Wealth Research Articles

Inland Bills of Exchange: Private Money Production without Banks+

I study a sample of 482 English inland bills of exchange (where all parties to the bill were in England) during the period 1762-1850. Inland bills were used as a medium of exchange during the Industrial Revolution in the north of England. During this period, they circulated via indorsements, committing each indorser's personal wealth to back the bill. The number of endorsements is a measure of the liquidity/velocity of the bills. I ask what bill characteristics are associated with greater velocity. I also investigate whether bills backed by banks and others backed only by the joint liability of indorsers had different velocities. Bank-backed bills were more liquid than nonbank-backed bills, consistent with the Dang, Gorton, and Holmström (2018) (DGH) theory that the optimal design of private money is debt backed by debt.

Contribution of Microfinance Institutions Towards Wealth Creation in Rwanda: The Case Study of Kagarama Umurenge Sacco in Kicukiro District

Contribution of Microfinance Institutions Towards Wealth Creation in Rwanda: The Case Study of Kagarama Umurenge Sacco in Kicukiro District

Securitization Enhancing Liquidity in Kenya

Purpose: This paper aims to explain the benefits of securitization in Kenya’s economy that is to both the government, the private sector, and the Kenya capital market. The paper provides a road map on how the government and private sector can diversify their funding sources, lower borrowing costs, improve liquidity, and transfer risk. It will help offer clear policy direction to government policymakers in efforts geared towards the introduction of asset securitization in the country which will increase liquidity, economic growth, and expansion of capital in the country. The regulator of the financial market Capital Market Authority (CMA) will therefore formulate guidelines and regulatory requirements that can enhance the performance of the securitization industry. The paper will also be useful to corporate strategists of companies as they seek to optimize return considerations in driving shareholder wealth margins. The paper is expected to motivate and be a key reference for future research work in the securitization industry in Kenya. Securitization is one of the innovative products that may be used by government and private firms and investors to increase wealth.
 Methodology: The study adopted a desktop methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library
 Findings: Securitization will bring benefits in terms of growth in the economy and expansion of capital markets and hence wealth creation. Securitization involves the conversion of a pool of assets with a regular and predictable cash income such as mortgage repayments receivables, and credit card receivables e,t,c into a security or marketable instrument that allows the institution to transact a large number of its assets, which would otherwise not be attractive as individual. The originator who will be the financial institution or the government then creates a legal entity known as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). The special purpose vehicle may be in the form of a Limited Liability Company, a trust, a partnership, or even a subsidiary of the Originator. These selected receivables are then transferred to the special purpose vehicle which then becomes the owner of these receivables. The securities to be issued by the special purpose vehicle are usually rated by a rating agency. This is due to the fact that such instruments are unsecured, which will require that investors are protected.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Profit maximising theory and theory of innovation can be used to anchor future studies on securitization enhancing liquidity. If the Government or the financial institution wants to issue 'AAA' rated asset-backed securities or mortgage-backed securities, collateralized mortgage securities, or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)then they must choose first-class loans not prone to prepayment and default risk where originators conduct their own rating, they select all the best asset bundles for investment. In order to get a favorable rating, the special purpose vehicles can provide credit enhancement to the securities.

Extra‐terrestrial resources: A potential solution for securing the supply of rare metals for the coming decades?

The forthcoming energy transition driven by the need to reduce CO2 emissions requires large amounts of critical elements to construct renewable energy devices such as car batteries, wind turbines and solar panels. For many elements such as Li, Co, REEs and Ti, the production sources are located in countries with poor social and environmental standards, prone to political destabilization such as military conflicts, or vulnerable to strained relationships with consumer countries. Lately, the volatile geopolitical context has further demonstrated the high dependency of Europe and other developed countries in terms of raw material supply. In addition, there is a debate about the Earth's potential to sustain the transition toward a green society by using conventional resources from mining of terrestrial rocks. As nature conservation and climate mitigation are now priorities for the majority of governments, and since conventional mining on Earth suffers from a growing social resistance, humankind may need to look toward new frontier resources for supplying the mineral needs of the coming decades. Here, we explore the use of extra‐terrestrial resources as a potential source to feed the future supply of critical metals. Extra‐terrestrial mining may be an opportunity for wealth creation and an option for critical metal resource supply when mining on Earth becomes increasingly untenable. We conclude that the potential impacts of extraction and exploitation of space resources, both good and bad, could be societally profound.

