Implementation Deficit Research Articles

Actors’ interaction, process management and complex decision-making in public-private partnership

Government of Bangladesh has been encouraging Public-Private Partnership (PPP) since 1990s for engaging private investment in infrastructure development and service delivery. However, in implementing PPP policy in Bangladesh, it has been observed that performance in one PPP differs from another PPP. Considering it as policy implementation deficit, this study looks policy performance through the lens of actors’ interaction, process management and complex decision-making perspective with the following research question: How far actors’ interaction, consensus building and complex decision making in PPP policy implementation can explain policy performance? The question is answered following network management and complex decision-making theoretical approach. Qualitative research method and case study strategy with two cases is considered for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 key respondents. For analyzing case study data, within-case analysis and cross-case synthesis have been adopted. The findings uphold the view that at implementation phase, actors’ willingness to compromise, issue solving, resolving dispute, positive decision and positive attitude towards PPP, are vital for actors’ satisfaction. Therefore, study findings contribute to knowledge by confirming network management and complex decision making as useful in explaining PPP policy performance in Bangladesh.

Institutional Order Handling and Broker-Affiliated Trading Venues

Abstract Using detailed order handling data, we find that institutional brokers who route more orders to affiliated alternative trading systems (ATSs) are associated with lower execution quality (i.e., lower fill rates and higher implementation shortfall costs). To separate clients’ preference for ATSs from brokers’ routing decisions, we confirm these results for orders where brokers have more order handling discretion, matched broker analysis that accounts for ATS usage, matched child orders that account for client intent, and based on an exogenous constraint on ATS venue choice. Our results suggest that increased transparency of order routing practices will improve execution quality.

The Role of Leadership in Policy Implementation: The Case of Selected Federal Public Institutions in Ethiopia

Scholars believe that there is nothing more omnipresent than public policies in our daily lives, where we are directly or indirectly affected by policy decisions. This leads to the view that almost every aspect of our life is directly regulated through policy decisions, some of which we are often unaware of. Hence, nobody can escape the consequences of public policies wherever they live, in their own country, or elsewhere. In the implementation equation, the role of leadership is considered critical and irreplaceable. But more often than not, such role is either forgotten or mixed up with other stakeholders. The objective of this study is to find out the role of leadership in policy implementation in selected federal public institutions in Ethiopia and come up with possible way- forward suggestions for policymakers. The study used a descriptive-explanatory design with combined research approaches. The findings show that leadership role in policy implementation is decisive and incontestable, while their commitment is not found to the level expected; accountability for implementation deficit is either little or non-existent. Underlying causes were ascribed to lack of meritocracy in leadership recruitment and promotion, absence of spelt-out accountability code of conduct, continuous leadership turnover, and disempowerment of the bureaucracy by the political institution in place. In response, it is recommended that a continuous capacity building plan be executed to raise leaders’ knowledge, skills and commitment; apply a merit-based leadership assignment through performance-based evaluation; install accountability code of conduct in public institutions; maintain institutional memory and policy stability by reducing leadership turnover; and relax the decision power of the bureaucracy, particularly at policy implementation side of the scale.

Optimizing Alpha through Better Information Workflows

This study demonstrates how investment managers can identify and resolve suboptimal operational workflows that diminish an investment strategy’s attainable alpha on the order of 24-242 basis points (annualized, gross of fees). A portfolio’s potential alpha can be best realized by addressing these portfolio implementation shortfalls through systematic improvements in the data schemas that drive the information exchanges among parties regarding transactions, holdings, and valuations. Using graph modelling techniques, we identify and resolve information workflow inefficiencies that occur both within and external to the investment firm. TOPICS:Portfolio management, portfolio construction, equity portfolio management, fixed-income portfolio management, quantitative methods, statistical methods Key Findings ▪ For portfolio managers, implementation shortfalls stemming from suboptimal information workflows can be systematically mitigated to maximize the expression of alpha inherent in an investment strategy. ▪ For operational managers, re-aligning investment operations workflows to deliver differentiated support across individual strategies can significantly improve portfolio performance. ▪ For data scientists, graph models provide fresh evidence of the quantifiable impacts of data interoperability and information parity on the efficiency of enterprise information flows.

