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In the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed energy (DE) transactions exist in various scenarios. This paper attempts to improve the intelligence, real-timeliness, and security of the direct transaction between DE generation companies (DEGCs) and users, and reduce the default frequency of distributed power (DP) transactions. For these purposes, a P2P DE transaction model for the IIoT was proposed based on blockchain. Firstly, a blockchain-based distributed energy peer-to-peer transaction framework is constructed, which is more suitable for generalized energy transactions based on typical transaction scenarios of the IIoT. Using credit value evaluation and smart contracts to ensure the transparency, openness, and non-tampering of credit scores. On this basis, the energy currency reward mechanism is used to promote the trustworthiness of transaction nodes and maintain transaction security. Finally, the P2P direct transaction based on credit value was designed to improve the transaction efficiency and security. Through case analysis, the DE transaction model for the IIoT, which is based on the credit value of the blockchain, supports fast and frequent energy transactions, as it overcomes the confirmation delays of energy blockchain transactions. The proposed model improves the efficiency of DE transactions in the IIoT, effectively suppresses default frequency, and maintains the order of DE market in the IIoT.

Earth is undergoing systemic global ecological collapse caused by human civilization. If the same currency ratio spent on fighting crisis to bearing damages was applied as that evident in addressing crime, then the United States alone would spend $1.1 trillion annually on ecological stewardship. However, would ecosystem scientists, managers, and engineers successfully spend such wealth to avert collapse? No. This article explores scientific and institutional dilemmas hindering the disappointing, nascent ecological engineering subfield of river restoration. Whereas other reviews place most blame on practioners, this article takes academic science to task for setting up failure by accepting statistical correlation over mechanistic understanding. Rather than just criticize though, this article provides hopeful ideas to improve river science and the practice of ecological engineering of rivers.

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG [Abstract] In this article we mainly extend to a multi-currency setting some previous works in the literature concerning total value adjustments in a single currency framework. The motivation comes from the fact that financial institutions operate in global markets, so that the financial derivatives in their portfolios involve different currencies. More precisely, in this multi-currency setting we pose the PDE formulations for pricing the total adjustment and the financial derivative with counterparty risk. Moreover, we also formulate the problem in terms of expectations, which allows the use of suitable Monte Carlo techniques that overcome the curse of dimensionality associated to the numerical solution of PDE formulation, when a high number of stochastic factors are involved. Finally, we present some examples to illustrate the performance of the formulations and the proposed numerical techniques. This work has been partially funded by EU H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018 (ABC-EU-XVA Grant Agreement 813261), Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grant PID2019-108584RB-I00) and by Galician Government (Grant ED431C2018/033), both including FEDER financial support. Authors also acknowledge the support received from the Centro de Investigacin de Galicia (CITIC), funded by Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund- Galicia 2014-2020 Program), by grant ED431G 2019/01 Xunta de Galicia; ED431C2018/033 Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/01

The paper documents the use of foreign exchange intervention (FXI) across countries and monetary regimes, with special attention to its use under inflation targeting (IT). We find significant differences between advanced (AEs) and emerging market economies (EMEs). The former group conduct FXI limitedly and broadly symmetrically, while the use of this policy instrument in EMEs is pervasive and mostly asymmetric, with a bias toward purchasing foreign currency, even after taking precautionary motives into account. Within emerging markets, the use of FXI is common under both IT and non-IT regimes. We find no evidence of FXI being used in response to inflation developments, while strong evidence exists that FXI responds to exchange rate movements, indicating that IT central banks in EMEs have dual inflation/exchange-rate objectives. We also find a higher propensity to overshoot inflation targets in emerging market economies in which FXI is more pervasive.

In this paper, we focus on the surprising phenomenon in which firms face difficulty\ud issuing in domestic currency even in the home market, especially in emerging markets.\ud Could this be due to “original sin” which has been familiar to sovereign bond issuance?\ud In its new incarnation, original sin refers to the difficulty firms in many emerging\ud markets have in borrowing domestically long-term, even in the local currency. We infer\ud the nature of original sin from 5,901 financing decisions by firms in seven Asian emerging\ud markets over a period of 20 years. Our sample period covers an episode when bond\ud issuers had a choice between a less developed but growing onshore market, which varied\ud across countries in the level of development, and a deep and liquid offshore market. We\ud find that even in countries with onshore markets, it is often easier for unseasoned firms\ud to issue offshore (in foreign currency) than to issue onshore, but changes in market\ud development reverses this effect. In addition, once such a firm becomes a seasoned\ud issuer, it is absolved from domestic original sin and is then able to act opportunistically\ud and go to the market favored by interest differentials.