Understanding The Phenomenon of Fake Crazy Rich and Fraudulent Investment in Indonesia from the Philosophy of Happiness in Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Sufism

The phenomenon of crazy rich as one of modern materialism and hedonism have poisoned the life of Indonesian’s younger generation in the current millennial era. They have been eroded by worldly pleasures. Tempted by the glamorous and luxurious lifestyle of crazy rich people, they were willing to flaunt the wealth of property that was not yet theirs. Many people have fallen victim to their fraudulent investments in Indonesia. They did it to being able to deceive many people for investing their money in their fraudulent investment businesses. Those who cheated or were cheated have actually been deceived by worldly pleasures. What they got were not real happiness, but fake happiness and even the misery and humiliation of life. This phenomenon is interesting to read from the perspective of Inayat Khan’s philosophy of happiness in his Sufism. Inayat Khan differentiates happiness from pleasure. The first term refers to a true happiness, while the second one refers to a pseudo happiness. The relationship between pleasure and happiness is that of falsehood and trueness. His conception is relevant to be used as a theoretical framework to analyse the phenomenon of fake crazy rich and fraud investment in Indonesia. The phenomenon shows the preference of young Indonesians to pursue the material and physical wealth as a measure of a successful life by all means, both good and bad. This, from the viewpoint of Inayat Khan’s philosophy of happiness, is a false fulfilment of life satisfaction.

Association of Personal Wealth Indicators and Health Care Costs in Persons With Alzheimer's Disease

ObjectivesThere is paucity of studies on the relationship between personal wealth and health care costs among persons with dementia, and earlier studies on other indicators of socioeconomic position have assessed costs after dementia diagnosis only. We investigated how different indicators of personal wealth (disposable income, supplementary income, assets subject to taxation, taxes and tax-like payments, and liabilities) are associated with health care costs in persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) before and after AD diagnosis. DesignRegister-based nationwide cohort study of persons with AD. Setting and ParticipantsCohort of 70,531 people who received a clinically verified AD diagnosis in Finland between 2005 and 2011 and were community-dwelling at time of diagnosis. MethodsData on income indicators were obtained from Statistics Finland. Data on medication costs and hospital care costs for the 12-month period from 5 years before to 2 years after AD diagnosis were obtained from national registers. Associations of wealth indicators with costs were investigated with multivariate mixed-effect negative binomial regression. ResultsAfter adjustment for age, region, sex, marital status, comorbidities, expensive medications, use of psychotropic and antidementia medication, and highest occupational class before AD, people with higher levels of personal wealth indicators were more likely to have higher total health care costs along the whole follow-up period. The incidence rate ratios (IRRs), 95% CI for highest quintile vs lowest quintile were 1.17, 1.15−1.19 for disposable income, 1.10, 1.08−1.12 for taxable income, 1.18, 1.16−1.19 for supplementary income, 1.07, 1.06−1.09 for taxes, and 1.05, 1.04−1.07 for taxable wealth. Conclusions and ImplicationsOur observation on the association between income/wealth indicators and health care costs in a country with a strong public health care system call for more effective measures in targeting health inequalities in the aging population. Although the different indicators were not completely interchangeable, associations of different indicators were toward the same direction.

The urban burden of disease estimation for policy-making in 1000 European cities

Abstract In Europe, over 70% of the population lives in urban areas. Cities promote innovation and wealth creation; however, they are also a main source of pollution, disease and mortality, to some extent linked with suboptimal urban and transport planning practices. The aim of the project is to improve the estimation of health impacts and socioeconomic costs of environmental stressors related to urban and transport planning, advance modelling approaches and strengthen evidence-based policy-making. The analyses focus on air pollution, noise, temperature/heat and lack of green spaces for nearly 1000 European cities. We are (1) developing an overall urban burden of disease impact assessment framework; (2) identifying health and wellbeing indicators; (3) obtaining exposure-response relationships for environmental stressors and health outcomes of interest; (4) developing tools and guidelines for cost-benefit analyses; (5) obtaining health and environmental stressors data for cities for 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2024 and (6) calculating health and socioeconomic impacts and monitor trends. Specific urban and transport planning scenarios will be developed for case-studies cities (Barcelona, Brussels, Manchester, Munich, Utrecht, Sofia, Warsaw and Zagreb) and include additional aspects such as mobility, physical activity and inequities. The science-to-policy translation is a strong component of this research project where we are conducting consultation with and providing knowledge translation to cities and stakeholders, and sharing good practices, for greater science-policy impact. We strive to make the change on city-level policy and action plans, as well as on national and EU level policy making. By improving health impact and socioeconomic costs estimations and engaging with stakeholders we expect to generate impact and promote healthier urban and transport planning practices in European cities.

