Political connectedness and formal finance in transition economies

Although small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent more than 90% of all enterprises and play an important role in employment generation, they lack access to affordable formal finance. Conventionally, market failures and information imperfections are seen as major causes of this misallocation. However, the role of social and political factors in resource allocation, including access to formal finance, has recently become more widely accepted. Firm-level evidence from postcommunist economies, for example, shows that political connectedness improves access to bank credit, but is not associated with enterprise growth

When it Comes to Standing, Two Legs are Better than Four

Animal rights activists are currently filing lawsuits naming animals as plaintiffs hoping that courts will grant animals legal personhood status and standing to file lawsuits on their own behalf. Currently, animals are designated as property in the United States. If courts grant animals legal personhood status, animals would no longer be classified as property, but instead would hold the same legal rights as humans. Several courts have grappled with the issue of granting animals standing to file lawsuits, and--other than a Ninth Circuit decision that was later explicitly dismissed as dicta by the same circuit-all have declined to do so. Congress has likewise chosen not to grant animals legal rights. Additionally, although there are numerous statutory protections afforded to animals, these safeguards fall short of granting animals complete personhood rights. This Comment will examine animals\u27 historical classification as property and the standing doctrine as it relates to animals, arguing that the common law\u27s treatment of animals should not change. Numerous negative consequences will result from granting animals standing to file lawsuits. Animals should not have rights, and adapting and expanding the existing legal protection afforded to animals can better protect animal welfare. A guardianship model could be implemented to expand standing and enable humans to file suit on behalf of animals

Cost-Determined and Demand-Determined Prices: Lessons for the Industrialised World from Development Economics

In labour surplus developing countries a strategy based on the application of the Keynesian multiplier to generate employment is constrained by the availability of resources. In some of Keynes’s writings in general and those on the post-War employment and commodity policy in particular it seems that Keynes himself became aware of the limitation of the savings investment multiplier in generating and maintaining full employment in industrialized economies. The paper argues that the time has now arrived for the economic policy makers to wake up to the limitations of expansionary fiscal and monetary policy alone to combat the current downturn in economic activities

Due Process in Death Penalty Commutations: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Clemency

The idea of the last-minute reprieve granted by a distant, unknowable dispenser of mercy to a man condemned to death has a powerful hold on our imaginations. Fyodor Dostoevsky\u27s eleventh hour pardon by the czar in many ways shaped his literary career. The scene of the haunted Death Row prisoner who awaits word from the governor as a ticking clock punctuates his final hours is a stock vignette of Hollywood crime films. Anyone who has ever seized on the slimmest hope, whose fate has been committed to the hands of another - virtually all of us - can identify with the plight of the condemned prisoner. In that moment, the convicted criminal is reinvested with some of the humanity which our imaginations deprived him of when we assayed the horrible and violent acts that warranted his execution by the State

Quality of raw and cooked fillets of Atlantic salmon farmed in the Arctic : effect of dietary oil and thawing temperature

The fatty acid content in fillets of Atlantic salmon cultured in the Arctic and fed diets containing varying levels of EPA and DHA (low, medium or high) was assessed. Also, dietary effects on fillet color and liquid holding capacity were investigated and analyses were performed in different areas of the salmon fillet in both raw and cooked products. The fillet fatty acid composition, texture, and color of thawed (4oC and 20oC) and cooked fillet of the various dietary groups were determined. Gutted weight (kg), length (cm), condition factor and fillet yield (%) were higher in the S1s (smolts transferred to seawater in spring) than S0s (underyearlings transferred in autumn). C18:1n9c (oleic acid) had the highest concentration with TestS showing higher concentration than TestP for the S0 salmon. Increasing dietary inclusion of EPA & DHA increases the fillet EPA and DHA composition in both S0 and S1 groups. TestS had a higher color score than TestP with SalmoFan scores for ventral fillet region (thawed at 4oC and cooked). Thawing at 20oC increased driploss in TestS than TestP. Temperature, time of transfer to sea water, sampling time and point accounted for most of the differences seen in the diets of the S0s or S1 salmon.M-A

Connectedness and SME Financing in Post-communist Economies: Evidence from Uzbekistan

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. Abstract: This paper investigates effects of interpersonal links with bureaucrats on SME access to formal finance. A survey of 502 SMEs in post-communist Uzbekistan shows fewer SMEs with government connections express a need for external finance, but success rates of applications are higher than for SMEs without connections. Econometric models show government-connected SMEs receive more formal credit than their counterparts. The small share of SME credit available is thus distributed in favour of those capitalising on bureaucratic links, with consequent resource misallocation. Findings imply that greater SME credit flows need supplementing with capacity building that improves bank transparency and efficiency

Money and banks in transition economies: the case of Uzbekistan.

Using the Post Keynesian approach, this study investigates the evolution of money and banks in transition economies in general, and in Uzbekistan in particular. By emphasising the role and importance of institutions in the economic process, the study argues that the evolution of money and banks during transition is a necessarily complex and time-consuming process. By analysing functional differences of money and banks and their evolutionary path in a market economy and in a centrally planned economy, the study suggests that, to reach necessary maturity and to become effective financial intermediaries and creators of new credit, transition banks have to go through several evolutionary phases. This is explained by the historical distinction between cash money and non-cash money, underdeveloped banking habits of the general public, slow and inefficient payments system inherited from the past, and more importantly hyperinflation during the early years of transition. Taking Uzbekistan as a case study, we also argue that the speed of this evolution can vary from country to country depending upon a number of important factors such as the number of years spent under central planning, the degree of centralisation of the economy, the starting date of reforms and their consistency, proximity to large and dynamically functioning market economies, and more importantly entry of foreign banks. Uzbekistan was very slow in reforming its economy and therefore is still far from developing into a market economy. In spite of some positive changes undertaken during the transition period such as establishment of a two-tier banking sector, formal abolition of the distinction between cash money and non-cash money, modernisation of the payments system, controlling inflation, and the establishment of the deposit insurance fund, the banking sector failed to regain the general public’s confidence. We argue that weak development of money and banking in Uzbekistan is largely explained by the current structural organisation of the economy and some sector-specific issues associated with it. The implication of these arguments is that, in order to capture the objective reality of the situation, theories must be developed in particular ways in the context of history, institutional factors, and policy frameworks

Higher education reforms in Uzbekistan: Expanding vocational education at the expense of higher education?

This short article discusses fundamental reforms undertaking the in higher education system of Uzbekistan since 1991