The BMW Maintenance System helps maintain your vehicle's road safety and operational safety. Comfort-related aspects, such as the timely change of filters for the air inside the vehicle, are taken into consideration. The goal is to optimize maintenance with respect to low total cost of ownership. If you should sell your BMW one day, consistent service and maintenance will prove to your advantage.
The service interval display shows you when an oil service, an inspection – always alternating between I and II – or a brake fluid change is due. The special feature is that the service intervals are calculated according to your BMW's individual driving conditions instead of from fixed mileage increments.
Bankruptcy laws and other procedures governing financial default are key elements in the functioning of market economies for several reasons: they codify and protect the rights of creditors, thus tending to reduce the cost of credit; they enhance global efficiency by forcing unprofitable firms to exit, allowing the reallocation of their resources into more productive uses; and they provide to company owners an indirect device for controlling and overseeing the management by subjecting poorly-performing managers to the threat of a transfer of control.
In market economies, bankruptcy is one among several mechanisms by which corporate control can be transferred to more efficient owners. Other mechanisms include takeovers or the sale of shares on the stockmarket. But, to be effective, these devices require the existence of well-developed capital markets. However, financial markets are in their infancy in countries undergoing transition from centrally-planned to market economy. Hence, the design and implementation of effective bankruptcy procedures and enforcing them is a critical step in laying the foundations for effective corporate governance in post-communist economies.
The aim of this paper is to study how financial structures and monetary policy regimes (including exchange rate regimes) affect the pattern of business cycle correlation across countries. More specifically, I propose a unitary framework in which international business cycle co-movements are explained jointly by the differences between the financial systems and by the monetary policy regime adopted by the countries concerned.
The European Union is a prime example where my analysis is likely to be relevant. The 12 countries of the euro area have adopted a single currency but are still characterized by different financial structures, as a result of history, legal frameworks, collective preferences and politics. Financial regulations, legislation and bank supervisory policies of these countries have not been unified but remain largely under national control — though pressures towards harmonization and the adoption of common standards, partly as a result of the single currency, are mounting. Of the remaining EU members, many (including several new entrants from Central and Eastern Europe) will adopt the euro before or around the end of this decade, and also in preparation for that are introducing financial market reforms. This process of currency unification and financial reform taking place at continental level provides an ideal testing ground for my theory. Examining the implications of this for business cycles is clearly important for many reasons, e.g. to determine the optimal monetary policy and to study the welfare properties of the currency area.