Disability benefits protect against lost income for South Africans living with Schizophrenia

Little is known about the economic impact of disability grants for people living with schizophrenia in low- and middle- income countries. In this brief report, we show that receipt of disability benefits is significantly associated (β = 0.105, p < 0.0001) with increased household and personal wealth in large sample of people living with schizophrenia in South Africa (n = 1154). This study provides further support for the use of disability grants as a mechanism to protect people living with schizophrenia and their families against the economic costs associated with schizophrenia.

LABOR in the Paradigm of the Values of European and Asian Peoples: on the Basis of Russian, French and Kalmyk Proverbs

The paremiological fund of language either explicitly or implicitly expresses information about the value system of the people. The study is devoted to the description of labor as a value of European and Asian peoples on the basis of paremiological material. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that, proceeding from the analysis of authentic dictionaries of proverbs, the main semantic dominants of Russian, French and Kalmyk proverbs about labor were identified, as well as linguistic means of representing this value, due to both - universal features and the specifics of the studied linguistic cultures. Through a continuous selection of published and handwritten paremiographic sources, the author’s card file was compiled, numbering about 1000 items. The most representative examples served as illustrative material for the study, in the description of which the descriptive-analytical method was used, as well as the linguo-axiological and linguo-culturological methods which have received theoretical justification in recent years. Comparative analysis showed that in the three linguistic cultures a positive attitude towards labor dominates, which is a value opposed to laziness and idleness, which act as anti-values in proverbs. The following were established as the main axiological dominants: the connection between work and life in abundance, the need for effort and effort in work, the assessment of labor activity based on its results. An important function belongs to the components of proverbs related to labor (names of professions and occupations, attributes of labor that have certain symbols), through images, models of human behavior are transmitted. The mentioning of these components is associated with the development of various types of labor activity that were developed during the creation of proverbs. In French proverbs, the emphasis is made on the fact that labor is a value bringing material wealth, they value individual labor, and not the collective one, which is associated with the orientation of European French culture, belonging to the individualist type, being not at all the characteristic of the Eurasian Russian and Asian Kalmyk cultures. Among the axiological markers, the means of different language levels were singled out: a special rhythmic organization of the text; lexemes with evaluative semantics; the reception of repetition and the use of contrast, which allows, in particular, to express scenarios of behavior through anti-scripts, specific grammatical constructions. In Russian proverbs, proper nouns with the suffix of subjective evaluation -к- can be attributed to the means of expressing evaluation; in French and Kalmyk material, such axiological markers are absent, due to the typological features of the languages under consideration.

The effect of financial literacy on long-term recognition and short-term trade in mutual funds: Evidence from Japan

We explore how financial literacy affects mutual fund investments through unique survey data from a broad spectrum of Japanese households. Our evidence reveals the dual effects of literacy on investments over long and short horizons. While the acquisition of financial knowledge promotes long-term investment in mutual funds, it also has the side effect of encouraging short-term investment. Specifically, people with high financial literacy share a fundamental recognition that mutual funds are suitable for long-term wealth creation. However, highly literate people intend to sell mutual funds immediately after short-term price appreciation, which could lead to frequent trading turnover. This is consistent with the knowledge bias effect whereby knowledgeable people falsely react to information, contrary to long-term investments.

Board Composition, Audit Committee and Financial Performance of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

Efficient and effective board and audit committee in a company plays the role of ensuring the company performs very well in order to maximise the wealth of shareholders. This study therefore attempts to unearth the relationship between board composition, audit committee, and financial performance. ROA and EPS were used to proxy financial performance. The study used already existing (secondary) data from 2010 to 2019, hence the choice of the ex post facto design. Eight banks were selected and analysis was made on the data collected using correlation (Pearson). The study found insignificant relationship of 0.070 and 0.069 between board composition and ROA as well as EPS. While the correlation was negative and very weak between board composition and ROA, it was positive though still very weak with EPS. Also, the result unveils an insignificant relationship of 0.288 and 0.641 between audit committee and ROA as well as EPS with very week positive correlation with both. Recommendations made were that composition of the board should comprise of few members in order to increase effectiveness, efficiency and full participation that is sufficient to actualize the aim of wealth creation; board should wake up to their responsibility and strive to increase earnings by pursuing objectives and taking decisions targeted at enhancing the earnings; audit committee should be embraced, strengthened, meet frequently to check compliance and also ensure they improve their monitoring capacity; and audit committee independence level should be increased, believing that this will ensure better objectivity, transparency and monitoring for better financial performance. The study came to a conclusion and agreed to the various scholars that found a mixed relationship and correlation between board composition, audit committee and financial performance.

