Financial Exploitation of Older Persons

Abstract

Financial exploitation is a recognized social problem of unknown, though likely increasing, magnitude. It can occur through numerous methods, including the misuse of powers of attorney and guardianship, illegal transfers of property, and outright fraud and theft. Financial crimes against older persons are difficult to address because they often go unreported. This paper provides a summary of findings from a study of financial exploitation of older persons. We review what is known about the nature and scope of financial exploitation of older persons and describe barriers to addressing the problem. We also identify gaps in knowledge, discuss current methods for addressing financial exploitation, and provide recommendations and suggested policy approaches for prevention and remediation.     

Hyper-Segmentation and Exclusion in Financial Services in the U.S.

Abstract

The last twenty years has been a period of major structural change for the financial services sector in the United States. Some of this restructuring has been prompted by technological change, but public policy has actively facilitated the increased mobility of capital to places where it brings the highest short-term private return but not necessarily the greatest long-term social return. While deregulation and technology have combined to provide a wider choice of services and increased price pressure in the lucrative segments of different financial markets, the pursuit of affluent customers has left lower-income consumers and very small firms at a disadvantage. The sector overall has moved toward a hyper-segmentation of customer bases by income and race, leaving many communities served primarily by higher-cost and sometimes abusive financial services firms.     

制约农民增收因素的相关分析——以山东省为例

造成农民增收困难的原因是多方面的,各地区之间农民收入增长存在明显差异。山东作为一个农业大省其农民增收有其独特的特点。在综述了其他学者的主要观点之后,结合山东省的相关数据,将城乡二元结构、对农财政支出、农业人口比重和农业总产值等常被用来作为分析农民增收的因素量化,然后,通过运用相关分析方法,考察了上述变量与农民增收的关系,得出阻碍农民增收的主要因素,并提出了相关的解决途径。     

Remittances,financial development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies

To design and implement effective post-COVID-19 macroeconomics policies to tackle poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), policymakers need to understand the factors shaping poverty in the region. This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and financial development on poverty alleviation in 44 sub-Saharan African SSA countries from 2010 to 2019. The instrumental variable generalised method of moment technique results indicated that while remittances increase poverty, financial development contributes significantly to poverty reduction. The results consistently revealed that remittances increase both male and female poverty rates, while financial development significantly reduces male and female poverty rates. Other factors such as economic growth, foreign direct investment, and trade openness contributed significantly to reducing poverty. In contrast, government expenditure and foreign aid were found to increase poverty rate in SSA. These results are robust to the Lewbel two-stage least squares estimator. The practical implications of these findings for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies in SSA are discussed.     

The cross-impact between financial markets,Covid-19 pandemic,and economic sanctions: The case of Iran

The main financial markets in the Iranian Economy include the stock exchange, foreign exchange, oil, and gold markets. The sharp fluctuations in these markets, especially those caused by the severe sanctions imposed on Iran in May 2018, and the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19 have led to more confusion and uncertainty among investors. One of the effective approaches to examine such unstable conditions is to study the co-movement(s) between markets to identify the leading variable(s). Thus, in the present study, Wavelet Coherence Analysis was applied to examine the co-movements between markets in a time period from September 2014 to June 2020, as an intense period of uncertainty in Iran. In other words, in this study, the markets were investigated in different sub-periods. Also, the Segmented Regression was performed to estimate the impact of sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic on the co-movements of financial markets in Iran.The results showed that the oil price had a low co-movement with the other three markets, i.e. stock exchange, exchange rate, and gold markets. Thus, the oil market can be a suitable alternative for risk aversion investors. Meanwhile, the oil market could also act as a source of finance for the government during the sanctions period. That possibly explains the recent decision by the Iranian government to use the oil market to finance its budget deficit. Between the exchange rate and gold price, the gold price was identified as the leading variable. While the exchange rate and gold price did not show a significant co-movement in stable conditions, they did show a significant co-movement in unstable conditions, as in times of sanctions or during a global pandemic and thus influenced the investors’ portfolio risk. This result is important from a policy-making perspective. Based on this result, the policymakers can, especially during crises and unstable conditions, control the gold market and make it more stable by managing the foreign exchange market.     

