FINANCIAL CRIME IN SOUTH AFRICA

During the 1990s economic crime began to spiral in South Africa. This phenomenon coincided with the country's transition to a democratic state. The article outlines a number of steps that South Africa took to align its laws with international standards and to improve the legal tools of law enforcement to address the crime wave. A number of successes, for instance the improvement in tax morality, are pointed out but it is argued that co-ordination and co-operation between law enforcement agencies require more attention.     

FINANCIAL CRIME TRENDS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

Central and Eastern Europe, as political and military strategists found to their frustration during the Cold War, is an extremely large and diffuse area. It contains the blocs of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation and the Balkans. For the purposes of this paper, there is a general section and then a focus on two countries. These are the Russian Federation, arguably one of the main areas of organised crime impacting upon a global scale, and Romania, one of the latest Candidate Countries for joining the EU.     

FIGHTING FINANCIAL CRIME: A UK PERSPECTIVE

Financial crime has a devastating impact on individuals, companies and governments. Traditional methods of control, predominantly investigation and prosecution, have failed to abate the rise of both fraud and money laundering offences. Tackling financial crime is best approached from the perspective of prevention, an activity that requires co-operation between all those affected by this widespread and corrosive social problem.     

CONTROLLING SERIOUS FINANCIAL CRIME: A JAMAICAN PERSPECTIVE

This paper examines the approach taken by Jamaica to control money laundering, terrorist financing and market abuse. With respect to money laundering and terrorist financing, the discussion involves a review of the statutory offences, the confiscation/forfeiture regime and the reporting obligations imposed on the financial sector. The analysis of market abuse focuses on both insider dealing and market manipulation.     

THE PREVENTION OF FINANCIAL CRIME WITHIN AN ISLAMIC LEGAL FRAMEWORK1

The risks associated with financial crime threaten to undermine the stability of the international financial system. This paper explores the Islamic legal approach to the prevention of financial crime and how this can be integrated into international regulatory frameworks.     

THE FUNDING OF TRADITIONAL ORGANISED CRIME IN RUSSIA

The changed economic and political situation in Russia since the 1990s brought about a qualitative transformation of Russian organised crime, particularly in organisational and behavioural patterns. In particular, a pronounced shift from violent crime towards economic crime is being observed. Criminals try to establish and exercise control over legitimate businesses via corrupt politicians, local authorities and/or law enforcement officials. A tendency towards the consolidation of criminal groups within given territories is also discernible, whilst there are signs of increased interregional integration among different criminal organisations.     

REPETITION AND FINANCIAL INCENTIVES IN ECONOMICS EXPERIMENTS

Abstract While experimental methods have been an effective tool for economic research, there have been controversies on the methodological aspects. The reason why we need to care about it is clear: if the method in an experiment is not valid, the results from that experiment cannot be valid too. Among other things, the methodological issues of financial incentives and repetition, which are norms in experimental economics, have been at the centre of many debates. While there are previous reviews that investigate financial incentives and repetition separately, our view is that the effects of these two factors are interdependent rather than independent. Thus, our review here is more specific and more conditional, that is, we are interested in the answer to the question, ‘Do we need to use financial incentives conditional on the use of repetition?’ After we discuss the relationship between financial incentives and repetition, we argue, from a review of 44 experimental studies, that using financial incentives would be more necessary to improve the validity of experimental results if an experimenter needs to use repetition.     

聚焦2004金融改革：银行业之变

2003年,国内银行业改革不仅范围广,而且力度很大.先有国有银行考核标准的变化,使得上半年的银行信贷超高速增长.这也是几年罕见的情况.而银行业监管委员会的成立、农村金融改革试点启动、央行5号令及121文件的出台,以及利率市场化的深化、国有银行准备上市等都是国内银行改革的大动作.     

