Seasonal migration and micro-credit in the lean period : evidence from northwest Bangladesh

This paper investigates the relationship between access to micro-credit and temporary seasonal migration, an issue which is largely ignored in the standard rural-urban migration literature. Seasonal migration due to agricultural downturns is a common phenomenon in developing countries. Using primary data from a cross-sectional household survey from the northwest part of Bangladesh, this study quantifies the factors that influence such migration decisions. Among other results, we find that network effects play a significant role in influencing the migration decision, with the presence of kinsmen at the place of destination having considerable impact. Seasonal migration is a natural choice for individual suffering periodic hardship; however the strict weekly loan repayment rules of Micro-credit Institutes can have an adverse effect on this process, reducing the ability of borrowers to react to a shock. Our result suggests that poor individuals prefer the option of not accessing the micro-credit and opt for temporal seasonal migration during the lean period. The results have numerous potential policy implications, including the design of typical micro-credit schemes.

Can Europe recover without credit? Bruegel Policy Contribution 2013/03, 15 February 2013

• Data from 135 countries covering five decades suggests that creditless recoveries, in which the stock of real credit does not return to the pre-crisis level for three years after the GDP trough, are not rare and are characterised by remarkable real GDP growth rates: 4.7 percent per year in middle-income countries and 3.2 percent per year in high-income countries. • However, the implications of these historical episodes for the current European situation are limited, for two main reasons: • First, creditless recoveries are much less common in high-income countries, than in low-income countries which are financially undeveloped. European economies heavily depend on bank loans and research suggests that loan supply played a major role in the recent weak credit performance of Europe. There are reasons to believe that, despite various efforts, normal lending has not yet been restored.Limited loan supply could be disruptive for the European economic recovery andthere has been only a minor substitution of bank loans with debt securities. • Second, creditless recoveries were associated with significant real exchange rate depreciation, which has hardly occurred so far in most of Europe. This stylised fact suggests that it might be difficult to re-establish economic growth in the absence of sizeable real exchange rate depreciation, if credit growth does not return.

Comparative regional perspectives: the Bologna process and higher education attainment. Jean Monnet/Robert Schumann Paper Series Vol 13 No. 11, August 2013

Since 1999, countries have voluntarily chosen to reform their higher education systems to join the European Higher Education Area. This paper compares Bologna Process implementation across four regions within the European Union. While there are 47 countries participating in the Bologna Process, this paper uses statistical analysis to consider 25 of the 28 EU Member States. The time period of analysis is 2000-2011, prior to Croatia’s accession to the EU on 1 July 2013. Across Europe there are inter-regional differences in how the Bologna Process has been implemented and in the political economy contexts that influence higher education reform for policy convergence. There are three explanatory variables in the political economy context: 1. competitive economic pressures and globalization 2. domestic politics at the national level 3. leadership from the supranational European Union that socially constructs regional norms Tertiary education attainment is the dependent variable of interest in this research. The objective of 40%, for 30-34 year olds, is Europe 2020 benchmark target. There are additional higher education reform criteria encompassed in the Bologna Process. These criteria concern Credit and Degree Structure, Quality Assurance, and Recognition of academic degrees among countries in the EHEA. This tertiary education attainment variable, which is of interest in this paper, does not capture the entire implementation process. Nevertheless, it is a measure of one important indicator of success in providing higher education access to populations within the context of democratic governance. This research finds that statistically GDP Per Capita is the most significant variable in relationship to tertiary education attainment across four regional areas in the European Union.

Collateral and Credit Rationing. The role of collateral in explaining and remediating the limited flow of credit to households and SMEs. ECRI Policy Brief No. 7, February 2014

European-wide data concerning both companies and households indicate that the credit rationing phenomenon, which has been predicted by theory, does in fact occur to a significant degree in the European credit market. Among SMEs, micro companies are most vulnerable and the current economic crisis has only made these concerns more pressing. Top-down use of the monetary transmission mechanism alone is insufficient to counter the problem. The other solution consists of a bottom-up, microeconomic stimulation of lending transactions, by focusing on collateral and guarantees. The data confirm the high importance that lenders – especially individual households and micro companies – attach to collateral and guarantees when making their lending decisions. As a consequence, we would argue that those parts of the law governing security interests and guarantees should be one of the primary targets for government policy aimed at improving credit flows, especially in avoiding a conflict between consumer protection measures and laws on surety and guarantees. This policy brief firstly aims to give an overview of the problem of credit rationing and to show that low-income households and SMEs are most concerned by the phenomenon. Focusing solely on loans as a way of financing and on the issues related to access to finance by micro and small companies as well households, it then sketches possible solutions focused on guarantees. This paper brings together data from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption survey (HFCS), Eurostat, and both the latest wave of the extended biennial EC/ECB Survey on the access to finance of SMEs (EC/ECB SAFE 2013) and the latest wave of the smaller semi-annual ECB SAFE Survey, covering the period between October 2012 and March 2013.

