Risk Mapping and Key Risk Indicators in Operational Risk Management

In this article I describe a methodology for the mapping of Operational Risk with the objective of identifying the risks inherent in the different steps of a business process, selecting a set of variables providing an estimate for the likelihood and the severity of operational risk (Key Risk Indicators – KRIs) and designing the most appropriate control activities. I then present two examples of how the methodology described can be applied to map risks and of how a set of relevant KRIs can be identified in the front office of a trading business and in the back office of a lending business. Finally, I discuss how the information conveyed by the KRIs can be organised and summarised in order to provide a comprehensive look at the risk profile of the various business lines. The structured presentation of KRIs covering the business processes of a bank is what we call an Operational Risk Scorecard.     

社会价值观·企业价值观管理价值观·会计价值观——基于全球金融危机视角的文献述评

会计实务取决于会计准则,会计准则取决于会计价值观,会计价值观取决于管理价值观,管理价值观又取决于企业价值观,企业价值观最终取决于社会价值观.全球金融危机引发了我们必须洞察当今世界会计价值观形成与发展的路径依赖,探讨会计价值观的真谛,寻找培育正确会计价值观的有效途径,以便从根本上保证会计信息的真实性,促进资本市场的健康发展,遏制金融风暴的进一步蔓延,进而提高经济运行效率,推动社会和谐的进程.     

金融开放的多角度透视

本文分析了当前几个流行的金融开放衡量指数存在的可靠性与稳定性的偏差，并通过一系列修正性和补充性的衡量指数对114个国家在1970--2004年间的金融开放进程的趋势与特征进行了多角度的考察比较。     

Biodiversity and geography

We combine a new economic geography model of agglomeration and dispersion of economic activity with an ecological–economic model of species diversity to examine optimal policies of biodiversity conservation in a two-region world. Species diversity is inevitably impaired by anthropogenic impact. Thus, the economic and ecological systems compete for space and the question arises as to how this conflict should be resolved. The decisive parameters of the model are related to biological diversity (endemism vs. redundancy of species) and the patterns of economic geography (centrifugal vs. centripetal forces). As regards the choice of environmental-policy instruments, it is shown that Pigouvian taxes do not always establish the optimal allocation.     

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1960 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policies' economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides scalar index numbers of trade‐ and welfare‐reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more‐satisfactory indexes that can be generated using no more than the data used to generate PSEs and CSEs. We then exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to provide time‐series estimates of index numbers for 75 developing and high‐income countries over the past half‐century.     

2020年后全球生物多样性框架下中国荒野地的系统性保护策略

荒野地,是大面积的、保留原貌或被轻微改变的自然区域,具有保护生物多样性和维持生态系统服务等多元价值,因此具有重要的保护意义。在“2020年后全球生物多样性框架”中,荒野保护是重要的行动目标之一。在此新背景下,分析了中国荒野地保护中存在的五大现状问题,包括荒野价值认知不足、荒野本底状态不清、荒野保护空缺明显、荒野地破碎化严重、荒野地管理质量较低。在此基础上,提出了中国荒野地保护的目标和系统性保护策略(包括主流化策略、普查策略、全域分级保护策略、连通策略和提质策略),以及相应的12项行动建议,有望为我国开展系统性的荒野保护提供思路。     

Modeling Impact of Development Trajectories and a Global Agreement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation on Congo Basin Forests by 2030

The Congo Basin encompasses the second largest rainforest area after the Amazon but the Congo Basin rainforest has been more preserved during the last decades with a much lower deforestation rate. At the same time, the region remains one of the least developed in the world. We use the partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM for the global agricultural, forestry and bioenergy sectors that seeks to find optimal land use options by spatially representing land qualities. We show the trade-offs between achieving agricultural growth at the expense of forests and protecting forests at the expense of agriculture development in the Congo Basin. The realization of the transportation infrastructures, which are already planned and funded, could multiply deforestation by three. In contrast, a global agreement on reduction of total emissions from deforestation could achieve important cuts in GHG emissions from deforestation in the Congo Basin. However, it could lead to substantial increases in food imports and food prices, which are in contradiction with the food security objectives.     