This paper utilizes a large universe of 18,410 technical trading rules (TTRs) and adopts a technique that controls for false discoveries to evaluate the performance of frequently traded spreads using daily data over 1990–2016. For the first time, the paper applies an excessive out-of-sample analysis in different subperiods across all TTRs examined. For commodity spreads, the evidence of significant predictability appears much stronger compared to equity and currency spreads. Out-of-sample performance of portfolios of significant rules typically exceeds transaction cost estimates and generates a Sharpe ratio of 3.67 in 2016. In general, we reject previous studies’ evidence of a uniformly monotonic downward trend in the selection of predictive TTRs over 1990–2016.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain are one of the most beautiful digital transformations occurring around the world. They have changed the orthodox meaning and working of currency as we know it. It is interesting to note how it excites and worries some. The main reason for the popularity of cryptocurrencies is tremendous returns in very little time. Social media platforms like twitter, provide a safe-place where individuals’ can share their thoughts as well as mindsets, which then can be heard and be reciprocated by others. This paper aims to draw a correlation between the hyped tweets and the prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin - The Crypto King and Dogecoin - The Memecoin during those times. We also aim to predict the future price values of Bitcoin using its past values. By using cryptocurrencies’ financial data, twitter data, RAPIDS and cuml, a fine line can be drawn between the amount of impact tweets have on people as well as on the market. The tweets on cryptocurrency were segregated and price forecasting was done using augmented dickey fuller test and ARIMA models, 10 future values of bitcoin were predicted with 96% accuracy and 0.0395 average error.Besides, from the investigations above of the authentic cost of BTC, it is perfectly clear that there have been way more steep falls in the history of Cryptocurrencies even before Elon started tweeting about it. Thus, it can clearly be stated that no one person can control the utter volatile world of cryptocurrencies! And the decentralized system ledger of cryptocurrency remains unharmed.

Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind the rest of the world in electricity access and consumption. Infrastructure deficiencies are framed in terms of a “financing gap”, with policy oriented around attracting global private capital. Recent calls for increased private infrastructure investment follow three decades of market-oriented sector reforms. This paper explores the way that this standard policy paradigm has unfolded in Zambia. Drawing on the Systems of Provision approach we focus on three core interconnected segments of the electricity system: the performance of the state utility, Zesco; private sector participation and cost-recovery pricing. The paper shows that Zesco has run into major difficulties since 2015 due to a crisis in hydro resources and adverse currency movements. In line with the policy paradigm, the utility has signed up to a number of agreements with international independent power producers (IPPs) to diversify power sources, and tariffs have been raised to improve Zesco’s financial situation. However, closer inspection reveals contradictions, biases and inconsistencies in this standard policy package when applied in practice. Zesco’s acutely debilitating financial position is a relatively recent occurrence. Short-term fluctuations in hydro power, for which intermittent back-up is needed, have instead been addressed with new decades-long contracts for fossil fuel generation. IPPs have provided generous returns for foreign investors but have created long-term, dollar-denominated liabilities for Zesco, contributing to a weakening financial position. Tariffs have been raised but households cannot afford to pay a price that covers Zesco’s increased costs. The proliferation of IPPs appears to have worsened the situation.The paper shows that energy sector policies organised around the entry of private capital are problematic and likely to contribute to a dynamic of unequal global capital accumulation. Greater attention is needed to social equity, with policies oriented around domestic circumstances and the specific challenges faced.

This paper develops an innovative technique that takes into account the time varying nature of exchange rate (XR) exposures and separates these exposures into those that increase stock market returns and those that reduce them to study the effect of XR fluctuations on the performance of UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It provides evidence that XR fluctuations have a strong negative effect on SME performance at the industry and individual firm level for both depreciations and appreciations of the GBP against the USD and a residual index of all other currencies except the euro. For the euro, the exposures are much smaller at the industry level and generally not statistically significant. At the firm level they are also more evenly divided between performance enhancing and performance decreasing. Differences of exposures to currency variations between export-oriented firms and domestically-focused firms are also analyzed. Our results have policy implications for Brexit.

This paper analyzes a decentralized global supply chain under a newsvendor setting, where a supplier delivers a certain quantity of a single product to a buyer in accordance with the terms of a mutually agreed upon contract. This contract is signed prior to the delivery of the product and subsequent payment, thus, exposing the supply chain to the risk of currency exchange rate fluctuations. We propose two types of currency exchange rate flexibility contracts to explore the characteristics of exchange rate risk mitigation policies for the buyer and the supplier. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of the contract structures on the optimal order quantity, as well as the expected profits of both supply chain members. Our results show that the optimal order quantity of the buyer decreases when the wholesale price is uncertain due to exchange rate volatility. Also, both our proposed contracts tend to improve the expected profits of both the buyer and the supplier, when the payment is made in the supplier’s currency, indicating the desirability of adopting such contractual agreements from the perspective of both parties. On the other hand, when the payment is made in the buyer’s currency, our suggested contracts do not yield such win-win scenarios. Finally, we examine the effectiveness of availing the services of a local vendor, which is capable of satisfying any demand in excess of the quantity ordered from the foreign source with short notice, in order to mitigate the risks associated with an overseas order.

