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Malattia Leventinese/Doyne Honeycomb Retinal Dystrophy (ML/DHRD) is an age-related macular degeneration (AMD)-like retinal dystrophy caused by an autosomal dominant R345W mutation in the secreted glycoprotein, fibulin-3 (F3). To identify new small molecules that reduce F3 production from retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) cells, we knocked-in a luminescent peptide tag (HiBiT) into the endogenous F3 locus which enabled simple, sensitive, and high throughput detection of the protein. The GSK3 inhibitor, CHIR99021 (CHIR), significantly reduced F3 burden (expression, secretion, and intracellular levels) in immortalized RPE and non-RPE cells. Low-level, long-term CHIR treatment promoted remodeling of the RPE extracellular matrix (ECM), reducing sub-RPE deposit-associated proteins (e.g., amelotin, complement component 3, collagen IV, and fibronectin), while increasing RPE differentiation factors (e.g., tyrosinase, and pigment epithelium derived factor). In vivo, treatment of 8 mo R345W +/+ knockin mice with CHIR (25 mg/kg i.p., 1 mo) was well tolerated and significantly reduced R345W F3-associated AMD-like basal laminar deposit number and size, thereby preventing the main pathological feature in these mice. This is the first demonstration of small molecule-based prevention of AMD-like pathology in ML/DHRD mice and may herald a rejuvenation of interest in GSK3 inhibition for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, including, potentially AMD itself., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest

Accurate identification of cranial midline structures is essential for many targeting techniques that use repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), including the Beam F3 method used for depression treatment. Evaluate whether a novel, laser-sighted device will assist with more accurate identification of the cranial midline relative to standard scalp-based measurement procedures. Three trained TMS technicians performed repeated scalp-based measurements to identify the inion and vertex on five subjects (n = 54 measurements). Measurements were compared to points identified with the midline localizer device and the true midline as defined by MRI midline structures. Use of the midline localizer was more accurate for midline identification than technician measurement (p = 0.00025) and the ratio of localizing the midline within 5 mm was higher (78% versus 54%, p = 0.008). Use of a laser-sighted midline localizer device can improve the accuracy of scalp measurements associated with target localization for rTMS treatment protocols. • Standard methods for identifying the cranial midline introduce significant error. • A new device for identifying the cranial midline improves upon these inaccuracies. • The device can assist with localizing Beam F3 method TMS prefrontal cortex targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of official development assistance on government fiscal behavior in the Selected Asian developing countries by using Panel Data over the period 1990-2009. The aim of official development assistance is to help developing countries to speed up economic growth and development, income distribution and poverty reduction. But official development assistance is mainly channeled to the domestic economy through the public sector. However, the economic effectiveness of official development assistance has always been a controversial issue. While some researchers argue that such aid results into the growth of bureaucracies, others argue that it can lead to economic growth. The final effects of official development assistance depend on how it influences fiscal policy. Empirical results indicate that official development assistance has a positive and significant effect on capital expenditures and does not have a significant effect on government consumption expenditures and government revenues. Also, official development assistance is a substitute for government borrowing.

Using a set of individual country-pair data on cross-border equity transactions between seven Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Australia) in the years 2002-2012, we document that investors are more likely to show similar extent of home bias across Asian emerging markets than the developed markets. The spatial panel regression analysis indicates that the spillover effects of cultural and economic distances are more significant than the effect of geometric distance. Investors' familiarity about Asian countries seems to influence the similar extent of home bias across Asian financial markets, while not so in the developed countries. In particular, the spatial spillover influences of risk associated with cultural and economic distances are more prominent among the Asian financial markets than the developed countries. Our home bias model can be spatially applied to not only different regions but also to different types of investors in international portfolio flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchange rates and option prices incorporate market participants' views about the credibility and the effects of exchange rate targets. I present a model to determine exchange rates under policy targets that can be used to price options. The model is estimated with Euro-Swiss Franc exchange rate and options price data. In the first few months of the minimum exchange rate policy, the implied survival probability of the policy for a 3-month horizon was typically less than 75%. Over time, the credibility increased and this probability reached 95% in August 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How responsive a lender is the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? In this paper, I introduce new data on IMF loan approval periods: The days that transpire between when a borrower submits a 'Letter of Intent' to the Executive Board requesting a loan and when the Board approves that request. The data