Why European Banks Are Undercapitalized and What Should Be Done About It

Major European banks are significantly undercapitalized as compared to large American banks, and, more importantly, as compared to the capital levels they would need to survive another severe financial crisis. Bank capital shortfalls in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in particular, are largely the consequence of European bank regulations that: (1) apply static risk weights to assets like mortgages and sovereign debt; (2) fail to require an overall market‐based capital ratio that is high enough to enable banks to survive a severe financial crisis; (3) fail to get banks to promptly write down their impaired assets to market value; (4) subject banks to weak stress tests that can create a false impression of capital adequacy; and (5) fail to compel banks to retain sufficient earnings and to raise sufficient capital externally to eliminate capital shortfalls promptly, all apparently out of fear that being tougher might cause investors and customers to lose confidence in the banks. This article summarizes important recent independent bank stress testing that has quantified the capital shortfalls in European banks. The recent highly publicized regulatory interventions to resolve failing European banks were inevitable due to these shortfalls. The authors recommend steps European bank regulators should take to address the problem and to eliminate the risk of serious capital shortfalls. In the absence of such steps, bank depositors, customers, and security holders should be prepared to expect further unwelcome surprises as the risks inherent in allowing undercapitalized banks to operate will continue to materialize in more bank failures.     

论奥巴马的新税政策对我国个人所得税制改革的启示

奥巴马新税政策的主要目的是通过拓宽税基,让富人成为主要的纳税主体,从而缩小社会收入差距,维护中、低收入家庭利益,减少贫困。它带给我国个人所得税制改革的启示,是在理念上一定要树立起让富人更多纳税的观念,通过调整税制结构,增加个人所得税比重,发挥个税在调整社会收入差距中的作用;通过拓宽税基,抬高个人所得税起征点,让富人成为主要纳税主体,从而实现税负公平,减少社会贫困,最终实现社会公平和正义。     

Overconfidence,Compensation Contracts,and Capital Budgeting

A risk‐averse manager's overconfidence makes him less conservative. As a result, it is cheaper for firms to motivate him to pursue valuable risky projects. When compensation endogenously adjusts to reflect outside opportunities, moderate levels of overconfidence lead firms to offer the manager flatter compensation contracts that make him better off. Overconfident managers are also more attractive to firms than their rational counterparts because overconfidence commits them to exert effort to learn about projects. Still, too much overconfidence is detrimental to the manager since it leads him to accept highly convex compensation contracts that expose him to excessive risk.     

Assessing adaptive capacity of water management organizations. The case study of the municipality of Tomave (Bolivia)

Climate change is only one of several pressure and drivers, such as natural disasters, improvements in technologies and changing customers’ behaviors that water organizations have to relate and adapt to. This places new challenges (e.g. dealing with increased exposure, vulnerability, and uncertainty) to water management and require water organizations to change their perspective on how to deal with water issues. This paper builds on a literature review to identify dimensions and criteria of adaptive capacity and presents a conceptual framework to assess organizational adaptive capacity. The developed framework has been tested within the Municipality of Tomave (Bolivia). The paper results emphasize the incapacity to transform routines as the context is changing leads to the construction of barriers and to the inability of an organization to support the process of change of the society. In addition, the study emphasis that the development of a working system based on cooperation requires first that an organization acquires skills and adapt its routines to the new working system. Furthermore, the development of a participatory process of planning and implementation of policies would help to reduce the trade-offs and conflicts related to water management. Linked to this, the development of a system for monitoring and evaluation of policies implemented organization can contribute to build an iterative mechanism so to allow a redefinition and improvement of such policies.     

Building effective R&D capabilities abroad

In the past, companies kept most of their research and development activities in their home country because they thought it important to have R&D close to where strategic decisions were being made. But today many companies choose to establish R&D networks in foreign countries in order to tap the knowledge there or to commercialize products for those markets at a competitive speed. Adopting a global approach entails new, complex managerial challenges. It means linking R&D strategy to a company's overall business strategy. The first step in adopting such an approach is to build a team to lead the initiative--a team whose members are sufficiently senior to be able to mobilize resources at short notice. Second, companies must determine whether an R&D site's primary objective is to augment the expertise that the home base has the offer or to exploit that knowledge for use in the foreign country. That determination affects the choice of location and staff. For example, to augment the home base laboratory, a company would want to be near a foreign university; to exploit the home base laboratory it would need to be near large markets and manufacturing facilities. The best individual for managing both types of site combines the qualities of good scientist and good manager, knows how to integrate the new site with existing sites, understand technology trends, and is good at gaining access to foreign scientific communities. As more pockets of knowledge emerge around the globe and competition in foreign markets mounts, only those companies that embrace an informed approach to global R&D will be able to meet the new challenges.     