Salmon farming has been a great success story in Norway over the last 50 years, but the industry is still much disputed. Right from the start, farmers were licensed, with a limit on total production. In addition, each site was regulated according to carrying capacity. Over the years, various management measures have been used to regulate both the total production and environmental conditions, before ending up with Maximum Allowable Biomass (MAB). Since 2005, this has been the common “currency” in all regulations. Since then, the industry has experienced various new management schemes, to cater for environmental sustainability (green licenses, the traffic light system, development licenses, offshore as well as land based production), all based on MAB. The article sets out to explain why and how Norwegian authorities have chosen to regulate total production at national level, and when this failed, why they have maintained MAB as a key regulatory instrument.

Data currency is a monetary value assigned to data to identify its financial significance to an organisation, as it can be used as the unit of exchange in a transaction, either as the sole payment or in combination with money. The purpose of marketing is to segment the market, target the right customer, and provide specific solutions to customer needs at the right place and right price with effective promotion. Thus, data is the new oil. Further, many underdeveloped economies are able to grow their economies faster due to modern information technology and communications technologies (ICT). The Internet user often releases a lot of data voluntarily and a lot of data-exhaust involuntarily. Organisations can make use of both kinds of data for business planning and marketing segmentation, customer targeting, and promotions. The smaller and bigger organisations in the public and private sectors have been developing a range of business models such as Data as a Service (DaaS), Information as a Service (IaaS), and Answers as a Service (AaaS), Data as Sharing Economy-Based Models (DaaSE), and Data as a Currency (DaaC) to monetise their Big Data and cash the value of data as currency. National governments are increasingly playing an important role in regulating the process of data collection, management, privacy, protection, and utilisation. The issue is how to assign value to data? This chapter has proposed data valuation models such as data as goodwill, data as integrations of values, and data as legal tender. The stakeholders in general and customers in particular need to increase their data literacy in order to protect and use their data as a currency.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is not backed by any country's central bank or government. It can be traded for goods or services with vendors who accept bitcoins as payment. These bitcoins are the blocks of secure data. This data is transferred from one person to another and verifying the transaction, i.e., spending the money that requires high computing power to safely verify the individual transactions. The P2P network monitors and verifies the transfer of bitcoins between users. It can be used to book hotels, shopping, financial transactions, buy video games, etc. In this chapter, we describe the evolution of bitcoin cryptocurrency to evolution of blockchain and their usage in real-world entities.

There is a nexus of seven inter-linked global existential challenges; Soil Security and Food Security are two of these. The established concept of Food Security is well defined and researched, whereas the emerging concept of Soil Security is building its currency globally. Addressing Soil Security provides the means to improve food, fibre and water quality in a sustainable manner, through enhanced soil care and development of best land-management practices. Soil is a fragile resource which is degraded in many parts of the world. The rapidly growing global population has placed further pressure on the soil resource to accommodate increased demand for food, fibre and soil-derived materials. Such pressures are accelerating degradation and so novel approaches are needed. Literature search within this review demonstrated Soil Security and Food Security to be a convergence of disciplines. To truly identify solutions to challenges faced in either realm, an interdisciplinary approach seeking to understand deeper interactions between the two concepts is needed. Driven by this need, our review sought to investigate such interactions between the challenges faced in Soil Security and Food Security. Following assessment of these interactions, four potential solutions were discussed and included sustainable intensification and management, digital agriculture, circularisation and reducing the food demand trajectory through enhanced soil care. Soil Security and Food Security are interconnected concepts which will help facilitate implementation of the above solutions, and so approaches are needed which take this connection into account.

Reports have shown the prevalence of the contamination of banknotes with a number of different drugs. These studies have focused on investigating drug contamination levels on currency which is either nationally or even international distributed. To present there has been no studies undertaken on banknotes circulating in well-defined and limited geographic areas. In this present study we have investigated the presence of drug contamination on the Local Currency, circulating in a known geographic area in and around the city of Bristol, UK; the Bristol Pound (£B). The effect of sample size was investigated and a post-hoc statistical power analysis undertaken. Following liquid extraction with the aid of sonication, levels of cocaine, benzoylecgonine, MDMA, ketamine and methamphetamine were determined by liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. Seven samples of each denomination in circulation were investigated. The calculated median values per note were 2030 ng cocaine, 91.9 ng benzoylecgonine, 0.779 ng methamphetamine, 62.8 ng MDMA and 3440 ng ketamine. This study focuses on our preliminary studies and to our knowledge this is the first investigation focused on the drug contamination of a Local Currency.

This paper studies the relationship between CEO elite education and firm hedging decisions. It uses the particular specificities of the French post-secondary educational institutions to examine the effect of CEO educational background on the use of foreign currency derivatives. The results show a positive and significant relationship between education quality and derivatives use. Neither the level nor the type of education has any significant effect. The results also show that the use of derivatives enhances firm performance only when CEOs are from elite institutions. These results are robust to a battery of tests that involve alternative estimation techniques, the use of different subsamples, additional control variables, and control for endogeneity and selection bias.

We find a strong link between currency excess returns and the relative strength of the business cycle. Buying currencies of strong economies and selling currencies of weak economies generates high returns both in the cross section and time series of countries. These returns stem primarily from spot exchange rate predictability, are uncorrelated with common currency investment strategies, and cannot be understood using traditional currency risk factors in either unconditional or conditional asset pricing tests. We also show that a business cycle factor implied by our results is priced in a broad currency cross section.

