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During the development and maintenance of software-intensive products or services, we depend on various artefacts. Some of those artefacts, we deem central to the feasibility of a project and the product's final quality. Typically, these central artefacts are referred to as assets. However, despite their central role in the software development process, little thought is yet invested into what eventually characterises as an asset, often resulting in many terms and underlying concepts being mixed and used inconsistently. A precise terminology of assets and related concepts, such as asset degradation, are crucial for setting up a new generation of cost-effective software engineering practices. In this position paper, we critically reflect upon the notion of assets in software engineering. As a starting point, we define the terminology and concepts of assets and extend the reasoning behind them. We explore assets' characteristics and discuss what asset degradation is as well as its various types and the implications that asset degradation might bring for the planning, realisation, and evolution of software-intensive products and services over time. We aspire to contribute to a more standardised definition of assets in software engineering and foster research endeavours and their practical dissemination in a common, more unified direction., Manuscript submitted to the Journal of Systems and Software

Investment in REITs has become significant in recent years due to the stability and sustainable performance of the investment. A study on the management perspective is very important but this perspective is very limited. Asset management will derive from the profit optimization of the investment. Therefore, it is important to assess asset management strategies to ensure the sustainable performance of the assets. This paper aims to assess asset management strategies among matured REIT companies in developed countries in comparison with Malaysian REIT companies from the perspective of the managers. This research employed qualitative analyses by using content analysis techniques. A total of 41 REIT companies from the United States (US), Japan, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia were assessed. The analyses focused on the similarities and differences between the strategy framework identified in the literature review and the strategies adopted by global REITs and Malaysian REITs under review. The study will enable all REIT stakeholders to become well-informed on global REIT asset management that will derive the maximum profit from the investment. The success of developed countries’ REITs will provide guidelines for Malaysian REITs to adopt the best practice of strategic asset management from REITs in mature markets. Furthermore, this study is one of few papers that have discussed the issue of strategic property investment, particularly focusing on REITs.

The rapid outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic invoked scientists and researchers to prepare the world for future disasters. During the pandemic, global authorities on healthcare urged the importance of disinfection of objects and surfaces. To implement efficient and safe disinfection services during the pandemic, robots have been utilized for indoor assets. In this paper, we envision the use of drones for disinfection of outdoor assets in hospitals and other facilities. Such heterogeneous assets may have different service demands (e.g., service time, quantity of the disinfectant material etc.), whereas drones have typically limited capacity (i.e., travel time, disinfectant carrying capacity). To serve all the facility assets in an efficient manner, the drone to assets allocation and drone travel routes must be optimized. In this paper, we formulate the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) to find optimal route for each drone such that the total service time is minimized, while simultaneously the drones meet the demands of each asset allocated to it. The problem is solved using mixed integer programming (MIP). As CVRP is an NP-hard problem, we propose a lightweight heuristic to achieve sub-optimal performance while reducing the time complexity in solving the problem involving a large number of assets., Comment: Paper accepted at 2022 2nd International Conference on Computers and Automation (CompAuto 2022)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the convergence of private and public sector accounting standards is affecting conceptual and practical issues relating to heritage. More specifically, the paper is intended to provide a better understanding of the state of the art in national and international accounting standards on heritage assets, and of the views influencing such standards. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative documentary analysis is carried out to explore the variety of existing positions and views on heritage, ranging from the scholarly literature, through potential stakeholders and users, to international and national standard setters. Findings The analysis shows that the path of convergence between public and private sector standards and practices is still problematic. After more than two decades of debate around the nature, definition, measurement, and reporting of heritage, these issues are far from settled. Research limitations/implications In the light of calls for increased measurement and reporting of public sector “assets”, and specifically for the definition of standards to recognise heritage, the paper suggests the need to strongly reconsider whether the convergence between public and private sector standards is desirable, feasible and effective. As such, the risks of embracing simplified or hybrid forms of accounting and reporting for heritage should be more seriously assessed. While reporting on heritage is important, it is fundamental to keep it distinct from reporting on government’s regular operations, in order to appreciate its specific value, nature and features. Originality/value Looking at European national standards for heritage, the IPSASB’s proposals, and the reactions to the latter by relevant stakeholders, the paper provides a pluralistic view on the positions and experiences about heritage, contributing to the debate on the convergence between private and public sector accounting standards.

