Annual Interest Rate Research Articles

The Investment Attractiveness of the Agricultural Sector in Republic of Moldova in Terms of European Integration

The modernization of the Agro-food sector, and revitalization of its conditions and standards, needs to attract funding sources from international donors, which helps stimulate the development of high value agriculture. Consequently, attracting agricultural investment is a strategic priority for Moldovan farmers, as this represents tangible economic growth based on retooling and modernization of agriculture. The National Bureau of Statistics ranks Moldova second in relation to the interest rates charged for loans. The average annual interest rate for lending to agriculture is 14.13%. Georgia in first place with 29%. Despite all the successes of banking, agriculture (as a sector) still remains an unattractive investment for banks in Moldova. The banking sector has also expressed reluctance in supporting small-scale agribusiness.

The Investment Attractiveness of the Agricultural Sector in Republic of Moldova in Terms of European Integration

The modernization of the Agro-food sector, and revitalization of its conditions and standards, needs to attract funding sources from international donors, which helps stimulate the development of high value agriculture. Consequently, attracting agricultural investment is a strategic priority for Moldovan farmers, as this represents tangible economic growth based on retooling and modernization of agriculture. The National Bureau of Statistics ranks Moldova second in relation to the interest rates charged for loans. The average annual interest rate for lending to agriculture is 14.13%. Georgia in first place with 29%. Despite all the successes of banking, agriculture (as a sector) still remains an unattractive investment for banks in Moldova. The banking sector has also expressed reluctance in supporting small-scale agribusiness.

Novel statistical forecasting models for crude oil price, gas price, and interest rate based on meta-heuristic bat algorithm

Investment in the petroleum industry is usually faced with a high degree of risk due to uncertainty associated with economic factors. Typical factors include oil and gas price, interest rate, operational and capital expenditure. In addition, the investment risk increases as offshore exploration, drilling and production activities increase. Therefore, accurate prediction of economic factors is crucial in an upstream oil and gas sector in order to make better strategic decisions with minimized risk.In the present study, four methods of the least square support vector machine (LSSVM), genetic programming (GP), artificial neural network (ANN), and auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) were initially used to forecast monthly oil price (MOP), daily gas price (DGP), and annual interest rate (AIR). Next, the meta-heuristic bat algorithm (BA) was applied in order to optimally combine the four mentioned forecasting methods in an integrated equation as a novel approach. All required historical data to forecast oil price, gas price and interest rate were collected from the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Error analysis in terms of coefficient of determination (R2), average absolute relative error percentage (AAREP), root-mean square error (RMSE), and cumulative probability distribution versus absolute relative error percentage were used to compare the prediction performance of forecasting methods.Error analysis proves that the BA optimized method is superior over all other forecasting methods in terms of highest R2 and lowest RMSE. After the BA optimized method, construction of LSSVM, ARIMA, ANN, and GP has better prediction ability, respectively. The results indicate that the BA optimized method reduces RMSE at least by 6.61% in MOP forecast; by 18.33% in DGP forecast; and by 23.13% in AIR forecast over all other forecasting methods.

Exergoeconomic investigation of flue gas driven ejector absorption power system integrated with PEM electrolyser for hydrogen generation

This study aims to investigate the thermodynamic and economic aspects of a low temperature flue gas driven advanced absorption power cycle (AAPC) integrated to PEM electrolyser (PEME) for hydrogen and oxygen production. Flue gases from a small-scale coal fired power plant are utilized to energize the generator of the AAPC system. Produced power drives the PEME for primarily hydrogen generation, and oxygen as a byproduct. Use of ejector enhances the power production in the turbine favoring plant performance. The present integrated system produces daily amounts of ∼1.15 kg H2 and ∼4.59 kg O2 at 140 °C maximum cycle temperature with a capacity factor of 85%, 30 years of plant life and 5% annual interest rate. Cost of electricity and hydrogen are found to be 0.049 $/kWh and 2.43 $/kg, with overall energy and exergy efficiencies of 5.9% and 17.8%, respectively. The highest cost contributors are the APC turbine and the PEM electrolyser where these two accounts for almost 94% of total plant cost. Total cost of the plant is found to be ∼$61200. Cost of produced hydrogen shows promising results compared to those of electrolysis-based hydrogen production systems.

