Hidden Consumer Loans: An Analysis of Implicit Interest Rates on Bounced Checks

Payday lending attracts attention for its high interest rates, but bounce protection loans are much more expensive. Bounce protection is a program where consumers overdraft—write checks in excess of the checking account balance—and the bank pays the check allowing the account balance to be negative. For this service/loan, banks charge the standard non-sufficient funds (NSF) fee. When the amount borrowed is low and the time outstanding is short, the effective interest rate paid on this loan can be quite high. Using a unique data set we were able to quantify how high the interest rate is. We found that the median implicit interest paid by consumers is over 4,000%.

“以文促经”：宁夏参与中国对阿人文外交的路径探索

“以文促经”是立足“宁夏是中国唯一的回族省区”这一“稀缺性和唯一性”的“绝对比较优势”基础上的理性抉择。宁夏在参与中国对阿人文外交的实践中尚需进一步提升朝觐工作的外交意义,并将之纳入我国对阿人文外交的战略高度筹谋和运作;进一步发掘地方旅游资源中的人文价值,借助“人媒介”传播文化中国,进而推动地方政府的国际人文交流与经贸...     

尊严视角下农民利益表达机制的构建

农民集体下跪事件和自焚现象的此起彼伏,归根结底都是民意表达不畅通所致,我国农民的尊严现状令人堪忧。因此,分析当前农民利益表达现状,探究并预测农民利益表达的发展趋势,创新农民利益表达的机制,切实保障农民的权益,让农民生活得更加幸福,更有尊严,是党的以人为本执政理念的深入体现,也是实现我国农民有尊严的重要途径。     

农村公共服务的自主供给困境及其治理路径

作为最原始的供给模式,农村公共服务的自主供给是指村社居民承担成本、主动参与到公共物品或服务生产提供的过程,表现为家庭自我供给、村民团队供给和村庄集体供给等。虽然其对政府、市场和志愿供给的补充有效缓解了农村公共服务供给匮乏的困局,但理性选择框架下的利益博弈和村社道德缺失、政府角色缺位等限制了自主供给作用的进一步发挥,存在资源浪费、供给不足、合作失败等困境。重塑乡村社会资本、完善服务供给机制、重新定位政府角色等成为可能的路径依赖。     

认真评价本犯的事后行为

"不可罚的事后行为"给人当然不可罚的印象,因而"共罚的事后行为"的概念更为准确;在本犯行为因为具有违法性阻却事由、责任阻却事由、超过追诉时效以及在诉讼法上不能证明时,能够而且必须对事后行为单独进行评价;未满十六周岁的人盗窃财物或捡拾遗忘物,满十六周岁后故意加以毁坏的,构成故意毁坏财物罪;本犯教唆他人作伪证的,可能构成妨害作证罪;杀人后碎尸的,将侮辱尸体罪与故意杀人罪数罪并罚,有助于减少故意杀人罪死刑的不当适用;间歇性精神病人伤害他人,恢复正常后不救助而导致他人死亡的,构成不作为的故意杀人罪.     

试论中国公立高校多元利益主体的生成

计划体制下,中国公立高校内部的利益是高度一致的。随着经济体制、政治体制、教育体制改革的深化,中国公立高校发生了深刻的变化,形成了多元利益主体并存的局面。首先,高校摆脱了“政府附属物”的局面,成为“自主办学的法人实体”,政府转变为多元利益主体的一方（当然是最重要和主要的一方）;共次,以教师为代表的教职工群体改变了“单位所有”的身份,与高校形成了合同聘约关系,也成为有自身利益诉求的利益主体;再者,学生缴费上学,自主择业,不再是统包统分的“准国家干部”,他们与学校的关系越来越带有“消费者”的色彩;还有,高校管理者的身份复杂起来,他们除了代表政府的利益,还代表着教职工和学生的利益;最后．由于投资主体多元化,使得“获取回报”的合作者介入大学的投入与发展,他们的利益又有其独特性。分析利益格局的变化,会为现代大学制度建设找到一个新的视角和基石。     

Modeling interest rate cycles in India

The present study tries to examine the behaviour of various Indian interest rates such as call money rate, and yields on secondary market securities with maturity periods of 15–91 days, 1-year, 5-years and 10-years. In the first stage, the study investigates the determinants of interest rates and finds that although the interest rates depend on some domestic macroeconomic variables such as yield spread and expected exchange rate, they are mainly affected by the movements of international interest rates, although with some lags. The policy variables such as Bank Rate and Federal Funds Rate did not show any significant impact on any of the interest rates. Further, it was found that the interest rates in the very recent period show some cyclical movements similar to that of the developed countries. Future behaviour of interest rates show that the present cycle of each interest rate would peak at different time points. This expected behaviour in domestic interest rates could be due to the integration of the domestic economy with the international money and financial market. This trend may be same in most of the emerging economies of Asia.     

论公民美德与市场道德的内在关联

公民美德是公民对构成公民社会的他人及其合法组织的理性认同,市场道德则是市场主体关于市场活动所共有的道德倾向的确认。公民美德与市场道德存在一致性,表现在对个体性、权利的伸张和强调位序以及政府作为的平等诉求。但二者也存在冲突,这主要源于各自依据的原则不同、所造成的社会影响不同。解决二者张力的方式应采取现实且具有建设性的个案方式,而不能幻想提出一个或一整套对任何冲突都通用的指针。     

The statistical impact of inflation on interest rates

Understanding the behavior of interest rates is of central importance in finance. This is due to the fact that interest and forward rates serve as underlyings for many fixed income products. Furthermore, interest rate-based quantities may be used as numeraires when it comes to computing present values of future payoffs. An important macroeconomic factor which is likely to trigger interest rates is inflation. In this paper we extend a well-known continuous time interest rate model by incorporating inflation. Finally, we apply a statistical test to real data to explore the goodness-of-fit of the inflation-based model.     

震后失依儿童最佳利益的社会工作保护

地震灾后失依儿童面临着创伤压力、丧亲哀恸以及依附关系变迁的三重弱势困境.社会工作应基于儿童最佳利益原则,介入失依儿童寄养安置,增进其依附关系的建立；开展多层面的心理干预,妥善处理灾后心理危机；提供失依儿童个案管理,促进其可持续的社会适应.