Multiple common bond credit unions and the allocation of benefits

Credit unions are cooperatively owned financial institutions, where input suppliers (savers) are also the consumers of the outputs (borrowers). A key issue is the allocation of benefits between savers and borrowers. Additionally, credit unions can add unrelated groups to their membership. If the orientation of unrelated groups differs from the core group, the allocation of benefits could be altered. Empirical evidence suggests that both single and multiple bond federal credit unions are saver oriented. Single bond credit unions have a stronger saver orientation than multiple bond credit unions. The study provides mixed evidence on the existence of a clientele effect.     

The impact of political connections on government bailout: the 2008 credit crunch in the United States

Why is there so little money in contributions to political action committees (PAC) in United States’ politics? While there may be several explanations for this puzzle, we consider corporate PAC contributions as an insurance-like instrument that induces firms’ expectations of safeguard at times of grave need, with the 2008 credit crunch as a case in point. Given the unlikely occurrence of a credit crunch, few financial firms invest in PAC contributions. However, we find firms that make PAC contributions may gain ex ante benefits of corporate PACs as protection from financial distress by undertaking profitable but risky projects that later become illiquid assets while requiring the bailout money during the 2008 credit crunch. We also find that both consistent PAC investments over election cycles and subsequent lobbying activity to corporate PACs further allow firms to utilize their political ties as safeguard and demand additional bailout money. Our instrumental variable analysis confirms that firms with prior experience in political investments are found to enhance the likelihood and effectiveness of PAC contributions and related political investments.     

我国农村信用社法人治理结构初探

理顺农村信用社产权关系，完善农村信用社法人治理结构，是我国农村信用社在市场经济体制下保持稳健发展，转换经营机制的中心环节，也是建立现代企业制度的关键。文章分析了当前农村信用社产权问题，作者建议，从所有者、经营者、程序制度3个方面激活法人治理结构的机制。     

我国农村信用社法人治理结构初探

理顺农村信用社产权关系,完善农村信用社法人治理结构,是我国农村信用社在市场经济体制下保持稳健发展,转换经营机制的中心环节,也是建立现代企业制度的关键。文章分析了当前农村信用社产权问题,作者建议,从所有者、经营者、程序制度3个方面激活法人治理结构的机制。     

在美国吃快餐

每天的午餐是美国人一日三餐中食品最简单、食量最少、最好对付的一餐,通常都是吃快餐.到了中午,美国的大街小巷上食客众多热闹异常.有一边看书报一边吃、一边听着音乐手舞足蹈一边吃的,有坐在车里吃、站在路边吃、蹲在树下吃的,甚至走在路上吃、连跑带吃的也随处可见.美国人追求效率效果,讲究省时省力,注重方便实惠,正是这一特点,使得作为美国餐饮文化特征的快餐渗透到美国社会的各个角落.     

美国食品安全预警体系及其对我国的启示

从组织机构、运作机制、法律体系、预警措施、风险管理、技术能力等角度对美国食品安全预警体系进行了分析。同时,对我国食品安全预警体系的建设提出了一些参考建议。     

Urban Ethnographies in the United States

Books reviewed in this article: Gamm, Gerald, Urban Exodus: why the Jews left Boston and the Catholics stayed Pattillo‐McCoy, Mary, Black picket fences: privilege and peril among the black middle class     

Informal Housing in the United States

Research on informal housing tends to focus overwhelmingly on less developed countries, downplaying or ignoring entirely the presence of informality in United States housing markets. In actuality, a longstanding and widespread tradition of informal housing exists in the United States but is typically disregarded by scholars. In this article we draw on three definitions of informality—as non‐compliant, non‐enforced, or deregulated economic activity—to characterize examples of informality in US housing markets, focusing in particular on five institutions that govern housing market activity in this country: property rights law, property transfer law, land‐use and zoning, subdivision regulations, and building codes. The cases presented here challenge the notion that informality is absent from US housing markets and highlight the unique nature of informal housing, US style—namely, that informal housing in the US is geographically uneven, largely hidden and typically interwoven within formal markets. We conclude with a discussion of how research on informal housing in the US can inform research in the global South.     

The nature of credit rationing in the United Kingdom mortgage market

This paper addresses the problem of how to estimate market demand functions for finance in the presence of rationing within the context of the U.K. house mortgage market. Two distinct approaches are outlined. The first, and more traditional, focuses on American studies in which non-price terms are assumed to adjust so as, in combination with price, to produce market clearing. In contrast, the approach used in the present study conjectures that non-interest-rate terms are varied so as to discriminate among borrowers, satisfying some but leaving the market uncleared. Empirical tests, using U.K. data, offer some support for this alternative approach. The paper offers some thoughts on credit rationing, and outlines possible avenues for further research into this important and current topic.     

Karl Pearson's Influence in the United States

Karl Pearson, the founder of mathematical statistics, was the leading statistical researcher from the 1890s up to about 1920. His interests were wide-ranging and so his impact on statistics in the United States was also wide-ranging. Many American researchers came to University College London to study with him. Others studied his work from afar. In the United States, Pearsonian statistics first penetrated the academic landscape in biology. This was soon followed by the fields of economics and psychology. It was not until relatively late in Pearson's career that several American mathematicians took up statistics as a serious research topic.     

Dynamics of fiscal financing in the United States

General equilibrium models that include policy rules for government spending, lump-sum transfers, and distortionary taxation on labor and capital income and on consumption expenditures are fit to US data under rich specifications of fiscal policy rules to obtain several results. First, the best-fitting model allows many fiscal instruments to respond to debt. Second, responses of aggregates to fiscal policy shocks under rich rules vary considerably from responses where only non-distortionary fiscal instruments finance debt. Third, in the short run, all fiscal instruments except labor taxes react strongly to debt, but long-run intertemporal financing comes from all components of the government’s budget constraint. Fourth, debt-financed fiscal shocks trigger long-lasting dynamics; short-run and long-run multipliers can differ markedly.     

Occupational and industrial mobility in the United States

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and using both the original and the new series of occupation and industry codes, we investigate occupational and industrial mobility of individuals over the 1969–1980 and 1981–1993 periods in the U.S. We find that workers changed both occupations and industries more frequently in the later period. We also find that for men occupational and industrial changes are associated with lower earnings, though this effect has lessened somewhat over time; while for women the results are mixed. Our results also indicate that older and better paid men are less likely to shift occupation or industry.