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Little is known about the motivations and outcomes of sellers in remunerated markets for human materials. We exploit dramatic growth in the U.S. blood plasma industry to shed light on the sellers of plasma. Sellers tend to be young and liquidity-constrained with low incomes and limited access to traditional credit. Plasma centers absorb demand for nontraditional credit. After a plasma center opens nearby, demand for payday loans falls by over 13% among young borrowers. Meanwhile, foot traffic increases by over 4% at nearby stores, suggesting that constrained households use plasma markets to smooth consumption without appealing to high-cost debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textual data require an analytical trade-off between breadth and depth. Automated approaches locate patterns across large swaths of data points but sacrifice qualitative insight because they are not well equipped to deal with context-determined ways to express meaning, like figurative language. To strengthen the power of automated text analysis, researchers seek hybrid methodologies that combine computer-augmented analysis with sociocultural researcher insights based on qualitative textual interpretation. This article demonstrates a new method, which the authors term metaphor-enabled marketplace sentiment analysis (MEMSA). Building on existing automated text analysis methodologies linking word lists to sentiments, MEMSA adds metaphors that associate topics with sentiments across domains. Using MEMSA, researchers can leverage the sentiment potential of these located metaphors and scale insights to the level of big textual data by employing a dictionary approach enhanced by a specific and useful linguistic property of metaphors: their predictable structure in text (something is something else). This article shows that metaphors add associative detail to sentiments, revealing the targets and sources of sentiments that underlie the associations. Understanding nuanced market sentiments enables marketers to identify sentiment-based trends embedded in market discourse, so they can better formulate, target, position, and communicate value propositions for products and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effects of online customer ratings on financial policy. Using a large sample of Parisian restaurants, we find a positive and economically significant relationship between customer ratings and restaurant debt. We use the locally exogenous variations in customer ratings resulting from the rounding of scores in regression discontinuity tests to establish causality. Favorable online ratings reduce cash flow risk and increase resilience to demand shocks. Consistent with the view that good online ratings increase the debt capacity of restaurants and their growth opportunities, restaurants with good ratings use their extra debt to invest in tangible assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a refined version of our multi-country AB-SFC model of a Monetary Union the paper aims at providing a tentative assessment of the economic effects of transforming the European Monetary Union into an Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer Union (IFTU) with its own fiscal capacity. Countries contribute proportionally to their GDP, whereas funds are redistributed according to a mechanism that gives more funds to countries performing worse than the average of the Union in cyclical terms. Our simulations show that an IFTU inspired by such a redistribution principle acts as a stabilizer of international trade, allowing us to stabilize and improve the Union GDP performance without affecting the stability of public finances. When the Union is allowed to borrow on capital markets, i.e. in a Fully Fledged Fiscal Transfer Union (FFFTU), these effects are enhanced and a part of the public debt burden shifts from the national to the Union level, leaving the total burden almost stable. An interesting result to assess the political acceptability of the proposal is that "core" countries eventually benefit the most from the introduction of this mechanism, despite being more frequently net contributors. Finally, we show that an FFFTU with common debt might help to soften the impact of an exogenous demand shock, while, because of the fact that it mainly operates as a stabilizer of aggregate demand, it does not seem to provide beneficial effects when facing a supply shock to production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a security design model in which a potential acquirer approaches a firm with a value-add plan. The target has a single owner, who possesses private information: he alone knows whether his firm is compatible with the plan. The owner agrees that the acquirer will add value but believes that the value-add will not be as much as what the acquirer expects. Although the acquirer can choose any monotone limited liability security to offer along with cash, we show that, under general conditions, any security that is employed always takes the form of nonrecourse debt provided by the seller. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt accumulation has been linked to materialism, impulsivity, shortsightedness, self-control, and lifestyle preferences. However, applying stigma theory allows novel insights into debt accumulation for middle-class individuals who access a variety of credit-related products. The authors define anticipated stigmatization of debt as the negative judgment and discrimination an individual expects to experience because of their consumer indebtedness. Results from a series of studies demonstrate that although financial stress motivates behaviors designed to reduce debt, debtors who anticipate stigmatization perform a variety of concealment behaviors (secrecy, social spending, and help avoidance) that hinder debt reduction and have negative effects on well-being. To understand how to help these individuals, the authors collaborated with a financial education company, designing a field experiment to examine the efficacy of a behavior change course. Individuals who anticipated stigmatization and formed new social connections in a community-based condition reduced their consumer debt. Although the emotional effect of community-based support has been examined in other stigma contexts, this study is the first to investigate the effect on well-being in a debt context and link social benefits to actual behavior change in terms of debt reduction behaviors and debt repayment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using account-level credit card data from a large Turkish bank, we study the impact of a unique credit card policy that increases minimum payment on consumption and debt repayment. We show that the policy reduces credit card spending and debt, boosts existing debt repayment, and reduces credit card delinquency. The credit card debt of affected consumers falls on average by 50 |$\%$| two years into the policy's implementation. An increase in minimum payment has a stronger effect than does a decrease of a similar magnitude. We build a benchmark life cycle model with soft liquidity constraint to explain the reduction in credit card spending. