Modelling a flow of funds and policy simulation experiments in the financial sector for India

The objective of this thesis is to analyse policy effects on the financial sector in India by modelling a flow of funds for four sectors with six financial instruments for the period of 1951–1993 with associated simulation techniques. In the general equilibrium model, the whole financial sector is endogenised by means of demand functions for asset choice in the four sectors and each financial market is solved by the market clearing conditions. An important innovation is that the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) is utilised for a system of demand function, and cointegration techniques are adapted into the econometric methodology. The policy simulation experiments are conducted with a view to analysing the delivery of loanable funds to sectors which are the most in need of poverty-reducing economic growth, at the same time, they are largely in line with the financial reforms that started in the early 1990s in India. The system-wide simulation designed in this thesis will permit us to analyse a wide spectrum of policy effects on such issues as the determinant of interest rates, financing capital formulation, the role of financial institutions, government debt and allocation of credit, as a result of interactions in the disaggregated economic sectors. The key finding is the significant role of interest rates in portfolio selection and thereby on the flow of funds for India. The policy simulations, however, reveal that the liberalisation of interest rates may be no better than the administered rates in ensuring loans to private sectors. Possible perverse outcomes from the liberalised interest rate regime are also highlighted in the stochastic simulations, as policies become sensitive or fragile in the face of uncertainty in the economy. These demonstrate the importance of a gradual de-regulation in the financial sector, rather than an indiscriminate attempt at financial decontrol

Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

Proceedings of USM-AUT International Conference 2012 Sustainable Economic Development: Policies and Strategies

This proceedings includes papers presented at the USM-AUT International Conference (UAIC 2012) carrying the theme “Sustainable Economic Development: Policies and Strategies”, held on 17-18 November 2012 at Bayview Beach Resort Penang Malaysia. This conference is jointly organized by the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, and Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. We received a total of 167 papers from various institutions and organizations around the world where 82 papers were accepted for inclusion in this proceedings. The proceedings is compiled according to the three sub themes of the conference. It covers both theoretical and empirical works from the scholars globally. It is hoped that the collection of these conference papers will become a valuable reference to the conference participants, researchers, scholars, students, businesses and policy makers. The proceedings will be submitted to Thomson ISI for indexing

Assessing Malaysia’s Business Cycle indicators

An empirical assessment shows that Malaysia’s business cycle indicators can be improved. Turning point detection is not impressive, especially for troughs. Lead times are also variable. However, the relationship between the leading and coincident indicators over the entire cycle shows quite strong correlations from the late 1980s onwards, although lead times have shortened. Empirical evidence is very strong that the leading index Granger-causes the coincident index. Business and consumer confidence surveys also show much promise in improving prediction of the reference cycle. However, implications of the changing economic structure on the performance of the leading index needs to be fully taken into account, especially the emergence of new services sector activities.Business/growth cycle, Malaysian economy, growth cycle chronology, turning point analysis, Granger causality

An empirical analysis on the credit scoring and the intermediary role of financing guarantee institutions of China's car loans

By the end of 2018, China's car ownership has reached 240 million, an increase of 10.51% over 2017, which leads to the increase of automobile financial services and hence the associated automobile credit risks. In order to transfer risks, financial institutions increasingly are choosing to issue auto loans through financing guarantee companies. Therefore, the industry pays more attention to the credit scoring, as it acts as the main risk control measure of auto financing guarantee companies. This leads to the study of the role the financing guarantee company plays and how effective the credit rating is as a risk control mechanism. The purpose is to investigate whether the auto financing guarantee company plays a mediating role by providing credit score. The empirical approach is as follows: a two-stage regression method is used to control or eliminate the influence of personal characteristics and other third-party credit ratings. Through which, we firstly test whether the credit score of an auto financing guarantee company contains additional information besides personal characteristics and third-party credit scores. Second, we test whether additional information of auto financing guarantee company can significantly explain the post-loan performance of whether default or non-default. The conclusions show that even after controlling the third-party credit score and personal characteristics, the credit scoring system of auto financing guarantee companies still has a significant explanation on the performance of post-loan default. In other words, it plays an intermediary role by providing credit evaluation services, which has a direct decision reference for the financial institutions that ultimately provide credit. Based on this, this study puts forward corresponding management enhancement and loan risk management suggestions.No final de 2018, a propriedade automóvel na China atingiu 240 milhões, um aumento de 10.51% sobre 2017, o que leva ao aumento dos serviços financeiros automóvel e, portanto, dos riscos de crédito automóvel associados. Para mitigar riscos, as instituições financeiras optam, cada vez mais, por conceder empréstimos automóvel através de empresas de garantia. Por conseguinte, a indústria presta mais atenção à pontuação do crédito, uma vez que esta atua como a principal medida de controlo do risco das empresas de garantia de financiamento-automóvel. Isto conduz ao estudo do papel desempenhado pela empresa de garantia de financiamento e da eficácia da sua notação de crédito como mecanismo de controlo dos riscos. Com base no sistema de notação de crédito da T’s e num total de 119.798 registos de empréstimos, este estudo examina o poder explicativo da notação de crédito das empresas de garantia de financiamento automóvel no incumprimento dos mutuários e as funções mediadoras destas empresas. Utiliza-se um método de regressão em dois estágios para controlar ou eliminar a influência de características pessoais e outros ratings, testando primeiro se a notação de crédito de uma empresa de garantia contém informações adicionais e testando, depois, se as informações adicionais da empresa de garantia podem explicar significativamente o desempenho do mutuário pós-empréstimo, As conclusões mostram que, mesmo após controlar a notação de crédito de terceiros e as características pessoais, o sistema de notação de crédito das empresas de garantia tem uma explicação significativa no desempenho do mutuário pós-empréstimo. Ou seja, ele desempenha um papel mediador, fornecendo serviços de avaliação de crédito que têm influência direta na decisão das instituições financeiras que, finalmente, fornecem crédito. Correspondentemente, esta investigação apresenta sugestões de melhoramento da gestão do risco de crédito

