Form Of Debt Research Articles

Debt in just societies: A general framework for regulating credit

AbstractDebt presents a dilemma to societies: successful societies benefit from a substantial infrastructure of consumer, commercial, corporate, and sovereign debt but debt can cause substantial private and social harm. Pre‐crisis and post‐crisis solutions have seesawed between subsidizing and restricting debt, between leveraging and deleveraging. A consensus exists among governments and international financial institutions that financial stability is the fundamental normative principle underlying financial regulation. Financial stability, however, is insensitive to equality concerns and can produce morally impermissible aggregations in which the least advantaged in a society are made worse off. Solutions based only on financial stability can restrict debt without accounting for the risk of harm to persons least able to bear the risk, worsen preexisting inequalities, destroy or impair the net worth of households, and impose unfavorable distributive consequences. This article offers a new approach to assist policymakers in developing and evaluating regulation to take criteria in addition to financial stability into account, but which do not undermine the aim of financial stability. It calls for a luck egalitarian approach, offering policymakers options to take the debtor's choices into account while still accounting for cognitive mistakes people often make in debt decisionmaking. It offers a general framework for the underlying principles for the regulation of debt: its focus is not on any particular forms of debt or its regulation but in structuring debt regulation more generally. It offers a set of recommendations on how regulators can take concerns about luck and equality into account in regulatory design.

Identifikasi Struktur Modal Melalui Profitabilitas, Pertumbuhan Penjualan dan Ukuran Perusahaan

This study aims to analyze the effect of profitability, sales growth and firm size on capital structure. The population of this research is basic industrial and chemical company which go public in Bursa Efek Indonesia. The observations are conducted in 2013-2016. The data source is taken from Indonesian Capital Directory Market (ICMD). Sampling technique used with purposive sampling. The sample size is 19 companies with 4 years observation period, so there are 76 observation data. Management in determining the source of financing will consider the cost or risk with a refund. In theory, pecking order management will expose the source of internal funding, external in the form of debt, then the issuance of shares. Profitability of the company during the year 2013-2016 shows positive. Sales increase except in 2015, where sales growth is negative. Company assets show an increase every year. Data analysis techniques use multiple linear regression. The results show that profitability and sales growth affect the capital structure. The size of the firm has no effect on the capital structure. The results support the pecking order theory. DOI : https://doi.org/10.26905/afr.v1i1.2246

Capital Structure Heterogeneity and Firm Strategic Actions:a Transaction Cost Lens

The mix of debt and equity in a firm’s capital structure has been associated with varied strategic actions, such as M & A (mergers and acquisitions) and R & D (research and development). Different forms of debt and equity have been associated with particular types of strategic actions. Although there are clear differences between debt and equity, we argue there are also similarities across the two forms of capital. We develop a theoretical framework to categorize both debt and equity along the dimensions of time horizon and risk tolerance, so as to categorize the providers of capital as Transient Equity, Dedicated Equity, Transactional Debt, and Relational Debt. We then empirically investigate the association between the presence of these diverse capital providers and firm strategic actions. Our theory development is anchored in transaction cost economics, which conceptualizes debt and equity as not merely financing choices but also governance structures. Debt resembles markets while equity resembles hierarchies. This integrated categorization of heterogeneous debt holders and equity holders along the dimensions of time horizon and risk tolerance - often conflated in the literature - augments this transaction cost reasoning to within debt and equity. We test our hypotheses on a panel of publicly held U.S. firms between 1996 and 2010 in the contexts of R & D and M & A. After controlling for endogeneity and serial correlation – using Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) regressions for dynamic panels with robust inference – the hypothesized relationships are largely supported.

Performing housing debt attachments: forming semi-financialised subjects

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the understanding of how first-time buyers and their parents form attachments to housing debt. Interviews, carried out in the Czech Republic, with 40 first-time homebuyers and 10 with their parents were used to identify multiple layers of debt performativity. These layers consist of statements expressing moral evaluations and emotions; calculative and cognitive devices; and references to practices. Two arguments are advanced through a framework of layered performativity. The first argument concerns the subjectivities of debtors. Debtors adopt investment concepts in their statements and use calculative devices. However, by relying on familial moral orders of security and familial financial transfers, these debtors must be regarded rather as semi-financialised subjects. The second argument relates to the re-configuration of social and economic relations in families. Debt attachment endorses the use of intergenerational financial transfers, which in turn may enforce continued intra-familial reciprocity, both in terms of the recipients’ obligation to the providers of a gift or loan as well as concerning an obligation to help their children attain homeownership in the future. Finally, intergenerational transfers also transform the character of the mortgage market and mortgage debt, making informal debts an important part of formal debt circuits.

Conforming to the outer perish theory about the partial reimbursement in every case of semi-joint and several debt

부진정연대채무라는 형태의 다수당사자 채권채무관계는 판례상 확고하게 인정되고 있어 인정 여부에 대한 논의의 실익은 크지 않다. 다만 일부 채무자의 상계로 모든 연대채무자의 채무가 소멸하는지, 즉 상계에 절대적 효력을 인정할 것인지 여부에 대해서 학설상 다수의 견해가 긍정적인 입장을 취하여 왔고, 대법원은 전원합의체 판결을 통하여 이를 수용하는 것으로 태도를 변경한 바 있다. 그 외에 부진정연대채무와 관련된 중요한 논의는 부진정연대채무자들의 각 채무액이 다른 경우 많은 액수를 부담하는 채무자가 일부만 변제한 뒤 무자력 상태에 빠지게 되면 일부 변제 금액을 어느 부분에서 소멸하는 것으로 의율할지에 대한 것이다. 이에 대해 논의는 꾸준히 제기되어 왔는데 이는 일본과는 달리 우리나라 법원이 과실비율설과 외측설로 나누어서 적용하는 이원적 입장을 취하였던 것에 기인한 바가 크다고 할 것이다. 판례상 과실비율설이 적용된 사안의 사실관계를 살펴보면 구체적인 타당성을 제고하고자 하였던 고려를 충분히 짐작할 수 있다. 부진정연대채무는 당사자들의 적극적인 의사에 기하여 발생하는 것이 아니라는 점에서 채무자들 사이의 이해관계도 고려할 필요가 있다는 점에서 더더욱 그러하다. 그렇기 때문에 상당한 기간 동안 두 기준을 적용하는 입장을 취해온 것이 부당하다고만 할 수는 없을 것이다. 그럼에도 불구하고 과실비율설을 적용하기에는 당사자의 의사에 반하거나 기존 대법원판례에 모순되는 등의 많은 법리적인 문제가 존재하였기에 외측설로 통일적인 기준을 정할 필요성이 있다는 점에 대해서 살펴보았다. 대상 판결을 통해 향후 하급심 법원들은 부진정연대채무에서 큰 액수를 부담하는 채무자가 일부 변제만 하였을 경우에 통일되고 간명한 기준을 적용할 수 있을 뿐만 아니라 판단 이유를 설시하는 것과 관련된 부담을 덜게 되었고, 무엇보다 판결문을 본 당사자들이 그 결과를 쉽게 이해하고 납득할 수 있게 되었다고 할 수 있다. 법리적 타당성 외에 위와 같은 점에서도 대상 판결은 매우 환영할 만하다.A form of debt in a multiple creditor-debtor relationship called ‘semi-joint and several debt’ has continued to be strongly affirmed by court precedents, and as such, there would not be much practical benefit to discussing whether to recognize such a form of debt. Rather, a point relating to this form of debt that has been hotly debated is how, in a case where each semi-joint and several debtor has different amount of liability from one another, we should consider the effect of partial reimbursement made by a debtor whose amount of liability is larger than that of other debtor(s) and who become unable to make any further reimbursement - that is, of the part jointly liable and the part solely liable, which should be considered to have been extinguished? The outer perish theory and the fault ratio theory had both been applied by the courts as the case may be, and this stance may have been the main reason behind such a debate. The fault ratio theory comes with many flaws from legalistic point of view, but when the factual backgrounds of specific cases where the courts have applied this theory are considered, this theory may seem more convincing in terms of arriving at a more desirable end result for the particular case at hand. As such, it may not have been altogether unreasonable to have relied on both of these theories for quite some time. Nevertheless, this review explains how the fault ratio theory runs against the intention of the parties and at the same time conflicts with the Supreme Court precedents, which consequently necessitated maintaining consistency by conforming to the outer perish theory. By following the Supreme Court decision this review examines, lower-level courts - in cases where the debtor who owes more has partially reimbursed - can now maintain uniformity by applying a more simple and clear standard and will be less burdened in stating the reasons for applying such a standard. Above else, it is expected that the parties who are to read the decisions will more easily understand how the court arrived at its conclusion. On top of the juridical cogency, such are the reasons why this decision is more than welcome.

