Does managing a SRI fund cost more? Evidence from the European financial market

open2Our aim is to provide evidence regarding managing costs differences comparing Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) funds with traditional ones, if any, and if these are influenced by the ethical rating of the fund. The methodology is based on a multiple linear regression model in a matched-pair sample of 309 European SRI and non-SRI funds managed by the same managing company and a comprehensive sample of 558 European SRI funds. Our main findings are on size, country, asset class, and ethical rating. Yet, the higher the ethical rating, the lower the TER, especially at the highest level of rating. If investors actively select higher ethically rated SRI funds, he or she will benefit from a lower cost charged by specialised asset managers. In investing in 'good', choose the best!openArrigoni, Stefania; Lanzavecchia, AlbertoArrigoni, Stefania; Lanzavecchia, Albert

What drive a long-term relationship in microcredit? Insights from a cambodian microfinance institution

This article examines the determinants of the nominal value of loans in microcredit and the factors that drive long-term relationship banking. The dataset is drawn from primary data gathered from 216 randomly selected borrowers in a Cambodian microfinance institution. Analysis is performed using an OLS regression model. The results confirm positive and significant impacts of real estate assets and loan purposes on the amount borrowed and a negative impact of being single as a civil status. Long-term relationships are positively affected by: age of borrower and purpose of loan; and negatively affected by female gender. Contrary to general belief that microcredit is targeted to the “poorest of the poor”, a new market segment in microcredit was discovered within which MFI might target low-income/asset backed clients, granting loans on a “sustainable” basis, by applying the fundamental criteria of commercial banking: assessing credit worthiness and loss given default. Ke

HOW EURO SHRINKS DEMOCRACY: INSIGHTS FROM THE GREEK CRISIS

The adoption of a single currency in Europe is a pure political project. What we have learned from Greek crisis is that being in the Eurozone means that creditors can destroy a national economy and seize public assets if the government steps out of line. To keep the European project alive, we here call for a fundamental reform on sovereign debt: switching from a goal to which policy is constrained, back to a tool to serve policy aims. In a distressed country, lenders has the power to forces the borrower to accept and to adopt restrictive spending policies that defend their interest at the expense of citizen's ones. Eventually, this leads inevitably to the loss of autonomy in borrower's decisions on fiscal policy, spending policy, public properties. If the cause for this degenerative process is the privilege on sovereign debt, then we need to find a new framework that reclassifies the public debt as functional to human development rather than individual profits. A country shall not be allowed to repay a debt that goes beyond its repayment capacity. The maximum payback capacity shall be settled before the credit is granted as a fraction of its primary balance. As such, the amount of primary balance not pledged to the repayment of the debt shall be always available to the government to undertake investments, social or security expenses and to face unexpected events. If this rule were implemented, the capital market would be automatically regulated: the debt that exceeds that threshold would be automatically written-off

Consultazione pubblica su "Disposizioni di vigilanza in materia di gruppo bancario cooperativo"

Proponiamo che la normativa secondaria di attuazione della riforma delle banche di credito cooperativo, destinata a confluire nella Circolare della Banca d’Italia n. 285 “Disposizioni di Vigilanza per le banche”: 1) imponga al gruppo bancario cooperativo un limite dimensionale massimo, da noi individuato in trentatré banche e un attivo consolidato inferiore a 8 miliardi di euro; 2) si limiti a definire il contenuto minimo del contratto di coesione alle sole caratteristiche della garanzia in solido e al controllo dei rischi

Transcriptome profiling of Diachasmimorpha longicaudata towards useful molecular tools for population management

Background: Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a solitary parasitoid of Tephritidae (Diptera) fruit flies of economic importance currently being mass-reared in bio-factories and successfully used worldwide. A peculiar biological aspect of Hymenoptera is its haplo-diploid life cycle, where females (diploid) develop from fertilized eggs and males (haploid) from unfertilized eggs. Diploid males were described in many species and recently evidenced in D. longicaudata by mean of inbreeding studies. Sex determination in this parasitoid is based on the Complementary Sex Determination (CSD) system, with alleles from at least one locus involved in early steps of this pathway. Since limited information is available about genetics of this parasitoid species, a deeper analysis on D. longicaudata's genomics is required to provide molecular tools for achieving a more cost effective production under artificial rearing conditions. Results: We report here the first transcriptome analysis of male-larvae, adult females and adult males of D. longicaudata using 454-pyrosequencing. A total of 469766 reads were analyzed and 8483 high-quality isotigs were assembled. After functional annotation, a total of 51686 unigenes were produced, from which, 7021 isotigs and 20227 singletons had at least one BLAST hit against the NCBI non-redundant protein database. A preliminary comparison of adult female and male evidenced that 98 transcripts showed differential expression profiles, with at least a 10-fold difference. Among the functionally annotated transcripts we detected four sequences potentially involved in sex determination and three homologues to two known genes involved in the sex determination cascade. Finally, a total of 4674SimpleSequence Repeats (SSRs) were in silico identified and characterized. Conclusion: The information obtained here will significantly contribute to the development of D. longicaudata functional genomics, genetics and population-based genome studies. Thousands of new microsatellite markers were identified as toolkits for population genetics analysis. The transcriptome characterized here is the starting point to elucidate the molecular bases of the sex determination mechanism in this species.Fil: Mannino, Maria Constanza. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rivarola, Maximo Lisandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Scannapieco, Alejandra Carla. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: González, Sergio Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Farber, Marisa Diana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Cladera, Jorge Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Lanzavecchia, Silvia Beatriz. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Lawan penyakit demi PhD

