The economic consequences of mortgage debt

Unsurprisingly, a great deal of attention has been paid to the economic consequences of the credit crunch. However, this paper shows that the credit crunch was preceded by a strong build-up of mortgage debt internationally, which, in the long run, could turn out to be more significant than the credit crunch itself. Indeed, the debt build-up suggests that the credit crunch is more likely to reoccur, because highly-indebted households have weaker buffers to withstand unexpected shocks to their incomes or to interest rates. The paper presents a model that can explain the debt build-up and changes to the distribution of debt between existing owners and first-time buyers, which hinders access to home-ownership for the latter, even amongst those households who would be considered as credit-worthy.

Investigating the phytotoxicity of the graminicide fluazifop-P-butyl against native UK wildflower species

BACKGROUND: The selective graminicide fluazifop-P-butyl is used for the control of grass weeds in dicotyledonous crops, and commonly applied in amenity areas to reduce grass productivity and promote wildflower establishment. However, evidence suggests that fluazifop-P-butylmight also have phytotoxic effects on somenon-target plants. This study investigates the effects of fluazifop-P-butyl on the emergence, phytotoxicity and above-ground biomass of nine perennial wildflower species and two grass species, following pre- and post-emergent applications at half, full and double label rates in a series of glasshouse experiments. RESULTS: While pre- and post-emergent applications of fluazifop-P-butyl caused reductions in seedling emergence and increased phytotoxicity on native wildflower and grass species, these effects were temporary for the majority of wildflower species tested, and generally only occurred at the double application rate. No differences in biomass were observed at any of the rates, suggesting good selectivity and no long-term effects of fluazifop-P-butyl application on the wildflower species from either pre-emergent or post-emergent applications. CONCLUSION: These results have direct relevance to the management of amenity areas for biodiversity, as they confirm the suitability of these wildflower species for inclusion in seed mixtures where fluazifop-P-butyl is to be applied to control grass productivity.

A comparison of automated keyphrase extraction techniques and of automatic evaluation vs. human evaluation

Keyphrases are added to documents to help identify the areas of interest they contain. However, in a significant proportion of papers author selected keyphrases are not appropriate for the document they accompany: for instance, they can be classificatory rather than explanatory, or they are not updated when the focus of the paper changes. As such, automated methods for improving the use of keyphrases are needed, and various methods have been published. However, each method was evaluated using a different corpus, typically one relevant to the field of study of the method’s authors. This not only makes it difficult to incorporate the useful elements of algorithms in future work, but also makes comparing the results of each method inefficient and ineffective. This paper describes the work undertaken to compare five methods across a common baseline of corpora. The methods chosen were Term Frequency, Inverse Document Frequency, the C-Value, the NC-Value, and a Synonym based approach. These methods were analysed to evaluate performance and quality of results, and to provide a future benchmark. It is shown that Term Frequency and Inverse Document Frequency were the best algorithms, with the Synonym approach following them. Following these findings, a study was undertaken into the value of using human evaluators to judge the outputs. The Synonym method was compared to the original author keyphrases of the Reuters’ News Corpus. The findings show that authors of Reuters’ news articles provide good keyphrases but that more often than not they do not provide any keyphrases.

Progress in the genetics of common obesity and type 2 diabetes

The prevalence of obesity and diabetes, which are heritable traits that arise from the interactions of multiple genes and lifestyle factors, continues to rise worldwide, causing serious health problems and imposing a substantial economic burden on societies. For the past 15 years, candidate gene and genome-wide linkage studies have been the main genetic epidemiological approaches to identify genetic loci for obesity and diabetes, yet progress has been slow and success limited. The genome-wide association approach, which has become available in recent years, has dramatically changed the pace of gene discoveries. Genome-wide association is a hypothesis-generating approach that aims to identify new loci associated with the disease or trait of interest. So far, three waves of large-scale genome-wide association studies have identified 19 loci for common obesity and 18 for common type 2 diabetes. Although the combined contribution of these loci to the variation in obesity and diabetes risk is small and their predictive value is typically low, these recently identified loci are set to substantially improve our insights into the pathophysiology of obesity and diabetes. This will require integration of genetic epidemiological methods with functional genomics and proteomics. However, the use of these novel insights for genetic screening and personalised treatment lies some way off in the future.

Mixed use urban regeneration at Brindleyplace, Birmingham and Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth: an assessment of the impact on local and national economies

This independent research was commissioned by the British Property Federation. The report examines the local and national economic impact of two major, mixed use schemes in terms of tax revenue, household income, business rates and council tax and jobs creation. A regeneration balance sheet for each scheme is presented in the context of government policy and other related research. The report provides a comprehensive review of government policy and the role of retail and other land uses in regeneration. Highlighting the importance of national and local multiplier effects with detailed statistics drawn from a variety of sources, this fully illustrated colour research report builds up a detailed picture of economic impact of the mixed use regeneration schemes in the local economies of Birmingham and Portsmouth. The report will be of interest to property people, planners and all involved in regeneration and local economies.