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a regression-discontinuity design and within lender–borrower variation, we analyze how credit default swaps (CDSs) affect bank incentives and borrower outcomes in renegotiations after covenant violations. While existing studies document an investment decline after covenant violations, we find that covenant-violating firms maintain their investment subsequent to the introduction of CDS trading. Moreover, after CDS introduction, covenant-violating firms are less likely to default. Our results suggest that in the private debt markets, CDSs discipline borrowers, while the empty creditor problem due to CDS is mitigated because of lenders' reputation concerns and lower coordination frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the trading and yield effects of covenant-lite (cov-lite) high-yield bond contracts, which have a restricted (lite) set of covenants. The excluded covenants often are those that use accounting performance measures. Although much research has focused on the potential benefits of accounting as a basis for debt contracting, little is known about settings where it may be optimal to exclude accounting performance statistics from public debt contracts. We find that cov-lite high-yield bonds have a higher trading turnover and lower yield spreads. Our findings provide empirical support for theory, which predicts, for optimal bond covenant design, that a trade-off between improving trading ease versus enhanced investor protection needs to be managed. These results enhance our understanding of the limits of accounting's role in (bond) contracting design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a dynamic incomplete-markets model of entrepreneurial firms and demonstrate the implications of preferences for liquidity to entrepreneur's interdependent consumption, portfolio allocation, hedging and financing decisions. The numerical results provide several important implications. Preferences for liquidity reduce hedging demand using risky assets. Besides, the existence of preferences for liquidity decreases the implied equity value and encourages the entrepreneur to issue more debt. Especially, the preferences for liquidity can overturn the risk-shifting incentives of a risk-averse entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing precarity as a condition referring to housing insecurity and unaffordability has been on the rise over the last decade across Europe and beyond. While various studies discuss the character of housing precarity and its links to (subprime) mortgage loans, the role of specific moral economies of debt in enacting housing policies which reinforce housing precarity is less developed in relation to other kinds of loans or the experience of debt enforcement. This article analyses fifty narrative interviews—thirty with debtors and twenty with institutional actors—and employs a processual methodology to highlight the performativity of personal debt and local housing policies. Performativity, enacted and modulated by moral economies of effort, (un)deservingness and (ir)responsibility, contributes to the remaking of housing precarity among indebted people, creating a vicious housing precarity-indebtedness loop. In the conclusion, we highlight the contingent and selective application of local housing policies which exclude the overindebted from municipal housing and discuss possible political and policy actions for overcoming the housing governance which generates this precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing interest in exploring contemporary financialisation in terms of the geographies of debt. Many economic geographers have adopted a financial ecologies approach to explain these geographies. While this approach provides analytical benefits, it nonetheless analyses debt almost exclusively in terms of consumer finance, thereby overlooking the relations of production in which many indebted households engage. To address this issue, I develop the agrarian financial ecologies concept, which both directs analysis towards the diversity of credit–debt relations in rural economies, and highlights the relationship between land, labour and debt in the process of agricultural production. I apply this concept to study farm household debt in Cambodia, where indebtedness has become a widespread problem among farmers facing rapid economic transformation in the countryside. By focusing on land and labour, I demonstrate how diverse credit–debt relations within Cambodia's agrarian financial ecology have produced uneven socio‐spatial outcomes, namely debt‐driven land dispossession. This paper advances geographic theory about the dynamics of value production, circulation and appropriation within geographies of debt. It also extends the empirical remit of existing financial ecologies scholarship by attending to the credit–debt relations that characterise many agrarian livelihoods today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to test and analyze the effect of investment opportunity set, capital structure, dividend policy, and profitability on firm value. Another objective to be achieved is the effect of capital structure and dividend policy on firm value mediated by profitability. Our research uses path analysis to determine and analyze the influence of exogenous variables on endogenous variables. The objects in this study are companies incorporated in LQ45 for the period 2012 - 2021. The results of the study found that the price earning ratio, capital structure with indicators of debt to asset ratio and debt to equity ratio, dividend payout ratio, and return on assets all have a positive and significant direction of influence on price to book value. Debt to equity ratio has a significant positive direction of influence on return on assets, while