People's Money Research Articles

Other people's money: debt denomination and financial instability in emerging market economies

Other people's money: debt denomination and financial instability in emerging market economies

Elections: Tax Cut Versus Lockbox: Did the Voters Grasp the Tradeoff in 2000?

The 2000 presidential election was consequential for many reasons, among them being that soon after his inauguration George W. Bush was able to carry out his campaign promise of a large tax cut for all taxpayers. Had the election turned out differently and Al Gore assumed the presidency, he would have certainly vetoed such a bill, as Gore made abundantly clear during the campaign. Even before the first votes were cast in the 2000 presidential primaries, George W. Bush laid out a specific plan for an across-the-board cut in federal income taxes. During the fall campaign, Al Gore sharply criticized Bush's proposal as likely to blow a hole in the federal budget, and expressed outrage that the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers would reap a large share of the benefits. Bush responded that because the government was running a surplus Americans were being overtaxed, and argued that it was surely sensible for the people who pay the most in taxes to get the most back from a tax cut. He pressed the point that the surplus was the people's money, not the federal government's money--and that therefore the people should get it back. Gore's disagreement was not about whose money it was but what should be done with the surplus. In his view, the people would eventually need it to prop up Medicare and Social Security. He therefore proposed that much of the federal budget surplus be set aside for these programs and held in what he termed a In sum, the choice was crystal clear for all to see during the 2000 campaign--a big tax cut for everyone, or setting aside surplus funds for Social Security and Medicare in a lockbox. When Bush emerged victorious he argued that the people who voted for him wanted a tax cut and therefore he had a mandate to deliver just such a policy change, conveniently ignoring the fact that more people voted for his opponent. Had the situation been reversed, Gore would no doubt have said the same about his lockbox proposal. Politicians always claim that people knew what they were voting for when they cast their ballots for them. It would defeat the purpose of democracy for them to do otherwise. After all, they spend countless hours trying to convince people of the wisdom of their policy goals, and it would not make any sense for them to acknowledge that many people were unaware of their platform or did not understand the issues. Scholars, on the other hand, have long been cognizant of the limitations of the public's information about public policy issues, and have frequently challenged politicians' claims of a mandate from the voters for their policies. The long history of research on voting behavior and public opinion should lead anyone to be cautious about concluding that voters in 2000 were casting ballots for Bush or Gore based on their views concerning the crucial issue of a tax cut versus a lockbox. Nevertheless, the degree to which this article finds that voters failed to understand the choices involved is stunning. And even among the voters whose opinions matched up with a candidate, the correspondence between one's vote and one's opinion on this crucial stance was not impressive. Overall, far more survey respondents agreed with Gore's position than Bush's position, thereby making Bush's claim of a mandate to cut federal income taxes seem particularly weak. Data from the 2000 American National Election Study and the National Annenberg Election Study will be analyzed to demonstrate these points. American National Election Study Data In the pre-election wave of the 2000 American National Election Study (ANES), respondents were asked back-to-back questions about the two sides of the tax cut versus lockbox issue. The first question was posed as follows: Recently, there has been a lot of talk about how to spend the extra money the federal government is likely to have in the near future. Some people have proposed that most of the expected federal budget surplus should be used to cut taxes. …