In order to be successful at improving household's financial self-sufficiency and stability, asset-building policies must be designed to prevent households from falling back into asset poverty once they exit it. This paper uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data from 1994 to 2007 to analyze the influence of life events, demographics and financial behaviors on the duration out of asset poverty. We find evidence that suggests there are structural barriers to asset acquisition. Asset accumulation at levels equal to nine months worth of income at the income poverty level or greater is important for improving a family's odds of permanently escaping asset poverty. Additionally, minimizing debt and diversifying the asset portfolio to include more productive assets are important for maintaining assets. This paper provides some insights on policies to help individuals more successfully transition out of asset poverty.

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto Pinto This paper deals with the process of criticality analysis in overhead power lines, as a tool to improve maintenance, felling & pruning programs. Felling & pruning activities are tasks that utility companies must accomplish to respect the servitudes of the overhead lines, concerned with distances to vegetation, buildings, infrastructures and other networks crossings. Conceptually, these power lines servitudes can be considered as failure modes of the maintainable items under our analysis (power line spans), and the criticality analysis methodology developed, will therefore help to optimize actions to avoid these as other failure modes of the line maintainable items. The approach is interesting, but another relevant contribution of the paper is the process followed for the automation of the analysis. Automation is possible by utilizing existing companies IT systems and databases. The paper explains how to use data located in Enterprise Assets Management Systems, GIS and Dispatching systems for a fast, reliable, objective and dynamic criticality analysis. Promising results are included and also discussions about how this technique may result in important implications for this type of businesses

This paper aims at evaluating the impact of productive safety net program on poverty using primary data from randomly selected 600 households in central zone of Tigrai National Regional State, Ethiopia. Propensity Score Matching and Foster-Greer-Thorbecke were used to evaluate impact of the program and poverty, respectively. The paper revealed that the program has positive and significant effect on consumption, livestock holdings, and productive assets. Moreover, impact of the program on total consumption expenditure per adult equivalent was found to be positive and significant. Using total poverty line, poverty rate was lowest among program participants (30.33%) than non-participants (31.1%). Highest poverty rate was found among households headed by women (38.42%) while households headed by men (23.1%). The study also revealed that the program has positive and significant effect on poverty reduction and protecting productive assets. Finally, it was recommended that female headed program participants based programs should be provided to help boost their agricultural output and reduce endemic poverty. Classification-JEL: C Keywords: asset; consumption per adult equivalent; productive safety net program; propensity score matching; poverty; Tigrai, International Journal of Economic Behavior, Vol 4, No 1 (2014): International Journal of Economic Behavior

Banks and Financial Institutions (FI) are in the business of financial intermediation i.e., channelizing investible financial resources to investment opportunities. Banks and FIs create Liabilities and Assets in their operations. The liabilities and assets, though in the books of the FI, are subject to influence by prevailing markets conditions and regulatory norms. Thus, optimum mix of Liabilities and Assets in the portfolio of Banks / FIs is required to ensure their survival and growth. The economic environment is subject to various external economic and non-economic forces beyond the control of the individual institution. The changed economic environment leads to unforeseen impact on the institutions. This paper evaluates performance of Indian Banking System during the Global Economic Crisis with that of select global markets. The paper also focuses on the change required in business and operational strategy by Banks and FIs in during economic slowdown i.e., re-strategizing in economic slowdown for converting adverse economic environment into a favourable business and operational opportunities.

