Residential property loans and bank performance during property price booms: evidence from Europe

Understanding the performance of banks is of the utmost importance due to the impact the sector may have on economic growth and financial stability. Residential mortgage loans constitute a large proportion of the portfolio of many banks and are one of the key assets in the determination of their performance. Using a dynamic panel model, we analyse the impact of residential mortgage loans on bank profitability and risk, based on a sample of 555 banks in the European Union (EU-15), over the period from 1995 to 2008. We find that an increase in residential mortgage loans seems to improve bank’s performance in terms of both profitability and credit risk in good market, pre-financial crisis, conditions. These findings may aid in explaining why banks rush to lend to property during booms because of the positive effect it has on performance. The results also show that credit risk and profitability are lower during the upturn in the residential property cycle.

Are professional macroeconomic forecasters able to do better than forecasting trends?

This paper investigates whether survey forecasters are able to make more accurate forecasts than simply supposing that the future values of the variable will move monotonically to the long-run expectation. We consider the forecasts individually, and the consensus forecasts. Consensus survey forecasts are able to do so to varying degrees depending on the variable, but this ability is largely limited to forecasts of the current quarter.

Influence of the size distribution of particles on the viscous property of an electrorheological fluid

The influence of the size distribution of particles on the viscous property of an electrorheological fluid has been investigated by the molecular dynamic simulation method. The shear stress of the fluid is found to decrease with the increase of the variance sigma(2) of the Gaussian distribution of the particle size, and then reach a steady value when sigma is larger than 0.5. This phenomenon is attributed to the influence of the particle size distribution on the dynamic structural evolution in the fluid as well as the strength of the different chain-like structures formed by the particles.

Future cities: urbanisation and the impact on the construction & property sector

The Westminster Sustainable Business Forum (WSBF) has compiled a collection of expert essays on the topic of ‘sustainable construction’ contributed to by industry, policy-makers, and specialists from academia.

Working with legal pluralism: widowhood, property inheritance and poverty alleviation in urban Senegal

This article explores the role of women's inheritance and ownership of property in urban Senegal. It shows how being able to inherit and own property promotes the economic and emotional security of widows and their children in urban areas, and discusses the challenges posed by legal pluralism in working on poverty alleviation and social protection in the city.

Financialisation, the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the UK

The financialisation literature has been criticised for its limited empirical base and its failure adequately to link the everyday world with that of high finance. The paper addresses these shortcomings by examining the calculative practice of property valuation. The way that valuations are performed affects their results and, therefore, the operation of the property market. The paper traces the evolving influence of finance capital on the valuation of commercial property in the UK by constructing a historiography of investment valuation since 1960. Traditional approaches to valuation have been increasingly challenged by those derived from financial economics. However, the former remains the dominant method for undertaking market valuation. Its grounding in comparison – a centring and standardising process – offers an explanation for some of the changes in the urban built environment that are ascribed to financialisation. This suggests that a more detailed and historically sensitive interpretation of financialisation is required.

Training on the use of a bespoke continuing professional development framework improves the quality of CPD records