reveal considerable variation across requests. Why are some loan requests approved swiftly while others wait much longer for approval? I argue that the financial interests of the G-5 economies drive variation in responsiveness contingent on when a request was made. I expect that during much of the 1980s, as G-5 commercial bank exposure increases, borrowers will face longer waits for approval. In such cases, the G-5 should have been more likely to press for the use of the 'concerted lending' strategy. This protected G-5 financial systems by catalyzing private financing on behalf of those countries, but it also delayed loan approval. Into the 1990s, global capital flows grew more complex and catalyzing private capital flows required a swift response. Thus, during these years I expect increased G-5 bank exposure to be associated with shorter waits for approval. In such cases, the G-5 should have been more likely to press for accelerated approval. A quick response would have the best chance of attracting back private capital and reduce the threat posed by the crisis. Statistical analyses of 275 loan requests from 1984-2012 support these expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the 'shaming' of human rights violations influence foreign aid delivery decisions across OECD donor countries? We examine the effect of shaming, defined as targeted negative attention by human rights international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), on donor decisions about how to deliver bilateral aid. We argue that INGO shaming of recipient countries leads donor governments, on average, to 'bypass' the recipient government in favor of non-state aid delivery channels, including international and local NGOs and international organizations (IOs). However, we expect this relationship to be conditional on a donor country's position in the international system. Minor power countries have limited influence in global affairs and are therefore more able to centrally promote human rights in their foreign policy. Major power countries, on the other hand, shape world politics and often confront 'realpolitik' concerns that may require government-to-government aid relations in the presence of INGO shaming. We thus expect aid officials of minor donor countries to be more likely to condition aid delivery decisions on human rights shaming than their counterparts of major donor countries. Using compositional data analysis, we test our argument using originally collected data on human rights shaming events and an originally constructed measure of bilateral aid delivery in a time-series cross-sectional framework from 2004 to 2010. We find support for our hypotheses: On average, OECD donor governments increase the proportion of bypass when INGOs shame the recipient government. When differentiating between donor types we find that this finding holds for minor but not for major powers. These results add to both our understanding of the influences of aid allocation decision-making and our understanding of the role of INGOs on foreign-policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using daily data from 2006 to 2015, this paper applies alternative multivariate GARCH models and a modified version of the spillover index methodology proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (Int J Forecast 28(1):57-66, 2012) to test the existence of shock and volatility contagion effects across interbank money markets. Overall, we find evidence that money markets are highly interrelated, exhibiting dynamic cross market effects. Moreover, we emphasize the pertinence of conditional covariances and we show that volatility spillovers are time-varying and very responsive to the major economic events, increasing in periods of higher turbulence, which reinforces the importance of closely monitoring the evolution of money markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine optimal exchange-rate flexibility in a model of local-currency pricing with vertical production and trade. Following a large body of empirical evidence, we assume that final-goods prices are sticky, but intermediate-goods prices are flexible. We find that, unlike what is found in the literature, optimal nominal exchange rate is flexible under local-currency pricing. The key element in deriving our conclusion is the difference in expenditure shares between home and foreign households. The conclusion holds even if the degrees of home bias in production are identical between home and foreign final-goods producers, which contrasts with the findings in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflation targeting countries generally define the inflation objective in terms of the consumer price index. Studies in the academic literature, however, reach conflicting conclusions concerning which measure of inflation a central bank should target in a small open economy. This paper examines the properties of domestic, CPI, and real-exchange-rate-adjusted (REX) inflation targeting. In one class of open economy New Keynesian models there is an isomorphism between optimal policy in an open versus closed economy. In the type of model we consider, where the real exchange rate appears in the Phillips curve, this isomorphism breaks down; openness matters. REX inflation targeting restores the isomorphism but this may not be desirable. Instead, under domestic and CPI inflation targeting the exchange rate channel can be exploited to enhance the effects of monetary policy. Our results indicate that CPI inflation targeting delivers price stability across the three inflation objectives and will be desirable to a central bank with a high aversion to inflation instability. CPI inflation targeting also does a better job of stabilizing the real exchange rate and interest rate which is an advantage from the standpoint of financial stability. REX inflation targeting does well in achieving output stability and has an advantage if demand shocks are predominant. In general, the choice