Achieving wider recognition is part of the development agenda of contemporary cities, which are all confronted with the need to stand out and compete against one another. City branding reads as and plays an important role in this struggle for recognition. The identity of a city is generated over a long period, as it undergoes historical change, resulting in cultural diversity as the product of a specific environment. This paper discusses the possibility of using the cultural and historical heritage of Trebinje and its identity as an asset to create its city brand. Trebinje is a small city situated in the vicinity of Dubrovnik, a major tourist destination with a rich cultural and historical heritage and an excellent city brand. Dubrovnik may be seen as jeopardising the development of Trebinje’s authentic identity; on the other hand, the strong historical ties between the two cities can actually be used as an asset to develop Trebinje’s city brand. The material and non-material heritage which helped the formation of Trebinje’s identity, is analysed. The Mediterranean region in which it is located, its rich history, authentic architecture and different cultural influences, including the national poet Jovan Ducic, have all helped create Trebinje’s genius loci. The same factors may be used to communicate its new image. After that, the paper outlines models of the possible use of the recognised assets to brand the city and emphasise the importance of the effective presentation of these assets for creating a recognisable city image. It also proposes specific actions and interventions that may contribute to branding the city.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the creation of shareholder value (SHV) created by non‐depository financial institutions and, especially, by leasing and factoring (L&F) companies.Design/methodology/approachThe cost of capital of both L&F companies is estimated using an accounting procedure and, next, the economic value added (EVA) created by Italian L&F companies over the period 2002‐2004 is estimated.FindingsL&F companies display high profitability and EVA levels over the period analysed: a very large part of leasing and factoring companies achieved a positive EVA and the lowest median level of EVA created is at least 11 per cent of capital invested in the company, while at least 50 per cent of leasing companies achieved a positive EVA and the lowest median level of EVA created is almost 2 per cent of capital invested in the company.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research may try to investigate other markets. The paper's focus on Italy for data collection for L&F is problematic and data are collected from a unique data base.Practical implicationsSHV creation is the main strategic objective of L&F companies so the paper is of interest to both academics and practitioners.Originality/valueThis is the first study focusing on SHV creation by non‐depository financial institutions and, especially, L&F companies.

The paper examines alternative options for managing public debt and public assets in a government balance sheet framework that includes the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and social security. Even after September 11, U.S. fiscal policy is on a trajectory to accumulate substantial “uncommitted funds.†The paper examines how such funds should be invested. I conclude that high-quality fixed-income securities are the best benchmark and that social security is the most appropriate government asset manager. The analysis of policy alternatives reveals a trilemma between maintaining a liquid Treasury market, minimizing rent-seeking, and facilitating intergenerational risk sharing.

peer-reviewed Potato is highly productive crop and can provide a cheap and nutritionally-rich staple food. Its potential as a cash generator and source of food is much under-utilized in many emerging economies. In this paper we study the impact of an intervention that introduced improved potato technologies in Chencha, Ethiopia on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. We collected information through in-depth interviews in order to explore possible pathways of impact on farmers’ livelihoods; and used this information as the basis for designing a household survey. The results show changes in agronomic practices and consumption; these changes were most pronounced among wealthy farmers who participated in the intervention. Farmers used the additional income from potato in different ways: wealthier farmers improved their houses and increased their livestock, whereas poor farmers mainly invested in furniture, cooking utensils, tools and in developing small businesses like selling and buying cereals, milk and weaving products in the local markets. Some wealthy farmers, who did not participate in the project, also derived some indirect benefits from the intervention. This underscores: i) interventions that promote uniform farming technologies in themselves are not always sufficient to improve the livelihoods of poor farmers, and ii) the need to broaden the scope of interventions so as to take into account the resources available to farmers in different wealth categories, and the diversity of strategies that they employ for improving their livelihoods. Our approach allows to understand and describe the different developmental effects of a single technological intervention on the different aspects of farmers’ livelihoods.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) aims to improve national “health and wealth” by providing infrastructural support to enable clinical research in National Health Service (NHS) settings in England and Wales. Cognisant of the consequences of studies’ failure to achieve required numbers of participants, it also actively campaigns to promote patient awareness of research, and willingness to participate in trials. In this paper we analyse recent NIHR campaigns and policies designed to encourage patients to participate in clinical research to interrogate how they are implicated in the national bioeconomy. In doing so we expand the notion of ‘clinical labour’ to include the work of patient recruitment and highlight an emergent obligation on patients to contribute to research processes. Whereas once patient knowledge and experience may have been devalued, here we draw on the concept of ‘assetization’ (Birch 2017) to explore the emergent relationship between healthcare system and patient as research participant. We consider how patients’ contribution goes beyond the provision of standardised objects of valuation so that patients themselves may be perceived as assets to, not only recipients of, the national healthcare system.