BANKING SECTOR POLICIES AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN NEPAL

ABSTRACT This paper examines the interactions between banking sector policies, financial development and economic growth in Nepal employing recently developed time series techniques. Policies such as interest rate controls, directed credit programmes, reserve and liquidity requirements are identified and measured. A summary measure of repressive policies is constructed by the method of principal components. This measure is found to have a statistically significant influence deepening, independently of the real interest rate. We argue that our findings are consistent with the hypothesis of market failure. Exogeneity tests suggest that financial deepening and economic growth are jointly determined. Thus, policies which affect financial deepening may also have an influence on economic growth.     

FINANCIAL EDUCATION AND BEHAVIORAL FINANCE: NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN FINANCIAL DECISIONS

Recent empirical evidence based on surveys and experimental activities within the fields of behavioral finance and financial education has offered economists new empirically based insights into how individuals use information in making financial decisions. Specifically, the importance of information in financial decisions may be reduced or eliminated by psychological aspects of the individual, such as a state of overconfidence that is individual or shared with a group, or by the individual's limited ability to process complex and abundant information. This paper aims to complement this emerging body of literature by studying how individuals perceive and process information when making financial decisions. We review these contributions and suggest a number of broad guidelines that can provide a framework for future discussion of this topic within financial decision theory.     

FLEXIBLE COST FUNCTION ESTIMATES FOR A GAS AND FUEL CORPORATION IN AUSTRALIA

This paper reviews and empirically tests the available evidence concerning economies of scale and technological change at Australian Gas Limited of New South Wales (AGL). a gas and fuel corporation. Since energy corporations are considered to need scale economies, they are regulated 'n both developed and developing countries. In keeping with the trend of deregulation stemming from the beginning of the 1980s in Western countries, many kinds of public corporations have been privatized and deregulated. Energy corporations are not an exceptional case, but very little evidence on this industry has been reported so far. From empirical tests, it is shown in a trans-log-type cost function that AGL has scale economies. the degree of which increased after the corporation changed its energy source from coal oil to liquid natural gas. Moreover, from the results of the trans-log cost function including technological change, a Hicksian neutral type technical progress exists. In a Hicksian non-neutral type, stock-intensive technical progress exists. while labor productivity deterioates. Energy productivity is not significant.     

HOW USEFUL IS THE ECONOMIC MODEL OF CRIME IN ASSISTING THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM?

This article considers whether the economic model of crime can be applied to terrorist activity. It concludes that the model does explain both secular and religiously motivated terrorism: policy-makers wishing to reduce terrorist activity should aim at devising policies which increase costs and/or decrease benefits to change terrorist incentives. The 'war' should continue as long as the probable costs to society incurred by terrorist activity are greater than the costs of abatement.     

投资移民澳大利亚政策大盘点

正澳大利亚投资移民政策稳定,免费子女教育,国际一流教育水平,获护照可免签163个国家,办理速度快……这么多好处势必引起有移民倾向的群体关注。确实,澳大利亚投资类移民政策的实行,吸引了很多有实力的国人去申请,也给他们创造了比较有利的申请条件。以下是目前很火爆的澳大利亚投资移民政策大盘点:188A类:针对企业股东者的政策要求主申请人年龄55周岁以下,随行子女25周     

房地产金融之春临近 REITs构建重在激励与监管

随着国务院一系列的支持资本市场措施出台,房地产业将逐步建立多元化、资本化、证券化、国际化的金融体系,这也表明中国房地产金融的“春天”即将来临。     

STRATEGY UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND IT IN FINANCIAL SERVICES*

This article subjects the organizational theory literature on corporate strategy to critical scrutiny, arguing that both the ‘rational’and ‘processual’approaches to strategy generate analyses that are ahistorical and theoretically undeveloped. In their place, but focusing specifically on the financial services, we offer an alternative genealogically informed analysis. This indicates how the historical development of strategy discourses and practices are discontinuous and uneven across countries, sectors, companies and specialist spheres. In addition it suggests that corporate strategy has considerable impact on inter-organizational relations and both ‘internal’(i.e. management and employees) and ‘external’(i.e. consumers) members of the organization. the article seeks to illustrate its arguments both at the sectoral level by examining the development of strategic discourse in banks and insurance companies and at the organizational level by providing some case study material on IT strategy in a life insurance company.