The Effect of Free Senior High School Policy on the Lives of Parents and Wards in Ghana

The free senior high school policy is one of best social and economic intervention policies that openly affect both parents and students of senior high schools. Parents and guardians especially, have been left off the hook of their economic and financial burden. This study therefore looks at the effect of introducing the free senior high school policy on the economic and social lives of parents and students respectively. Data were obtained from three hundred and thirty six (336) participants. A correlational cross-sectional descriptive design was used. Questionnaires were administered onto parents of wards in three senior high schools in the North East and Upper East Regions of Ghana. The study finds the introduction of the free senior high school policy as a relief to the financial burden of parents, especially guardians from rural and peri-rural settlements. Not just that, a few other public members who are fortunate, can now keep body and soul together through employment creation. Challengingly enough, there was a lack of adequate stakeholder consultation, hence saddled with implementation shortfalls. Delay in the disbursement of funds for feeding and learning materials presented yet another problem. It is important that governments find sustainable sources of funding the educational system and also ensure the double-track system is regularised into a single-track by expanding academic facilities and employing additional skilled and unskilled labour.

Investors' Trading, Market Timing, and Implementation Shortfall: Evidence from the US Financial Market

In this research, we evaluate the US investors' trading pattern and choice of market timing in the presence of implementation shortfall. Results show that when investors decide to trade, implementation shortfall is being ignored. It is observed that stock performance on Wednesday is positive in the presence of positive and significant implementation shortfall i.e., traders do not seem to manage implementation shortfall during trading on Wednesday. It is also observed that investors seem to ignore the implementation shortfall in April. This behavior seems to persist in other types of market times such as turn-of-the-month, week-of-the-month, and quarter-of-the-year effects on implementation shortfall. We conclude that investors behave aggressively to buy stocks during certain days and times of the year ignoring implementation shortfall.

Slow-moving capital and execution costs: Evidence from a major trading glitch

We investigate the impact of an exogenous trading glitch at a high-frequency market-making firm on standard measures of stock liquidity (spreads, price impact, turnover, and depth) and institutional trading costs (implementation shortfall and volume-weighted average price slippage). Stocks in which the firm accumulates large long (short) positions increase (decrease) by about 4% during the glitch and become substantially more illiquid. It takes one day for prices and spread-based liquidity measures to revert. Institutional trading costs, however, remain significantly higher for more than one week. Both liquidity measures are also weakly correlated outside the glitch period, suggesting they capture different aspects of liquidity.

Metropolitan tier of government to facilitate a bottom-up two-tier metropolitan governance model in Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT This article compares government tiers, governance models, and strategic planning policies applying to metropolitan Vancouver and Melbourne. The method of comparison was chosen to reveal gaps in policies to assess the potential for improving the governance model for metropolitan Melbourne. The regional or metropolitan tier of government is absent in Australia. This deficit causes the absence of institutional frameworks and policy delivery tools at the metropolitan level – the metropolitan governance deficit. The establishing of the additional fourth tier of government could be effective to address the implementation deficit in Melbourne. This paper reviews the bottom-up two-tier metropolitan governance model and how it could impact positively on the infrastructure delivery using the Strategic Plan as a planning tool.