Saving and investment: the economic development of Singapore 1965-99

The first chapter of the dissertation removes Singapore's saving performance from its pedestal as an outlier in economic history, with the reputation of being hardly transferable and possibly not even desirable. Instead, the results of the benchmarking exercise clearly show the transferability of at least the saving aspects of Singapore's economic history. Moreover, the particular econometric approach applied highlights those circumstances, which are not directly related to saving policies but must be taken into consideration if transferability is assessed, particularly the demographic structure and external position. The exercise shows that Singapore's saving performance between 1965-99 was far from extraordinary once the country's circumstances are controlled for, even though a mere comparison of averages of saving rates across countries would have us believe differently. Given Singapore's purely non-policy environment, it could have been expected of the country to achieve at least world average saving levels, substantially higher than its savings at time of independence. Above world average levels could have been expected if we also take into consideration the country's very successful external situation. Finally, if we also allow for potential peer-group mechanisms by placing Singapore within a group of successful Asian countries, the average benchmark saving ratio comes very close to the country's actual saving rate. What is indeed extraordinary about Singapore's saving performance, is not the high saving rates in the late 1980s and 1990s, which usually attract the most attention, but rather the speed of transformation of the country's saving behaviour in the first half of the period, when Singapore was able to overcome its initial low saving performance much faster and much more strongly than could have been expected given her circumstances. The key to understanding Singapore's saving behaviour must he in the turnaround achieved during the first decade of the country's independence. Therefore, looking merely at the country's more recent saving performance will not be able to answer how Singapore was able to achieve its world-record saving ratios. Chapter Two investigates the country's saving ratios in a time-series regression analysis. It is able to show that strong income developments are the main force behind Singapore's saving behaviour, while the demographic transition seems to have been the initial catalyst and also the enabling factor for the important compulsory saving scheme. However, the exercise also shows that the different subaggregates of gross national saving have very different driving factors and that contrary to parts of the past literature all main influences, which theory generally suggests, can be shown to have had a significant impact on the country's savings. Income, particularly its dynamic, i.e. transitory, component is the single strongest factor followed by the CPF, whose dynamic effects were offset by lower voluntary and public savings but its long-term effects more than compensated. Falling dependency is shown to have had opposite effects, positively adding to voluntary savings particularly during the early years but reducing public savings for the whole period. The lowering of borrowing constraints over time has led to more consumption and thus lower savings among the private sector, which was however compensated by a positive impact on public savings. Full Ricardian Equivalence has not been present, so that public saving has had a positive net effect on the country's gross national savings. Since voluntary savings was the driving force behind the early saving transition and voluntary saving in the early years was itself largely driven by the rising labour force ratio, the favourable demographic environment must be considered as having been central to Singapore's saving 'take-off'. Moreover, the fact that the positive effect of the CPF was largely due to positive net-contributions to the fund, shows how important this demographic change was even outside of voluntary savings. Singapore used the chance to exploit this demographic dividend very well, by both kick-starting a changed voluntary saving pattern and by using the demographic window for the creation of a CPF 'hump-saving'

Regional Government Competition

This monograph provides a coherent and systematic explanation of China’s regional economic development from the perspective of regional government competition. It gives an almost unknown exposition of the mechanisms of China's regional economic development, with numerous supporting cases drawn from both China and elsewhere. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested to learn more particularly the development and transformation of China’s regional economy from both the Chinese and global perspectives