Investment Approach Research Articles

Demographic Decline, Population Aging, and Modern Financial Approaches to Urban Policy

This article discusses the interaction between demographic aging, population decline, and various aspects of the local development challenges facing public authorities. In particular, this article examines some of the financial issues arising from population aging and decline and the ways in which new approaches to public finance are being used in support of European Union regional and urban policy. In this context, it is argued that a comprehensive portfolio investment approach has the potential to significantly improve policy effectiveness.

A jump-diffusion real option approach for hotel investment under uncertain lodging demand

PurposeOne of the important characteristics of the hotel business is uncertainty of lodging demand, which can jeopardize hotel operation and ultimately even threaten a hotel’s survival during an economic recession. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to determine optimal hotel investment issues under uncertain lodging demand.Design/methodology/approachUncertainty of lodging demand is classified into two types: the impact of unexpected economic recession and the temporary imbalance between supply of hotel rooms and lodging demand. A jump-diffusion real option approach is proposed to analyze how these two types affect optimal investment timing and the potential value of new hotel projects. The case of hotel investment in Macao is used to illustrate the jump-diffusion real option approach.FindingsThe results of numerical analysis show that the uncertainty induced by temporary imbalance between supply of hotel rooms and lodging demand increases the threshold of investment and hotel value, while the uncertainty induced by unexpected economic recession has ambiguous effects on the value and optimal investment timing of new hotel projects.Practical implicationsThe jump-diffusion real option approach increases managerial flexibility for managers when making investment decisions on new hotel projects, allowing greater value to be generated than is possible with the conventional discounted cash flow method.Originality/valueThe approach separates the impact of unexpected economic recession on lodging demand from that of “normal” fluctuations in lodging demand, and it considers the impact of both types of uncertainty on hotel investment.

Screening robust water infrastructure investments and their trade-offs under global change: A London example

We propose an approach for screening future infrastructure and demand management investments for large water supply systems subject to uncertain future conditions. The approach is demonstrated using the London water supply system. Promising portfolios of interventions (e.g., new supplies, water conservation schemes, etc.) that meet London’s estimated water supply demands in 2035 are shown to face significant trade-offs between financial, engineering and environmental measures of performance. Robust portfolios are identified by contrasting the multi-objective results attained for (1) historically observed baseline conditions versus (2) future global change scenarios. An ensemble of global change scenarios is computed using climate change impacted hydrological flows, plausible water demands, environmentally motivated abstraction reductions, and future energy prices. The proposed multi-scenario trade-off analysis screens for robust investments that provide benefits over a wide range of futures, including those with little change. Our results suggest that 60 percent of intervention portfolios identified as Pareto optimal under historical conditions would fail under future scenarios considered relevant by stakeholders. Those that are able to maintain good performance under historical conditions can no longer be considered to perform optimally under future scenarios. The individual investment options differ significantly in their ability to cope with varying conditions. Visualizing the individual infrastructure and demand management interventions implemented in the Pareto optimal portfolios in multi-dimensional space aids the exploration of how the interventions affect the robustness and performance of the system.

The politics of government ‘support’ in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Reinforcing and reproducing the poor citizenship of young Māori parents

Despite the poor outcomes of early childbearing increasingly found to be equivocal, there remains a persistent pathologising of teen parenting, which structures government response. By applying a Foucauldian analysis to the recently introduced Young Parent Payment, this article examines the political rationalities that shape government responses and welfare assistance for young parents in Aotearoa/New Zealand. A biopolitical concern for the good economic citizen and right parent is found to inform the social investment approach, and exclude those who do not conform. Discourses about being Māori, young, a parent and needing financial assistance frame young Māori parents as at risk of long-term welfare-dependency and a threat to their own children. Welfare assistance is demonstrated to be a disciplinary practice to punish young Māori mother beneficiaries for deviating from the preferred normative life-course trajectory.