This study offers a new dimension to the analysis of spillover transmission in foreign exchange markets by accounting for the role of electioneering in addition to the global financial crisis. It does so by using Nigeria as a case study whose electioneering activities seem to be characterized by “money bags” with attendant effects on the behaviour of its domestic currency (naira). Thus, the study tests for spillover transmission among Nigeria's six most traded currencies namely the US Dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling, Yen, Swiss Franc and the West African Unit of Account (WAUA). Using the Diebold and Yilmaz (DY) (2009, 2012) approach, the results show that electioneering process in Nigeria appears to have greater spillover effects on the naira than the global financial crisis and this finding is robust to alternative measures of exchange rates. Some implications of the findings to investors and policy makers are documented. Keywords: Naira exchange rates, Spillover analysis, Electioneering, Global financial crisis, JEL Classification: C32, D72, F31, F47

The main purpose of this research was studying the impact of exchange rate on date export as one of the most important and greatest foreign currency income earned horticultural products in agriculture sector in Iran. Selected time period in this study was chosen between 1991 and 2011. For this purpose, ordinary least squares (OLS) method has used to estimate the relationships between the value of date export and the variables taken from stationary tests. Library research method has used for the analysis. In this regard, required data have collected from various scientific and research resources. The results indicated that, exchange rate is a crucial factor for dates export and also for exporters. In addition, other factors specially government policies have been placed in export model. In this field, short-term outsourcing foreign policy has decreased the export value. Results also showed that, applying exchange rate unification policy without an appropriate exchange rate to encourage exporters has negative impact on dates export. Therefore, by applying exchange rate stabilization policy, according to inflation in the country, the potential exporters’ income has reduced and production costs have increased alternately.

Blockchain is the technique that underpins the digital currencies like bitcoin, litecoin, and ethereum, and so on. The data that are stored within a block depends on the category of blockchain. A Bitcoin block has data about the sender, receiver, and total number of bitcoins to be sent. Bitcoin is a currency that is used digitally and globally as a system currency. It permits people to send and receive cash through the internet, even to a less-trusted person. Money can also be exchanged without knowing the real identity. The mathematics of cryptography form the fundamentals of bitcoin’s security. Cryptocurrency wallets also get hacked usually, but the hack is not the usual one, outstanding at the blockchain itself. Chain is a company that creates cryptographic ledgers like blockchains for security in financial services. The tools helped banks and credit-card companies to securely store and manage their assets. The convergence of Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain is of significant use in the industrial world. This chapter gives an overview of IoT, its applications and challenges, blockchain technology, its pros and cons, the convergence of blockchain technology with IoT, the different architectures, evaluation techniques, the advanced scenarios, and use-cases.

The paper assesses the sustainability of fiscal policy in Jamaica alongside a large public debt stock, albeit falling, in the context of an economic reform program. In addition, the paper examines the risks associated with the large public debt stock. Fiscal reaction functions are used to assess fiscal sustainability via an OLS, VAR, GMM and VECM models while the vulnerability of the public debt stock is evaluated using the IMF debt sustainability analysis (DSA) framework through shocks to real GDP, primary balance, interest rate, real exchange rate, and a combined shock. After the implementation of the country's economic reform program, the results show that fiscal policy in Jamaica is on a path to attain sustainability. However, after adjusting the sample to exclude the economic reform period, the findings show that fiscal policy in Jamaica is unsustainability. Further, the results indicate that in the long run a primary surplus of 4.8 per cent of GDP would be required to achieve a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 60 percent. The risk assessment of the public debt reveals that Jamaica's debt is most vulnerable to sharp exchange rate depreciations and that the overall risk to the public debt stock is high. Of note, the DSA results should be interpreted in the context within which the framework is created in that it does not account for all dynamics within the economy and therefore may overstate the extend of the impact. In light of the results and given that foreign currency debt accounts for approximately 60 percent of the public debt stock, it is critical to rebalance the debt portfolio in favour of domestic debt.

This paper investigates how changes in European banks’ credit risk affect their host countries’ sovereign risk by exploring bank-to-sovereign rating spillover effects. Using credit rating data from Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch for the period ranging from 2002 to 2016, we identify both positive and negative bank-to-sovereign spillover effects, and find the negative rating spillover effect to be more pronounced than the positive one. Further, we provide evidence on differences among the three rating agencies in terms of the occurrence of positive spillovers, and the degree of negative spillovers. Our results are robust to the changes in model specifications with respect to the currency type of ratings, the structure of regression models, and the approach used to link bank and sovereign ratings. Overall, our analysis sheds new light on how information related to systemic risks emanating from the banking sector affects domestic sovereign credit ratings, and thereby complements previous research focusing on the opposite sovereign-to-bank rating transmission channel.

