Transmission Expansion in Argentina 5: The Regional Electricity Forum of Buenos Aires Province

This paper supplements analyses of Argentine transmission expansions at the federal level by looking at experience in Buenos Aires province. A Regional Electricity Forum of distribution companies has drawn up and begun to implement a ten-year transmission expansion plan. Contrary to previous fears, getting agreement between the members on investment and cost sharing has not been unduly problematic. More challenging was getting approval of the provincial government on funding. Deferring tariff reductions and using the revenues for investment facilitated the process, and now some innovative financing arrangements are underway. Again contrary to some previous suggestions, the controversial Area of Influence method was extended rather than replaced. This overcame concerns about free-riding. Progress and investment have been severely curtailed by the economic crisis in 2001 and subsequent federal government policy. The arrangements nonetheless appear to be working well, and to be conducive to more efficient transmission expansion. This confirms that it is practicable and advantageous to allow users rather than the transmission company or the regulator to propose and determine transmission investment, even in a meshed rather than radial system. An appropriate regulatory framework is needed to approve that part of the total budget to paid by distribution business consumers, but this does not require the regulator to lead or monitor the detail of the process

Victorian Women's Trust, Annual Report 2009/2010

We are an independent advocate for women and grant maker dedicated to improving the status of women and girls. We are now among the world's oldest women's funds, and pride ourselves on a thirty-year tradition of progressive philanthropy, strategically targeted to maximise our impact across the range of issues we seek to address - violence against women and girls, gendered discrimination and disadvantage, the quest for due recognition of the value of women's paid and unpaid work, and towards equal representation in the decision making processes that shape our lives

A rounded picture is what we need : rhetorical strategies, arguments, and the negotiation of change in a UK hospital trust

This article is concerned with the introduction of the agenda of New Public Management (NPM) within the board of a UK Hospital Trust: West London Hospital (WLH). We discuss the literature on New Public Management, including its limitations for analysing the organizational reality of implementing NPM. But we will also be drawing on discourse theory and the literature on rhetoric. The main argument in this article is that in order to understand the reality of the NPM paradigm, we need to study the rhetorical strategies of protagonists involved in the negotiation of the NPM agenda. Rhetorical strategies are means of making general viewpoints more convincing, for example, by comparing 'our' organization with similar organizations. Rhetorical strategies show patterns, which reappear in conversations and arguments made by protagonists. Specifically, we identified three rhetorical strategies justifying why and what kind of a more 'rounded picture' was required: widening the argument to include national productivity comparisons with other hospitals; widening the argument away from a narrow focus on finance toward a strategic and political perspective; and, lastly, widening the argument to look at innovation in the whole clinical process

Habitual accountability routines in the boardroom: How boards balance control and collaboration

open3siCorporate accountability is a complex chain of reporting that reaches from external stakeholders into the organization’s management structure. The transition from external to internal accountability mechanisms primarily occurs at the board of directors. Yet outside of incentive mechanisms, we know surprisingly little about how internal actors (management) are held to account by the representatives of external shareholders (the board). This paper explores the process of accountability at this transition point by documenting the routines used by boards to hold the firm’s management to account. In so doing we develop our understanding of the important transition between internal and external firm accountability.embargoed_20190401Nicholson, Gavin; Pugliese, Amedeo; Bezemer, Pieter JanNicholson, Gavin; Pugliese, Amedeo; Bezemer, Pieter Ja

Too Interconnected To Fail: Financial Contagion and Systemic Risk in Network Model of CDS and Other Credit Enhancement Obligations of US Banks