مناهج الأصوليين في تقسيم دلالة اللفظ على المعنى في الفهم المقاصدي لخطاب القرآن = The Methods of Fundamentalists in Dividing Semantic on the Meaning and Its Effects on Makassedi Understanding of the Quranic Discourse

Abstract. First, praise be to Allah and peace and blessings be upon his messenger The jurisprudence scholars were very interested in investigating linguistic connotations, especially the ways indication wordy on the meanings which are considered to be the essence of these indications because of its importance in understanding the quranic discourse that came in the Arabs’ language. So, they established distinct and complete theories which show their staid deduction and indicate the constituent processes that they followed in giving this understanding through linking these methods to the issues of the purposes of shariah by looking at the effects of using these linguistic connotations. Consequently, to have these methods and its makassedi influence in the quranic discourse, here is this survey that I divided into two chapters: The first one: I customized it to indicate the purpose of the concept of semantic in general and the importance of the usuli division of the semantic and the meaning as well as their general purposes. I had it in two parts, too: the first one indicates the concept of semantic in syntax and for fundamentalists and logicians. In the second part, I focused on the importance of the makassedi division of semantic and the meaning as well as illustrating its general purposes through two elements. In the second chapter, in five parts, I have indicated the semantic on the meaning and its impact on the makassedi understanding of the quranic discourse and it is the semantic that was agreed about by the method of jumhur and the hanafischool. The first part indicates the makassedi impact learned through the investment approach of the indication phrase of the hanafi school or the frank operative of jumhur in deducing from the quranic discourse. The second part tackles the indication signal for the two schools and its influence on the makassedi understanding of the quranic discourse, espically because the principles of this indication deponds on the method of meditation and accuracy consideration. Whereas we find the third part known by the indication of the text or the concept of consent and its influence on the makassedi understanding of the quranicdiscource. Here I talked about the makassedidimonsions that achieve the use of the text for the hanafi school, or the concept of consent( the first one) and it is the same for jumhur. Concerning the fourth part, it shows the makassedi effect of the appropriate indication that based on a dropped rating logically and religiously that the discourse needs it to have a correct meaning. Besides, I customized the fifth part to the indication of the concept the offense. We find that only fundamentalist jumhur who have this even they differ in some kinds of it. As a conclusion of thi survey, I handled a set of results that the research reached among which we have the importance of the semantic diversity that helps in expanding the work angle and provides care of the purposes of the Islamic shariah when there is conflecting. Praise be to ALLAH

Locally Sourced Capital for Small Businesses in Rural Communities

Lack of adequate access to capital is a major barrier for rural entrepreneurs. Washington State University Extension and the Association of Washington Cities partnered to explore and test an innovative local investment approach that provides access to capital and engages the community in the success of individual businesses. The approach offers local residents the opportunity to invest in local businesses and entrepreneurs the opportunity to find funding through an alternative method. The pilot project engaged more than 26 investors in two communities and led to investment in multiple businesses.

Sovereign Wealth Funds, Globalization of Capital Markets, and Internationalization Strategies

In this work, we study the strategies driving cross-border sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments worldwide. In particular, we investigate how SWFs internationalize their activities, studying whether the use of investment vehicles as signal of passive investment approach to access foreign markets is influenced by SWF- and deal-specific characteristics and the presence of bilateral trade agreements between the SWF’s and the target country. We use a new dataset on SWF investments, whose size is comparable with the datasets used in the most popular SWF studies. Our probit and multinomial logit estimates show that fund opacity, fund politicization, strategic industry targets, and majority ownership choices lead to a more likely use of vehicles, while bilateral trade agreements negatively affect such investment strategy. When we disentangle the different types of vehicles and their geographical location, we find that fund opacity increases the likelihood to use SWF-controlled vehicles, while fund politicization, strategic industry targets, and majority ownership choices increase the likelihood to use a corporate vehicle. While, bilateral trade agreements reduce the use of corporate vehicles. As to the geographic location of the vehicle, politicized foreign SWFs are more likely to invest through vehicles located in third countries. Instead, targeting strategic industries leads to invest in vehicles located in the target country. Our results control for SWFs’ strategic goals, SWF experience (reliance on external managers or advisors, fund size), type of funding sources, crisis period, deal-specific effects, and legal and institutional differences across countries and over time.

