University news from the West

In Study Abroad, Dispute Over Roaming
Students and parents sue cell phone provider popular among study abroad participants, alleging unfair billing practices

Understanding Students Who Were 'Born Digital'
Authors of a new book talk about technology in the classroom, digital literacy and changes in the library.

Trickle-Down Economic Duress
Months of national fiscal strain have had little direct impact on colleges so far. As liquidity crisis intensifies, a few signs of actual distress begin to emerge in higher education.

Border-Crossing Universities
Europe is seeing new models for foreign institutions. In Britain, a Malaysian university opens to serve immigrant students.


The long and the short of it
Britain's one-year masters is proving a sticking point in the Bologna Process, but the equivalence issue is raising difficult questions about length of study for other degrees, too.

Lecturers fear anti-terror laws
Academics instruct students not to download sensitive material

Pass the exam hall to enter Dragons’ Den
Innovative assessment techniques are being used to challenge students.

REF could penalise those working across disciplines
Study says interdisciplinary researchers might lose out as their work is less cited

US: Poor students miss out in some universities
A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that selective institutions in America differ markedly in the number of low-income students they admit. John Douglass and Gregg Thomson investigated the divide between poor and rich students, comparing a group of selective institutions and their number and percentage of Pell Grant recipients.

UK: Widening participation debate heats up Diane Spencer
The debate on widening participation in Britain's universities heated up last week with the publication of a report on special schemes to encourage pupils from poorer backgrounds to enter higher education, and inflammatory remarks by the Chancellor of Oxford University. Lord (Chris) Patten told a conference of independent school heads that his university should not be treated "like a social security office" to help disadvantaged pupils from state schools.

ROMANIA: Investment boost for higher education Karen MacGregor
Higher education in Romania has undergone huge changes in the past two decades, from a small and stifled sector during the communist era to a competitive system with seven times more students, more than 100 institutions and burgeoning research. There are challenges, including raising quality, but investment in higher education has increased 30-fold in the past seven years, says Professor Paul Serban Agachi, president of the academic council of Babes-Bolyai University and a member of a team that crafted reforms

JAPAN: University crime experts on call Gavin Blair
The second article in a special series on how universities are helping fight crime. Though the number of academic specialists in commercial crime in the Asia-Pacific region may be fewer than in the US or Europe, many of the leading figures are willing to work with corporate clients and have a great deal of experience outside the ivory towers.

FRANCE: Higher education and research are budget priorities Jane Marshall
Higher education and research are the government's chief priority in the 2009 budget. Next year's allocation will rise by EUR1.8 billion (US$2.57 billion) to a total of EUR24.16 billion, up 6.5% compared with 2008. But the sector has not escaped 900 job cuts although these are proportionally less severe than those imposed on other ministries.

UK: Teacher gender gap widens Diane Spencer
Despite government efforts to attract men into teaching, the latest figures show the gender gap is widening. The Higher Education Statistics Agency found that males made up less than a quarter of all teaching qualifications obtained from higher education institutions in 2006-07, the lowest number for five years.

EUROPE: Young scientists promise a bright future Alan Osborn
Three young researchers, from Poland, Slovakia and Britain, were awarded the top prizes in the EU Contest for Young Scientists in Copenhagen on 25 September, against competition from national scientific prize-winners from 39 European countries plus Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand and the US.


Economic Crisis Rapidly Changes MBA Education steven bell
Business schools are responding with counseling, classroom analysis, curriculum changes, and case studies to the convulsions that have led to the bankruptcy or fire sales of leading US financial firms and a federal bailout. At schools that have long funneled graduating MBAs to Wall Street, professors are teaching about the crisis, even as their students ponder what it will mean for their careers. Many longtime faculty members and administrators say they have never seen a series of events with greater potential to transform the focus of business education - and the career trajectories of their students.

iTunes University Lets IHEs Spread Their Messages steven bell
To keep up with the growing presence of all things online, universities are now aiming to reach students, prospective students, and anyone else with a love of learning through a forum that is both popular and recognizable. In other words, they're looking to iTunes. Conceived as a collaboration between Apple and various universities in 2004, iTunes U launched in the spring of 2006. The site, which began with only 16 institutions, has ballooned in recent months as more schools join up to post their content. Usage, too, is growing quickly.

