Internal capital markets and lending by multinational bank subsidiaries

We use new panel data on the intra-group ownership structure and the balance sheets of 45 of the largest multinational bank holdings to analyze what determines the credit growth of their subsidiaries. We find evidence for the existence of internal capital markets through which multinational banks manage the credit growth of their subsidiaries. Multinational bank subsidiaries with financially strong parent banks are able to expand their lending faster. As a result of parental support, foreign bank subsidiaries also do not need to rein in their credit supply during a financial crisis, while domestic banks need to do so.     

The Effects of Foreign Trade Liberalisation and Financial Flows between Slovenia and the EU after Accession

The new version of the CGE model of the Slovenian economy based on the 1998 SAM was used for simulations of the consequences of further foreign trade liberalisation after 1998 as the outcome of implementation of Free Trade Agreements and the European Agreement, adaptation of the Customs Tariff to the for manufacturing products, adoption of the EU Common External Tariff after the accession of Slovenia to the EU, and estimated transfers between the two budgets. Results obtained show a positive net outcome of Slovenian accession to the EU in the long run. On the other hand, rational behaviour by the government will certainly moderate possible short-run negative effects and improve favourable long-run effects.     

Uit de economist van 1886

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Utilitarian and Hedonic Motivators of Shoppers’ Decision to Consult with Salespeople

Many retailers face the questions of whether providing consultation services would enhance store performance and, if so, what the retailers could do to increase the number of shoppers seeking salesperson consultation. Despite its importance, prior research has not answered the question of what influences retail shoppers to consult with salespeople. We use motivation theory and recent theorizing on behavioral decision-making to develop a model of four utilitarian and hedonic motivators of shopper consultation with salespeople. This model, which includes the relationship between consultation and amount of money spent by shoppers, was tested with data from 425 shoppers. Our results demonstrate situational and individual influences, both utilitarian (i.e., shoppers’ purchase uncertainty and efficiency orientation) and hedonic (i.e., shoppers’ situation-related affect toward salespeople and shopping enjoyment), that prompt retail shoppers to consult with salespeople. As well, we find that salesperson consultation is positively related to the amount of money spent by shoppers and completely mediates the spending effects of the four motivators of consultation. This research shows that motivation theory is useful for better understanding salesperson consultation and can assist retailers that compete on service to better implement consultation-oriented strategies.     

Einfluss des Klimawandels auf die deutsche Energieversorgung

German energy supply faces a fundamental and long-term change. By the middle of the century, greenhouse gas emissions will have been greatly reduced and the global climate will start to change in a visible manner. In order to determine and to quantify the physical impacts of climate change on energy supply, a climate risk indicator for the energy industry based on a series of expert interviews has been developed. Climate change-induced risks will slightly outweigh the opportunities. The restructuring of the energy system has only minor effects, because the risks inherent to non-renewable energies, in particular those related to cooling water, are replaced by new risks, especially deriving from the use of biomass.     

An application of von Thünen's model of agricultural location

Based on quantitative and qualitative fieldwork, this paper analyses how internal and international out-migration of men has affected the position of women left behind in a rural area in southern Morocco. The results generally refute the hypothesis that migration changes gender roles. Although international migration and remittances enable women and their families to live more comfortable and secure lives, internal migration often coincides with increasing workloads and uncertainty. Although their husbands' migration leads to a temporary increase in the tasks and responsibilities of women, this new role is generally perceived as a burden and should therefore not be equated with emancipation in the meaning of making independent choices against prevailing gender norms. In a classical “patriarchal bargain”, women prefer to avoid overt rule-breaking in order to secure their social position. Significant improvements in the position of rural women are primarily the result of general social and cultural change, although migration might have played an indirect, accelerating role in these processes.     

Value acceleration: lessons from private-equity masters

The most successful private-equity firms regularly spearhead dramatic business transformations, creating exceptional returns for their investors. To understand how those firms do it, the authors studied more than 2,000 PE transactions over the past ten years and discovered that the top performers' success stems from the rigor with which they manage their businesses. This article describes the four management disciplines vital to the success of the best PE firms. First, for each business, they define an investment thesis: a brief, clear statement of how to make the business more valuable within three to five years. The thesis, which guides all actions by the company, usually focuses on growth. PE firms know that the demonstration of a path to strong growth produces the big returns on investment. Second, they don't measure too much. They zero in on a few financial indicators that most clearly reveal the business's progress in increasing its value. They watch cash more closely than earnings and tailor performance measures to each business, rather than imposing one set of measures across their entire portfolio. Third, they work their balance sheets, mining undervalued assets, turning fixed assets into sources of financing, and aggressively managing their physical capital. Last, they make the center the shareholder. Corporate staffs in PE firms make unsentimental investment decisions, buying and selling businesses when the price is right and bringing in new management when performance falters. These firms also keep their corporate centers extremely lean. By adopting these four disciplines, executives at public companies should be able to reap significantly greater returns from their own business units.     

A New Approach to Markov-Switching GARCH Models

The use of Markov-switching models to capture the volatilitydynamics of financial time series has grown considerably duringpast years, in part because they give rise to a plausible interpretationof nonlinearities. Nevertheless, GARCH-type models remain ubiquitousin order to allow for nonlinearities associated with time-varyingvolatility. Existing methods of combining the two approachesare unsatisfactory, as they either suffer from severe estimationdifficulties or else their dynamic properties are not well understood.In this article we present a new Markov-switching GARCH modelthat overcomes both of these problems. Dynamic properties arederived and their implications for the volatility process discussed.We argue that the disaggregation of the variance process offeredby the new model is more plausible than in the existing variants.The approach is illustrated with several exchange rate returnseries. The results suggest that a promising volatility modelis an independent switching GARCH process with a possibly skewedconditional mixture density.