Collective Schemes Research Articles

Must Our Communities Bleed to Receive Social Services? Development projects and collective reparations schemes in colombia

The provision of social services in protracted conflicts, such as the Colombian conflict, is scarce and sometimes non-existent. Collective reparations are normally composed of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of no repetition. They constitute what normally would encompass development projects and can provide basic social services in contexts of peace and stability with additional symbolic and psychosocial elements. After more than five decades of conflict in Colombia, it seems that significant political will for transitional justice programmes — and in particular, reparations programmes — has emerged with the 2010 election of President Juan Manuel Santos and the ratification of the 2011 Victim's Law. In 2007, a pilot project of collective reparations programmes was initiated with the support of international development agencies. This paper uses data collected from these pilot projects to demonstrate the complexity of introducing development projects as a form of reparations in conflict-affected communities. It also questions whether it is good policy to require communities to have to ‘bleed first’ to receive basic social services under the auspices of collective reparations and explores the possible problems involved in implementing collective reparations programmes without a comprehensive development policy in post-conflict contexts.

Analysis of open innovation communities from the perspective of social network analysis

Open innovation is an emergent paradigm by which organisations make use of their internal and external resources to perform their innovation processes. The growth of information and communication technologies has facilitated the spread of online open innovation communities, where users can share ideas as well as comment on and evaluate ideas posted by other community members. In this work, the behaviour of community members is analysed from the perspective of social network analysis. The final aim is twofold: first, to measure to what extent the different forms of participation are correlated to each other; and, second, how the collective intelligence evaluation schemes can be useful to identify those users posting ideas which are potentially applicable for the organisation. Obtained results can help community managers and organisations to improve the efficiency of the evaluation process when hundreds or thousands of ideas are shared through the online community.

Incentive Provision and Job Allocation in Social Cloud Systems

Social cloud systems, which aggregate the computing capabilities of a large pool of users, have emerged in recent years as a key solution for resource provision and sharing in large-scale online communities due to their inherent flexibility and cost-effectiveness. However, the performance and reliability of these systems depend on the users' cooperative behavior in sharing their computing capabilities. Hence, incentive mechanisms are needed to deter users from free-riding. In this paper, we first model the selfish behavior of the users supplying resources and aiming to maximize their own benefits, and compute the performance of the resulting non-cooperative equilibrium, which is highly inefficient. We then augment the existing job allocation schemes currently implemented in social cloud systems with a novel class of incentive mechanisms based on reputation-based pricing and collective punishment schemes that compel suppliers to change their selfish strategies in a manner that improves the efficiency of the system. We study the cloud system operator's problem of jointly optimizing the incentive mechanism and the job allocation scheme in order to find an optimal social cloud protocol which eliminates the free-riding behavior of suppliers while maximizing the social welfare of the system. We rigorously prove that, using only simple designs for both the incentive mechanism and the job allocation scheme, the resulting protocol provides significant improvements in terms of the social welfare compared to existing social cloud systems.

Ideology, disability, and inclusion: a polemical discourse

Abstract This paper seeks to argue that the life experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in the fields of education, employment, and residential care in the UK are adversely affected by the ideological position taken by the following three groups: (1) a small but readily identifiable group of academics (e.g., in Disability Studies Departments); (2) collective advocacy schemes purportedly representing people with intellectual disabilities (e.g., People First); and (3) major disability charities (e.g., Mencap). The main contention of this paper is that the uncritical adoption and propagation of the inclusionist agenda by these groups has led to the imposition of programs that further disadvantage an already disadvantaged population.

Preferences for redistribution and pensions. What can we learn from experiments?

AbstractRedistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. However, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for different pension schemes. In this paper, we review the experimental evidence on preferences for redistribution and suggest some links to redistribution through pensions. For that purpose we distinguish between three types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. In the closing sections of the paper, we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions. For example, do they argue for or against mandatory participation? Should we have less redistribution and more actuarial fairness? How does this depend on the type of redistribution involved?