Greater Zurich does not use land parsimoniously: despite the spatial planning act, which has been in force since 1980

ABSTRACT An overconsumption of land for building and urban use has resulted from rising incomes, falling transport costs, separating urban land use, restricting building heights and densities, and the lack of internalizing negative externalities. This paper empirically analyses whether land in Greater Zurich is used parsimoniously. Furthermore, it proposes changes in planning and policy that would be necessary to overcome the implementation deficit of the federal Spatial Planning Act (RPG). The analysis measures the distribution and mix of residents, workers, and retail workers and the change in land use. It also examines the relationship between public transport and building zones. Consequently, although intensification in residents has occurred since 1990 and workers since 1995/96, the distribution of residents and workers at central locations indicates that land in 2014 is used neither sufficiently intensively nor in a balanced way. Therefore, in Greater Zurich, price-based regulations need to supplement the current purely quantity-based regulations.

Policy instruments for environmental public goods: Interdependencies and hybridity

The mixture of public goods that arise from rural land is shaped by multiple policy instruments, such as regulations and economic incentives. Whilst there is a vast literature focusing on categories of policy instruments, there remains the need for a deeper exploration of the interaction between these instruments and the consequences for managing public goods in agricultural and/or forested landscapes. Therefore, we explore how policy instruments influence the mix of public goods provided by Scottish agricultural and forested areas, drawing on desk based and empirical research. Our data suggest that whilst environmental policy instruments in Scotland are designed to coordinate – i.e. not to conflict – with each other, the design and implementation of instruments often go beyond this. We find that many instruments are hybrid and/or rely on interactions with other instrument types (interdependency) to achieve their objectives. This seems well understood by those involved in the implementation of policy instruments. In light of these results, we argue that the literature about types of policy instruments must evolve to explicitly acknowledge interdependency and hybridity: these concepts can become starting points for understanding how public goods can be governed in a more systemic way. Our work also draws attention to the need to study policy instruments ‘on the ground’ in order to understand their role and use in the wider debates about new environmental governance. Finally, while the idea of interdependency and hybridity brings challenges and even resistance by some who design policy, it may also help to overcome the existing policy implementation deficit between the aims and achievements of environmental policies.

Research on the Effects of Institutional Liquidation Strategies on the Market Based on Multi-agent Model

Based on the multi-agent model, an artificial stock market with four types of traders is constructed. On this basis, this paper focuses on comparing the effects of liquidation behavior on market liquidity, volatility, price discovery efficiency and long memory of absolute returns when the institutional trader adopts equal-order strategy, Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) strategy and Implementation Shortfall (IS) strategy respectively. The results show the following: (1) the artificial stock market based on multi-agent model can reproduce the stylized facts of real stock market well; (2) among these three algorithmic trading strategies, IS strategy causes the longest liquidation time and the lowest liquidation cost; (3) the liquidation behavior of institutional trader will significantly reduce market liquidity, price discovery efficiency and long memory of absolute returns, and increase market volatility; (4) in comparison, IS strategy has the least impact on market liquidity, volatility and price discovery efficiency, while VWAP strategy has the least impact on long memory of absolute returns.

Order Splitting and Searching for a Counterparty

Institutional investors have a strong incentive to find natural counterparties to be able to trade larger amounts at lower costs. We show theoretically that order splitting allows institutional investors to gradually detect each other's trading intentions, such that they can coordinate their trading to maximize gains from trade. Empirically, we confirm that investors detect counterparties in real-time and adjust their trading rate accordingly. The economic magnitudes are sizeable, as a one-standard deviation increase in natural counterparty trading volume correlates with a 16.9% increase in parent order size and a 91% reduction in average implementation shortfall.

Is the Whole Greater than the Sum of its Parts? Strengthening Caribbean Regional Integration

Deeper economic integration within the Caribbean has been a regional policy priority since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the decision to create the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). Implementation of integration initiatives has, however, been slow, despite the stated commitment of political leaders. The “implementation deficit” has led to skepticism about completing the CSME and controversy regarding its benefits. This paper analyzes how Caribbean integration has evolved, discusses the obstacles to progress, and explores the potential benefits from greater integration. It argues that further economic integration through liberalization of trade and labor mobility can generate significant macroeconomic benefits, but slow progress in completing the institutional arrangements has hindered implementation of the essential components of the CSME and progress in economic integration. Advancing institutional integration through harmonization and rationalization of key institutions and processes can reduce the fixed costs of institutions, providing the needed scale and boost to regional integration. Greater cooperation in several functional policy areas where the region is facing common challenges can also provide low-hanging fruit, creating momentum toward full integration as the Community continues to address the obstacles to full economic integration.