Asset-backed securities: The key to unlocking Europe's credit markets? Bruegel Policy Contribution 2014/07, 24 July 2014

The European market for asset-backed securities (ABS) has all but closed for business since the start of the economic and financial crisis. ABS (see Box 1) were in fact the first financial assets hit at the onset of the crisis in 2008. The subprime mortgage meltdown caused a deterioration in the quality of collateral in the ABS market in the United States, which in turn dried up overall liquidity because ABS AAA notes were popular collateral for inter-bank lending. The lack of demand for these products, together with the Great Recession in 2009, had a considerable negative impact on the European ABS market. The post-crisis regulatory environment has further undermined the market. The practice of slicing and dicing of loans into ABS packages was blamed for starting and spreading the crisis through the global financial system. Regulation in the post-crisis context has thus been relatively unfavourable to these types of instruments, with heightened capital requirements now necessary for the issuance of new ABS products. And yet policymakers have recently underlined the need to revitalise the ABS market as a tool to improve credit market conditions in the euro area and to enhance transmission of monetary policy. In particular, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have jointly emphasised that: “a market for prudently designed ABS has the potential to improve the efficiency of resource allocation in the economy and to allow for better risk sharing... by transforming relatively illiquid assets into more liquid securities. These can then be sold to investors thereby allowing originators to obtain funding and, potentially, transfer part of the underlying risk, while investors in such securities can diversify their portfolios... . This can lead to lower costs of capital, higher economic growth and a broader distribution of risk” (ECB and Bank of England, 2014a). In addition, consideration has started to be given to the extent to which ABS products could become the target of explicit monetary policy operations, a line of action proposed by Claeys et al (2014). The ECB has officially announced the start of preparatory work related to possible outright purchases of selected ABS1. In this paper we discuss how a revamped market for corporate loans securitised via ABS products, and how use of ABS as a monetary policy instrument, can indeed play a role in revitalising Europe’s credit market. However, before using this instrument a number of issues should be addressed: First, the European ABS market has significantly contracted since the crisis. Hence it needs to be revamped through appropriate regulation if securitisation is to play a role in improving the efficiency of resource allocation in the economy. Second, even assuming that this market can expand again, the European ABS market is heterogeneous: lending criteria are different in different countries and banking institutions and the rating methodologies to assess the quality of the borrowers have to take these differences into account. One further element of differentiation is default law, which is specific to national jurisdictions in the euro area. Therefore, the pool of loans will not only be different in terms of the macro risks related to each country of origination (which is a ‘positive’ idiosyncratic risk, because it enables a portfolio manager to differentiate), but also in terms of the normative side, in case of default. The latter introduces uncertainties and inefficiencies in the ABS market that could create arbitrage opportunities. It is also unclear to what extent a direct purchase of these securities by the ECB might have an impact on the credit market. This will depend on, for example, the type of securities targeted in terms of the underlying assets that would be considered as eligible for inclusion (such as loans to small and medium-sized companies, car loans, leases, residential and commercial mortgages). The timing of a possible move by the ECB is also an issue; immediate action would take place in the context of relatively limited market volumes, while if the ECB waits, it might have access to a larger market, provided steps are taken in the next few months to revamp the market. We start by discussing the first of these issues – the size of the EU ABS market. We estimate how much this market could be worth if some specific measures are implemented. We then discuss the different options available to the ECB should they decide to intervene in the EU ABS market. We include a preliminary list of regulatory steps that could be taken to homogenise asset-backed securities in the euro area. We conclude with our recommended course of action.

Agricultural Credit Market Institutions: A Comparison of Selected European Countries. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 33, January 2013

This paper describes and compares the institutional framework of the agricultural credit markets in selected European countries. The institutions can be both formal (rules, regulations, authorities and actors) and informal (norms, values and relations). They also interact and in situations where the formal institutions are weak, the informal ones increase in importance. The study is based on a questionnaire sent to agricultural financial experts in selected countries. The case studies show that credit regulations are typically general, with no specific regulations for the agricultural credit market. On the other hand, several countries support agricultural credit in various forms, implying that the governments do not perceive the general credit market to function in the case of agricultural firms. In a risk assessment, the most frequent reasons for rejecting a loan application are all linked to economic performance and the situation of the farmer. Personal characteristics, such as educational level or lack of experience, were generally perceived as less influential. Another interesting point when it comes to risk assessment is that in some countries the importance of asset-based lending compared with cash flow-based lending seems to differ when concerning a first-time applicant and when there is an application to extend a loan. To get an idea of the availability of credit, the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio was calculated, and it showed remarkably low values for Poland and Slovakia. For all the countries, the calculated value was lower than what the financial experts would have expected. This might imply credit rationing in agriculture in some of the countries studied. The financial experts all judged the possibility of an agricultural firm obtaining a loan as higher than that for other small rural firms, implying that the latter are also credit-rationed.