Within-person analyses of situational interest and boredom: Interactions between task-specific perceptions and achievement goals

Despite the increasing number of studies examining the correlates of interest and boredom, surprisingly little research has focused on within-person fluctuations in these emotions, making it difficult to describe their situational nature. To address this gap in the literature, this study conducted repeated measurements (12 times) on a sample of 158 undergraduate students using a variety of self-report assessments, and examined the within-person relationships between task-specific perceptions (expectancy, utility, and difficulty) and interest and boredom. This study further explored the role of achievement goals in predicting between-person differences in these within-person relationships. Utilizing hierarchical-linear modeling, we found that, on average, a higher perception of both expectancy and utility, as well as a lower perception of difficulty, was associated with higher interest and lower boredom levels within individuals. Moreover, mastery-approach goals weakened the negative within-person relationship between difficulty and interest and the negative within-person relationship between utility and boredom. Mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals strengthened the negative relationship between expectancy and boredom. These results suggest how educators can more effectively instruct students with different types of goals, minimizing boredom and maximizing interest and learning.

Low-frequency volatility of real estate securities in relation to macroeconomic risk

Real estate securities have a number of distinct characteristics that differentiate them from stocks generally. Key amongst them is that under-pinning the firms are both real as well as investment assets. The connections between the underlying macro-economy and listed real estate firms is therefore clearly demonstrated and of heightened importance. To consider the linkages with the underlying macro-economic fundamentals we extract the ‘low-frequency’ volatility component from aggregate volatility shocks in 11 international markets over the 1990-2014 period. This is achieved using Engle and Rangel’s (2008) Spline-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (Spline-GARCH) model. The estimated low-frequency volatility is then examined together with low-frequency macro data in a fixed-effect pooled regression framework. The analysis reveals that the low-frequency volatility of real estate securities has strong and positive association with most of the macroeconomic risk proxies examined. These include interest rates, inflation, GDP and foreign exchange rates.

Impact of externalities on sustainable development: evidence from public-private partnerships in Kazakhstan and Russia

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the influence of public-private partnerships (PPPs) on social and economic conditions in Kazakhstan and Russia from a public economics perspective, namely, through the lens of a market failure and PPPs’ negative externalities. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the concept of a market failure and using the externalities perspective, the paper investigates whether partnerships are instrumental in solving market problems, which is illustrated by the evidence from ongoing PPP projects in Kazakhstan and Russia. Findings – Results show that citizens face expansion of monopolistic trends in the service provision and decreased availability of public services. Additionally, the government support to partnerships recreates a negative externality in the form of a higher risk premium on loan interest rates that banks use to finance PPPs. The partnerships’ impact on sustainable development often appears detrimental, as they significantly intensify the struggle between sub-national governments for increased transfers from the national budget. Practical implications – The government agencies must incorporate the appraisal of the PPP externalities and their effects on the society in the decision-making regarding the PPP formation. Originality/value – The authors suggest that, although government is interested in PPPs’ positive externalities, in reality many negative externalities may offset the positive spillover effects. As a result, the partnerships’ contributions to economic and social sustainability remain controversial. Extending the value-for-money concept to incorporate the assessment of PPP externalities might significantly enhance the partnership conceptualisation by more comprehensive and accurate assessment of PPPs’ economic and social value.

The effects of corporate and country sustainability characteristics on the cost of debt: an international investigation

We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based in 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings reveal that country sustainability, relating to both social and environmental frameworks, has a statistically and economically impactful effect on direct financing of economic activity. An increase of one unit in a country's sustainability score is associated with an average decrease in the cost of debt by 64 basis points. Our international analysis shows that the environmental dimension of a country's institutional framework is approximately twice as impactful as the social dimension, when it comes to determining the cost of corporate loans. On the other hand, we find no conclusive evidence that firm-level sustainability influences the interest rates charged to borrowing firms by banks. Our main findings survive a battery of robustness tests and additional analyses concerning subsamples, alternative sustainability metrics and the effects of financial crisis.

The impact of deregulation and re-regulation on bank efficiency: evidence from Asia

Following the 1997 crisis, banking sector reforms in Asia have been characterised by the emphasis on prudential regulation, associated with increased financial liberalisation. Using a panel data set of commercial banks from eight major Asian economies over the period 2001-2010, this study explores how the coexistence of liberalisation and prudential regulation affects banks’ cost characteristics. Given the presence of heterogeneity of technologies across countries, we use a stochastic frontier approach followed by the estimation of a deterministic meta-frontier to provide ‘true’ estimates of bank cost efficiency measures. Our results show that the liberalization of bank interest rates and the increase in foreign banks' presence have had a positive and significant impact on technological progress and cost efficiency. On the other hand, we find that prudential regulation might adversely affect bank cost performance. When designing an optimal regulatory framework, policy makers should combine policies which aim to foster financial stability without hindering financial intermediation.

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging, motivation, and interest

Objectives: The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related difference would be present in this type of common error detection task. Method: Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. Results: There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. Discussion: The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.