129 research outputs found
Finance and its reform : beyond laissez-faire
Get PDFThat the financial sector should be liberalized was the orthodox view in the mid-1970s, during a pendulum swing toward reliance on the free market. In the early 1980s, the pendulum swung back to the left, based partly on evidence - especially from Latin America - that overly rapid reform had real costs, and partly on an increased appreciation of financial market failure. Blind adherence to free market principles was no longer appropriate. Now a counter-counterrevolution is in sight, with some swing back toward the view that the market makes a mess of it, but the government makes it even worse. The authors agree that market-oriented financial systems appear to do a better job than systems with extensive government involvement, but contend that the assumption that perfect competition will solve all problems in finance - especially in banking - can be dangerous. Information problems, implicit or explicit government guarantees associated with the payments system make banks unique. Governments implicitly recognize banking's uniqueness - few allow just anyone to enter banking - but public pronouncements and observers'recommendations often favor a move to more competition. Perfect competition, however, is optimal under the assumption, among others, of no government guarantee. In fact, most governments differ only in how explicit they are about their deposit insurance schemes. The financial reforms most likely to succeed are those that give banks an incentive to engage in safe and sound banking. When excessive competition is allowed, the charter value of banking diminishes to the point that it is no longer profitable for bankers to behave prudently. A consideration of finance's role, and a look at how reforming economies have fared, suggest also that gradual reform is often to be preferred in this domain. Deregulation of credit markets and interest rates can be counterproductive in unstable macroeconomic conditions and when banks are unsophisticated or have weak balance sheets. And changes in the charter value may evolve only slowly after reform. Faster progress and greater efforts should be made, however, in bank supervision and regulation and in institutional development, including accounting, auditing, legal and judicial reform, and training (of bankers and other finance professionals). In sum, many economies would benefit from less government intervention in financial markets, but the prescription should not be abrupt or total government withdrawal from the financial sector. Rather than intervening heavily in credit allocation decisions, governments should focus on doing what only they can do: providing an enabling environment for the private financial and nonfinancial sectors, and ensuring that financial operations are safe and sound.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring
Uncertainty and the price for crude oil reserves
Get PDFInnovations in futures, options, and derivative instruments permit active trading, speculating and hedging - linking markets for physical petroleum products with financial markets. These derivative markets continuously value petroleum delivered today and for future dates, providing a market price for inventories. Underground petroleum reserves are also an inventory defined by exploration surveys and development drilling. Thus, observable market information can be used to value these reserves. Option - valuation models can be used to price reserves using observable markets, but are dependent on unexplained convenience yields revealed by the term structure of futures prices. The authors apply a general inventory pricing model to petroleum inventories and generate an empirical model of the returns to storage for petroleum markets. They examine the determinants of the crude oil convenience yield using a stochastic control model. They specify optimal production and inventory conditions using a third-order cost function and estimate them using monthly observations. Their inventory arbitrage condition embodies the Hotelling principle and Kaldor's convenience yield, and includes a premium on the dispersion in crude oil prices. The empirical results suggest that returns to storage contain both a cost-reducing component and often sizable premiums associated with the dispersion of petroleum prices. Their findings suggest that crude oil markets differentiated by quality and location provide similar premiums. The premiums associated with the dispersion of petroleum prices may account for persistent backwardation in crude oil prices. This finding may also explain the wide discrepancies between Hotelling values and transaction prices found in previous studies.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Labor Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research
Writing and the rights of reality: usurpation and potentiality in Derrida, Plato, Nietzsche, and Beckett
Get PDFThe thesis critically evaluates Jacques Derrida's conferral of the rights of reality on writing, focussing on his theory of an arche-text in light of the speculative nature of this theory. The theory is initially considered in the context of Derrida's elucidation of the usurpatory status of writing within the Platonic and Nietzschean texts. This consideration reveals an admission of writing's usurpatory status by both writers while at the same time demonstrating their awareness of the intrinsically speculative nature of this view, the significance of writing lying in its ability to exteriorise the radically indeterminate status of consciousness m relation to reality rather than its ability to displace consciousness or reality The analyses, therefore, not only bring the Derridean hypothesis of a repressive or phonocentric metaphysical episteme into question but also exhibit the historical and philosophical role of potentiality in relation to writing, writing's ultimate significance lying in its capacity to exteriorise our existence as a mode of potentiality. Accordingly, in the second half of the thesis the Derridean theory of writing is countered with a specifically Aristotelian theory of the text as it is exhibited in the prose of Samuel Beckett, an author whose significance lies in his close alignment with Derridean theory within contemporary criticism. It is demonstrated that this identification has obviated an awareness of the significance of potentiality within the Beckettian text, his work consequently being appraised in the previously neglected context of Aristotelian metaphysics
When do special interests run rampant ? disentangling the role in banking crises of elections, incomplete information, and checks and balances
Get PDFThe author investigates the political determinants of government decisions that benefit special interest groups - especially government decisions to deal with banking crises. He finds that the better informed the voters, the more proximate elections, and the larger the number of political veto players ( conditional on the costs to voters of relevant policy decision), the smaller the government's fiscal transfer are to the financial sector and the less likely the government is to exercise forbearance in dealing with insolvent financial institutions. The results suggest that policies thatmight be appropriate for mitigating banking crises in the United States might be less effective in settings where voters are less informed, where elections are less competitive, and where there are fewer veto players, because in these settings checks and balances are missing. These policies include: a) Disseminating information about the costs of inefficient government decisions. b) Improving the structure of legislative regulatory oversight. c) Intervening early in insolvent banks. The author concludes that the more veto players there are, the less likely policies are to favor special interest groups (contrary to previous views). Moreover, the closer the elections, the less likely policies are to favor special interest groups.