Family businesses and strategic change: the role of family ownership

In this study, we analyze how the performance-aspiration gap influences strategic change in family firms, providing evidence of the moderating role of family ownership in this relationship. According to socioemotional wealth (SEW) theory, family owners pursue non-financial as well as financial goals, are more risk-averse due to their personal wealth being tied to the firm, and seek to maintain control of the firm to preserve and build their SEW—all characteristics that influence their strategic behavior. We therefore suggest that strategic decisions in family-owned firms are less influenced by purely economic performance, and that such firms tend to persevere more strongly in their strategic direction. We test our hypotheses on a sample of publicly listed European firms between 2007 and 2016. Our findings confirm that the success of firms inhibits strategic change, and that family ownership moderates this relationship by making the overall effect smaller, indicating greater resistance to change despite economic pitfalls.

Ontogenetic variation in the cranium of Mixosaurus cornalianus, with implications for the evolution of ichthyosaurian cranial development

Relatively complete ontogenetic series are comparatively rare in the vertebrate fossil record. This can create biases in our understanding of morphology and evolution, since immaturity can represent a source of unrecognized intraspecific variation in both skeletal anatomy and ecology. In the extinct marine reptile clade Ichthyopterygia, ontogenetic series were widely studied only in some Jurassic genera, while the ontogeny of the oldest and most basal members of the clade is very poorly understood. Here, we investigate cranial ontogeny in Mixosaurus cornalianus, from the Middle Triassic Besano Formation of the Swiss and Italian Alps. This small-bodied taxon is represented by a wealth of material from multiple size classes, including fetal material. This allows us to assess ontogenetic changes in cranial morphology, and identify stages in the ontogenetic trajectory where divergence with more derived ichthyosaurs has occurred. Early ontogenetic stages of Mixosaurus show developmental patterns that are reminiscent of the presumed ancestral (early diverging sauropsid) condition. This is prominently visible in the late fetal stage in both the basioccipital, which shows morphology akin to basal tubera, and in the postorbital, which has a triradiate head. The ontogenetic trajectory of at least some of the cranial elements of Mixosaurus is therefore likely still very akin to the ancestral condition, even though the adult cranium diverges from the standard diapsid morphology.

Comparative analysis of the effectiveness of isotherapy in the rehabilitation of children with intellectual disabilities

Art therapy technologies are widely used in educational, rehabilitation and social institutions. It is believed that the use of various methods of art therapy helps children and adolescents with disabilities to integrate into educational and rehabilitation processes. In the special and psychological-pedagogical literature, a wealth of material has been accumulated about the adaptive, corrective and therapeutic effects of art-therapeutic technologies, where the creative nature of the process of interaction between the psychologist and the wards serves as the basis. One of the most common and available methods of art therapy can be called isotherapy. The special literature emphasizes the effectiveness of isotherapy in the correction of the perceptual and emotional-volitional sphere, promotes the development of higher mental functions. This article presents the experience of monitoring the dynamics of mental activity of children with varying degrees of intellectual disability during rehabilitation, where one of the psychological and pedagogical influences was isotherapy. Research methods: observation maps for children with disabilities during isotherapy classes. The questions of the observation map are compiled on the basis of a three-level rehabilitation program using the method of isotherapy. To identify the links between the indicators of mental activity of the subjects, the r-Pearson correlation coefficient was used. In order to determine the effectiveness of isotherapy, Wilcoxon’s W-test is used. Results of the study a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of isotherapy in three different groups of children with disabilities is presented. The most noticeable positive changes are observed in the samples of children with moderate and mild mental retardation. For a group of children with severe intellectual and psychophysical disabilities, isotherapy classes help to pull some children up to an average level. The lack of positive dynamics in children of this group lies in the peculiarities of sensorimotor activity disorders, weak or almost absent differentiation of mental processes. Imagination deserves special attention in isotherapy classes, the study of which in children with intellectual disabilities is relevant in modern correctional psychology.

Stenotanais (Crustacea, Tanaidacea) from the Santos Basin: the first described species of the family Akanthophoreidae off the Brazilian coast

Benthic samples collected from depths ranging between 686 and 2410 m along the Brazilian continental upper slope from Rio de Janeiro State to Santa Catarina State (23°S to 27°S) yielded a wealth of tanaidacean material, including two new species of Stenotanais. This is the first described species of the family Akanthophoreidae from Brazilian waters. Stenotanais leonardoisp. nov. has a combination of unique characters including the uropod basal article longer than the pleotelson and the exopod somewhat wider than the endopod, longer than the endopod article-1 (0.7 times endopod length) and supporting two flat and wide terminal setae. Stenotanais uropedonsp. nov. is recognisable by its oar-shaped uropod endopod, with article-2 large, broad and flattened and the short exopod, only 0.3 times the endopod length. An identification key to the species of Stenotanais is given. These two species bring the total number of described akanthophoreids to 56 species and that of all tanaidaceans in Brazilian waters to 66 species.