Loan to Bond Substitution: An Empirical Analysis on the Functioning of the Substitution Channel for Eurozone Firms

This work aims to provide new insights on the functioning of financial markets. In particular, I focus on European markets with the final objective of uncovering important evidences for the implementation of policies aimed to improve the resiliency of the financial system to economic crises. The paper analyses firm's choice of funding and its relationship with the evolution of the credit cycle. Using a sample of U.S. and European firms, I document the existence of a credit substitution channel between loans and bonds that reduces the adverse effect of a shrink in credit supply. Moreover, I also report estimates on the degree of substitution. In particular, I investigate on the ability of firms to fully substitute between the two forms of debt, and I find that firms in Eurozone countries can only partially substitute bank debt with market debt. The identification strategy I implement allows to untangle the effect of the demand and supply of credit fundamental in the analysis. In this work I find evidence that poor conditions in the banking sector negatively affects the supply of loans, and provides ground to advocate for the importance of the substitution channel in relaxing the adverse effects of a downturn. Furthermore I find that for variables less related to the actual “health” of the banking sector and more related to the mechanism underlying the choice of granting loans to firms (e.g. the measure of lending standards and the monetary policy stance), the substitution channel might work differently in Eurozone compared to the U.S.. Periods of tight lending standards are not necessarily related to a reduction in credit supply but could be the outcome of a different allocation of funds among bank borrowers.

Art/Work: J.B. Blunk, Isamu Noguchi and the Intersection of Sculpture and Skilled Labor

This paper investigates how modernist artists in the postwar United States navigated the intersection of sculpture and skilled labor. The sculpture of Northern California artist J. B. Blunk evinces a formal debt to Isamu Noguchi, his friend and mentor. Both artists made biomorphic sculptures in wood, many of which were interactive. From the late 1930s through the 1960s, Noguchi was a prolific set designer, creating a wide variety of stage sets for Martha Graham and other New York City choreographers. Blunk’s signature format is the public seating sculpture. Sited primarily in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, these communal benches sculpted from reclaimed wood are among his most visible and acclaimed works. Though related in visual terms, the functional woodworks of Blunk and Noguchi have been read in very different ways and occupy disparate niches in American visual culture. The article examines these artworks within the framework of labor, and demonstrates that this gulf is due, in part, to their differing stances toward the skill sets of the building, manufacturing, and design professions on which their practices relied.

Order of preference of debts under asymmetric information

The purpose of this article is to investigate the debt hierarchy adopted by French companies in the context of asymmetric information. In other words, we identify the hierarchy between the three most used forms of debt that best describes the debt behaviors of French companies. The study relies on the ordered probit regression to identify the hierarchy that best describes the debt behaviors of a sample of 121 non-financial firms listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange. Next, we perform panel-data regressions to investigate the impact of the financial crisis on debt behaviors. The empirical results show that French companies listed on the SBF 250 follow the hierarchy Bank debt, Bond debt, Convertible bonds. This hierarchy is explained primarily by asymmetric information. Other variables that explain the adoption of this hierarchy include the size, default risk, deficit and R&D expenditures of the company. At a time of crisis, despite the strong asymmetric information, the debt hierarchy is modified. To the best of our knowledge, this article constitutes the first study that addresses the existence of a hierarchy between three types of debt: bank debt, bond debt, and convertible bonds. Hence, it extends the previous research on capital structure and provides new managerial insights.

Financing the Outward Foreign Direct Investment - Conceptual Framework

In the wake of increasing Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) from India their financing in the form of intra-company loans and equity is an interesting area of research. Outward foreign direct investment by a member firm (called as parent firm) to another member firm in a host country in a multinational system (called as foreign affiliate) can take the form of debt (parent debt) and equity (parent equity). Myers' pecking order theory talks about the external debt and external equity but there might be some preference hierarchy for internally generated funds - parent debt or parent equity. The literature focusing on nature of these flows (debt or equity) is scant owing to opacity of flows within a multinational system. The opacity of flows within a multinational makes the analysis empirically challenging and hence one may focus on the outward foreign direct investment by a parent firm into their foreign affiliates to capture the financial flows. The paper discusses the two types of capital market from where a multinational could tap funds, laying emphasis on internal capital market, a multinational specific advantage, besides various issues specific to internal capital market. The paper presents three perspectives to view such an analysis that have implications for efficiently utilising the internal capital market of the multinational system, supply-side determinants of capital structure of foreign affiliates, and the outward foreign direct investment. The paper thus attempts to provide areas where the contribution can be made especially with regards to the determinants of OFDI, a value addition to both the international finance and international business literature.

Transferred debts: Marion Milner’s A Life of One’s Own and the limits of analysis

ABSTRACTMarion Milner’s 1934 A Life of One’s Own illustrates a modern woman’s “crossing,” both disciplinarily and generically. Written before Milner trained as a psychoanalyst but delving into the Unconscious, and with a title that apparently alludes to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, the book marks a point of intersection between incipient psychoanalysis and Modernist writing, of the kind represented more explicitly in the Strachey and Stephen circles with which Milner was tenuously linked. Yet Milner’s insistence on the term “own” in her title and throughout the volume also makes this a useful text via which to explore the reflexes by which critics examine such crossings. This essay interrogates the critical impulse to figure intertextuality and discursive exchange as forms of debt. Turning to the manuscript source material of Milner’s book, it asks what might the concept of work of “one’s own” have to offer in terms of rethinking critical practice.

Debts of Redemption: Usury Manga and the Morality of Money in Contemporary Japan

In late 1980s Japan, loan sharks surfaced as heroes in graphic novels set in the world of predatory moneylending. A genre of manga about usury gained popularity as monthlies began to run serialized stories that parody class inequality through gratuitous, chauvinistic depictions of sex and violence in the urban underground, while offering an ethnographic view into the lives of hustlers and gangsters, confidence artists and street lawyers. This article examines two usury manga titles as morality tales that speak to the widespread anxiety caused by the personal debt crisis in contemporary Japan. These street usurers point to a desire to escape a foundational ethical code of capitalism: the obligation to reciprocate. Yet this break from debt morality requires a redemption that involves theft, slavery, and death. These manga comment on the forms of debt in Japan's consumer-driven capitalism, as they relate to the postwar labor form and the technology of inscription used in authenticating the identities of economic subjects.

National Credit Regulator Versus Nedbank Ltd and the Practice of Debt Counselling in South Africa


 The National Credit Regulator approached the then Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court in 2008 by way of a notice of motion. In this application the Regulator prayed in terms of section 16(1)(b) of the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 (the "NCA") for the proper interpretation of mainly sections 86 and 87 of the same Act. Due to uncertainty and confusion the Regulator lodged an application to obtain clarity on some of the difficulties that debt counsellors experience in practice. The matter was heard in the High Court (TPD) on 02/03/2009 and judgment was handed down by Du Plessis J on 21/08/2009.
 
 This article discusses the fifteen prayers and the impact of the orders granted by the Court under three logical headings, namely:
 
 
 those that deal with the NCA and the Magistrate’s Court; 
 
 
 Order 1 (on section 86(7)(c)), order 2 (an obligation to conduct a hearing), order 3 (the judicial role of the Magistrate’s Court) and order 4 (the application procedure of the Magistrate’s Court) defined the interaction between the NCA and the Magistrate’s Court Act (the “MCA”) very clearly. Since there is no sui generis procedure provided for in the NCA, it is submitted that the Court’s approach is correct. However, the end result is that the over-indebted consumer is not supported to the degree the NCA envisages. For example: a rule 55 procedure of the MCA can be cumbersome and costly, while the NCA envisaged a fast and relatively inexpensive process.
 
 
 those that deal with the role of the debt counsellor in debt restructuring;
 
 
 
 Order 5 (costs), order 6 (statutory function) and order 8 (the unique role of the debt counsellor), granted under this heading, are important. They define the role of the debt counsellor to be different from the run-of-the-mill applicant in terms of rule 55. He/she is even protected against some cost orders due to a statutory function. Because of this special function a question arises: should this difference in treatment not be even greater than custom presently permits or proposes? Since this function brings great responsibility and much paper work, should it not affect the fees that a debt counsellor may charge?
 
 
 those that deal with the court procedures.
 
 
 Orders 7, 9, 10 and 11 in this section are welcomed, namely those that deal with the service of documents, the geographical jurisdiction and monetary limit of the court, reckless credit and the in duplum rule. However, the Court preferred to stay on the safe side with respect to emoluments attachments orders and the application of section 86(2) to section 129(1). The lack of direction on the question when formal debt enforcement in fact begins, is regrettable. 
 
 However, the declarator is a milestone in the history of the NCA. The orders impact significantly on the practice of debt review and will continue to shape the credit industry. Despite some disappointments it can be concluded that the declarator on the whole adds value to the practice of debt counselling in South Africa. It is now for the industry, the NCR, the legislators and scholars to take matters further. 

Micro-entrepreneurship Debt Level and Access to Credit: Short-Term Impacts of a Financial Literacy Program

Using a randomized control trial, we evaluated the effect of a financial literacy program on the level of debt and on formal access to credit in Chile. We use a sample of beneficiaries of a publicly run micro-entrepreneurship program. We evaluated the program using administrative data with information on the debt level, interest rates, and new loans provided by the formal sector. The program tends to decreased debt level in the short run while increasing the probability of having formal debt. The program had effects in parts of the country where the take-up was higher and the implementation was smoother.

Driving the poor into debt? Automobile loans, transport disadvantage, and automobile dependence

The disadvantages relating to the financialization of household transport and transport-related debt have yet to receive sufficient attention, partly due to a general lack of data on household-level transport-related liabilities, particularly at small scales of analysis. This issue has risen in importance with increases in households debt levels and changes in the ways automobile purchases are financed. This paper examines the level of automobile-related debt among lower-income households, and the effects of living in automobile-dependent neighbourhoods, using seven of the largest Canadian metropolitan areas as case studies. Detailed household survey data pertaining to both automobile loans and other forms of debt in 2012 are analyzed and compared with census data related to automobile dependence at the neighbourhood (census tract) level. Descriptive and inferential analyses are presented, demonstrating relationships between levels of automobile dependence and higher relative burdens of household indebtedness, particularly for automobile loans, although the relationships are dependent on, and mediated by, local context. The implications for transport policy are discussed.