Researchers Say Partial Lecture Notes Are Better For Students Than Full Notes steven bell
Course management software programs make it especially easy for instructors to provide students with a set of complete lecture notes. It seems that more instructors are doing this, as witnessed in the regularity with which students ask that the instructor’s notes be posted. But is giving students a complete set of notes a good idea? Based on their findings, these researchers recommend providing students with partial notes.

IMF releases

Here are the latest releases from the IMF:

Surveys

• IMF Head Urges Greater Regulation of Financial Sector
  IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomes the $700 billion rescue plan for U.S. financial markets to "put out the fire" engulfing the banking system, but says a broader global solution to the crisis is needed.
• IMF to Launch Trust Funds to Support Technical Assistance
  The IMF plans to launch a series of trust funds to channel its technical assistance to specific policy topics. The menu-based Topical Trust Funds approach is designed to augment IMF resources already allocated to technical assistance.
• Inflation Risks Remain Despite Slowing Growth
  Commodity prices will likely remain high and volatile, contributing to risks of second-round effects-such as wage hikes-across a range of emerging and developing economies, and further monetary policy tightening may be still relevant to contain these inflationary pressures, according to new IMF research.
• Making Fiscal Stimulus Effective During Downturns
  A new IMF study finds that although fiscal policy is a potentially valuable tool for stimulating growth, it can easily do more harm than good if it is not implemented well. Tax cuts or spending increases that make debt unsustainable are likely to cause output to fall, not rise
• Financial Stress Likely to Hit Real Economy Hard
  Episodes of financial turmoil that are characterized by stress in commercial and investment banks are more likely to be associated with severe and protracted economic downturns, according to new IMF research.
• Lessons From Cross-Regional Analysis
  A new IMF study explores the patterns of current account balances of emerging economies-especially in Asia and Europe-and asks why they have become much more diverse in recent years and what those differences mean for external vulnerability.
• Financial Crisis Likely to Worsen Economic Downturn
  The current financial market meltdown in the United States and other advanced economies will likely lead to longer and deeper economic downturns in some of these countries, according to new IMF research on the impact of the shocks on the world economy.

Working Papers

• Working Paper No. 08/233: Rapid Current Account Adjustments: Are Microstates Different?

Summary: We describe unique aspects of microstates-they are less diversified, suffer from lumpiness of investment, they are geographically at the periphery and prone to natural disasters, and have less access to capital markets-that may make the current account more vulnerable, penalizing exports and making imports dearer. After reviewing the "old" and "new" view on current account deficits, we attempt to identify policies to help reduce the current account. Probit regressions suggest that microstates are more likely to have large current account adjustments if (i) they are already running large current account deficits; (ii) they run budget surpluses; (iii) the terms of trade improve; (iv) they are less open; and (v) GDP growth declines. Monetary policy, financial development, per capita GDP, and the de jure exchange rate classification matter less. However, changes in the real effective exchange rate do not help drive reductions in the current account deficit in microstate!

• Working Paper No. 08/234: Inflation Targeting and Communication: It Pays Off to Read Inflation Reports

Summary: Inflation-targeting central banks have a respectable track record at explaining their policy actions and corresponding inflation outturns. Using a simple forward-looking policy rule and an assessment of inflation reports, we provide a new methodology for the empirical evaluation of consistency in central bank communication. We find that the three communication tools-inflation targets, inflation forecasts, and verbal assessments of inflation factors contained in quarterly inflation reports-provided a consistent message in five out of six observations in our 2000-05 sample of Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Thailand, and Sweden.

• Working Paper No. 08/232: Bank Losses, Monetary Policy and Financial Stability-Evidence on the Interplay from Panel Data
• Working Paper No. 08/231: Beyond Macroeconomic Stability: The Quest for Industrialization in Uganda

Summary: Uganda has registered one of the most impressive economic turnarounds of recent decades. The amelioration of conflict and wide ranging economic reforms kick-started rapid economic growth that has now been sustained for some 20 years. But there is a strong sense in policy making circles that despite macroeconomic stability and reasonably well functioning markets, economic growth has not translated into significant structural transformation. This paper considers (i) Uganda's record of economic transformation relative to the high growth Asian countries and (ii) the contending explanations as to why more transformation and higher growth has proved elusive.