Pipe Dream Memories

In 1985, I appeared in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace at the Forestburgh Playhouse in New York that starred Jayne Heller as one of the kindly, murderous old ladies. When I encountered Jayne at a reunion of actors who'd worked at Forestburgh recently, we shared stories of what we'd been working on and what jobs were in the offing. I told her about "Steinbeck and the Land," a piece I had put together to help commemorate the centennial of Steinbeck's birth and that I hoped to develop into an educational piece that I could tour to schools. Jayne listened, smiled, and said, "Oh, I really liked John Steinbeck." "Did you know him?" She nodded. "How?" "Have you ever heard of a musical called Pipe Dream?" "Of course." "Well, I was in it." "Tell me about your experience," I asked. But it was impossible to talk in-depth at the party and we made arrangements to get together in the near future when we could speak without interruption. Meeting several months later at her Manhattan Plaza apartment in New York, we sat down with her husband, Les, who accompanied her to many of the rehearsals and performances, and talked about the show. With book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, Jr. and music by Richard Rodgers, Pipe Dream is the musical version of John [End Page 117] Steinbeck's novel Sweet Thursday. It opened at the Shubert Theatre on 30 November 1955, ran for 246 performances, and had the shortest run of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show. Starring in the production was the Wagnerian soprano Helen Traubel as Fauna, William Johnson as Doc, Judy Tyler as Suzy, Mike Kellin as Hazel, and G.D. Wallace as Mac. Directed by Harold Clurman, the production had sets and lighting by Jo Mielziner and costumes by Alvin Colt. Click for larger view Figure 1 According to The Best Plays of 1955-1956, The Burns Mantle Yearbook, 1956 "was a very good season.... [D]uring such a season, the play reviewer could derive real enjoyment from his playgoing; could take a certain actual pride in his job" (3). It was a period of prosperity in the country and in the theater in general. And it seemed to Kronenberger that "besides those producers offering popular work at a respectable level and those concerned with box-office at all costs, there were others who cared about the quality of what they produced; and that there were those who—at least with other people's money—were really willing to take a chance" (3). (And when in one season people bring a Tiger at the Gates, a Chalk Garden, and Waiting for Godot to Broadway they can't help creating [End Page 118] an atmosphere that must infect other producers.) Click for larger view Figure 2 Jayne Heller. Some of the other shows that opened during the 1955-56 season were Bus Stop with Kim Stanley and Elaine Stritch; The Lark with Julie Harris; A Hatful of Rain with Shelley Winters; The Desk Set with Shirley Booth; No Time for Sergeants with Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, and Roddy McDowell; The Diary of Anne Frank with Susan Strasberg; A View from the Bridge with Leo Penn, Eileen Heckart, and Van Heflin; a revival of The Skin of Our Teeth with Mary Martin, George Abbot, and Helen Hayes; Inherit the Wind with Paul Muni and Ed Begley; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara, Mildred Dunnock, and Burl Ives; Damn Yankees with Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston; and My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. The arrival of a new Rodgers and Hammerstein musical on Broadway was a significant event, and critics were waiting for it, waiting to compare it to their past works including Oklahoma!,Carousel, and South Pacific. When it opened, the reviews for Pipe Dream were respectful but far from glowing. With such great talent behind it, why wasn't Pipe Dream a success? According to Kronenberger, "Pipe Dream whitewashed what... collapse You are not currently authenticated. If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution or have your own login and password to Project MUSE Authenticate

Corporate Governance of Newly Privatized Firms: The Remaining Issues in Korea

In this paper, we review the developments that took place in the 'Big Four' after their full privatization. We show that POSCO, KT, and KT&G, which were privatized to have dispersed share ownership, have relatively high corporate governance standards. We also show that the 'Big Four,' have either maintained their superior performance or at least improved them. The remaining of the paper discusses on the two remaining concerns often raised regarding the newly privatized firms. That is, the issue of desired corporate ownership structure and the role of government. As for the first issue, we try to provide a number of reasons why chaebols are not appropriate candidates to acquire newly privatized firms. One argument is that the ownership structure of Korean chaebols suffers from a number of incentive problems: other people's money agency problem, entrenchment agency problem, and tunneling. Related to this, we show that there is a considerable separation between the control and cash flow rights in chaebol-affiliated firms, and introduce empirical literature showing the link between separation and firm performance. As for the second issue, we strongly argue that the most important role a government could play after privatization is to make sure that the newly privatized firms are management independent of government interference. But, we also emphasize that government should improve the institutional environment that would induce better governance from Korean corporations. In this respect, we stress the importance of enforcement, protection of minority shareholders' right, and the role of institutional investors. To make domestic institutional investors to take a more active role in improving the governance of Korean corporations, we argue that the first step would be to revamp the governance structure of Korean National Pension Fund.