Design and Analysis of Financial Condition Local Government Java and Bali (2013-2014)

This research aims to identify financial condition of local government in Java and Bali year 2013-2014. It is due to government financial condition, according to several researchers, provides an image on the ability of a government in fulfilling their obligations whether in the form of debt or service fulfillment in timely manner. According to assessment upon financial condition, local government is able to identify how to fulfill public needs, how to utilize resources and how to proceed resources so that it can be more productive. As for the measurement method of financial condition itself, the standard method cannot be determined. Therefore, indicator used for measuring local government financial condition is Brown's (1993)[2] indicator development adjusted to Indonesian government. In order to develop the indicator, this research employs qualitative method by comparing GASB No.34, SAP Government Regulation (“Peraturan Pemerintah ” - PP) 71 Year 2010, SAP PP 24 year 2005 and literature studies and expert validation. In order to obtain a balanced comparison, this research also employs clusters developed by Baidori (2015)[1] for government in Java and Bali. Results of this research showed that among 7 analyzed clusters, there are variations of results, even though each cluster has similar socioeconomic condition to each other. This variation upon Indonesian local government financial condition is caused by regional autonomy.

The hidden labor of repayment: Women, credit, and strategies of microenterprise in northern Honduras

AbstractMicrolending programs, commonly directed at women and presented as a solution to global poverty, provide borrowers credit to support small, informal income‐generating activities. These initiatives have garnered much attention from anthropologists, who have long been interested in the social life of credit and debt. Despite numerous anthropological studies critiquing the social and economic consequences of such lending practices, they continue, bolstered by the affective dimensions of philanthropic marketing and the current embeddedness of microloans in local economies. This contradiction has led to more recent ethnographic work demonstrating the interaction of microloans with other forms of debt and credit in the social economy of borrowers. Building on this recent work, this article draws on ethnographic data from microloan borrowers in northern Honduras and the Bay Islands and contends that the activities associated with microlending participation and repayment may be understood as a form of productive, though hidden, labor. The article suggests further avenues of inquiry into the long‐term economic and cultural transformations that microlending has precipitated.

Entrepreneurial Finance and Innovation: Informal Debt as an Empirical Case

Research SummaryDrawing on entrepreneurial finance theory, we examine the trade‐offs among different sources of capital for entrepreneurial firms in emerging economies and their impact on innovation. In emerging economies, one of the unique aspects of firm financing is the presence of informal capital, as many formal sources of capital for new entrepreneurs have more constrained access than is the case in mature economies. We suspect that informal debt has an important effect on innovation, and this effect is contingent on the accessibility of formal debt and institutional development. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from 3,235 entrepreneurs in an emerging economy, China.Managerial SummaryThis study demonstrates an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the level of informal debt and entrepreneurial ventures’ innovation performance. The value of informal debt for promoting innovation was found to be weaker for firms having little or no access to often less expensive institutional finance, whereas a better‐developed institutional environment strengthens the effects of informal debt. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society.

Study of Buy and Sell Debt to Debt in Islamic Jurisprudence

One of the most common sales in business communications, especially the international ones is debt to debt sale. Despite prevalence of debt to debt in internal and international business communication and lack of certain legal text about its validity or invalidity, there is a question that whether this type of sale should be allowed or based on principles in constitutional, in the case of law silence we should refer to valid legal resources. Although according to jurists , debt to debt sale is completely invalid , there is no valid reason to invalidity of a sale in which the price and values are both in the form of debt , but according to documents of contract permission and origin of transactions validity , such trades could be considered correct and according to some hadith ..., of course in order to compensate the weakness of its document to evident act , dedicated invalidity just to its certain case which should be both sale and cost before contracting a debt . DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n3s3p396

Conradian Contracts: Exchange and Identity in the Immigrant Imagination by Tamas Juhasz

