Reconsidering the philanthropic foundation minimum payout policy under a “new normal”

With the increasing salience of foundations in many policy fields, and recent changes in market conditions, policies towards foundations designed decades ago seem outdated. In this article we suggest reassessing foundation payout minimums. To examine the impact of payout rates on grantmaking foundations lifespan and performance under “new normal” economics, we simulate multiple foundations lifecycles using Monte Carlo methods in diverse capital market conditions, with varied investment and payout strategies.We find that while under past market regime perpetuity seems to be a given, under more probable future scenarios, foundations might face increasingly early mortality and endowment depletion, limiting their potential impact. Furthermore, lower payout rates allow for higher lifetime grantmaking, higher mean annual grantmaking, and lower giving volatility. Accordingly, we suggest a tiered payout policy, in line with foundations’ missions and proper financial planning.     

How much is too much: Does the size of income support transfers affect labor supply?

Cash transfer programs pursue mainly protective objectives, but can also impact rural livelihoods by inducing investments in productive activities and changing household labor allocation. We adopt a continuous treatment approach to quantify how households’ labor supply responds to transfer size. We find a shift from paid labor to own farm labor and find that the transfer size is well within a level that would have disincentive effects on time spent on own farm activities. The switch from paid to own farm labor occurs at lower levels of transfers for labor-constrained households, and at higher levels for non-labor constrained households.     

Identifying Systemically Important Banks: A temporal approach for macroprudential policies

Contrary to the general belief, systemic risk does not only regard the risk posed by balance sheet relationships and interdependencies among institutions. It also features a temporal dimension related to the inappropriate responses of financial market participants to changes in risk over time. This paper proposes a method to simultaneously address the cross-sectional and the time dimension in which systemic risk materializes. The method is based on the TOPHITS algorithm. It provides three scores, namely borrowing, lending and time scores: the first two represent the systemic importance of the borrowing and the lending activity associated with each financial institution,while the third represents an empirical Early Warning Signal of the financial crisis. Our findings reveal that the identification of the time score as an indicator for an incoming market distress could be relevant to design macro prudential policies.     

Inflation projections for monetary policy decision making

Many central banks set inflation targets over the medium term and inflation projections are a key input for monetary policy decision making. In this paper, we present the procedures used by the Spanish Central Bank staff to project consumer price inflation. We also provide some illustrations of their policy uses, such as fan charts, deflation probabilities and the monitoring of inflation targets.     

Role of Leaders as Agents of Negotiation for Counterbalancing Cultural Dissonance in the Middle East and North Africa Region

This study provides a unique perspective in the field of cross-cultural management by exploring the relationship between “cultural dissonance”—the gap between cultural values and actual practice—and effective leadership attributes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Incorporating cultural dissonance into implicit leadership theory, the study uses measurements of dissonance on nine cultural dimensions to identify particular leadership preferences in seven MENA countries. The overall findings suggest that societies prefer leaders who counterbalance cultural dissonance by allowing space for negotiations by members of society to reduce disparities between cultural values—“the way things should be”—and actual practices—“the way things are.” The greater the disparity between cultural values and practices, the greater the citizens' desire that leaders act as agents of change by creating space for negotiation.     

关于Feigenbaum型泛函方程的C^1解

利用Schauder不动点定理、自同胚和紧凸子集的相关性质研究Feigenbaum型泛函方程的连续可微解的存在性和唯一性.     

UCP600对我国出口贸易操作的影响

在中国近万亿美元的出口贸易中,信用证结算的金额大约占30%左右。作为信用证领域的新规则UCP600于2007年7月1日已正式生效,UCP600与UCP500相比无论在结构上还是内容上都有较大改动,这必将对出口贸易操作带来广泛的影响。现从UCP600的修订与主要创新入手分析UCP600对出口贸易操作的影响及出口商在使用UCP600时应注意的问题。     

《寻金者》中自然和空间意象的生态隐喻

西方现代文明语境下物质主义导致的内心空虚和对人类永恒精神家园的追寻,是法国生态作家勒克莱齐奥始终关注的主题。他在小说《寻金者》中通过“寻金”主题的双重隐喻,表达了作家一贯对西方现代文明和物质主义的批判;对自然元素和空间意象的诗意描绘,以及对异域土著文明生态价值的关注,赋予了作家笔下的想象空间以神话般的象征色彩和深刻的生态隐喻意义,表达了作家非西方中心主义的文明观和对人类真正宝藏——人与自然和谐家园的追求。     

降糖药物——阿尔茨海默病治疗的新思路

流行病学研究表明2型糖尿病（type 2 diabetes mellitus T2DM）能够增加患者发生阿尔茨海默病（Alzheimer＇s disease,AD）的风险。进一步的分子机制研究也表明,胰岛素抵抗以及胰岛素缺乏,这个T2DM特征性和最主要的发病机制也在AD的发病机制中发挥着重要作用。近年来甚至有人提议将AD称作＂3型糖尿病＂。基于这些研究,降糖药物也许是治疗AD的一个新选择。大量的临床试验研究也已经表明AD患者能够从降糖药物中获益,本文将主要介绍胰岛素、二甲双胍、噻唑烷二酮类药物以及胰升糖素样多肽1类似物。     

欠发达地区技术进步与经济增长的实证研究——以甘肃省为例

欠发达地区经济增长由于受到市场化程度、资源配置效率、工业发展基础等影响,技术进步转化生产力方面并不高,经济增长效应不佳。通过用甘肃省经济数据拟合广义柯布-道格拉斯函数,计算出广义技术进步以及资本、劳动和技术进步对经济增长的贡献,得出甘肃省经济发展还处于高资本、劳动投入推动经济增长阶段,经济发展处于粗放型模式,科技进步转化效果并不明显。