Innovativeness of railway transport in the context of the development of tourism in Poland

Quality & Quantity - The article discusses the issue of innovation activities of companies in railway transport in Poland in the context of the development of tourism. Transport infrastructure...     

An alternative approach to the construction of multi-regional input–output tables of the Czech Republic: application of the CHARM method

Empirica - The main scope of the paper is to review the construction method of (multi-)regional input–output tables (RIOTs) in the Czech Republic at the NUTS 3 regional level. We compare the...     

ARE FINANCIAL AND SOCIAL EFFICIENCY MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE? A CASE STUDY OF VIETNAMESE MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS

A major debate in microfinance focuses on the existence of a trade‐off between the financial sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their outreach to poor clients. This paper adds to this debate by analyzing whether financial and social efficiency are mutually exclusive in a context of implicit subsidies by the state and international donors. We use data from a sample of 28 Vietnamese MFIs and apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to identify the existence of a trade‐off. Our analysis shows that for Vietnamese MFIs financial and social efficiency are not related. We interpret this as evidence for the fact that there is no support to believe that there is such a trade‐off. Subsidies, based on which most Vietnamese MFIs currently operate, helps them to show high financial efficiency, while at the same time being able to attain their social goals. Nevertheless, this model may not be sustainable in the long‐term.     

PDE approach to valuation and hedging of credit derivatives

This paper presents a PDE approach in a Markovian setting to hedge defaultable derivatives. The arbitrage price and the hedging strategy for an attainable contingent claim are described in terms of solutions of a pair of coupled PDEs. For some standard examples of defaultable claims, we provide explicit formulae for prices and hedging strategies.     

Innovation behaviour of firms in a small open economy: the case of the Czech manufacturing industry

This paper describes the role of R&D and analyse its impact on productivity in the Czech economy in a CDM model. Four CIS waves (2001, 2003, 2006, and 2008) were used in the CDM model. The estimated low innovation input elasticity around 9 % describes the Czechs as poor innovators in the EU. This economy was a developing country until 2006 and we have observed a substantive FDI inflow since 1998. Multinationals have a higher sales share now and are an essential part of the economy. Multinationals engage less in innovation, but innovating MNEs spend more on R&D per employee and appropriate more from their innovated goods. The FDI inflow was a form of innovation wave. Innovation output is an important determinant for boosting productivity among SME’s. Public support had positive effect on innovation intensity; however, no additional effect on innovation output.     

The reduction cost of nonperforming loan: evidence from China’s commercial bank

The nonperforming loans (NPLs) are co-generated by creating the profit in a bank, and this article build a joint production model to measure the reduction cost of nonperforming cost. By using a data set of China’s 13 commercial banks, the conclusions show that the reduction cost of NPLs is lower, which suggests that it is not a good choice for China’s commercial bank to hold the NPLs.     

Non-market valuation of forest goods and services: Good practice guidelines

The European COST Action E45 on European Forest Externalities (EUROFOREX) participants developed a set of good practice guidelines for the non-market valuation of forests, elaborating on stated and revealed preference methodologies, as well as benefit transfer and meta-analytical procedures. This article presents a summary of the guidelines.     

Insurance Protection Funds in the European Union—Quo Vadis?

Contrary to the development in other major insurance markets in the world only 13 out of 27 EU member states have introduced until now some type of insurance protection funds (IPF). As a result around a third of the market is without any collective protection. There is also a continuous debate since 2001 among the member states on the need for such a system at the community level. The experiences of the latest financial crisis have raised new arguments for reorganizing the existing system to avoid regulatory arbitrage and to strengthen consumer security. Even the prospective implementation of provisions strengthening supervisory bodies, and the new solvency directive (so‐called Solvency II) are not fail‐safe solutions. This article is an attempt to review the current situation as regards IPF in the EU and to discuss possible development scenarios.     

My journey through finance and stochastics

This year, Finance and Stochastics celebrates its 25th anniversary. The journal provides a platform for the community of researchers on which they can publish their ideas and results.

Publication is an outcome of research which may be conducted for a number of years before it reaches the required maturity. I find this research process to be very important. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to decode it from reading the research publications. This special issue of Finance and Stochastics gives me an opportunity to focus on it. I am grateful I can present my personal memory of this process. Understanding why questions are asked and how the answers are found is critical.

     

A Study of Codes of Ethics for Mexican Microfinance Institutions

Most scholarly interest in codes of ethics or conduct has focused on traditional companies. Little is known about the codes of social enterprises or hybrid organizations such as microfinance institutions (MFIs). Our paper provides a comparative case study of the codes of a Mexican microfinance network and seven MFIs. Using the corporate integrity model, we analyze the content of MFIs’ codes compared to those of traditional organizations. We then examine to what extent some specific features of MFIs such as their mission, target group, and applied credit methodologies, are factors that determine the content of their code. We find that MFIs’ codes, like those of traditional companies, include traditional stakeholder principles. Nevertheless, they put greater emphasis on ‘socially-oriented’ principles or on terms such as ‘people’ and ‘common good’. MFIs’ codes differ with respect to the items they include and exclude and the size of the covered sections. We also find that these codes attempt to address prevailing concerns in microfinance but rarely tackle two critical debates, namely levels of interest rates and of profitability. We finally argue that it is difficult to move toward a global code, owing to regional disparities and the variety of organizational models and missions.