Remittances and the human capital of children: New evidence from Kyrgyzstan during revolution and financial crisis, 2005–2009

We analyze the effect of the receipt of remittances on the education and health of children in Kyrgyzstan during a volatile period of their recent history, 2005–2009. The country experienced revolution in 2005 and the global financial crisis beginning in 2008. Both events impact human capital investment, and the changes vary by region of the country. We use fixed effects estimation and fixed effects, instrumental variables estimation to isolate the effects of remittances and other events on human capital. We find that boys aged 14–18 in remittances’ receiving households are less likely to be enrolled in school than other children. We also find that girls in remittances’ receiving households are more likely to be malnourished (thin). Both effects are relatively small. Remittances do not improve the human capital of children left behind. However, we do find an overall positive improvement in school enrollment among young children between 2005 and 2009 but a negative trend in enrollment among older boys and girls. Nutrition improves over time. Regional differences are apparent in these trends in nutrition and education.     

Minimum return guarantees,investment caps,and investment flexibility

We study the merits of capped retirement products with guarantee for investors who have the flexibility to dynamically adjust their investment strategy. All contracts under consideration are fairly priced such that the net profit of the provider is zero. Without the rider, an expected utility maximizing CRRA investor does not want an investment cap. Here, she commits herself to a strategy a priori. With the flexibility rider, the optimization problem changes and the optimal strategy is a response to an exogenously set price. A fair pricing then anticipates the optimal response of the investor. We show that the maximum expected utility of the investor can, for anticipated fairly priced products, be obtained for a finite cap. Thus, a capped product design can give a Pareto improvement to the otherwise uncapped contract version.     

Western popular music consumption by highly involved Chinese music fans

This paper explores the development of Western popular music consumption for highly involved Chinese consumers. This research is exploratory and uses semi-structured online interviews. The consumption of Western popular music in China is deeply embedded in the changing political and social context. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an underground culture of ‘dakou’, cut tapes and CDs, developed, which was a decisive and formative influence for many of our respondents. Later this was supplemented by counterfeit tapes/CDs, and by Internet downloads, which also increased access to Western music. However, both recorded and live music are still censored in China. Our respondents agreed that the political restrictions on music have prevented China from developing a 'normal' music market, and created a market which is almost entirely based on illegal downloading. As the lifestyle choices of our respondents were deeply influenced by the consumption of Western music, many of them ultimately decided to leave China and live abroad.     

Moral hazard and adverse selection in the originate-to-distribute model of bank credit

Bank credit has evolved from the traditional relationship banking model to an originate-to-distribute model. We show that the borrowers whose loans are sold in the secondary market underperform their peers by about 9% per year (risk-adjusted) over the three-year period following the initial sale of their loans. Therefore, either banks are originating and selling loans of lower quality borrowers based on unobservable private information (adverse selection), and/or loan sales lead to diminished bank monitoring that affects borrowers negatively (moral hazard). We propose regulatory restrictions on loan sales, increased disclosure, and a loan trading exchange/clearinghouse as mechanisms to alleviate these problems.     

Rechtsnatur und Zuordnung der Alterungsrückstellungen in der PKV

Discussions about the inclusion of the previously privately insured into the statutory government health insurance abound. Specifically, questions regarding the transfer of specific rights under the private contract persist. In particular this article addresses the ageing reserve into which the insured contributed as part of their original policies. Since contractual claims are protected by fundamental property rights, it was first investigated whether the ageing reserve would allow the insured to claim a reimbursement. However, this disbursement cannot be supported as long as the ageing reserve is still being accrued and has not yet been dissolved since the monies paid into the reserve cannot be traced to their individual sources. The legal principles of trust (Treuhand) and reversion (Anwartschaftsrecht) are also not applicable to this situation as they are based on different factual premises. While the expectation of a constant premium throughout old age is not protected by German Basic Constitutional Law, the insured’s right to expect a continuance of the contract is protected; in addition, required services and remuneration in case of a claim are guaranteed by article 14.     

Across-the-Curve Credit Spread Indices

We design a novel across-the-curve credit spread index, AXI, a measure of the recent cost of wholesale unsecured debt funding for publicly listed US bank holding companies and commercial banks. AXI, a benchmark for bank lending and risk management, is the weighted average of credit spreads for unsecured debt instruments with maturities ranging from overnight to five years, with weights that reflect both transaction and issuance volumes. We provide illustrative output of the bond-based component of AXI. By widening coverage to include all corporate debt issuers, we also build a financial conditions index (FXI).     

How executives can shape their company's information systems.

When a big New York bank expanded in London, technical specialists in the two cities disagreed about which vendor's information system was best. The debate continued for several months until finally the technical experts took the issue to a senior-management policy committee. But the senior managers didn't understand the terminology and kept postponing the decision. Meanwhile, the London office complained loudly that the slowdown was threatening the unit's growth. Like the bank, most companies need a new approach to making decisions about information technology (IT), especially since it now affects so many aspects of the business. The company's technical experts seldom understand the overall business, and the senior managers who understand the business are usually lost when it comes to computers. One way to blend both perspectives is to establish a task force that solicits input from top management and creates a set of principles to guide subsequent investments in information technology. By drawing on 10 to 15 statements that reflect management's basic beliefs about how the company should use IT, the task force translates the language of corporate strategy into computerese. For instance, an electronics company wanted various functions to act more like one company. It created a principle that said, "Information systems will provide application that support cross-functional integration of business processes." Managers making subsequent decisions about computers could immediately rule out any technologies that contradicted that statement. Principles thus speed up the decision-making process, but more important, they ensure that every investment in IT helps the corporation achieve its strategic goals.     

When Philosophy and Business Professors Talk: Assessment of Ethical Reasoning in a Cross Disciplinary Business Ethics Course

Can instructors with apparently divergent approaches to the goals and methods of teaching business ethics agree upon a core set of course objectives? Can they agree upon a common method of assessment for measuring student performance against shared standards? This paper reports the results of a project intended to address these questions. The goals of the project were threefold: (1) to identify a shared set of core competencies for all students in business ethics; (2) to adopt a common assessment of ethical reasoning (neutral to disciplinary bias) for measuring student performance in core competencies; (3) to determine whether students show improvement in core competencies over the course of a semester. Our findings suggest that it is possible to find common ground in measurable objectives and to expect instructors to interpret, apply, and teach to these objectives effectively without infringing upon their disciplinary differences.