Showing papers on "Shadow (psychology) published in 2014"

A Shadow Policy Rate to Calibrate US Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound

Abstract: The recent global financial crisis, the Great Recession and the subsequent implementation of a variety of unconventional policy measures have raised the issue of how to correctly measure the stance of monetary policy when policy interest rates reach the zero lower bound (ZLB). In this paper, we propose a new "shadow policy rate" for the US economy, using a large set of data representing the various facets of the US Federal Reserve's policy stance. Changes in term premia at various maturities and asset purchases by the Fed are key drivers of this shadow rate. We document that our shadow policy rate tracks the effective federal funds rate very closely before the recent crisis. More importantly, it provides a reasonable gauge of US monetary policy stance when the ZLB becomes binding. This facilitates the assessment of the policy stance against familiar Taylor rule benchmarks. Finally, we show that in structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models, the shadow policy rate helps identify monetary policy shocks that better reflect the Federal Reserve's unconventional policy measures.

An explicit test of plea bargaining in the “shadow of the trial”†

Abstract: Bargaining in the “shadow of the trial,” which hinges on the expectations of trial outcomes, is the primary theory used by noncriminologists to explain variation in the plea discount given to defendants who plead guilty This study develops a formal mathematical representation of the theory and then presents an empirical test of the theory using an innovative online survey with responses to a hypothetical case from 1,585 prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges The key outcomes are the probability that the defendant will be convicted at trial, the sentence for the defendant if convicted, and the best plea that the respondent would accept or offer Variation in the outcomes is created through experimental variation in the information presented to the respondents Structural regression models are estimated to ?t the formal theoretical models, and the instrumental variables method is used to correct for measurement error in the estimate for probability of conviction The data support the basic shadow model, with minor modi?cations, for only prosecutors and defense attorneys Controlling for the characteristics of the individual actors and their jurisdictions adds explanatory value to the model, although these control variables did not affect the key co-ef?cients from the shadow model

Why Reregulation after the Crisis is Feeble: Shadow Banking, Offshore Financial Centers and Jurisdictional Competition

Abstract: A crucial element in the complex chain of factors that caused the recent financial crisis was the lack of regulation and oversight in the shadow banking sector, which is largely incorporated in offshore financial centers (OFCs). But instead of swift and radical regulatory reform in that sector after the crisis, we observe only incremental and ineffective measures. Why? The paper develops an explanation based on a two-level game. On the international level, governments are engaged in jurisdictional competition for financial activity. On the domestic level, governments are prone to capture by financial interest groups, but also susceptible to demands for stricter regulation by the electorate. Governments try to square the circle between the conflicting demands by adopting incremental and symbolic, but largely ineffective reforms. The explanation is put to empirical scrutiny by tracing the regulatory initiatives on shadow banks and OFCs at the international level and within the USA and the European Union, where I focus on France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Measuring the Shadow Economy Using Company Managers

Abstract: This study develops a method that uses surveys of company managers to measure the size of a shadow economy. Our method is based on the premise that company managers are the most likely to know how much business income and wages go unreported due to their unique position in dealing with both of these types of income. We use a range of survey design features to maximize the truthfulness of responses. Our method combines estimates of misreported business income, unregistered or hidden employees, and unreported wages, to arrive at an estimate of the size of a shadow economy as a percentage of GDP. This approach differs from most other studies of shadow economies, which largely focus on using macro indicators. We illustrate the application of our method to three new EU member countries. We also analyze the factors that influence companies’ participation in the shadow economy.

Shadow Education and Academic Success in Republic of Korea

Abstract: This study examines the effects of different types of shadow education on academic achievement, using data from a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of South Korean seventh graders. To control for pre-existing differences between students who used a particular type of shadow education and those who did not, the study employed a series of statistical models including propensity score matching techniques. Results show that the use of a particular type of shadow education (i.e., preparatory cram school) made a small difference in achievement gains in math, whereas other forms (i.e., individual tutoring, correspondence courses, on-line tutoring services, and Educational Broadcasting System [EBS]) made little difference. Limitations, implications, and future research directions are discussed.

