The Financial Accountability of Irish Credit Unions: an initial empirical study

Credit unions are member-owned, voluntary, self-help, democratic, not-for-profit institutions that provide financial services to their members. They have both economic and social goals. Over this last decade they have achieved remarkable growth levels and currently there are 600 such organisations in Ireland, with approximately 50 per cent of the adult population of Ireland belonging to a credit union. Accounting for credit unions is a much-neglected area and relatively little is known about the sector's accountability. This paper presents the results of an initial empirical study of the financial accountability of Irish credit unions. A series of interviews and a basic content analysis of 178 recent financial statements were used to identify the views of key stakeholders with respect to the discharge of financial accountability by credit unions and the current quality of financial reporting. Overall, the research points to a sector where financial accountability through the medium of the annual report is weak and possible adverse consequences of this are explored. On the basis of the interviews it is suggested that if changes in financial accountability are to be achieved then some more proactive engagement of parties external to the management of individual credit unions is needed.

Investigating the cost Performance of UK Credit Unions using Radial and Non-Radial Efficiency Measures

This paper examines the relative efficiency of UK credit unions. Radial and non-radial measures of input cost efficiency plus associated scale efficiency measures are computed for a selection of input output specifications. Both measures highlighted that UK credit unions have considerable scope for efficiency gains. It was mooted that the documented high levels of inefficiency may be indicative of the fact that credit unions, based on clearly defined and non-overlapping common bonds, are not in competition with each other for market share. Credit unions were also highlighted as suffering from a considerable degree of scale inefficiency with the majority of scale inefficient credit unions subject to decreasing returns to scale. The latter aspect highlights that the UK Government's goal of larger credit unions must be accompanied by greater regulatory freedom if inefficiency is to be avoided. One of the advantages of computing non-radial measures is that an insight into potential over- or under-expenditure on specific inputs can be obtained through a comparison of the non-radial measure of efficiency with the associated radial measure. Two interesting findings emerged, the first that UK credit unions over-spend on dividend payments and the second that they under-spend on labour costs.

The Growth of US Credit Unions

The growth of US credit unions during the 1990s is investigated empirically, using univariate and multivariate cross sectional and panel estimation techniques. Univariate tests of the law of proportionate effect suggest that in general large credit unions grew faster than their smaller counterparts. On average credit unions with above-average growth in one period tended to experience below-average growth in the next. Smaller credit unions tended to have more variable growth than large ones. While credit unions share a common co-operative philosophy, they differ in terms of age profile, scope for membership growth, charter type and financial structure and performance. In estimations of a multivariate growth model, most of these characteristics are found to have a significant influence on the size-growth relationship. While large state chartered credit unions grew faster than their smaller counterparts, the reverse was true for federally chartered credit unions. In general, if larger credit unions grew faster than smaller ones, they tended to do so for specific reasons: because their charters were less restrictive, because they were more efficient, or because they had a financial structure that was more conducive to growth. Therefore credit union growth was not `random', but highly systematic.

The diversification and financial performance of US credit unions

For US credit unions, revenue from non-interest sources has increased significantly in recent years. We investigate the impact of revenue diversification on financial performance for the period 1993–2004. The impact of a change in strategy that alters the share of non-interest income is decomposed into a direct exposure effect, reflecting the difference between interest and non-interest bearing activities, and an indirect exposure effect which reflects the effect of the institution’s own degree of diversification. On both risk-adjusted and unadjusted returns measures, a positive direct exposure effect is outweighed by a negative indirect exposure effect for all but the largest credit unions. This may imply that similar diversification strategies are not appropriate for large and small credit unions. Small credit unions should eschew diversification and continue to operate as simple savings and loan institutions, while large credit unions should be encouraged to exploit new product opportunities around their core expertise.

Charabanc, cultural capital and the men of recognised credit

This paper compares the cultural legacy of the all-female Charabanc with that of Field Day, its fellow counterpart in the Irish Theatre touring movement in the 1980s. It suggests that a conscious awareness amongst the all-male Field Day board of successful writers and directors of what Bourdieu has called 'cultural capital' is implicated in the enduring authority of the work of that company within the history of Irish theatre. Conversely the paper considers if the populist Charabanc, in its steadfast refusal to engage with the hierarchies of academia and publishing, was too neglectful of the cultural capital which it accrued in its heyday and has thus been party to its own occlusion from that same history.

Cost performance of Irish credit unions

There are 424 credit unions in Ireland with assets under their control of €14.3bn and a membership of 2.5m which equates to about 66% of the economically active population, the highest penetration level of any country. That said, the Irish movement sits at a critical development stage, well behind mature markets such as Canada and the US in terms of product provision, technological sophistication, fragmentation of trade bodies and regulatory environment. This study analyses relative cost efficiency or performance of Irish credit unions using the popular frontier approach which measures an entity’s efficiency relative to a frontier of best practice. Parametric techniques are utilised, with variation in inefficiency being attributed to credit union-specific factors. The stochastic cost frontier parameters and the credit-union specific parameters are simultaneously estimated to produce valid statistical inferences. The study finds that the majority of Irish credit unions are not operating at optimal levels. It further highlights the factors which drive efficiency variation across credit unions and they include technological sophistication, ‘sponsor donated’ resources, interest rate differentials and the levels of bad debt written off

Innate host defense functions of secretory leucoprotease inhibitor

Chronic lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis and emphysema are characterized by a protease burden, an infective process and a dominant proinflammatory profile. Secretory leucoprotease inhibitor (SLPI) is a prominent innate immune protein of the respiratory tract, possessing serine protease inhibitor activity, antibacterial activity, and anti-inflammatory/immunomodulatory activity. In the course of this review, the authors highlight the findings from a range of studies that illustrate the multiple functions of SLPI and its role in the resolution of the immune response.