The prevalence of obesity is increasing worldwide. Among 25-64 year-old Finns, 19.8% of men and 19.4% of women had a BMI ?30 kg/m in 1997 (Lahti-Koski et al. 2000a). The most alarming trend is the increasing prevalence of abdominal obesity (Lahti-Koski et al. 2000b), which is strongly associated with the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Obesity is also associated with several other chronic conditions, such as coronary heart disease, obstructive sleep apnoea, asthma and other pulmonary syndromes, degenerative joint disease, and certain types of cancer. On a societal level the health risks associated with obesity pose a serious and costly public health hazard. On an individual level obesity not only shortens life expectancy but also reduces the number of healthy and functional life-years (WHO 2000).
Quality of life is a broad concept including physical, mental, and social well-being. Health-related quality of life is a narrower concept including attempts to define the impact of diseases and their treatments on functional status and well-being (Testa and Simonson 1996). The basic principle of measuring quality of life is that the patient is asked what he/she can do (functioning) and how he/she feels (well-being). Information on HRQL may influence the development of clinical pathways, service provision, health care expenditures, and public health policy.
In the Miller and Modigliani (1958) frictionless world, financing decisions are independent of capital investments. In the world with financial distress and costly default, investment and capital structure decisions are made jointly and, therefore, fluctuations in real investments and frictions associated with investments can influence financing choices.
The objective of this paper is to study how investment frictions affect capital structure dynamics. I propose that investment frictions such as time-to-build and lumpiness of investments are important determinants of capital structure fluctuations. Specifically, I provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the role of these frictions and examine whether they can cause time-series and cross-sectional heterogeneity in leverage dynamics.
The transactions in secondary market pass through three distinct phases, viz., trading, clearing and settlement. While the stock exchanges provide the platform for trading, the clearing corporation determines the funds and securities obligations of the trading members and ensures that the trade is settled through exchange of obligations. The clearing banks and the depositories provide the necessary interface between the custodians/clearing members for settlement of funds and securities obligations of trading members.
Several entities, like the clearing corporation, clearing members, custodians, clearing banks, depositories are involved in the process of clearing. The role of each of these entities is explained below:
• Clearing Corporation: The clearing corporation is responsible for post-trade activities such as the risk management and the clearing and settlement of trades executed on a stock exchange.
• Clearing Members: Clearing Members are responsible for settling their obligations as determined by the NSCCL. They do so by making available funds and/or securities in the designated accounts with clearing bank/depositories on the date of settlement.
• Custodians: Custodians are clearing members but not trading members. They settle trades on behalf of trading members, when a particular trade is assigned to them for settlement. The custodian is required to confirm whether he is going to settle that trade or not. If he confirms to settle that trade, then clearing corporation assigns that particular obligation to him. As on date, there are 11 custodians empanelled with NSCCL. They are Citibank N.A., Deutsche Bank A.G., HDFC Bank Limited, HSBC Limited, ICICI Limited, IL&FS Limited, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India, SHCIL, Kotak Mahendra Bank Ltd., DBS Bank Ltd and Axis Bank.
