Currencies In Use Research Articles

The Influence of Digital Currency on the Banking Sector in Europe

Abstract Historically, financial and monetary innovations have triggered positive and negative changes in the everyday operations of the financial sector. Similarly, digital currencies can significantly reshape the future of banking and financial intermediaries. Whether the aspect of digital currencies is through the public sector such as in central banks, digital currencies, or private means such as in cryptocurrencies, the eventual rollout of such innovative instruments has a critical influence on the retail use of digital assets. At the same time, digital currencies may create new risks and vulnerabilities in the financial or banking sector whose implications should be thoroughly assessed. However, the magnitude of the risks depends on the designs and policies attached to the digital currencies in use. These features of digital currencies trigger the subject of discussion in this paper. By outlining the benefits and risks associated with digital currencies in the banking sector, the paper aims to highlight the overall impact of digital currencies in the banking sector and available remedies to control the risks. Therefore, the paper provides information that is critical to the banking sector policymakers interested in digital currencies.

A tale of paper and gold: The material history of money in South Africa

ABSTRACT This paper uses the South African objects in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian to tell a new material history of money in South Africa. In other parts of the continent, research about the currencies in use and how these changed over time have offered a new perspective on the impact of colonialism, commercialization, and the rise of state capacity. South Africa, and southern Africa more generally, has remained on the periphery of these debates. This paper begins to fill this gap. It shows that even in Africa’s most financially developed region, the process of establishing a stable national currency was long and halting, reflecting struggles over South Africa’s relationship with the global economy and the rise and fall of apartheid.

The Development of Central Bank Digital Currency in China: An Analysis

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has launched an ambitious project to develop a digital currency for use in domestic, retail transactions, and is, by far, the most advanced globally in this regard. In addition to involving a diverse set of stakeholders, the PBOC established a set of fundamental principles, including privacy, inclusiveness, and conservatism, and has articulated its progress in a public document translated into English. We maintain that although both its first principles and its conclusions drawn from the research conducted by the PBOC from 2014 to date are broadly reasonable and appropriate, the PBOC has also missed some important considerations and entertained some questionable assumptions, which many central banks around the world have also done. In this analysis, we consider the strengths and weaknesses of the digital currency proposition articulated by the PBOC as it exists today, and we propose one fundamental and specific change for the PBOC and other central banks around the world: The architecture must accommodate privacy-preserving, non-custodial wallets. With this change and a related set of minor adjustments, China has an opportunity to lead the world in the implementation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) solution that protects the authority of the central bank to implement monetary policy, preserves the role of public-sector and private-sector banking institutions, promotes the efficiency of retail transactions and businesses, satisfies regulatory objectives, and safeguards the human rights of retail consumers, including their privacy and their right to participate in the economy. We hope that the PBOC, and other central banks around the world, will have the resolve and strength of purpose to implement our proposed change and carry on with implementing a CBDC architecture that serves the interests of its users.

Investment of both essential fatty and amino acids to immunity varies depending on reproductive stage.

Trade-offs among the key life-history traits of reproduction and immunity have been widely documented. However, the currency in use is not well-understood. We investigated how reproducing female side-blotched lizards, Uta stansburiana, allocate lipids versus proteins when given an immune challenge. We tested whether lizards would invest more in reproduction or immunity depending on reproductive stage. Females were given stable isotopes (15 N-leucine and 13 C-1-palmitic acid), maintained on a regular diet and given either a cutaneous biopsy or a sham biopsy (control). Stable isotopes were monitored and analyzed in feces and uric acid, skin biopsies, eggs, and toe clips. We found that lizards deposited both proteins and lipids into their healing wounds (immune-challenged), skin (control), and eggs (all) and that catabolism of proteins exceeded incorporation into tissue during wound-healing. Specifically, we found that healed biopsies of wounded animals had more leucine and palmitic acid than the nonregrown skin biopsies taken from unwounded control animals. Earlier in reproduction, lizards invested relatively more labeled proteins into healing their wound tissue, but not into unwounded skin of control animals. Thus, reproduction is sometimes favored over self-maintenance, but only in later reproductive stages. Finally, we documented positive relationships among the amount of palmitic acid deposited in the eggs, the amount of food eaten, and the amount of palmitic acid excreted, suggesting higher turnover rates of lipids in lizards investing highly in their eggs.

Tombos de Cambra, manuscritos do século XVIII

Este artigo tem como objetivo dar a conhecer ao público dois tombos de medição e demarcação de bens e propriedades do mosteiro de Santa Maria de Arouca, do século XVIII, localizados na terra de Cambra.Através das escrituras que encontramos nos tombos podemos conhecer alguns bens que o mosteiro de Arouca possuía e recolher dados toponímicos, económicos (produção agrícola, gado e seus derivados), ou ainda medidas de capacidade e moeda em uso na época.

