Infrastructure regulation and poverty reduction in developing countries: a review of the evidence and a research agenda

Poverty reduction is a primary goal of development policy. In large parts of the World people have to live on meagre incomes and have limited access to infrastructure services, such as mains water, safe sanitation, mains power supplies, maintained roads and telephones. In response, more and more infrastructure provision has been opened up to private investment over the last two decades and regulatory institutions have been introduced to protect the public interest in the absence of state ownership. In this paper the role of infrastructure regulation in poverty reduction is investigated drawing on the published evidence. The conclusion is that the evidence is both patchy and sometimes contradictory. There is mixed knowledge regarding the extent to which regulators address poverty issues and about the results of regulatory decisions. The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda aimed at improving our understanding of the ways in which infrastructure regulation impacts on poverty, with the objective of improving actual regulatory policy in developing economies

Banking performance and technological change in non-core EU countries: A study of Spain and Portugal

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost efficiency of banks operating in two "non-core" EU countries, Portugal and Spain, over a number of years. Specifically, the paper aims to examine the extent to which banks' efficiency is influenced by their portfolio orientation and scale of operation. Data envelopment analysis is used to identify banks' levels of performance over time in both countries. In order to decompose banks' total factor productivity change into technological, scale efficiency and pure efficiency changes, the Malmquist index method is applied. Banks operating in both countries have improved their performance over time and savings banks and large banks, in particular, have tended to outperform other types of banks. Banks operating in Spain tend to perform better than in Portugal and Spanish-owned banks perform better than their Portuguese-owned counterparts. The improvements in performance revealed have mainly been due to technological change. Bankscope is a well- respected data source and has been the basis of many studies of performance in international banking. Unfortunately, owing to data deficiencies, around 20 per cent of the banks operating in Portugal and Spain were not included. Practical implications - If Portuguese banks are to be competitive internationally, there is considerable need for efficiency improvements. The paper provides insights into the dynamics of the Portuguese and Spanish banking systems. The results should be of interest to management in banking and bank regulators in Europe, and economists and others studying bank performance trends. The research reported may shed light on some of the challenges facing the banking sectors of the "new" EU states (such as Poland and Hungary)

Testing for international financial markets integration

This paper examines the extent to which financial markets across the main international financial centres integrated between 1988 and 2001 in the face of technological change and capital market liberalisation. Two empirical approaches are adopted based on principal components analysis and cointegration tests, applied respectively to covered interest rate differentials and real interest rates.. The results suggest that some financial integration occurred during the 1990s but that integration is far from complete at the international level. The study also confirms differing trends in the integration of financial markets in different geographical regions.School of Managemen

Challenges Facing the Polish Banking Industry: A Comparative Study with UK Banks

In 2004 Poland entered the EU. This paper investigates the performance of the Polish banking industry over the period 1999–2004, by looking specifically at its comparative efficiency in relation to one of the largest banking sectors in the EU namely, that of the UK. Based on a range of efficiency measures, the empirical results reveal a surprising degree of relative efficiency in the Polish banking industry, no doubt reflecting the substantial economic changes introduced in Poland since 1989. The findings suggest that the Polish banking sector should be able to withstand the new competitive pressures that it faces following entry into the banking sector of the EU.Poland, UK, banking, efficiency, performance

1º Seminário Anual em Anestesiologia Veterinária

Para alunos do 4º ano e superiores, maioritariamente de discussão prática, focado na monitorização anestésica, protocolos anestésicos e anestesia por concentração alvo (TCI)

The effects of ownership on bank efficiency in Latin America

In recent years many countries have privatized their state-owned banks and encouraged foreign investment. This paper investigates the roles of state and private ownership and foreign and domestic ownership on the performance of banks across Latin America. Using a range of financial and economic ratios, data envelopment analysis and regression modelling, the study reveals that by 2001 there was surprisingly little difference in performance between state-owned and privately-owned banks and between foreign and domestically-owned banks. The study also reports significantly different levels of bank performance in different Latin American countries, suggesting that country differences outweighed ownership differences in explaining performance

Evolutionary history of the genus Tarentola (Gekkota: Phyllodactylidae) from the Mediterranean Basin, estimated using multilocus sequence data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The pronounced morphological conservatism within <it>Tarentola </it>geckos contrasted with a high genetic variation in North Africa, has led to the hypothesis that this group could represent a cryptic species complex, a challenging system to study especially when trying to define distinct evolutionary entities and address biogeographic hypotheses. In the present work we have re-examined the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships between and within all Mediterranean species of <it>Tarentola</it>, placing the genealogies obtained into a temporal framework. In order to do this, we have investigated the sequence variation of two mitochondrial (12S rRNA and 16S rRNA), and four nuclear markers (ACM4, PDC, MC1R, and RAG2) for 384 individuals of all known Mediterranean <it>Tarentola </it>species, so that their evolutionary history could be assessed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of all three generated genealogies (combined mtDNA, combined nDNA, and mtDNA+nDNA) we prefer the phylogenetic relationships obtained when all genetic markers are combined. A total of 133 individuals, and 2,901 bp of sequence length, were used in this analysis. The phylogeny obtained for <it>Tarentola </it>presents deep branches, with <it>T. annularis, T. ephippiata </it>and <it>T. chazaliae </it>occupying a basal position and splitting from the remaining species around 15.38 Mya. <it>Tarentola boehmei </it>is sister to all other Mediterranean species, from which it split around 11.38 Mya. There are also two other major groups: 1) the <it>T. mauritanica </it>complex present in North Africa and Europe; and 2) the clade formed by the <it>T. fascicularis</it>/<it>deserti </it>complex, <it>T. neglecta </it>and <it>T. mindiae</it>, occurring only in North Africa. The cladogenesis between these two groups occurred around 8.69 Mya, coincident with the late Miocene. Contrary to what was initially proposed, <it>T. neglecta </it>and <it>T. mindiae </it>are sister taxa to both <it>T. fascicularis </it>and <it>T. deserti</it>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>At least in the Iberian Peninsula and Northwest Africa, the lineages obtained have some geographic coherency, whilst the evolutionary history of the forms from Northeast Africa remains unclear, with a paraphyletic <it>T. fascicularis </it>with respect to <it>T. deserti</it>. The separation between the <it>T. mauritanica </it>complex and the clade formed by the <it>T. fascicularis</it>/<it>deserti </it>complex, <it>T. neglecta </it>and <it>T. mindiae </it>is coincident with the uplift of the Atlas Mountain chain, and the establishment of two distinct bioclimatic regions on each side of the barrier.</p

Wine Magic: Consumer Culture, Tourism, and Terroir

International audienc

Remote Sensing (NDVI) and Apparent Soil Electrical Conductivity (ECap) to Delineate Different Zones in a Vineyard

Presented at the 1st International Electronic Conference on Agronomy, 3–17 May 2021The intensification of agriculture has greatly enhanced crop productivity, but also its potential environmental impact. Nutrient recycling and an increase in resource use efficiency are the key points to keep production at high levels with minimum impact. The present work’s goal was to provide new insight on the spatial variability of soil chemical properties in a vineyard. For this, three different zones were identified in a 6.77 ha parcel, according to the remote sensing of apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECap) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Soil samples from specific locations were then collected and chemically described, and the resulting data were statistically analyzed. ECap and NDVI appeared to be efficient tools to define different zones within the vineyard, with most of the soil chemical properties varying at the highest significance level (p < 0.001) according to the F test, except for extractable phosphorus (Égner-Rhiem) and organic carbon (TOC method). Overall, our results revealed potential for the implementation of site-specific soil fertilization and soil quality managementinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio