Financial Squeeze Research Articles

‘It's the Programmes, Stupid’

AbstractPublic Service Broadcasting (PSB) is an eco‐system where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The BBC is the cornerstone, but ITV, C4, C5 and independent production companies also play a crucial part. The essence of PSB lies in the values which underpin the content, ranging from popular sport and light entertainment to more niche minority strands. The BBC licence fee generates considerable value for the British economy throughout the nations and regions of the UK. This is multiplied by the intellectual property framework for independent production companies. The system is now under threat from the financial squeeze on the BBC licence fee, failure to deliver ‘due prominence’ to commercial PSBs, new technology and changing patterns of consumption. It is essential that a broad range of programmes remain freely available to avoid the cultural, social and political divisions of a two‐tier system of national broadcasting.

Out of Sight, out of Mind? Modeling the Impacts of Financial Squeeze on Extended Supply Chain Networks

Firms increasingly put financial pressure on their suppliers, also called squeezing. Suppliers react and adapt to financial squeeze as autonomous agents, causing complex ripple effects across the extended supply chain network. To capture intertwined and highly interactive effects among suppliers, we use agent‐based models. We explore the impact of financial squeeze on supply chain network structure and operational outcomes. Results suggest that financial squeeze affects the stability of the supply chain network and the effect varies depending on the location of the suppliers. Firms located at the bottom of the supply chain network suffer most from financial squeeze, and the magnitude of the effect increases as one goes further upstream. In addition, as existing suppliers exit the network and new suppliers enter, three network archetypes (Empty Nest, TransitUp, and StableDown) emerge. We identify the condition and operational consequences associated with these three archetypes. Our findings are informative to managers at buyer firms about the impacts of squeezing strategy on their extended supply chain partners, who often times are out of their immediate purview.

A Stylized Model of the Oil Squeeze

The paper proposes a practical alternative to a traditional theory of storage, which is difficult to apply to oil markets due to structural differences, such as low-price elasticities of demand and supply, and the dominant role of oil as an investment asset. We model futures time spreads as a derivative of the observable state variable, oil inventories. Inventories, normalized by the storage capacity, are assumed to follow a mean-reverting stochastic process. The boundary condition at the futures expiry is specified by a pair of Dirac delta functions which correspond to the events of default by the futures trader when either oil inventory or the storage capacity are no longer available. The model is calibrated to data for Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery location for WTI futures, and is used to analyze the market dynamics that led to negative oil prices. We argue that while the limitation of storage capacity was the initial catalyst leading to the event, the actual episode of negative prices was the result of the financial squeeze in the futures market.

Redesigning Housing Policy

Executive SummaryDiscussion of the UK's housing crisis is of long date, and tends to focus on a simple story about a mismatch in housing supply and demand and the consequent need to build more homes. Yet the reality is more complex with multiple sub-plots including social housing, stress in the private rented sector, benefits, subsidies and ultimately taxation of home ownership.At the bottom of the market, the crisis is real and acute, as manifested in a sharp increase in homelessness and rough sleeping. The inescapable answer is to increase the depleted stock of social housing and widen eligibility criteria. An increase of 100,000 social units a year in England would help address this problem, as well as alleviate the financial squeeze on tenants of the private rented sector, whose number has grown sharply in the past 15 years in tandem with a steep rise in the housing benefit bill. Recent efforts to curb housing benefit have further increased distress, so it will be necessary to consider increasing benefits again alongside regulatory interventions with private landlords.In the home ownership market, recent government intervention has taken the form of the much-criticised Help-to-Buy Equity Loan scheme. This market policy to support new-build homes should be wound down and replaced by a scheme to endow all young people with a capital sum that they could use for second-hand homes as well. More generally, a more sophisticated approach to planning home-building is needed, both for assessing overall numbers and their regional distribution and in financing the supporting infrastructure.But none of these measures is a panacea for a housing crisis that is in large part a symptom of problems in the wider economy, such as low relative wages for young people, a lack of clarity about environmental issues, and failing places. A successful policy package to address the distorted structure of the housing market must also grasp the most difficult nettle of all – namely the way the tax benefits of owner-occupation incentivise overconsumption of housing and a widening wealth gap between renters and home owners, and between owners in different parts of the country. If we spend more to help those who struggle to afford decent housing, then it is only just to raise more taxation from those who benefit from restrictions on housing supply – whether through reform to council tax, a wider wealth tax or a limited form of Capital Gains Tax on principal residences.

Large multiples: feeling the financial squeeze

Large multiples: feeling the financial squeeze

Despite financial squeeze, Japan continues drive to globalize its science enterprise

A new umbrella organization for research centers seeks to buttress efforts to relax the country’s rigid academic culture.

Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America

Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America

Involving the public in research.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) in research is a rapidly developing initiative across biomedicine. It recognises that in addition to being the subjects of research, patients, the public and other users have an important contribution to make to the development, quality and relevance of research and to be advocates for oral health research. These aspects are under increasing scrutiny in view of the financial squeeze on public funding and the ethical obligation of the research team to carry out the highest quality activity. This paper is an introduction to involving people in research and provides basic guidance on how to get started.