Loot boxes are items in video games that may be bought with real-world money but contain randomised contents. Due to similarities between loot boxes and gambling, various countries are considering regulating them to reduce gambling-related harm. However, loot boxes are extremely diverse. A key problem facing regulators is determining whether specific types of loot boxes carry more potential for harm, and should be regulated accordingly. In this study, we specify seven key ways that loot boxes may differ from each other: They may involve paid or unpaid openings; give opportunities for cashing out; allow gamers to pay to win; involve the use of an in-game currency; feature crate and key mechanics; show near misses; and contain exclusive items. We then use a large-scale preregistered correlational analysis (n = 1200) to determine if any of these features strengthen the link between loot box spending and problem gambling. Our results indicate that being able to cash out, showing near-misses, and letting players use in-game currency to buy loot boxes may weakly strengthen the relationship between loot box spending and problem gambling. However, our main conclusion is that regardless of the presence or absence of specific features of loot boxes, if they are being sold to players for real-world money, then their purchase is linked to problem gambling.

Bitcoin has received much investor attention in recent years and following this, there has been an\ud explosion of academic studies examining this new financial asset. We contribute to the growing\ud literature of Bitcoin by examining the intraday variables of the leading Bitcoin exchange with the\ud highest information share over 4 years’ worth of data to reveal the intraday stylized facts of Bitcoin\ud and how they have developed over time. Employing GMT-timestamped tick data aggregated to\ud the 5-mintuely frequency, we find that Bitcoin returns have increased over time, while trading\ud volume, volatility and liquidity varied substantially over time. We also find that volume increases\ud throughout the day and falls from around 4pm until midnight, which is consistent with the intraday\ud patterns found in currency markets. Realised volatility is fairly consistent throughout the day\ud although it is highest during the opening times of the three major global stock markets. Also\ud liquidity is highest during the opening times of the major global exchanges and the markets tend\ud to be illiquid during the early morning. Finally, we show evidence of the mixture of distribution\ud hypothesis of Clark (1973).

Forecasting exchange rates is a subject of wide interest to both academics and practitioners. We aim at contributing to this vivid research area by highlighting the role of both technical indicators and macroeconomic predictors in forecasting exchange rates. Employing monthly data ranging from January 1974 to December 2014 for six widely traded currencies, we show that both types of predictors provide valuable information about future currency movements. To efficiently summarize the information content in candidate predictors, we extract the principal components of each group of predictors. Our findings suggest that combining information from both technical indicators and macroeconomic variables significantly improves and stabilizes exchange rate forecasts versus using either type of information alone.

Introduction: Information on immunization delivery costs (IDCs) is essential for better planning and budgeting for the sustainability and performance of national programs. However, delivery cost evidence is fragmented and of variable quality, making it difficult for policymakers, planners, and other stakeholders to understand and use. This study aimed to consolidate and summarize the evidence on delivery costs, answering the question: What are the unit costs of vaccine delivery across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and through a variety of delivery strategies? Methods: We conducted a systematic review of over 15,000 published and unpublished resources from 2005 to 2018 that included IDCs in LMICs. We quality-rated and extracted data from 61 resources that contained 410 immunization delivery unit costs (e.g., cost per dose, cost per fully immunized child). We converted cost findings to a common year (2016) and currency (U.S. dollars) to ensure comparability across studies and settings. We performed a descriptive and gap analysis and developed immunization delivery cost ranges using comparable unit costs for single vaccines and schedules of vaccines. Results: The majority of IDC evidence comes from low-income countries and Sub-Saharan Africa. Most unit costs are presented as cost per dose and represent health facility-based delivery. Discussion: The cost ranges may be higher than current estimates used in many LMICs for budgeting: $0.16–$2.54 incremental cost per dose (including economic, financial, and fiscal costs) for single, newly introduced vaccines, and $0.75–$9.45 full cost per dose (economic costs) for schedules of four to eight vaccines delivered to children under one. Conclusions: Despite increased attention on improving coverage and strengthening immunization delivery, evidence on the cost of delivery is nascent but growing. The cost ranges can inform planning and policymaking, but should be used with caution given their width and the few unit costs used in their development. Keywords: Costs and cost analysis, Systematic review, Vaccines, Immunization delivery, Immunization financing, Low- and middle-income countries

The UK has been a net debtor over the past two decades and the sterling exchange rates are sensitive to any chaos that might occur in the financial market. This paper examines the importance of the international financial imperfections in the sterling exchange rate dynamics. We build a small open economy DSGE model with the constrained international financial institutions that intermediate capital flows, and derive tractable analytical solutions. The constraint works to introduce a wedge between lending and borrowing rates, which compensates financiers for their currency risk-taking. The model has been estimated by using a simulation-based Indirect Inference approach, which provides a natural framework for testing the hypothesis implied by the model. We find that the model cannot be rejected by the UK data. Shocks to financial forces are the main driving forces behind the large and sudden depreciation of the Sterling exchange rates in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Brexit vote. Furthermore, the optimal policy rules have been proposed.

