Ownership Changes and Access to External Financing

This paper examines access to external financing in the privatization context and provides new evidence on the effects of financing constraints on performance and investment. Ownership reforms increase firms' reliance on external financing. Empirically, performance and investment changes around ownership reforms are increasing in country-level measures of access to credit. The presence of a severe prior public financing constraint contributes to stronger investment growth after privatization. Privatized enterprises do not outperform publicly owned industries, all else given. Our analyses rely on new international sector- and firm-level data and correct for potential endogeneity of ownership changes

Crises and Contagion: A Survey

There is a large literature on crises and contagion. This survey focuses on the theory, and in particular on how to reconcile crises with standard neoclassical theory and macroeconomics. A central thesis of this survey is that understanding crises requires an understanding of market imperfections – and especially of the constraints, for instance, on borrowing, imposed by imperfect information – and how those market imperfections interact with irrationalities on the part of market participants and imperfections in the regulatory environment. This paper is divided into three sections. The first surveys the literature on what causes crises; the second on contagion and the effect of interdependence in amplifying crises; the third on the role of government. Not surprisingly, theories which stress the efficiency and stability of markets look to government as the source of the problem; stability is attained by government not interfering in the natural workings of the market. Theories which see the economy as inherently inefficient and unstable look to government to help correct market failures. Ascertaining which of these theories is correct is not easy, and beyond the task of this short survey. One of the reasons for the difficulties is that there are elements of many of the alternative approaches present in every crisis. No one could look at the recession of 2008 or the Irish banking crisis without noting market irrationalities. But does that mean we could not have had a crisis in the absence of such irrationalities? The major shock was an endogenous one – a housing bubble; the shock was not an exogenous event (‘a once in a hundred year flood’) but there were exogenous (at least to the economic system) events that perhaps could have triggered a major downturn, reflected in the spike in oil and food prices

Functional connectivity analysis in EEG source space: The choice of method.

Functional connectivity (FC) is among the most informative features derived from EEG. However, the most straightforward sensor-space analysis of FC is unreliable owing to volume conductance effects. An alternative-source-space analysis of FC-is optimal for high- and mid-density EEG (hdEEG, mdEEG); however, it is questionable for widely used low-density EEG (ldEEG) because of inadequate surface sampling. Here, using simulations, we investigate the performance of the two source FC methods, the inverse-based source FC (ISFC) and the cortical partial coherence (CPC). To examine the effects of localization errors of the inverse method on the FC estimation, we simulated an oscillatory source with varying locations and SNRs. To compare the FC estimations by the two methods, we simulated two synchronized sources with varying between-source distance and SNR. The simulations were implemented for hdEEG, mdEEG, and ldEEG. We showed that the performance of both methods deteriorates for deep sources owing to their inaccurate localization and smoothing. The accuracy of both methods improves with the increasing between-source distance. The best ISFC performance was achieved using hd/mdEEG, while the best CPC performance was observed with ldEEG. In conclusion, with hdEEG, ISFC outperforms CPC and therefore should be the preferred method. In the studies based on ldEEG, the CPC is a method of choice

EFFICIENCY OF THE ENTERPRISE, AND FACTORS AFFECTING IT

The article explores the issues of understanding the efficiency of the enterprise, considers the effectiveness in terms of targeted, rational or economical use of resources. The conceptual apparatus of efficiency, discovered by leading scientists in terms of the possibility of solving a problem or achieving a goal in the most rational variant, is explored. Conceptually, the notion of efficiency from the point of view of an effective method or the possibility of solving a problem was determined. The understanding of the influence of factors on the efficiency of enterprises’ activity is presented. The factors inherent in the category of effectiveness, assigned to the group of external and internal, are determined

Ownership change, institutional development and performance

This paper conducts a cross-country empirical study of the impact of institutions and agency conflicts on ownership reforms and their implications for changes in performance and efficiency. We examine two main questions. First, we evaluate the effects of certain property rights and institutional quality measures on performance and efficiency. We find that property rights and contracting rights protections contribute to stronger post-privatization performance. Second, we ask whether sectors undergoing changes from state to private ownership exhibit better or worse performance than sectors remaining public. We find an insignificant effect of privatization in ordinary least squares estimates and a negative short-term effect after correcting for endogeneity of privatization decisions that disappears in the long run, consistent with recently privatized enterprises facing short-run costs of restructuring and the challenges of mitigating agency and expropriation concerns