Digital blockchain networks appear to be following Metcalfe’s Law

Public ledger systems provide us a wealth of information for their network analysis.Network effects on the growth of some of the networks was confirmed.A new network model presented here modeled the networks well as did Metcalfes law.The networks value was related to the exponential of the root of its active users.The mathematical form of the model allows for new ways of analyzing the networks. An analysis of some of the recent blockchain networks is presented to determine if they satisfy Metcalfes Law, as has been shown for some online social media networks. The value of the network was modeled based on the price of the digital currency in use on the network, and the number of users by the number of unique addresses each day that engage in transactions on the network. The Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dash networks were analyzed. The analysis shows that the networks were fairly well modeled by Metcalfe's Law, which identifies the value of a network as proportional to the square of the number of its nodes, or end users. A new network model was also presented that shows the value to be proportional to the exponential of the root of the number of users participating in the network, and shows good agreement as well. Conditions for determining critical mass based on the new model were also presented. Finally, the potential for identifying value bubbles that can be spotted as deviations in value from the model was discussed and illustrated using the data from one of the networks. Those value bubbles show up where repeated extremely high value increases are not accompanied by any commensurate increase in the number of participating users, or any other development that could give rise to the higher value.

Managing of treasury in the banking system within a multi currency economy: evidence from Palestine

The Palestinian economy has no national currency which led to having three currencies in use for deposits, saving, wealth measurement and trade transactions. The non-national currency status leads to various problems and add additional risk aspect, due to the fact that the changes in the exchange rates between the used major currencies are so significant. Thus, it leads to make challenges to the management of banking treasury activities and following balances of each single currency. Therefore, this research aimed to target this issue using three research instruments, including examining the related laws, imposed by the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) on banks working in Palestinian economy, structured interviews with banks’ treasurers, and a relevant questionnaire which was directed to a selected sample of treasury staff and employees regarding closeting of foreign currency positions. The study found that management of banks working in the Palestinian economy imposed more strict levels than that imposed by PMA regarding balances of the related currencies. The closing of surplus of currencies available in the Banks treasury, occur in the last hour of working day. The study recommended to relaxing the maximum ratio of each single currency to be hold, reducing the restrictions on investments outside Palestine, permitting trading in options and future transactions.

Exchange rate risk management: What can we learn from financial crises?

Since most present studies on exchange rate risk have pointed out that it does exist, firms need to hedge all currencies in use. However, by examining the discrepancy between cost-side and revenue-side exposures across two major financial crises for Taiwanese firms, we find that the exposure mainly comes from the revenue side during the subprime crisis, while that comes from the cost side during the Asian crisis. Our results offer an applicable implication that as long as the cost-based or revenue-based hedging strategy can acquire same hedging benefit and effectively reduce hedging cost.

Oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer risk: A cohort study of 16 928 women 48 years and older

Background. Findings on potential interactive effects of oral contraceptives (OCs) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on breast cancer risk have been inconsistent. We aimed to use population-based cohort data to determine whether former use of OCs affects breast cancer risk among HRT users, taking into account regimens of HRT, duration and currency of use.Methods. The cohort consisted of 16 928 Icelandic women who visited the Icelandic Cancer Detection Clinic in 1979–2006 and provided information on use of OCs and HRT when they were 48 years or older. By record linkage to the Icelandic Cancer Registry, all breast cancer diagnosed during follow-up was identified. Using Cox regression, hazard ratios (HRs) for breast cancer according to hormone use were estimated, adjusting for menstrual and reproductive risk factors. Also, interaction analyses were carried out.Results. Breast cancer risk was significantly increased among ever users of combined estrogen and progestin (EP-HRT) preparations (HR = 2.61; 95% CI 2.00–3.41) and not among users of estrogen-only regimens (E-only HRT) (HR = 1.13; 95% CI 0.85–1.49). Ever users of both OCs and HRT had higher breast cancer risk than users of only one of the two (HR = 2.19; 95% CI 1.67–2.87). After restricting the analysis to EP-HRT and focusing on long-term and current use, there was an indication of a negative interaction with ever OC use (p = 0.06); HR = 2.87; 95% CI 1.79–4.60 for never OC users and HR = 2.24; 95% CI 1.51–3.34 for former OC users.Conclusion. After taking HRT regimen, duration and currency of use into account, the results of our population-based cohort study do not support the notion that former OC use increases breast cancer risk among HRT users, on the contrary there was an indication of a slightly lower risk in former OC users, restricted to current, long-term EP-HRT users.

