Money Time Research Articles

Local currencies for purposive degrowth? A quality check of some proposals for changing money-as-usual

This article provides a quality check of the degrowth movement's proposal of local currencies as tools for advancing socially equitable and ecologically sustainable degrowth. The article draws comprehensively upon mainly English-language academic research about four widespread local currency types – LETS, time banks, HOUR currencies, and convertible local currencies (CLCs) – to assess their performance with respect to four degrowth-related criteria: community-building, advancement of alternative values in economic exchange, facilitation of alternative livelihoods, and eco-localization. LETS have been found to support alternative livelihoods under quite uncommon conditions, and contribute indirectly to eco-localization by moderately facilitating informal resale, repair, and sharing of commercially produced goods, although their burdensome management and confinement to small memberships limit their usefulness. Time banks help expand social networks, and are best at reaching the socially excluded. However, they are confined to unskilled personal services and dependent on grant funding. HOUR currencies do not stand out with regard to any criteria, but may have a minor capacity to promote local purchasing. CLCs are best at attracting local businesses, but no significant evidence of their said capacity to localize supply chains has surfaced as yet, and their business-friendly design works to the detriment of other criteria. In sum, existing research provides a very weak basis for advocating local currencies as tools for purposive degrowth. Local currencies are here categorized as two utopian socialist approaches: the behind-society’s-back variety of LETS and HOUR currencies, and the appeal-to-elites variety of time banks and CLCs. Marx and Engels's critiques of these approaches remain valid: successful monetary systems require resources that are not available behind society's back, notably the power to levy taxes and designate by which means they can be paid. Local currencies that appeal for elite support – without mass popular backing – have shaken off most radical connotations, and are vulnerable to changing policy agendas. Given the present historical conjuncture of popular outrage against the banking sector, this paper argues that the degrowth movement would improve its chances of contributing to purposive degrowth by prioritizing government-centred ecological reform of the monetary system over local currencies.

Much more than money

We analyze conceptual patterns shared by Michael Ende’s novel about time, Momo, and examples of time conceptualization from psychology, sociology, economics, conventional language, and real social practices. We study three major mappings in the materialization of time: time as money in relation with time banking, time units as objects produced by an internal clock, and time as a substance that flows. We show that binary projections between experiential domains are not enough to model the complexity of meaning construction in these widely successful examples. To account for the intricacies of time materialization in context, we use generic integration templates, models for conceptual templates based on Fauconnier and Turner’s Blending Theory. The interplay of such detailed patterns with pragmatic and cultural factors, including diachronic aspects, is crucial to identify the cognitive models at work, and the factors that guide their instantiations as a variety of surface products. The blending model for the spatialized time can be refined and extended to the materialization of time.

Varieties of co-production in public services: time banks in a UK health policy context

Time banking is a third-sector initiative that enacts principles of co-production and offers a model with which to understand how users can become actively involved with professionals and other stakeholders in the delivery of public services. This article explores possible lines of tension between principles that underpin time banking practices and principles informing the health policy field in the United Kingdom. We develop a framework rooted in the logics approach to critical policy analysis with which to track shifts in conceptions of co-production at three nodes situated along the full length of the public service chain: (1) service provision and distribution; (2) service delivery; and (3) service governance. Our analysis reveals discrepancies in the way co-production principles can be defined, interpreted, and linked to broader notions of social justice: recognition-based interpretations with a transformative accent, and choice-based interpretations with an additive accent. We conclude that the health care regime, if understood as a ‘regime of choice’, will invariably prove to be a rather inhospitable environment for time banks, whose co-production principles are much more in tune with what we call a ‘regime of recognition’.

Time banking – new social currency or waste of time?

PurposeThe aims of this article are to introduce and explore the concept of time banking and then to give an example of how one housing association, the CHS Group, is trying to apply this to its social investment work in Cambridgeshire. Along the way, the article seeks to explore some of the related concepts such as co‐production, bartering, and social capital. Its purpose is to brief other housing and social care practitioners about recent developments in thinking and practice around community organisation.Design/methodology/approachThe article summarises key information about time banking, publishes the detail of a proposal to produce a social support time banking project, and draws conclusions about future directions.FindingsThere are numerous questions still to answer, such as: How we can enable all of our staff, resources permitting, to think and act in a community organising way? How best to engage and support customers in participating? How to avoid this being seen solely as a response to cuts in statutory funding, rather than a way of releasing civic potential and capacity to produce a more personalised support? How to reorganise performance management systems to include community organisation? How should staff and organisational time banking be organised in the context of providing closely regulated services, and managing risk while working with vulnerable group? Are there enough people out there who want to, or have the capacity for engagement, and if so how best to reach them?Research limitations/implicationsThis is not unique primary research: the methodology is to use existing published documents and documents from within CHS Group. The article is limited by the absence of statistical data.Practical implicationsThere are some lessons and ideas about how to structure a programme using timebanking to support vulnerable people in communities.Social implicationsFinding the right answers to the questions might assist services providers and customers to navigate through the impending welfare reform and social funding cut backs.Originality/valueThe article explores approaches to time banking used by a variety of agencies including the Department of Health POPP programme as applicable in social housing.