The International Regulation of Money Laundering

This vile paper-money and funding system; this of Dutch descent, begotten by Bishop Burnet and born in hell; this has turned everything into a gamble. There are hundreds of men who live by being agents to carry on gambling ... many of gamblers live in country; they write up to their gambling agent, whom they call their stockbroker; he gambles according to their order; and they receive profit or stand to loss. Is it possible to conceive a viler calling than that of an agent for carrying on of gambling! And yet vagabonds call themselves gentlemen. ********** So English radical William Cobbett wrote in his Rural Rides of 1830. (1) People do not write like Cobbett (or Carlyle, Dickens, and Marx) anymore. Not about hellish systems of paper money, at any rate. Technical prudence comes more naturally now than systematic denunciation; vigor is applied to policy initiatives and convention drafting, rather than to prophecies of convulsion, jeremiads against villains and vagabonds, the unhanged knaves of paper-money. The international monetary is, to be sure, now more complicated than question of national debt for Cobbett, yet we get less agitated about phenomena such as money laundering. We put them into that ethical side category of matters for international It is interesting, if idle, to speculate on tongue-lashings Cobbett would have administered to walking trust accounts, smurfing, creative accountancy, and cashing in casino chips, to name but some of laundering techniques masterfully described by Michael Levi in a recent state-of-the-art article. (2) Not only do we no longer live in a world where not to be a gentleman was a withering reproach; we also live in a world of euphemisms, such as money laundering itself. As a subject of regulation, it leads our eyes away from immediate sources of serious crime to their mediated proceeds. (3) As a metaphor, money laundering implies that money can indeed come out from wash whiter than white: it blends so smoothly with legitimate financial investment activities that we are hard put to tell difference. Unfortunately perhaps, this makes international banking appear to work as a new and improved detergent. Understandably then, one runs up against a paradox when approaching sources of crime from perspective of proceeds. Dirty money is doing pretty much same thing as clean money--moving around in search of profits. Or, in a crisper definition, such as William Gaddis's: 'Money is credit, get 'It's what?' 'Tells you your money should work for you ... trick's to get other people's money to work for you, get that?' (4) Getting other people's money to work for them would be one definition of criminality of money laundering were it not so akin to what pension trust managers for example, as well as corporate tax evaders, also do. Once dirty money is in wash it is as clean as any other; we are back to Cobbett's system of gambling and fictitious money. This brings us to second pertinent euphemism, regulation. We have wars against crime and terrorism, as well as prohibition and eradication at source of drugs, but we speak of cautious regulation of proceeds of crime. Regulation is a fence-sitting word. At one end of spectrum, it suggests exacting and strong rule; in middle, a moderate adaptation to requirements; and at other end, maintenance of status quo. The international regulation of money laundering to date can be set midway between middle and latter end of spectrum, Regulation thus means protecting order while accepting dysfunctional components of that order. The basis for this claim rests upon our last, least heroic of euphemisms, results. In technical literature, results are almost always, and by definition, modest. When they are extremely modest we can infer that they have much to be modest about. …

Sex, financial hardship and locus of control: an empirical study of attitudes towards money among Singaporean Chinese

This study examines the effects of (1) gender, (2) financial hardship, and (3) locus of control (LOC), on people's money attitudes. The contributions of our study are two-fold. First, while research in the area of money attitudes has burgeoned recently, relatively few studies have been conducted in the context of Asia. Thus, our study fills this void in the literature by examining people's money attitudes in Singapore. Second, our study extends Lim and Teo's study ( Lim & Teo, 1997) on sex, money and financial hardship, by focusing on the money attitudes of working adults, and by examining how LOC influences money attitudes. Respondents comprised 305 ethnic Chinese working adults. Logistic regression analysis results suggest that men were more concerned about the power and anxiety dimensions, while women were more concerned about the budget, retention and evaluation dimensions of money attitudes. Those who had experienced financial hardship were more likely to view money as a source of power and less likely to be non-generous (i.e. more likely to be generous). Internals tended to budget their money, while externals tended to view money as a source of power, use money as a tool for evaluation and be more non-generous (i.e. less generous).