debt to asset ratio has the opposite direction, namely negative and significant to return on assets. What is different from the results of this test is that the dividend payout ratio, although the direction of influence is positive on return on assets, is not significant. Return on assets is not able to mediate the effect of debt asset ratio, debt to equity ratio, and dividend payout ratio in its effect on price to book value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial capitalism depends on the reproduction of an existing racialized economic order. In this article, I argue that the disavowal of past injustice is a central way in which this reproduction is ensured and that market-based forms of knowledge production, such as for-profit predictive practices, play a crucial role in facilitating this disavowal. Recent debates about the fairness of algorithms, data justice, and predictive policing have intensified long-standing controversies, both popular and academic, about the way in which statistical and financial modes of accounting and predicting articulate, represent and produce ascriptive categories of hierarchically ordered social difference, and reproduce unjust social hierarchies and inequalities. These debates have productively problematized the racial lives of seemingly apolitical predictive technologies and demanded the re-politicization of predictive practices. What has been missing from these debates so far, however, is a more explicit engagement with ways in which anti-racist movements and activists themselves have contested the entanglements of prediction and race making. I turn to a recent prominent example, namely the contestation over racial discrepancies in subprime lending to examine how fair lending activists have conceptualized and troubled the reproduction of a racialized economic order through for-profit predictive practices in the decade before the Great Financial Crisis. I situate this particular example in the broader historical and political context of politicizing prediction that first emerged with the ascendancy of a liberal, individualist-proprietary conception of risk, and the political problem space to which this has given rise. My analysis shows that actuarial conceptions of fairness continue to reverberate in anti-racist contestations of for-profit predictive practices, and that they tend to marginalize and undercut more radical strands of critique of the racialization of financial markets. Insofar as these modalities of contestation implicitly reproduce a liberal, proprietary-individualist conception of risk, I argue, they fail to effectively challenge the quasi-alchemical transformation of injustice into personal responsibility, and thus contribute to the disavowal of past injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General-purpose financial statements prepared under GAAP are for a consolidated reporting entity--a collection of legal entities that includes the parent and any subsidiaries it controls. This reporting model results in a loss of information about the individual legal entities within the consolidated reporting entity. Our study examines the role of parent-only balance sheet information in assessing the credit risk of the parent when it is a bank holding company. We obtain evidence from three trading platforms: credit default swaps (CDS), outstanding bonds, and new bonds. We find that parent-only leverage is useful for debtholders to assess the parent's credit risk even after considering consolidated leverage. Moreover, in CDS markets, parent-only leverage is more useful for firms without downstream guarantee than for firms with guarantee and is less useful for firms with a stronger internal capital market. Our study raises the awareness of parent-only financial information for credit risk assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The root of corporate maturity mismatch in developing economies may dwell in the fact that weak contract enforcement capacities suppress financial intermediates' willingness to supply long‐term credit. This study examines the impact of improvements in the legal enforcement environment on corporate maturity mismatch, focusing on the unique setting of China's free trade zones. Using data from non‐financial listed companies between 2010 and 2021, the study investigates how the establishment of FTZs, which signifies an improvement in contract enforcement efficiency, influences firms' financing decisions and maturity mismatch. We find that improvements in the contract enforcement environment significantly discipline the behavior of raising short‐term debt for long‐term investments. The effect is more pronounced for small‐to‐medium‐sized enterprises and non‐state‐owned enterprises, suggesting that such improvements alleviate ownership and size discrimination faced by firms. Mechanism test reveals that access to long‐term loans is the core mechanism. Besides, improvements in public enforcement reduce business risk and enhance firm performance. Strengthening the legal enforcement environment serves as a critical determinant to mitigate corporate maturity mismatch and foster sustained economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate an unexplored channel—loss given default (LGD)—through which accounting information can shape the design of debt contracts. Using a sample of defaulted bonds, we find that borrower accounting information available at contract initiation possesses significant power for predicting realized LGD at the subsequent default date. We then use this model to construct an accounting-based measure of expected LGD at the contracting date for a large sample of bond issuances. We find that this measure is positively associated with issuance date interest spread and covenant use, and document that these relations are not artifacts of an association between LGD and probability of default. We then show that accounting-based expected LGD has a stronger association with issuance date spread when the borrower's underlying accounting is more conservative and when the accounting-based LGD predictors are more persistent. Our results increase our understanding of both the informational role and contracting role of accounting information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reparations should be central to political-economic analyses of inequality. But, books on inequality usually demur from a systematic analysis of reparations. Britain's Black Debt (Hilary McD. Beckles), From Here to Equality (William A Darity Jr and