Thrift involvement in commercial and industrial lending

How important a role do thrift institutions play in local banking market competition? This article looks at a key aspect of that issue by examining the commercial and industrial lending of commercial banks and thrifts during the 1990s. Generally, thrifts were far less involved in C&I lending than banks during the period, but their involvement varied considerably with such factors as local deposit market concentration and institution size, charter type, and ownership status.Savings and loan associations ; Bank loans

Real-time detection of anomalous paths through networks

Ponencias, comunicaciones y pósters presentados en el 17th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science "Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place", celebrado en la Universitat Jaume I del 3 al 6 de junio de 2014.The proliferation of increasingly inexpensive mobile devices capable of transmitting accurate positional information to other devices and servers has led to a variety of applications ranging from health situation monitoring to GPS-based offender monitoring. One of the resultant challenges is in understanding, in real-time, when incoming observations merit further examination. In this research, we investigate an approach for identifying anomalous paths through networks using real-time comparisons to a previously learned model. Our approach, the development of a series of “posterior weighted graphs” allows us to both determine which underlying model a particular path most closely represents as well as evaluate this relationship in real-time as more observations become available. Here we present the posterior weighted graph approach for examining path similarity and an extension for detecting anomalies in real-time. Our results illustrate how we can distinguish from among multiple candidate paths and, likewise, when observations no longer match an expected model

The Economic Case for Landscape Restoration in Latin America

Degraded lands—lands that have lost some degree of their natural productivity through human activity—account for over 20 percent of forest and agricultural lands in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some 300 million hectares of the region's forests are considered degraded, and about 350 million hectares are now classified as deforested. The agriculture and forestry sectors are growing and exerting great pressure on natural areas. With the region expected to play an increasingly important role in global food security, this pressure will continue to ratchet up. In addition, land degradation is a major driver in greenhouse gas emissions in the region. Forest and landscape restoration can offer a solution to these increasing pressures

Strategic foresight analysis for high impact interventions in agriculture and food security

A mix of demographic, technological, climate and environmental changes make anticipating and planning the future a complex - but critical step - to increase our food supply while sustaining natural resources. Successful interventions which meet these twin objectives are a priority for governments, multi-lateral banks, NGOs, and the private sector. It is vital that we articulate the potential impacts of climate change, different interventions, and policy decisions on the most strategic areas of investment to achieve the best economic and social benefits. The question remains: how to articulate these complex factors to support policy and decision making by governments and organizations

Busting the Myth that Pilots Never Scale

Busting the Myth that Pilots Never Scale: Unpacking the USAID Climate Services for Resilient Development Strategy in LAC. Presented at the International Conference on Climate Services version 6 (ICCS6)

Commentary on foresight and trade-off analysis for agriculture and food systems

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De los escenarios a las trayectorias de desarrollo para la seguridad alimentaria bajo cambio climático en Honduras. Serie 1. Impacto Nacional

Los escenarios futuros son una excelente oportunidad de capturar las principales preocupaciones de los múltiples actores de una región. Al igual que contribuir con las discusiones orientadas a la priorización y planeación de sus intervenciones. Los escenarios futuros dibujan una potencial vulnerabilidad del sistema nacional de alimentos bajo dos estrategias de estímulo al sector agrícola, comercial y asociado a seguridad alimentaria. Toda vez que las condiciones climáticas futuras exacerbarían las productividades, el uso del suelo y el posicionamiento en el comercio mundial. Dada las características de la dieta, la geografía económica y los procesos de urbanización, los escenarios en su capacidad de simplificación dejan entrever la necesidad de estimular y desarrollar las capacidades de adaptación local. Para ello, el rol de las instituciones y en general de todos los involucrados en ejercicios de prospectiva estratégica, reduce la incertidumbre futura y mejora la priorización de las acciones colectivas.Future scenarios are an excellent opportunity to capture the main concerns of the multiple actors in a region. As well as contributing to the discussions aimed at prioritizing and planning their interventions. Future scenarios draw a potential vulnerability of the national food system under two strategies to stimulate the agricultural, commercial and food security sector. Since future weather conditions would exacerbate productivity, land use and position in world trade. Given the characteristics of the diet, economic geography and urbanization processes, the scenarios in their capacity for simplification suggest the need to stimulate and develop local adaptation capacities. For this, the role of institutions and in general of all those involved in strategic prospective exercises reduces future uncertainty and improves the prioritization of collective actions

Distribución espacial de la vulnerabilidad futura bajo escenario de cambio climático. Serie 3. Análisis municipal para Corredor Seco hondureño.

