The effects of debt versus equity inflows on savings and growth in developing economies

Zusammenfassung Die Wirkung von ausl?ndischer Kapitalbeteiligung und Kreditfinanzierung auf Ersparnisbildung und Wachstum in Entwicklungsl?ndern. — Zur Bew?ltigung der internationalen Schuldenprobleme von Entwicklungsl?ndern wird h?ufig vorgeschlagen, die Struktur des Kapitalimports zugunsten von Forderungsarten zu verschieben, bei denen sich die Gl?ubiger am wirtschaftlichen Risiko beteiligen, wie dies etwa bei Direktinvestitionen der Fall ist. Die Wahl zwischen Kapitalbeteiligung und Kreditfinanzierung mag jedoch Risiko-Ertrag-Konflikte zwischen Einkommensstabilit?t und erwartetem wirtschaftlichem Wachstum involvieren. Diese Hypothese wird aus einem entscheidungstheoretischen Modell auf der Basis eines Benutzer-Eigentümer Verh?ltnisses abgeleitet und mittels einer L?nderquerschnittsuntersuchung regressionsanalytisch getestet. Es zeigt sich, da\ bei nichtkooperativen Beziehungen zwischen Schuldnern und Gl?ubigern kreditfinanzierte Kapitalimporte einen vergleichsweise starken positiven Einflu\ auf die Ersparnisbildung und das Wirtschaftswachtum im Schuldnerland ausüben. Kapitalbeteiligungen k?nnen deshalb nicht ohne weiteres als vorteilhaft angesehen werden und auch nicht allen L?ndern empfohlen werden, ohne zu bedenken, wie sich soziale Gruppen gegenüber dem Risiko verhalten.

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Résumé Les effets de l’influx de la dette et du capital propre sur l’épargne et la croissance en économies développantes. — L’élément commun des beaucoup de propositions données pour faciliter les problèmes de la dette extérieure des pays développants est l’intention de changer la structure des importations de capital vers l’augmentation du rapport des créances qui basent sur quelque forme de partager les risques, p.e. la participation en capital propre. Cependant, le choix entre le capital propre ou des influx des capitaux financés par des dettes peut induire un conflit de ?rendement-risque? entre la stabilité de revenu et la croissance attendue. Cette hypothèse est dérivée d’un modèle choix-théorique basé sur l’approche agent-principal et testée empiriquement en appliquant l’analyse de régression trans-pays. Les auteurs démontrent que, dans un cadre non-coopératif des relations débiteurcréditeur, des transferts financés par des dettes ont une influence plus positive sur l’épargne et la croissance économique. La participation en capital propre ne peut pas être évaluée supérieure sans ambigu?té et c’est pourquoi elle ne peut pas être recommendée pour tous les pays, indépendant des attitudes sociales envers le risque.

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Resumen El efecto del endeudamiento sobre el ahorro y el crecimiento eneconomías en desarrollo comparado con el de las inversiones directas. — En varias propuestas para aliviar el problema de la deuda externa de los países en desarrollo se sugiere alterar la composición de las importaciones de capital en el sentido de aumentar la proportión de derechos con participación en el riesgo económico, es decir, la participación de la inversión directa. La elección entre inversión directa y deuda considera la relación inversa riesgo-beneficio que existe entre la estabilidad del ingreso y el crecimiento esperado. Esta tesis se dériva de un modelo teórico de elección basado en el enfoque agente-principal, que es sometido a un test empírico de regresión sobre una muestra de países. Se muestra que en el marco de relaciones deudor-acreedor de tipo no cooperativas las transferencias de financiamiento por deuda ejercen una influencia positiva relativamente superior sobre el ahorro y el crecimiento económico. La participación directa en el capital no resulta superior en todos casos y por ello no puede ser recomendada para todos los países, independientemente de las actitudes frente al riesgo que prevalezcan.

     

Market Failures in Real-Time Metering

Policies to promote real-time metering (RTM) require more than showing benefits from more timely responses to variations in cost. They require positive externalities to imply that too few meters would be installed through private transactions. RTM presents no systematic externalities when utilities must serve peak period users, and may present negative externalities under some conditions. Positive externalities are likely when electricity is rationed through blackouts. RTM may or may not increase welfare when peak period wholesale markets are not competitive; a prohibition on RTM might be appropriate in such situations even if metering itself were costless.     

Burn or bury? A social cost comparison of final waste disposal methods

This paper evaluates the two well-known final waste disposal methods, incineration and landfilling. In particular we compare the social cost of two best-available technologies using a point estimate based on private and environmental cost data for the Netherlands. Not only does our comparison allow for Waste-to-Energy incineration plants but for landfills as well. The data provide support for the widespread policy preference for incineration over landfilling only if the analysis is restricted to environmental costs alone and includes savings of both energy and material recovery. Gross private costs, however, are so much higher for incineration, that landfilling is the social cost minimizing option at the margin even in a densely populated country such as the Netherlands. Furthermore, we show that our result generalizes to other European countries and probably to the USA. Implications for waste policy are discussed as well. Proper treatment of and energy recovery from landfills seem to be the most important targets for waste policy. Finally, WTE plants are a very expensive way to save on climate change emissions.     

Predictive validity of ethnic identification measures: An illustration of the English/French classification dilemma in Canada

To establish the predictive validity of ethnic identification measures, respondents in the Montreal Urban Community were surveyed and measured on a variety of ethnic dimensions. The data was then fed to a clustering algorithm. Two-group clustering assignments were then compared to traditional taxonomic measures. It is shown that some measures do an excellent job in classifying respondents, while others, which are commonly used in practice, do not fare as well.     

A consumer education programme based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change

MONEY 2000? is a successful consumer education programme that was implemented by Cooperative Extension personnel in over two dozen states of the USA between 1996 and 2002. One of the unique features of this programme is that it was based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM), a framework that has been widely used to study health‐related behaviour changes such as smoking cessation. This paper first describes how the MONEY 2000? programme was developed around major constructs contained within the TTM. Findings are reported from a survey conducted with participants in the first two states that delivered the programme. The findings suggest that several change processes used by MONEY 2000? participants are associated with specific stages of change. In addition, there may be differences in behavioural changes between participants who increased their savings and those who reduced their debts.     

Europäische Richtlinie über Versicherungsvermittlung und VVG-Reform

The directive on insurance mediation, proposed by the European Commission, is supposed to secure a minimum standard of professional competence for intermediaries to protect customers as well as to ascertain the intermediaries’ freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services in the internal market. Pursuant to the directive, only an intermediary who is registered in his / her home country’s intermediary register will be allowed to mediate insurances. The intermediary has to comply with professional requirements set by the directive in order to be registered. Yet, part-time intermediaries can be exempted from those requirements by the member states. Additionally, the intermediaries are burdened with certain information and documentation duties towards their customers, a breach of which will cause personal liability. Only these contractual duties are to be implemented in the WG (German Insurance Act), which is soon to be basically reformed.     

Backtesting Value-at-Risk: A Duration-Based Approach

Financial risk model evaluation or backtesting is a key partof the internal model's approach to market risk management aslaid out by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision. However,existing backtesting methods have relatively low power in realisticsmall sample settings. Our contribution is the exploration ofnew tools for backtesting based on the duration of days betweenthe violations of the Value-at-Risk. Our Monte Carlo resultsshow that in realistic situations, the new duration-based testshave considerably better power properties than the previouslysuggested tests.