• Working Paper No. 08/228: Determinants of Government Efficiency
  Summary: We compile the first large cross-country panel dataset of public sector performance and efficiency, encompassing 114 countries on all income levels from 1980 to 2006, with about 1,800 country-year observations for the education sector and about 900 observations for health. We regress these indicators on potential economic, institutional, demographic, and geographic determinants. Our most resounding conclusion is that higher government expenditure relative to GDP tends to be associated with lower efficiency in the respective sector. Moreover, we find that richer countries exhibit better public sector performance and efficiency, and that institutional and demographic factors also play a significant role.
• Working Paper No. 08/229: Banks and Labor as Stakeholders: Impact on Economic Performance
  Summary: Traditionally, the impacts of the rights of financial institutions and workers on corporate performance have been analyzed independently. Yet, theory clearly indicates that the combination of relative powers of different stakeholders affects a firm overall performance. Using U.S. state level and state-industry level data, we investigate how output growth is affected by bank branch deregulation and employment protection occurring over 1972-1993. We find that financial liberalization positively impact overall state growth but greater workers' rights affects it ambiguously. At the industry level, however, employment protection promotes those industries that are more knowledge intensive, while the effect of financial liberalization does not differ across industries that vary in external financing dependency. The results hold controlling for changes in shareholders' rights, which itself is not significant. The findings suggest that financial liberalization operates mostl!
  y through an efficiency channel, better reallocating resources across sectors, while employment protection creates higher incentives and encourages more sector-specific, human capital investments. Overall, the results show that the strength of stakeholders' protection affects performance through efficiency channels and provide support for a stakeholders' view of corporate governance.
• Working Paper No. 08/230: Garbage In, Gospel Out? Controlling for the Underreporting of Remittances
  Summary: Empirical studies that use self-reported data on remittances to measure the latter's impact on microeconomic incentives mostly ignore the potential errors associated with reporting/measurement issues. An econometric procedure to control for these errors is developed and applied to household-level data from Armenia. We find evidence of systematic under-reporting of remittances. After controlling for this, we find a strong negative impact of remittances on incentives to work.
• Working Paper No. 08/226: An Anatomy of Credit Booms: Evidence From Macro Aggregates and Micro Data
  Summary: We study the characteristics of credit booms in emerging and industrial economies. Macro data show a systematic relationship between credit booms and economic expansions, rising asset prices, real appreciations and widening external deficits. Micro data show a strong association between credit booms and leverage ratios, firm values, and banking fragility. We also find that credit booms are larger in emerging economies, particularly in the nontradables sector; most emerging markets crises are associated with credit booms; and credit booms in emerging economies are often preceded by large capital inflows but not by financial reforms or productivity gains.
• Working Paper No. 08/225: Current and Proposed Non-Oil Tax System in Azerbaijan
  Summary: This paper analyzes developments in non-oil tax policy, administration, and revenues in Azerbaijan, and suggests measures for further improvement. The main finding is that Azerbaijan's non-oil tax revenues increased significantly as a share of non-oil GDP in the last five years, but remain below potential. The non-oil tax revenue shortfall is mainly due to widespread exemptions, but there is scope for strengthening tax and customs administration. In the short term, expanding the tax base and better tax and customs administration will yield more revenues. In the medium term, more far-reaching reforms including reducing some direct tax rates, should be considered. The overall reform package could be made broadly revenue neutral by improving taxpayers' compliance and reducing exemptions.
• Working Paper No. 08/227: Tax Reforms, "Free Lunches", and "Cheap Lunches" in Open Economies
  Author/Editor: Ganelli, Giovanni ; Tervala, Juha
  Summary: This paper focuses on the macroeconomic and budgetary impact of tax reforms in a New Keynesian two-country model. Our results show that both income and consumption unilateral tax rate reductions do not constitute a "free lunch", in the sense that they have negative budgetary consequences for the country which implements them. In addition, the degree of self-financing implied by our model is in the 8½-24 percent range. Since the degree of self-financing estimated in previous literature was larger, we conclude that in our model not only the "lunch" is not "free", but is also not that "cheap". A comparison of alternative (income-tax versus consumption-tax based) fiscal stimulus packages shows that consumption tax cuts imply a larger short-run impact on domestic output but the income tax cuts stimulate the domestic economy more in the long run. We also look at the implications of a revenue-neutral tax reform in which consumption taxes are increased to compensate for low!
  er income tax collection.
  

