Banking services for everyone ? Barriers to bank access and use around the world

Using information from 193 banks in 58 countries, the authors develop and analyze indicators of physical access, affordability, and eligibility barriers to deposit, loan, and payment services. They find substantial cross-country variation in barriers to banking and show that in many countries these barriers can potentially exclude a significant share of the population from using banking services. Correlations with bank- and country-level variables show that bank size and the availability of physical infrastructure are the most robust predictors of barriers. Further, the authors find evidence that in more competitive, open, and transparent economies, and in countries with better contractual and informational frameworks, banks impose lower barriers. Finally, though foreign banks seem to charge higher fees than other banks, in foreign dominated banking systems fees are lower and it is easier to open bank accounts and to apply for loans. On the other hand, in systems that are predominantly government-owned, customers pay lower fees but also face greater restrictions in terms of where to apply for loans and how long it takes to have applications processed. These findings have important implications for policy reforms to broaden access.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Competitiveness and Competition Policy

Conscripting Private Resources to Meet Urban Needs: The Statutory and Constitutional Validity of Affordable Housing Impact Fees in New York

In the closing decade of the 20th century, American cities face difficult financial predicaments. Urban tax bases have atrophied, and the confidence rating of municipal bonds has been downgraded. At the same time, city expenditures have increased as century-old infrastructure begins to crumble and urban demographics demand an ever increasing array of public services. To meet these challenges, New York City would do well to adopt impact fee and linkage arrangements, which would require developers to contribute to State coffers in proportion to the expected environmental, social, and economic impact of their development projects. To pass constitutional muster, however, any impact fee arrangement would have to be carefully worded to require impact fee payments towards the development of affordable housing for only those projects that can be demonstrably shown to have an adverse expected impact on the availability of affordable housing in the city

Circuit Split or a Matter of Semantics? The Supreme Court\u27s Upcoming Decision on Rule 10b-5 Scheme Liability and Its Implications for Tax Shelter Fraud Litigation

After Internal Revenue Service investigations exposed widespread fraud among tax shelter promoters, angry investors sued for securities fraud under Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5, which provides a cause of action against “primary violators” of the Rule but not against mere “aiders and abettors.” This controversial distinction is further complicated by the recent introduction of “scheme liability” lawsuits under two previously obscure provisions of Rule 10b-5. This Note examines the circuit split over the “primary violator”/“aider and abettor” distinction in scheme liability claims, arguing that the circuits\u27 conflicting concepts of scheme liability actually cover similar conduct, and that tax shelter promoters likely will be considered primary violators under either concept

The Municipal Cost of Foreclosure: A Chicago Case Study

The recent rise in nonprime mortgage foreclosures has opened a new and costly chapter in many of the nation's most distressed urban neighborhoods. Particularly problematic is the fact that today's foreclosures impose significant costs not only on borrowers and lenders, but also on municipal governments, neighboring homeowners and others with a financial interest in nearby properties. While there is an extensive literature on the impact that delinquency, default, and foreclosure have on lenders, borrowers, and other entities that are direct parties to the mortgage transaction in question, the costs that these mortgage failures impose on municipalities and other third parties are far less well understood. This is due to two factors. First, municipal and other third party costs are difficult to identify, and therefore often go undetected. Second, even where identified, the activities that generate costs often blend in with other governmental functions, or are otherwise difficult to quantify, reinforcing the tendency for them to remain invisible.This study attempts to fill that void. Using the City of Chicago as a case in point, this study presents a conceptual framework that makes explicit the various costs of foreclosure, especially as they relate to local governments and courts. By carefully reviewing the foreclosure process as it plays out in Chicago, the paper isolates 26 separate costs incurred for the provision of 'foreclosure related services.' These costs reflect actions undertaken by 15 separate governmental units that are part of the overall municipal infrastructure underlying the foreclosure process. While in some cases these municipal activities are limited to simple and relatively inexpensive ministerial duties of agencies like the Recorder of Deeds, in more complex foreclosure scenarios these municipal costs can reach tens of thousands of dollars. In extreme cases, the concentrated foreclosures can put downward pressure on area property values and indirectly rob area homeowners of hundreds of thousands of dollars of home equity

Intelligent Design

When designers obtain exclusive intellectual property (IP) rights in the functional aspects of their creations, they can wield these rights to increase both the costs to their competitors and the prices that consumers must pay for their goods. IP rights and the costs they entail are justified when they create incentives for designers to invest in new, socially valuable designs. But the law must be wary of allowing rights to be misused. Accordingly, IP law has employed a series of doctrinal and costly screens to channel designs into the appropriate regime—copyright law, design patent law, or utility patent law—depending upon the type of design. Unfortunately, those screens are no longer working. Designers are able to obtain powerful IP protection over the utilitarian aspects of their creations without demonstrating that they have made socially valuable contributions. They are also able to do so without paying substantial fees that might weed out weaker, socially costly designs. This is bad for competition and bad for consumers. In this Article, we integrate theories of doctrinal and costly screens and explore their roles in channeling IP rights. We explain the inefficiencies that have arisen through the misapplication of these screens in copyright and design patent laws. Finally, we propose a variety of solutions that would move design protection toward a successful channeling regime, balancing the law’s needs for incentives and competition. These proposals include improving doctrinal screens to weed out functionality, making design protection more costly, and preventing designers from obtaining multiple forms of protection for the same design

Urban Sprawl and the Finances of State and Local Governments

Concern over the rate of spatial growth of urban areas has become a significant national political issue and a major development issue in many urban areas. An often cited statistic, typically presented as evidence of sprawl, is that between 1960 and 1990 the urban population in the United States increased by 50 percent while the amount of developed land more than doubled (Benefield et al., 1999).While much has been written about the causes and consequences of sprawl, little attention has been paid to the implications of sprawl for the finances of state and local government. There are at least two possible channels for sprawl to affect the finances of state and local governments. First, if the causes of sprawl include market failures or government policies, there may be a role for governmental corrective action. Second, sprawl may affect the costs of and revenue sources for the public provision of goods and services. This paper considers the potential effects that sprawl might have on the finances of state and local governments and the possible policies that might be adopted to address the causes and consequences of sprawl