of the inflation objective affects the trade-offs between policy goals and thus policy choices and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the effects of fair value reporting standards (FVR) SFAS 133 and IAS 39 on foreign exchange (FX) exposures of U.S. multinational firms. We observe reductions in FX exposures to developed market currencies that coincide with the implementation of FVR. Risk reductions mainly affect U.S. multinational firms and to a much lesser extent matched control groups of domestic firms. For firms with exposures to emerging market currencies, we observe no changes in positive FX exposures but substantial shifts in negative exposures resulting in a change of exposure direction. Additionally we report changes in FX exposure asymmetry affecting multinational and domestic firms. Observed results are robust to several alternative model specifications and are unlikely explained by the launch of the euro, changes in firm-level FX exposure determinants, the rise and decline of technology shocks, shifts in systematic risk factors, or the Asian Financial Crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically examine the degree of cointegration among ASEAN+3 money markets in order to determine and adopt remedial actions pursuant to vulnerabilities in the region’s money markets that indicate an inability to prevent possible financial crises. In order to validate vulnerabilities, this paper investigates the degree to which money markets are integrated. Inter-bank lending rates are divided based on agreement periods as well as on income levels of regional economies. The VAR-based Cointegration test and the VECM have been applied in the investigation process. The findings are: (1) weak integration during the pre-agreement period; (2) substantial progress toward the post-agreement period; (3) both high- and low-income markets integrate in a cooperative way; and (4) the agreement produces an impact that is incomplete in so far as integrating the region’s money markets. The finding of this study offers implications for the regional makers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We address the noted puzzle that despite increased capital mobility, international consumption risk sharing appears to be very limited. For all possible country pairings, we measure idiosyncratic consumption as the difference between national real per capita consumption expenditures. Using a pair-wise framework based on the time-series properties of idiosyncratic consumption, a probabilistic test for non-stationarity suggests that the extent of risk sharing in fact occurs for a large sample of industrial countries. Further to this, we conduct a probit analysis to confirm a statistically significant positive association between the probability of cointegration between national measures of real per capita consumption and the degree of capital mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the determinants of the exchange rate regime of a country. A competing risks model is estimated. It is found that the way a country exits a fixed exchange rate regime is affected non-linearly by the duration of the peg. In addition, countries with a lower growth rate of reserves, higher occurrence of banking crises, higher concentration of trade and lower degree of capital-account liberalisation are more likely to experience a crisis-driven exit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, the relationship between exchange rates and stock market indices in Turkey, Japan and England was analysed by using the time varying causality test. First, by the Kapetanios unit root test that allows determining structural breaks endogenously and more than two breaks, stationary levels and break numbers of series were identified. Second, based on the belief that the result of especially long-term causality can have different consequences in different periods due to economic and political crises, a time-varying causality test with bootstrap developed by R. Scott Hacker and Abdulnasser Hatemi-J was used. As a result of the study using monthly data spanning the period of January 1990 to April 2013, there existed two-way causality for the three countries in periods when local and global crises were occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data for the period 2000–2011, we construct province‐level real effective exchange rate (REER) indices for China and test the effect of REER depreciation on regional economic growth in a generalized method of moments regression framework. Our results show that REER depreciation, in general, promotes regional economic growth, through increasing net exports and lowering FDI costs. After dividing the full sample into coastal and inland subsamples, we find that REER depreciation influences economic growth in inland areas but not in coastal areas. This is due to the fact that the inland areas have more surplus labor or other resources to expand their production capacity when REER depreciation leads to increased world demand. Furthermore, compared to inland areas, processing‐and‐assembly trade comprises a larger share of trade in the coastal areas, where traders import more raw materials and intermediate goods to process and assemble goods. When the exchange rate depreciates, the costs of imported materials and immediate goods increase. In this case, the benefits from REER depreciation in coastal areas are offset to some extent and are thus lower than in inland areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Securitization is considered to be one of the biggest financial innovations of the last century. It is also regarded as both a catalyst and a solution to the 2008 financial crisis. Once a popular method of financing the mortgage and consumer credit markets, aspects of the global securitization market are now struggling to revive. In this paper, I discuss the role that ethics played in securitization prior to the 2008 financial crisis and find that it is not an obvious