Financial innovation and credit market development

This paper studies the significance of social innovations - in particular, financial and fiscal innovations. Financial innovations tend to reduce transaction costs and risk, and as a result bring about widening, deepening and integration of capital markets. Such financial development accelerates the pace of economic development through its favorable impact on saving, investment, and output. The relationship between finance and development and the precise role of financial innovations are discussed in Section I, while Section II deals with the nature and characteristics of financial innovations. Section III examines the role of policy intervention in quickening the pace of financial development in the developing countries. The nature and characteristics of financial innovations essential for financial small farm and nonfarm enterprises and for mobilizing resources from middle and low income groups in the developing countries, are illustrated by a case study of an innovative bank in Section IV. Some concluding observations are made in the final section.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Beurling algebra analogues of the classical theorems of Wiener and Levy on absolutely convergent Fourier series

Let $f$ be a continuous function on the unit circle $\Gamma$, whose Fourier series is $\omega$-absolutely convergent for some weight $\omega$ on the set of integers $\mathcal{Z}$. If $f$ is nowhere vanishing on $\Gamma$, then there exists a weight $\nu$ on $\mathcal{Z}$ such that $1/f$ had $\nu$-absolutely convergent Fourier series. This includes Wiener's classical theorem. As a corollary, it follows that if $\phi$ is holomorphic on a neighbourhood of the range of $f$, then there exists a weight $\chi$ on $\mathcal{Z}$ such that \hbox{$\phi\circ f$} has $\chi$-absolutely convergent Fourier series. This is a weighted analogue of L\'{e}vy's generalization of Wiener's theorem. In the theorems, $\nu$ and $\chi$ are non-constant if and only if $\omega$ is non-constant. In general, the results fail if $\nu$ or $\chi$ is required to be the same weight $\omega$.Comment: 4 page

On participating in the international capital market

The international capital market as it has been evolving provides an opportunity for developing countrieslike India to attract the required capital inflow for accelerating their pace of development, manage their foreign exchange assets and liabilities to their advantage and develop export capabilities in the field of financial services. Active participation in this market would not only improve their access to the market but also indicate the institutional and policy framework essential for developing effective and efficient domestic financial markets. The possibilities of such participation would be enhanced if the developing countries like India take a constructive stand with regard to the multilateral negotiations in respect of trade in services under the Uruguay Round.Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Assessment

Race/Ethnicity: Is it an Outcome Predictor in Patients with Heart Failure?

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the role of race as a significant risk factor for prediction of outcomes in heart failure (HF). Methods: The data was collected on demographics, detailed history of HF, family history, vital signs, medication and laboratory profile for 585 patients from Heart failure Treatment Center of Emory University after year of 2000. Outcome of HF was defined as combination of death, placement of left ventricular assisted devise, heart transplant or emergency transplant. The independent relationship between race and outcomes of HF was evaluated by univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. The survival analysis was done by Cox regression modeling. Results: Among 585 HF patients, 58.1% were whites and 41.9% were blacks and 28.2% HF patients had positive outcomes. Although Whites tended to have a more positive outcome (34.6%) than blacks (28.9%), the difference was not statistically significant. Factors predicting the outcome in whites were male gender (OR 5.02), history of hypertension (OR 2.3), ventricular arrhythmias (OR 2.4), placement of AICD(OR 0.09), low EF% (OR 0.95), high NYHA class (OR 3.25), use of beta blockers (OR 0.12), aldosterone blockers (OR 2.19), furosemide (2.18); while in blacks they were age in years (OR 0.96), history of PTCA (OR 7.04), dislipidemia (OR 3.90), depression (OR 0.01), placement of AICD (OR 0.14), low EF% (OR 0.92), systolic blood pressure (OR 0.96), high NYHA class (OR 4.01), use of beta blockers (OR 0.14), torsemide (OR 2.86), and digoxin (OR 4.91) etc. Blacks had higher survival than whites (p \u3c 0.001). Conclusion: There is no significant difference in combined outcome (death, transplant, emergency transplant, and Left Ventricular Assisted Devise placement) of HF between whites and blacks. There are differences regarding the risk factors, which are more prominent in each race. Further exploration is required to evaluate the race as significant risk factor for predicting the outcome in HF

Hopping Conduction in Uniaxially Stressed Si:B near the Insulator-Metal Transition

Using uniaxial stress to tune the critical density near that of the sample, we have studied in detail the low-temperature conductivity of p-type Si:B in the insulating phase very near the metal-insulator transition. For all values of temperature and stress, the conductivity collapses onto a single universal scaling curve. For large values of the argument, the scaling function is well fit by the exponentially activated form associated with variable range hopping when electron-electron interactions cause a soft Coulomb gap in the density of states at the Fermi energy. The temperature dependence of the prefactor, corresponding to the T-dependence of the critical curve, has been determined reliably for this system, and is proportional to the square-root of T. We show explicitly that nevlecting the prefactor leads to substantial errors in the determination of the scaling parameters and the critical exponents derived from them. The conductivity is not consistent with Mott variable-range hopping in the critical region nor does it obey this form for any range of the parameters. Instead, for smaller argument of the scaling function, the conductivity of Si:B is well fit by an exponential form with exponent 0.31 related to the critical exponents of the system at the metal- insulator transition.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure