Dynamic latent trait models: An application to Latin American banking crises

Dynamic latent trait models combine information from a variety of manifest variables, possibly measured on different scales, that are presumed to be indicators of an unobserved latent phenomenon, while allowing appropriate consideration of the longitudinal character of time series. I use a Bayesian dynamic latent trait model of banking sector financial accounts measured at the country/quarter level to build an indicator of banking system robustness in Latin America. As a methodological innovation, I extend dynamic latent trait models to take into account country-specific effects of bank regulatory regimes through hierarchical modeling of factor loadings. I suggest how these models can be applied to other types of phenomena—for example to combine existing political regime indicators to build a more informative measure of democracy.     

Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen,programmatischen Standpunkten und der Bundespolitik auf die Regierungsbildung in den deutschen Ländern

Party politics at the German state level plays a decisive role for patterns of party competition and for legislative decision-making at the federal level. This article analyses the impact of party politics at the state and the federal level on the formation of coalition governments in the German Laender. The empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset that covers information on the state parties’ programmatic positions, their pre-electoral alliances, and the structure of party competition on the federal level in the time period between 1990 and 2007. The results reveal that the programmatic positions of state parties have a decisive impact on government formation. Other relevant factors are the parties’ relative strength, their coalition preferences and the partisan composition of government and opposition on the federal level.     

甘肃在利用世行贷款中存在的问题及对策研究

世贸组织、国际货币基金组织、世界银行构成了世界经济的三大支柱。针对甘肃这样一个经济欠发达的省区来说 ,解决开发资金短缺问题至关重要。本文通过剖析甘肃在利用世行贷款中存在的问题 ,提出了世行贷款在甘肃大开发中良性运作的对策。     

Financing the peace: Evaluating World Bank post-conflict assistance programs

Does World Bank aid to countries damaged by civil conflict meet its stated goals of speeding economic recovery and reducing the risk of conflict recidivism? We contend that the Bank’s success depends on its ability to bolster and signal the credibility of politicians’ commitments to peaceful politics and tailor its programs to the post-conflict environment. In the first systematic evaluation of World Bank post-conflict assistance, we estimate selection-corrected event history models of the effect of Bank programs on recovery and recurrence using an original dataset of all World Bank programs in post-conflict environments. Among key results, we find that the Bank tends to select aid recipients according to their pre-existing probability of conflict recurrence and that, once we control for this non-random selection, the Bank has no systematic effect on either conflict recurrence or economic recovery.     

维特与华俄道胜银行

19世纪末20世纪初,时任俄国财政部长的谢尔盖.尤里耶维奇.维特及其控制下的华俄道胜银行在一系列侵华活动中充当了重要角色。在维特的策划下,俄法联合成立了华俄道胜银行。华俄道胜银行的发展、兴盛,实际上也是在以维特为首的俄国财政部的控制之下。维特对华俄道胜银行的控制及利用,反映了沙皇俄国对中国进行的经济掠夺和侵略。     

Risk,Social Protection and the World Market

Abstract

This paper sees market building in Asia as part of the larger project of constructing a global market economy – a project which can be traced back to Adam Smith and, more recently, to the founding of a set of global liberal institutions in the post-World War II period. In the last two decades the global liberal impulse behind the creation of these institutions has gained momentum, in step with the emergence of a “world market” of genuinely global scale. The issue of risk is central to the project of building a world market. Following an introduction to the global liberal project, the first section of this paper addresses the question of risk through a critical analysis of the difference between negative risks (both external and internal) that pose a threat to the global liberal project, and the positive risks that the project seeks to embed and incentivise. The second section outlines the treatment of risk in the literature on the “political economy of reform,” and the third provides a detailed analysis of Social Risk Management at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank over the last decade. The final section reflects on the implications for “building markets in Asia.”     

英国中央银行法律制度的最新发展以及对中国的启示

本文对英国中央银行法改革作了五个方面的总结,并逐一与中国的中央银行制度进行比较,提出可资中国借鉴之处.这五个方面包括中央银行的本质、中央银行的独立性、中央银行工作的透明度、对中央银行权力的制约机制以及规范性与灵活性的关系.     

„Selbstbewusst“ und „stolz“. Das außenpolitische Vokabular der Berliner Republik als Fährte einer Neuorientierung

The article sketches a newly developed analytical approach (“vocabulary analysis”) inspired by philosophy of language. Without engaging in the debate as to whether Germany’s foreign policy is best characterised either in terms of continuity or change, the article reconstructs the development of the German foreign policy practice between 1986 and 2002 on the basis of the foreign policy elite’s discourse. In an exemplary fashion it illustrates the use of the key concepts Germany, Europe, power, responsibility, self-confidence and pride. We conclude that vocabulary analysis reveals astonishing shifts in the semantic web of which German foreign policy discourse is “woven” — shifts which will also leave traces in Germany’s foreign policy identity.     

关于中国人民银行与银监会职责分工的探讨——兼评《中国人民银行法》的修订与《银行业监督管理法》的制定

中国人民银行和银监会的职责分工是修改《中国人民银行法》与制定《银行业监督管理法》的重要背景。这两部法律对二者的职责作了相对清晰的界定 ,对其职责协调问题亦有一定规定。虽然两法的实施绩效尚待观察 ,虽然在具体实施中仍会产生各种问题 ,但它们的出台 ,对于加强人民银行的宏观调控、规范银监会监管职责的履行、防范和化解金融风险、促进金融体制改革 ,无疑具有重大意义。     

World Bank Lending And Other Financial Flows: Is There a Connection?

At a time when there is a serious debate about reforming the international financial architecture, it is important to understand how existing multilateral agencies affect financial flows to emerging and less-developed countries. This paper extends past research - which has focused on the International Monetary Fund - by examining the various mechanisms through which the World Bank may be associated with other financial flows, and by presenting new empirical evidence based on regression analysis. Little support is found for a positive connection. The implications of this finding for effective reform of the Bank and its various activities are then discussed.