With the evolution of information, communications, and technologies, modern industrial control systems (ICSs) face more and more cybersecurity issues. This leads to increasingly severe risks in critical infrastructure and assets. Therefore, risk analysis becomes a significant yet not well investigated topic for prevention of cyberattack risks in ICSs. To tackle this problem, a dynamic impact assessment approach is presented in this paper for risk analysis in ICSs. The approach predicts the trend of impact of cybersecurity dynamically from full recognition of asset knowledge. More specifically, an asset is abstracted with properties of construction, function, performance, location, and business. From the function and performance properties of the asset, object-oriented asset models incorporating with the mechanism of common cyberattacks are established at both component and system levels. Characterizing the evolution of behaviors for single asset and system, the models are used to analyze the impact propagation of cyberattacks. Then, from various possible impact consequences, the overall impact is quantified based on the location and business properties of the asset. A special application of the approach is to rank critical system parameters and prioritize key assets according to impact assessment. The effectiveness of the presented approach is demonstrated through simulation studies for a chemical control system.

Proceedings of the 29th European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL), 22 – 26 September 2019, Hannover, Germany. Editors, Michael Beer and Enrico Zio The revolution towards the Industry 4.0, requires as a fundamental challenge the advanced treatment of risk in physical assets according to this new context. This revolution also includes the transition towards a new concept of assets and production systems giving rise to those known as cyber-physical systems (CPS) where the available information and knowledge about the systems and its behaviour should promote a level of control of the risk not known until now. In this context, the transition from classical model for risk management to other concepts, more flexible and dynamic is needed. It is the context that this paper is intended to illustrate, approaching risk control to the available data and technology. Gobierno de España. FFI2017- 89639-P, “Mechanisms in the sciences: from the biological to the social”

This paper presents the application of OCTAVE-s methodology for the analysis and risk management in information security adapted to Inscription and Admission Process at the Division of Admission, Registering and Academic Control (DARCA) at the University of Cauca; following the guidelines of ISO / IEC 27005: 2011 standard. Additionally the structure of the process is included, and the method chosen as a case study for implementing risk treatment. Finally, the obtained results and conclusions of risk management with the adapted methodology are presented. Este documento presenta la aplicación de la metodología OCTAVE-s para el análisis y gestión del riesgo en la seguridad de la información, adaptada al proceso Inscripciones y Admisiones, en la División de Admisión, Registro y Control Académico (DARCA) de la Universidad del Cauca; siguiendo las directrices de la norma ISO/IEC 27005:2011. Además se incluye la estructura del proceso, y el procedimiento escogido como caso de estudio para aplicar el tratamiento del riesgo. Finalmente, se muestran los resultados obtenidos y las conclusiones de la gestión del riesgo con la metodología adaptada.