Relevance of Asset Management Companies in Mutual Fund Investment Decision of Investors: An Empirical Study

Financial markets are constantly becoming more efficient by providing more promising solutions to the investors. Being a part of financial markets, although mutual funds industry is responding very fast by understanding the dynamics of investor's perception towards rewards, still, they are continuously following this race in their endeavour to differentiate their products responding to sudden changes in the economy. The mutual fund is a type of professionally managed collective investment scheme, which pools money from many investors. The profit gained from investments is shared to unit holders in proportion to the number of units owned by them. Thus, a mutual fund is the most suitable investment for the common man as it offers an opportunity to invest in a diversified, professionally managed basket of securities at a relatively low cost. It is high time to understand and analyse the role of the asset management companies (AMCs) (mutual fund sponsor's) in the investment decision of the mutual fund investors. The present study attempts to identify the important mutual fund sponsor's qualities and the investor's services provided by the AMCs considered important by the investors while selecting a mutual fund for investment.

Cross-border Investments, Currency Risks and Portfolio Returns: The Case of Epack - Ghana

The study sought to examine the impact of currency risks on the performance of cross-border collective investment schemes. Using data monthly from Ghana and selected African countries over the period 2005 to 2010 and employing a Hendry type error correction model, the results of the study seem to indicate that ccurrency risks are important in explaining the returns on cross-border investments albeit with a lag and upon aggregation. The findings also indicate significant effects flowing from macroeconomic variables such as interest rates. These findings indicate a need to consider currency risks and domestic interest rates when compiling investment portfolios. The findings have significant policy implications as regards international or cross-border investments.

Can collective pension schemes work in the United Kingdom?

‘Defined Ambition’ is the latest buzzword to hit the pensions world. What does it mean, and can pension schemes run on these principles actually work? Members will need to be convinced by those running such schemes that they have the necessary skill to provide a fair outcome for all. Most importantly, a clear and stable regulatory environment, which cannot be easily overturned by future governments, will be needed to convince employers to back such schemes.

Better Safe than Sorry - Individual Risk-free Pension Schemes in the European Union

Variations between the diverse pension systems in the member states of the European Union hamper labour market mobility, across country borders but also within the countries of the European Union. From a macroeconomic perspective, and in the light of demographic pressure, this paper argues that allowing individual instead of collective pension building would greatly improve labour market flexibility and thus enhance the functioning of the monetary union. I argue that working citizens would benefit, for three reasons, from pension saving in a risk-free savings account. First, citizens would have a clear picture of the accumulation of their own pension savings throughout their working life. Second, they would pay hardly any extra costs and, third, once retired they would not be subject to the whims of government or other pension fund managers. This paper investigates the feasibility of individual pension building under various parameter settings by calculating the pension saved during a working life and the pension dis-saved after retirement. The findings show that there are no reasons why the European Union and individual member states should not allow individual risk-free pension savings accounts. This would have macroeconomic benefits and provide a solid pension provision that can enhance mobility, instead of engaging workers in different mandatory collective pension schemes that exist around in the European Union.

Shoestring Democracy: Gated Condominiums and Market-Rate Cooperatives in New York

ABSTRACT:This article develops the concept of shoestring democracy as a way to characterize the resulting social relations of private governance structures embedded in two types of collective housing schemes found in New York City and the adjoining suburbs: gated condominium communities (gated condominiums) and market-rate cooperative apartment complexes (co-ops). Drawing from ethnographies of gated condominiums and co-ops in New York City and neighboring Nassau County, New York, we compare these two forms of collective home ownership regarding the impact of private governance structures on residents and their sense of representation and participation in ongoing community life. “Shoestring democracy” encompasses a broad range of behaviors utilized to insulate residents from local conflicts and disagreements, and limits rather than promotes political participation. The greatest differences between the co-ops and gated condominiums were found in discussions of safety and security, in that condominium residents have developed an elaborate discourse of the fear of crime and others, especially racialized others, to explain why they moved to their secured communities. Co-op interviewees, on the other hand, generally felt a sense of safety in their buildings, often due to the gatekeeper effect of the co-op board and doormen. In gated communities, covenants, contracts, and deed restrictions (CC&Rs) guarantee that most problems are resolved before they start. While the same can be said for co-ops, interviewees find that these rules and regulations seem to mystify everyday governing practices for the average co-op resident. Moral minimalism and a lack of structural and procedural knowledge may insulate residents from local conflicts and disagreement, but also may discourage civic participation. Exploring the apathy residents expressed about participation and a lack of representation suggests that although the Rochdale principles of cooperation that are the legal and social basis for co-ops may have been important at one time, current practices of private governing boards do more to restrict participatory democratic practices than encourage them. The policy implications are outlined with suggestions of how to make homeowners associations and co-op boards more accountable and encourage greater adherence to the original co-op mandate.