People's development with people's money: The mobilisation-organisation-finance nexus

There is a widely recognised need for innovative institutional arrangements to provide financial services to poor people, and numerous efforts have been made to that end. These have ranged from modifying the services provided by existing banks to the promotion of people-centred systems. Programmes addressing the latter have tended to emphasise a broad development approach, with financial services as one of several interrelated activities. This article discusses the main features of organisation and operation in people-centred systems, explores the meaning of social mobilisation in this context, indicates a range of benefits that such systems may generate, and illustrates their features, activities, and benefits through one case study.

U.S. Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland: Making the Most of Other People's Money

U.S. Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland: Making the Most of Other People's Money

Bearing The Risks Taken By Others: The Role Of America's Middle Class

Bearing The Risks Taken By Others: The Role Of America's Middle Class

Does attitude toward money moderate the relationship between intrinsic job satisfaction and voluntary turnover?

The present study expanded Judge's (1993) study and tested the hypotheses that people's Money Ethic endorsement (Tang, 1992, 1995) would moderate the intrinsic job satisfaction-withdrawal cognitions relationship and the intrinsic job satisfaction-voluntary turnover relationship in a sample of mental health and mental retardation professionals. Results suggested that Money Ethic endorsement was a moderator for both relationships. For employees with high Money Ethic endorsement, their voluntary turnover was high regardless of their intrinsic job satisfaction. Employees with low Money Ethic endorsement and low intrinsic job satisfaction had the lowest voluntary turnover. Thus, in this sample, just a pull (high Money Ethic) is needed to experience turnover. Money Ethic endorsement predicted actual turnover behavior, but withdrawal cognitions did not. Money Ethic endorsement was not a mediator of the intrinsic job satisfaction and turnover relationship. Results are discussed in terms of the small, but growing literature on the psychology of money (Furnham & Argyle, 1998). Future research needs to re-focus on employees' actual turnover behavior, rather than the substitutes or proxies of turnover behavior, such as withdrawal cognitions.

Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of Finance in America

1. The money debate and American political development 2. Party politics and the financial debate, 1865-1896 3. Greenbacks versus gold: the contest over finance in the 1870s 4. The 'people's money': Greenbackism in North Carolina, Illinois and Massachusetts 5. The battle of the standards: the financial debate of the 1890s 6. Populism and the politics of finance in North Carolina, Illinois and Massachusetts in the 1890s 7. Money, history, and American political development Appendix A. Financial terms of the 1870s and 1890s Appendix B. Major banking and currency legislation, 1860-1900 Appendix C. An antimonopolist reading of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Two Radically Different Approaches to Analyzing Banking Policy - Anne M. Khademian. Checking on Banks: Autonomy and Accountability in Three Federal Agencies. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996). Pp. x, 195. Cloth $38.95. Paper $16.95. - Jeffrey Worsham. Other People's Money: Policy Change, Congress, and Bank Regulation. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997). Pp. xi, 164. $55.00 cloth. $21.50 paper.

Two Radically Different Approaches to Analyzing Banking Policy - Anne M. Khademian. Checking on Banks: Autonomy and Accountability in Three Federal Agencies. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996). Pp. x, 195. Cloth 21.50 paper. - Volume 11 Issue 3

Shopping with other People's Money: The Marketing Management Implications of Surrogate-Mediated Consumer Decision Making

Surrogate shoppers are involved in a significant portion of consumer decisions. This article broadens the application of the surrogate shopper concept by including all those who shop on behalf of clients and have a fiduciary responsibility to them and examining their implications for marketing and consumer theory. Surrogate shoppers have the potential to bring about efficiencies in marketing systems. However, with their information advantage and decision-making power, both positive and negative consequences can accrue to consumers, suppliers, and society.

