Pension reform is one of the biggest challenges facing national governments. How to reform the old pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems is still under hot debate; one of the most influential funded pension schemes is designed by the World Bank. In the second chapter of this paper, we first review the...

In an incomplete contract setting, we analyze the contracting out of public service provision, comparing the performance of for-profit and not-for-profit private firms. Two institutional arrangements are considered, control rights lying either with the firm as under the UK's Private Finance...

It is a well established empirical fact that volatility follows approxi- mately an inverted U-shaped pattern during the day. It is high in the morning, gradually decreasing, reaching a minimum at lunch time and then starting to increase again until the end of the trading day. In this paper we...

This paper analyses the impact of uncertainty about the true state of the economy on monetary policy rules in the US since the early 1980s. Extending the Taylor rule to allow for this type of uncertainty, we find evidence that the predictions of the theoretical literature on responses to...

In recent years, a growing number of Emerging Market Economies, as well as most advanced countries, have witnessed growth of pension funds as institutional investors. This has often occurred in the wake of pension reform shifting retirement income provision from pay-as-you-go to funding. The...

This paper attempts to look inside the black box of social capital by developing micro-models of the value of contacts, leading to production functions that depend on the number of contacts. We identify 4 sources of the value of contacts: economies of scale, comparative advantage, skill spreads,...

This paper measures the exchange market pressure (EMP) on the Australian dollar over the post-float period using the model-dependent approach proposed by Weymark (1995, 1998) and the model-independent approach developed by Eichengreen, Rose and Wyplosz (1996). Although there are some concerns...

In this paper we discuss different aspects of long mzmory behavior and specify what kinds of parametric models follow them. We discuss the confusion which can arise when empirical autocorrelation function of a short memory process decreases in an hyperbolic way.

Ordered logit models are used to predict financial literacy on the basis of individual demographic, socioeconomic and financial characteristics. The data is drawn from the 2003 ANZ Survey of Adult Financial Literacy in Australia and relates to 3,548 respondents. Financial literacy is defined,...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the adoption rate of Internet banking and electronic connectivity. Electronic connectivity is measured using three components: personal computer connectivity, Internet connectivity and mobile phone connectivity. Regression is used to analyse...