story of moral failures, but rather that it lies in more subtle elements of the financial system. The ethics uncertainty role in the securitization story is one of flawed incentives and the shifting of responsibility for handling risk. The role of securitization and the ethics of risk transfer have rarely been discussed explicitly in the literature. The historical origins of securitization and lessons learned from previous flawed uses of the process are also provided. I also detail the various global institutional reform proposals that have taken place. Moving forward, it is crucial to understand the causes, consequences, and ethical implications of securitization in the financial crisis so as to help individuals and managers better assess risk, align incentives, and design appropriate policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface overexpression of nucleolin provides an anchor for the specific attachment of biomolecules to cancer and angiogenic endothelial cells. The peptide F3 is a high-affinity ligand of the nucleolin receptor (NR) that has been investigated as a carrier to deliver biologically active molecules to tumors for both therapeutic and imaging applications. A site-specific PEGylated F3 derivative was radiolabeled with [18F]Al-F. The binding affinity and cellular distribution of the compound was assessed in tumor (H2N) and tumor endothelial (2H-11) cells. Specific uptake via the NR was demonstrated by the siRNA knockdown of nucleolin in both cell lines. The partition and the plasma stability of the compound were assessed at 37°C. The enzyme-mediated site-specific modification of F3 to give NODA-PEG-F3 (NP-F3) was achieved. Radiolabeling with [18F]Al-F gave 18F-NP-F3. 18F-NP-F3 demonstrated high affinity for cancer and tumor endothelial cells. The siRNA knockdown of nucleolin resulted in a binding affinity reduction of 50% to 60%, confirming cell surface binding via the NR. NP-F3 was stable in serum for 2 h. 18F-NP-F3 is reported as the first 18F-labeled F3 derivative. It was obtained in a site-specific, high-yield, and efficient manner and binds to surface NR in the low nanomolar range, suggesting it has potential as a tumor and angiogenesis tracer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings reported in this paper provide improved explanation as to what factors are correlated with price levels across a large sample of 152 countries. The results are obtained from using a new set of variables called economic freedom indices, covering 19 years. Prior studies used income, trade openness, and productivity, which led to results with much less explanatory power compared to findings reported in this paper. We apply advanced panel data econometrics to obtain robust estimates of parameters, which, in our view, led to results with substantially high coefficient of variations close to 90%. The findings show that all the nine dimensions of economic freedom used in this study significantly account for the variations in national price levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tensions over Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine and the Middle East have resulted in wide-ranging Western sanctions. An understanding the destabilizing regional and institutional effects of sanctions is, therefore, fundamental for policymakers on both sides. Data from 2007 to 2015 are used to analyze the effect of funding, bank ownership and credit quality across Russia’s wider Economic Union. Results enable systemic insights into an often opaque region during a period of crises and sanctions. Specifically we find that sanctions result in institutional illiquidity, limited capital market access and a rise in state funding coupled with bank take-overs by governments. Government Institutions exploit their access to state funding to increase market share but the positive effects are limited since there is clear evidence of ongoing poor credit management. An increase in loan loss provisions, lagged abnormal credit losses, suggest that until this second but significant ‘weak management’ effect is addressed, it will be difficult for institutions in the region to overcome the debilitating effects of sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the shock-absorbing properties of a banking union by providing a detailed comparison between the way regional financial shocks have been absorbed at the federal level in the United States, but have led to severe regional (national) financial dislocation and tensions in the euro area. The extent to which the institutions of the banking union, which is now emerging in the euro area, should increase its capacity to deal with future regional boom and bust cycles is also discussed. Cross-border capital flows in the form of equity appear to be much more stable than those taking the form of credit, especially inter-bank credit. Moreover, credit booms and bust leave a debt overhang and losses can materialise only via insolvencies, whereas equity flows absorb automatically losses in case of a bust and provide the cross-border owner with incentives to continue to provide financing even during a crisis. It follows that cross-border banks can absorb regional shocks. Of course, there is no free lunch: large cross-border banks pose the 'too big to fail' problem, and they also propagate shocks, especially if they originate in large countries, to the entire area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currency crises are found to be strongly associated with banking crises. This paper constructs a twin banking and currency crisis model by introducing the banking sector into the currency crisis model and examining the case in which the exchange rate risk is located in the banking system. The model shows that an unanticipated shock caused by the shift of investors' expectations and/or a negative productivity shock can trigger a twin banking and currency crisis. To achieve both financial stability and economic stability, the central bank uses