Models for Investment Treaties in the Asian Region: An Underview

Many similarities and occasional differences are evident in New Zealand (as explained in Part 2) and Australia (Part 3) concerning their laws screening foreign direct investment (FDI) and current approaches towards investment treaties, including the now politically sensitive issue of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). These closely integrated countries may collectively be considered a ‘middle power’ able to influence the future trajectory of treaty negotiation and drafting in the wider Asian region, as part of its growing influence on international investment law more generally. To further tease out such potential, this paper therefore compares key areas of three existing key treaties already signed (the bilateral CER Protocol, their treaty with ASEAN, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement: Part 4), as well as apparent positions set forth by Australia and New Zealand in a leaked investment chapter for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP or ‘ASEAN 6’ agreement: Part 5). Given the concerns about US-style treaty drafting displayed recently by Indonesia and India, major economies still negotiating RCEP with New Zealand and Australia (as well as bilateral agreements with the latter), we also consider the scope to promote more pro-state provisions regarding both substantive commitments and procedures such as ISDS, which characterise contemporary preferences of the European Union (Part 6). We conclude that this transition is likely not only given the evolving preferences of counterparties and local politics in New Zealand and (especially) Australia, but also because of various policy arguments for dialing back treaty commitments to foreign investors – albeit without eschewing them altogether.

Development of a Health Impact Assessment Screening Tool: A Value Versus Investment Approach

The first step of any health impact assessment (HIA) is screening to determine whether an HIA is an appropriate assessment option. Although screening tools exist, there is no universally-applied, transparent method that includes consideration of costs (investment) and benefits (value) of the HIA process. An HIA screening tool was developed to help address this need through the use of a targeted scoring system to assess the value of conducting an HIA against the required investment. The tool was subject to both internal and external testing. Individuals from eight different countries agreed to participate in testing of the HIA tool. Overall, there was a high level of agreement amongst participants regarding the investment versus value scoring as well as the screening outcome. Ultimately, the iterative development process, along with internal and external testing of the HIA screening tool, proved successful and demonstrates its applicability to a variety of scenarios.

A social capital paradox: Entrepreneurial dynamism in a small world clean technology cluster

Clean tech entrepreneurs have struggled to gain investor confidence because of some particular characteristics and circumstances of the industry. This research combines network and sustainable development literature in the clean tech context to support the logic of a new investment approach that may stimulate sustainable investing in clean tech. Theory is proposed to suggest that there may be an advantageous social capital paradox where strong ties in a cluster lead to dynamism rather than decay. The clean tech industry provides a context where strong ties offer network stability in a small world cluster such that it is a value-creating organizational form offering greater dynamism. Two related propositions are developed to support the social capital paradox. They lead to a theoretical conclusion that long term integrated partner solutions where partners are also resource constrained lead to successful alliances supporting a dynamic cluster that will grow over time. A practical conclusion is that investing in a connected cluster of firms might be less risky compared to investing in a new firm or even a portfolio of well diversified assets. De-risking clean production investments may be achievable through a small world network cluster-backed security.

Exporting corporate social responsibility into Africa? The experiences of South African companies in Swaziland

ABSTRACTThe economic expansion of South African corporates across the continent is an evolving and contested process. This paper seeks to inform knowledge on the experiences of South African companies expanding into Africa by looking at the social investment approach of five large companies within South Africa and in their Swaziland operations. While social responsibility programmes are proving to be useful for the private sector, the experiences of these companies highlight the need for more studies to find evidence on the developmental role of major private sector players like South Africa in the region and the impact of corporate social investment and corporate social responsibility in Africa.

