Defining the Good Citizen: Online Conceptions of American Members of the Yahoo! Answers Community

Educators invest serious effort in bringing their students to adopt the notions of the 'good citizen'. Based on the growing impact of informal learning through social media, especially when asking for online help in civic education assignments, previous studies called for investigating the role of online platforms as arenas of informal civic education. This paper takes up this gauntlet, analyzing inputs of American members of the Yahoo! Answers online community in response to students' queries concerning the definition of the 'good citizen'. The results show a passive and conformist concept of the 'good citizen' that corresponds with previous studies' findings about this image in educational programs and among pre-service teachers, contrary to formal statements regarding the goal of civic education. The paper suggests that there is a feedback loop between offline and online platforms concerning the 'good citizen', which calls for the attention of educators and researches.

Online answers dealing with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II

The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II lies at the heart of ongoing discussions in American social studies. We analyzed inputs of members of the Yahoo! Answers Q&A online community following students’ questions dealing with differential treatment of Japanese, and German and Italian American citizens during World War II, and whether the internment of Japanese Americans was justified. The questions were submitted to the community by students struggling with their coursework. The majority of responses to first question justified the differential treatment, citing national security and presenting Japanese-Americans as a threat. The dominant position in the case of the second question negates internment legitimacy, and views it as a gross violation of justice and as a racially motivated act. These stances, likely to make their way into submitted assignments by students, necessitate the familiarization of teachers with such discussions as they take place within Q&A communities

The Risk Spiral: The Effects of Bank Capital and Diversification on Risk Taking

We present a model where bank assets are a portfolio of risky debt claims and analyze stockholders' risk-taking behavior while considering the strategic interaction between debtors and creditors. We find that: (1) as the leverage of a bank increases, risk shifting by borrowers increases, even if their leverage is unchanged (zombie lending). (2) While the literature demonstrates that an increase in the co-movement of a loan portfolio increases the bank's cost of default directly, we find that the increase in co-movement causes an increase in risk shifting that further increases the cost of default (3) Risk shifting decreases with the diversification of a loan portfolio

The Risk Spiral: The Effects of Bank Capital and Diversification on Risk Taking

We present a model where bank assets are a portfolio of risky debt claims and analyze stockholders' risk-taking behavior while considering the strategic interaction between debtors and creditors. We find that: (1) as the leverage of a bank increases, risk shifting by borrowers increases, even if their leverage is unchanged (zombie lending). (2) While the literature demonstrates that an increase in the co-movement of a loan portfolio increases the bank's cost of default directly, we find that the increase in co-movement causes an increase in risk shifting that further increases the cost of default (3) Risk shifting decreases with the diversification of a loan portfolio

A closed-form solution to the risk-taking motivation of subordinated debtholders

Black and Cox (1976) claim that the value of junior debt is increasing in asset risk when the firm’s value is low. We show, using closed-form solution, that the junior debt’s value is hump-shaped. This has interesting implications for the market-discipline role of banks’ subdebt

Bank Resolution, Risk-Taking and Claimholders’ Bargaining Power

We analyze the influence of unsecured debt (subdebt) on risk-shifting in banks whose assets are risky debt claims. We assume that the stockholders and subdebt-holders jointly decide on risk-shifting. We show that replacing part of the stock with subdebt: (1) leads to fewer risk-shifting events, but can lead to higher levels of risk, depending on the relative bargaining power, (2) does not change the level of risk-shifting when side payments are possible, and (3) may yield the surprising result that risk-shifting increases with tighter regulatory control

Designing bankers' pay: Using contingent capital to reduce risk-shifting

Including contingent convertible bonds (coco) in the capital structure of a bank affects the sensitivity to risk of its equity-based compensation. Such risk-shifting incentives can be reduced if the coco bonds are well-designed. Similarly, we show that compensating executives instead with well-designed coco bonds can also reduce risk-shifting incentives. In practice, however, most coco bonds have characteristics that result in both stock and coco compensation having large sensitivities to changes in asset risk -- equity-based compensation encourages executives to increase risk, coco compensation to reduce risk. We show that a pay package combining both stock and coco can practically eliminate risk-shifting incentives and that it can be implemented with a bank's preexisting coco bonds

A closed-form solution to the risk-taking motivation of subordinated debtholders

Black and Cox (1976) claim that the value of junior debt is increasing in asset risk when the firm’s value is low. We show, using closed-form solution, that the junior debt’s value is hump-shaped. This has interesting implications for the market-discipline role of banks’ subdebt

Banks Risk Taking and Creditors Bargaining Power

We analyze the influence of unsecured debt (subdebt) on risk-shifting in banks whose assets are risky debt claims. We assume that the stockholders and subdebt-holders jointly decide on risk-shifting. We show that replacing part of the stock with subdebt: (1) leads to fewer risk-shifting events, but can lead to higher levels of risk, depending on the relative bargaining power, (2) does not change the level of risk-shifting when side payments are possible, and (3) may yield the surprising result that risk-shifting increases with tighter regulatory control