Hometown Investment Trust Research Articles

Social funding of green financing: An application of distributed ledger technologies

AbstractTechnical developments in the sphere of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) provide the opportunity to enhance existing tools of social funding. In a first step, we elaborate their application to the community‐based hometown investment trust (HIT) fund, which provides financing for small‐scale renewable energy projects. In a second step, we model the investment decision problem of households to illustrate through which channel the use of DLTs impacts the household's behaviour. Our model captures the return–risk trade‐off between two forms of investments for households with different risk preferences. It reveals that the use of DLTs can mitigate the associated risk of an investment in a HIT fund causing more risk‐averse households to change their investment behaviour. Although our theoretical analysis ascertains the potentials of DLTs to enhance social funding schemes, it also works out challenges for the establishment of DLT based funds.

Quality Infrastructure Investment: Ways to Increase the Rate of Return for Infrastructure Investments

High-quality infrastructure will boost regional economic development and reduce poverty and income inequality. The spill-over effects created by this high-quality infrastructure will be seen in the form of an increase in gross domestic product and tax revenue in the region. These positive effects can be utilized to address the gap between infrastructure demand and financing. Private-public partnerships (PPP) in infrastructure have been advocated for many years. However, PPP partners, such as insurance and pension funds, have been discouraged by the low rate of return from investing in quality infrastructure projects. This is because the main sources of revenue from infrastructure investment are user charges. This paper aims to provide a new mechanism for government and investors to utilize the spill-over effects of infrastructure projects and share them with infrastructure investors for a better rate of return in order to compensate their risk. This mechanism will motivate stakeholders to design infrastructure with high economic benefits and encourage instruments, such as city infrastructure concepts, hometown investment trusts, land trusts, and the improvement of education and digital literacy, to ensure the infrastructure projects will create positive spill-overs to the region. Hometown investment trust funds can provide financing for start-up businesses along with the new infrastructure investments. Land trusts will solve the issue of owners not wanting to sell their land by giving them the option to keep it and lease the land to infrastructure companies. The landowners can receive long-term rent income, for example for 99 years. In this way, land trusts will smooth the use of land and transfer the usage rights to infrastructure companies.

Combining environmental taxation, spill-over effects and community-based financing in development of renewable energy projects in Asia

Asian economies are often characterized as having bank-dominated financial systems and underdeveloped capital markets, in particular with regard to venture capital. In economies that banks are the main source of funding, the main obstacle for financing infrastructural projects including renewable energy (RE) projects is lack of access to long-term finance. The second obstacle for development of RE energy projects is their lower rate of return comparing to fossil fuel projects as more subsidies are globally going to fossil fuels. For larger RE projects insurance and pensions are sustainable financing alternatives. Pension funds and insurance companies hold long-term savings, so these institutions could be a proper alternative for financing mega-size RE projects. In addition, utilizing the spillover effects originally created by energy supplies in form of tax revenues refund to RE projects will increase their rate of return and make them interesting for private investors. For smaller-size RE projects, the paper provides a theoretical model for combining utilisation of carbon tax and a new way of financing risky capital, i.e., Hometown Investment Trust Funds (HITs). The paper theoretically shows that by environmental taxation and allocating these tax revenues to HITs, RE projects will become more feasible and more interesting for private investors; hence the supply of investment money to these funds will increase.

Impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster on the Oil-Consuming Sectors of Japan

ABSTRACTThis research sheds light on the elasticity of oil consumption of Japan’s various economic sectors and the crude oil price before and after the Fukushima disaster. To do so, the study applies a cointegration analysis and performs a vector error correction (VEC) variance decomposition by using quarterly data from Q1 1981 to Q4 2010 and from Q1 2011 to Q4 2015. The findings reveal that the absolute value of elasticities of oil consumption by some economic sectors reduced after this disaster because of increased dependency on oil consumption, which endangered energy security in the country. To raise energy self-dependency and energy security, Japan needs to diversify its energy supplies. Because renewable energy projects are mainly considered risky by banks and banks are reluctant to finance them, the paper introduces an innovative form of financing these projects: Hometown Investment Trust Funds, which was introduced and applied in Japan and in some other parts of Asia.

Analytical framework on credit risks for financing small and medium-sized enterprises in Asia

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for the major share of employment and dominate the Asian economies. These economies are often characterized as having bank-dominated financial systems and underdeveloped capital markets, in particular venture capital. Hence, offering new methods for financing SMEs is crucial. Hometown investment trust funds are a form of financial intermediation that was started recently and has since been adopted as a national strategy in Japan. In the present paper, the authors explain the importance of SMEs in Asia and describe hometown investment trust funds. They then provide a scheme for credit rating of SMEs, employing two statistical analysis techniques, principal component analysis and cluster analysis to analyse the credit risks of a sample of Asian SMEs by using their financial variables. This comprehensive and efficient method would enable banks, to group their SME customers based on their financial health, adjust interest rates on loans and set lending ceilings for each group. Moreover, this method is applicable to hometown investment trust funds around the world.

Three Arrows of 'Abenomics' and the Structural Reform of Japan: Inflation Targeting Policy of the Central Bank, Fiscal Consolidation, and Growth Strategy

“Abenomics” refers to the economic policies advocated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who became prime minister of Japan for a second time when his party, the Liberal Democratic Party, won an overwhelming majority at the general election in December 2012. Abenomics has “three arrows”: (i) aggressive monetary policy, (ii) fiscal consolidation, and (iii) growth strategy. The Japanese economy faces an aging population and expanding social welfare expenses. No other country has experienced Japan’s rapid growth of retired people. In this paper we will explain these three aspects of Abenomics and the current state of the Japanese economy, and examine what further remedies may be required if Japan is to recover from its long-term deflation. We look at such proposals as hometown investment trust funds and postponing of the retirement age through the introduction of a flexible wage rate system.

Hometown Investment Trust Funds: An Analysis of Credit Risk

In Asia, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a major share of employment and dominate the economy. Asian economies are often characterized as having bank-dominated financial systems and underdeveloped capital markets, in particular venture capital markets. Hence, looking for new methods of financing for SMEs is crucial. Hometown investment trust funds (HIT) are a new form of financial intermediation that has now been adopted as a national strategy in Japan. In this paper, we explain the importance of SMEs in Asia and describe about HITs. We then provide a scheme for the credit rating of SMEs by employing two statistical analysis techniques, principal components analysis and cluster analysis, and applying various financial variables to 1,363 SMEs in Asia. Adoption of this comprehensive and efficient method would enable banks to group SME customers based on financial health, adjust interest rates on loans, and set lending ceilings for each group. Moreover, this method is applicable to HITs around the world.

An Analysis of Challenges Faced by Japan’s Economy and Abenomics

:“Abenomics” refers to the economic policies advocated by Shinzo Abe, who became prime minister of Japan for a second time when his Liberal Democratic Party won an overwhelming majority in the general election in December 2012. Abenomics is distinguished by a set of policies comprising “three arrows”: (1) aggressive monetary policy, (2) fiscal consolidation, and (3) a growth strategy. The Japanese economy faces an aging population and increasing social welfare expenses. No other country has experienced such rapid growth of the number of retired people. In this article we will explain all three aspects of Abenomics, examine the current state of the Japanese economy, and explore what further remedies may be required if Japan is to recover from its long-term deflation. We will look at such proposals as hometown investment trust funds, postponement of the retirement age by introducing a flexible wage rate system, and changing the pension system to 401(k) style instruments.