Forests, biomass use and poverty in Malawi

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa and has faced significant deforestation over the years. This paper seeks to examine the nature of the relationship between poverty and forests in Malawi. We try to answer three sets of questions: a) what is the extent of biomass available for meeting the energy needs of the poor in Malawi and how is this distributed? b) To what extent does fuelwood scarcity affect the welfare of the poor? And c) do households spend more time in fuelwood collection in response to scarcity? We answer these questions by matching household surveys with remote-sensing data.Our analyses suggest that biomass scarcity is associated with small but significantly lower household welfare, particularly for the rural poor. At current high levels of scarcity, 80% of rural poor households are likely to benefit from an increase in biomass in the community. Rural women spend more time on fuelwood collection where biomass is scarce. The small decrease in welfare associated with biomass scarcity suggests that households cope with scarcity in a variety of ways. Any effort to reduce degradation and deforestation in Malawi has to build on a clear understanding of household adaptation to fuelwood scarcity.     

Situated Cyborg Knowledge in Not so Borderless Online Global Education: Mapping the Geosocial Landscape of a MOOC

Theorising situated knowledge formation in relation to geopolitics, geoeconomics and the geosocial, this article adds to the growing literature that evaluates Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) by studying who actually participates in them, how, and with what sorts of outcomes. Doing so, this article argues against a geoeconomic view of MOOCs as the revolutionary technology of borderless ‘flat world’ education. Instead, it outlines the far-from-borderless landscape of MOOC participation in terms of geosocial unevenness using evidence from the discussion boards of a global MOOC on globalisation. Based on this empirical evidence, this article suggests that MOOCs can enable forms of connective action through online educational networking, but that these forms of cyborg knowledge formation are possible precisely because they are not ‘borderless, gender-blind, race-blind, class-blind and bank account blind’.     

Ethanol Production, Food and Forests

This paper investigates the direct and indirect impacts of ethanol production on land use, deforestation and food production. A partial equilibrium model of a national economy with two sectors and two regions, one of which includes a forest, is developed. It analyses how an exogenous increase in the ethanol price affects input allocation (land and labor) between sectors (energy crop and food). The total effect of ethanol prices on food production and deforestation is decomposed into three partial effects. First, the well-documented effect of direct land competition between rival uses arises; it increases deforestation and decreases food production. Second, an indirect displacement of food production across regions, possibly provoked by the reaction of international food prices, increases deforestation and reduces the food sector’s output. Finally, labor mobility between sectors and regions tends to decrease food production but also deforestation. The total impact of ethanol production on food production is negative while there is an ambiguous impact on deforestation.     

Distance Decay Functions for Iconic Assets: Assessing National Values to Protect the Health of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia

The aim of this study was to estimate the values to protect the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) at the national level and to examine the effects of distance decay on valuation estimates. Two choice-modelling experiments were conducted in six locations: a regional town within the GBR catchment area (Townsville); Brisbane, the state capital approximately 450?km from the southern limit of the GBR; and four other capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth) ranging from nearly 1,000?km to over 4,000?km from Brisbane. Value estimates from a pooled model suggest that the average WTP across Australian households is $21.68 per household per annum for 5?years, and that those values are higher for respondents with higher levels of education and income, respondents who live in Queensland, respondents who live further away, and respondents who plan to visit more often in the future. For this nationally important iconic asset, apparent distance decay effects appear to be explained by variations in future usage and state responsibility, rather than proximity.     

Converting Forests to Farms: The Economic Benefits of Clearing Forests in Agricultural Settlements in the Amazon

Agricultural expansion into tropical forests is believed to bring local economic benefits at the expense of global environmental costs. The resulting tension is reflected in Brazilian government policy. The national agrarian reform program has settled farm families in the Amazon region since the 1970s, with the expectation that they will clear forests in order to farm the land. On the other hand, recent Brazilian policy initiatives seek to reduce deforestation to mitigate climate change. We contribute to the policy debate that surrounds these dual goals for the Amazon by estimating the marginal effects of new agricultural land on the full income and assets of farm settlers over a 13-year period from 1996 to 2009. Using micro panel data from agrarian settlements where forest was being rapidly cleared, and controlling for factors that would otherwise confound the relationship, we estimate the effect of converting forest to agriculture on total household income to estimate the opportunity cost of conserving forest. Our measure of income reflects any re-allocation of resources by utility maximizing households and any productivity effects due to loss of forest ecosystem services. The estimated effect of new agricultural land on income is positive, but small relative to the income per hectare of previously cleared land. However, we show that income increases investment in physical assets, which raises households’ income generating capacity and future accumulation of assets. Thus, while there is only a small immediate income gain from clearing more forest, the long-term effects on wealth are still substantial. This demonstrates that given the right conditions, conversion of forest to agricultural land can be an impetus for asset accumulation by smallholders. It also highlights the importance of considering the indirect and long-term welfare benefits of new agricultural land when assessing the opportunity costs of forest conservation.     

