Reestructuración financiera del sistema bancario español

A finales del año 2007 se produjeron una serie de acontecimientos que más tarde, y por efecto del contagio internacional, desembocaron en una de las crisis económico-financieras más determinantes que se recuerdan en España. El presente proyecto tiene como objetivo entender todo el proceso de reestructuración llevado a cabo en los últimos años. Para ello, recoge inicialmente el origen de la crisis económico-financiera, para más tarde hacer referencia a las principales medidas que se han tenido que llevar a cabo para modificar el sistema financiero. Además, explica la última reforma de las Cajas de Ahorro y fundaciones bancarias junto con los cambios que la misma ha generado en el Sistema Financiero y en la Obra Social. Por último, después de analizar lo sucedido años atrás, llega a una serie de conclusiones acerca de la situación actual y futura del nuevo mapa financiero Español.

¿Bancos con Problemas? Un Sistema de Alerta Temprana para la Prevención de Crisis Bancarias

[ES] Las autoridades reguladoras y supervisoras de los sistemas financieros han probado diversos métodos para intentar encontrar un procedimiento eficaz en la elaboración de un sistema de alerta temprana de las crisis bancarias. Los Modelos de Regresión Logística han sido usados aunque han mostrado algunas debilidades, por lo que se necesitan nuevos y mejores métodos. La crisis bancaria ocurrida en la República Dominicana entre los años 2002 y 2004 se ha usado para comparar la eficacia de la Regresión Logística frente al uso del método Support Vector Machines (SVM) para la detección de crisis bancarias.

Institutional designs to face the dark side of total allowable catches

Setting total allowable catches (TACs) is an endogenous process in which different agents and institutions, often with conflicting interests and opportunistic behaviour, try to influence policy-makers. Such policy-makers, far from being the benevolent social planners many would wish them to be, may also pursue self-interest when making final decisions. Although restricted knowledge of stock abundance and population dynamics, and weakness in enforcement, have effects, these other factors may explain the reason why TAC management has failed to guarantee sustainable exploitation of fish resources. Rejecting the exogeneity of the TAC and taking advantage of fruitful debate on economic policy (i.e. the rules vs. discretion debate, and that surrounding the independence of central banks), two institutional developments are analysed as potential mechanisms to face up to misconceptions about TACs: long-term harvest control rules, and a central bank of fish.

Fine mapping and functional analysis of the multiple sclerosis risk gene CD6

CD6 has recently been identified and validated as risk gene for multiple sclerosis (MS), based on the association of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs17824933, located in intron 1. CD6 is a cell surface scavenger receptor involved in T-cell activation and proliferation, as well as in thymocyte differentiation. In this study, we performed a haptag SNP screen of the CD6 gene locus using a total of thirteen tagging SNPs, of which three were non-synonymous SNPs, and replicated the recently reported GWAS SNP rs650258 in a Spanish-Basque collection of 814 controls and 823 cases. Validation of the six most strongly associated SNPs was performed in an independent collection of 2265 MS patients and 2600 healthy controls. We identified association of haplotypes composed of two non-synonymous SNPs [rs11230563 (R225W) and rs2074225 (A257V)] in the 2nd SRCR domain with susceptibility to MS (Pmax(T) permutation=161024). The effect of these haplotypes on CD6 surface expression and cytokine secretion was also tested. The analysis showed significantly different CD6 expression patterns in the distinct cell subsets, i.e. – CD4+ naı¨ve cells, P = 0.0001; CD8+ naı¨ve cells, P,0.0001; CD4+ and CD8+ central memory cells, P = 0.01 and 0.05, respectively; and natural killer T (NKT) cells, P = 0.02; with the protective haplotype (RA) showing higher expression of CD6. However, no significant changes were observed in natural killer (NK) cells, effector memory and terminally differentiated effector memory T cells. Our findings reveal that this new MS-associated CD6 risk haplotype significantly modifies expression of CD6 on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells.

The Spanish corporate structure through interlocking directorates

[EN] The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent globalization pressures are changing interlocking directorate networks modeled on continental capitalism into Anglo-Saxon models. For this purpose we analyse the Spanish network of interlocks, comparing the present structure (2012) with that of 1993 and 2006. We show how, although Spanish corporative structure continues to display characteristics of the continental economies, some major banks are significantly reducing industrial activity. Nevertheless, the financial organizations continue to maintain a close relationship with sectors such as construction and services. The analysis of the network of directorates shows a retreat in activity of industrial banking in Spain. Two large Spanish financial institutions, BSCH and La Caixa, continue to undertake activities of industrial banking in 2006, but this activity is significantly reduced in 2012. According to the theories on the role of the interlocking directorates, the companies in these sectors assure their access to banking credit by incorporating advisors from financial organizations to their board of directors. We cannot conclude that the structure of the Spanish corporate network has become a new case of Anglo-Saxon structure, but we got indications that are becoming less hierarchic as banks seem to slowly abandon centrality positions. This is especially salient if we compare the networks of 2006 and 2012, which show a continuing decrease of the role of banks and insurance companies in the network.