Smoothing the waves of pension funding: Could changes in funding rules help avoid cyclical under‐funding?

Defined benefit pensions are still an important part of retirement income security for 44 million people. After 2000, these plans experienced extreme difficulties. Although the magnitude of the problem was unprecedented, its causes were not. Interest rate and asset prices decline in a recession, when earnings are low. Pension funding rules reflect this regularity. This requires additional contributions when times are bad. We address this counter‐cyclicality through three proposed rule changes. We use a simulation model to evaluate these. Our results indicate that counter‐cyclicality would have diminished, while funding adequacy would have improved.     

Sectoral sources of sub-Saharan Africa’s convergence

From 1970 to 2010, sub-Saharan African’s (SSA) labour productivity hovered at around 6% of the US level. This lacklustre performance, which remained stubbornly low despite the SSA’s growth spurt that started in the mid-1990s, masks a great deal of variations across sectors and countries. Using a structural decomposition, we examine, for a representative sample of SSA countries, the sectoral sources that hold back their convergence to the US frontier. Our results suggest the presence of strong – and possibly long-lasting – headwinds that have wiped out the favourable effects of substantial, yet circumstantial, tailwinds. Headwinds, quantified by the unfavourable within- and reallocation-effects, are indicative of significant capital-deepening and technology gaps, both of which are extremely hard to bridge. The tailwinds, represented by favourable between-effects, result from the convergence of the SSA labour force to sectors where some US sectors have seen a slowdown of their productivity relative to that of the whole economy – a development unrelated to the fundamentals underlying the SSA economy. Although few exceptions emerged out of this general pattern, these results are indicative of a bleak outlook for the SSA economic performance at least in the medium run.     

The sources of innovations – looking beyond technological opportunities*

The concept ‘technological opportunity’ has been coined to capture the vitality of the underlying sciences and technologies as the sources of technical progress that firms draw upon during innovation. Nonetheless, less attention has been paid to the fact that the commercialisation of technical progress through innovations also depends on the ability to assimilate a range of other sources of innovations, related less to the sciences and technologies and more to characteristics of the market and broader environment in which firms innovate. This paper focuses on the sectoral diversity in such sources, and on the ways in which they are assimilated and turned into commercialised innovations. The paper contributes to the extant literature by drawing on a unique survey data on Finnish innovations. The results both confirm and also challenge, and further elaborate on certain ‘stylised facts’ on the relationships between technological opportunities and the sources of innovation across sectors.     

Toward state funding of elections in india? a comparative perspective on possible options

This paper explores the issue of introduction of state funding of elections in India, focussing on the incentive structures of electoral finance reforms. After summarising the main points in the history of political finance reform in other democracies, and in India, the historical pattern of fund-raising and election expenditures of major parties in India is surveyed. Six electoral finance reform options for India are outlined. It is argued that the time is now ripe for state funding of elections from the point of view of the incentives facing parties and donors.     

Lenders on the storm of wholesale funding shocks: saved by the central bank?

We provide empirical evidence on banks’ responses to shocks in the wholesale funding market, using data of 181 euro area banks over the period from August 2007 to June 2013. Responses to funding liquidity shocks for both banks’ lending volumes and loan rates, to households and corporates, are analysed in a panel VAR framework. We thereby distinguish banks by country, extent of Eurosystem borrowing, bank size and capitalization. The results show that shocks in the securities and interbank markets have significant effects on loan rates and credit supply, particularly of banks in stressed countries of the periphery. The results also suggest that central bank liquidity has mitigated this effect on lending volumes. Lending to nonfinancial corporations is more sensitive to wholesale funding shocks than lending to households. Lending volumes of large banks that are typically more dependent on wholesale funding and banks with large exposure to sovereign bonds show stronger responses to wholesale funding shocks.     

Absorbing radical ideas from unusual sources – the role of social integration mechanisms

If companies rely strongly on internal R&D and existing networks their ability to introduce radical innovations may suffer. Opening up to new idea sources may provide a solution. Incumbent companies, however, often suffer from the tendency to reject radical ideas from unusual sources. This study investigates how social integration mechanisms (SIMs; coordination, socialisation, and systems mechanisms) influence an incumbent steel company’s absorptive capacity (AC). A micro-level analysis of two radical ideas from unusual sources contributes to AC and radical innovation literatures by exploring relationships between SIMs and four AC capabilities (acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation). The findings suggest that AC capabilities are context-specific with respect to innovation novelty and idea source. The results emphasise the negative sides of socialisation and formalisation mechanisms, and the positive effects of coordination mechanisms on the AC capabilities in such high uncertainty contexts.     

Analysis of programs to reduce overpopulation of companion animals: Do adoption and low-cost spay/neuter programs merely cause substitution of sources?