This paper studies the effect of the Brexit vote on the intraday correlation and volatility transmission among major currencies. We find that the vote causes an increase in the correlation among the safe-haven currencies of the Swiss franc and Japanese yen as well as gold, and also find a decrease in their correlation with the directly involved currencies of British sterling and the Euro. These changes are due to the appreciation of the former group and the depreciation of the latter group which represents a flight to quality of investors. We also observe a substantial decrease in volatility transmission between British sterling and the Euro following the Brexit vote due to lower levels of market integration. However the volatility transmission among the currencies has increased in general and their net spillover is positively correlated with their level of volatility and trading activities. Therefore we document the significant impact of the politically important Brexit vote on the high frequency correlation and volatility spillover in the foreign exchange market.

The success and expansion of the International Comparison Program (ICP) has led to an increase in interest and effort on the estimation of subnational price levels and purchasing power parities (PPPs). The ICP highlighted a difficulty that large countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China face during the price-collection phase, namely how to obtain average prices when there are large disparities in many types of expenditure categories, such as housing prices between rural and urban settings. The fact that such disparities were in evidence led to more research on within-country PPPs or regional price parities (RPPs). The difference between RPPs and the PPPs is that the former are in the same currency, while PPPs are usually converted to a reference country or currency by the exchange rate, such as the United States Dollar or the Euro. This chapter describes the methodology used to estimate the RPPs and their effect on measuring regional incomes within the United States.

Different developments in wages and unit labor costs across countries can reduce the synchronization of business cycles within a currency area and therefore be a potential source of asymmetric shocks and/or asymmetric response to a common shock. In this paper, we use novel econometric methods to identify differences and similarities in wage determination across Eurozone countries. Results show that wages have different determinants across euro area countries, among which two relatively distinct groups can be identified. In particular, wages in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland behave more similarly, are less sticky and respond more to macroeconomic conditions than those in the group composed of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland. Moreover, the equilibrium wage has been affected by a structural change contemporaneous to the international financial crisis. Finally, structural reforms since the euro crisis have contributed to make labor market structures in Eurozone countries more similar, which contributed to improve the resilience of the Eurozone, but the job is not completed yet.

Human activities are causing major changes in biological communities worldwide. Due to concern about the consequences of these changes, an academic conversation about biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) has emerged over the last few decades. Here we use a keyword co-occurrence analysis to characterize and review 28 years of research focused on these terms. We find that the rapidly growing literature has developed in four research domains. The first two domains “BEF Experiments” and “Science Policy” emerge early, and persist through time, as core research areas with emphases on experiments and management, respectively. The second two domains, “Agricultural Landscapes” and “Aquatic Food Webs”, arise as integrative domains that connect divisions in scientific discussion surrounding BEF Experiments and Science Policy. Terms related to species interactions (i.e. pollinator, predator, food web) appear more commonly in the two integrative domains reflecting shared interests of many scientists focusing on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Despite shared interests in food webs, research in the four domains differ with respect to their spatial scale, baseline comparisons, and currency of measurements. Food-web research that bridges these divides should be pushed to the forefront of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research priorities.

This paper investigates whether the RMB is in the process of replacing the US dollar as the anchor currency in nine ASEAN countries, and also the linkages between the ASEAN currencies and a regional currency unit. A long-memory (fractional integration) model allowing for endogenously determined structural breaks is estimated for these purposes (Gil-Alana, 2008). The results suggest that the ASEAN currencies are much more interlinked than previously thought, whether or not breaks are taken into account, which provides support for a regional currency index as an anchor. Moreover, incorporating a break shows that the linkages between these currencies and the RMB and the US dollar respectively are equally important, and in fact in recent years the former have become stronger than the latter. Therefore including the RMB in the regional index should be considered.

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets. 131 3 643 665

Fintech can provide financial services more efficiently, effectively, and inclusively, but can also produce products that harm consumers, misdirect savers, and investors; inefficiently allocate capital; and harm borrowers and businesses. Regulation optimally promotes the benefits of Fintech while protecting against abuses. US regulators are Federal Reserve System, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Company, and State Regulators, including a banking regulator in every state. Others are Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Financial Asset Control and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network are charged with maintaining and administering economic sanction programs and embargoes. Several start-ups have been fined for violations. US policies to support Fintech include the JOBS Act and OCC and CFPB proposals. Other countries have similar regulators and incentive programs. Multiple Fintech threads under the category “Regtech” are designed to make compliance and reporting more efficient.

Several international electronic primary financial exchanges have begun to announce they will explore the adoption of blockchain technology in their trade processing and reporting for execution and clearing. Therefore, in this work we will begin by providing a detailed discussion and overview of the new exchange regulations appearing in different jurisdictions around the world, including EMIR, Dodd–Frank, MiFID I/II, MiFIR, REMIT, Reg NMS and T2S. We will discuss their key features, specifically in regard to transparency reporting and trade/transaction reporting requirements. To achieve this we first discuss the emergence of a multitude of different trading venues that have arisen under the fragmentation directives for each asset class: equities, commodities, derivatives and currency. We highlight how each fits into this universe of different market and processing venues both primary, secondary, dark and lit and OTC.

