THE COSTS OF RAISING EQUITY RATIO FOR BANKS Evidence from publicly listed banks operating in Finland

The solvency rate of banks differs from the other corporations. The equity rate of a bank is lower than it is in corporations of other field of business. However, functional banking industry has huge impact on the whole society. The equity rate of a bank needs to be higher because that makes the banking industry more stable as the probability of the banks going under will decrease. If a bank goes belly up, the government will be compensating the deposits since it has granted the bank’s depositors a deposit insurance. This means that the payment comes from the tax payers in the last resort. Economic conversation has long concentrated on the costs of raising equity ratio. It has been a common belief that raising equity ratio also increases the banks’ funding costs in the same phase and these costs will be redistributed to the banks customers as higher service charges. Regardless of the common belief, the actual reaction of the funding costs to the higher equity ratio has been studied only a little in Europe and no study has been constructed in Finland. Before it can be calculated whether the higher stability of the banking industry that is caused by the raise in equity levels compensates the extra costs in funding costs, it must be calculated how much the actual increase in the funding costs is. Currently the banking industry is controlled by complex and heavy regulation. To maintain such a complex system inflicts major costs in itself. This research leans on the Modigliani and Miller theory, which shows that the finance structure of a firm is irrelevant to their funding costs. In addition, this research follows the calculations of Miller, Yang ja Marcheggianon (2012) and Vale (2011) where they calculate the funding costs after the doubling of specific banks’ equity ratios. The Finnish banks studied in this research are Nordea and Danske Bank because they are the two largest banks operating in Finland and they both also have the right company form to able the calculations. To calculate the costs of halving their leverages this study used the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The halving of the leverage of Danske Bank raised its funding costs for 16—257 basis points depending on the method of assessment. For Nordea the increase in funding costs was 11—186 basis points when its leverage was halved. On the behalf of the results found in this study it can be said that the doubling of an equity ratio does not increase the funding costs of a bank one by one. Actually the increase is quite modest. More solvent banks would increase the stability of the banking industry enormously while the increase in funding costs is low. If the costs of bank regulation exceeds the increase in funding costs after the higher equity ratio, it can be thought that this is the better way of stabilizing the banking industry rather than heavy regulation.siirretty Doriast

Sex Disparities In St-Elevation Myocardial Infarction Care And Outcomes: A Global Systematic Metaanalysis

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Outcomes of patients with ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) have improved through widespread implementation of systems-of-care, yet sex disparities continue to be reported. A comprehensive, global study of sex disparities in contemporary STEMI care and outcomes has not been undertaken. Objective: To examine whether sex differences in STEMI management and mortality outcomes persist worldwide and by geographic region. Methods: A systematic PubMed literature search was performed using search terms “sex” or “gender” and “STEMI” for studies in English from 2000 to present reporting sex-based STEMI mortality. Articles with primary data on sex-based STEMI mortality were included. Data collected prior to 2000, sub-categorized data, and studies with less than 50 women were excluded. Meta-analyses were conducted using random effects models and are reported overall and by geographic region. Heterogeneity was assessed via Cochran’s Q statistic. Sex differences were evaluated in baseline characteristics, door-to-balloon times, and mortality (in-hospital, 30-day, 6 months, and 1 year). Main Outcome and Measure: The primary outcome is in-hospital to 12-month mortality. Secondary outcome is Door-to-Balloon/Door-to-Reperfusion time. Results: 613 published manuscripts were reviewed and ultimately 75 studies included in the meta-analysis, representing 29 countries in 6 geographic regions and 731,990 patients (32% female). Women were older and had more diabetes and hypertension. Overall, unadjusted in-hospital mortality was 2-fold higher in women compared to men (2.09 OR, 95%CI 1.91-2.08; p Conclusions: This study demonstrates concerning global sex disparities in risk factors, time to treatment, STEMI care and a doubling of unadjusted mortality in women. Adjustments for comorbidities suggest that modifiable risk factors, rather than difference in reperfusion therapy, account primarily for the difference in mortality. This highlights the need for a global call-to-action to elucidate critical factors and barriers to preventive care to reduce the observed sex gap in STEMI outcomes worldwide

Airline schedule punctuality management

Airline schedule punctuality is a complex problem and one of the major concerns of the airline top management. Flight schedule disturbances may occur as delays and/or cancellations. There are many internal and external reasons for delays. These delays may propagate in the aircraft cycles and cause a large schedule disturbance. This may influences passenger satisfaction and airline resources. The objective of this research is to formulate a systematic approach for schedule punctuality which supports management decision making. The punctuality management system is structured to combine all schedule punctuality components, input and output variables. Five models are incorporated in this system. The first model is the disturbance model which generates random delays based on an estimated Lognormal delay distribution function. The delay analysis is carried out from a one year sample of delay statistics in which general, original , reactionary and other delay types are classified. The second model is the recovery model which incorporates the disturbance model with management strategies to determine delay propagation. A PC based simulation model (SKDMOD) is developed as a prototype which integrates disturbance and recovery models using SIMSCRIPT 11.5. 18 management strategies are simulated covering ground times (30, 40 and 50 minutes), maximum delay times to assign spare aircraft (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 hours) and spare aircraft using part of the domestic network of Saudi Arabia. The third model is the passengers' attitude model which determines the delay impact functions and the maximum passenger revenue loss based on 262 responses from a passenger interview survey. The fourth model is the revenue model which estimates the passengers' revenue loss. The fifth model is the cost model which estimates the extra cost resulting from implementation of the management strategies. All strategies are evaluated to determine the optimum based on profit and profit margin. OPTIM is the optimization program developed to find the optimum strategy(ies). This approach provides a guidelines for the management of punctuality. It integrates all the tools developed in a decision support system framework