Performance Indicators and Efficiency Measurement in Public Libraries

A sample of one hundred and sixty-eight New South Wales local government libraries is used to analyse the efficiency measures derived from the non-parametric technique of data envelopment analysis. Depending upon the assumptions employed, 9.5 per cent of local governments were judged to be overall technically efficient in the provision of library services, 47.6 per cent as pure technically efficient, and 10.1 per cent as scale efficient. The study also analyses the posited linkages between comparative performance indicators, productive performance and non-discretionary environmental factors under these different model formulations. The results indicate that the presence of exogenous factors and scale effects account for a major portion of the differences in observed efficiency between different groups of local governments.     

Biodiversity pressure and the driving forces behind

Since the UNCED Conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992, the need to actively protect biodiversity is universally acknowledged. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defined biodiversity as comprising ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity, and decided for the ecosystem level as the basis for describing biodiversity. However, due to conceptual problems as much as to the lack of data, so far no comprehensive measurements of biodiversity have been developed. A single measure quantitatively describing biodiversity even seems out of reach due to the incommensurability of the three levels. This makes it impossible to directly base policy decisions on existing or future estimates of the “total size” of biodiversity. Instead, it is suggested to analyse the pressures threatening biodiversity, which can usually be measured quantitatively, and act as the interface between the socioeconomic driving forces behind them and the biological impacts. The drivers (physical primary drivers, politics and policies causing them as secondary and institutional structures as tertiary ones) do not only affect biodiversity, but a range of sustainability problems. The analysis permits to integrate biodiversity risks with broader environmental and sustainability policies, and thus to mainstream biodiversity preservation.Such an analysis is presented for Europe, naming pressures and driving forces and illustrating the close links between the causes of biodiversity pressures and other environmental problems. This way, it is possible to develop first ideas how the standard set of environmental policies must be modified and extended to cover the issue of biodiversity.     

中国的生态效率指标研究

生态效率概念的发展与应用,将有效地促进经济转型,并缓解经济发展与环境保护的矛盾,实现经济的良性发展。目前国内生态效率研究已经有了一定的理论和实践基础,特别是在循环经济建设、评价领域研究较多。借鉴国内学者根据中国实际情况构建的中国循环经济发展的生态效率指标,分析中国1990—2010年生态效率的发展趋势。     

Incentive Contracts and Environmental Performance Indicators

A principal-agent (P-A) model is used to analyse the effect of environmentaldiligence, the principal (top management), having to use imperfectperformance indicators and fearing penalties for environmental damages,wants to avoid environmental harm and induce the agent (employeemanipulating hazardous materials) to take appropriate action. To motivatethe agent, the principal offers an incentive contract based onenvironmental stewardship performance (as measured by EPI).Environmental stewardship being difficult to measure, due to high levelsof uncertainty surrounding, EPI, creates impediments to the establishmentof an efficient P-A contract.     

Structural Adjustment Programme, Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss in Ghana

An empirical investigation is undertaken into the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on forest and biodiversity loss in Ghana between the period 1965–1995. In the first part of the analysis, a four-equation recursive model, consisting of forest loss, cocoa land, maize land and timber production equations, is employed to examine the impact of the SAP on forest loss. The first equation is a function of the last three, and the last three are functions of mainly prices. Piecewise linear and switching regression approaches are used to distinguish between the influence of the post from the pre-adjustment impacts. These results together with a specie-forest area relationship are used to investigate the impact of the SAP on biodiversity loss. The overall results indicate that cocoa land expansion and timber production, but not maize land expansion, are the significant causes of forest loss in Ghana. However, the impact on forest loss in the post-adjustment period was reduced. The rate of biodiversity loss also reduced in the post-adjustment period. Changes in relative output and input prices due to the SAP may have played a significant role in the reduced impact of agricultural and timber related deforestation and biodiversity loss in the post-adjustment period.     

Economic Reforms and Human Development Indicators in India*

This paper sketches the contours of progress in India across a broad range of human development indicators, especially those related to the Millennium Development Goals. This paper also considers the slackening of the drop in poverty reduction since the 1990s (as compared to the 1980s) and the theme of increasing personal and regional inequality in India in the post‐reforms period. It also considers the even more persistent incidence of hunger in India and concludes by assessing the potential role of public policy in addressing the twin problems of slowdown in poverty alleviation and reduction of hunger.