Cash flow management at the insurance company aimed at provision of financial stability

The insurance market of the Russian Federation is currently demonstrating the trend of slower growth rate of insurance premiums and problems, rising in certain sectors. The loss ratio of insurance operations is increasing along with reducing profitability of internal funds and assets, operational costs are growing. All these factors affect the financial stability of insurance companies and reduce the profitability of insurance business. There is no doubt that maintaining financial stability of insurance companies in the Russian insurance market under current conditions is an extremely important issue since this sector maintains stability of economic subjects in the most difficult economic situation, ensures the continuity of social reproduction and acts as the main provider of long-term investments to the country’s financial market. To keep their position on the market, the insurance companies should pay special attention to maintaining stable positive cash flow and reducing the cash outflow. The approach to cash flow management in the insurance company proposed in the article accounts for existing challenges and opportunities can maintain the financial equilibrium of the company and can improve the efficiency of performance as well as reduce the need for debt capital and the insolvency risk of the insurer. The purpose of work is to identify the problems of financial stability and cash flow management in the insurance company and to develop practical recommendations aimed at addressing these problems based on generalization of the theoretical aspects and analysis of financial indicators. The scientific novelty of the research is in developing theoretical and methodological provisions and elaborating practical recommendations in the field of the insurance company’s cash management in order to ensure financial stability. © 2016 Elena Knyazeva, Larisa Yuzvovich, Elena Smorodina, Valeria Fomenko and Vadim Katochikov

Impact of financial globalization on banking risks

Financial globalization definitely has an overall effect on globalization in the banking sector. This is reflected in averaging of banking risks for all parties, which occurs due to the impact of the markets, economies, private corporations and monopolies as well as states on each other. As a result, just the opposite priorities in monetary policy may have the same beneficial effect. The aim of the study is to develop conceptual scientific and methodological research areas concerning diversification of banking risks in the context of financial globalization. As part of a comprehensive analysis of the resulting indicators of financial and economic activities of the Russian banking sector, the authors have assessed the key financial performance of the major lending institutions of the Russian banking system in order to identify the dependence of the Russian banking sector on external factors. Financial globalization in general, of course, affects the globalization in the banking sector in particular. This is reflected in averaging banking risks for all parties to the process as a result of the integrative impact of markets, economies, private corporations and monopolies. In this study the authors have presented the mechanism of integrative motion of economic processes with regard to the financial globalization impact on the results of the countries’ monetary policy. Development of market relations and rapid financial globalization lead to permanent transformations of risks that require new approaches and methods of management. © 2016 Larisa Yuzvovich, Elena Knyazeva, Natalia Mokeeva, Elena Avramenko and Maksim Maramygin

Multiple Networks for Interhemispheric Integration in the Visual Brain: fMRI BOLD Response Increases with EEG Synchronization

2006.05.6-12, ISMRM 2006, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 14th Scientific Meeting, Seattle, Washington, USA. Book of abstracts ELECTRONIC POSTER DISCUSSION: The Future of BOLD? Resting State Signals and Multiple Modalities: Electronic Poste

fMRI responses in medial frontal cortex that depend on the temporal frequency of visual input.

Functional networks in the human brain have been investigated using electrophysiological methods (EEG/MEG, LFP, and MUA) and steady-state paradigms that apply periodic luminance or contrast modulation to drive cortical networks. We have used this approach with fMRI to characterize a cortical network driven by a checkerboard reversing at a fixed frequency. We found that the fMRI signals in voxels located in occipital cortex were increased by checkerboard reversal at frequencies ranging from 3 to 14 Hz. In contrast, the response of a cluster of voxels centered on basal medial frontal cortex depended strongly on the reversal frequency, consistently exhibiting a peak in the response for specific reversal frequencies between 3 and 5 Hz in each subject. The fMRI signals at the frontal voxels were positively correlated indicating a homogeneous cluster. Some of the occipital voxels were positively correlated to the frontal voxels apparently forming a large-scale functional network. Other occipital voxels were negatively correlated to the frontal voxels, suggesting a functionally distinct network. The results provide preliminary fMRI evidence that during visual stimulation, input frequency can be varied to engage different functional networks