Country Reports

• The Gambia: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix and Article IV Consultation
• Portugal: 2008 Article IV Consultation
• Qatar: Detailed Assessment Report on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes - FATF Recommendations for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism

Policy Paper

• The Macroeconomics of Scaling-up Aid: the Cases of Benin, Niger, and Togo
  Summary: In September 2007, the UN Secretary General launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Africa Steering and Working Groups. The Steering Group brings together the leaders of multilateral institutions to identify practical steps needed for Africa to achieve the MDGs. The Managing Director of the IMF is a member of the Steering Group. The Working Group supports the Steering Group and is comprised of thematic groups in education, agriculture, health, infrastructure and trade facilitation, statistics, aid predictability, and MDG operationalization at the country level.
  The following three notes assess the macroeconomic implications of the spending of scaled-up aid to Benin, Niger, and Togo in line with that promised by the G-8 at Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005.

Extra

• IMF Financial Activities -- Update September 25, 2008
• Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) -- Updated COFER tables include second quarter 2008 data. September 30, 2008

The Structure of Financial Supervision: Approaches and Challenges in a Global Marketplace

In July 2007, the Group of Thirty decided to launch a review of various national supervisory
and regulatory approaches and place them within the context of the changing global
financial system.

The study set out to look at the changes evident in the financial markets and the evolution of the national supervisory architecture at a time when central banks and supervisory agencies have been seeking to improve their supervisory processes in light of the blurring of lines between different financial sectors and businesses.

The review of 17 major national supervisory systems has confirmed that while dealing with similar problems and challenges, such systems are fashioned through a process that includes a myriad of political, cultural, economic, and financial influences.

Despite the many differences from country to country and market to market, the central bankers, supervisors, and government ministries are charged with overseeing financial institutions and dealing with threats to the stability of the financial system.

The Group of Thirty that assessed the strengths and weaknesses of a number of international regulatory systems. The conclusions of the study can serve as a framework for the coming debate over how best to reform our regulatory framework to mitigate and withstand future shocks.

As the discussion over financial services regulatory reform deepens, financial industry experts need to stay informed about the direction and future shape of their industry’s changing regulatory structure.

Africa's best books

Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th century is an exhibition currently on display the 6th floor foyer exhibition area of the Kingsway library.

Are you familiar with top 12 authors Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt), Meshack Asare (Ghana), Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya), Thomas Mofolo (Lesotho)?

Visit our exhibition and extend your knowledge and understanding of the great wealth of fiction and non-fiction written by Africans about their lives and societies in the 20th century.

SARB release

The SARB has released the following information:

• Monthly Release of Selected Data No 235 - September 2008

M-banking in Africa

Copyright: kipcurry

According to an article published in Forbes, mobile banking in Africa have been revived by the extraordinary success of Kenyan cellphone operator Safaricom's M-Pesa money transfer facility
mobile banks in Africa faces some challenges:

--Take-up
Far from reaching the unbanked, m-banking services have largely been targeted at existing customers, and even in this case takeup rates have been low. Moreover, active use of accounts has tended to drop off and most customers limit their usage to airtime top-ups and person-to-person payments.
--Complex transactions
Despite the considerable technological advances in the past decade, using a mobile handset to conduct transactional banking remains considerably more complex than using an ATM. Easier technology and more customer education would be required for m-banking to develop mass appeal.
--Regulatory compliance
In developing new financial payments systems, cellphone operators have escaped the regulatory burden faced by banks because they do not, strictly speaking, take deposits. Any attempt by cellphone operators to move beyond cash transfers or purchases of prepaid products into providing a wider range of financial services would encounter this regulatory burden.

In addition to meeting liquidity reserves to protect depositors, cellphone operators would also have to comply with a bewildering and costly array of secondary legislation, including:
--know your customer (KYC) rules
--anti-money laundering regulations
--countering the finance of terrorism legislation

Electricity generated during August 2008

copyright: Scyza

StatsSA released the Electricity generated and available for distribution, August 2008 report.

Here are the main findings:

• The estimated consumption of electricity in August 2008 decreased by 2,8% compared with August 2007.
• Electricity consumed for the three months ending August 2008 decreased by 1,9% compared with the same three months a year ago.
• In the first eight months of 2008, consumption of electricity was affected by numerous factors that led to reduced levels of consumption, such as load shedding and a continuous drive from Eskom in encouraging users to save on electricity consumption.
• Furthermore, the estimated production of electricity in August 2008 decreased by 3,2% compared with August 2007.
• The estimated production of electricity during the latest three months ending August 2008 decreased by 2,6% compared with the same period of 2007.

