Should Access to Credit be a Right?

Discussion on financial ethics increasingly includes the problem of exclusion of the poorer segments of society from the financial system and access to credit. This paper explores the ethical dimensions surrounding the concept of a human right to credit. If access to credit is directly instrumental to economic development, poverty reduction and the improved welfare of all citizens, then one can proclaim, as Nobel Prize Laureate M. Yunus has done, that it is a moral necessity to establish credit as a right. Arguments both supporting and opposing the concept of a right to credit are presented. While there may be general agreement that access to financial services may provide a pathway out of poverty, granting a universal right could induce perverse effects such as overindebtedness. Bearing in mind the ultimate goal of proponents of this right as well as the potential harmful consequences, this paper offers a new perspective on the question of access to credit based on a goal-right system.      

The Political Economy of Trust

There has been a considerable rise in discourses concerning trust from a range of academic disciplines and perspectives. Unfortunately, many of these literatures have talked past, rather than to, each other. This paper develops an analysis of trust in economic activity through a dialogue between the disciplines of economics and sociology. It outlines the relationship of trust to economic co–operation and identifies a number of types of trust. The potential benefits of these different types of trust to advanced capitalist economies are identified. Consideration is given to the processes of trust creation and destruction in market economies. Particular emphasis here is on how far trust can be symbiotic with, or contradictory to, power and the market. With an analysis of the key properties of individual agents which make them more or less prone to trusting behaviour, the paper is then able to identify the critical factors likely to underlie high–trust and low–trust economies. This has important public policy implications given the potential benefits which trust can have for advanced economies.     

On decompositions of some random variables

The aim of this paper is to present several stochastic analogs of classical formulas for the gamma function. The obtained results provide representation of some random variables as finite or infinite products of independent random variables. Examples include generalized gamma, normal, beta and other distributions.     

Business Integrity in Transitional Economies: Central & Eastern Europe

What are the ethical concerns among the growing populations of business people in Central & Eastern Europe, and how might they be dealt with practically in the course of business life? David Murray has been a management consultant since 1979 working primarily with the Hay Group in the area of strategic organisational change. Since founding Maine Consulting Services in 1991 he spends most of his time in the field of business and professional ethics, also holding a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Central Lancashire. He is chairman of the Professional & Technical Board at the (British) Institute of Quality Assurance and a coordinating editor of the quarterly Organisations & People. Marek Kucia is a social researcher operating his own research agency (which organised the Polish part of this exercise) and an academic teaching sociology, and conducting and co-ordinating Central European Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. He studied political science, sociology and philosophy at Krakow and studied for his PhD at Oxford. He has also worked for Gallup, London, in opinion and market research. This survey report is based on presentations made in April 1994 to the EBEN Research Centres Conference in Prague, and in June 1994 to the conference on “Ethics in Transition” organised in Gödöllö, Hungary, by the Democracy after Communism Foundation, Budapest. The authors wish to acknowledge the major contribution to this work of Mr Juraj Kusnierik of the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, who co-ordinated the survey exercise. The project was sponsored by The Ethics Development Initiative, CARE, London; the Central European Foundation, SEN, Bratislava, Slovakia; SIS Ltd., Bratislava, Slovakia; and Maine Consulting Services, 16 Acrefield, Blackburn, Lancashire, England BB2 7BJ, to which all correspondence connected with this report should be addressed.     

Business Environment Index for Developing Countries: The Case of Latin America

This article develops a new business environment index with indicators that are appropriate, broadly available for developing regions, and, most importantly, are not double-edged. We used the index to analyze the business environment in Latin America, and it suggests the main role of basic economic principles, institutional economics approach and historical context. We propose the identification of an interdisciplinary variable as well as interpretation of the index, based on 10 factors divided into three dimensions (economic, institutional, and social). The novelty is in the consideration of past values; it is neither based on popularity votes, and nor does it favor large economies.     

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.

     

Exploring fundraising executives' careers in arts and culture: The role of tenure and career switching

Fundraisers play a crucial role in helping arts and culture organizations obtain the financial resources they need to carry out their missions and support their causes. However, research on fundraisers' careers is still in its infancy. As the profession gains importance, understanding the main motivating factors of fundraisers' career paths is key. This study investigates the effects of three variables that emerged as relevant motivations for fundraiser careers, that is, education, career promotion and sector experience, on fundraising executives' tenure and career switching. In addition, this research identifies profiles of fundraising executives in the arts and culture organizations in the United States. Moreover, this study explores the role of non-profit orientation as a moderator of the relationship between career switching and tenure, and parallel titles as a moderator of the relationship between sector experience and tenure. Managerial implications are outlined.     

The social contract of work: Moving beyond the psychological contract

This paper develops the critique of psychologisation by going narrow and deep into the analysis of the concept of the psychological contract. In its early incarnation, the psychological contract literature explored key elements at the heart of the employment relationship. However, in the current mainstream psychological contract literature, there are four key problems. The paper shows that these problems match on to the wider problems associated with pyschologisation. The concept of the social contract of work is put forward as a way to return productively to the original focus of the field. The social contract of work is defined as workers' implicit, collective, and socially embedded understanding of the effort bargain at work.