Why do financial literacy programmes fail?

Numerous studies have found a positive relationship between financial literacy and financial experience. Typically, this relationship is interpreted as being a causal relationship, i.e. an increase in financial literacy leads to better financial decision making. However, a simple relationship cannot be interpreted in a causal way. In this paper, we show evidence for a causal relationship running the opposite way, i.e. people with more financial experience seem to acquire more financial knowledge and become more financially literate. This finding has important implications as it suggests that programmes targeted at improving financial literacy could be more effective if they incorporate experiential components

Do criminal sanctions deter insider trading?

Many developed markets have taken what appears to be a tough stance on illegal insider trading through the use of criminal sanctions. Although criminal sanctions represent a much greater penalty than civil sanctions, the higher burden of proof required makes their enforceability weaker. This trade-off between severity and enforceability makes the impact of criminal sanctions ambiguous. In this paper, we empirically examine this issue by studying the deterrence of insider trading following the introduction of criminal sanctions in a developed market. Significant changes in sanction regimes are rare, especially when criminal sanctions are introduced without other changes. In February 2008, New Zealand introduced criminal sanctions for insider trading. This change of law offers a unique setting in which to examine the deterrence effect of criminalization. Using measures for the cost of trading, degree of information asymmetry, and probability of informed trading, we find that the enactment of this law led to a worsening in these measures. These findings suggest that the weaker enforceability of criminalization outweighs the associated increased severity of the penalties

On the role of cultural distance in the decision to cross-list

This paper examines the role of culture in the choice of the destination market for cross-listing firms. We argue that firms cross-list in markets with greater cultural similarities, because 1) investors are more willing to invest in culturally familiar firms and 2) managers seek to avoid potential conflicts with culturally disparate investors and managers. Employing Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we find that firms from developed countries display greater cross-listing propensity towards culturally similar countries. These results are robust to various alternative cultural measures. We further find that it is mainly the difference in uncertainty avoidance and individualism that affect cross-listing decisions

Price discovery in US-Canadian cross-listed shares

Given the increasing integration of markets around the world, concerns have been expressed about the survival of smaller national exchanges in competition with larger, more liquid exchanges. Several theories have been put forward regarding the likely long-term survival of smaller exchanges, but little actual empirical evidence has been presented to suggest which of the theories, if any, are correct. We explore this issue within the setting of Canadian and US firms cross-listing onto each other’s exchanges using the component share measure of each exchanges contribution to price discovery. We look at Gonzalo and Granger (1995) component shares over a 14 year period from 1996-2009 and find that each market is on average informationally dominant for its own companies, with the exception of Canadian firms listing on the NASDAQ. We also find that there is considerable time variation in the component shares, but little evidence that the Canadian market is systematically losing competitiveness to the US exchanges as has been feared. We also find that known determinants of the level of price discovery appear unrelated to the changes in price discovery

Macroeconomic news announcements and price discovery: evidence from Canadian-U.S. cross-listed firms

This study employs macroeconomic news announcements as a proxy for new information arrivals and examines their impact on price discovery. We compare the price discovery of 38 Canadian companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for the period 2004–2011. First, we observe that price discovery shifts significantly during macroeconomic news announcement days. Second, the NYSE becomes more important in terms of price discovery, regardless of the origin of the news. Third, we examine the relation between price discovery and market microstructure variables. After controlling for liquidity shocks, we find that the impact of news announcements persists. Intraday analyses of price discovery on periods surrounding news releases further support these findings. Overall, our findings suggest that there is a difference in information-processing capability of the two markets, with the U.S. market being better at processing information than the Canadian market during macroeconomic news announcements

Development of the stria vascularis and potassium regulation in the human fetal cochlea : insights into hereditary sensorineural hearing loss

