Business Commons^™

Central Bank Of Nigeria Annual Report And Statement Of Accounts For The Year Ended 31st December 2006, Central Bank Of Nigeria

CBN Annual Report

This Report reviews the operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and macroeconomic developments during the fiscal year 2006 and appraises the major economic policy outcomes during the period. The Bank reported a stable foreign exchange market in 2006, with an average effective official exchange rate of N 128.65 per U.S dollar, an increase of 2.6% over 2005. The stock of external reserves, valued at US$12.30 billion, was 49.6% higher than in 2005, driven by high crude oil prices and lower debt-service burden. The reserves were equivalent to 28.4 months of import cover, exceeding the 6 months requirement under …

Simulation Of The Colombian Firm Energy Market, Peter Cramton, Steven Stoft

Peter Cramton

We present a simulation analysis of the proposed Colombian firm energy market. The main purpose of the simulation is to assess the risk to suppliers of participation in the market. We also are able to consider variations in the market design, and assess the impact of alternative auction parameters. Three simulation models are developed and analyzed. The first model (Model 1) uses historical price data from October 1995 through May 2006 to assess the performance risk of hypothetical thermal and hydro generating units. The second model (Model 2) uses historical price and operating data to assess performance risk of the …

Choice Of Currency By East Asia Bond Issuers, David Fernandez, Simon Klassen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In discussing bond markets in Asia, academics and policymakers typically begin by noting that the Asian crisis of 1997-98 in part resulted from the underdevelopment of the region’s domestic bond markets and the resultant currency and duration mismatches. When assessing the progress made in developing these markets in the post-crisis years, academics and policymakers usually observe that, while several domestic currency government bond markets have moved ahead, corporate bond markets have lagged (Asian Development Bank (2002), Reserve Bank of Australia (2003)). The policy conclusion is therefore often drawn: to prevent another Asian crisis, Asian bond markets must be further developed.

Conceptual Issues On Savings In Nigeria., A. J. Adam, A. V. Agba

Bullion

It is often held that capital accumulation is necessary and sufficient condition for growth and capital accumulation is almost synonymous with saving, hence the route to growth is then one of raising savings and smoothing consumption (Deaton, 1991). Savings is one of the key relevant macroeconomic variables in any economy. Its impact on the rate of capital accumulation, productivity and the degree of dependency of a nation on foreign capital and foreign ownership of domestic assets cannot be overemphasised. This paper reviews conceptual issues on savings behaviour in Nigeria. It also provided an analysis of the factors that may have …

Overview Of Currency Management In Nigeria., K. S. Adeyemi

Bullion

This paper seeks to highlight the issues in currency management, identify the challenges of currency management in Nigeria, and situate the currency management reforms of the Central Bank of Nigeria in proper context. The paper is structured into six sections. Following the introduction, the key dimensions of the currency management function is highlighted in section 2. Section 3 reviews the major currency episodes in Nigeria while section 4 examines the shortcomings of the existing currency arrangements. Nigeria's reform effort in currency management is discussed in Section 5 and the paper is concluded in section 6 by observing that: as inflation …

The Legal Framework For Currency Management In Nigeria., Anthony Olatujoye

Bullion

This paper reviews the adequacy of the existing legal framework for Currency Management in Nigeria. The paper is structured into three parts. Part I is an introduction to the paper. The legal provisions governing currency management in Nigeria and some of the legal challenges for the CBN are highlighted and examined in part II. Part III concludes the paper: that a major legal challenge facing the CBN is the absence of specific provisions of the law criminalizing such acts as tampering, deliberate mutilation, spraying and marching of currency.