Credit default swaps (CDS) which constitute up to 98% of credit derivatives have had a unique, endemic and pernicious role to play in the current financial crisis. However, there are few in depth empirical studies of the financial network interconnections among banks and between banks and nonbanks involved as CDS protection buyers and protection sellers. The ongoing problems related to technical insolvency of US commercial banks is not just confined to the so called legacy/toxic RMBS assets on balance sheets but also because of their credit risk exposures from SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) and the CDS markets. The dominance of a few big players in the chains of insurance and reinsurance for CDS credit risk mitigation for banks� assets has led to the idea of �too interconnected to fail� resulting, as in the case of AIG, of having to maintain the fiction of non-failure in order to avert a credit event that can bring down the CDS pyramid and the financial system. This paper also includes a brief discussion of the complex system Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) approach to financial network modeling for systemic risk assessment. Quantitative analysis is confined to the empirical reconstruction of the US CDS network based on the FDIC Q4 2008 data in order to conduct a series of stress tests that investigate the consequences of the fact that top 5 US banks account for 92% of the US bank activity in the $34 tn global gross notional value of CDS for Q4 2008 (see, BIS and DTCC). The May-Wigner stability condition for networks is considered for the hub like dominance of a few financial entities in the US CDS structures to understand the lack of robustness. We provide a Systemic Risk Ratio and an implementation of concentration risk in CDS settlement for major US banks in terms of the loss of aggregate core capital. We also compare our stress test results with those provided by SCAP (Supervisory Capital Assessment Program). Finally, in the context of the Basel II credit risk transfer and synthetic securitization framework, there is little evidence that the CDS market predicated on a system of offsets to minimize final settlement can provide the credit risk mitigation sought by banks for reference assets in the case of a significant credit event. The large negative externalities that arise from a lack of robustness of the CDS financial network from the demise of a big CDS seller undermines the justification in Basel II that banks be permitted to reduce capital on assets that have CDS guarantees. We recommend that the Basel II provision for capital reduction on bank assets that have CDS cover should be discontinued.

Too Interconnected To Fail: Financial Contagion and Systemic Risk In Network Model of CDS and Other Credit Enhancement Obligations of US Banks

Credit default swaps (CDS) which constitute up to 98% of credit derivatives have had a unique, endemic and pernicious role to play in the current financial crisis. However, there are few in depth empirical studies of the financial network interconnections among banks and between banks and nonbanks involved as CDS protection buyers and protection sellers. The ongoing problems related to technical insolvency of US commercial banks is not just confined to the so called legacy/toxic RMBS assets on balance sheets but also because of their credit risk exposures from SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) and the CDS markets. The dominance of a few big players in the chains of insurance and reinsurance for CDS credit risk mitigation for banks’ assets has led to the idea of “too interconnected to fail” resulting, as in the case of AIG, of having to maintain the fiction of non-failure in order to avert a credit event that can bring down the CDS pyramid and the financial system. This paper also includes a brief discussion of the complex system Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) approach to financial network modeling for systemic risk assessment. Quantitative analysis is confined to the empirical reconstruction of the US CDS network based on the FDIC Q4 2008 data in order to conduct a series of stress tests that investigate the consequences of the fact that top 5 US banks account for 92% of the US bank activity in the $34 tn global gross notional value of CDS for Q4 2008 (see, BIS and DTCC). The May-Wigner stability condition for networks is considered for the hub like dominance of a few financial entities in the US CDS structures to understand the lack of robustness. We provide a Systemic Risk Ratio and an implementation of concentration risk in CDS settlement for major US banks in terms of the loss of aggregate core capital. We also compare our stress test results with those provided by SCAP (Supervisory Capital Assessment Program). Finally, in the context of the Basel II credit risk transfer and synthetic securitization framework, there is little evidence that the CDS market predicated on a system of offsets to minimize final settlement can provide the credit risk mitigation sought by banks for reference assets in the case of a significant credit event. The large negative externalities that arise from a lack of robustness of the CDS financial network from the demise of a big CDS seller undermines the justification in Basel II that banks be permitted to reduce capital on assets that have CDS guarantees. We recommend that the Basel II provision for capital reduction on bank assets that have CDS cover should be discontinued.Credit Default Swaps; Financial Networks; Systemic Risk; Agent BasedCredit Default Swaps, Financial Networks, Systemic Risk, Agent Based Models, Complex Systems, Stress Testing