The exchange rate and terms of trade are two variables that are intertwined and quite often are used as a proxy for one another. While under some circumstances the interchangeability may be appropriate, that is not always the case. An exchange rate measures the price of one currency in terms of another. In turn, the terms of trade measure how many units of the foreign goods can one unit of the domestic good acquire. If the ratio of the Consumer Price Index (CPIs) in local currencies remains unchanged, the terms of trade and exchange rates will move in the same proportion, that is, the precise conditions under which the nominal exchange rate and the terms of trade are equivalent and thus interchangeable. But there is no reason to expect the ratio of the CPI’s to be constant, in which case the nominal exchange rate and real exchange rates will no longer be interchangeable or equivalent. If as we believe inflation is a monetary phenomenon, we need to introduce money into the framework that we have been developing. The determinants of the underlying inflation rate will drive the nominal exchange rate, the price of one currency in terms of another, while the real variables will determine the terms of trade.

This more descriptive chapter introduces the major securities markets, detailing the structure and history of the NYSE and discussing other exchanges, both in equity and options markets. The OTC Markets and Alternative Trading Systems are described along with the growing importance of the ATS relative to exchange markets. Slippage and crossing networks are discussed along with broker internalization. Quotation, inter-market, and clearing and settlement systems are discussed in more detail here than in Chapter 1. While much of the chapter is concerned with equity markets, markets for options, fixed income, money, and currency markets are described as well. Exchange rates and forward and futures contracts in currency markets are introduced.

Most cyber/bullying prevention and intervention initiatives traditionally have targeted the individual, class, and whole school community; however, findings on the efficacy of school-based cyber/bullying interventions have been mixed. Online social marketing-styled campaigns have potential to contribute to, and move beyond, school-based initiatives: operating in digital settings to align with existing youth online practices. Four sequential online social marketing campaigns (N = 5178), codesigned by youth, investigated technology’s role in fostering protective factors: respect for self and others; affirming others; help seeking; and goal setting. This approach enabled young people to be coresearchers, so that meaning about cyberbullying and well-being was cocreated, maximizing relevancy and currency in campaign messaging. Findings revealed extending campaigns beyond school settings provide opportunity for youth to engage and revisit campaigns, reinforcing proactive strategies and key messages, which nudge young people toward desired behavioral outcomes. Addressing social norms, attitudes, and perceived control were identified as entry points for preventative strategies.

Traditional wisdom in economics holds that institutional change runs from political institutions to economic ones, with the distribution of political power affecting the creation of property rights and rule of law. This hierarchy of institutions has been observed in macroeconomic policy, where it has long been understood that there are political incentives for economic mismanagement, namely the creation of inflation. But are there longer-term effects of currency manipulation on the rule of law in a country? That is, does the hierarchy not always hold? This paper answers this question by focusing on a specific case of monetary instability, the newly-independent Second Polish Republic of 1918 to 1939. Using appropriate econometric techniques on a new database of historical data, I find that monetary profligacy correlates strongly with significantly lower levels of the rule of law. This result is robust to several tests and most specifications, including the use of a new variable for measuring access to the political system. The results suggest that monetary instability is a threat to political institutions in its own right, eroding the rule of law in addition to creating macroeconomic difficulties.

In April 2016, Alibaba's Ant Financial Services Group announced US$ 4.5 billion in its Series B round of financing, making history as the largest private funding round for any Internet company. Technology is changing the face of finance in China and disrupting traditional financial institutions and giving the Chinese people access to more financial services. In this chapter, we look at five main areas/types of disruption, how it is changing the face Chinese finance, in the equity market, with peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding, in its currency and in the banking sector. We also discuss how these disruptions would affect the international economy, especially China's neighbors in Asia.

In the last few decades, and especially since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, uncertainty about the future of the US dollar has been mounting. A broad-based theoretical debate on the decline of the dollar and its consequences has begun. There is a large body of studies that sees the origin of an international money as a market-led process. In this view, because the United States will very soon lose its economic pre-eminence the US dollar will consequently share its international role with other currencies or even be replaced by the renminbi. In this paper we contest this argument, focusing on the conditions that make a fiat money acceptable in international transactions. Trust in a type of money like this needs an institutional framework that guarantees the property rights of currency holders. This framework implies a high level of rule of law domestically and a high level of state capability in the international balance of power. Since at present no other currency fulfils these two requirements at the same time, the dominance of the US dollar as an international money is going to last.

The airline industry regularly deals with enormous risks, from fluctuations in currency exchange rates and the price of jet fuel, to massive capital outlays, volatility in passenger demand, and competition from low-cost carriers. This chapter outlines the risks faced by the airlines and the tools they use to manage them. We consider risk management approaches such as leasing, hedging, capacity management, and revenue management. The airlines evidently make decisions in these areas in a decentralized way. We present a summary of the results of an empirical study on the airlines’ capacity decisions in response to exogenous factors, along with the outline of a normative analytical model for integrated risk management in the airline industry.