Understanding The Pension Reform Act(Pra) 2004, Adesina Balogun

Bullion

Pension schemes exit to provide post-retirement I benefits to employees. Pension scheme was introduced into Nigeria during the Colonial era to provide old age income and security to British citizens working in the country upon retirement. This paper discussed the conceptual framework of Pension Reform Act 2004, the dynamics of Pension Reform Act of 2004, the implications and challenges of Pension Act of 2004 as well as feasible options for future developments. The study concluded that, The roles and functions of PFAs and PFCs are Pivotal to the success of the new defined contributory scheme. It behoves on them therefore, …

The Growing Together Guide: A Companion Resource To The New England Environmental Finance Center/Melissa Paly Film, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

What local leader or public official wants to be faced with an SOS the “same old story” of public discord and confrontation over growth and development in one’s community? That situation has become a problem for efforts to promote smart growth. Investments are needed in the walkable, compact, traditional‐streetscape and mixed use neighborhoods and developments that are more sustainable and healthy than sprawl, for both people and the landscape. Yet attempts at such change all too often end up mired in costly public controversy and stalemate.

The Determinants Of Executive Compensation In The Commercial Banking Industry, David A. Romer

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the viability of two basic theories of compensation to explain executive compensation in the banking industry. The two executive compensation motivation theories are sales/sales growth maximization and profit/shareholder wealth maximization. Overall, strong support is found for both theories. This research also seeks to significantly expand, compared to previous research, the number of banks investigated. This study succeeds, with over a four-fold increase in the number of banks analyzed, including over 330 banks not previously used in the literature. This investigation is further motivated by the paucity of banking studies on compensation …

Financial Sector Outcomes In Nigeria: A Quantitative Evaluation., Abeng M. Okoi

Bullion

Prior to the adoption of the economic reforms measures of the 1980's, most African economies were predominantly characterised by extensive public ownership, management and control of productive and social infrastructures and institutions. This paper discuss the trend of investments and pension schemes with its risks and challenges in Nigeria. The study however confirmed the non applicability of the financial reform theory hypothesized by McKinnon and Shaw in Nigeria 'This Paper quantitatively examine the outcomes of financial sector reforms in Nigeria with a view to validating the applicability of the Mckinnon Shaw hypothesis of financial liberalization. The impact of reforms on …

Contributory Pension Scheme: The Case Of Brazil., Mbatomon R. Ako

Bullion

The reform of the pension industry in Nigeria was necessitated by many problems confronting both the public and private sectors pension schemes. The public sector operated largely the Defined Benefit - Pay As You Go (PAYG) scheme, which depended on budgetary provisions from various tiers of governments for funding. This paper discuss the conceptual issues of Contributory pension scheme in Brazil, the structure of the pension system and the features of the pension scheme as well as some other pension reforms in Brazil. The study concluded that. the pension systems were introduced into the country by the colonial administrators. The …

New England’S Forward Capacity Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

This note provides a brief description of New England’s Forward Capacity Auction (FCA) for the procurement of electricity capacity. The description is based on the 6 March 2006 Settlement Agreement. The description here presents a simpler description of the auction mechanics, and limits the presentation to the key elements relevant to someone providing software and other support to implement the primary auction. In addition, some motivation for the approach is given. The description here is not a software specification, but rather a high-level description of the auction. Many implementation details are yet to be resolved. These details will be resolved …

Inflation Monitor, Muhammad Arby, Fida Hussain, Safdar Khan

Safdar Khan

Extract:
Although inflationary pressures persisted in the economy for the second year in a row, the headline inflation fell to 7.6 percent year-on-year in June 2006 that was 1 percentage point less than inflation in corresponding month last year.1 The inflation containment was more visible in the last six months of FY06 as compared to first six months (Jul 05 to Dec 05): the average CPI inflation during the first half of the year was 8.4 percent which declined to 7.4 percent in the second half primarily due to fall in food inflation. Inflation measured by sensitive price indicator also …

The Convergence Of Market Designs For Adequate Generating Capacity, Peter Cramton, Steven Stoft