Corporate taxes and productivity/investments

The OECD released a paper Do corporate taxes reduce productivity and investment at the firm level? Cross-country evidence from the Amadeus dataset that uses a stratified sample of firms across OECD economies over the period 1996-2004 to analyse the effects of corporate taxes on productivity and investment.

Applying a differences-in-differences estimation strategy which exploits differential effects of corporate taxes on firms with different profitability, it is found that corporate taxes have a negative effect on productivity at the firm level.

The effect is negative across firms of different size and age classes except for the small and young, which may be attributable to the relatively low profitability of small and young firms.

The negative effect of corporate taxes is particularly pronounced for firms that are catching up with the technological frontier.

In the investment analysis, the results suggest that corporate taxes reduce investment through an increase in the user cost of capital. This may partly explain the negative productivity effects of corporate taxes if new capital goods embody technological change.

AISB responds to the credit crunch

The IASB is closely monitoring developments in the United States and other jurisdictions to avoid unnecessary inconsistencies in accounting treatments under IFRSs and US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

In doing so, the IASB commits to undertake the following:
1. Consistency of fair value measurement guidance between IFRSs and US GAAP:
On 16 September, the IASB staff issued draft guidance on fair value measurement of financial instruments in markets that are no longer active.

The IASB notes the recent clarification made by the Office of the Chief Accountant of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the staff of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The clarification is not an amendment of SFAS 157 Fair Value Measurements, but rather provides additional guidance for determining fair value in inactive markets.

The IASB staff has reviewed the clarification by the SEC and FASB staff and considers it consistent with IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. (See here for the clarification made by the Office of the Chief Accountant of the US SEC and the FASB staff.)

The IASB will continue to ensure that any IFRS guidance is consistent with the clarification that has been provided by the US SEC staff and the FASB staff for those companies using US GAAP. This will help ensure comparability across borders.

2. Consideration of the possible impact of the US Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and other similar programmes internationally on the valuation of assets and liabilities:
The IASB will work closely with the FASB to develop a common approach to issues related to the valuation of financial assets and liabilities resulting from purchases made through the US Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and any other similar programmes internationally, if and when these programmes are initiated.

3. Immediate consideration of the ability to reclassify financial instruments:
The IASB notes that US GAAP permits entities, in rare circumstances, to reclassify financial instruments that are in the form of securities from their trading portfolio (measured at fair value with changes through the income statement) to ‘held to maturity’ (measured at amortised cost and subject to testing for impairment).

The IASB also notes that US GAAP permits some loans that are not securities to be transferred from Held for Sale (measured at lower of cost or market with changes through the income statement) to Held for Investment (measured at amortised cost and subject to testing for impairment). Provisions aimed at counteracting abuse apply to these reclassifications.

The IASB will assess immediately any inconsistencies in how IAS 39 and US GAAP practice address the issue of reclassifications and whether to eliminate any differences. The IASB will discuss these matters and will decide its position as part of its public meeting during the week of 13-17 October.

At that meeting the IASB will assess the suitability of adopting the US GAAP approach and whether adapting IFRSs will provide relevant information to users of financial statements. The IASB will also consider the potential need to counteract abuse resulting from the ability to reclassify financial instruments and related areas of accounting to ensure consistency between practice in the United States and in those jurisdictions using IFRSs.

4. Willingness to participate in any study on the impact of accounting in the credit crisis: The IASB recognises the need to continue to examine IFRS accounting principles for financial instruments. Earlier this year, the IASB published a discussion paper, Reducing Complexity in Reporting Financial Instruments . This discussion paper is the starting point for considering a possible replacement for IAS 39.

Working with regulators, investors, and industry, the IASB will draw lessons from the credit crisis as it moves forward with its project to reconsider IAS 39. Consistent with discussions in the United States, the IASB will be willing to assist in any study that examines the quality of existing fair value information provided to investors and any impact of financial reporting on the credit crisis.

SA: Fifteen years later

Almost halfway through South Africa’s second decade of freedom, government is taking stock of how far it has gone in achieving the objective of improving the quality of life of all South Africans in their report Towards a Fifteen Year Review .

