Fiscal discipline and flexibility in EMU: the implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact

Fiscal discipline to safeguard the credibility of the singlemonetary authority and fiscal flexibility to respond to country-specificshocks are two core principles governing budgetary policy inEMU. The Stability and Growth Pact aims at ensuring the firstobjective. To comply with the requirements of the pact, EU membersneed to achieve a 'close to balance or surplus' position andchange their budgetary behaviour in periods of cyclical upturnsby refraining from spending the 'growth dividend'. Past experienceshows that fiscal laxity does not buy more effective stabilization.Once EMU countries have achieved their medium-term target, theirautomatic stabilizers will be able to operate fully, thus helpingin smoothing out cyclical fluctuations. The main potential problemsin the implementation of the pact may arise in the early yearsof EMU, during the transition to a balanced budget, in the eventof a slow-down in economic activity.     

Patienten strukturiert entlassen

Interprofessionelle Zusammenarbeit und Prozesssteuerung - Seit der erfolgreichen Implementierung des Nationalen Expertenstandards „Entlassungsmanagement in der Pflege“ 2003 haben sich viele Kliniken ausführlich mit der strukturierten und standardisierten Entlassung von Patienten befasst. Jetzt ist dieser Standard aktualisiert und den ver?nderten Rahmenbedingungen angepasst worden.     

Bank Loan Announcements and Borrower Stock Returns: Does Bank Origin Matter?

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, may have a quality of their own as the banks' selection and monitoring abilities may differ. Using an event study methodology, we study the importance of the geographical origin and organization of the banks for the investors' assessments of firms' credit quality and economic worth following loan announcements. Our sample comprises 986 announcements of bank loans to US firms over the period of 1980–2003. We find that investors react positively to such announcements if the loans are made by foreign or local banks, but not if the loans are made by banks that are located outside the firm's headquarters state. Investor reaction is, in fact, the largest when the bank is foreign. Our evidence suggest that investors value relationships with more competitive and skilled banks rather than banks that have easier access to private information about the firms. These results are applicable also to the European markets where regulatory and economic borders do not coincide and bank identities and reputation seem to matter a great deal.     

Lending Relationships,Bank Default and Economic Activity

The paper reviews contributions in the literature, which lend theoretical and empirical credibility to the idea that the banking relationship is valuable and important for the firm. Banks offer a lending relationship as the solution to the firm's ongoing credit needs. Bank default disrupts this relationship. Hence risk in the banking sector influences the value of the relationship, the cost of corporate finance, and the level and growth of real activity. As bank default is often the result of fraud and internal irregularities, it is hard to predict. Bank default affects the economy through a number of different channels. The loss of the relationship, benefit for the firm is an important route through which the health of the banking sector influences real activity.     

Borrowing in foreign currency: Austrian households as carry traders

Household borrowing in a foreign currency is a widespread phenomenon in Austria. Thirteen percent of Austrian households report their housing loan to be denominated in foreign currency, mostly Swiss franc. Yet, despite its importance, peculiar character, and acute policy concerns, we know little about the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved in this type of carry trade. We analyze a uniquely detailed financial wealth survey of 2556 Austrian households to sketch a comprehensive profile of the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved. We employ both univariate tests and multivariate multinomial logit models. The survey data suggest that risk seeking, affluent, and married households are more likely to take a housing loan in a foreign currency. Financially literate or high-income households are more likely to take a housing loan in general. These findings partially assuage policy concerns about household default risk on foreign-currency housing loans or household retirement security.     

Things Fall Apart: Health Consequences of Mass Imprisonment for African American Women

In this article, we examine the possible impact of mass imprisonment on the physical health of African American women. Specifically, we focus on a variety of mechanisms through which mass imprisonment may increase the risk of having three major chronic health conditions that are risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD): hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. This approach is distinctive in that it provides a broad theoretical framework through which mass imprisonment might harm the physical health of African American women in ways separate from the pathways linking mass imprisonment to their risk of contracting infectious diseases (especially HIV and other STIs), which has been the emphasis of most research in this area. In order to draw these connections, we begin by briefly discussing what mass imprisonment is and its social consequences. We then discuss our three CVD risk factors, documenting disparities between white and African American women in these risk factors and discussing mechanisms through which mass imprisonment might contribute to these disparities. We close by discussing the data needed to test our hypotheses and suggesting some avenues for future research.     

Rules versus discretion in loan rate setting

Loan rates for seemingly identical borrowers often exhibit substantial dispersion. This paper investigates the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted by banks to small and medium sized enterprises. We associate this dispersion with the loan officers’ use of “discretion” in the loan rate setting process. We find that “discretion” is most important if: (i) loans are small and unsecured; (ii) firms are small and opaque; (iii) the firm operates in a large and highly concentrated banking market; and (iv) the firm is distantly located from the lender. Consistent with the proliferation of information-technologies in the banking industry, we find a decreasing role for “discretion” over time in the provision of small credits to opaque firms. While widely used in the pricing of loans, “discretion” plays only a minor role in the decisions to grant loans.     

Entlassungsmanagement in der Praxis

Umsetzung des aktualisierten Expertenstandards - Die sozial- und gesundheitspolitischen Rahmenbedingungen haben sich ver?ndert. Mehr denn je ist die Sicherstellung der Versorgungskontinuit?t eine wichtige pflegerische Aufgabe. Wie das prozessorientiert und berufsgruppenübergreifend gelingt, zeigt ein Projekt aus der Berliner Charité.