Armut, Reichtum und Humankapital Zu den Beziehungen zwischen Bildung, Lebenseinkommen, Besteuerung und staatlicher Umverteilung

Summary The paper is based on an individual life-cycle model, which describes the purely economic components of human capital. The present value of human capital is determined by all future income flows, which at the same time constitute the individual as well as the total tax base of a nation. Therefore, the income of the productive population determines the total tax revenue, which is spent for public goods (including education) and transfers (for poverty reduction). The efficient design of the education system (by private and public education investments) determines the quality of the human capital stock as well as the future gross income flows. The costs of public goods and the transfer expenditures have to be financed from the total tax revenue, which also affects the individual tax burden via the specific tax bases and tax rates. Especially the redistribution of income is connected with serious disincentives, influencing the preferences for work and leisure as well as for consumption and saving. An efficient tax and transfer system being accompanied by an education system financed in public private partnership, which treats equally labor and capital income, sets positive incentives for the formation of human, financial, and real capital. An important prerequisite for a sustainable growth process is the efficient design of the social security system, being based on the family as well as a collective risk equalization scheme. If that system is diminishing absolute poverty in an appropriate time period by transfers and vocational education measures for the grown-up as well as high quality primary, secondary and tertiary education programs for the children, the transfer expenditure would decrease and the tax bases (income and consumption) increase, lowering the burden on the productive population. For the first time, this micro model presented in this paper pools all the relevant variables for development within a simple life-cycle model, which can also be used for a powerful analysis of the current failures in existing tax and transfer schemes and fruitful empirical investigations.

SEBI and Collective Investment Schemes

A collective investment scheme is a trust based scheme that comprises a pool of assets that is managed by a collective investment scheme manager and is regulated by the Collective Investment Scheme regulations. Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) are a popular form of investment, and they are accessible to all. Each investor has a proportional stake in the Collective Investment Scheme portfolio based on how much money he or she contributed. The SEBI who is also known as investor protector also plays an important role in regulating CIS. This paper attempts to give a brief idea on the working of the collective investment schemes.

Pricing Embedded Options in Value-Based ALM

With Value-Based ALM the financial policy is not only evaluated in terms of the uncertain future financial position and balance sheet, but also in terms of the exposureof the beneficiaries to the total risk embedded in the pension deal. Traditionally, ALM studies do not explicitly reveal which stakeholders bear the risks in the pension deal when the investment strategy changes or in case of pension redesign. Value-based ALM does. This chapter shows how to identify contingent claims and embedded options on the balance sheet of collective public schemes. We develop an econometric model which can be used for classic ALM and the consistent pricing of embedded options. We illustrate the framework in the context of pension redesign and in the context of asset management and demonstrate how the embedded options reveal risk transfers between employers and beneficiaries. We demonstrate how a switch from a calendar rebalancing to a fixed strategic asset allocation towards a more risk-driven dynamic asset allocation can increase the participant share in total risk, while the employer share in risk decreases substantially. Classic ALM optimizes the policy, while Value-Based ALM can be used to ensure that this takes place on fair economic terms between stakeholders.

Mexico: Detailed Assessment of Observance of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation: Detailed Assessment of Observance of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation

A detailed assessment on the observance of Mexico’s compliance with International Organization of Securities Commissions objectives and principles of securities regulation is presented. The regimes governing the regulation of issuers, collective investment schemes, and secondary markets, and with respect to cooperation and information sharing, are extensive. The most significant issues regarding full implementation of the Principles fall under the Regulator Principles. Much of the activity on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores comes from computer-driven program trading orders that are placed to take advantage of price asymmetries between markets.

Attacking M&M Collective Signature Scheme

A collective signature scheme aims to solve the problem of signing a message by multiple signers. Recently, Moldovyan and Moldovyan proposed a scheme for collective signatures based on Schnorr signatures. We show some security weaknesses of the scheme.

Особенности коллективного инвестирования жилищного строительства в регионе

This paper analyzes the characteristics of the organization process of real estate housing development financing in Russia during 1990-2010 years. The role and place of collective investment institutions in housing financing in the region is defined. An author's interpretation of the concepts of the process of collective investment schemes and collective investment institutions is presented. The classification of collective housing investment institutions is substantiated. The role and place of particular groups or types of collective investment institutions in the financing of housing was examined. The function of investment funds in the financing of the investment activity of the regions was determined. The structure of domestic and foreign investment funds was compared. Domestic and foreign experience of housing financing with a particular financial institution investment — mutual funds — was eamined. The role and functioning of specific closed-end mutual funds investing in the housing is defined. Factors enhancing the processes of collective housing investment with closed-end mutual funds were investigated.

