Examines the link between higher prices for houses in neighborhoods with better schools, and two possible sources for the school premium: resources available to the school, and composition of the ...student body; survey of Philadelphia; 1996-97.
The paper presents an overview of state trading activities in Russia in light of that country's prospective accession to the World Trade Organization. The authors cover the origins of Russian state ...trading, developments after the collapse of the USSR, state involvement in barter trade, and its control of the organizational structure and remaining monopolies; they also attempt to estimate the government's share in Russia's foreign trade turnover in 1996 and mid-1997. A discussion of implications embraces issues relating to the inefficiencies of state trading and Russia's designation as a nonmarket economy by the United States and the countries of the European Union. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F13, F14, K33, N20, P33. 1 table, 20 references.
An international group of 10 banking organizations participated in a pilot of the pre-commitment approach to capital requirements for market risks. The pilot left the participating institutions with ...3 core conclusions: 1. that the pre-commitment approach is a viable alternative to the internal models approach for establishing the capital adequacy of a trading business for regulatory purposes, 2. that, for progress to be made, it is essential that the bank regulatory agencies participate actively with the banking industry in the effort to refine how the pre-commitment approach would be implemented in practice, and 3. that the most important remaining question requiring an answer is what penalty would result for an institution that incurs losses in its trading business exceeding its pre-committed amount for a related period.
Evidence is presented that banking competition has in recent years shifted to larger geographic arenas. A review of 1997 survey data reveals that many banks set uniform rates for both retail loans ...and deposits across an entire state or broad regions of a large state. Regression analysis of the relationship between retail deposit rates and measures of market concentration further supports this expansion in market size: the clear relationship that earlier studies detected between individual banks' deposit rates and measures of concentration at the local level is no longer evident, while a relationship does emerge at the state level.
Juan Julio Wicht, a hostage of the Moviemiento Revolutionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) in Lima Peru from Dec 17, 1996 to Apr 22, 1997, is interviewed. He discusses his experience as a hostage and how he ...grew from it.