The goal of the company is to deliver value to investors. According to the resource-based view theory, companies need to develop a differential advantage in order to maintain earnings in excess of the cost of capital. Resources which are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable make it possible for businesses to develop and maintain competitive advantages. Companies may create differential advantages by building market-based assets. Emerging trends suggest that the purpose of marketing is creating and managing market-based assets in order to derive shareholder value. In these conditions, the resources allocated to marketing strategies should be viewed as investments which create assets. This paper highlights the way marketing activities and marketing expenditures contribute to creating market-based assets and, implicitly, to creating the value at the level of the companies.

The effectiveness of disaster response depends on the correctness and timeliness of data regarding the location and the impact of the event. These two issues are critical when the data come from citizens&rsquo, tweets, since the automatic classification of disaster-related tweets suffers from many shortcomings. In this paper, we explore an approach based on participatory sensing (i.e., a subset of mobile crowdsourcing that emphasizes the active and intentional participation of citizens to collect data from the place where they live or work). We operate with the hypothesis of a &ldquo, friendly world&rdquo, that is by assuming that after a calamitous event, in the survivors prevails the feeling of helping those who suffer. The extraction, from the Twitter repository, of the few tweets relevant to the event of interest has a long processing time. With the aggravating circumstance in the phase that follows a severe earthquake, the elaboration of tweets clashes with the need to act promptly. Our proposal allows a huge reduction of the processing time. This goal is reached by introducing a service and a mobile app, the latter is an intermediate tool between Twitter and the citizens, suitable to assist them to write structured messages that act as surrogates of tweets. The article describes the architecture of the software service and the steps involved in the retrieval, from the Twitter server, of the messages coming from citizens living in the places hit by the earthquake, moreover, it details the storage of those messages into a geographical database and their processing using SQL.

This paper addresses the estimation of confidence sets for asset correlations used in credit risk portfolio models. Research on the estimation of asset correlations using endogenous probabilities of default estimations has focused on the impact of concentration risk factors, such as firm size and industry. The empirical evidence from Italian small- and medium-size companies show that the assumptions underlying the Basel Committee regulatory capital risk weight function are not substantiated. The regulatory impact is that the capital adequacy is significantly compromised, driving an adverse selection, which favors the worst companies, and transferring the procyclical effects from firms to banks.

3rd IFAC Workshop on Advanced Maintenance Engineering, Services and Technology AMEST 2016: Biarritz, France, 19—21 October 2016. - IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 49, Issue 28, 2016, Pages 7-12 Identification and quantification of cost and value of industrial assets is a field in which much terminology is mixed. When we try to analyze the importance of an asset for our business, to discuss about its costs should not be separated from the value provided by the asset. Most of the times, managers only use the term “cost” because it seems to be more objective. Value is more subjective and more difficult to define. However, we must try to use definitions as amortization, inflation, replacement value in order to simplify the concept of “value” to improve our decisions. In the case of regulated companies, the economic valuation of the facilities is based on a legal normative, so the concept of “cost” may turn to be quite useless. Therefore, it is important to use a methodology that allows us to estimate the value of our assets. We have developed a criticality analysis of our infrastructures in order to assess the relative value of these items for the company. The target is to optimize the operation and maintenance (O&M) strategies at a corporate level. This must have a relevant impact in the OPEX of our company, and may be also an impact in future CAPEX. This paper discusses the methodology and presents clear examples of how O&M strategy is transformed according to criticality assessments.

3rd IFAC Workshop on Advanced Maintenance Engineering, Services and Technology AMEST 2016: Biarritz, France, 19—21 October 2016. - IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 49, Issue 28, 2016, Pages 179-184 The risk quantification is one of the most critical areas in asset management (AM). The relevant information from the traditional models can be shown in risk matrices that represent a static picture of the risk levels and are according to its frequency and its impact (consequences). These models are used in a wide spectrum of knowledge domains. In this paper, we describe a quantitative model using the reliability and failure probability (as frequency in our risk model), and the preventive and corrective costs (as consequences in our risk model). The challenge here will be the treatment of reliability based on failure rate values with different e random distributions (normal, triangular etc.) according to the available data. These possible values will enable the simulation of the behavior of the system in terms of reliability and, consequently, to use this information for making a risk based analysis. The traditional risk-cost-benefit models applied to maintenance usually provides an optimum for the time to apply a preventive task. But in this case, a time window is obtained showing minimum and maximum thresholds for the best time to apply the preventive maintenance task, together with other interesting statistics useful for the improvement of complex industrial asset management.