Peter Cramton

This paper compares market designs intended to solve the resource adequacy (RA) problem, and finds that, in spite of rivalrous claims, the most advanced designs have nearly converged. The original dichotomy between approaches based on long-term energy contracts and those based on short-term capacity markets spawned two design tracks. Long-term contracts led to call-option obligations which provide market-power control and the ability to strengthen performance incentives, but this approach fails to replace the missing money at the root of the adequacy problem. Hogan’s energy-only market fills this gap. On the other track, the short-term capacity markets (ICAP) spawned long-term capacity …

Three Essays On Banking And Corporate Finance, Fang Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of three essays on banking and corporate finance. The first essay studies the relationship between interest-rate derivative usage and bank lending. Using recent data that cover a full business cycle, this paper documents a direct relationship between interest-rate derivative usage by U.S. banks and growth in their commercial and industrial (C&I) loan portfolios. This positive association holds for interest-rate options contracts, forward contracts, and futures contracts. This result is consistent with the implication of Diamond's model (1984) that predicts that a bank's use of derivatives permits better management of systematic risk exposure, thereby lowering the cost …

Modeling And Simulation Of Value -At -Risk In The Financial Market Area, Xiangyin Zheng

Doctoral Dissertations

Value-at-Risk (VaR) is a statistical approach to measure market risk. It is widely used by banks, securities firms, commodity and energy merchants, and other trading organizations. The main focus of this research is measuring and analyzing market risk by modeling and simulation of Value-at-Risk for portfolios in the financial market area. The objectives are (1) predicting possible future loss for a financial portfolio from VaR measurement, and (2) identifying how the distributions of the risk factors affect the distribution of the portfolio. Results from (1) and (2) provide valuable information for portfolio optimization and risk management.

The model systems chosen …

Is The Nigerian Curricula In Economics Relevant For The Nigerian Economy Of The 21st Century., J. A. Achilike

Bullion

The loopholes in Nigeria's educational system have created a death of capacity in the Nigerian economy. No nation can develop without qualitative education. The paper examines the relevance of the economics curricula in Nigeria's tertiary institutions in meeting the challenges of the 21st century. It highlights its problems and examines the efforts of National University Commission and Ministry of Education in meeting the challenges of economics education in Nigeria. Finally the study concludes that, the Nigerian Economics curricular is critically under developed and does not follow government economic policies, but if all the recommendations are adopted the Nigerian economics curricula …

Affidavit Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Affidavit in support of the settlement agreement defining the New England Forward Capacity Market. For ISO New England.

Ex Parte Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Ex parte communication on various auction rules for the AWS auction.

Declaration Of Peter Cramton On The Aws Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Declaration on various auction rules for the AWS auction. On behalf of T-Mobile US.

Reply Declaration Of Peter Cramton On The Aws Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Reply declaration on various auction rules for the AWS auction. On behalf of T-Mobile US.

Effects Of Technological Improvement In The Ict Producing Sector On Business Activity, Hian Teck Hoon, Edmund S. Phelps

Research Collection School Of Economics

It seems to be taken for granted by many commentators that the sharp decline in prices of computers, telecommunications equipment and software resulting from the technological improvements in the information and communications technology (ICT)-producing sector is good for jobs and is a major driving force behind the non-inflationary employment miracle and booming stock market in the latter half of the nineties in the U.S. and their recurrence since 2004. We show that, in our model, a technical improvement in the ICT-producing sector by itself cannot explain a simultaneous increase in employment and a rise in firms’ valuation (or Tobin’s Q …

Dynamical Volatilities For Yen-Dollar Exchange Rates, Kyungsik Kim, Seong-Min Yoon, C. Christopher Lee, Myung-Kul Yum

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

We study the continuous time random walk theory from financial tick data of the yen-dollar exchange rate transacted at the Japanese financial market. The dynamical behavior of returns and volatilities in this case is particularly treated at the long-time limit. We find that the volatility for prices shows a power-law with anomalous scaling exponent κ = 0.96 (one minute) and 0.86 (ten minutes), and that our behavior occurs in the subdiffusive process. Our result presented will be compared with that of recent numerical calculations.