A commonly held assumption is that changes in the nominal exchange rate alter an economy’s terms of trade and as such by manipulating the exchange rate a country can affect changes in its trade balance. Devaluations are one extreme and presumably a “one time” application of this view. While currency manipulation is considered the continuous application of a policy aimed to alter a country’s terms of trade and thus trade balance through a deliberate exchange rate manipulation. Elsewhere, we have shown that the equivalence between the terms of trade and exchange rates depends on the organization of the monetary system and whether the monetary authorities can affect changes in the economy’s relative prices. Price rigidities is one of the sufficient conditions that allow the monetary authorities to impact the relative prices through the exchange rate manipulation and or devaluation. In that case, the domestic prices will not adjust as the exchange rate varies thereby altering the price of domestic goods relative to the rest of the world goods. However, if the domestic prices are flexible, under some general conditions, we can show there is the possibility that the domestic prices can adjust and thereby negate the effect of the exchange rate manipulation. Thus the issue of the effectiveness of a currency manipulation policy depends on the degree of price flexibility, that is the ability of the prices to adjust to offset the changes in the exchange rate. In other words, the issue is an empirical one that the data can either validate or reject. However, the nominal exchange rate alone is not enough to test, prove, or disprove the underlying hypothesis. The countries’ price levels must also be included to calculate the terms of trade or real exchange rate and then one can test for the possibility that a devaluation may affect the terms of trade. Our analysis of the Chinese economy suggests that over longer period of time, the prices are flexible enough to offset any impact that a currency manipulation scheme may have on the terms of trade. We find no evidence that the Chinese are effective currency manipulators.

The convergence and inflation potential is determined by the organization of the monetary system. The intervention mechanism specified by the way the countries fix their exchange rate determines the system’s inflation potential. We discuss the two basic organizational forms from which most exchange rate mechanisms emanate. One is where countries worried about the nominal value of their exchange rate hurting their trade balance which would try to prevent their exchange rate from appreciating vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Preventing the currency from appreciating would cede the determination of the inflation rate to the most expansive central bank in the world economy. Under these circumstances, the most inflationary central bank would set the world inflation rate. Hence the weakest currency forces everyone to react. The other is where countries worried about their inflation rate will try to prevent their currencies from depreciating relative to the currencies with stable inflation. If every country did this and prevented their currency from depreciating, it follows that the least expansionary central bank would set the tone for worldwide inflation. In this case, the strongest currency forces every country to react and adjust their inflation rate to prevent exchange rate depreciation.

This paper addresses neoliberal origins of the acute geoeconomic and social crisis that was inflicted on Greece since 2010 with the unleashing of the 3 consecutive bailout plans and the implementation of fierce austerity policies. We further scrutinize the composition of the soaring Greek debt and most importantly, the unsettling utilization of the troika loans for the 2010–15 period. For the first time in the literature, we provide evidence that the vast bulk of the loans went overwhelmingly not to benefiting a “profligate” Greek state but to avoiding the write-downs of bad loans made by reckless creditors (mainly, German and French banks) to the Greek government and private banks. We propose the temporary adoption of a parallel currency in the form of government IOUs, together with other drastic measures to reboot the ailing Greek economy inside the Eurozone.

Asset Management refers to the professional management of investment funds for individuals, families, and institutions. Asset Management products are offered through separately managed accounts and through commingled vehicles such as mutual funds and private investment funds. Invested funds are generally lumped into the following categories when placed in Asset Management accounts at an investment bank: fixed income, equity, alternative investments (comprising principally of hedge fund, private equity, and real estate investments), and money market. Fund performance is a key metric when evaluating Asset Management capabilities. Investors measure this by relying on different performance measurement firms, such as Morningstar and Lipper, who compile aggregate industry data that demonstrate how individual mutual funds perform against both indexes and peer groups over time. Most major investment banks have large hedge funds housed within their Asset Management Division. These funds are managed principally for the benefit of investing clients although the bank and employees of the bank may also invest in the fund and are separate from the proprietary investing activities conducted within the Trading Division which invests solely for the account of the firm, without any outside client investments. Additionally, research is provided by all large investment banking firms to selected institutional and individual investing clients on a global basis. This research usually covers equity, fixed income, currency, and commodity markets. Research professionals also focus on economics, portfolio strategy, derivatives, and credit issues, offering insights and ideas based on fundamental research.

Currency carry strategies have long positions in currencies with a high interest rate and short positions in currencies with a low interest rate. Currency carry strategies have generated about 5.4% return per annum (Sharpe ratio: 0.57) over the period December 1996 to May 2014. However, during the recent financial crisis, the carry strategy suffered losses of up to 20% on invested capital. We investigate whether investors could have used the implied option volatility index on the US equity market (the VIX) or the option implied volatility index from G7 currencies (the VXY) to time the currency carry trade. We examine a large set of timing strategies and find that for some specific settings excess returns can be as large as 2.5% per annum. However, when we take into account that we investigated many trading strategies, these excess returns turn out not to be statistically significant. Hence, our findings cast doubt on implied volatility as a stand-alone timing indicator for currency carry trading in real-life portfolio decisions.