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is one of the most common congenital disorders in humans, afflicting one in every thousand newborns. The majority is of heritable origin and can be divided in syndromic and nonsyndromic forms. Knowledge of the expression profile of affected genes in the human fetal cochlea is limited, and as many of the gene mutations causing SNHL likely affect the stria vascularis or cochlear potassium homeostasis (both essential to hearing), a better insight into the embryological development of this organ is needed to understand SNHL etiologies. We present an investigation on the development of the stria vascularis in the human fetal cochlea between 9 and 18 weeks of gestation (W9–W18) and show the cochlear expression dynamics of key potassium‐regulating proteins. At W12, MITF+/SOX10+/KIT+ neural‐crest‐derived melanocytes migrated into the cochlea and penetrated the basement membrane of the lateral wall epithelium, developing into the intermediate cells of the stria vascularis. These melanocytes tightly integrated with Na(+)/K(+)‐ATPase‐positive marginal cells, which started to express KCNQ1 in their apical membrane at W16. At W18, KCNJ10 and gap junction proteins GJB2/CX26 and GJB6/CX30 were expressed in the cells in the outer sulcus, but not in the spiral ligament. Finally, we investigated GJA1/CX43 and GJE1/CX23 expression, and suggest that GJE1 presents a potential new SNHL associated locus. Our study helps to better understand human cochlear development, provides more insight into multiple forms of hereditary SNHL, and suggests that human hearing does not commence before the third trimester of pregnancy. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 75: 1219–1240, 201

Emotions in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and Typically Hearing Children

For deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children living in an environment where their access to linguistic input and social interactions is compromised, learning emotions could be difficult, which may further affect social functioning. To understand the role of emotion in DHH children’s social life, this study investigated emotional functioning (i.e., emotion recognition, empathy, emotion expression), and its relation with social functioning (i.e., social competence and externalizing behaviors), in 55 DHH children and 74 children with typical hearing (aged 3–10 years; M_{age} = 6.04). Parental reports on children’s emotional and social functioning and factors related to DHH children’s hearing were collected. Results showed similar levels of emotional and social functioning in children with and without hearing loss. Use of auditory intervention and speech perception did not correlate with any measures in DHH children. In both groups, higher levels of empathy related to higher social competence and fewer externalizing behaviors; emotion recognition and positive emotion expression were unrelated to either aspect of social functioning. Higher levels of negative emotion expression related to lower social competence in both groups, but to more externalizing behaviors in DHH children only. DHH children in less linguistically accessible environments may not have adequate knowledge for appropriately expressing negative emotions socially

A hybrid Gaussian mixture/DSMC approach to study the Fourier thermal problem

In rarefied gas dynamics scattering kernels deserve special attention since they contain all the essential information about the effects of physical and chemical properties of the gas–solid surface interface on the gas scattering process. However, to study the impact of the gas–surface interactions on the large-scale behavior of fluid flows, these scattering kernels need to be integrated in larger-scale models like Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC). In this work, the Gaussian mixture (GM) model, an unsupervised machine learning approach, is utilized to establish a scattering kernel for monoatomic (Ar) and diatomic (H2) gases directly from Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations data. The GM scattering kernel is coupled to a pure DSMC solver to study isothermal and non-isothermal rarefied gas flows in a system with two parallel walls. To fully examine the coupling mechanism between the GM scattering kernel and the DSMC approach, a one-to-one correspondence between MD and DSMC particles is considered here. Benchmarked by MD results, the performance of the GM-DSMC is assessed against the Cercignani–Lampis–Lord (CLL) kernel incorporated into DSMC simulation (CLL-DSMC). The comparison of various physical and stochastic parameters shows the better performance of the GM-DSMC approach. Especially for the diatomic system, the GM-DSMC outperforms the CLL-DSMC approach. The fundamental superiority of the GM-DSMC approach confirms its potential as a multi-scale simulation approach for accurately measuring flow field properties in systems with highly nonequilibrium conditions.</p

Communities of practice at the center of circular water solutions

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe circular economy (CE) is an emerging system that moves away from the traditional linear view of “make, use, and dispose” to one that is restorative and regenerative to keep resources, such as water, at its highest value and utility at all times. Water is essential to the CE due to its importance for human life and because of the energy and material it contains. However, the move toward more circular water solutions is accompanied by both technological and social challenges for which, this article argues, stakeholder participation and social learning are essential. Enabling diverse stakeholders to engage and share different perspectives, interests, and needs, and ultimately to co‐produce knowledge, communities of practice (CoPs) are seen as a suitable approach to discuss CE water technologies in their institutional context. Although CoPs are being used widely in many sectors and disciplines, there is insufficient focus and a lack of consensus on how to evaluate the CoPs to understand whether and how the co‐production of knowledge is effective and efficient. This article gives an overview of the importance of water in the CE, explores the rationale for knowledge co‐production and CoPs, and proposes a CoP evaluation framework to draw together a consensus on the methods used for evaluating water knowledge co‐production and social learning processes in the transition toward the CE.European Commissio