A Kirsten Mullen), and Reconsidering Reparations (Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò) are three respectable exceptions. Distinct but interlinked, might these books unearth more, if re-viewed together? Combined, what do these books reveal about the three most important questions about reparations? Why are reparations needed, what are the reasons for the limited support for the payment of reparations, and how might reparations be redesigned? Using these books as case studies, this article addresses these research questions. A synthesis of the evidence shows that reparations are urgently needed not only for past injustices, as commonly claimed, but also for present, and future reasons. Persistent myths, ideologies, and institutions tend to be obstructive, but these impediments can be resolved. Even so, reparationists need to also consider new ways of ensuring that, if existing inequalities and social stratification are addressed, the fission will not re-open. Closure must also challenge ecological and economic imperialism, not simply climate injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equity issuance activity rose sharply across the corporate sector during the COVID‐19 crisis. We use this period of unprecedented uncertainty to study the effects of financial distress on seasoned equity offering returns. We find that firms increased their reliance on placements during this period of economic turmoil, with, on average, significantly larger issues, steeper discounts, and a greater focus on debt repayment. We show firms at greater risk of financial distress during the pandemic benefit significantly from signalling debt repayment as a priority, with stronger announcement date returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this study reports a positive relationship between large US firms' leverage levels and their likelihood of emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In anticipation of a favourable court outcome, which allows them to emerge from bankruptcy with reduced debt, firms tend to increase their leverage levels in the years preceding the bankruptcy filing year. This suggests strategic abuse of bankruptcy courts and creditors. Test results suggest that firms start acting strategically up to four years before filing for bankruptcy so that they can emerge with a reduced debt burden at the cost of creditors. Additionally, our study also contributes to the corporate bankruptcy literature by exploring a set of factors (related to the firm, judicial, case, geographic, and macroeconomic characteristics) explaining the likelihood of firms emerging from bankruptcy, and proposing a parsimonious multivariate model that best predicts the likelihood of surviving Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the head of household's risk tolerance and household debt in China for a sample drawn from the China Household Finance Survey, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017. The effect of risk tolerance on both the decision to hold and the amount of total household debt, housing debt and non‐housing debt held is analyzed. The key findings indicate that risk tolerance is positively associated with household debt and non‐housing debt. Differences are found in the effect of risk tolerance on household debt across rural and urban households. For example, there exists a positive relationship between risk tolerance and the probability of holding housing debt for rural households while such a relationship is not found for urban households. In addition, the effect of risk tolerance on household debt is larger for rural households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars have developed simulation models and analyzed bankability criteria in numerous papers to enhance the financial outcomes of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), the intersection between both fields considering alternatives to assess the financial impact of flexibility in both scope and financing, remains underdeveloped. To address this gap, this paper introduces a financial model that assesses the financial impact of suitable life-cycle flexibility alternatives while coexisting with revenue performance alterations in each project phase within toll road PPPs. This model serves as a tool to gain insight into the planning of strategic actions to implement flexibility in both scope and financing. Based on system dynamics and validated using financial data from two toll road PPPs in India and East Europe, simulation results suggest that two key drivers (capital expenditures and debt repayment period) have the greatest influence on financial performance. Findings support the implementation of flexible scopes to effectively address the most influential exogenous factor impacting the financial performance of PPPs, namely traffic shortfalls. This model provides a suitable tool for assessing the life-cycle economic sustainability of PPPs in uncertain and complex environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nearly three in four U.S. medical students graduate with debt in six-figure dollar amounts which impairs students emotionally and academically and impacts their career choices and lives long after graduation. Schools have yet to develop systems-level solutions to address the impact of debt on students' well-being. The objectives of this study were to identify students at highest risk for debt-related stress, define the impact on medical students' well-being, and to identify opportunities for intervention. Methods: This was a mixed methods, cross-sectional study that used quantitative survey analysis and human-centered design (HCD). We performed a secondary analysis on a national multi-institutional survey on medical student wellbeing, including univariate and multivariate logistic regression, a comparison of logistic regression models with interaction terms, and analysis of free text responses. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of medical student respondents and non-student stakeholders to develop insights and design opportunities. Results: Independent risk factors for high debt-related stress included pre-clinical year (OR 1.75), underrepresented minority (OR 1.40), debt $20–100 K (OR 4.85), debt >$100K (OR 13.22), private school (OR 1.45), West Coast region (OR 1.57), and consideration of a leave of absence for wellbeing (OR 1.48). Mental health resource utilization (p = 0.968) and counselors (p = 0.640) were not protective factors against debt-related stress. HCD analysis produced 6 key insights providing additional context to the quantitative findings, and associated opportunities for intervention. Conclusions: We used an innovative combination of quantitative survey analysis and in-depth HCD exploration to develop a multi-dimensional understanding of debt-related stress among medical students. This approach allowed us to identify significant risk factors impacting medical students experiencing debt-related stress, while providing context through stakeholder voices to identify opportunities for system-level solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid population aging in the U.S. a greater number of older adults now experience economic insecurity, a situation disproportionately affecting older people of color. The COVID pandemic, rising inflation, and increasing economic inequality have reduced the purchasing power of both wages and fixed incomes. Compared with prior cohorts, the current cohort of adults at or nearing retirement age faces higher levels of secured and unsecured debt burden from mortgages, home equity loans, student loans, credit cards, and out-of-pocket medical costs. Long-standing disparities in opportunities and generational wealth have resulted in more outstanding debt for Black older adults than their white counterparts. This “financial fragility” may result in older people foregoing proper nutrition, doctor’s visits, needed medications, or home or car repairs, while stress about finances may contribute to chronic health and mental health conditions. Along with programs to educate and advise older adults on their pressing financial concerns, practitioners who interact with older people in many settings should incorporate needed financial assessment and referrals into their work with this population. Professional and continuing education should ensure financial literacy and awareness of financial fragility for those working with older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which governments implement interventionist or liberalising labour policy reforms, and does the economic context matter? Drawing on the previous literature on government ideology and public policy, we hypothesise that leftist governments are more likely to implement interventionist labour policies. However, we also expect that economic circumstances influence parties’ room to manoeuvre, and we thus hypothesise that the impact of government partisanship on labour policy reform will be weaker during troublesome economic circumstances. The main contribution of this paper is empirical, in that we take seriously the ‘dependent variable problem’ of policy studies that look to aggregate measures to detect instances of retrenchment, by making use of a new dataset on the directionality of 1,446 individual labour reform measures enacted across 13 nations between 1978 and 2017, allowing us to compare government labour policy during periods of varying levels of budgetary deficit, employment, and debt levels. Our results show that left-wing governments implement more interventionist labour policies, but only during less economically ‘challenging’ periods – during dire economic circumstances, economic orthodoxy seems to trump ideology in governmental policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Money is often, but not always, considered an inappropriate gift. By considering recent insights in the social function of gratitude, we argue that the acceptability of money relies upon its capacity to evoke gratitude through conveying relational concerns. Study 1 (N = 240, US participants) revealed that monetary gifts are generally perceived as less acceptable and evoke less gratitude than non-monetary gifts of equivalent value. Furthermore, when monetary gifts were designated as specific gift coupons, they evoked more gratitude and were more acceptable. Study 2 (N = 471, Chinese participants) revealed that 520 RMB cash, symbolizing love in China, elicits increased gratitude and was therefore considered a favorable gift compared to similar amounts without such connotations. Taken together, we identify gratitude as the psychological mechanism underlying the acceptability of money and advocate for the recognition of monetary gifts with broader social, cultural, and psychological implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the impact of influential ESG factors on risk, focusing on debt risk and liquidity risk. The influence on a sample of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange belonging to the NYSE index is analyzed over a 10-year period, 2012–2021. The quantitative framework covers a multitude of indicators regarding debt, liquidity, corporate governance, the environment, CEO characteristics, performance, and other variables, and the research methodology uses the method of least squares to highlight their impact, using regression models with fixed and random effects, both linear and nonlinear. By estimating regression models, the empirical results confirm the hypotheses found in the existing knowledge stage that debt risk and liquidity risk are significantly influenced by asset profitability, the CEO duality significantly influences debt, while CEO gender diversity has a negative influence on corporate risk, specifically debt and liquidity risk. Additionally, it is shown that the emergence of COVID-19 brings significant changes to company autonomy and their financial performance, the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced corporate risk through restrictions, economic uncertainty, and the amplification of risks. These research results are crucial for practitioners by the necessity of integrating ESG criteria into the risk assessment process and decision-making. Furthermore, concerning policy decision-makers, they help promote sustainability and a responsible approach. Therefore, ESG factors can impact companies' financial performance and influence how they are perceived by investors. By understanding and correctly evaluating these ESG factors, one can identify and manage risks more efficiently, achieve better long-term returns, make appropriate decisions, and promote sustainability in the business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how livelihood security is co-produced through multiple strategies in Southeast Asia's agrarian transformation, by considering the case of Cambodian migrant workers, who cobble together their livelihood through a combination of land, labour and debt. These workers leverage small landholdings as collateral to take on