The Volcker Rule: A Brief Political History

Today, more than five years after Dodd-Frank was first signed into law, uncertainty surrounds many aspects of the Volcker Rule’s application and ultimate impact on financial markets and bank stability. Many more years will likely pass before that uncertainty is resolved. We demonstrate through a quantitative and qualitative analysis that these difficulties were presaged by the Volcker Rule’s political history. The Volcker Rule -- originally rejected by Congressional lawmakers and economists within the Obama administration as unworkable -- arose as a political concession designed to quiet critics who contended that Dodd-Frank did not do enough to control risky bank activity. But deep divisions about the proper scope of the rule persisted even as the statute was signed into law, ensuring that these debates continued into the rulemaking phase. Efforts to influence the Volcker Rule at the agency level began immediately after presidential signing and persisted until enactment of the final rule. Those expressing an opinion on the rule included affected industry members, academics, public interest groups, private individuals, and state and foreign governments, among others. Systematic analyses of meeting logs and comment letters reveal that much of this activity involved the market making exemption. Specifically, commenters disputed how broadly the exemption should be interpreted and applied, the extent to which limitations on banks’ abilities to make markets would reduce market liquidity, and the likely costs of any such reduction, should it occur

The Volcker Rule: A Brief Political History

Today, more than five years after Dodd-Frank was first signed into law, uncertainty surrounds many aspects of the Volcker Rule’s application and ultimate impact on financial markets and bank stability. Many more years will likely pass before that uncertainty is resolved. We demonstrate through a quantitative and qualitative analysis that these difficulties were presaged by the Volcker Rule’s political history. The Volcker Rule -- originally rejected by Congressional lawmakers and economists within the Obama administration as unworkable -- arose as a political concession designed to quiet critics who contended that Dodd-Frank did not do enough to control risky bank activity. But deep divisions about the proper scope of the rule persisted even as the statute was signed into law, ensuring that these debates continued into the rulemaking phase. Efforts to influence the Volcker Rule at the agency level began immediately after presidential signing and persisted until enactment of the final rule. Those expressing an opinion on the rule included affected industry members, academics, public interest groups, private individuals, and state and foreign governments, among others. Systematic analyses of meeting logs and comment letters reveal that much of this activity involved the market making exemption. Specifically, commenters disputed how broadly the exemption should be interpreted and applied, the extent to which limitations on banks’ abilities to make markets would reduce market liquidity, and the likely costs of any such reduction, should it occur

Do Racial Disparities Exist During Pretrial Decisionmaking? Evidence From North Carolina

Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System are well documented in that minority defendants are over-represented compared with white defendants. The present authors argue that it is crucial to study the pretrial stages because they are a pivotal point in the criminal justice process continuum and racial disparities may begin to take root at an early stage of the process. We find some evidence of racial disparities in pretrial decisionmaking. The type of bond assigned differs by race. Black defendants who were unable to post bond spent more days in jail, compared to white counterparts. However, race is not a significant predictor of bond amount in the regression analysis, indicating that racial disparities may not be as pronounced as some advocates believe in terms of bond amounts set by judges. We acknowledge that the findings are limited due to small sample size and cautions should be taken when generalizing the findings

Predictors of Job Satisfaction among Staff in Assisted Living

Using findings from a statewide study of satisfaction and retention of 294 direct-care staff in 39 assisted-living facilities (ALFs) in Georgia, this study examines the effect of sociodemographic, job, and attitudinal characteristics on overall job satisfaction and its various dimensions. The results show age has a negative effect on promotion satisfaction. Whites are more satisfied than non-whites with overall job, work, supervision, and pay. Urban workers are less satisfied with overall job, supervisor, coworker, promotion, and pay than their rural counterparts. Education negatively affects coworker satisfaction. Workers with children are less satisfied with supervisor relationships, and pay than childless persons. Pay is positively associated with pay satisfaction. Perceived workload is negatively associated with overall job satisfaction and each of its dimensions. Finally, perceived autonomy is positively associated with promotion satisfaction. The results of this study emphasize the need for new strategies to improve job satisfaction among workers in ALFs