The impact of shadow education on student academic achievement: Why the research is inconclusive and what can be done about it

Abstract: Recent decades have brought global expansion of private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education Such tutoring consumes considerable resources and is usually viewed by participating households as an investment that will increase the recipients’ academic achievements However, research on the effectiveness of tutoring has delivered inconclusive and even contradictory findings Part of the reason lies in definitions and foci of research, since private supplementary tutoring may have many different formats, delivery mechanisms and intensities As with other types of education, it is important also to investigate the qualities of the instructors and the motivations of the students This creates a complex research arena, in which practical challenges arise from shortcomings in the instruments for securing data and limitations in methods for analyzing the data This paper assesses the current state of the literature and makes recommendations for the future research agenda

Confronting the Shadow Economy

Abstract: Beginning with a review of the extent of undeclared work, the author discusses the discrepancies between regions and the potential impacts of the economic crisis, comparing the nature of the potential solutions available with those actually adopted. The way forward, the book concludes, is to move away from increasing the costs of engaging in hidden work using repressive measures, and concentrate more on developing initiatives that enhance the benefits of engaging in declared work and increase the likelihood of compliance by engendering a commitment to tax morality.

Measurement Issues in Research on Shadow Education: Challenges and Pitfalls Encountered in TIMSS and PISA.

Abstract: Expanding numbers of researchers are focusing on the scale and impact of private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring is widely called shadow education, since much of its curriculum mimics that of regular schooling. Although shadow education has expanded significantly worldwide and is now recognized to have far-reaching significance, research faces methodological and conceptual challenges. This article focuses on analyses of shadow education data from the Third (or Trends in) International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). An initial problem arises from definitions of shadow education and therefore from research focus. Further challenges arise from the initial phrasing and then translation of items in international questionnaires. The article notes that some studies have been grounded in problematic data, which has led to misleading pictures. Methods and approaches are maturing, but much refinement remains necessary for an adequate unders...

The Demand for Shadow Education in China: Mainstream Teachers and Power Relations

Abstract: As in other parts of the world, private tutoring has expanded significantly in Mainland China during the past decade. This has been driven by factors including dramatic economic growth, high-stakes examinations, and the traditions of a Confucian culture at the macro-level, and school leadership and family incomes, at the micro-level. This paper examines the demand for private supplementary tutoring in Chongqing, China. It is based on a mixed-methods study of tutoring received by Grade 9 students. Based on an overview of the demand for shadow education by the sampled students and the driving factors at multiple levels, this paper investigates the role of teachers' power in shaping the demand. It draws on the data obtained from interviews and case studies, applying the theory of power bases to map the power relations among various stakeholders in both mainstream and shadow education systems. The study reveals that nearly half of Grade 9 students receive private tutoring, with mainstream teachers as the most...

Shadow Bank Monitoring

Abstract: We provide a framework for monitoring the shadow banking system. The shadow banking system consists of a web of specialized financial institutions that conduct credit, maturity, and liquidity transformation without direct, explicit access to public backstops. The lack of such access to sources of government liquidity and credit backstops makes shadow banks inherently fragile. Shadow banking activities are often intertwined with core regulated institutions such as bank holding companies, security brokers and dealers, and insurance companies. These interconnections of shadow banks with other financial institutions create sources of systemic risk for the broader financial system. We describe elements of monitoring risks in the shadow banking system, including recent efforts by the Financial Stability Board.

Shadow banking in China: expanding scale, evolving structure

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to survey available data sources and put China’s shadow banking system in perspective. Although bank loans still account for the majority of credit provided to China’s real economy, other channels of credit extension are growing rapidly. The fast expansion of shadow banking has spurred wide concerns regarding credit quality and financial stability. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explores various data sources, provides an overview of shadow banking activities in China, discusses their close ties with banks and summarizes regulatory issues. Extensive descriptive data are included to provide a comprehensive picture of the nature of shadow banking activities in China. In particular, institutions and products are discussed in great details. Findings – While China’s shadow banking system is by no means simple, it does not (yet) involve the extensive use of financial derivatives. Rather, shadow banking credit is often directly extended to the real economy. In addition, shadow ...

The Shadow Economy in Colombia: Size and Effects on Economic Growth

Abstract: Using the currency demand approach, size and development of Colombia’s shadow economy are estimated over the period from 1980 to 2012. The results show a great extent of shadow economic activity varying over time between 27 and 56% of GDP. The most important factors driving the shadow economy are indirect taxation and unemployment. Analyzing the interaction between shadow and official economy, the shadow economy has a negative effect on the official one. Average growth of real per capita GDP is 1.86% between 1980 and 2012, without shadow economy it would have been higher around 0.12 percentage points on average.