debts to finance migration to Thailand, where low wages and insecure employment inhibit their ability to repay such debts. The traditional social welfare role of land as a safety net is superseded by the use of land as collateral to access microfinance loans, which are also commonly used to respond to livelihood shocks. In this financialised context, social protection schemes insufficiently address the combined livelihood risks that are assumed by workers and do not provide meaningful protection to workers. Drawing on field interviews, we argue that these various supposed sources of livelihood security rather act to increase precarity for workers, by exacerbating labour discipline and dependence on employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Kurdish‐majority city of Amed (Diyarbakır), Turkey, the local sex work economy has become increasingly and intimately interwoven with institutions, discourses, and practices of securitization. In this context, queer and trans Kurds adopt, adapt, and use surveillance to negotiate the value of their work and life with one another, the broader community, and the state. These negotiations involve vocabularies, strategies, and affective attachments derived from the long‐standing militarized conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Key to this dynamic is the notion of bedel, or the indebtedness and obligation that Kurds feel toward the struggle for Kurdish rights. Through affective debt, queer and trans Kurds police boundaries for their security and livelihoods through surveillance, defining those who can and cannot do sex work. In the process, they shift the meanings and functions of bedel as they endure, embody, and embrace violence and homophobia to gain acceptance of their identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the financial status of Medicaid Home Care Aides (HCAs) working in Washington State (WA). This study importantly covers both economic and psychological components of financial insecurity, a comprehensive approach that may help advance policy development for HCAs' financial security. An online survey was conducted from April to May 2019 among employed WA HCAs. The descriptive analyses were conducted using Stata. About two-thirds earned less than $30,000 annually (62%) from all their jobs combined, including non-caregiving work. Over 1 in 4 reported having over $40 k in long-term debt (28%). More than 3 in 4 reported they could only cover housing and basic living expenses using savings for less than 2 months (76%), showing likely unreadiness for sudden financial shocks (financial vulnerability). Nearly 3 in 4 HCAs (73%) experienced at least one material hardship that include housing hardship, utilities hardship, medical hardship, and food insecurity. One in 4 expressed their financial stress was severe. More WA HCAs experienced material hardships (73%) than U.S. low-income families (64.2%). In 2021, the median annual wage for WA HCAs was about 20% higher than the national one; however, their wages still remain below the living wage. In conclusion, although WA HCAs' wages are comparable to national averages, they still experience financial vulnerability and material hardships. Therefore, achieving living wages is necessary for WA HCAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was initiated in 2013, China under Xi Jinping has continued to expand its capital to various countries. This expansion is part of China's strategy to shore up its position as a major global economic and political power vis-à-vis the United States. As nearly 70 countries have joined the BRI network, this economic cooperation scheme contributes to economic growth and helps close the infrastructure gap. Nevertheless, the case of China's capital expansion in Africa has shown mixed results, where some economies are becoming more dependent and even facing a debt trap. This article addresses why such economic cooperation has turned into a debt trap for countries in the African region. Applying the concept of Structural Power in examining China's investment in Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and Djibouti, this article argues that the debt trap has been caused by the structural disparity between China as an investor and African countries as investment recipients. China, in this case, has a more dominant "good" aspect, while African countries are more in "need." This article also contends that the debt trap is a strategy carried out by the Chinese government to dominate the African economies in the long run. The three case studies are valuable as they represented different geographical locations in the region and portray a border of lower middle-income countries in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a discipline so oriented around the study of wakeful geographies, the lack of direct conceptual engagement with the notion of wakefulness—a cognitive state in which the mind is conscious of, and responsive to, the external world—is all-the-more remarkable. In this article we advance geography by probing and revealing the links that exist between wakefulness and indebted life under capitalism. We show how villagers in rural Cambodia experience wakefulness in their day and nighttime lives through a punitive alertness to, and excessive rumination on, the pressures and challenges they face to repay microfinance debts on time. Capitalist debt demands a keen alertness and submission to the clock time of repayment obligations, and with this fosters a hyperalertness to debt that works to the consequential exclusion of sleep. The article evidences the enforced isorhythmic alignment between the demands of creditors and the bodies and minds of borrowers, thus demonstrating the importance of thinking about the debt relation through the heuristic tool of rhythm. This claim is evidenced further through the arrhythmic (discordant) impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the intensifying climate crisis, which are further undermining borrowers' hopes for debt-free lives. Ultimately, the mixed-method interview and photographic data presented in the article demonstrate the significance of the 24/7 nature of debt and broader trend toward diurnal expansionism. Both are leading to the physical, emotional, and existential enclosure of bodies and homes habituated into the rhythms and impetuses of capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the variables that influence investment in a sample of small, labour-intensive companies in a sector that is highly