Intergenerational Ties in Context: Grandparents Caring for Grandchildren in China

Guided by theories and empirical research on intergenerational relationships, we examine the phenomenon of grandparents caring for grandchildren in contemporary China. Using a longitudinal dataset (China Health and Nutrition Survey), the authors document a high level of structural and functional solidarity in grandparent-grandchildren relationships. Intergenerational solidarity is indicated by a high rate of coresidence between grandchildren and grandparents, a sizable number of skipped-generation households (no parent present), extensive childcare involvement by non-coresidential grandparents, and a large amount of care provided by coresidential grandparents. Multivariate analysis further suggests that grandparents’ childcare load is adaptive to familial needs, as reflected by the characteristics of the household, household members and work activities of the mothers

An Exploration of “Non-Economic” Damages in Civil Jury Awards

Using three primary data sources plus three supplemental sources discussed in an appendix, this paper examines how well non-economic damages could be predicted by economic damages and at how the ratio of non-economic damages to economic damages changed as the magnitude of the economic damages awarded by juries increased. We found a mixture of consistent and inconsistent patterns across our various datasets. One fairly consistent pattern was the tendency for the ratio of non-economic to economic damages to decline as the amount of economic damages increased. Moreover, the variability of the ratio also tended to decline as the amount of economic damages increased. We found less consistency in our simple regression models where we predicted the log of noneconomic damages from the log of economic damages. In all of those models, the slopes of the fitted line were positive, but the slopes and the measures of fit (r2) varied from dataset to dataset, and among type of case within those datasets with multiple case types. Also, where we had the same type of case across datasets, we found variation in the fit and slope. With two of the datasets we were able to extend our regression models with regard to medical malpractice cases. Using the RAND jury study from 1995-99 we were able to separate out California’s medical malpractice cases which were governed by the MICRA cap on noneconomic damages from the cases coming from five other states included in the study. We found that MICRA dampened the relationship between economic and non-economic damages. Using the data we coded from on Cook County, Illinois jury verdicts, we were able to expand our regression model to include the NAIC severity index plus the gender and age of the plaintiff. We found no evidence that the two demographic variables systematically influenced the amount of non-economic damages, but the severity of injury did make a difference. Most importantly, we found that the severity of the injury conditioned the relationship between economic and non-economic damages

Cluster innovation mechanism and its external effects on China's small and medium-sized enterprises

The competitive advantage of cluster firms includes the cost (basic) and the innovation (long-term) advantages. As a new virtual organizational structure of firms, cluster could effectively combine SMEs' innovation vitality with the innovation scale economy of cluster, cultivating SMEs' distinguished innovation capabilities. This paper starts with the horizontal as well as vertical level of cooperation and competition behavior among the cluster firms. Then it explores the cluster innovation mechanism for the Chinese SMEs, and its potential external economic and non-economic effects on the Chinese SMEs. It is concluded that cluster innovation will be a feasible option for the Chinese SME industrial cluster in gaining innovation advantage in the long run. (c) 2006 PICMET.</p

Computational Flow Dynamic Simulation of Micro Flow Field Characteristics Drainage Device Used in the Process of Oil-Water Separation

Aqueous crude oil often contains large amounts of produced water and heavy sediment, which seriously threats the safety of crude oil storage and transportation. Therefore, the proper design of crude oil tank drainage device is prerequisite for efficient purification of aqueous crude oil. In this work, the composition and physicochemical properties of crude oil samples were tested under the actual conditions encountered. Based on these data, an appropriate crude oil tank drainage device was developed using the principle of floating ball and multiphase flow. In addition, the flow field characteristics in the device were simulated and the contours and streamtraces of velocity magnitude at different nine moments were obtained. Meanwhile, the improvement of flow field characteristics after the addition of grids in crude oil tank drainage device was validated. These findings provide insights into the development of effective selection methods and serve as important references for oil-water separation process