Experience facilitation process e o posicionamento estratégico de unidades hoteleiras

A indústria hoteleira é hoje reconhecida como uma indústria global, com produtores e consumidores espalhados por todo o mundo. Um dos grandes desafios dos nossos dias passa por maximizar a satisfação do seu consumidor e simultaneamente garantir um crescimento exponencial da procura face à concorrência. O EFP (Experience Facilitation Process) tem levantado novos desafios na gestão do turismo e da hotelaria, associado aos novos processos de gestão de negócios turísticos e à emergência de novos produtos e atributos valorizados pelos turistas. O presente estudo visa compreender até que ponto os hotéis facilitam a experiência turística e o usufruto dos seus hóspedes, maximizando a sua satisfação. Pretende-se, neste contexto, perceber se o posicionamento estratégico preconizado pelo sector coloca o enfase no elemento mais importante de uma organização, o cliente. Para o efeito, é proposto um modelo em que a EFP (Experience Facilitation Process) influencia a recomendação do hotel. O EFP é por sua vez explicado pela easiness in performance, pela tecnologia adotada, pela qualidade de F&B e pelas facilidades. O modelo foi empiricamente testado através da aplicação de uma amostra de 299 questionários recolhidos online. Tendo o modelo conceptual sido testado a partir dum modelo de equações estruturais, por recurso ao AMOS 21. Os resultados indicam que a perceção de experiência facilitada se traduz em indicadores tangíveis tais como a easiness in performance e a tecnologia. A facilitação da experiência determina a recomendação, ainda que esta recomendação seja modesta. As implicações teóricas e de gestão foram discutidas mostrando que a facilitação da experiência é um processo determinante para a satisfação dos turistas. Estes resultados empíricos, ainda que não generalizáveis, revelam a complexidade do serviço hoteleiro ao mesmo tempo que emprestam à análise do posicionamento competitivo uma nova perspetiva.

Farm-mortgage lending experience of twenty-three life insurance companies, the Federal land banks, and the Farmers Home Administration, October through December 1959 /

"ARS 43-122."

Federal credit activities : an analysis of President Reagan's credit budget for 1982 /

"April 1981"--Cover.

Budget issues : budgetary treatment of federal credit programs : report to the Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives /

"B-227245"--p.1.

Credit reform : comparable budget costs for cash and credit.

Mode of access: Internet.

The moving targets algorithm for difficult temporal credit assignment problems

The 'moving targets' algorithm for training recurrent networks is reviewed and applied to a task which demonstrates the ability of this algorithm to use distant contextual information. Some practical difficulties are discussed, especially with regard to the minimization process. Results on performance and computational requirements of several different 2nd-order minimization algorithms are presented for moving target problems.

Marketing strategy and new product development in the UK credit card industry

The development of new products in today's marketing environment is generally accepted as a requirement for the continual growth and prosperity of organisations. The literature is consequently rich with information on the development of various aspects of good products. In the case of service industries, it can be argued that new service product development is of as least equal importance as it is to organisations that produce tangible goods products. Unlike the new goods product literature, the literature on service marketing practices, and in particular, new service product development, is relatively sparse. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine a number of aspects of new service product development practice with respect to financial services and specifically, credit card financial services. The empirical investigation utilises both a case study and a survey approach, to examine aspects of new service product development industry practice relating specifically to gaps and deficiencies in the literature with respect to the financial service industry. The findings of the empirical work are subsequently examined in the context in which they provide guidance and support for a new normative new service product development model. The study examines the UK credit card financial service product sector as an industry case study and perspective. The findings of the field work reveal that the new service product development process is still evolving, and that in the case of credit card financial services can be seen as a well-structured and well-documented process. New product development can also be seen as an incremental, complex, interactive and continuous process which has been applied in a variety of ways. A number of inferences are subsequently presented.

Implications of bank ownership for the credit channel of monetary policy transmission:evidence from India

Using bank-level data from India, we examine the impact of ownership on the reaction of banks to monetary policy, and also test whether the reaction of different types of banks to monetary policy changes is different in easy and tight policy regimes. Our results suggest that there are considerable differences in the reactions of different types of banks to monetary policy initiatives of the central bank, and that the bank lending channel of monetary policy is likely to be much more effective in a tight money period than in an easy money period. We also find differences in impact of monetary policy changes on less risky short-term and more risky medium-term lending. We discuss the policy implications of the findings.

Does lending behaviour of banks in emerging economies vary by ownership? Evidence from the Indian banking sector

While much has been discussed about the relationship between ownership and financial performance of banks in emerging markets, literature about cross-ownership differences in credit market behaviour of banks in emerging economies is sparse. Using a portfolio choice model and bank-level data from India for 9 years (1995–96 to 2003–04), we examine banks’ behaviour in the context of credit markets of an emerging market economy. Our results indicate that, in India, the data for the domestic banks fit well the aforementioned portfolio-choice model, especially for private banks, but the model cannot explain the behaviour of foreign banks. In general, allocation of assets between risk-free government securities and risky credit is affected by past allocation patterns, stock exchange listing (for private banks), risk averseness of banks, regulations regarding treatment of NPA, and ability of banks to recover doubtful credit. It is also evident that banks deal with changing levels of systematic risk by altering the ratio of securitized to non-securitized credit.