Reforming institutions for service delivery : a framework for development assistance with an application to the health, nutrition, and population portfolio
Get PDFWorld Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (report no. 17300) argued that institutions-the rules of the game that govern production and exchange-shape a country's prospects for sustained market-led growth. The author provides an institutional framework for service delivery, an essential component of state capability. He applies this framework to an evaluation of Bank support for service delivery in the health, nutrition, and population sector. He argues for greater institutional pluralism in the ways the World Bank does business in infrastructure, rural, and social sectors, but cautions against making efficient service delivery an issue of"state versus market."The Bank and its clients face the challenge of fitting menus of"better practice"delivery options to maps of institutional reality. In the health, nutrition, and population sector, the Bank should (1) unbundle and categorize essential health and clinical services according to goods characteristics and (2) integrate country knowledge into operations through upstream assessments of state, political, and social institutions. Overall, the Bank has made progress toward a"goods characteristics"approach, particularly in infrastructure and some rural services-but it has lagged in the social sectors, where support remains largely technocratic. Cross-sector comparisons reveal four generations of support for service delivery. First-generation support focused mainly on physical implementation of projects. Second-generation interventions, which characterized most social service interventions, focused on improving the financial and organizational viability of implementing agencies through technical assistance. Third-generation support was marked by significant unbundling of service delivery activities and clearer links to goods characteristics. In irrigation (1982-94), telecommunications (1980s-present), and transport (1990s), the one-size-fits-all monopoly model gave way to a range of options based on greater private sector and citizen participation in delivery. These included leases, concessions, outsourcing, and contracting as well as building, operating, transfer, and turnover schemes. Fourth-generation interventions are works-in-progress and represent efforts to develop new governance arrangements that systematically combine competition, voice, and hierarchy in the design, delivery, and monitoring of Bank projects. The Bank has a poor track record building country knowledge of institutional endowments that affect service delivery. The author identifies concepts and tools valuable for sector specialists'operations.Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Health Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Governance Indicators,Poverty Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance
Targeting Extraintestinal Pathogenic E.Coli: Investigating How Capsular Polysaccharides Impact New Vaccine Strategies Within the Context of Mucosal Immunity
No full textUnemployment insurance in Algeria : implications for a labor market in transition
Get PDFTo predict how Algeria's unemployment crisis will evolve, the author evaluates the Algerian unemployment insurance system's ability to finance itself, to affect employment decisions, and promote enterprise restructuring. The main conclusion is that industrial restructuring has serious and persistent implications for the labor market. In an environment where many equilibria are possible, there is a real danger of reaching a high unemployment equilibrium. The big-bang experience of structural adjustment in Central and Eastern Europe transition economies resulted in large-scale unemployment. Despite considerable restructuring progress, structural rigidities still exist in the labor market, and long-term unemployment has persisted. One advantage of the big-bang approach is adjustment speed, but the resulting unemployment may be too costly for Algeria's economy, especially if it persists. A more modern mixed bang approach would incorporate active employment measures to mitigate entrenched unemployment. The policies will maintain or enhance human capital through work, so idle workers don't lose their skills. Flex-time arrangements would help workers maintain an attachment to the labor force. However minor, such work would help workers avoid the traps of long-term unemployment. Two striking conclusions emerge from the Central and Eastern European experience: a) unemployment is not essential to enterprise restructuring and labor market adjustment;and b) growing long-term unemployment is self-fulfilling and results in higher and persistence unemployment. Although active employment measures are costly and have relatively low rates of return in the short run, they can be marginally effective as part of a long-term strategy.Health Economics&Finance,Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform
Evaluating irrigation system performance: A case study in East Java, Indonesia
No full textSpecialists and donor groups alike claim that most public irrigation systems in Asia operate well below their potential; yet there is a very little quantitative information on the extent to which these systems are achieving performance objectives. This study develops a methodology to evaluate both operations and distribution rule performance, addressing the problem of efficient and equitable allocation of limited irrigation water across units of large public irrigation systems in Indonesia. The site chosen for the study was the Warujayeng Irrigation Project (WIP) scheme in East Java."Operations performance analysis revealed that current field management practices at WIP deviate substantially from the prescribed ""Factor Palawija Relative"" (FPR) allocation and delivery procedures. Bias in water delivery, imposition of a rigid rotation scheme during critical shortage periods and the divergence of methods used by sub-section managers to calculate planned allocations seriously restrict proper planning and implementation of the standard procedures. To the extent that closer adherence to standard operating procedures is a goal in its own right, there currently exists considerable potential for improvement in performance at WIP."Distribution rule performance simulation results indicate potential for improving water use efficiency and equity through adoption of a modified version of the FPR distribution rule. Recommendations for achieving a more efficient and equitable distribution of water are proposed and include: closer monitoring of field activities, training programs for irrigation management staff, and provision of incentives for achieving better overall performance. Simultaneous implementation of an alternative distribution rule and imposition of procedures designed for stricter adherence to those procedures would result in 50% higher total net returns from the WIP.Results suggest that considerable improvement in efficiency and equity could be realized through proper design and implementation of alternative distribution rules. This is true for technical irrigation systems in Indonesia and throughout Asia where publicly-managed systems predominate.Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:34:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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NONTARIFF AGRICULTURAL TRADE BARRIERS REVISITED