Informed Trading, Limit Order Book and Implementation Shortfall: Equilibrium and Asymptotics

We propose a static equilibrium model for limit order book where $N\geq 1$ profit-maximizing investors receive an information signal regarding the liquidation value of the asset and execute via a competitive dealer with random initial inventory. While the dealer's initial position plays a role similar to noise traders in Kyle, he trades against a competitive limit order book populated by liquidity suppliers as in Glosten. We show that an equilibrium exists for bounded signal distributions, obtain closed form solutions for Bernoulli-type signals and propose a straightforward iterative algorithm to compute the equilibrium order book for the general case. We obtain the exact analytic asymptotics for the market impact of large trades and show that the functional form depends on the tail distribution of the private signal of the insiders. In particular, the impact follows a power law if the signal has fat tails while the law is logarithmic in case of lighter tails. Moreover, the tail distribution of the trade volume in equilibrium obeys a power law in our model. We find that the liquidity suppliers charge a minimum bid-ask spread that is independent of the amount of `noise' trading but increasing in the degree of informational advantage of insiders in equilibrium. The model also predicts that the order book flattens as the amount of noise trading increases converging to a model with proportional transactions costs. In case of a monopolistic insider we show that the last slice traded against the limit order book is priced at the liquidation value of the asset. However, competition among the insiders leads to aggressive trading causing the aggregate profit to vanish in the limiting case N → ∞. The numerical results also show that the spread increases with the number of insiders keeping the other parameters fixed. Finally, an equilibrium may not exist if the liquidation value is unbounded. We conjecture that existence of equilibrium requires a sufficient amount of competition among insiders if the signal distribution exhibit fat tails.

Is the Whole Greater than the Sum of its Parts? Strengthening Caribbean Regional Integration

Deeper economic integration within the Caribbean has been a regional policy priority since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the decision to create the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). Implementation of integration initiatives has, however, been slow, despite the stated commitment of political leaders. The “implementation deficit” has led to skepticism about completing the CSME and controversy regarding its benefits. This paper analyzes how Caribbean integration has evolved, discusses the obstacles to progress, and explores the potential benefits from greater integration. It argues that further economic integration through liberalization of trade and labor mobility can generate significant macroeconomic benefits, but slow progress in completing the institutional arrangements has hindered implementation of the essential components of the CSME and progress in economic integration. Advancing institutional integration through harmonization and rationalization of key institutions and processes can reduce the fixed costs of institutions, providing the needed scale and boost to regional integration. Greater cooperation in several functional policy areas where the region is facing common challenges can also provide low-hanging fruit, creating momentum toward full integration as the Community continues to address the obstacles to full economic integration.

Universal healthcare coverage and medical tourism: Challenges and best practice options to access quality healthcare and reduce outward medical tourism in Nigeria