The review brings particular focus to the past five years, building on conclusions of Towards a Ten Year Review, published in 2003.

The 2008 review aims to answer 3 question:

1. To what extent has the Government achieved its policy objectives?
2. Are these the appropriate policy objectives?
3. What have the past five years brought in terms of progress towards these objectives?.

The themes covered are:

1. Governance
2. Social sector
3. Economic
4. Justice, crime prevention and security
5. International relations, peace and security
6. Targeted groups
7. Major transversal post-2004 initiatives

Doing Business in Angola - Report

Doing Business 2009 is the sixth in a series of annual reports investigating regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.

This paper presents the summary Doing Business indicators for Angola.

The paper includes the following headings:

• introduction
• starting a business
• dealing with licenses
• employing workers
• registering property
• getting credit
• protecting investors
• paying taxes
• trading across borders
• enforcing contracts
• closing a business

SARB releases

New releases from SARB include:

• Template on International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity
  Data in this template cover the short-term foreign currency assets of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and of the Central Government of South Africa. A wider definition was used up to December 2005. See the Note on the redefinition of gold and other foreign reserves in the balance of payments in the South African Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletin, December 2005, p. 56-59.

• Monthly Release of Selected Data
  For period ending August 2008
  Includes: National government finance; International economic data; Banks and mutual banks & Money and banking

New Financial Economics journal - call for papers

Emerald is launching a new journal called Journal of Financial Economic Policy in 2009 and has sent out a call for papers.
JFEP is devoted to the advancement of the understanding of the entire spectrum of financial policy and control issues and their interactions to economic phenomena.

These include, but are not limited to: Financial Markets Stability, Corporate and Systemic Liquidity Control, Monetary and Fiscal Policy, Banking Stability and Supervision, Public Debt Policy and Management, Regulation and Law, Sovereign Risk and Management, Institutional Organization, and Voting.

Given the wide variety of policy questions, this journal spans a wide range of methodological approaches from the economic and financial theory, from applied econometrics to actuarial science, law and institutional economics and management science.

The editors would like to invite submissions for publication in the inaugural volume of the Journal of Financial Economic Policy.

Articles should be ‘letters’ type submissions of around 2,000 words. All submissions should be sent in Word format to Dr George Christoloulakis at GChristodoulakis@dom01.mbs.ac.uk

Suggested article topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Banking Stability
• Banking Supervision
• Banking Policy
• Financial Markets and Stability
• Corporate Financial Policy and Liquidity Control
• Systematic Liquidity Control
• Private Insurance Policy
• Fiscal Policy
• Fiscal Risk Management
• Public Debt Policy and Management
• Monetary Policy
• Regulation and Law
• Institutional Organization
• Investment Management Policy
• Trade Policy
• Competition Policy
• Institutional Voting Policy
• Corporate Governance Policy
• Crisis Management: Forecasting and Control
• Sovereign Risk and Management

OECD Statistics

The OECD has released its October Statistics Newsletter, here is what is available in the issue:

1. The Inconvenient Truth about Climate Statistics

2. Remittances sent by recent immigrants in Canada

The study that this article is based on offers a broad cross-national perspective of remittance senders, focusing on individuals who became landed immigrants in Canada in 2000 and 2001.

3. Update of the 1993 System of National Accounts

Some of the major changes are:
• New recording of pension schemes
• Explicit recognition of capital services
• Recognition of the outcomes of Research and Experimental Development (R&D) as fixed assets
• Recognition of offensive weapons and their means of delivery as fixed assets
• Goods for processing to be recorded on a change of ownership basis

4. UNCTAD launches Global Databank on World Trade in Creative Products

An UNCTAD database providing trade statistics on creative goods and services is available to the public as of today at the Creative Economy site The statistics cover about 235 products related to heritage, arts, media and functional creations.

5. New OECD Dataset on Patents by Regions

The data have been “regionalised” at a very detailed level so that more than 5000 regions
are covered across most OECD countries plus China and India.
REGPAT allows patent data to be used in connection with other regional data such as GDP or labour force statistics, and other patentbased information such as citations, technical fields and patent holder’s characteristics.