福建省入境旅游接待区域差异研究

改革开放以来,福建省入境旅游取得了很快的发展,在全国占有重要的地位,但是区域发展十分不平衡。从测算结果看,福建省入境旅游带内差异大于旅游带间差异,旅游带内差异主要是由东部滨海旅游带内的差异造成的。从供给与需求两个方面对福建省旅游入境接待区域差异产生的原因进行分析：福建省各设区市可以根据区域旅游资源优势、逐步改善的交通条件和旅游设施条件,通过提升入境旅游市场的战略,缩小入境接待区域经济差距。     

农业洪涝灾害受灾体脆弱性、恢复力及其影响因素分析

中国洪涝灾害发生的频率、范围、损失程度近年来急剧上升,对农业生产、农民生活乃至整个国民经济持续稳定发展造成直接冲击与巨大毁损。恢复力作为描述人类自身响应和发挥主体能力、积极抵御和适应外界变化的指标,与受灾体脆弱性一起构成灾害管理学不可或缺的重要因素。对农业洪涝灾害受灾体脆弱性及灾后恢复力概念进行新的定义,分析二者紧密相连又互为影响的关系,并详细分析阐述气候条件、水系分布、地貌特征、土壤与植被覆盖状况、耕地面积与结构和水土流失状况等自然环境因素,农户收入、劳动力数量、区域经济发展水平、人口规模与密度、水利设施状况、农户心理素质和文化素质等社会经济因素,以及政府组织管理、社会援助等因素对农业洪涝灾害受灾体脆弱性、恢复力的影响,为农业防灾减灾工作提供理论和决策依据。     

论海洋灾害的适应：从海洋环境资源保护与灾害应对的法制统筹展开

海洋灾害的适应必需海洋环境资源保护与灾害应对的法制统筹。统筹的法制规制与促进具体适应行动的展开,构成海洋灾害适应的完整路径。统筹的法制是适应的保障,承灾体脆弱性改善是适应的手段,将个体和群体的适应能力提升主导脆弱性改善是适应的关键。为此,应在海洋灾害防灾社区建设框架内实施灾害脆弱性改善措施;在生态补偿与灾害援助统筹之中落实灾害脆弱性改善措施;在海洋环境资源保护与灾害应对的合作模式整合基础上强化灾害脆弱性改善措施。     

吉林省金融业的产业关联分析

利用投入产出分析的方法,对吉林省金融业进行产业关联的分析,通过消耗系数和分配系数研究金融业与国民经济其他产业部门的后向关联、前向关联和环向关联效应。揭示金融业的产业地位及对国民经济的需求拉动作用和供给推动作用。为优化吉林省金融业的产业结构,理顺产业关系,从而有效带动地方经济的发展提供理论依据。     

Surveillance of the covariance matrix of multivariate nonlinear time series

In this paper, sequential procedures for the surveillance of the covariance matrices of multivariate nonlinear time series are introduced. Two different types of control charts are proposed. The first type is based on the exponential smoothing of each component of a local measure for the covariances. The control statistic is equal to the Mahalanobis distance of this quantity with its in-control mean. In our second approach, the Mahalanobis distance is first determined and after that it is exponentially smoothed. We discuss three examples of local measures.

Several properties of the proposed schemes are discussed assuming the target process to be generated by a multivariate GARCH(1, 1) model. The generalization to the family of spherical distributions allows the modelling of frequently observed fat tails in financial data. Some results of an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study are provided in order to judge the performance of the presented control schemes. As a performance measure we use the average run length. An empirical example illustrates the importance of the fast detection of the changes in the covariance structure of the returns of financial assets.