BACKGROUND: Using continuing professional development (CPD) as part of the revalidation of pharmacy professionals has been proposed in the UK but not implemented. We developed a CPD Outcomes Framework (‘the framework’) for scoring CPD records, where the score range was -100 to +150 based on demonstrable relevance and impact of the CPD on practice. OBJECTIVE: This exploratory study aimed to test the outcome of training people to use the framework, through distance-learning material (active intervention), by comparing CPD scores before and after training. SETTING: Pharmacy professionals were recruited in the UK in Reading, Banbury, Southampton, Kingston-upon-Thames and Guildford in 2009. METHOD: We conducted a randomised, double-blinded, parallel-group, before and after study. The control group simply received information on new CPD requirements through the post; the active intervention group also received the framework and associated training. Altogether 48 participants (25 control, 23 active) completed the study. All participants submitted CPD records to the research team before and after receiving the posted resources. The records (n=226) were scored blindly by the researchers using the framework. A subgroup of CPD records (n=96) submitted first (before-stage) and rewritten (after-stage) were analysed separately. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Scores for CPD records received before and after distributing group-dependent material through the post. RESULTS: Using a linear-regression model both analyses found an increase in CPD scores in favour of the active intervention group. For the complete set of records, the effect was a mean difference of 9.9 (95% CI = 0.4 to 19.3), p-value = 0.04. For the subgroup of rewritten records, the effect was a mean difference of 17.3 (95% CI = 5.6 to 28.9), p-value = 0.0048. CONCLUSION: The intervention improved participants’ CPD behaviour. Training pharmacy professionals to use the framework resulted in better CPD activities and CPD records, potentially helpful for revalidation of pharmacy professionals. IMPACT: • Using a bespoke Continuing Professional Development outcomes framework improves the value of pharmacy professionals’ CPD activities and CPD records, with the potential to improve patient care. • The CPD outcomes framework could be helpful to pharmacy professionals internationally who want to improve the quality of their CPD activities and CPD records. • Regulators and officials across Europe and beyond can assess the suitability of the CPD outcomes framework for use in pharmacy CPD and revalidation in their own setting.

Interviewing children and young people with learning disabilities: guidelines for researchers and multi-professional practice

We argue that it is important for researchers and service providers to not only recognize the rights of children and young people with learning disabilities to have a ‘voice’, but also to work actively towards eliciting views from all. A set of guidelines for critical self-evaluation by those engaged in systematically collecting the views of children and young people with learning disabilities is proposed. The guidelines are based on a series of questions concerning: research aims and ethics (encompassing access/gatekeepers; consent/assent; confidentiality/anonymity/secrecy, recognition, feedback and ownership; and social responsibility) sampling, design and communication

The role of industry bodies in changing market practices through self-regulation: commercial property leasing in the UK

The UK government has sought to make changes to commercial property leasing practices. This has been the case since the recession of the 1990s. Industry self-regulation using an industry code of practice has been the vehicle for these changes. However, the code has had little direct success in changing practices. This is despite repeated threats of legislation as a constant backdrop to this initiative. The focus for this research is on the role of the industry bodies in the code initiative. They have been central to self-regulation in commercial leasing. Thus, the aim is to investigate the role of industry bodies in the process of institutional change. The context is industry self-regulation. The specific setting is commercial leasing. The main industry bodies in focus are the British Property Federation and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. An existing model of institutional change forms the framework for the research. A chronological narrative is constructed from secondary data. This is analysed, identifying the actions of the industry bodies within the conceptual stages of the model. The analysis shows that the industry bodies had not acted as convincing agents of change for commercial leasing. In particular there was a lack of theorisation, a key stage in the process. The industry bodies did not develop a framework necessary to guide their members through the change process. These shortcomings of the industry bodies are likely to have contributed to the failure of the Code. However, the main conclusion is that, if industry self-regulation is led by government, then the state must work with industry bodies to harness their potential as champions and drivers of institutional change. This is particularly important in achieving change in institutionalised environments.

Location, location, location? Analysing property rents in medieval Gloucester

Although medieval rentals have been extensively studied, few scholars have used them to analyse variations in the rents paid on individual properties within a town. It has been claimed that medieval rents did not reflect economic values or market forces, but were set according to social and political rather than economic criteria, and remained ossified at customary levels. This paper uses hedonic regression methods to test whether property rents in medieval Gloucester were influenced by classic economic factors such as the location and use of a property. It investigates both rents and local rates (landgavel), and explores the relationship between the two. It also examines spatial autocorrelation. It finds significant relationships between urban rents and property characteristics that are similar to those found in modern studies. The findings are consistent with the view that, in Gloucester at least, medieval rents were strongly influenced by classical economic factors working through a competitive urban property market.