Systemic Financial Distress and Auction-Based Bankruptcy Reorganization

Financial reorganization under bankruptcy reduces a firm's debts to a serviceable level through negotiations overseen by courts. Markets have been suggested as an alternative to such negotiations, recognizing that equity holders and junior claimants have call options to buy the firm back from senior creditors. This paper further develops this market-based approach when claimants are severely cash-constrained and there is merit in having existing owners-managers remain in control. The scheme arranges creditors in a queue to be serviced in sequence from the firm's operating cash flows. Creditors bid for their position in this queue, and those accepting a greater proportionate reduction in the face value of their claims (perhaps those most pessimistic about the firm's prospects) are placed ahead of the others. A pre-existing hierarchy of claims is honored by having claimants bid for their positions within the relevant segment of the queue. No one in the queue (including owners who are last) is paid anything until the (reduced) debts of the first in line are fully discharged using the firm's operating cash surpluses. The queue then moves up and the next claimant in line is serviced. The paper shows that, in equilibrium, the aggregate debts of the firm are reduced to a level that is more serviceable and that provides the owner-manager with a positive expected residual return. We discuss the appropriateness of this scheme to situations of systemic financial distress, including the East Asian crisis.

Anomalous lateral diffusion in a viscous membrane surrounded by viscoelastic media

We investigate the lateral dynamics in a purely viscous lipid membrane surrounded by viscoelastic media such as polymeric solutions. We first obtain the generalized frequency-dependent mobility tensor and focus on the case when the solvent is sandwiched by hard walls. Due to the viscoelasticity of the solvent, the mean square displacement of a disk embedded in the membrane exhibits an anomalous diffusion. An useful relation which connects the mean square displacement and the solvent modulus is provided. We also calculate the cross-correlation of the particle displacements which can be applied for two-particle tracking experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Search for Discrete Refractive Scattering Events

We have searched for discrete refractive scattering events (including effects due to possible non-multiple diffractive scattering) at meter wavelengths in the direction of two close by pulsars B0950+08 and B1929+10, where we looked for spectral signatures associated with the multiple imaging of pulsars due to scattering in the interstellar medium. We do not find any signatures of such events in the direction of either source over a spectral periodicity range of 50 KHz to 5 MHz. Our analysis puts strong upper limits on the column density contrast associated with a range of spatial scales of the interstellar electron density irregularities along these lines of sight.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Awareness regarding eye donation among stakeholders in Srikakulam district in South India

Background There is a huge need for the availability of transplantable donor corneas worldwide to reduce the burden of corneal blindness due to corneal opacity. Voluntary eye donation depends on the awareness levels of various stakeholders in the community. This study aimed to assess the awareness level regarding eye donation among various stakeholders in Srikakulam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Methods 355 subjects were selected from the district using multi stage random sampling. A pre tested semi structured questionnaire was used to collect information regarding each individual’s awareness, knowledge, and perception regarding eye donation. Each response was scored individually and a total score was calculated. Univariate and multivariate regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with willingness towards eye donation and increased awareness levels. Results Of the 355 subjects interviewed, 192 (54%) were male and 163 (46%) were female. The mean age of the stakeholders was 35.9 years (SD ±16.1) and all the study subjects were literate. Ninety-three percent of subjects were aware of the concept of eye donation. Knowledge levels were similar among the teaching community and persons engaged in social service, but lower among students (p < 0.05). Among the stakeholders, there was considerable ambiguity regarding whether persons currently wearing spectacles or suffering from a chronic illnesses could donate their eyes. Older age group (p < 0.001), female gender (p < 0.001) and education (p < 0.001) were associated with increased knowledge levels. 82% of the subjects were willing to donate their eyes and this was unaffected by gender or geographical location (rural vs urban). Conclusions Awareness levels and willingness to donate eyes are high among the stakeholders in Srikakulam district in India. The services of stakeholders could be utilized, in conjunction with other community based eye donation counselors, to promote awareness regarding eye donation among the general population

Preparation of Nitrogen-free Sulphuric Acid

Preparation of Nitrogen-free Sulphuric Aci

Bankruptcy reorganization through markets : Auction-based Creditor Ordering by Reducing Debts (ACCORD)

The authors further develop such a market-based approach for situations in which claimants are severely cash-constrained and there is good reason for existing owner-managers to remain in control. Under the ACCORD scheme-Auction-based Creditor Ordering by Reducing Debts-creditors remain creditors but form a queue, to be serviced in sequence from the firm's operating cash flows. Creditors bid for their position in this queue. Those accepting greater proportionate reductions in the face value of their claims (perhaps most pessimistic about the firm's prospects) are placed ahead of theothers. A preexisting hierarchy of claims is honored by having claimants bid for their positions within the relevant segment of the queue. No one in the queue, including owners (whoa re last), is paid anything until the (reduced) debts of the first in line are fully discharged. The queue then moves up and the next claimant in line is serviced. Deferred creditors, who must wait their turn for the firm's operating cash surpluses, are not junior creditors in the conventional sense. The authors determine equilibrium bidding strategies, showing that the firm's aggregate debts would be reduced to a more serviceable level. This would improve the incentives of the firm's owner-managers, who remain in control, to operate the firm efficiently. Economic resources would thus be better used, and losses already incurred would be efficiently and quickly allocated among creditors. The authors suggest that ACCORD would be appropriate for East Asia, where, despite new bankruptcy laws, inexperienced courts are unlikely to nudge creditors into a quick negotiated agreement nor to be able to cope with systemic bankruptcy. Moreover, when the government is a major unsatisfied creditor, whose agents may not act in the taxpayers'best interests, market-based solutions might remove political interference from restructuring decisions. Neither owners nor creditors would be worse off than they are now.Strategic Debt Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Strategic Debt Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Housing Finance

Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) – a tool for estimating poverty

Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) – a tool for estimating povert

Orienting Graphs to Optimize Reachability

The paper focuses on two problems: (i) how to orient the edges of an undirected graph in order to maximize the number of ordered vertex pairs (x,y) such that there is a directed path from x to y, and (ii) how to orient the edges so as to minimize the number of such pairs. The paper describes a quadratic-time algorithm for the first problem, and a proof that the second problem is NP-hard to approximate within some constant 1+epsilon > 1. The latter proof also shows that the second problem is equivalent to ``comparability graph completion''; neither problem was previously known to be NP-hard