dependent on external demand and the world economy. The aim is to test the three traditional theories of investment (neoclassical theory, free cash flow theory and agency theory), as well as consider the existence of other variables endogenous and exogenous to the company, in order to obtain a model that is appropriate to the reality of the companies in the sample, which consists of 3859 companies in the Portuguese textile sector, for the period from 2010 to 2022. Although there are many studies on the subject, the sample of companies used is different from the others, presenting a unique perspective for understanding investment dynamics in this type of company. The methodology used involves estimating panel data models using the GMM method. The results show that there is a statistically significant and negative relationship between liquidity and asset turnover and investment, so the free cash flow and neoclassical theories, respectively, are partially verified. The agency theory is not confirmed. Other variables are significant in explaining investment: the debt structure is statistically negative, while the size of the company, the GDP and the interest rate are statistically positive. Return on assets proved not to be statistically significant in explaining investment. To summarise, the study highlights the need for financial strategies adapted to the unique characteristics of small businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using exogenous changes in the personal bankruptcy treatment of student loans as well as the level of student debt, we find that student debt has a negative effect on household retirement savings. This negative relation is present for younger and older individuals, and is larger for the latter group, indicating lower levels of retirement savings for precisely those who can least afford it. We also find that student debt is related to greater borrowing on retirement plans. Households with more student debt expect to have insufficient retirement income and are less able to plan financially for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper investigates how the commitment to maintain an established inflation target as opposed to changing it depends on the extent to which institutional or economic preconditions improve in a country. For 19 inflation‐targeting countries, we show that stronger operational commitment to the preannounced target is pronounced in countries with a greater improvement in institutional or economic preconditions, such as central bank independence, inflation, government indebtedness, financial development and central bank credibility. Our results also highlight the heterogeneous contingencies for the discretionary behaviour of adjusting the target, including the gradual disinflation phase, fiscal dominance and the transition to flexible targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do companies finance their investments? We examine the financing of investments according to firms' listing status, their size, and the nature of the investments. We show that private firms rely more on bank credit than public firms and less on financial debt, equity, and cash flow. We also show that the contribution of financial debt and equity increases with firm size. Considering both dimensions, we always find an increasing contribution of other financial debt and equity with firm size in both populations. Therefore, even in a bank-based economy, equity plays an important role in the investment of larger private firms. (JEL D25, E22, G21, G30, G31, G32) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use an exogenous, forward-looking measure of price uncertainty to examine the effect of uncertainty on the use of covenants in private and public debt contracts. The effect of uncertainty differs significantly in loans versus bonds, suggesting that private and public lenders face different incentives when contracting under high uncertainty. In loans, uncertainty increases the use of performance-based covenants. In contrast, covenant usage decreases in bonds, but firms with low agency conflicts mainly drive this effect. However, bondholders require higher spreads to offset the lack of protection with fewer covenants. Hedging does not affect the covenant-uncertainty relationship for debt contracts. (JEL : G21, G23, G32, D82, D81) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on debt financing in family firms is still inconclusive. Initial studies have usually focused on the influence of family involvement on firm's debt levels by using the explanations of traditional economic theories. More recent studies have begun to focus on the role of family goals in family firm debt levels, particularly drawing on socioemotional wealth (SEW), which has helped in the development of financial theories of family business. Nevertheless, existing arguments have usually not considered SEW as a multidimensional construct that covers diverse family goals. In addition, literature has usually drawn on arguments considering SEW as a stock, but have not considered the importance given to SEW (SEWi), which specifically acknowledges SEW as a goal. Our paper responds to recent calls to extend theoretical arguments on the effect of diverse dimensions of SEWi on family firm behavior and to focus on the role of SEWi on the family firms' debt. Specifically, we test how the CEOs' assessment of the importance that their family attaches to the continuity, prominence, and enrichment dimensions of SEWi influences the level of debt. To do so, we use a sample of 126 Spanish unlisted family businesses. Our results show that the continuity dimension of SEWi leads family businesses to increase their debt level being a key determinant of this financing decision. Plain English Summary: Drawing on the idea that family firms may have differences in their family goals, our study develops and tests theoretical arguments that help to better understand the differences in the debt financing decisions between family firms. The results show that when the family gives importance to continuity of the family in the business over the long term, the level of debt in their family firms is higher. Other family goals, in particular family prominence (i.e. family's reputation and social capital) and family enrichment (i.e. family harmony and well being) do not affect family firm debt levels. These findings extend traditional finance theories which mainly focus on economic objectives by incorporating family goals. It also provides important