On the Impact of Financial Inclusion on Financial Stability and Inequality: The Role of Macroprudential Policies

Financial Inclusion - access to financial products by households and firms - is one of the main albeit challenging priorities, both for Advanced Economies (AEs) as well as Emerging Markets (EMs), even more so for the latter. Financial inclusion facilitates consumption smoothing, lowers income inequality, enables risk diversification, and tends to positively affect economic growth. Financial stability is another rising priority among policy makers. This is evident in the re-emergence of macroprudential policies after the global financial crisis, minimizing systemic risk, particularly risks associated with rapid credit growth. However, there are significant policy tradeoffs that could exist between both financial inclusion and financial stability, with mixed evidence on the link between the two objectives. Given the importance of macroprudential policies as a toolbox to achieve financial stability, we examine the impact of macroprudential policies on financial inclusion - a potential cause for financial instability if not carefully implemented. Using panel regressions for 67 countries over the period 2000-2014, our results point to mixed effects of macroprudential policies. The usage (and tightening) of some tools, such as the debt-to-income ratio, appear to reduce financial inclusion whereas others, such as the required reserve ratio (RRR), increase it. Specifically, both institutional quality and financial development appear to increase the effectiveness of macroprudential policies on financial inclusion. Institutional quality helps macroprudential policies boost financial inclusion, with mixed effects as a result of financial development, but the results are more significant when we include either institutional quality or financial development. This leads us to believe that macroprudential policies conditional on better institutional quality and financial development improves financial inclusion. This has important policy implications for financial stability

Time-Fractional KdV Equation for the plasma in auroral zone using Variational Methods

The reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation for small but finite amplitude electrostatic waves. The Lagrangian of the time fractional KdV equation is used in similar form to the Lagrangian of the regular KdV equation. The variation of the functional of this Lagrangian leads to the Euler-Lagrange equation that leads to the time fractional KdV equation. The Riemann-Liouvulle definition of the fractional derivative is used to describe the time fractional operator in the fractional KdV equation. The variational-iteration method given by He is used to solve the derived time fractional KdV equation. The calculations of the solution with initial condition A0*sech(cx)^2 are carried out. Numerical studies have been made using plasma parameters close to those values corresponding to the dayside auroral zone. The effects of the time fractional parameter on the electrostatic solitary structures are presented.Comment: 1 tex file + 5 eps figure

TECHNICAL CHANGE, MARKET INCENTIVES AND RURAL INCOMES: A CGE ANALYSIS OF UGANDA'S AGRICULTURE

In Uganda, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, poverty is concentrated in rural areas. Because agriculture accounts for a large share of incomes for these households, policies and external shocks that affect agriculture, including shifts in world prices, changes in agricultural productivity, and reductions in marketing costs, may have significant effects on rural poverty. In this paper, we use a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Ugandan economy, explicitly designed to capture regional variations in agricultural production and household incomes, to examine the implications of these policy changes and shocks. Simulation results suggest that a doubling of area planted to coffee (the government's target) would increase rural consumption by less than 2.0 percent, because of an estimated 10 percent decline in the world price of robusta coffee and an 11.3 percent real exchange rate appreciation of the Ugandan shilling. Smaller productivity increases in food crops may have greater potential to raise rural incomes, provided that markets perform well and producer incentives are maintained. A five percent increase in agricultural productivity raises consumption by 1.3 to 2.1 percent among rural households and lowers food prices by 3.4 to 3.8 percent relative to the CPI, thus benefiting households with high food consumption shares. Reducing agricultural marketing margins by 30 percent leads to increases of 2.3 to 4.1 percent in consumption of farm households, with the largest gains in regions where consumption out of own production is lower.International Development,

Essays on the effectiveness and cyclicality of macroprudential policies in emerging markets: assessing the role of sovereign risk and implications for capital flows and financial inclusion

