Money,credit, income and prices in sub‐Saharan Africa: Where do we stand?

The study empirically tested the short‐term influence of changes in money and credit on (nominal and real) income and inflation. The stability of this role was tested over three time periods (end of the 1960s, late 1970s and late 1980s) using cross‐sectional data for 26 sub‐Saharan African countries. Significance tests revealed that while the monetary impact on nominal income growth and inflation increased across the three time periods, the relationship between real money and real income growth weakened. Stability tests showed that the role of money shifted significantly for the 1980s in relation to the other two periods.     

Evaluation and thermodynamic calculation of ureolytic magnesium ammonium phosphate precipitation from UASB effluent at pilot scale

The removal of phosphate as magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP, struvite) has gained a lot of attention. A novel approach using ureolytic MAP crystallization (pH increase by means of bacterial ureases) has been tested on the anaerobic effluent of a potato processing company in a pilot plant and compared with NuReSys(?) technology (pH increase by means of NaOH). The pilot plant showed a high phosphate removal efficiency of 83 ± 7%, resulting in a final effluent concentration of 13 ± 7 mg · L(-1) PO(4)-P. Calculating the evolution of the saturation index (SI) as a function of the remaining concentrations of Mg(2+), PO(4)-P and NH(4)(+) during precipitation in a batch reactor, resulted in a good estimation of the effluent PO(4)-P concentration of the pilot plant, operating under continuous mode. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses confirmed the presence of struvite in the small single crystals observed during experiments. The operational cost for the ureolytic MAP crystallization treating high phosphate concentrations (e.g. 100 mg · L(-1) PO(4)-P) was calculated as 3.9 € kg(-1) P(removed). This work shows that the ureolytic MAP crystallization, in combination with an autotrophic nitrogen removal process, is competitive with the NuReSys(?) technology in terms of operational cost and removal efficiency but further research is necessary to obtain larger crystals.     

Understanding the nature of the risks and the source of the rewards to momentum investing

Buying recent winners and shorting recent losers guaranteestime-varying factor exposures in accordance with the performanceof common risk factors during the ranking period. Adjusted forthis dynamic risk exposure, momentum profits are remarkablystable across subperiods of the entire post-1926 era. Factormodels can explain 95% of winner or loser return variability,but cannot explain their mean return components are more profitablethan those based on total returns. Neither industry effectsnor cross-sectional differences in expected returns are theprimary cause of the momentum phenomenon.     

Optimal investment with stock repurchase and financing as signals

When management has private information it has an incentiveto finance investment by issuing a security that is overpricedin the market. The market's valuation of the issued securitymay lead management either to forego profitable investmentsor to invest suboptimally. With investment fixed, there existfully revealing signaling equilibria in which the covenantsof the issued claim serve as signals. A straight bond issuecannot provide the signals but a convertible bond issue can.With investment endogenous, fully revealing equilibria existin which the par value of a straight bond issue and the announcedlevel of investment jointly serve as signals and investmentis optimal. The article also investigates the role of a stockrepurchase in these equilibria.     

A theory of mutual formation and moral hazard with evidence from the history of the insurance industry

Nonprofit, mutually owned insurance and banking organizationshave significant market shares in the insurance and bankingindustries. A first step in a systematic study of these financialmutuals is to examined the reasons for their formation. Doingso provides empirical support for the view that these mutualsarose as an efficient means of addressing contracting challengescaused by aggregate uncertainties and moral hazard. A formalmodel with this property is presented. We argue that informationasymmetries do more to explain the kinds of contracts offeredby financial mutuals than do agency problems between owners,managers, and customers.     

Trade and the revelation of information through prices and direct disclosure

This article analyzes the volume of trade in a multiperiod noisyrational expectations model. When traders receive private signalsat the first trading date and are allowed a second round oftrade, two type of equilibria exist. In the first, traders donot learn about the average private signal from the second roundof trade, and all trade takes place at the first date. In thesecond, traders do learn from the second round, and trade thustakes places at both the first and second dates. The articlecharacterizes volume when a public signal is disclosed at thesecond date.