The progressive secularization of credit in New Granada and the antecedents of commercial banking in Colombia (1835–1863)

In complex systems, homogeneity (i.e.lack of diversity) has been documented as a source of fragility.Likewise, financial sector's homogeneity has been documented as a contributing factor for systemic risk.We assess homogeneity in the Colombian case by measuring how similar banks are regarding the structure of their overall financial statements, and their lending, investment, and funding portfolios.Distances among banks and an agglomerative clustering method yield the hierarchical structure of the banking system, which exhibits how banks are related to each other based on their financial structure.The Colombian banking sector displays homogeneous features, especially among the largest banks.Results enable to study to what extent the banking sector is homogeneous, and to identify banking firms that have a(n) (un)common financial structure.Yet, as we neither examine Colombian banking system complexity nor banks' soundness nor higher dimensions of diversity, conclusive inferences about systemic risk and financial stability are pending.

This paper examines the determinants of the high intermediation spread observed in the Colombian banking sector for over two decades. A reduced-form equation is estimated on the basis of a bank profit maximization model that permits a decomposition into operational costs, financial taxation, market power, and loan quality. Although the average spread did not change between the preliberalization (1974-88) and postliberalization (1991-96) periods, its composition did, with market power being significantly reduced and the responsiveness to loan quality increased. Colombia's progress in reducing operational costs and financial taxation and improving loan quality will determine whether it can narrow the spread. Copyright 1999, International Monetary Fund

This article provides an overview of the current development of branchless banking in Colombia, within the context ofthe Government’s strategy to promote access to financial services through non-bank correspondents (NBC). It describes the Colombian legal and regulatory framework for branchless banking, focusing on the recent reforms and types of retailers permitted to serve as agents. Also, it examines the traditionalbanking sector’s interest in branchless banking, and shows the available platforms for the implementation of banking agent networks. It highlights the potential of branchlessbanking solutions for the Colombian microfinance institutions (MFI), identifying a new agent model that puts MFI centre-stage. The article concludes with a series of recommendationsfor the development of branchless banking as a tool to expand financial acces, taking into account issues that still have the potential to affect the degree of customeracceptance and its economic viability.

Through Argentine Supreme Court cases, this article focuses on legal constructs of women's citizenship and identity in Argentina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the Supreme Court consistently denied having done so, its jurisprudence created dependent citizenship for married Argentine women, conflating a wife's identity with that of her spouse in both domicile and nationality cases. Using concepts of consent, knowledge, and obligation found in liberal political theory, judges and legal scholars justified a married woman's dependent citizenship as the reasonable consequence of her own independent choice. Yet the law--not a woman's choice--expatriated her. The Supreme Court's conception of a unified marital identity subsumed a married woman's nationality under her husband's citizenship and reinforced her legal subordination to him. She was, at the same moment, both Argentine and not Argentine, depending on the particular issue at hand and her husband's national status.

The purpose of the study is to identify the peculiarities of the ideology of the Ukrainian women's movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, analyze the relationship between feminism and the classical ideologies of nationalism, liberalism, and socialism. Methodology. The study uses general scientific and special historical (historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-systemic) research methods that allowed to reveal the peculiarities of the ideology of the Ukrainian women's movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to determine the influence of Western European feminist thought on the Ukrainian public space. The methodology of intellectual history and gender studies is also used. Scientific novelty. The paper generalizes and refines the definition of the concept of «feminism» as a socio-political theory, demonstrates the interconnection between the ideology of feminism and socio-political currents of nationalism, liberalism, and socialism. It highlights the priority of national-patriotic ideals in the Ukrainian women's movement over gender issues, influenced by the colonial oppression of Ukrainian lands. Conclusions. Summarizing the research on the ideology of the Ukrainian women's movement at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the importance of considering feminism in the context of national and gender studies is emphasized. The study underscores the relationship between feminism and nationalism, as well as points out the similarity in the perception of feminism in third-world countries and Ukrainian lands. Liberal feminism played a key role in the development of the First Wave of feminism in Ukrainian lands at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. The ideas of liberal feminism found expression in the analytical works of Natalia Kobrynska, defining the direction of Ukrainian feminist ideology. Supporters of socialist feminism at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, such as Mykhailo Pavlyk and Ivan Franko, argued that the development of society and the resolution of women's issues are linked to changes in social structure. Further study of the influence of classical ideologies on the formation of Ukrainian feminist ideology at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century is crucial.

