Regulating sovereign wealth funds operating overseas through an external fund manager

This article looks at the relationship between SWFs and their recipient countries, with a focus on the impact it may have depending on the nature of the objectives pursued by the SWF from the perspective of a principal-agent framework. In particular, when the SWF has multiple objectives, there is a risk that signals are misinterpreted and lead to misguided reactions by authorities in the recipient country. Thus, hard to interpret signals do not provide a sufficient case for imposing constraints on the SWF. However, we will show that requiring the SWF to invest through intermediary asset managers may foster cooperation, especially when the objectives of the SWF and of the authorities are closely aligned. SWFs may also alleviate the concerns in recipient countries by acting as an investor (and accepting the funds) of other SWF and non-SWF investors.

The social welfare function and individual responsibility: Some theoretical issues and empirical evidence from health

The literature on income distribution has attempted to quantitatively analyse different degrees of inequality using a social welfare function (SWF) approach. However, it has largely ignored the source of such inequalities, and has thus failed to consider different degrees of inequity. The literature on egalitarianism has addressed issues of equity, largely in relation to individual responsibility. This paper brings these two literatures together by introducing the concept of individual responsibility into the SWF approach. The results from an empirical study of people’s preferences in relation to the distribution of health benefits are presented to illustrate how the parameter values in such a SWF might be determined

Surface water flood warnings in England: overview, Assessment and recommendations based on survey responses and workshops

Following extensive surface water flooding (SWF) in England in summer 2007, progress has been made in improving the management and prediction of this type of flooding. A rainfall threshold-based extreme rainfall alert (ERA) service was launched in 2009 and superseded in 2011 by the surface water flood risk assessment (SWFRA). Through survey responses from local authorities (LAs) and the outcome of workshops with a range of flood professionals, this paper examines the understanding, benefits, limitations and ways to improve the current SWF warning service. The current SWFRA alerts are perceived as useful by district and county LAs, although their understanding of them is limited. The majority of LAs take action upon receipt of SWFRA alerts, and their reactiveness to alerts appears to have increased over the years and as SWFRA superseded ERA. This is a positive development towards increased resilience to SWF. The main drawback of the current service is its broad spatial resolution. Alternatives for providing localised SWF forecast and warnings were analysed, and a two-tier national-local approach, with pre-simulated scenario-based local SWF forecasting and warning systems, was deemed most appropriate by flood professionals given current monetary, human and technological resources

The Recent Investment Activity of Global Sovereign Wealth Funds

Although there has been vivid academic debate as to what extent Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are motivated by political reasons, it is rather clear that countries can use state-owned investment funds as a tool of their foreign policy. Even Barack Obama, during his initial presidential campaign in 2008 commented: “I am obviously concerned if these… sovereign wealth funds are motivated by more than just market consideration and that’s obviously a possibility”. This book looks at SWF activities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to determine the main motives for SWF presence in CEE. Are the potential financial gains the only reason behind their investments? Are SWF activities in the region dangerous for the stability and security of the CEE countries? The book is pioneering analyses of SWFs behaviour in the region, based on empirical data collected from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Transaction Database, arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative resource tracking SWF investment behaviour globally.Rozdział pochodzi z książki: Political Players? Sovereign Wealth Funds’ Investments in Central and Eastern Europe, T. Kamiński (ed.), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2017.This chapter encapsulates the most recent findings on sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investment activity globally. The key research proposals addressed herein relate to the position of global SWFs among conventional and alternative asset managers, SWF allocation strategies, their recent investment behavior and its likely evolution in the foreseeable future.This book was published in frames of project “Political significance of the Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investments in the Central and Eastern Europe”. The project was financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Decision no. DEC-2012/07/B/HS5/03797)