Mediante la prospectiva estratégica y la ciencia de los datos, se puede dibujar diferentes trayectorias del impacto futuro al sistema agrícola hondureño en respuesta al cambio climático. Los escenarios proyectan tendencias negativas en los cultivos básicos en la demanda de los hogares y cultivos con gran valor comercial. El cambio climático afectaría la aptitud de los territorios para la siembra de cultivos de alta importancia en la dieta local. Esto podría influir en la distribución del suelo y el ordenamiento del espacio rural. La vulnerabilidad en el Corredor Seco en el futuro presentaría patrones claros de aglomeración. Entendiendo que estos fenómenos indeseables pueden ser persistentes en el tiempo, se demandaría una política integral que armonice las acciones locales y nacionales, coordinando el actuar de múltiples instituciones publico privadas en la región del Corredor Seco.Through the strategic prospect and data science, different trajectories of the future impact on the Honduran agricultural system can be drawn in response to climate change. The scenarios project negative trends in basic crops in the demand of households and crops with great commercial value. Climate change would affect the territories' ability to plant crops of high importance in the local diet. This could influence the distribution of land and the arrangement of rural space. Vulnerability in the Dry Corridor in the future would present clear agglomeration patterns. Understanding that these undesirable climatic events can be persistent over time, a comprehensive policy that harmonizes local and national actions would be demanded, coordinating the actions of multiple public-private institutions in the Dry Corridor regio

El espacio de las capacidades de adaptación a nivel municipal frente al cambio climático. Serie 2. Análisis local para el Corredor Seco hondureño.

La adaptación al cambio climático a nivel local es un asunto prioridad, especialmente en regiones vulnerables como el corredor seco de Honduras. El desarrollo humano de los municipios del corredor seco configura unos patrones aglomerados de alto y bajo desarrollo. Los cuales han sido persistentes en el tiempo, manteniendo cierta desigualdad entre unos y otros. El indicador de las capacidades de adaptación al cambio climático (CCVA) refleja una importante debilidad en la respuesta municipal al integrar el vector de las variables (educación, infraestructura, gobernanza, etc.). Este desempeño evidencia un espacio regional desigual en el indicador, encontrando aglomeraciones de municipios con alto y bajo CCVA. La multidimensionalidad de la adaptación al cambio climático demanda una intervención nacional y local. Esta última mediante los planes de desarrollo municipal donde se prioricen los aspectos menos valorados en el indicador. Adaptation to climate change at a local level is a priority issue, especially in vulnerable regions such as the Dry Corridor of Honduras. The human development of the municipalities of the Dry Corridor configures agglomerated patterns of high and low development. Which have been persistent over time, maintaining some inequality between them.The indicator of climate change adaptation capacities (CCVA) reflects an important weakness in the municipal response by integrating the vector of the variables (education, infrastructure, governance, etc.). This performance shows an unequal regional space in the indicator, finding agglomerations of municipalities with high and low CCVA. The multidimensionality of adaptation to climate change demands national and local intervention. The latter through municipal development plans that prioritize the aspects less valued in the indicator

Scaling-up climate services with users in Latin America

Latin America farmers are highly vulnerable to climate variability, with crop losses observed throughout the region on a virtually annual basis. For instance, as indicated by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP), the 2014–2017 drought conditions in Central America affected over 3.5 million people in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. At the same time, local stakeholders and farmers generally have limited access to existing climate and forecast information, do not have sufficient capacities to understand the climate information and/or mechanisms to relate this information to the impact that climate variations can generate at a local level. This precludes the translation of information into actionable knowledge, and therefore into action. In this study, we describe a process through which scientists and strategic partners have co-developed, tested and scaled out an approach to assess, co-produce, translate and transfer climate information to enable agricultural decision making –the Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees (LTAC). LTACs allow open and clear dialogues about climate variations at multiple timescales, how these can affect crops, and the design of measures to reduce crop loss, particularly providing agronomic recommendations to farmers. We systematically describe the process of evidence generation, creation, partner engagement, scaling up, and monitoring of the approach throughout Latin America. Currently, 35 LTACs exist in 9 Latin American countries, engaging more than 250 public and private institutions, increasing the resilience and food security of an estimated 330,000 farmers, and potentially transforming how Latin American farmers manage climate risk. The study illustrates changes in institutional and farmers' capacities to co-produce, translate and use climate information and explores how better climate and crop prediction models can effectively underpin this process. We show how strategic alliances with farmer organizations, national public, and private and regional climate outlook forums help deliver improved and accurate climate information to users. Finally, we document how LTACs and their integration with other local-scale processes have led to changes in farmers’ management practices to take better advantage of good climatic conditions or avoid losses