Marketized private tutoring as a supplement to regular schooling: Liberal Studies and the shadow sector in Hong Kong secondary education

Abstract: Around the world, increasing numbers of students receive after-school private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring may be provided through informal channels or by companies, and it may be received one-to-one, in small groups or in large classes. The tutoring is commonly called shadow education since its content mimics that of regular schooling. The spread of shadow education is part of a global shift of balance with increased roles for the private sector. Hong Kong is among the societies in which shadow education enrolment rates are particularly high. Much of the shadow education focuses on techniques for performance in external examinations, and is not consistent with the emphases stressed by teachers and the government. This paper focuses on a newly introduced subject called Liberal Studies in which the tensions are especially visible. Although the official curriculum emphasizes creativity and critical thinking, many students have sought large-class tutoring focused on formulae for passing examinations...

What is Shadow Banking

Abstract: There is much confusion about what shadow banking is. Some equate it with securitization, others with non-traditional bank activities, and yet others with non-bank lending. Regardless, most think of shadow banking as activities that can create systemic risk. This paper proposes to describe shadow banking as “all financial activities, except traditional banking, which require a private or public backstop to operate”. Backstops can come in the form of franchise value of a bank or insurance company, or in the form of a government guarantee. The need for a backstop is in our view a crucial feature of shadow banking, which distinguishes it from the “usual” intermediated capital market activities, such as custodians, hedge funds, leasing companies, etc.

Shadow educations: mapping the global discourse

Abstract: Private supplementary tutoring, also widely known as shadow education, is becoming a global phenomenon and an object of international scholarship. Private tutoring has multiple forms and positions across educational systems and levels, thus the term “shadow educations”. Asia is a notable location of shadow education activity. This editorial article maps the global discourse on shadow educations, using an expanded framework for analysis based on the Bray and Thomas cube. Against this backdrop, Asian research on shadow education presented in this special issue is introduced and its contribution to the global discourse is highlighted. A possible global research agenda is offered with the hope that new understandings derived from scholarly research may aid stakeholders in achieving the aims of education.

Online privacy as a collective phenomenon

Abstract: The problem of online privacy is often reduced to individual decisions to hide or reveal personal information in online social networks (OSNs). However, with the increasing use of OSNs, it becomes more important to understand the role of the social network in disclosing personal information that a user has not revealed voluntarily: How much of our private information do our friends disclose about us, and how much of our privacy is lost simply because of online social interaction? Without strong technical effort, an OSN may be able to exploit the assortativity of human private features, this way constructing shadow profiles with information that users chose not to share. Furthermore, because many users share their phone and email contact lists, this allows an OSN to create full shadow profiles for people who do not even have an account for this OSN.We empirically test the feasibility of constructing shadow profiles of sexual orientation for users and non-users, using data from more than 3 Million accounts of a single OSN. We quantify a lower bound for the predictive power derived from the social network of a user, to demonstrate how the predictability of sexual orientation increases with the size of this network and the tendency to share personal information. This allows us to define a privacy leak factor that links individual privacy loss with the decision of other individuals to disclose information. Our statistical analysis reveals that some individuals are at a higher risk of privacy loss, as prediction accuracy increases for users with a larger and more homogeneous first- and second-order neighborhood of their social network. While we do not provide evidence that shadow profiles exist at all, our results show that disclosing of private information is not restricted to an individual choice, but becomes a collective decision that has implications for policy and privacy regulation.

Banks, shadow banking, and fragility

Abstract: We study a banking model in which regulatory arbitrage induces the existence of shadow banking next to regulated banks. We show that the size of the shadow banking sector determines its stability. Panic-based runs become possible only if this sector is large. Moreover, if regulated banks conduct shadow banking, a relatively larger shadow banking sector is sustainable. However, crises become contagious and spread to the regulated banking sector. We argue that deposit insurance may fail to eliminate adverse run equilibria in the presence of regulatory arbitrage. It may become tested in equilibrium if regulated banking and shadow banking are intertwined.

Public Relations Ethics and Professionalism: The Shadow of Excellence

Abstract: Do professions really place duty to society above clients' or their own interests? If not, how can they be trusted? While some public relations (PR) scholars claim that PR serves society and enhances the democratic process, others suggest that it is little more than propaganda, serving the interests of global corporations. This is not an argument about definitions, but about ethics - yet this topic is barely explored in texts and theories that seek to explain PR and its function in society.This book places PR ethics in the wider context of professional ethics and the sociology of professions. By bringing together literature from fields beyond public relations - sociology, professional and philosophical ethics, and Jungian psychology - it integrates a new body of ideas into the debate. The unprecedented introduction of Jungian psychology to public relations scholarship shifts the debate beyond a traditional Western 'Good/Bad' ethical dichotomy towards a new holistic approach, with dynamic implications for theory and practice.This thought-provoking book will be essential reading for students, academics and professionals with an interest in public relations, ethics and professionalism.