An analysis of the banking system indicates that in recent years, the imbalance situation in some banks has worsened, such that, according to statistics published by the Central Bank, a significant portion of the increase in the monetary base, liquidity, and inflation has resulted from this intensification of imbalances in banks, and the continuation of the current situation is highly dangerous. A review of the banking literature shows that banks worldwide, alongside attracting public deposits, also engage in money creation, and these attracted or created resources are provided as loans to the private sector. The private sector, in turn, utilizes the resources obtained from banks for investment and enterprise operations. However, in Iran’s economy, the banking system, under a uniform monetary and banking framework, performs two different roles: that of a bank and that of an investment company. Weaknesses in the country’s monetary and banking laws—particularly Article 8 of the Law on Usury-Free Banking—have allowed banks to directly engage in investment. In other words, in Iran, the two entities of investment companies and banks have been merged. Exploiting this institutional (legal) weakness and the legal authority they possess to invest directly, banks have engaged in money creation and deposit mobilization, subsequently investing in various sectors and engaging in enterprise operations. Given that banks lack sufficient expertise in enterprise operations, first, they have invested public deposits in projects that have ultimately led to deadlock and resource freeze. Second, due to conflicts of interest, banks have viewed the private sector as a competitor and consequently have not extended the necessary loans to finance this sector. Therefore, the challenge of the banking system in Iran’s economy stems from the fact that the banking system’s structure was fundamentally formed in a defective manner and requires structural and institutional reforms and the adoption of tough decisions to return to the correct path. The present article seeks, based on historical-institutional analysis, content analysis, and pathology of the national banking system’s structure, to design and explain an evolutionary transition model from the current situation to the desired state, and to develop the architecture and structural reform of the banking system to reduce imbalance and strengthen the financing capacity of the private sector.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines whether the availability of credit default swaps (CDS) has consequences for creditor governance. CDSs offer creditors the opportunity to hedge credit risk and may impact their willingness to renegotiate debt agreements after covenant violations and to monitor firms. I show that firms implement more conservative investment and financing policies after covenant violations if CDSs are traded on their debt, consistent with heightened renegotiation frictions. Moreover, firms with traded CDS contracts exhibit significantly worse operating and stock performance after covenant violations. Overall, these findings point to an exacerbation of debt-equity conflicts due to the availability of CDSs. Finally, I analyze the interaction of creditor governance and internal governance, and provide evidence suggesting that the possibility to hedge risk through CDSs also reduces creditors'€™ incentives to monitor firms. The second chapter models the joint effects of debt, macroeconomic conditions, and cash flow cyclicality on risk-shifting behavior and managerial pay-for-performance sensitivity. I show that risk-shifting incentives rise during recessions and that the shareholders can eliminate such adverse incentives by reducing the equity-based compensation in managerial contracts. I also show that this reduction should be larger in highly procyclical firms. Using a sample of U.S. public firms, I provide evidence supportive of the model'€™s prediction. First, I find that equity-based incentives are reduced during recessions. Second, I show that the magnitude of this effect is increasing in a firm's cash flow cyclicality. The third chapter analyzes the impact of the formation of universal banks on corporate investment by looking at the gradual dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act'€™s separation between commercial and investment banking. Using a matched sample of U.S. firms and their relationship banks, I show that firms curtail investment after positive shocks to the underwriting capacity of their main bank. This result is driven by unrated firms and is strongest in the first two years after a shock. Moreover, I obtain similar results for borrowing firms'€™ net debt issuance activity. As an exogenous shock to the formation of universal banks in the U.S., I also use the 1997 loosening of restrictions on commercial banks'€™ securities activities. My findings suggest that universal banks may pay more attention to large and transparent firms that provide more underwriting opportunities while exacerbating financial constraints of opaque firms.

The major feature of Colombia’s national development banks is that they constitute a system of multiple, specialized institutions, created at different times to promote sectors that were considered strategic for the country’s development. This chapter analyses the characteristics of the system of national development banks in Colombia currently composed of four specialized institutions: FDN (for infrastructure), FINDETER (local development), BANCOLDEX (industry and foreign trade), and FINAGRO (agriculture). The chapter explores the history, current structure, and main features of the system. It also looks at how the system is managing three major market failures: infrastructure financing (the major case of market failure in long-term financing), financial inclusion, and the promotion of entrepreneurial growth.

The Elsie Dinsmore series was a popular series for girls during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although this series has rarely been recognized for its progressive ideology, a critical examination of the books reveals that Martha Finley created a character, Elsie, whose independence as a woman is deeply rooted in her conservative religious beliefs. This is contradictory to some modern assumptions about the relationship between religion and progressive ideology, but Elsie and her family depict a strong sense of female empowerment through religious faith.