Time and punishment: a comparison of UK and US time bank use in criminal justice systems

Time banking, a form of community currency facilitating time-based exchanges, developed in the United States during the 1980s before transferring to the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. Whilst now operating in over 30 countries, this paper explores the US–UK link, focusing on time bank practices within criminal justice. Examining time bank theory and the UK/US policy contexts, this paper provides an account of the Time Dollar Youth Court and the UK time bank prisons initiative, to facilitate a discussion of policy transfer and lesson drawing. Such an approach provides a fresh insight into time bank development, opening up a previously unexplored aspect of time bank policy experimentation.

An Approach for Integration Testing in Online Retail Applications

Retail applications has majorly fraud prevention, procurement, shipping and tax related, pricing, real time bank authentication applications integrated to make the application run successfully. Integration testing here plays an important role as it requires that all applications interact with each other and also interact correctly so that Retailer is at benefit. Different testing techniques and types are used to test the application. Different testing teams will perform integration testing but what is the correct approach and how should you proceed is the major concern of many. Here we propose at what stage of Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC), integration testing should be initiated. Also what should be the approach of performing the testing? An example on Online Retail Application is used to understand the approach.

Argentina, private banking and trusts in times of lean cattle

The Relationship between Argentine Regulators and the Private Banking and Fiduciary Industries has deteriorated rapidly in recent years. It remains to be seen how the worsening environment would affect local courts, which have proved fairly reasonable in the past.

Time banking service exchange systems: A review of the research and policy and practice implications in support of youth in transition

article i nfo Youth and families in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems reside in high poverty communities and often have multiple, interlocking needs that require community support long after youth age out of care or are free from mandated service requirements. Time banking is a unique transaction based system for mutual aid and assistance that fosters economic opportunities, social inclusion, community self-help and enhances civic engagement among often marginalized community members. This article reviews the literature on time banking service exchange systems and its impact on youth in transition. This research reveals the poten- tial of youth participation in time banking service exchanges as assisting in engagement and active participa- tion in services as well as in helping youth achieve the developmental assets they need to be successful upon discharge from formal systems. Policy and practice recommendations for incorporating time banking to help vulnerable youth are also included.

Managerial Efficiency- Key Driver towards the Profitability of Indian Commercial Banks in Turbulent Time

A Strong financial system is important for any nation to face the challenges of post globalization era. The major challenges that are faced by Indian banking industry are the role of financial instrumentation in different phases of the business cycle, the emerging compulsions of the new prudential norms and benchmarking the Indian financial system against international standards and best practices. These challenges can be met with efficient human resource management. Human resource management (HRM) practices are being increasingly considered as major contributory factors in financial performance of commercial banks. This research study aims at knowing the HRM practices in commercial banks operating in India and to correlate bank’s performance and HRM practices. The study also identifies the HR challenges faced by the banks and while concluding the research the study suggests improving managerial efficiency and excellence in commercial banks which can be achieved through HRM practices.

Studies on the implementation of System Application Product (SAP) Materials Management (MM Module) for financial support in Sugar cane cultivation

In traditional mode of cane cultivation, harvesting and transportation of cane from the plot to the factory involves various steps and lot of paper work and requires more man power. In addition to this, farmers also facing lot of problems to provide all the information's throughout the course of cultivation.In order to provide financial assistance, the sugar industries are providing loan facility tie-up with Bankers.All these process is adopting System Application Product (SAP) Materials Management (MM-MODULE) to monitor in a single window. This will helps the farmers and factories are able to get benefitted and in the mean time Bank will also mutually benefitted by getting interest and increase their business volume. Hence by implementing System Application Product(SAP), once entering the data in the system it is continued further deletion of data from the system administrator. Due to this farmers need not required to submit all the stipulated forms in all the times. More over thelead time required is very less. Keywords -System Application Product , Materials Management, Tie up letter, Trip Sheet, Cane weighment ticket

Studying Time Banking: Exploring Participatory Action Research in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article presents a literature review of participatory action research (PAR) approaches used in New Zealand social science research to assess if there is a ‘New Zealand’ approach to PAR that differs somewhat from the international literature on PAR. Using the additional device of self reflection on my own current PhD research topic I argue that New Zealand does have rich local influences that enhance PAR as a methodology while also maintaining many points of similarity with the international literature. Given the breadth and richness of New Zealand based scholars' experience with this method, I argue that more New Zealand based academic writing should refer to these local examples of participatory action research.