Shopping with Other People's Money: The Marketing Management Implications of Surrogate-Mediated Consumer Decision Making

Shopping with Other People's Money: The Marketing Management Implications of Surrogate-Mediated Consumer Decision Making

Other People’S Money: A Visual Technology for Teaching Corporate Restructuring Cross-Functionally

This article presents a detailed plan for using the movie Other People's Money as an integrative technology to teach organizational behavior and finance concepts crossfunctionally. The movie depicts corporate restructuring issues in a comic manner, while still conveying a message. It incorporates topics such as differing organizational models and perpectives, leadership, managerial goals, and stakeholder needs/wants. It also helps students learn about mergers and acquisitions including topics like takeovers, tender offers, and greenmail while stimulating thinking aout complex ethical issues. This teaching tool can be incorporated in undergraduate or graduate business classes, or as a module for management education in corporate settings. The teaching notes include a vocabulary list, suggested stopping points with discussion questions, and a set of postmovie questions to reinforce related concepts and motivate further study.

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA): Hydra-Headed Monster or Flexible Management Tool?

A simple reading of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) suggests that this legislation is fairly straightforward and responds to many of the recommendations that have come from students of public management over the years. Written in the language of the good government tradition, this legislation shares much with earlier reform efforts. However, unlike past management reform initiatives, GPRA takes the form of legislation, not simply pronouncements from the executive branch. Although the legislation was enacted in 1993, 1997 was the first year that its requirements actually came to life and the first year that its requirements for strategic plans as well as the first performance plans became tangible. During the past few months, the Washington press (which is rarely interested in management issues) has focused unusual attention to the implementation of GPRA, reporting various pronouncements from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Republican leadership in Congress about the relative success or failure of federal agencies to comply with its initial requirements related to strategic planning. Both the press accounts and the institutional response to the legislation indicate that there is a wide divergence of views about this management reform effort. What appeared on first reading to be a fairly clear effort has emerged as a tangled set of expectations and experiences that reflect quite different and often competing views about the process. This article attempts to explicate some of the reasons for this tangled reality by focusing on three elements of the still developing experience. First, it provides some background on the legislation itself. Second, it discusses the context in which the implementation is placed. And third, it includes a preliminary analysis of the early experience with the requirements of GPRA. This critique emphasizes the problems involved in implementing a government-wide management strategy; it is not focused on similar reform efforts that take place within specific agencies (Radin, 1997). Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) While the origins and implementation of the Clinton administration's National Performance Review (NPR) were located squarely in the political environment of the White House and enunciated via executive orders and presidential pleas, the life story of GPRA was much different. bill that emerged from the Congress and was signed by President Clinton in August 1993 had its origins in legislation introduced by Republican Senator William Roth in 1990. That legislation was referred to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which had hearings over a two-year period, modifying the original Roth legislation. House version of the legislation was not introduced until February 1993, after the 1992 presidential election. With the blessing of the Democratic White House, the legislation sailed through with overwhelming bipartisan support.(1) While the support for the legislation was broad, there was very little real debate over its provisions. GPRA was framed in very general and often abstract terms; neither authorizing nor appropriations committees focused on the consequences of the process for particular policies or programs. President Clinton's remarks upon signing the legislation on August 3, 1993 emphasized the importance of restoring the confidence of the American people in the federal government. He commented: The law simply requires that we chart a course for every endeavor that we take the people's money for, see how well we are progressing, tell the public how we are doing, stop the things that don't work, and never stop improving the things that we think are worth investing in. Enveloped in classic good government rhetoric, the legislation had support from almost all quarters. It was difficult to be against a bill that sought to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs by establishing a system to set goals for program performance and to measure program results. …