This thesis empirically examines the cyclicality and impact of macroprudential policies on various macroeconomic aggregates, capital flows, and financial inclusion mainly in Emerging Markets (EMs). Using Structural Vector Autoregressions, the first chapter studies the effect of macroprudential policies on several indicators of economic activity, credit, and prices, and finds that the effectiveness of macroprudential policies differs depending on the tool being used, the type of shocks macroprudential policies respond to, and that the responsiveness of macroprudential policies could be either counter-cyclical or pro-cyclical. Generally, however, macroprudential policies were found to help lower credit growth, particularly mortgage credit, as well as housing specific inflation. The second chapter uses System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to examine the impact of changes in sovereign ratings – a proxy for sovereign risk – on foreign direct investment and portfolio flows across a panel of 24 EMs, whether a change in sovereign ratings displayed a contagion effect across countries, and the interaction betweens overeign ratings and macroprudential policies, both as proxies for sovereign and systemic risk respectively. This chapter sheds light on the important role of sovereign ratings for attracting FDI and portfolio flows, while the interaction between sovereign ratings and macroprudential policies highlights the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in reducing the volatility of capital flows, especially portfolio flows. The third chapter also uses system GMM to shed light on redistributive impact of macroprudential policies, mainly through their impact on financial inclusion. This chapter finds that while macroprudential policies have a mixed impact on both usage and access to financial services, macroprudential policies, conditional on increased financial development and better institutional quality, help increase financial inclusion. Each chapter in this dissertation contributes to the ongoing debate on the effectiveness of macroprudential policies; the first by examining the cyclicality of macroprudential policies, the second by examining the interaction of macroprudential policies (a proxy for systemic risk) and sovereign ratings (a proxy for sovereign risk) and the third by examining their distributional impact. The three chapters shed light on the fact that different macroprudential policies operate differently, both in terms of their cyclicality and effectiveness, in such a way that that these policies cannot operate in a one size fit all pattern, and that country-specific characteristics matter

Remediation of dyes in textile effluent by membrane based treatment techniques: A critical review

The most important industry implicated in our exposed population is the textile industry arena because of their undeniable contributions to basic human needs satisfaction and to the world economy. These industries are utilizing higher volume of water that finally results in an abundant wastewater generation; these are the major water polluting sources of ecosystem.The present paper provides a review of the management of the membrane technology towards textile effluent treatment. The concept of water reuse is also catching on quickly through membrane based techniques, including the prospect of turning textile sewage into the clarified water. We are using the microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.    

On the number of particles which a curved quantum waveguide can bind

We discuss the discrete spectrum of N particles in a curved planar waveguide. If they are neutral fermions, the maximum number of particles which the waveguide can bind is given by a one-particle Birman-Schwinger bound in combination with the Pauli principle. On the other hand, if they are charged, e.g., electrons in a bent quantum wire, the Coulomb repulsion plays a crucial role. We prove a sufficient condition under which the discrete spectrum of such a system is empty.Comment: a LateX file, 12 page

Sex Hormones and Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia and the most common neurodegenerative disorder of elderly. It is not an accelerated form of aging but it is characterized by distinct temporospatial brain pathological changes, including amyloid plaques accumulation, neurofibrillary tangles deposition, synaptic loss and neuronal death with gross brain atrophy. These changes result in persistent progressive memory and cognitive decline interfering with the usual daily activities. AD is a multifactorial disorder results from the interaction of genetic, epigenetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. Estrogen, progesterone and androgen effects are important building stones in AD pathogenesis, and their effect in brain modulation and development results in different gender susceptibility to the disease. These sex hormones whether gonadal or neurosteroids (synthesized locally in the brain) play important neuroprotective roles influencing the individual’s vulnerability to AD development, rate of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)/AD conversion and speed of AD progression. Despite the little therapeutic implications of hormonal replacement therapy in AD treatment, yet this topic still represents a challenging hopeful way to construct a strategy for the development of personalized, gender-specific AD management