Overpopulation of companion animal results in millions of deaths each year at shelters and spending in the billions of dollars. Major efforts are underway to reduce this problem, with one of the largest efforts being spearheaded by Maddie's Fund. Maddie's Fund programs focus on encouraging spay/neuter and adoptions through economic incentives and marketing. However, aggressive spay/neuter and adoption programs present economic questions regarding how much they simply lead to substitution of sources for these good and services rather than increasing total community adoption and spay/neuter levels. In addition, spay/neuter also presents an ecological question as to how effective it is at reducing population sizes and therefore shelter intake. Analysis of Maddie's Fund program results show that low-cost spay/neuter programs are effective at raising total community spay/neuter levels (i.e. they do not merely cause substitution in source of spay/neuter procedures). Similar results were found for adoptions, with animal control adoptions not being reduced by new adoption programs initiated by other organizations. However, no clear results were found demonstrating the impact of total spay/neuter procedures on shelter intake.     

Is the value of environmental goods sensitive to the public funding scheme? Evidence from a marine restoration programme in the Black Sea

In this paper, we conduct choice experiments in Turkey and Ukraine on the valuation of a marine restoration programme in the Black Sea, to examine whether the value of environmental goods is sensitive to the source of public financing. We contribute to the debate on the optimal composition of public expenditure, an issue that can be controversial in times of financial crises. We discriminate between two funding regimes through the reallocation of public spending. The first proposes financing the marine restoration programme by reducing public expenditure for investments in renewable energy, and the second by reducing public expenditure for civil servants’ training. The results reveal that the marginal value of public money depends on the funding source. Furthermore, attribute values are sensitive to the trade-off implied by the funding scheme. The magnitude of the results differs in the two countries considered, because of their heterogeneity in political and cultural dimensions.     

Are all financial crises created equal? Wholesale funding and two financial crises

We use financial information on banks from Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania to examine the role of wholesale funding on the transmission of financial crises to bank lending, as well as to study the response of financial institutions in different regions during the crises. We consider the role of wholesale funding during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). Our results suggest that during the GFC, wholesale funding dependence had a negative effect on loans growth across regions, but with substantial regional heterogeneity. The growth of loans from financial institutions in Asia and Europe was consistently sensitive to wholesale funding dependence. Although wholesale funding did not play a significant role in the transmission mechanism of the AFC, a subsample of financial institutions in Asia, who depended more heavily on wholesale funding, experienced a faster loan growth and may have been able to better withstand the crisis.     

of China HydrologyJournal of China

ournal of China HydrologyJournal of China HydrologyJournal of China HydrologyJournal of Shanxi Finance and Economics UniversityJournal of Shanxi Finance and Economics UniversityJournal of Shanxi Finance and Economics UniversityJournal of Shanxi Finance and Economics UniversityJournal of Shanxi Finance and Economics UniversityJournal of Shanxi Finance and Econom     

The Analysis of Bases of Market Segmentation

This paper analyses the characters of different bases of market segmentation and classes the bases into four kinds： observable general bases, observable product-specific bases, unobservable general bases and unobservable product-specific bases. The result can be used in the future research of market segmentation.     

Analysis of the Evaluation Mechanism of the Stride Development System of the Enterprise

on the basis of the self-organizing theories the thesis analyzes how enterprises realize the stride development through the technology stride. At First the thesis sets up the stride development system of enterprises and then the thesis reveals the mechanism that the technology stride will give rise to the stride development of ente~fises. In the end the thesis puts forward the enlightenment for the stride development of enterprises from the stride development system of enterprises.     

Merger of Equals? Try Murder of Equals

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On the Fabrication of Structural Model of Quality System of Urbanization in China

This paper classifies the factors related with the quality system of the urbanization into three dimensions as quality planning, quality realization and quality improvement according to the relationship of their mutual actions. Then it fabricates a three-dimension space structural model. In order to achieve sustainable improvement on urbanization quality improvement, this paper puts forward the measures of controlling the operation of the quality system of urbanization to make it run effectively and smoothly.     

International Implications of the Cost of Compliance with the External Audit Requirements of Section 404 of Sarbanes–Oxley

The Sarbanes–Oxley ACT (SOX) was effective for many large U. S. companies for fiscal years ending on or after December 15, 2004. Some, cross listed, non U. S., companies must comply with the provisions of Section 404 (404) of SOX for fiscal periods ending on or after July 15, 2006. The purposes of this study are to review the implications of SOX 404, to assess SOX 404’s potential impact on world-wide securities regulation, assess the impact of SOX 404 on external audit fees for the initial group of filers during the first 2 years it was effective and assess SOX 404’s prospective economic impact on foreign companies that cross list their securities in the U. S. Our finding indicated that audit fees increased by an average of 65% for the initial group of filers in the first year SOX 404 was effective and by .9% in the second year. This increase was reflected in a .5% decrease in earnings for these companies. We conclude that although similar results might be expected for foreign companies that cross list, the implementation costs do not provide sufficient reason to weaken or eliminate SOX 404’s requirements at this time.