The Accessibility and Perceived Usefulness of Information on the Capital Expenditure Intentions of UK Quoted Companies

This paper presents the results of two questionnaire surveys concerned with the accessibility and perceived usefulness of information relating to the capital expenditure plans of UK companies. The evidence presented indicates that such information is perceived as potentially useful for external investment purposes by analysts and by corporate financial managers. Moreover, it would appear that analysts do take steps to obtain such information. With regard to accessibility there would appear to be considerable cross-firm variation in the extent to which such information is made available to external investors. The findings also suggest that companies are more likely to disclose news about their capital expenditure intentions (a) when their finance directors perceive the information to be useful to external shareholders, (b) where there is an associated requirement to raise additional external finance, and (c) where the news relates to an increase, as opposed to a decrease, in capital expenditure. These findings are related to the literature on the economics of financial disclosure.     

Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university

Can civic crowdfunding be used to improve the structures and services offered by public universities? Are stakeholders willing to make donations to such projects? This paper answers these questions by analysing a successful civic crowdfunding project in an Italian university. Stakeholders were found to be willing to engage in crowdfunding and make donations. The key to success is to ensure effective communication and to draw on feelings of belonging to the institution.     

Monetary Policy and Price Responsiveness to Aggregate Shocks under Rational Inattention

This paper studies a general equilibrium model that is consistent with recent empirical evidence showing that the U.S. price level and inflation are much more responsive to aggregate technology shocks than to monetary policy shocks. Specifically, we show that the fact that aggregate technology shocks are more volatile than monetary policy shocks induces firms to pay more attention to the former than to the latter. However, most important, this work adds to the literature by analytically showing how monetary policy feedback rules affect the incentives faced by firms in allocating attention. A policy rule responding more actively to inflation fluctuations induces firms to pay relatively more attention to more volatile shocks, helping to rationalize the observed behavior of prices in response to technology and monetary policy shocks.     

贫困地区金融供求分析与建立普惠金融服务体系的建议

引入普惠金融服务体系,建立健全适应"三农"特点的多层次、广覆盖、可持续的农村金融体系正成为社会各界有识之士的共识.本文从贫困地区的金融需求和金融服务状况入手,阐述了建立普惠金融服务体系对满足贫困地区特殊的金融需求、改善贫困地区金融供给难以适应金融需求的现状、完善农村金融体系的重大意义.提出了构建普惠金融服务体系的具体思路.     

A Valuation Model for Developing-Country Debt with Endogenous Rescheduling

Creditors have little recourse if a sovereign state repudiatesits external debt obligations. They can, however, threaten toimpose penalties if such action occurs which results in deadweightlosses to the system as a whole. A preferred alternative forboth borrower and lender is to recontract debt obligations.Reschedulings are a device that creditors can use to structurethe incentives faced by borrowers such that repudiation is nevera rational action. This article develops a numerical method of valuing the optionto reschedule. The model shows why fees are preferred to higherinterest spreads during a rescheduling exercise; why maturitiesget shorter prior to a debt crisis but are lengthened in therescheduling; why tougher supervision by regulatory authoritiescould be damaging to renewed voluntary loans; and why littlehas been done to attempt to seize the assets of countries thathave not repaid any interest or principal for extended periodsof time. The model shows that lenders are willing to commit greater amountsif reschedulings are possible than if they are not, and thatprecommitment to provide additional funds at rescheduling canraise the market value of existing debt and should not be construedas concessions by commercial lenders. Alternately, the modelcan be used to improve systems for ranking country creditworthiness,to assess the degree of adjustment required to spark a fullresumption of spontaneous lending, or to estimate by how muchinterest rates would have to fall to restore a country's creditworthiness.     

True and Fair — An Imaginary View

The recent collapses of major Australian corporations and the human and economic consequences have emphasised the need for a new approach to auditing in Australia to fix the culture of complacency. The challenge is to continue to persuade directors, auditors and ASIC to better understand what the law requires, and to pressure government to create the conditions to ensure that ASIC undertakes appropriate enforcement.     

振兴东北老工业基地对策研究

老工业基地改造是中央重振东北的战略性举措,是东北经济发展的新机遇。老工业基地改造有三大要点:注重制度因素;抓住改造重点;推进民营经济。重新振兴东北不仅限于老工业基地改造,而是一个综合性的社会发展目标,其要旨为:重视新区建设,拓展发展空间;发展循环经济,实现资源转化;推进民营银行,拓宽融资渠道。     

Survive the droughts,I wish you well: Principles and cases of liquidity risk management

Short‐term, liquid assets are highly valued by lenders, but pose liquidity risk management challenges to borrowers. Basic principles to meet those challenges are to conduct liquidity stress scenario analysis; to form business plans for each stress scenario; to hold enough capital to sustain the planned, post‐shock balance sheet; and to hold a large enough liquidity reserve to survive the transition from the pre‐ to the post‐shock balance sheet. Historical failures, like Northern Rock, Bear Stearns, and MF Global have a lot to teach about implementing these principles. While regulatory frameworks constrain liquidity positions, they are no substitute for firm‐specific liquidity risk management.     