Optimalisasi Lahan Untuk Pengembangan Rekreasi Dan Budaya Dengan Metode Highest And Best Use (Hbu)

ABSTRACT Since 2010 the bussines property development in Semarang City has significant increased. This was shown by skylines likes mall, office complexs and also hotel. On the other side the availability of the land in the city is limit. Owing to that It needs land use optimalization. Oe way is a bussines property with the purpose is to maximalized the land managing so by that the land will got a high cost. The aim of the research was to know the optimalized of land used with used Highest and Best Use Method (HBU) and to get the public opinion related with the developed. The Research method was mixed method (Quantitative and Qualitative) and the locations were Taman Budaya Raden Saleh (TBRS) and Wonderia. The wide of thus areas were 90.000 m2 or 9 Ha. Thus was choosed by Trans Retail Property. The reseason was because the areas were strategic and width lands. On the other hand the attraction that are showed in thus recreations were not attractive. By thus fact it can be say that the land used of the two areas were not yet optimal.By the analized it can be concluded that by the investment approach : the complexs of Taman Budaya Raden Saleh and Wonderia feasible and allow to develop hotel and mall with the high profit. Beside that it also can get benefit of social economic it needs redesain of the city forest used (existing) without any loosing their functions. By that it hopes can get balancing between private public and best and also highest land used in the complexs of Taman Budaya Raden Saleh and Wonderia. Keyword : Optimalization,Land,Highest and Best Use ABSTRAK Perkembangan bisnis properti di Kota Semarang sudah mulai meningkat secara signifikan sejak tahun 2010. Hal ini ditandai dengan mulai munculnya gedung-gedung bertingkat seperti mall, kompleks perkantoran dan juga hotel. Di sisi lain ketersediaan lahan di kota semakin terbatas, untuk itu perlu dilakukan optimalisasi penggunaan lahan. Salah satu cara yaitu dengan mendirikan sebuah usaha property dengan maksud untuk memaksimalkan pengelolaan lahan agar mencapai nilai jual yang tinggi. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengkaji pemanfaatan lahan yang paling optimal dengan menggunakan metode Highest and Best Use (HBU) dan menjaring opini publik terkait rencana pengembangannya. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah mixed method (kuantitatif dan kualitatif). Lokasi penelitian adalah Taman Budaya Raden Saleh (TBRS) dan Wonderia dengan luas lahan yaitu 90.000 m2 atau 9 Ha. Lokasi tersebut merupakan area yang sudah dipilih oleh Trans Retail Property, yang paling memungkinkan untuk rencana pembangunan Trans Studio Semarang. Pemilihan lokasi didasarkan pada letak lahan yang strategis, namun atraksi wisata yang ada di wahana tersebut kurang menarik. Sehingga pemanfaatan lahan di lokasi tersebut kurang optimal. Berdasarkan hasil analisis dapat disimpulkan bahwa dari segi pendekatan investasi, Komplek Taman Budaya Raden Saleh dan Wonderia layak dan memungkinkan untuk dikembangkan menjadi hotel dan mall yang dapat menghasilkan profit tinggi. Selain itu untuk dapat menghasilkan suatu economic benefit social bagi lingkungan sekitar, diperlukan adanya suatu re-desain pemanfaatan hutan kota (eksisting) tanpa menghilangkan fungsinya. Sehingga dapat tercipta keseimbangan antara private public dan penggunaan terbaik dan tertinggi dari lahan di komplek TBRS dan Wonderia.

The social investment approach as a field of job creation. From the ‘recalibration’ to a resurgent trade-off between employment growth and low wage (white) jobs. A comparison between Germany and Italy

