Competitive effects of Basel II on US bank credit card lending

We analyze the potential competitive effects of the proposed Basel II capital regulations on US bank credit card lending. We find that bank issuers operating under Basel II will face higher regulatory capital minimums than Basel I banks, with differences due to the way the two regulations treat reserves and gain-on-sale of securitized assets. During periods of normal economic conditions, this is not likely to have a competitive effect; however, during periods of substantial stress in credit card portfolios, Basel II banks could face a significant competitive disadvantage relative to Basel I banks and nonbank issuers.     

World War II prime defence contractors: Were they favoured?

Between 1940 and 1944 the US government placed $175.066 billion of prime defence contracts with US corporations. Two-thirds of these awards went to only 100 companies and 20% to only five companies leading to charges that the prime contractors were favoured. This article examines the common stock returns of World War II prime contractors relative to broad market indices and to the returns on the non-prime contractors in the same industry. The analysis begins in 1938 with the Anschluss and ends with the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War. Little evidence is found to support the charges.     

Connecting National Safety Nets: The Dialectics of the Basel II Contracting Process

Basel II consists of supervisory guidelines negotiated by representatives of central banks and national regulatory commissions that were members of the Basel committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). The BCBS is itself a regulatory response to globalization, which is connecting national safety nets in market-driven ways. A country’s financial safety net is a social contract established by short-lived agents for principals in long-lived economic sectors. Restraints placed on the authority of the BCBS members to contract for their principals by domestic politics explains: why Basel II authorizes individual countries to implement the agreement in markedly different ways; why US implementation of Basel II ran into so much doubt, controversy, and delay; and how the implementation debate set small and large banks and the Federal Reserve and other federal regulators against one another.

二灰碎石基层在沈阳低等级公路中应用分析

为了研究二灰碎石基层在沈阳低等级公路中的功能和应用特点,二灰碎石进行了室内试验,并得出结论:不同配比二灰碎石最佳含水量、无侧限抗压强度随着石灰剂量增加粉煤灰剂量减小而逐步增大。因此道路基层施工建议采用二灰碎石基层配比为石灰:粉煤灰:碎石=10:20:70,可充分发挥二灰碎石的功能,提高资源利用率,最终提高施工质量和经济效益。     

基于FPGA的信号发生器设计

利用单片FPGA完成了正弦波、方波和三角波信号的发生及其性能调节功能。该系统主要由四个模块组成:电源模块、控制模块、LCD显示模块、D/A转换及功率放大模块。电源模块提供FPGA的5V工作电压和DAC芯片的±12V工作电压;用VHDL语言实现直接数字频率合成技术(DDS),实现波形选择等多种控制功能;利用FPGA内嵌32位NoisII软核设计了一种键盘控制LCD显示的处理器;D/A转换及功率放大模块主要采用高速宽带运放。整个系统稳定度高,控制方便,可扩展性强。     

The effects of mid-career military enlistment on civilian career prospects: evidence from the Australian banking industry during World War II

This paper uses personnel records of employees from an Australian bank to analyse the labour market consequences of career interruptions due to voluntary military service during the Second World War. The records contain the employees’ career position and pay histories, and pre-war outcomes are used to control for selection bias caused by non-random enlistment. It is shown that, despite losing human capital during the War, upon their return veterans did not face a wage penalty relative to non-volunteers. Finally, evidence from non-wage outcomes suggests that the absence of a wage penalty was a form of positive discrimination by the Bank.

Does a marching band impact college Football game attendance? A panel study of Division II

Marching bands are an integral part of the college football game-day experience by increasing both the quantity and quality of entertainment. Academic music programs could enhance a band’s entertainment value via better-trained members and recruitment of more highly skilled musicians. The impact of these influences on game-day attendance is explored using data from nine years of regular season games in Division II. The regression model controls for economic factors, home-team performance, demographic influences and game characteristics and employs boot-strap clustering methods for calculating standard errors of coefficients. Results suggest that a marching band, the existence of an academic music program and being a historically black college each exerts an independent positive impact on attendance after controlling for all other factors.     

Joint confidence region for the parameters of pareto distribution

The Pareto distribution is commonly used by economists as a model for the distribution of incomes. Separate confidence intervals or approximate confidence intervals for the parameters of Pareto distribution were discussed by some authors. This paper discusses exact joint confidence region for the parameters of Pareto distribution. The method can be used for both complete samples and type II censored samples.     

基于个人信息化的企业信息化模式

信息化是21世纪企业的一个重要主题,在没有经验可以借鉴的情况下,企业如何实施信息化建设,这是企业界和理论界一直想解决的问题。本文从研究企业信息化实施的制约因素和个人信息化与企业信息化的交互作用机制出发,提出基于个人信息化的企业信息化模式。该模式可以用来指导企业信息化建设。     

Basel regulations and banks’ efficiency: The case of the Philippines

Using stochastic frontier analysis, this paper has examined the impact of Basel II on the cost efficiency of Philippine commercial banks from 2001 to 2011. The overall mean cost efficiency estimate is 0.75, indicating substantial inefficiencies in the banks averaging to 25% of total costs. Findings show that higher capital requirement tends to improve the cost efficiency but more powerful supervisors can adversely affect the efficiency of the banks. The other potential correlates that may help explain the efficiency of the banks are risk and asset quality and bank-specific variables. From a policy perspective, this study is informative to policymakers on the general direction in which to proceed with reforms (i.e., maintain higher capital requirements, curtail powerful supervisors, and enhance private monitoring) and in identifying factors that could contribute to banks’ efficiency especially in light of the newly implemented Basel III in the country. In effect, this paper also assesses the readiness of the banks toward the implementation of Basel III.