THE EXTREME WEIGHTS IN THE INDEX PORTFOLIO OF CONSTANT-PROPORTION STRATEGIES

This paper analyzes the optimal of constant proportion index portfolio strategies. They are also called passive strategies which are becoming more common in Russia and abroad. They are significantly cheaper to implement than active strategies. In addition, as practice shows, in the long term they are more profitable and less risky. The main problem in these strategies is the choice of the proportions in which the investor allocates his capital between risky and risk-free assets. In constant proportion index portfolio the weight of risk asset remains constant throughout investment period. For this purpose, the investor with a certain frequency restores the desired balance between risky and risk-free assets. Each period at the beginning of which such recovery occurs is called the re-balancing period. In the case of strategies with index portfolios, risky assets are the shares of the index fund, and risk-free assets are the deposits in reliable bank or government bonds. According on the daily value of units of these funds and the annual interest rate for the 11-year period, using a specially developed program optimal weight index funds in the portfolios has been found. Parameters of the analyzed portfolios are: length of the investment period (from one year to 10 years) and the frequency of weight rebalancing (month, quarter, year). The sequence of optimal weights and the corresponding optimum yield for consecutive investment periods with a specified frequency of re-balancing were determined for each fund. It was found that in almost all cases, the optimal weights of fund equals the extreme values 0 or 1. Also, the frequencies of these values in the selected sequence is about the same for all funds. This empiric fact can be conventionally called the principle of extremeness or “all or nothing” principle.

PENGARUH VARIABEL MIKRO DAN MAKRO EKONOMI TERHADAP RETURN SAHAM

ABSTRAK
 Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan pengaruh signifikan dari CR, DER, ROE, TATO, EPS, suku bunga, inflasi, dan nilai kurs terhadap return saham. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada perusahaan sektor food and beverage di Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI) periode 2012-2016. Jenis data yang digunakan adalah data kuantitatif bersumber dari situs resmi Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI) dan Bank Indonesia (BI). Jumlah sampel sebanyak 12 perusahaan yang memenuhi kriteria penelitian dengan menggunakan metode purposive sampling. Pengumpulan data menggunakan metode observasi non participan terhadap dokumen berupa laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan, suku bunga, inflasi dan nilai kurs selama periode 2012-2016. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah analisis regresi linier berganda. Berdasarkan hasil analisis ditemukan bahwa CR, DER memiliki pengaruh negatif dan tidak signifikan terhadap return saham, ROE memiliki pengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap return saham, TATO, EPS, suku bunga memiliki pengaruh positif dan tidak signifikan terhadap return saham, inflasi, nilai kurs memiliki pengaruh negatif dan signifikan terhadap return saham.
 
 Kata kunci: cr, der, roe, tato, eps, suku bunga, inflasi, nilai kurs, return saham.

Research on Credit Risk Assessment of P2P Network Platform: Based on the Logistic Regression Model of Evidence Weight

As an emerging credit model, P2P network credit has been developing rapidly in recent years. At the same time, it also faces many credit risk problems. This paper focuses on the credit risk of borrowers, and constructs a model of WOE and logistic regression to evaluate the risk assessment of China’s P2P network platform, Hong ling Venture. The research results show that the main factors that affect the loan success rate of P2P lending platform include loan amount, annual interest rate, bidding transaction amount and proportion of repayment on time and so on. By constructing the model of combination of the logistic regression with weight of evidence, this paper provides an appropriate method to manipulate the borrowing information of loan borrowers and evaluates the borrowing behavior of borrowers simultaneously, so that P2P credit platform can reduce the credit risk caused by borrower.

Evaluating Options For The Regulation Of Payday Loans

This study discusses regulatory options that federal and state legislatures might consider for the payday loan industry. These options include outright prohibition; restricting the implicit annual percentage interest rate; limiting the amount per loan; limiting the number of concurrent loans; setting lower and upper limits on contract length; and defining the waiting period between loans. While other studies examining the payday loan industry have relied on user survey data or data from a specific lender, this study utilizes data collected by the administrative agent for all payday loan activity in several states, including Florida, Illinois, and Oklahoma. A comparison of key empirical results derived from the differing regulatory environments in these states provides guidance to those who consider imposing further regulation. The current regulatory constraints have resulted in a relatively low default rate, a high rate of loan denial, and a troubling industry reliance on the frequent borrower. An analytical framework is suggested for understanding the motivations of the low and high frequency borrowers.

Microfinance development in Armenia: Sectoral characteristics and problems

AbstractThe heavy‐handed regulation enforced a commercialization process and as a result pushed microfinance institutions in Armenia towards a commercial logic, which diminished the importance of the social component. Sector development problems include unfair fees, limit on annual interest rate, late cooperation between credit organizations, and regulated microfinance operations. Because of the high interest rates and difficult economic situation, micro‐loans do not necessarily help poor people in Armenia to escape poverty, but instead push them further down into greater poverty.