Application of homomorphic signal processing to stress wave factor analysis

The stress wave factor (SWF) signal, which is the output of an ultrasonic testing system where the transmitting and receiving transducers are coupled to the same face of the test structure, is analyzed in the frequency domain. The SWF signal generated in an isotropic elastic plate is modelled as the superposition of successive reflections. The reflection which is generated by the stress waves which travel p times as a longitudinal (P) wave and s times as a shear (S) wave through the plate while reflecting back and forth between the bottom and top faces of the plate is designated as the reflection with p, s. Short-time portions of the SWF signal are considered for obtaining spectral information on individual reflections. If the significant reflections are not overlapped, the short-time Fourier analysis is used. A summary of the elevant points of homomorphic signal processing, which is also called cepstrum analysis, is given. Homomorphic signal processing is applied to short-time SWF signals to obtain estimates of the log spectra of individual reflections for cases in which the reflections are overlapped. Two typical SWF signals generated in aluminum plates (overlapping and non-overlapping reflections) are analyzed

Conclusions

Although there has been vivid academic debate as to what extent Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are motivated by political reasons, it is rather clear that countries can use state-owned investment funds as a tool of their foreign policy. Even Barack Obama, during his initial presidential campaign in 2008 commented: “I am obviously concerned if these… sovereign wealth funds are motivated by more than just market consideration and that’s obviously a possibility”. This book looks at SWF activities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to determine the main motives for SWF presence in CEE. Are the potential financial gains the only reason behind their investments? Are SWF activities in the region dangerous for the stability and security of the CEE countries? The book is pioneering analyses of SWFs behaviour in the region, based on empirical data collected from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Transaction Database, arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative resource tracking SWF investment behaviour globally.Rozdział pochodzi z książki: Political Players? Sovereign Wealth Funds’ Investments in Central and Eastern Europe, T. Kamiński (ed.), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2017.This book was published in frames of project “Political significance of the Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investments in the Central and Eastern Europe”. The project was financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Decision no. DEC-2012/07/B/HS5/03797)

Appendices

Although there has been vivid academic debate as to what extent Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are motivated by political reasons, it is rather clear that countries can use state-owned investment funds as a tool of their foreign policy. Even Barack Obama, during his initial presidential campaign in 2008 commented: “I am obviously concerned if these… sovereign wealth funds are motivated by more than just market consideration and that’s obviously a possibility”. This book looks at SWF activities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to determine the main motives for SWF presence in CEE. Are the potential financial gains the only reason behind their investments? Are SWF activities in the region dangerous for the stability and security of the CEE countries? The book is pioneering analyses of SWFs behaviour in the region, based on empirical data collected from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Transaction Database, arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative resource tracking SWF investment behaviour globally.Rozdział pochodzi z książki: Political Players? Sovereign Wealth Funds’ Investments in Central and Eastern Europe, T. Kamiński (ed.), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2017.This book was published in frames of project “Political significance of the Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investments in the Central and Eastern Europe”. The project was financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Decision no. DEC-2012/07/B/HS5/03797)

Acousto-Ultrasonic analysis of failure in ceramic matrix composite tensile specimens

Three types of acousto-ultrasonic (AU) measurements, stress-wave factor (SWF), lowest antisymmetric plate mode group velocity (VS), and lowest symmetric plate mode group velocity (VL), were performed on specimens before and after tensile failure. Three different Nicalon fiber architectures with ceramic matrices were tested. These composites were categorized as 1D (unidirectional fiber orientation) SiC/CAS glass ceramic, and 2D and 3D woven SiC/SiC ceramic matrix materials. SWF was found to be degraded after tensile failure in all three material categories. VS was found to be degraded only in the 1D SiC/CAS. VL was difficult to determine on the irregular specimen surfaces but appeared unchanged on all failed specimens. 3D woven specimens with heat-treatment at high temperature exhibited degradation only in SWF

On the new Kenyan sovereign wealth fund

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been established in several countries to manage the revenues arising from exhaustible natural resources. SWFs allow consumption to be spread between generations, and between periods of high and low natural resource prices. In this paper the arguments for and against establishing an SWF in Kenya are considered. A first section considers the argument that Kenya is too poor to allocate oil revenues to such a fund. A second section discusses the principles underlying such a fund. A final section concludes by considering the steps that are being taken to establish a Kenyan SWF