Editors’ introduction: remembering blackly

ABSTRACT Shows like Moesha and Fresh Prince both fictionalized and revealed the twentieth-century dreams of Black folks who like Moesha’s family had just established themselves in Lamert Park or like Will had recently left gang and drug-infested urban streets. Friends like Tony and Joan or Khadijah and Maxine typified the friendships that many Black women had just developed in college settings like A Different World. They dated people like Lynn, Kyle, or Martin and created the material wealth that generations past could not access. These Black cultural productions positioned Black people, their conversations and their aspirations, as part of a larger project of inclusion and made our dreams seem possible. Remembering or engaging anew with Black cultural production of the 1990s and 2000s via streaming platforms re-introduced these dreams and the ways that the ‘too-rough fingers of world’ had made them immaterial. Seeing them again, with our new twenty-first-century eyes, forced us to bring our concerns to social media, to visual art and to music – sites where we continue to think, aspire and work collectively to manifest Black futures. The essays in this special issue then take seriously the complex nuances of remembering Blackly through and beyond these cultural productions. We charged the authors to think critically about nostalgia and how Black cultural production in Western contexts has not only shaped our understanding of contemporary discourses, but also in how we shape the future based on the (remembered) past across Black cultures. We hope that these essays provide further insight into the ways our contemporary moment will continue to shape our present and future renderings of the past. In addition, we envision that the authors’ ideas will affect how we access those pasts. Black nostalgia will mould our understanding of everything we think we remember.

The Sky and the Stratosphere: Wealth Concentration in India During the Last (Lost) Decade

AbstractThis paper provides new and improved estimates of wealth concentration in India during 2012–2018. Official surveys show a decline in wealth inequality and mean wealth per adult for the first time in three decades. We argue that although these wealth surveys are meant to be nationally representative, they underestimate the upper tail of the Indian wealth distribution—top wealth levels appear orders of magnitudes below externally measured estimates and unrepresentative of increasing stock‐market participation over this period. By combining official surveys and rich lists, we provide new estimates of top wealth shares and total personal wealth in India. We find that personal wealth is underestimated by nearly 54 percent in official data, and this gap increased sharply during the 2010s. Our revised estimates show wealth concentration to have sharply increased during 2012–2018. The share of India's top 1 percent is higher than similar estimates for Asia, and second only to Russia.

Magic and Metamodernism

Magic and Metamodernism

Corporate Spin-Offs and Shareholders’ Wealth: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

Abstract The spin-off has become a common mode of restructuring in the corporate world for the last few decades and has thus attracted the interest of researchers to investigate how this form of divestiture creates value for shareholders. While there is an agreement among researchers about the wealth creation of spin-offs around the announcement of the event, the sources of this wealth generation remain controversial. Moreover, the long-run stock performance of the spin-offs invites debates, as there are varied shreds of evidence in this regard. The present study endeavours to provide an overview of the existing literature by systematically reviewing 89 theoretical and empirical works published between 1976 and 2021 on short-term and long-term wealth effects separately to provide state-of-the-art research on the topic concerned. Based on the findings of existing literature, certain suggestions for future research have been made.

사회경제 발전의 새 패러다임

This article presents the realization of the value of human respect as a new paradigm for social and economic development. Economic growth plays an important role in laying the material foundation for human survival and prosperity, but it does not guarantee enjoyment and happiness to members of society in proportion. Under the growth maximization paradigm the human nature could be suppressed by treating humans as one of the factors of production. Growth maximization can make the society unequal and unfair. And also it even causes wars that destroy human life itself.&#x0D; The value realization paradigm respects human life rather than material wealth. Individuals pursue maximization of pleasure(Joy max) and a good life through realization of basic values such as respect for life, freedom, trust, and environmental preservation. We aim to become a culturally powerful society beyond a wealthy nation. Using White's cultural development equation which states ‘cultural progress is a function of energy and technology’, we show the newly defined social and economic development culture as CV=E1×T1, where E1 and T1 are energy and technology realizing the value of human respect. The energy E1 used to be increased when status equality, economic growth, checks and balances system, and rule of law were achieved. These variables were achieved by the introduction of social technologies consisting of institutions, organizations, leadership, etc.&#x0D; Currently, we need proper social technologies for resolving issues such as income disparity, dichotomous thinking and sharp social conflict. For economic development without income polarization, grassroots innovation must occur. A reform for equal opportunities in education is needed. And a sophisticated system of checks and balances should be strengthened to prevent power dictatorship and economic monopoly.