Capital Access Bonds: Contingent Capital with an Option to Convert

This paper argues that there is a Coasean Bargain available to banks, Long-term Investors, and Bank Regulators around a particular form of 'Contingent Capital'. By purchasing rights to issue equity in crisis events at a pre-specified price from Long-term Investors, banks can ensure that they will have sufficient regulatory capital available when they need it most: in a crisis. By selling these rights (effectively, a form of crisis insurance) long-term investors can monetize their counter-cyclical investments strategies in banks and, thus, obtain an adequate return as long-term investors. Bank Regulators, in turn, gain as they can thereby implement a more efficient form of equity-capital regulation. Banks have a special need to maintain their equity-capital base in the event of a crisis. Sovereign Wealth Funds and other long-term investors have proved to be the only available counterparties for banks in crisis times. This is why we argue that these investors must be able to monetize the countercyclical asset-management strategies they are trying to implement by obtaining a higher return on their cash reserves. The form of contingent capital we propose (Capital Access Bond) reflects a balance between investors’ preferences, issuers’ constraints, and regulators' objectives.

The Preposterous Postness of Being: The Case of a Recent Bulgarian Adaptation of The Tempest

It has been acknowledged that following the political changes of 1989, The Tempest has noticeably engaged the interest of Bulgarian theater directors and audiences. The present article continues this discussion by exploring Stefan Moskov's Bad Weather Makes a Good Story - an adaptation (rather a complete rewriting) of The Tempest . In Moskov's characteristic style the production dismantles and derides all familiar structures, jumbles registers, and drives the audience to the very verge of absurdity. Francis Drake defeats the Spanish Armada and becomes famous. People lose interest in theater and sail off to explore new territories. To avenge himself Shakespeare invents an island (he discovers it before Drake) and populates it with strange creatures and happenings. The characters are ordinary people from the street (an allusion to Moskov's well-known Pythonesque comic TV programme The Street ) who stop by a theatre poster advertising The Tempest and enter their own version of the play. The Bard appears on the stage hidden behind a cliché mask nervously inquiring "Who am I, he, she or they?" and scolding the actors for their deviations from his text. Then, his mother turns up to scold him and call him home for supper. In a word: Moskov's Bad Weather is an extreme example of art tempestuously liberating itself from all constraints - a preposterous post-Shakespeare which holds a mirror up to the curious case of contemporary Bulgarians who have eventually found themselves washed out upon a post-colonial, post-communist, postmodern, post-structural, post-ideological, post-rational, post-literate, post-et-cetera bank and shoal of time.

Non-Standard Monetary Policy Measures and Monetary Developments

Standard accounts of the Great Depression attribute an important causal role to monetary policy errors in accounting for the catastrophic collapse in economic activity observed in the early 1930s. While views vary on the relative importance of money versus credit contraction in the propagation of this policy error to the wider economy and ultimately price developments, a broad consensus exists in the economics profession around the view that the collapse in financial intermediation was a crucial intermediary step. What lessons have monetary policy makers taken from this episode? And how have they informed the conduct of monetary policy by leading central banks in recent times? This paper sets out to address these questions, in the context of the financial crisis of 2008-09 and with application to the euro area.

LETS as Alternative, Post-capitalist Economic Spaces? Learning Lessons from the Totnes ‘Acorn’

Against the complex economic backdrop of a deep-impact recession, rising public debt, and national austerity measures, this paper revisits LETS as one example of an alternative economic system and perhaps a more relevant operating mechanism for some communities in the months and years ahead. Drawing on the case study of the Totnes Acorn, this paper considers the continued relevance of LETS in a contemporary, perhaps even post-capitalist context, and against competing initiatives such as local currencies, resurging time banks, and the Big Society campaign. It is argued in this paper that the changing economic and political landscape of the last decade, which has coincided with rises in personal wealth, coupled with the celebrity status of the Transition Towns Initiative, the dated image and administration of some LETS may explain their decline during a period of economic decline. Yet their potential economic role could be reinvigorated and prove invaluable as a mechanism to stimulate and maximise local economic activity in the years ahead, as the full effects of expenditure cuts and a possible double-dip recession begin to take hold.