Get PDFTerminological, as well as substantive, problems with other-than-customs-duty trade protection issues have existed for a long time. After World War II, these problems proved troublesome for trade analysts. Baldwin [1970], Denton and O'Cleiracain [1972], and Lloyd [1973] were among the first who helped clarify language and ideas. Unlike many at that time, I chose to stick with "nontariff barriers" as a generic shorthand to describe a world of government measures, other than tariffs or customs taxes, which restrict or distort international commerce between domestic and imported goods and services. Viewed in this simple fashion, nontariff barriers [NTBs] came to mean the totality of instruments, other than customs duties, which restrict international trade. As to substance, the nontariff barrier issue wasn't new even in the early nineteen fifties. It was getting little attention, however, particularly in agricultural circles. International trade, itself, was a subject which was far down the list of issues important to U.S. policy circles, which were occupied mainly with "parity" prices, supply controls, and product utilization schemes. Most everyone appeared blithely to assume that the United States would continue to be indefinitely a creditor nation and a residual supplier of agricultural products to the world market. About the only works relating to agricultural trade were a 1920s book by Nourse [Nourse, 1924] and Gale Johnson's work on the trade policy dilemma of U.S. agriculture [Johnson,1950]. As to nontariff protection studies, they were almost nonexistent, and Bidwell's excellent treatise The Invisible Tariff seems to have gotten lost during World War II. I still find it difficult to comprehend why this work is almost universally absent in modern NTB bibliographies. Hence, one sub-theme of my presentation is that one should not be surprised at the early neglect of the NTB topic by academics and policy makers. Agricultural protection in general was not fashionable research in the United States for a period of 40 to 50 years, beginning in the early 1930s. I have examined the inward-looking U.S. agricultural policy during that era elsewhere in a book that was a very early product of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium [IATRC, or Consortium]. [McCalla and Josling, Chapter 7]. The first part of this paper will be devoted to revisiting the evolution of the so-called nontariff trade barrier question, and to make some modest hints and suggestions as to what the Consortium might do toward understanding its significance. Initially, I shall describe how the NTB question... through a series of passive actions on the part of governments, eco-political professionals and others... underwent a metamorphosis from a rather vague conglomerate of lists and anecdotal examples of protection to a more definitive pattern of concerns, such as those embodied in the so-called "technical barriers" terminology; then how the trend was reversed by the use of a broader appellation "environmental barriers". I shall not attempt to analyze these phenomena, only to describe how we evolved to where we are today in this sector of agricultural protection. Second, I shall present broadly some topical areas in which nontariff problems appear to exist for resolution by the World Trade Organization [WTO] in the future. The presentation will, perforce, ask why nontariff barriers came into play as protective devices in selected areas, their social and economic implications, and the groups of interests in their perpetuation. Third, and finally, some suggestions will be made, and some questions and challenges raised as to what the Consortium can do to encourage its members to be more aggressive in addressing NTB issues.International Relations/Trade,
Making negotiated land reform work : initial experience from Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa
Get PDFThe author describes a new type of negotiated land reform that relies on voluntary land transfers negotiated between buyers and sellers, with the government's role restricted to establishing the necessary framework for negotiation and making a land purchase grant available to eligible beneficiaries. This approach has emerged-following the end of the Cold War and broad macroeconomic adjustment--as many countries face a second generation of reforms to address deep-rooted structural problems and provide a basis for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. The author describes initial experiences in Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa. It is too soon to know whether negotiated land reform can rise to the challenges administrative land reform failed to solve but the data so far suggests that: 1) Negotiated land reform can succeed only if measures are taken to make the market for land sales and rentals more fluid transparent. 2) Productive projects are likely to be the key to market-assisted land reform. The potential for project productivity establishes an upper bound on the price to be paid and a basis for financial intermediaries to evaluate the project. It also requires beneficiaries to familiarize themselves with the realities they're likely to confront as independent farmers and the limits to how much land reform can help them achieve their goals. 3) The only way to effectively coordinate the entities involved in the process is through decentralized, demand-driven implementation. 4) The long-run success of land reform depends on getting the private sector involved and using the land purchase grant to"crowd in"private money.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Land Use and Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction,Banks&Banking Reform
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