An Investigation Of Changes In Contributions Of State Lotteries To Education Over Time, Andrea Lee Parker

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Arkansas is one of many states in this country that is experiencing an education funding crisis. Despite the fact that states have started taking more responsibility for the funding of their public schools since the mid-1950s, litigation over education funding has occurred in almost every state in the United States. Litigation in Arkansas began in the 1980s and continues today with the Lake View case. Several alternatives have been proposed to reform the state's education system and its methods of funding, including school consolidation, raising taxes, and adopting an education-supporting lottery. Lotteries have become very popular revenue raising mechanisms in …

Introduction To Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg

Peter Cramton

Combinatorial auctions are those auctions in which bidders can place bids on combinations of items, called “packages,” rather than just individual items. The study of combinatorial auctions is inherently interdisciplinary. Combinatorial auctions are in the first place auctions, a topic extensively studied by economists. Package bidding brings in operations research, especially techniques from combinatorial optimization and mathematical programming. Similarly, computer science is concerned with expressiveness of various bidding languages, and algorithmic aspects of the combinatorial problem. The study of combinatorial auctions thus lies at the intersection of economics, operations research, and computer science. In this book, we look at combinatorial …

The Clock-Proxy Auction: A Practical Combinatorial Auction Design, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Peter Cramton, Paul Milgrom

Peter Cramton

We propose the clock-proxy auction as a practical means for auctioning many related items. A clock auction phase is followed by a last-and-final proxy round. The approach combines the simple and transparent price discovery of the clock auction with the efficiency of the proxy auction. Linear pricing is maintained as long as possible, but then is abandoned in the proxy round to improve efficiency and enhance seller revenues. The approach has many advantages over the simultaneous ascending auction. In particular, the clock-proxy auction has no exposure problem, eliminates incentives for demand reduction, and prevents most collusive bidding strategies.

Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg

Peter Cramton

A comprehensive book on combinatorial auctions―auctions in which bidders can bid on packages of items. The book consists of original material intended for researchers, students, and practitioners of auction design. It includes a foreword by Vernon Smith, an introduction to combinatorial auctions, and twenty-three cross-referenced chapters in five parts. Part I covers mechanisms, such as the Vickrey auction and the ascending proxy auction. Part II is on bidding and efficiency issues. Part III examines computational issues and algorithmic considerations, especially the winner determination problem―how to identify the (tentative) winning set of bids that maximizes revenue. Part IV discusses implementation and …

Dynamic Auctions In Procurement, Peter Cramton, Lawrence M. Ausubel

Peter Cramton

We study the theory and practical implementation of dynamic procurement auctions. We consider the procurement of many related items. With many related items, price discovery is important not only to reduce the winner’s curse, but more importantly, to simplify the bidder’s decision problem and to facilitate the revelation of preferences in the bids. Three auction formats are considered: simultaneous descending auctions are preferred if the items are not divisible, simultaneous clock auctions are desirable for procuring many divisible goods, and the clock-proxy auction is best if complementarities among items are strong and varied across the suppliers. We examine the properties …

Simultaneous Ascending Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg

Peter Cramton

The simultaneous ascending auction has proved to be a successful method of auctioning many related items. Simultaneous sale and ascending bids enable price discovery, which helps bidders build desirable packages of items. Although package bids are not allowed, the auction format does handle mild complementarities well. I examine the auction design and its performance in practice.

The Essential Role Of Securities Regulation, Zohar Goshen, Gideon Parchomovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article posits that the essential role of securities regulation is to create a competitive market for sophisticated professional investors and analysts (information traders). The Article advances two related theses-one descriptive and the other normative. Descriptively, the Article demonstrates that securities regulation is specifically designed to facilitate and protect the work of information traders. Securities regulation may be divided into three broad categories: (i) disclosure duties; (ii) restrictions on fraud and manipulation; and (iii) restrictions on insider trading-each of which contributes to the creation of a vibrant market for information traders. Disclosure duties reduce information traders' costs of searching and …