Optimal Credit Rationing in Not-For-Profit Financial Institutions

We examine the dynamic optimization problem for not-for-profit financial institutions (NFPs) that maximize consumer surplus, not profits. We characterize the optimal dynamic policy and find that it involves credit rationing. Interest rates set by mature NFPs will typically be more favorable to customers than market rates, as any surplus is distributed in the form of interest rate subsidies, with credit rationing being required to prevent these subsidies from distorting loan volumes from their optimal levels. Rationing overcomes a fundamental problem in NFPs; it allows them to distribute the surplus without distorting the volume of activity from the efficient level.

Accessing the Institutions: The Road to the Socialist-Green Alliance in Spain

This article traces the strategic re-orientation of the Spanish Greens (Los Verdes) from a position of hostility toward the Socialists (PSOE) to one of collaboration that allowed them to gain parliamentary representation in the 2004 national and European elections. Drawing upon insights from the party politics literature, it schematizes a model and then proceeds to use it to provide a diachronic account of factionalist conflict within the ranks of the Greens and their close competitors, the structure of political opportunities, exogenous factors and their interrelationship, up to the point of the electoral agreement between the two parties. In concludes by highlighting the role played by the Madrid bombings in bringing the PSOE back into power and offers some projections about the future institutional access of the Greens.

The ‘Us’ in Trust: Who Trusts Northern Ireland’s Political Institutions and Actors?

This article examines levels of interest and trust among the public in relation to Northern Ireland's newly established political institutions and actors, through an analysis of the results of the 2007 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT). It is important to reveal the specific groups of people with the highest levels of political disenchantment, particularly in the context of the longer-term stability of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, since the willingness of the electorate to have faith and trust in the workability of these political institutions and in the various political actors in whose custody they lie is considered vital.