The myth of secure computing

Few senior executives pay a whole lot of attention to computer security. They either hand off responsibility to their technical people or bring in consultants. But given the stakes involved, an arm's-length approach is extremely unwise. According to industry estimates, security breaches affect 90% of all businesses every year and cost some $17 billion. Fortunately, the authors say, senior executives don't need to learn about the more arcane aspects of their company's IT systems in order to take a hands-on approach. Instead, they should focus on the familiar task of managing risk. Their role should be to assess the business value of their information assets, determine the likelihood that those assets will be compromised, and then tailor a set of risk abatement processes to their company's particular vulnerabilities. This approach, which views computer security as an operational rather than a technical challenge, is akin to a classic quality assurance program in that it attempts to avoid problems rather than fix them and involves all employees, not just IT staffers. The goal is not to make computer systems completely secure--that's impossible--but to reduce the business risk to an acceptable level. This article looks at the types of threats a company is apt to face. It also examines the processes a general manager should spearhead to lessen the likelihood of a successful attack. The authors recommend eight processes in all, ranging from deciding how much protection each digital asset deserves to insisting on secure software to rehearsing a response to a security breach. The important thing to realize, they emphasize, is that decisions about digital security are not much different from other cost-benefit decisions. The tools general managers bring to bear on other areas of the business are good models for what they need to do in this technical space.     

转变发展方式 推动寿险业务又好又快发展

本文在回顾我国人身寿险业务发展概况的基础上,总结了中国人寿保险公司发展的几点经验：一是提高可持续发展能力;二是提高核心竞争力;三是提高效益;四是全方位满足消费者需求;五是坚持科学发展以人为本。同时进一步深入探讨了推动人保寿险又好又快发展的措施。     

Time Series Data Mining with an Application to the Measurement of Underwriting Cycles

Underwriting cycles are believed to pose a risk management challenge to property-casualty insurers. The classical statistical methods that are used to model these cycles and to estimate their length assume linearity and give inconclusive results. Instead, we propose to use novel time series data Mining algorithms to detect and estimate periodicity on U.S. property-casualty insurance markets. These algorithms are in increasing use in data science and are applied to Big Data. We describe several such algorithms and focus on two periodicity detection schemes. Estimates of cycle periods on industry-wide loss ratios, for all lines combined and for four specific lines, are provided. One of the methods appears to be robust to trends and to outliers.     

金融创新、投资者逃离与央行危机救助

从1970年的商业票据危机到2008年的全球金融危机,历史上发生过多次因金融创新的复杂性诱发投资者逃离进而演化为金融危机的事件,而危机的最终化解多借助于央行的危机救助。本文基于投资者逃离模型,从金融创新及其产生的投资者不确定性出发讨论金融危机中投资者逃离行为,并通过对投资者逃离行为的分析探讨央行危机救助的时点与方式。本文认为,就金融危机的事前预防而言,央行应在创新工具运用的过程中引导金融机构开展充分的投资者教育及对创新工具的总规模进行适当限制从而降低危机发生的概率和破坏性;就金融危机的事后救助而言,央行危机救助的时点应放在投资者对未来的不确定性突然增加并开始调整原有策略的时刻,救助的主要措施是承诺在一定条件下购买资产或注入流动性,从而降低投资者不确定性,促使投资者改变逃离市场的策略或者至少避免投资者逃离成为群体行为。     

金融机构在税收征管中的第三方协助义务——以金融隐私权为核心

随着金融交易在现代经济中的重要性日益突出,金融信息也成为税收征管不可或缺的重要课税资料之一。但金融机构基于金融隐私权的保护而承担的信息保密义务,却已成为制约税务机关获取金融交易信息的重要法律障碍之一;这一障碍即便是《税收征管法》明确规定金融机构的第三方协助义务后也无法予以清除。因此,如何在金融隐私权的保护与税务机关金融信息的取得之间实现一定的平衡,如何促进金融机构积极履行其在税收征管中的第三方协助义务,便成为《税收征管法》修改的重要内容。为此,有必要构建税务机关获取金融信息的渠道、确立金融机构协助义务的履行,并明确税务机关获取信息的法律界限。     

Creating the future: Goal-oriented Scenario Planning

Do current scenario planning techniques ignore an organizations ability to create its future? Social constructionists and organizational theorists have indicated that the future of an organization can be enacted by its constituents. Yet it is apparent that scenario planning techniques, used by organizations to plan for their future, tend to emphasize a future that the organization must react to instead of create. By emphasizing a future that the organizations must react to, it may ignore and completely miss the opportunity it has to create or enact the future it wants to have.Scenario planning, however, can evolve to support a creative foresight and approach to the future by recognizing the power behind enactment theory and applying a goal-oriented approach to the scenario planning process. Using goal-oriented scenario planning an organization can match the world it wants with the world it expects to see.