multiple monetary policy instruments. In contrast to the conventional policy recommendation in response to a currency crisis, i.e., interest rate hike, we find that when the exchange rate risk is located in the banking sector, the monetary policy option to prevent a twin crisis is to lower the policy interest rate and the reserve requirement ratio and raise the interest rate on reserves. Our results show that the location of the exchange rate risk matters for the choice of an appropriate monetary policy response during a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We put together a unique panel of thousands of good-level prices before and after the euro to compare the determinants and understand the evolution of goods price dispersion across Europe over time. We find that tradeability and nontraded inputs play a significantly smaller role for cross-country price dispersion after the adoption of the euro, and for Eurozone economies as compared to European Union ones. We then compare the distributions of law-of-one-price (LOP) deviations over time to understand how the degree of integration across European economies changed after the euro. Our tests reveal that the distributions after the euro are typically significantly different from those before, consistent with a greater degree of integration. Utilizing our unique panel data set to trace the location of individual goods in the distribution of LOP deviations, we ask how the price advantage or disadvantage evident in these price distributions evolves over time, and whether goods characteristics play a role for the persistence of these LOP deviations. LOP deviations for these goods are highly correlated over 5- or 10- year horizons, and correlations remain significantly high over longer horizons. These correlations are greater for homogeneous as compared to differentiated goods and vary across countries. Finally, for most of these European economies and goods, price advantage is typically revealed to be more persistent than price disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new data set of capital controls by inflows and outflows for 10 asset categories in 100 countries during 1995-2013. Building on the data in Schindler (2009) and other data sets based on the analysis of the IMF's Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER), this data set covers additional asset categories, more countries, and a longer time period. The paper discusses in detail the construction of the data and characterizes them with respect to the prevalence and correlation of controls across asset categories and between inflow and outflow controls, the aggregation of the separate categories into broader indicators, the experience of some particular countries, and the comparison of these data with others indices of capital controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, investors, practitioners, regulators and policy makers seek to understand whether, when and why recently listed stocks, initial public offerings (IPOs) are delisted rather than continue trading (survive). Using data on 7,627 IPOs issued during 2000–2008 across 32 countries, we explore the impact of the legal system on IPO survival. We find that IPOs in countries with better investor protections remain listed for longer. This suggests that better legal systems increase the net benefits companies derive from staying listed. We also provide evidence that better legal systems increase the effectiveness of IPO certification by venture capitalists, underwriters and auditors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, a series of measures have been proposed to regulate the OTC derivatives market. The motivation is to increase the disclosure of OTC transactions aiming to decrease the probability of crisis. The main objective of this paper is to investigate how regulatory changes in the OTC derivatives market affect the non-financial sector. The Brazilian FX derivatives market provides a natural experiment for this issue: in 2011, the Brazilian government taxed short positions in FX derivatives to reduce the carry trade, which was causing the local currency to appreciate. Although Chamon and Garcia (2013, Capital control in Brazil: effective? International Monetary Fund, manuscript ) find that this policy helped reduce the incentives for carry trade strategies, it could have unintended consequences on other markets. For example, if banks pass through the extra cost to clients, this taxation may affect the FX hedges of non-financial firms. This paper investigates whether, and if so how much, the increase in the cost of OTC derivatives is transferred to the non-financial sector. The results indicate that this cost more than doubled for companies exposed to devaluation of the local currency (for instance, importers). Although a thorough welfare analysis is beyond the scope of this paper, the findings suggest that this cost increase may be a concern to the extent that it could prevent EME firms from hedging their FX positions, as the NDF quotation of some EMEs is high due to the interest rate differentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the adjustment process of a small open economy to a sudden worsening of external conditions. The sudden stop is modeled by the use of a highly nonlinear specification that captures credit constraints in a convenient way. The advantage of this approach is that the effects of the shock become highly conditional on the external debt position of the economy. A two-sector model with money-in-the-utility is adopted, thereby making it possible to study sectoral asymmetries in the adjustment process, and also the role of currency mismatch. The model is calibrated to the behavior of the Hungarian economy in the 2000s, and its crisis experience in 2008–11 in particular. Four counterfactuals are calculated: two with different exchange rate policies (a more flexible float and a perfect peg), and both of these policy regimes with smaller initial