6. Release of OECD Health Data 2008 plus Working long-hours in New Zealand

The 2008 edition provides new data on a number of important topics, including:
• the number of foreign-trained doctors in OECD countries;
• more detailed information on nurses, usually the most numerous health care providers in OECD countries;
• the incidence of a number of vaccine-preventable diseases (such as measles, pertussis and
Hepatitis B), complementing existing series on childhood vaccination rates for these diseases which are part of the health care quality indicators (HCQI) data set; and
• the number of elderly people receiving long-term care at home or in institutions.

Ripples felt across the world

Copyright: ilco

The financial crises in the US has made waves across the globe. Barry Sargeant from Moneyweb made a brief synopsis of the global ripples:

• The Dow Jones Industrials fell as much as 700 points in midday trading after it was announced that the government would not bail out the industry for an estimated $700 billion
• in the UK, Bradford and Bingley, Britain's ninth-biggest mortgage provider, was nationalised
• In Iceland the government seized control of Glitnir bank – the third largest in the country
• Fortis, a large Benelux banking group, has been saved by the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands when they announced that they were to invest €11.2bn (£8.9bn) to support the group
• In Europe, Dexia's stock price was down 29%, while in the US, Wachovia fell 27%, and Sovereign Bancorp lost 52% of its value.
• "The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 companies was down 3.3% midday, while benchmark indexes in Australia and New Zealand were down 2.9% and 3.1% respectively. Taiwan's stock market, open for the first time since Friday due to a typhoon, was down 4.3%, while indexes in Singapore and Hong Kong were both down 2.4%. China's markets remained closed for a week-long holiday." more
• In Germany, the government provided €35bn in credit guarantees to Hypo Real Estate Bank,
• And in France president Nicolas Sarkozy has assured citizens that the government would protect depositors from any potential losses brought on by the credit crunch
• Among individual country indices, China was down 55%, the UK by 28%, Germany by 29%, Japan by 32%, and France by 29%.
• The world banks index has fallen 38%, while world materials, which includes resources such as mining and oil, is off by 35%.

For more news articles on the effect of the crises, click here.

IMF new releases

New releases for the IMF:

Working Papers

• Working Paper No. 08/224: Systemic Banking Crises: A New Database
  Author/Editor: Laeven, Luc; Valencia, Fabian
  Summary: This paper presents a new database on the timing of systemic banking crises and policy responses to resolve them. The database covers the universe of systemic banking crises for the period 1970-2007, with detailed data on crisis containment and resolution policies for 42 crisis episodes, and also includes data on the timing of currency crises and sovereign debt crises. The database extends and builds on the Caprio, Klingebiel, Laeven, and Noguera (2005) banking crisis database, and is the most complete and detailed database on banking crises to date.

Policy Papers

• The Role of the IMF in Low-Income Countries - Background Paper
  Summary: This paper provides background material to the Board paper on "The Role of the IMF in Low Income Countries." The main paper outlines a comprehensive approach for Fund engagement with Low-Income Countries (LICs) going forward. The background material in this paper provides a comprehensive stock-taking of the Fund's involvement and policy advice in LICs since the establishment of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) in 1999.
• The Role of the Fund in Low-Income Countries
  Summary: This paper takes stock of the work over the past four years on the role of the Fund in LICs, and outlines a comprehensive approach for Fund engagement. It responds to the Board's request for a synthesis of the full range of policy decisions and developments related to the Fund's work in LICs since 2004. A key purpose is to ensure that, as the Fund is refocusing its work, LIC-related objectives and responsibilities are well articulated and understood.
• Food and Fuel Prices-Recent Developments, Macroeconomic Impact, and Policy Responses-An Update
  Summary: This report updates the macroeconomic assessment of the impact of global food and fuel price increases provided in the IMF June 2008 Board paper: Food and Fuel Prices-Recent Developments, Macroeconomic Impact, and Policy Response. Food and oil prices peaked in early summer-in particular, oil prices surged to levels envisaged under the most adverse scenario presented in the June paper. Against this background, the effects of higher prices on the balance of payments, budgets, and domestic prices intensified and a large group of low- and middle-income countries is experiencing a substantial weakening of their balance of payments and higher inflation. These findings reinforce the importance of adopting appropriate policies to maintain macroeconomic stability while protecting the poor.