Better Safe than Sorry - Individual Risk-Free Pension Schemes in the European Union

Variations between the diverse pension systems in the member states of the European Union hamper labour market mobility, across country borders but also within the countries of the European Union. From a macroeconomic perspective, and in the light of demographic pressure, this paper argues that allowing individual instead of collective pension building would greatly improve labour market flexibility and thus enhance the functioning of the monetary union. I argue that working citizens would benefit, for three reasons, from pension saving in a risk-free savings account. First, citizens would have a clear picture of the accumulation of their own pension savings throughout their working life. Second, they would pay hardly any extra costs and, third, once retired they would not be subject to the whims of government or other pension fund managers. This paper investigates the feasibility of individual pension building under various parameter settings by calculating the pension saved during a working life and the pension dis-saved after retirement. The findings show that there are no reasons why the European Union and individual member states should not allow individual risk-free pension savings accounts. This would have macroeconomic benefits and provide a solid pension provision that can enhance mobility, instead of engaging workers in different mandatory collective pension schemes that exist around in the European Union.

A study on the legal structure of company collective investment scheme

A study on the legal structure of company collective investment scheme

Violation of SEBI Act and Rules in India: A Study on ‘Other than Collective Investment Scheme’

Economy of any country largely depends on its capital market now more than ever before. A capital market is a market for securities (debt or equity), where business enterprises (companies) and governments can raise funds by selling securities to general public and other financial institutions. The capital market includes the stock market (equity securities) and the bond market (debt). Capital markets of India are monitored by financial regulator SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India). SEBI oversee the capital markets in their designated jurisdictions to ensure that investors are protected against fraud, among other duties. The need for a financial regulator for a country like India is due to the following reasons as India is an 'informationally' weak market, to boost the confidence of lay investors who have been beaten by repeated scams, to soften interest rates and to enhance investing skills in India. But since the formation SEBI in the year 1992 every 2-3 years there has been a new 'scam'. Each scam has led to SEBI being conferred with greater powers. Scams are administered by SEBI officials. Sentencing and prosecution is done by SEBI officials. Recent rise in scams and scandals in Indian market have made investors to doubt on the efficiency of Indian Financial regulator SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India). Even though SEBI is confronted with numerous powers it is still observed that SEBI is unable to minimize or curb the violations which costs huge to investors and also to the whole economy. This study focuses on the numerous cases filed with SEBI which prove that SEBI needs to maintain much closer watch in the market. The main objectives of this work, taking 586 cases of SEBI rule violations for analysis, are to study various cases of SEBI rule violations in other than collective investment scheme, categorize these cases into six categories, to identify the most violated provision of Act with SEBI and to attempt to provide suggestions to minimize violation of SEBI norms. This study showed even though SEBI has numerous regulations and norms to monitor the market activities loopholes still remain which are being exploited by swindlers rendering the regulation of the capital market and protection of investor interests wanting.

The Economic Impact of Water Evaporation Losses from Water Reservoirs in the Segura Basin, SE Spain

In this paper we assess the economic impact of evaporation losses from great dams (GDs) and on-farm agricultural water reservoirs (AWRs) in the semi-arid Segura River basin, SE Spain. Evaporation losses from water reservoirs reduce the high water use efficiency reached in agriculture by means of other techniques such as well-built water pipes or drip irrigation and have a substantial economic impact. Evaporation losses have been calculated using Class-A pan evaporation data and pan coefficients, whereas their economic impact has been assessed using an economic mathematical programming model that simulates land and water allocation in the different irrigated areas of the basin. Our results show that annual evaporation from GDs and AWRs represents 8.7% of the water currently available for irrigation in the Segura basin. The economic impact of such losses has been estimated in a reduction of 6.3% of the value of agricultural production and 5.4% of the farm net margin. As less water is effectively available for farmers the basin’s irrigated area is reduced in a 7.5%. This impact is greater, in both absolute and relative terms, in the areas accommodating the most intensive and profitable irrigated agriculture. The applied methodology and results could be useful to regional water agencies and collective irrigation schemes for future planning and management, including the assessment of alternatives for reducing evaporation from reservoirs.