The Market for Corporate Control (including Takeovers)

Mergers, acquisitions and takeovers often imply dramatic changes for employees, competitors, customers and suppliers. Not surprisingly, the market for corporate control has generated controversy and is frequently regulated by law or business custom. Though transfers of control take place in many countries, explicit and public struggles for control occur most frequently in the U.S. and U.K. During most of the 20th century, critics of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. pointed to the danger of monopoly and increased concentration. Partly in response to the emergence of new control transactions such as the hostile takeover and leveraged buyout, more recent criticism has focused on the consequences for corporate productivity, profitability and employee welfare. Subject to qualifications, the market for corporate control reallocates productive assets ? in the form of going concerns ? to the highest bidder. In cases where the bidder uses his own money or acts on behalf of the bidding firm1s shareholders, the asset goes to the highest value use. In cases where managers of the bidding firm are able to serve their own interests rather than the interests of shareholders, the market for corporate control plays a paradoxical role. It simultaneously provides (1) a means by which managers may acquire companies using other people's money and (2) a means by which they may themselves be disciplined or displaced.

Leaving Kansas

Ed is absolutely right: these are the best of times and the worst of times for the software industry. Indeed, if you are part of any one of the many new software companies that have sprung up of late and are madly burning through Other People's Money without a worry of posting a profit anytime this millennium, all the while unfettered by any silly requirements for backward compatibility to existing operations, then the future looks quite pleasant. However, for software developers at established organizations, caught in the cross-fire of the language wars, the operating system wars, the platform wars, the middle-ware wars, and the browser wars, laboring to push yet another release out the door under compressed schedules, weighed down by the millstone of legacy code, and torn asunder by the ravages of ill-conceived and ever-changing requirements, then the future looks grim-to put it mildly. Modesty prevents me from using the adjectives most commonly applied by developers toiling under such circumstances. Being among those inside the tornado, as was Dorothy, I prefer to think of these times as, well, interesting.

In the best interests of elderly people? The role of local authorities in handling and safeguarding the personal finances of elderly people with dementia

This article focuses upon local authority responses when elderly people with dementia are incapable of managing their own financial affairs. The article starts with a critique of existing legal and administrative arrangements for handling and managing other people's money and examines some of the recommendations contained within the Law Commission report Mental Incapacity. Drawing on research about the policies, procedures and guidance of twenty-seven local authorities, this article demonstrates the fragmented and variable response of local authorities to issues such as assessing mental and financial incapacity; ensuring best practice in handling and spending money on behalf of another person; regularly reviewing and monitoring the need for receivership or appointeeship and allowing residential and nursing-home managers and proprietors to act as appointees. The article asks whether local authorities should continue to be involved in this area and suggests that, if so, they need to urgently develop co-ordinated and systematic policies and practice to safeguard the financial affairs of elderly people with dementia.

Financial attitudes, beliefs and behaviours: differences by age

One of the essential skills that people must acquire to function in our society is the ability to deal with money. This skill and the information necessary to use it are acquired mainly during childhood. There has been little research on when and how children acquire knowledge of money and the economic system in general or the degree to which family influence carries over into consumption activities as adults.1 Little is known about how family financial decisions are made, what age people get involved with money, what kind of financial activities they partake in, which socialization agents have the most important influence on people's money beliefs, and how much and how families communicate about finances. The question of how these patterns have changed over the years also needs to be addressed. The focus of the marketing research has been on purchasing activity and on the socialization of the child. There has been much less work on socialization at later stages in the life cycle.2 Reference to money personalities are frequently made in financial planning materials as useful information to effectively communicate with clients. No studies have explored if people in reality identify with any of the suggested money personalities. Similarly, little is known about buying behaviours and how they have changed over years.