Kuantan - Semangat yang tinggi untuk menamatkan pengajian di peringkat Doktor Falsafah (PhD) membuatkan pensyarah Bahasa Inggeris Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten) Muadzam Shah, Dr. Umi Kalsom Masrom, 37, tabah melawan penyakit 'adhesion colic' yang dihidapinya dua tahun lalu

Gene discovery through genomic sequencing of Brucella abortus.

Brucella abortus is the etiological agent of brucellosis, a disease that affects bovines and human. We generated DNA random sequences from the genome of B. abortus strain 2308 in order to characterize molecular targets that might be useful for developing immunological or chemotherapeutic strategies against this pathogen. The partial sequencing of 1,899 clones allowed the identification of 1,199 genomic sequence surveys (GSSs) with high homology (BLAST expect value < 10(-5)) to sequences deposited in the GenBank databases. Among them, 925 represent putative novel genes for the Brucella genus. Out of 925 nonredundant GSSs, 470 were classified in 15 categories based on cellular function. Seven hundred GSSs showed no significant database matches and remain available for further studies in order to identify their function. A high number of GSSs with homology to Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Rhizobium meliloti proteins were observed, thus confirming their close phylogenetic relationship. Among them, several GSSs showed high similarity with genes related to nodule nitrogen fixation, synthesis of nod factors, nodulation protein symbiotic plasmid, and nodule bacteroid differentiation. We have also identified several B. abortus homologs of virulence and pathogenesis genes from other pathogens, including a homolog to both the Shda gene from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and the AidA-1 gene from Escherichia coli. Other GSSs displayed significant homologies to genes encoding components of the type III and type IV secretion machineries, suggesting that Brucella might also have an active type III secretion machinery.Instituto de Biotecnologia y Biologia Molecula

Molecular signatures of immunity and immunogenicity in infection and vaccination

Vaccinology aims to understand what factors drive vaccine-induced immunity and protection. For many vaccines, however, the mechanisms underlying immunity and protection remain incompletely characterized at best, and except for neutralizing antibodies induced by viral vaccines, few correlates of protection exist. Recent omics and systems biology big data platforms have yielded valuable insights in these areas, particularly for viral vaccines, but in the case of more complex vaccines against bacterial infectious diseases, understanding is fragmented and limited. To fill this gap, the EC supported ADITEC project (http://www.aditecproject.eu/; http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/128/128cm4.full) featured a work package on “Molecular signatures of immunity and immunogenicity,” aimed to identify key molecular mechanisms of innate and adaptive immunity during effector and memory stages of immune responses following vaccination. Specifically, technologies were developed to assess the human immune response to vaccination and infection at the level of the transcriptomic and proteomic response, T-cell and B-cell memory formation, cellular trafficking, and key molecular pathways of innate immunity, with emphasis on underlying mechanisms of protective immunity. This work intersected with other efforts in the ADITEC project. This review summarizes the main achievements of the work package

Do investment managers charge more costs for SRI funds? Evidence from the european financial market

Our aim is to provide evidence regarding cost differences comparing Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) to traditional funds, if any, and if those are influenced by the ethical rating of the fund. Our methodology is based on a multiple linear regression model in a matched-pair sample of 309 European SRI and non-SRI funds managed by the same managing company and a comprehensive sample of 558 European SRI funds. Our main findings are on size, country, asset class, and ethical rating effects. Contrary to our concerns, the asset management industry is not (yet) exploiting the retail investors’ utility function, which weighs the 'value' over the 'price' of SRI products. This evidence unveils a hidden reward: if investors actively select higher ethically rated SRI funds, he or she will benefit from a lower cost charged to these funds by a specialised asset manage