Cost per year of potential life lost: a proposal to estimate tobacco taxation

Taxes are the most effective measure to reduce tobacco consumption, although this remains a controversial matter. This study presents a method to determine and justify taxation based on the monetary value of the years of potential life lost due to tobacco consumption. A literature review allowed estimating the average reduction of life expectancy in smokers. The value used in cost-effectiveness studies -three times the GDP per capita (COP 16 613 951 for 2015, equivalent to USD 6 056, applying an exchange rate of USD 1=COP 2743) - was applied to each year lost. Considering the average years of tobacco consumption and the number of packs consumed during that period, the tax that each pack should have was estimated in such a way that, by the time the smoker dies, he or she will have paid for the years lost with an annual interest rate of 3 %. Given an average reduction of life expectancy of 6 years, each smoker should contribute to the health system with COP 299 051 115 (USD 109 008). With an annual average consumption of 166 cigarette packs for 50 years, a smoker should pay each year COP 2 659 648 (USD 969), which means that each cigarette pack should have a tax of COP 16 022 (USD 5.84). If it is accepted that the health system has to pay up to three times the GDP per capita for each year of life in health interventions that add years, it is reasonable to think that those interventions that take away years of life should also make an equivalent contribution.

Different investors–different decisions: On individual use of gain, loss and interest rate information

This study investigated how accumulating gains and losses, described as annual interest rates, influenced investment behavior. Investments after gains were on average greater than after losses regardless of the gain and loss interest rates. However, greater variance of interest rates gave some weight to that variable for gains but not for losses. We also analyzed the influence from different information cues on each participant’s investments. This revealed that interest rates influenced participants very differently, some invested more with increasing gains, or with increasing losses, while others invested less. This finding explained why interest rate was a weak predictor on the group level. Furthermore, our individual analyses showed an increased sensitivity to interest rates and judged future asset accumulations when the interest rate variance was greater. Finally, subjective reports of the importance of different cues for the participants’ own investments showed only some understanding of the cues influence on the investments.

A techno-economic assessment of grid connected photovoltaic system for hospital building in Malaysia

Conventionally, electricity in hospital building are supplied by the utility grid which uses mix fuel including coal and gas. Due to enhancement in renewable technology, many building shall moving forward to install their own PV panel along with the grid to employ the advantages of the renewable energy. This paper present an analysis of grid connected photovoltaic (GCPV) system for hospital building in Malaysia. A discussion is emphasized on the economic analysis based on Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and total Net Present Post (TNPC) in regards with the annual interest rate. The analysis is performed using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) software which give optimization and sensitivity analysis result. An optimization result followed by the sensitivity analysis also being discuss in this article thus the impact of the grid connected PV system has be evaluated. In addition, the benefit from Net Metering (NeM) mechanism also discussed.

A Tutorial on the Economics of Payday Lending: Loan Sharking or Risky Lending

The typical payday loan is for less than $500, has a maturity of two weeks, is secured by the borrower’s post-dated check or debit authorization, and carries a compound annual rate of interest that can easily exceed 10,000 percent. If you imagined the terms of illegal loan sharking you may not envision rates this high, and these loans are legal in 35 states! The objective of this brief tutorial is to describe the little understood world of payday lending. Specifically, we explain the nature of payday lending, reveal the true cost of payday loans from the borrowers perspective and contrast this with the expected return the lender anticipates given the very high default rates on this type of loan, provide context regarding the significance of payday loans as a source of financing for individuals, and describe the public policy issues surrounding their use.

Determinants of loan funded successful in online P2P Lending

Online Pear-to-Pear lending has developed rapidly recently. In this article, an empirical study was conducted by using public dataset from Paipaidai, the largest online P2P lending in China. We analyze the factors that determine the probability of obtaining the loan in online P2P lending. The result indicates that annual interest rate, repayment period, description, credit grade, successful loan number, failed loan number, gender, and borrowed credit score are significant factors to loan funded successful on Paipaidai platform.

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Retiring the Historical Net Discount Rate

Abstract The methodology of using a net discount rate (“NDR”) to calculate the present value of future labor earnings is now over 50 years old. First found in public health economics, the earnings NDR later reached forensic economics where it was adapted to other calculations such as the present value of medical costs. At first, some forensic economists embraced the historically determined wage NDR arguing that it was simple, fair, and 0% since annual wage growth and interest rates had been fairly equal to that time. The 0% wage NDR did not sit well with some other forensic economists, and so a discourse began in the literature regarding its numeric value. Largely missing from the debate has been an analysis of the historically determined NDR, as it has been constructed and used, as a legitimate present value methodology. Building upon the initial criticisms of the NDR by Jones (1985, 1986) and the recent work of Foster (2015), this article examines the historical wage NDR method and concludes that, for several reasons, it is theoretically faulty, empirically inconsistent, and not relevant to forensic economics.