indebtedness. Overall, the model is able to fit the movements of key aggregate and sectoral macroeconomic variables after the crisis by producing a large and protracted deleveraging process. It also offers a meaningful quantification of the policy tradeoff between facilitating the real adjustment by letting the currency depreciate and protecting consumption expenditures by limiting the adverse effect of exchange rate movements on household balance sheets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of surge and stop episodes in foreign loans using quarterly data from 55 countries covering 1990Q1 to 2011Q4. The estimation results show that, first, global, contagion and domestic factors are all significantly associated with both loan-led surge and stop episodes. Second, domestic factors are more relevant to stops than to surges and are associated more strongly with episodes in emerging countries than with those in advanced countries. Third, global risk and domestic growth shock are most consistent and important in predicting both types of episodes. Fourth, financial linkage is the most important contagion channel in the occurrence of loan-led episodes. Fifth, capital control is not a useful tool for avoiding either type of episode and may actually increase their likelihood. Finally, stops in emerging countries are strongly related to macroeconomic fundamentals such as inflation, current account balance, net foreign assets, real exchange rate, and previous occurrence of surge episodes. Our results strongly suggest that emerging countries with lower institutional quality levels are more likely to experience both surges and stops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent Maystadt report (2013) challenged the European Parliament to modify governance arrangements surrounding the design and endorsement of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). In addition the Maystadt report constructs an argument that accounting information has the capacity to also modify behaviour and that this might not be conducive for the European public good, financial stability and economic development. In this paper we argue that IFRS need to be stress tested for their impact on firm-level financial stability in a financialized world. The financialized firm can revalue a range of assets to their market value crystalizing future earnings into current values but these valuations can become impaired. Asset value impairments will be charged to shareholder equity but this is being hollowed out because a higher proportion of earnings are being distributed to shareholders. Accounting disclosures are not only an information feed to users they inform the stewardship and control of a firm's resources and in the financialized firm the potential for financial instability is heightened and this can translate into a moral hazard for society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Development Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses stock market co-movements around recent crises and explores the international portfolio diversification benefits available for UK investors holding a portfolio in the BRICS and MIST emerging markets. The application of conventional and regime-switch cointegration techniques suggests an absence of diversification benefits. Further evidence from application of a multivariate time-varying asymmetric model (i.e. AG-DCC) suggests that conditional correlation among the stock markets exhibits higher dependency when it is driven by negative shocks to the market. The asymmetric causality test provides supporting evidence of the decoupling hypothesis. The results indicate that the Chinese stock market is the most attractive option for the UK investor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last couple of decades have witnessed significant institutional and structural changes in financial sector within a worldwide trend toward consolidation. In the segment of organized trading stock exchanges merge and develop into large and diversified publicly traded companies. These processes are rather complicated in case of a transition economy like Russia. In December 2011 MICEX, the first largest and state-controlled stock exchange acquired RTS, the second largest and privately owned stock exchange primarily designed for foreign investors. We empirically investigate whether the acquisition resulted in improved liquidity of the Russian stock market which was one of the declared acquisition objectives. We use the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and the Wilcoxon tests to compare market-wide liquidity in several discrete periods pre and post acquisition. A deep and thorough insight into liquidity performance is ensured by assessing liquidity from limit order book data of tick frequency along three dimensions (tightness, immediacy, and elasticity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of macroeconomic variables on the wealth effects of cross-border acquisitions by Malaysian multinational companies. The sample consists of 159 cross-border acquisitions by Malaysian MNCs bidding in 22 countries around the world from 2000 to 2007. The macroeconomic variables examined in this study are foreign economic condition, GNP correlation between countries, and level of economic development of target country. The findings indicate that, foreign economic condition affects the wealth effect negatively, while the level of economic development of target country affects the wealth effect positively. Aside from the macroeconomic variables, we also find that English or non-English language, government's rules index and the telecommunication infrastructure all play certain roles in the Malaysian cross-border acquisitions. Implied from this study is that, value creation of the Malaysian cross-border acquisitions is a function of the foreign economic condition and the level of economic development of the target foreign country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]