SMEs and the credit crunch

After a brief overview of current financing difficulties for SMEs and policy measures to support SME lending during the crisis,this article presents a literature review related to difficulties in SME’s access to finance during the crisis, against a background of a sharp decline in bank profitability and an erosion of bank capital that negatively affected lending. The articles reviewed are classified according to four main issues of interest:the impairment of the bank-credit channel and its economic effects;factors potentially attenuating the effect of a financial squeeze;the role of global banking in mitigating but also transmitting financial shocks; and,looking ahead,issues related to so-called “credit-less recoveries” that should be relevant in guiding policy makers in the current environment of financial deleveraging. All the results hold important implications for policy making given the bail-outs and the large injections ofliquidity by central banks during the crisis.

Thinking as a subversive activity: doing philosophy in the corporate university

The academy is in a mess. The cultural theorist Bill Readings claimed that it is in ruins, while the political scientist Michael Oakeshott suggested that it has all but ceased to exist. At the very least, we might argue that the current financial squeeze has distorted the University into a shape that would be all but unrecognizable to Oakeshott and others writing in the 1950s and 1960s. I will begin this paper by tracing the development of the modern Enlightenment University over the past 200 years from its roots in late 18th century Berlin to its current predicament. I will then turn my attention to the introduction during the 1990s of nursing education into the University, and examine the particular difficulties and tensions encountered at the interface between a professional practice and an academic discipline. Finally, I will propose philosophy as a way of dwelling in the ruins of the Enlightenment University and of reconciling the corporate demands of the University with the obligations of the nursing profession.

NHS cutbacks are eroding postgraduate training standards, warns BMA

The financial squeeze on the NHS is already taking its toll on the quality of postgraduate medical training, warns the newly elected chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee. Ben Molyneux, a general practitioner trainee in London who took up the post on 29 September, described the combination of the current financial pressures and the structural reorganisation of the NHS as “a perfect storm for the potential erosion of high quality medical training.” He said that safeguarding the quality of training would be …

COUNSELLING DURING SUBSTITUTION TREATMENT: NOT ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH?

COUNSELLING DURING SUBSTITUTION TREATMENT: NOT ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH?

Table of Contents

Abstract As financial squeeze continues, board needs to step up its leadership From The Board Doctor Is your relationship with the board rock solid? Straight shooting works best with problematic board members Require board agenda requests in writing Money, strategy challenge administrators and their boards Effective boards don't play games Resource Annual Plan for Board Recruitment Tips From The Trenches 60‐second board improvement tip School offers education for new nonprofit execs Board composition tip: Find a faith leader to improve connections Three easy ways to reward board members Here's how staff should respond to board requests Job interview tips for your next job hunt Put a realistic board/staff communication policy in place

Warnings of redundancies and downgrades across the UK

Qualified nursing posts are being downgraded or disappearing as the financial squeeze takes hold

Predicting the financial squeeze

Predicting the financial squeeze

Reflective practice in practice

Reflective practice in practice

NASA's Stern Quits Over Mars Exploration Plans

S. Alan Stern has resigned as NASAi?½s science chief after a running dispute with his boss, Administrator Michael Griffin, over how to manage the financial squeeze on NASAi?½s $4.6 billion science effort.

The Impact of the Barnett Formula on the Scottish Economy: Endogenous Population and Variable Formula Proportions

The Barnett formula is the official basis upon which increments to public funds are allocated to the devolved regions of the UK for those parts of the budget that are administered locally. There is considerable controversy surrounding the implications of its strict application for the relevant regions. The existing literature focuses primarily on the equity of the spatial changes to government per capita expenditure that would accompany such a change. In contrast, in this paper we attempt to quantify the system-wide economic consequences—the real, relative resource squeeze that accompanies the financial relative squeeze—on one devolved region, Scotland. The analysis uses a multisectoral regional computable general equilibrium modelling approach. We highlight the importance of population endogeneity, particularly since the population proportions used in the formula are now regularly updated.

Medical Education in South Africa–Exciting times

The dramatic political changes of the first ten years of democracy in South Africa have seen major shifts in vested power. Social change and political will have resulted in a new face of our medical student population. Diversity of colour, gender, religion and previously disadvantaged groups make student profiles as different as they could be from a decade ago. The forces of curriculum change, the devolution of power and resources from tertiary centres to primary care facilities and the financial squeeze on university coffers have resulted in enormous challenges for medical educators. South African doctors have been readily accepted in English-speaking countries around the world as they have been well trained, resourceful and usually extensively experienced in clinical situations. Some of these attributes remain. This paper outlines the new prospects facing those who will be educating the future doctors of South Africa.

Towards the Measurement of Empowerment: the Evaluation of Community Development

Community development is enjoying something of a revival worldwide. At the same time, however, governments are increasingly concerned to evaluate the effectiveness of community development programs. While the literature has grown concerning the evaluation of public spending programs in general, in the recent context of a mixture of a financial squeeze on public expenditure, consumer-led service responses, and a managerialist approach to service provision, much of the language and techniques of these evaluative approaches is inappropriate to community development given its particular emphases on process and participation. The article reviews current debates on evaluation of public services, identifies the elements of most relevance to community development, and suggests a framework for moving towards a model of best practice.