Este artigo apresenta um modelo para determinação do passivo e do risco financeiro associado às opções implícitas atreladas a produtos de previdência complementar no Brasil (PGBL/VGBL). Propõe-se uma modelagem específica para o problema através da caracterização da opção financeira embutida nos produtos de previdência com possibilidade de conversão do saldo final do participante em benefício vitalício sob termos predeterminados. Modelam-se também as características financeiras desse passivo, tais como duração, convexidade e fluxo de caixa equivalentes, que podem ser utilizadas para otimização da carteira de ativos associada a essa obrigação. Por fim, apresentam-se os resultados e a análise de sensibilidade da aplicação da modelagem proposta para o caso específico de um fundo de previdência complementar aberta. This paper presents a model to assess liabilities and financial risks created by options embedded in retirement related investment products in Brazil (PGBL/VGBL). A specific model that characterizes the financial option embedded in insurance products is presented. These products guarantee the conversion of final participant balance in retirement income at predefined terms. Financial characteristics of this liability such as duration, convexity and equivalent cash flows are also modeled. These characteristics can be useful as inputs to optimization models for the assets portfolio backing such liabilities. Finally, results and sensitivity analysis of an application of the model to a Brazilian open-end retirement related fund are presented.

This paper summarizes the development of an information system used to manage corrosion of metals and alloys by high temperature gases found in many different oil refining, petrochemical, power generation, and chemical processes. The database currently represents about 7.9 million h of exposure time for about 5,500 tests with 89 commercial alloys for a temperature range of 200 - 1,200°C. The system manages corrosion data from well-defined exposures and determines corrosion product stabilities. New models used in the analysis of thermochemical data for the Fe-Ni-Cr-Co-C-O-S-N-H system are being compiled. All known phases based upon combinations of the elements have been analyzed to allow complete assessments of corrosion product stabilities. Use of these data allows prediction of stable corrosion products and hence identification of the possible dominant corrosion mechanisms. The system has the potential to be used in corrosion research, alloy development, failure analysis, lifetime prediction, and process operations evaluations. The corrosion mechanisms emphasized are oxidation, sulfidation, sulfidation/oxidation, and carburization.

This paper compares how results using various methods to construct asset indices match results using per capita expenditures. The analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes are quite robust to the specific economic status measure used. The measures-most significantly per capita expenditures versus the class of asset indices-do not, however, yield identical household rankings. Two factors stand out in predicting the degree of congruence in rankings between per capita expenditures and an asset index. First is the extent to which per capita expenditures can be explained by observed household and community characteristics. In settings with small transitory shocks to expenditure, or with little measurement error in expenditure, the rankings yielded by the alternative approaches are most similar. Second is the extent to which expenditures are dominated by individually consumed goods such as food. Asset indices are typically derived from indicators of goods which are effectively public at the household level, while expenditures are often dominated by food, an almost exclusively private good. In settings where private goods such as food are the main component of expenditures, asset indices and per capita consumption yield the least similar results, although adjusting for economies of scale in household expenditures reconciles the results somewhat.

