as the assessment of such new technologies, such as users system information (ITS technologies).

Provides an in-depth assessment of the fiscal health of cities throughout the U.S. Analyzes patterns of fiscal health using a unique and most accurate data source, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) survey Offers a solid basis of empirical evidence to help practitioners better understand the environment in which they are functioning and the policy tools they need to help advocate for change Covers trends and presents quantitative case studies