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Ebook Institute for Financial Management and Research Centre for Micro Finance

Submitted by wulan on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 04:12

Nearly all poverty alleviation programs target a particular sub-population. This feature is most readily apparent in programs designed to aid those who have suffered a particular tragedy, such as grants to widows of debt-ridden Maharashtra farmers, but is also generally true of large, broad based development interventions. At first blush, this may seem unremarkable and not to warrant particular consideration. But effective identification of the target population is crucial to the success of aid programs. If, for instance, households which are adequately nourished are identified as eligible for subsidized food, the program is unlikely to significantly reduce malnutrition.

When the targeted population is not distinguished by a well-defined, observable trait, however, identification of the intended population may be complicated. Evidence suggests that the targeting efficiency of aid programs is less than perfect. A report by the Indian National Sample Survey Organization found that 18% of the wealthiest 20% of the rural population (ranked by monthly per capita expenditure) held Below Poverty Line (BPL) rationing cards. That targeting inefficiency has real consequences is apparent from a 2006 story in The Hindu which reported on street protests carried out by families who had been denied their ration cards.

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Ebook Precautionary Demand for Money in a Monetary Business Cycle Model

Submitted by puput on Mon, 01/18/2010 - 01:51

In this paper, we study, theoretically and quantitatively, aggregate business cycle implications of precautionary demand for money. It is an outstanding challenge in the literature to account for business cycle behavior of nominal aggregates and their interaction with real aggregates. Business cycle models that have tried to incorporate money through, for example, cash-in-advance constraints, have done so while assuming that agents face only aggregate risk, which has resulted in the demand for money being largely deterministic, in the sense that the cash-in-advance constraint almost always binds. Such models have unrealistic implications for the dynamics of nominal variables, as well as for interaction between real and nominal variables, when compared to data (see, e.g., Cooley and Hansen, 1995).

Yet precautionary motive for holding liquidity seems to be strong in the data, and its nature suggests that idiosyncratic risk may play a key role for money demand, as shown in Telyukova (2009). In that paper, it is documented, for example, that the median household has about 50% more liquidity than it spends on average per month, and that controlling for observables, liquid consumption exhibits volatiity consistent with the presence of significant idiosyncratic risk. Thus, aggregate implications of idiosyncratic risk and resulting precautionary money demand are important to investigate, especially given the unresolved questions regarding monetary business cycles. The goal of this paper is to conduct such an investigation. The set of questions we want to answer is: What are the aggregate implications of precautionary demand for money? Can it help account for business cycle dynamics of velocity of money, interest rates and inflation, and their interaction with real variables?

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Ebook Green Fixed Income Investing

Submitted by puput on Tue, 10/06/2009 - 04:53

This white paper provides an overview of green fixed income investing and outlines some of the research, best practices, and opportunities currently available in the green fixed income marketplace. Green fixed income investing gained widespread attention in the United States in 2004, when an amendment to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 authorized the U.S. Treasury to issue $2 billion in bonds to finance the reclamation of contaminated industrial and commercial land.The "Green Bond" legislation, as the amendment has become known, contains strict requirements and is applicable only to revitalization projects of extraordinary size targeting brownfields.

Since 2004, initiatives of significantly smaller scale have become increasingly popular, offering fixed income investors a variety of project types and sizes as well as numerous geographical locations in which to invest. In recent years, green projects have multiplied throughout the United States as federal and state governments have embraced the mandate of energy efficiency. In December 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 was signed, which responded to then President Bush’s “Twenty in Ten” challenge to improve vehicle fuel economy and increase alternative fuels. Twenty in Ten has the goal of reducing U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in ten years (2007-2017). In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the “Act”) was signed into law. One of the environmental goals of the plan is reviving the renewable energy industry and providing the capital over the next three years to eventually double domestic renewable energy capacity.

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