ABSTRACTThe social investment approach emerged as a new welfare paradigm, aimed at reconciling the traditional functions of the welfare supply with a productive social agenda, designed at preparing people to confront the ‘new social risks’, whether they be related to the problem of balancing paid work and family responsibilities, upgrading the skills, preventing inequalities and promoting the availability of in-kind services. In order to achieve these objectives, especially those related to care needs and work-life balance, the adoption of social investment-based strategies necessarily implies an expansion of the jobs related to health and social care services. In more recent years, many studies have analysed the limitations of the social investment policies because of their different redistributive impacts on social groups. Several studies have found a higher use of these policies for high-income families. Another source of criticism on social investment is that spending on these policies would seem to crowd out more traditional passive social expenditures. In this article, we examine another question related to the widespread of this approach: what are the effects of the social investment policies in terms of direct job creation? In fact, one of the more controversial issues, related to social investment policies, is their direct contribution to the labour market in terms of both quantity and quality of work within welfare services. The article analyses these issues focusing on Germany and Italy, two countries that represent not only two different care regimes but also two distinct models regarding job creation strategies in the care sector. In doing so, particular attention will be paid to long-term care policies, as they represent one of the pivotal areas of the social investment approach, both in terms of social services, to address new social risks, and new jobs related to welfare services

From perspectives to policy contingencies: Conditional cash transfers as social investments

Despite the popularity of social investment, there remain ambiguities regarding how to design an effective social investment approach. We review evaluations of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in Latin America in order to draw out lessons of how to improve the effectiveness of social investment. CCTs share many of the objectives of the social investment approach and are targeted at poorer groups. Since research shows that such groups are often not adequately supported through social investment policies, analyzing CCTs holds particular promise. Our analysis finds that architects of social investment policies should consider three questions when designing a social investment approach: how much investment is necessary to fulfill social investment functions, what is the causal mechanism through which the goals of social investment are to be achieved, and what array of policies are necessary for such mechanisms to be effective?

Welfare, equality and social justice: Scottish independence and the dominant imaginings of the ‘New’ Scotland

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the extent to which issues of equality, social justice and social welfare have been mobilised in the most prominent imaginings of an independent Scotland. Since 2011 the Scottish National Party (SNP) Scottish Government has repeatedly argued that any future independent Scotland will be characterised by a strong commitment to a distinctively Scottish social welfarism. This paper explores the main tenets of such claims noting that while the myths of Scottish distinctiveness in this respect have long been critiqued, they remain central to the visions of what Scottish society is, and what it could become. Drawing on specific framings and understandings of Scotland’s past, leading SNP politicians have made claims that a new Enlightenment in Scotland could act as a ‘beacon’ for progressive policy-making across the rest of the UK and Europe. This new Enlightenment would be underpinned by the ethics of equality and social justice and the market and economic growth would be servants rather than drivers of social change. In critically exploring these claims to Scottish distinctiveness, this paper focuses on a particular area of social policy, childcare. It is argued that policy-making, as well as the SNP vision for the future, focus on areas of concern that have a lineage back to Enlightenment ideas – investing in childhood as a means to make a better society. It highlights the challenges of combining a market-driven childcare strategy with a social investment approach. The paper aims to promote a critical engagement with the unfolding ‘imaginary’ of any independent (or more devolved) Scottish society, a society in which a globally competitive economy can deliver important socially just goals.

Why business angels reject investment opportunities: Is it personal?

A major focus of research on business angels has examined their decision-making processes and investment criteria. As business angels reject most opportunities they receive, this article explores the reasons informing such decisions. In view of angel heterogeneity, investment opportunities might be expected to be rejected for differing reasons. Two sources of data are used to examine this issue. Face-to-face interviews with 30 business angels in Scotland and Northern Ireland provided information on typical ‘deal killers’. This was complemented by an Internet survey that attracted responses from 238 business angels from across the UK. The findings confirm that the main reason for rejection relates to the entrepreneur/management team. However, angel characteristics do not explain the number of reasons given for opportunity rejection nor do they predict the reasons for rejecting investment opportunities. This could be related to the increasing trend for business angels to join organised groups which, in turn, leads to the development of a shared repertoire of investment approaches. We therefore suggest the concept of ‘communities-of-practice’ as an explanation for this finding.