information to family CEOs, since those who attach importance to the continuity of the business need may set high debt ratios thus increasing firm risk. Finally, it highlights to policy makers the importance of developing mechanisms to facilitate access to bank debt for family businesses. This would reduce bankruptcy fears and facilitate medium and long-term investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in India were introduced as farmer's cooperative society with the prime objective of enhancing the profitability and productivity of small and marginal farmers by cooperative action. The most crucial element which determines the establishment and success of the farmer producer companies (FPCs) is financial support. Thus, the government is providing direct funding in the form of various grants such as start-up grants, equity grants, mezzanine capital assistance, seed/pulse processing unit and so on. Despite getting huge credit support from the government in the form of various incentives, many companies are struggling and failing to sustain themselves in the long run. The present study evaluated the credit performance of FPCs in Tamil Nadu based on four financial ratio indicators named growth ability, profitability, debt ability/solvency and indicators of per share. The study result indicates that most of the companies fall under the average to low average performance category which highlights the inefficiency in the financial management of study FPCs. Comparatively FPCs' credit performance was found to be increasing. The results of the analysis shed light on the importance of credit management which is possible through capacity-building training and regular monitoring and guidance for the FPCs in credit handling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: How do corporate debt booms affect investment? Using US firm‐level data over 1984Q1–2019Q4, and an instrument for firm‐specific debt booms that exploits systematic differences in firms' exposure to industry‐level debt booms, I find that debt booms cause investment growth to decline over the medium term. This result is driven by the financial constraints channel: Vulnerable firms experience a higher cost of debt in the short run, lower stock returns, and an increase in indicators proxying financial risk. Vulnerable firms also cut their investment spending after a debt boom, irrespective of their growth opportunities. Finally, I find that congestion effects from vulnerable firms on healthy firms are amplified during debt booms, stressing the risk that debt booms in a subset of firms may spill over to the rest of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this roundtable, four contemporary artists reflect on the way their practices intersect the theme of the refusal of unpayable debt. Topics include: resistance to the punitive debts imposed on "developing" countries, with a focus on Sudan; financial speculation on the future of urban youth in Nigeria; the role of the weird in a critique of dominant modes of financialization; and the politics that accrue in the abeyance between debts and their impossible reconciliation. The encounter was initially staged as a conversation as part of the 2022 transmediale festival symposium on the theme "For Refusal." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study highlights lenders' concerns in light of the challenges faced by special purpose vehicles (SPVs), executing road projects under public-private partnerships in India. In the process, it aims to strengthen the regulatory framework of project financing. While there have been a few studies that discussed some of the critical aspects in project financing before the projects are actually financed by lenders, this study conducts an ex-post facto examination of such aspects. We collated the lenders' concerns through unstructured interviews. Then, we examined them using content analysis, and further validated them, using information contained in the financial statements and credit rating reports of the concerned SPVs. Lenders highlighted land acquisition challenges and project clearances from government agencies as key concerns. The results of this study are of help to the policymakers as these would enable them to strengthen the PPP framework for the development of road infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘The future’ is a key object of concern in youth studies and sociology more generally. With the recent rise of the financialisation of everyday life and the consumption of credit, young people’s futures are concomitantly financialised. Our research with young people in Australia discussing their experiences of debt and their financial practices shows how these navigations have implications for how they imagine their own futures. Drawing upon Sianne Ngai’s theorisation of ‘ugly feelings’ and Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism, we propose the term ‘indebtpending’ to conceptualise how financialisation processes affect and mediate young people’s orientations towards the future. Indebtpending includes ‘in debt’, ‘independence’ and ‘pending’ as elements that work together to create an array of temporal-related feelings towards how aspirations and life plans may play out, some of which feel like aspects of ‘adulthood’ are being foreclosed. Indebtpending is therefore an affective state of youthful imagining where being in debt is a necessity of late capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent transformations in the political economy of housing—particularly the corporatisation, concentration, and financialisation of landlording—paradoxically intensify both the atomisation of the tenant experience and the potential for organised tenants to exercise structural power. This potential collective power, however, is not self‐actualising. Building on two years of participatory action research and one year of operational data from the California‐based Tenant Power Toolkit (TPT), we attempt to address this conjunctural possibility. We conceptualise tenants as debtors and identify new solidarities emerging from a pandemic era landscape which has left many tenants, particularly Black tenants, deeply indebted to national corporate landlords. We discuss the TPT as a piece of legal mutual aid which both responds to the immediate imperatives of combatting eviction within the existing landscape, and we argue, helps provide the basis for advancing the work of tenant organising across scales and geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]