This paper models the causes of the 2008 financial crisis together with its manifestations, using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model. Our analysis is conducted on a cross-section of 85 countries; we focus on international linkages that may have allowed the crisis to spread across countries. Our model of the cross-country incidence of the crisis combines 2008 changes in real GDP, the stock market, country credit ratings, and the exchange rate. We explore the linkages between these manifestations of the crisis and a number of its possible causes from 2006 and earlier. The causes we consider are both national (such as equity market run-ups that preceded the crisis) and, critically, international financial and real linkages between countries and the epicenter of the crisis. We consider the United States to be the most natural origin of the 2008 crisis, though we also consider six alternative sources of the crisis. A country holding American securities that deteriorate in value is exposed to an American crisis through a financial channel. Similarly, a country which exports to the United States is exposed to an American downturn through a real channel. Despite the fact that we use a wide number of possible causes in a flexible statistical framework, we are unable to find strong evidence that international linkages can be clearly associated with the incidence of the crisis. In particular, countries heavily exposed to either American assets or trade seem to behave little differently than other countries; if anything, countries seem to have benefited slightly from American exposure.

For physically asset-intensive organisations asset management processes and intervention strategies are considered a crucial element, as there is heavy reliance on optimal performance of assets in order to maximise organisational performance and business goals. There is a tendency for traditional asset management practices to concentrate on the engineering or operational performance of the assets, taking for granted governance factors which views asset management through organisational-level lens. Asset governance is a radically new way to view ownership and management of assets in a competitive and deregulated market, an innovative solution to meet the regulatory and increasingly competitive challenges faced by modern utility companies. Asset fleets provide a relevant and important context to investigate the interaction between engineering and governance views on asset management as fleets have distributed and system characteristics. This paper investigates how engineering and governance perspectives of asset management can be reconciled and integrated to enable optimal asset and organizational performance. Preliminary findings of a pilot study identifies issues in asset management process and localized understanding of governance within different organization divisions as the main challenges in asset management-asset governance integration.

This paper analyses the causes and consequences of offshore financial centers (OFCs). Since OFCs are likely to be tax havens and money launderers, they encourage bad behaviour in source countries. Nevertheless, OFCs may also have unintended positive consequences for their neighbours, since they act as a competitive fringe for the domestic banking sector. We derive and simulate a model of a home country monopoly bank facing a representative competitive OFC which offers tax advantages attained by moving assets offshore at a cost that is increasing in distance between the OFC and the source. Our model predicts that proximity to an OFC is likely to have pro-competitive implications for the domestic banking sector, although the overall effect on welfare is ambiguous. We test and confirm the predictions empirically. Proximity to an OFC is associated with a more competitive domestic banking system and greater overall financial depth.

This paper develops a simple but general methodology to estimate the expected intertemporal marginal rate of substitution or "EMRS", using only data on asset prices and returns. Our empirical strategy is general, and allows the EMRS to vary arbitrarily over time. A novel feature of our technique is that it relies upon exploiting idiosyncratic risk, since theory dictates that idiosyncratic shocks earn the EMRS. We apply our methodology to two different data sets: monthly data from 1994 through 2003, and daily data for 2003. Both data sets include assets from three different markets: the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, and the Toronto Stock Exchange. For both monthly and daily frequencies, we find plausible estimates of EMRS with considerable precision and time-series volatility. We then use these estimates to test for asset integration, both within and between stock markets. We find that all three markets seem to be internally integrated in the sense that different assets traded on a given market share the same EMRS. The technique is also powerful enough to reject integration between the three stock markets, and between stock and money markets.

This Paper develops a simple new methodology to test for asset integration and applies it within and between American stock markets. Our technique is tightly based on a general intertemporal asset-pricing model, and relies on estimating and comparing expected risk-free rates across assets. Expected risk-free rates are allowed to vary freely over time, constrained only by the fact that they are equal across (risk-adjusted) assets. Assets are allowed to have general risk characteristics, and are constrained only by a factor model of covariances over short time periods. The technique is undemanding in terms of both data and estimation. We find that expected risk-free rates vary dramatically over time, unlike short interest rates. Further, the S&P 500 market seems to be well integrated, and the NASDAQ is generally (but not always) integrated. The NASDAQ, however, is poorly integrated with the S&P 500.