Managing of Treasury in the Banking System within a Multi Currency Economy

The Palestinian economy has no national currency which led to having three currencies in use for deposits, saving, wealth measurement and trade transactions. Thus leads to make challenges to the management of banking treasury activities and balances of each single currency in the Palestinian economy. Therefore, this research aimed to target this issue, using three research instruments. Three research instruments were used including: Examining the related laws, imposed by the PMA on banks working in Palestinian economy as well as individual banking regulations, structures interviews with banks treasurers, and a relevant questionnaires was directed to a selected samples of treasury staff and employees regarding challenges to the management of banking treasury and closeting of foreign currency positions. The study found that management of the banks working in the Palestinian economy imposed more strict levels then that imposed by PMA and decreased it to 1% to 3%, of the total owner equity instead of 5%, while others (42%) reduced the maximum permitted surplus of a currency to a value ranged between 200,000 US$ and 500,000 US$. For closing the surplus of currencies, the majority of banks close it in the last hour of working day. The majority of treasuries' staff strongly agreed that there is a need for additional legislation to cover all related transactions to facilitate the work of the treasury. The study recommended to relaxing the maximum ratio of 5% imposed on each single currency to be hold more than blatancies, keeping the 20% level from owner equity to the total of currencies, extending the time of work including Fridays, reducing the restrictions on investments outside Palestine, permitting trading in options and future transactions including duke deposits and margins.

Metrics for Studies of Resource Selection

Resource availability and resource use are 2 key concepts in studies of resource selection. Although equal accessibility to resources is one component defining resource availability, we rarely know what restricts access to resources. Consequently for spatially distributed resources, the animal's use of space in association with the occurrence of resources is a frequent basis for inferring resource use and testing for resource selection. For many resources, occurrence can be defined for the population or the individual animal and requires that researchers specify the spatial extent of resources an animal might use during the time interval of study (e.g., the “choice set”). Often the occurrence of resources is defined at multiple scales, which facilitates understanding hierarchical selection patterns. We discuss numerous factors and criteria that should be considered when delineating the area an animal might use during a period of interest. New analytical approaches to resource selection, including resource utilization functions (RUF) and discrete choice modeling, help address some of the issues of defining availability and dealing with the behaviors associated with resource use. A currency of use is a measure of the investment made by an animal in securing resources, avoiding loss of resources, or otherwise optimizing fitness. Common currencies used by researchers include time spent or distance traveled in a cover type, use of event sites (e.g., nest sites, roosting sites, den sites), or amounts of different kinds of foods consumed. Less common, but potentially highly informative, are such currencies as energy expended or predation risk or other risk incurred. Simulation of animal movements interspersed with diel resting periods, through habitat types with activity-dependent energy expenditure and habitat-specific predation risk showed that choice of a currency of use strongly influences inferences about habitat selection. We argue that perhaps the most informative currency of use would be increased risk to fitness accepted by an animal. Although fairly simple conceptually, such application of risk assessment faces formidable empirical challenges and is a worthy goal for the next generation of researchers of animal resource selection.

SOE's Foreign Currency Transactions

This article provides an account of the work of the Finance (D/Fin) Directorate of the Special Operations Executive in acquiring foreign currency for use by the British intelligence community and the service departments during the Second World War. This activity earned SOE the gratitude of the Bank of England, which had experienced mounting difficulties in the acquisition of such currency. SOE's involvement in such financial operations also played a significant part in Lord Selborne's response to the JIC enquiry into SOE of December 1943. This article suggests that the significance of these financial operations is missed when SOE is examined through a geographical, country section, perspective, and argues that greater attention needs to be given to SOE's non-geographical sections.

Woodeaton Coins

The site on Middle Hill at Woodeaton, known as the ‘Roman field,’ has long been famous locally for the number of objects which have been picked up on its surface: and a detailed account of the chief finds, so far as they could be traced, was given by Miss Taylor in vol. vii of the Journal. In regard to coins, however, a good deal can now be added to her account from the collections that have come to the Ashmolean Museum since it was written: and it will be seen that there is some evidence to be derived from them as to the currency in use during the period when the place was a centre of activity.It is not easy to say exactly what this activity was: though numerous coins and small articles, especially fibulae, have been found on the surface, there are hardly any traces of permanent buildings on the site. The Oxford University Archaeological Society, in the course of its trial excavations, came on some fragments of painted plaster which look as if they had belonged to a substantial erection, but there were no foundations of a corresponding character discovered. Potsherds are not uncommon, but are nearly all of late and rough ware, and seem to be distributed irregularly about the field. In fact, there is nothing to suggest that the place was continuously inhabited by a population of such importance as would be expected from the multitude of small finds.