This chapter examines the aesthetics and politics that inform modes of realism increasingly used to represent Black Americans in the late nineteenth century. Beginning with a trompe l’oeil painting that depicts a Black boy playing soldier (Attention, Company! by artist William Harnett), read alongside sections of Frederick Douglass’ narratives and the mass-reproduced image of Gordon the slave, this chapter also surveys a Brooklyn park that was remade into a cotton plantation as part of the immersive performance called Black America. Each of these texts conjures the “free” Black body as a sensuous object for white consumption. This racialized dynamic is linked to segregation through an analysis of the eponymous protagonist of Mark Twain’s novel Pudd’nhead Wilson and a history of the anonymous subject of Harnett’s painting. Focusing on the logic of realism as it intersects with the ideologies of liberalism and of Jim Crow segregation, this chapter exposes how free black personhood was turned into a form of commodity spectacle.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Scotland had a stable financial system. Its stability arose from the pressure that private banks, which had the right to issue bank notes, placed on each other to behave prudently. Unlike in England, the Scottish banking system had no central bank. If one bank within the system overstretched, it would quickly find its reserves leaking away to other banks. The fears of those who believe that a central bank has to stand behind a banking system to prevent systemic failure are not born out in practice. A banking system without a central bank provides incentives for banks to act with restraint. Their lending policies are tied to each other. If one over-reaches, it will be pulled back as others present notes to, and demand reserves from, the bank that is lending recklessly. This ensures not only the stability of the system, but also stability of overall spending in the economy. A banking system that is backed by a central bank has a tendency towards instability. This is because the creation of money by the central bank can inflate money and credit creation in the banking system as a whole. The mechanism of banks restraining the behaviour of each other is blunted. Financial instability and price instability are likely results. The banking system in Scotland was more stable than that in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Furthermore, the banking system in Canada was stable relative to that in the US. Canada’s banking system evolved in a similar way to that in Scotland. The US system did not have a central bank (the Federal Reserve) until the early twentieth century. However, regulation and the control and distortion of the banking system by government, especially during and after the Civil War, was disastrous and led to acute instability. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, financial stability has worsened. The pre-Federal Reserve model was itself problematic. However, the history of other countries’ banking systems suggests that, whatever the problem was, the solution was not a central bank. Financial stability is more likely in a system without central banks and that is not distorted by misguided regulation.

Building an effective legal and regulatory framework for Islamic banking is imperative. Initiative to enact Islamic banking laws in Indonesia can be regarded in this respect. The objective of this paper is to examine the critical issues in Islamic banking laws. This paper examines and highlights the main features of Islamic banking laws. It is suggested that the main goal of the laws are to enhance Shari’ compliance and promoting stability of the system. Despite the progress achieved through this approach, it is recommended that Islamic banking development needs more efforts and initiatives. This paper also attempts to provide an analysis of future direction in the development of Islamic banking industry in Indonesia.

Cilem přispěvku je systematicky vymezit problematiku centralniho bankovnictvi v kontextu pravniho řadu na uzemi Ceske republiky. Prace se zabýva nejen legislativnim ramcem vytvařeni suverenni měnove politiky Ceskoslovenska po roce 1918, ale předevsim legislativnim ramcem moderniho pojeti centralniho bankovnictvi v Ceske republice po roce 1993. Prace vymezuje soucasne postaveni a legislativni ramec cinnosti centralni banky a poskytuje nazor na budoucnost centralniho bankovnictvi v souvislosti s harmonizacnimi procesy v ramci Evropskeho systemu centralnich bank, budoucim legislativnim ramcem a s faktickým výkonem zakonných funkci centralni banky.

Despite progress in the past decade, financial markets in Colombia remain relatively small and shallow. In particular the banking system suffers high intermediation costs, which limit constrains access to finance by households and firms. This paper explores some of the causes behind these intermediation costs. An accounting decomposition of the lending-deposit spread suggests that the levels of contestability and efficiency are low. A more in-depth analysis using stochastic frontier and data envelopment analyses confirm that the efficiency of the Colombian commercial banking system is low compared to other emerging markets and OECD economies with similar levels of development. Furthermore, econometric estimates of market contestability support the hypothesis that contestability in Colombia is subpar. Finally, the paper also explores some of the potential determinants of efficiency and contestability for a sample of the 24 countries over the period 2004 – 2013. This Working Paper relates to the 2014 OECD Economic Survey of Colombia. (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-colombia.htm)

Mitos, paradojas y realidades en la Argentina peronista (1946–1955): Una interpretación histórica de sus decisiones políticas-económicas