A comprehensive, multi-objective optimization of solar-powered absorption chiller systems for air-conditioning applications

Solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems are currently under rapid development and deployment due to their potential to reduce the use of fossil fuel resources and to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector – a sector which is responsible for ∼40% of the world energy use. Absorption chiller technology (traditionally powered by natural gas in large buildings), can easily be retrofitted to run on solar energy. However, numerous non-intuitive design choices must be analyzed to achieve the best techno-economic performance of these systems. To date, there has been little research into the optimal configurations among the long list of potential solar-driven absorption chiller systems. To address this lack of knowledge, this paper presents a systematic simulation-based, multi-objective optimization of three common, commercially available lithium bromide-water absorption chillers – single-effect, double-effect and triple-effect – powered by evacuated tube collectors (ETCs), evacuated flat plate collectors (EFPCs), and concentrating parabolic trough collectors (PTCs), respectively. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that compares the optimized designs of the most promising configurations of solar-assisted absorption chillers against a common set of energy, economic, and environmental metrics from a holistic perspective. A simulation model of these three configurations is developed using TRNSYS 17. A combined energy, economic, and environmental analysis of the modeled systems is conducted to calculate the primary energy use as well as the levelized total annual cost of each plant, which are considered as two conflicting objective functions. By coupling TRNSYS and MATLAB, a multi-objective optimization model is formulated using a genetic algorithm to simultaneously minimize these objectives, thereby determining a set of optimal Pareto solutions corresponding to each SHC configuration. The performance of the proposed systems at their optimal designs is then compared to that of a reference conventional system. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to assess the influence of fuel cost, capital cost of innovative components, and the annual interest rate on the Pareto front of optimal solutions. Overall, the optimization results reveal that of the proposed configurations, the SHC double-effect chiller has the best trade-off between the energetic, economic and environmental performance of the system, having a total cost of ∼0.7–0.9M$ per year and reducing the annual primary energy use and CO2 emissions by 44.5–53.8% and 49.1–58.2% respectively (relative to the reference conventional system). With the high capital cost associated with these systems, government subsidies and incentives are still required in order for them to achieve satisfactory payback times and become cost-competitive with conventional HVAC systems.

Feasibility study of VLH hydro turbine installation at Nam Pung hydropower plant, Thailand

The aim of this research was to study the feasibility of installing a very low head (VLH) hydro turbine downstream of the Nam Pung hydropower plant thereby increasing the potential of renewable energy resources of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). The water head level was limited to less than 2 meters and the flow rate to below 5 m 3 / s due to site constraints. The selected hydro turbine was an axial flow turbine with an efficiency of 86.4%. The power output was 84.61 kW. Investment analysis was subsequently applied to estimate feasibility of the project. Analyses of results showed that the project is worthwhile in terms of investment. The payback period of actual price was 0.83 and 0.88 years and for the general price, it was 3.68 and 4.04 years, with annual interest rates of 6.75% and 12.625% respectively. The projected project lifespan is 25 years.

As Ações Revisionais do FGTS: Aspectos, Requisitos e Potenciais Decisões

O Fundo de Garantia por tempo de Serviço (FGTS) instituído em 1966, através da Lei 5.107 e atualmente ditado pela Lei 8.036/90, é um fundo dotado de cunho social custeando o sistema de habitação e infraestrutura como formas principais, bem como atendendo ao trabalhador em desamparo. A todo recolhimento mensal, custeado pelo empregador ao empregado celetista, esta conta vinculada e compulsória mantida na Caixa Econômica Federal sofre atualizações pela Taxa Referencial (TR) acrescida de juro médio anual de 3%. Desde o ano de 1999 o saldo do FGTS vem sofrendo com baixas na TR, diminuída pelas premissas de seu cálculo face a redução gradativa da taxa Selic, não atingindo nem mesmo o montante inflacionário em alguns períodos, acarretando perdas aos trabalhadores, sendo origem e motivo de enorme volume de demandas no Judiciário com o objetivo de evitar esta corrosão a sua propriedade. Merece o tema explanação e explicação sob os fundamentos e argumentos levantados pelos trabalhadores, evidenciando seus aspectos com a apreciação de potenciais decisões acerca do tema que se apresenta na atualidade.

Insulation of Ceiling with Different Insulation Materials and its Effect on Energy Saving

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of ceiling insulation with different insulation material on energy saving. The values of the optimum insulation thickness, the payback periods (PP), and the life-cycle savings (LCS) for three different types of insulation materials (expanded polystyrene, glass wool, and rock wool) were calculated. In calculations, life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) was applied. In the analysis, the present-worth factor (PWF) technique was used for evaluating systems and annual interest and inflation rates were taken 8% and 0%, respectively. The best solution was obtained when the expanded polystyrene was used. The optimum insulation thickness, PP, and LCS were computed as 0.0901m, 1.615years, and 9.643 $/m2, respectively.