Reviewed by: Conradian Contracts: Exchange and Identity in the Immigrant Imagination by Tamas Juhasz Alex McCauley (bio) Tamas Juhasz. Conradian Contracts: Exchange and Identity in the Immigrant Imagination. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. 219 pp. ISBN: 9780739145531. The contract, in fantasy, is an agreement between two equal parties, drawn up without coercion and resulting in mutual benefit. Sailors unhappy with their working conditions can jump ship, and workers unhappy with their compensation can negotiate a better deal at the factory down the road. The contract, both in practice and in Joseph Conrad's fictions, is something much different—coerced, unequal, and rejected only at the cost of bodily ruin or social death. The sailor who jumps ship in the middle of the ocean can either sink to the bottom or be hounded across the world by the memory of that act. For Tamas Juhasz in Conradian Contracts, such debts are the engine of Conrad's narratives. It is important to Juhasz's work that contracts may be formal or informal, explicit or tacit agreements. They might be endorsed by two parties sitting across the table from each other but, more often, there is no founding document to return to, or to which the indebted party has recourse. Conrad's contracts are not on display here, either, and Juhasz, after the first page of the preface, looks only rarely to the details of Conrad's life, his finances, his obligations. Juhasz understands Conrad not in relation to print cultures but [End Page 86] instead through structural anthropology, primarily represented by Claude Levi-Strauss, and through Lacanian psychoanalysis. On one level, the book is about making distinctions—many of the readings rely, for instance, on the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real. But on a broader level, the book is interested in performing precisely the opposite gesture. Commerce collapses the difference between the home and the marketplace, Falk's cannibalism becomes a form of incest, and the various disciplinary apparatuses are employed to reveal, in Conrad's narratives, a fundamental sense of loss. "In the present study," writes Juhasz towards the end, "this has been called castration in the psychoanalytic sense, disembeddedness in the anthropological, displacement in the colonial, or merely unrelatedness in the Conradian terminology. As such a void becomes greater, the more eager and desperate the individual is to fill it" (203). While the book is structured as a series of readings, its primary interventions are more visible when looking between chapters, at these intersections, rather than at each one specifically. When the contract disappears as a document, it reappears in the form of speech. Juhasz insists that "some primordial social contract is inherent in basic instances of language use," and, in the context of Lord Jim, "Speech in the novel is in a condition of always belonging to another and always being affected by a number of real or imagined marketplaces" (76, 153). Here, there are a number of recurring concerns: what limits speech, what language is able to represent, who is able and allowed to speak, language as a form of debt or possession, and what makes language impossible. But the limits of language are not the limits of contract, exchange, and transaction, and what first appears as a problem of language becomes a problem of optics. Juhasz is concerned throughout with mirrors and doubling, duality (as in duels), and images that might be either external or part of some inner vision. "Looking," he writes, "or the experience of being looked at, may well be regarded as a most fundamental process of rewarding and punishing, accepting or rejecting" (144). Whether through language, or speech, or vision, the contract is a form of recognition, and the one who is not recognized cannot be part of the contract. This is not to say that Conrad's form of recognition is reciprocal. Indeed, the bind here for Juhasz is that desire for a unified self and for "unconditional reciprocity" is exactly what "characterizes the Imaginary, the Lacanian domain of deceptive coherence and autonomy" (16). There are no tools, it seems, to distinguish deceptive coherence from actual coherence—or even from incoherence. Conrad's narratives may be defined by a fundamental sense...

Assessing College Student Needs for Comprehensive Financial Counseling

To meet college student needs for financial counseling, it is important to assess why they seek counseling and the extent to which differing financial situations are tied to financial stress. This study examined these issues with a sample of 554 college students who participated in financial counseling and found financial problems in various situations were each linked to increased financial stress. Financial stress was positively associated with having student loans and other forms of debt and was higher for female students and lower for those having investments. From a needs assessment perspective, it is apparent that college students may be able to benefit more from comprehensive financial counseling than from financial advising that is tailored primarily to a single issue.