Is the ‘Shadow of Sexual Assault’ Responsible for Women’s Higher Fear of Burglary?

Abstract: This article examines the ‘shadow of sexual assault hypothesis’ which posits that women’s higher fear of crime, compared to males, can be attributed to their elevated fear of sexual victimization. We argue that the previous, overwhelmingly supportive, research on this issue is incomplete in three ways: (1) the thesis has not yet been extensively tested outside of North America, (2) competing, possibly overlaying, shadow effects of physical violence have widely been ignored and (3) perceptually contemporaneous offences have always been measured in an indirect manner. Drawing on the example of fear of burglary, this work tackles the afore-mentioned deficiencies. Results from a crime survey conducted in the United Kingdom indicate that, when relying on a rather traditional test strategy, the ‘shadow of sexual assault hypothesis’ is supported. However, the findings are highly contingent on the employed methodology. When utilizing direct measures of perceptually contemporaneous offences, only physical, not sexual, assault turns out to cast a shadow over fear of burglary. The impact of fear of rape would appear to be reduced considerably once fear of broader physical harm is taken into account. We conclude that much of the existing evidence for the shadow thesis can be challenged on the grounds of failing to control for the effects of non-sexual physical assault and drawing on an inadequate operationalization of perceptually contemporaneous offences.

Financial stability policies for shadow banking

Abstract: This paper explores financial stability policies for the shadow banking system. I tie policy options to economic mechanisms for shadow banking that have been documented in the literature. I then illustrate the role of shadow bank policies using three examples: agency mortgage real estate investment trusts, leveraged lending, and captive reinsurance affiliates. For each example, the economic mechanisms are explained, the potential risks emanating from the activities are described, and policy options to mitigate such risks are listed. The overarching theme of the analysis is that any policy prescription for the shadow banking system is highly specific to the particular activity.

Countering Terrorism in Britain and France: Institutions, Norms And The Shadow Of The Past

Abstract: Introduction 1. Terrorist campaigns and threat perceptions 2. Legacies of history: norms, institutions and routines 3. Co-ordinating counterterrorism: intelligence, police and prosecution 4. Justice for suspected terrorists? 5. Operations: tackling Islamist terrorism and its supporters Conclusion Appendix: list of interviews.

Shadow banking around the globe: how large, and how risky?

Abstract: Summary T his chapter describes the growth and risks of and regulatory responses to shadow banking—financial intermediaries or activities involved in credit intermediation outside the regular banking system, and therefore lacking a formal safety net. The largest shadow banking systems are found in advanced economies, where more narrowly defined shadow banking measures indicate stagnation, while broader measures (which include investment funds) generally show continued growth since the global financial crisis. In emerging market economies, the growth of shadow banking has been strong, outpacing that of the traditional banking system. Although shadow banking takes vastly different forms across and within countries, some of the key drivers behind its growth are common to all: a tightening of banking regulation and ample liquidity conditions, as well as demand from institutional investors, tend to foster nonbanking activities. The current financial environment in advanced economies remains conducive to further growth in shadow banking. Many indications there point to the migration of some activities—such as lending to firms—from traditional banks to the nonbank sector. Shadow banking can play a beneficial role as a complement to traditional banking by expanding access to credit or by supporting market liquidity, maturity transformation, and risk sharing. It often, however, comes with banklike risks, as seen during the 2007–08 global financial crisis. Although data limitations prevent a comprehensive assessment, the U.S. shadow banking system appears to contribute most to domestic systemic risk; its contribution is much less pronounced in the euro area and the United Kingdom. The challenge for policymakers is to maximize the benefits of shadow banking while minimizing systemic risks. This chapter encourages policymakers to address the continued expansion of finance outside the regulatory perimeter through a more encompassing approach to regulation and supervision that focuses both on activities and on entities and places greater emphasis on systemic risk. To begin with, however, important data gaps need to be addressed because even aggregate information about many activities remains scarce in most countries.

Chinese Shadow Banking: Bank-Centric Misperceptions*

Abstract: In this paper, we provide a qualitative and theoretical framework to analyze the rapid growth of shadow banking in China. An important characteristic of the system is its close connection with traditional banks, making it very bank-centric. Our theoretical model employs the concept of “information sensitivity” – a measure of tail risks – by Dang, Gorton and Holmstrom (2013) and suggests that Chinese shadow banking is built on the asymmetric perception of information sensitivity among shadow banking entities, banks and investors. Compared to the US, we show that shadow banking in China is built on different mechanisms (implicit guarantees in China versus financial engineering in the US) and operates on different platforms (banks versus capital markets).