ESG for All? The Impact of ESG Screening on Return, Risk, and Diversification

A large body of research has documented a positive relationship between different measures of sustainability—such as indicators of employee satisfaction and effective corporate governance—and corporate financial performance. Nevertheless, many investors still struggle to quantify the value of ESG to investment performance.To address this issue, the authors tested the effects of using different ESG filters on an investable universe that serves as the starting point for a fund manager. In this way, they attempted to determine the extent to which ESG data can add value to any investment approach, regardless of preferences towards sustainable investing.The authors report “an unequivocally positive” contribution to risk‐adjusted returns when using a 10% best‐in‐class ESG screening approach (one that effectively removes companies with the lowest 10% of ESG rankings), both on a global and a developed markets universe. More specifically, as a result of such screening, both the global and developed markets portfolios show higher returns, lower (tail) risk, and no significant reduction of diversification potential despite the reduction in the number of companies. Use of a 25% screening filter was also found to add value, especially by reducing tail risks, but with a larger deviation from the unscreened universe.Overall, then, the authors’ finding is that the incorporation of ESG information contributes to better decision‐making in every investment approach, with the optimal configuration depending on a fund manager's preferences and willingness to deviate from an unscreened benchmark.

The Money Weighted Return on Illiquid Investments: IRR Is Not the Answer

While the internal rate of return (IRR) remains to be widely used despite its well-documented flaws, considerable progress has been made in the literature on the search for a proper measure of performance of illiquid investments. Most recently, two general approaches have been proposed, namely the Average Internal Rate of Return (AIRR) approach and the Aggregate Return on Investment (AROI) approach, and the following cash flow based metrics have appeared in the literature: the economic AIRR, the Index Comparison Method (ICM) based AROI and the Direct Alpha method. Motivated by the AIRR approach, we present a new cash flow based metric, Excess Return on Time-scaled Contributions (ERTC), that is free from all of the IRR flaws and represents a solution to the public market equivalent (PME) problem. ERTC is intuitively defined as the ratio of Net Present Value to the aggregate discounted net contributions scaled by the length of time the net contribution is relevant to the investment. We show that ERTC can be obtained as a special case of the continuous version of AIRR with a ICM based assumption on capital growth. Moreover, as part of the definition of ERTC, we introduce a decomposition procedure that can also be adapted to help ensure value consistency (ie, value additivity and consistency with known market values) for all cash flow based AIRR or AROI metrics.

Two Decades of Social Investment in Latin America: Outcomes, Shortcomings and Achievements of Conditional Cash Transfers

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes (CCTs) have been at the core of the remarkable expansion of social protection in Latin America in the early twenty-first century. Our article reviews the origins of CCTs in the Social Investment (SI) approach to social policy design, explores their characteristics and traces their expansion in Latin America. It further questions whether CCTs designed under the influence of SI can generate long-term substantial improvements in social outcomes. Our analysis suggests that while CCTs have evidently produced a number of positive outputs they are not, on their own, enough to achieve the aim of reducing poverty. CCTs appear to be more effective in poverty alleviation when they are accompanied by – or form part of – a wider package of measures that enhance social and employment rights, integrating workers into the formal economy under better conditions. We conclude that unless the structural deficiencies that shape many of the Latin American welfare regimes are addressed, the potential of social investment policies, like CCTs, to combat poverty will remain limited.

Fostering Managers' Knowledge-sharing Behavior: The Impact of the Employee–Organization Relationship

Fostering managers' knowledge sharing is very important in the utilization and leverage of organizational knowledge. In this study, we used social cognitive reinforcement theory, which is derived from social learning theory, to examine how the employee–organization relationship (EOR) influences managers' knowledge-sharing behavior. We surveyed 550 frontline managers from 19 Chinese companies regarding the 2 components of EOR (expected contributions and offered inducements) and knowledge sharing. The results showed that expected contributions positively influenced knowledge sharing, and that offered inducements reinforced the relationship between the employee and the organization. Thus, compared to other approaches, a mutual investment approach, in which employers expect high levels of employee contributions and offer extensive inducements, will foster a higher level of knowledge sharing. Implications for future research are discussed.