Time Banking and Health: The Role of a Community Currency Organization in Enhancing Well-Being

Time banking is an international movement that seeks to transform traditional asymmetric social service models into social networks in which members both provide and receive services that are assigned equal value. Time banks have been shown to enhance social capital, and there is some evidence for improved health. This article, based on a survey of 160 members of a hospital-affiliated time bank, examines the likelihood and predictors of improvement in physical and mental health as a result of membership. Men, people with lower income, and those who were not working full-time reported highest levels of participation in exchanging services; attachment to the organization was greatest among women, older members, people with less education, and those with the highest participation levels. Multivariate analyses revealed that physical health improvement attributed to membership was significantly predicted by attachment to the organization and living alone; mental health gains were predicted by general health changes, average number of exchanges, and attachment to the organization. We conclude that a sense of belonging, a dimension of social capital, is key to improved well-being and that time banking may be particularly valuable in promoting health and belonging among older and lower-income individuals and those who live alone.

Transforming Time: A New Tool for Youth Justice

This article introduces the idea of time banks and argues for its relevance to youth justice workers. It outlines the purpose and functions of time banks before considering three practical ways in which they can be put to use in contemporary youth justice practice in England and Wales. The article argues that time banks offer a new possibility for local action by youth justice workers which both improves the immediate circumstances of users and alters the nature of services themselves.

Nigerian Banking Industry and the Theories of Intermediation

Banks play an important role in the financial system of an economy. According to the theory of financial intermediation, they exist because they can reduce transaction costs and resolve information asymmetries between borrowers and lenders. However, as developments in information technology (IT), deregulation, deepening of financial markets, etc. tends to reduce transaction costs and informational asymmetries, financial intermediation theory tends to come to the conclusion that intermediation becomes useless and thus, banks are no longer relevant. This paper reviews literature on theory of financial intermediation in relation to the raison d’etre of banks in the modern time with the aim of examining whether development in IT and the deepening of the financial market render banks less important in Nigeria. The paper uses content analysis to analytically synthesise the contentious issues in financial intermediation. The paper posits that banks are considered the engine of growth for Nigerian economy. Also, despite the globalization of financial services, driven by deregulation and information technology, and despite strong price competition, the banking industry in Nigeria is not declining in importance but it is growing. To maintain their relevance however, Nigerian banks will have to provide access to the payments system; access to liquidity on demand; package and sell or repackage and resell risk through a number of different institutional arrangements; offer information that include the certification of the quality of assets together with credit review and possible follow-up; and remain a conduit for government guarantees both explicitly and implicitly.

Managerial Compensation in the Financial Service Industry

CEO compensation in the financial sector has been a controversial topic following the financial crisis. I use a new dataset with detailed information on CEO remuneration of major international banks from 2000 to 2008 to give a comprehensive overview of compensation practices in banking throughout the world, the impact on risk and bank policy choices and the determinants. I show that remuneration had an impact on bank performance during the financial crisis. Banks which endowed their CEO with high risk taking incentives performed worse in the period after the Lehman collapse in terms of accounting performance. Banks which granted more stocks performed better. Using simultaneous equation models I show that over time bank risk has been positively correlated with CEOs' risk taking incentives. From a bank policy perspective high vega low delta CEOs rely on riskier, fee based activities and higher leverage. I investigate the role of corporate governance and regulation on CEO compensation. Banks from countries with strong regulation react stronger to bank risk when setting their compensation contracts, on the other hand they grant more equity based compensation. Weak boards lead banks to rely more on equity based compensation and weak compensation committees implement option contracts with characteristics that are more favorable for the CEO.

Risque de crédit à travers les cycles d'activité: une analyse sur un panel de banques de dépôt tunisiennes

AbstractThe aim of this work is to analyze the effect of business cycles on the non-performing loans for a panel of 10 Tunisian deposit banks during 1978-2005. A dynamic model was estimated. The results showed that a recession tends to increase the stock of non-performing loans in the banks. The macroeconomic environment has a negative effect on banks in times of recession. The results generated were used to analyze the effect of four scenarios on the level of non-performing Loans. The stress tests showed that financial supervision should be higher during downturns when banks become fragile. If the reaction of banks to macroeconomic shocks accentuate the effects of recessions, it would be appropriate to establish rules to limit the pro cyclicality of banking activities.