Background: Universal healthcare coverage (UHC) leads to access to quality healthcare. Improved quality healthcare can stem outward medical tourism (MT). This review examined challenges and best practice policy options to implement UHC and how it can reduce outward MT in Nigeria. Methodology: The designed search terms used were “universal health coverage,” “quality healthcare” “medical tourism,” “access to healthcare,” “primary health care,” “healthcare financing,” “private health insurance,” “social health insurance,” and “Nigeria healthcare system.” Peer-reviewed research articles and institutional reports published between January 2000 and March 2020 were searched using four databases: PubMed, National Library of Medicine, Web of Science, and Library of Congress. EndNote X9 software and Google search engine were used to access these databases and documents, and 124 publications were retrieved and 106 were reviewed. Results: Majority of publications reviewed emphasized building health infrastructure, developing skills and human resources for health, and funding for equipment and drugs. Expanding healthcare coverage through social health insurance, developing a financial system to protect the poor, access to quality healthcare, and reinvigoration of primary healthcare (PHC) were common themes. About 50% of the studies identified unavailability of quality healthcare services, inequalities in the supply side of healthcare services, issue of human resources, and health sector implementation shortfall as challenges to UHC. Another 50% of the studies reviewed identified poverty and poorly funded PHC as a barrier to UHC. Almost all the studies (100%) identified cost-effectiveness, safety, and quality of healthcare services as drivers of MT in all countries. Conclusion: Improving the quality of healthcare delivery, increasing accessibility, affordability, and timeliness of access by the population through UHC can stem MT.

Regional Impact of the German Rent Brake

Abstract New rental contracts have risen dramatically in many German places in recent years due to strong influxes and sluggish construction activity. The rent brake should put a stop to this development so that housing in prospering cities remains affordable for people on normal and low incomes. Although initial successes were attested to the rent brake, empirical findings are increasing, according to which the rent brake is not having the desired effect. This also applies to the findings determined here: the results of a difference-in-difference estimation show that the rent brake has reduced rents on offer in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich by up to 5%, while no effects are observed in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Nevertheless, the effects are lagging behind the expected effects almost everywhere. The results illustrate once again an implementation deficit and show that no general statements on the effectiveness of the rent brake are currently permissible. However, the rent brake is certainly having a price effect in some regions, even if not to the intended extent.

Market or limit orders?

In this paper we investigate the problem of optimal order placement of an asset listed on an exchange using both market and limit orders in a simple model of market dynamics. We seek to understand under which settings it is optimal to place limit or market orders. Limit orders typically lower transaction costs but increase the risk of incomplete order execution, whereas market orders typically have higher transaction costs but are guaranteed to be executed. Rather than considering order book dynamics to determine if a limit order is executed we rely on price dynamics for this. We look at implementation shortfall in this setup with market impact of trading and propose a dynamic program to find the optimal placement of both market and limit orders for risk-neutral and risk-averse traders. With this we find a bound on the expected cost of trading and show that a trader who behaves optimally should always expect to pay less to trade less. We then solve the dynamic program numerically and examine optimal order placement strategies. We find that the decision between market and limit orders is sensitive to price volatility, risk aversion, and trading costs.

The governance of climate change adaptation: are networks to blame for the implementation deficit?

ABSTRACTAlthough governance is often cited as a challenge for implementing climate change adaptation policies, existing scholarship has not adequately explored the relationship between modes of adaptation governance and the implementation of adaptation objectives. This paper analyzes adaptation governance in two Canadian provinces, with a focus on three key elements: actor roles, actor relations, and policy instruments. Drawing on a comprehensive document analysis and 81 interviews, we argue that network governance has been fruitful in coordinating policy ideas and motivating actors across sectors and scales, but has also served as a barrier to effective implementation of adaptation policies. We conclude that incorporating features of other governance modes, including more direct steering from the state, is required to resolve this implementation deficit.

Computation of Implementation Shortfall for Algorithmic Trading by Sequence Alignment

Implementation shortfall measures the difference in performance between paper portfolio and real portfolio. It is decomposed as the sum of execution cost and opportunity cost. The authors show that the original framework is not directly applicable to algorithmic trading and propose a new framework to compute implementation shortfall and its decomposition. They use an efficient algorithm inspired by DNA sequence alignment techniques to align the trade records from both portfolios and then compute the implementation shortfall with a breakdown of execution cost and opportunity cost for diagnosis. Their framework is simple, objective, and computationally efficient—the complexity only grows linearly with respect to the numbers of trades of paper and real portfolios. Thus, the framework proposed in this article is applicable to high-frequency trading data. <b>TOPICS:</b>Portfolio construction, big data, performance measurement