Country Reports

• Country Report No. 08/308: Russian Federation: Selected Issues
• Country Report No. 08/309: Russian Federation: 2008 Article IV Consultation-Staff Report; Staff Statement; and Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion
• Country Report No. 08/310: Dominica: 2008 Article IV Consultation - Staff Report; Staff Supplement; Staff Statement, and Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion.
• Country Report No. 08/311: Australia: Selected Issues
• Country Report No. 08/313: Hungary: 2008 Article IV Consultation - Staff Report; Staff Supplement; and Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion
• Country Report No. 08/314: Hungary: Selected Issues
• Country Report No. 08/315: Kingdom of the Netherlands - Netherlands Antilles: 2008 Article IV Consultation - Staff Report; Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Kingdom of the Netherlands - Netherlands Antilles
• Country Report No. 08/316: Kingdom of the Netherlands - Aruba: Detailed Assessment of Compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision
• Country Report No. 08/317: Kingdom of the Netherlands - Aruba: Assessment of Financial Sector Supervision and Regulation

Surveys

• IMF Says Crisis Marks Tectonic Shift in Financial Markets
  The upheaval from the U.S. financial crisis is like a tectonic shift on a scale not seen in the financial systems around the world, the IMF's John Lipsky says. He tells a California conference that a serious downturn in the global economy can be avoided.
• Fifty Countries Still Hurt by Food, Fuel Crisis, IMF Says
  Although food and fuel prices have eased from recent peaks, some 50 low and middle-income countries have suffered a significant "shock" and will remain at risk through 2009 because of deteriorating foreign exchange reserves, rising inflation, and slowing world growth, according to an IMF study.
• New Channels Spread U.S. Subprime Crisis To Other Markets
  New channels spread the mid-2007 turbulence in the U.S. subprime mortgage market to other U.S. and foreign markets, IMF research indicates. Financial innovations and closer links between banks helped transform what started as a liquidity crisis into a solvency issue for financial institutions.
• Africa Strives to Preserve Recent Gains
  Facing high food and fuel prices, some African countries are in danger of seeing the progress achieved in recent years slip away, Antoinette Sayeh tells IMF Survey online.

OECD insurance statistics: towards a global framework

The OECD’s global insurance statistics project aims at enhancing the timeliness, relevance, policy impact and global reach of insurance statistics and indicators. The results of the second year of fast track data collection are now available.

Selected indicators:
Data can be downloaded in Excel format. Indicators marked with a (F) are available for all OECD countries.

• Total number of companies, 2007 (Excel file): Includes all insurance companies licensed or authorised in the reporting country, including professional reinsurers, whether or not these are controlled, but excluding any statutory system of social security administered by the State.
• Number of life companies, 2007 (Excel file): Life and non-life categories follow the definitions used under national law.
• Number of non-life companies, 2007 (Excel file): Life and non-life categories follow the definitions used under national law.
• Number of composite companies, 2007 (Excel file): A composite company is a company which deals with both life and non-life business.
• Number of reinsurance companies, 2007 (Excel file)
• Number of employees, 2007 (Excel file): Employees of insurance companies include staff (full-time or part-time) employed in the insurance industry. Employees of intermediaries include brokers or agents and their staffs, excluding intermediaries who may sell insurance but are not directly involved in the insurance industry (e.g. bank managers, solicitors, garage owners).
• Total gross premiums, 2007 (F) (Excel file): Gross premiums, which represents total insurance premium written in the reporting country, is a major indicator of the importance of insurance industry in the economy of each country.
• Market share in the OECD, 2007 (F) (Excel file, Life / Non-life): This indicator measures the importance of the national insurance market of each OECD country as compared to the whole OECD insurance market.
• Density, 2007 (F) (Excel file, Total density): This indicator is calculated by dividing direct gross premiums by the population and represents the average insurance spending per capita in a given country.
• Penetration, 2007 (F) (Excel file, Total penetration): This is the ratio of direct gross premiums to gorss domestic product, which represents the relative importance of the insurance industry in the domestic economy.
• Life insurance share, 2007 (F) (Excel file, Figure): This is the ratio of gross life insurance premium to total gross premium, which measures the relative importance of life insurance as compared to non-life insurance.
• Premiums per employee, 2007 (Excel file): This indicator of the relative efficiency of a national insurance inductry is calculated by dividing direct gross premiums by the number of employees in insurance companies.
• Retention ratio, 2007 (Excel file): This is the ratio of net written premiums to total gross premiums. This ratio represents the proportion of retained business and thus, indirectly, the importance of reinsurance for domestic insurance companies.
• Ratio of reinsurance accepted, 2007 (Excel file): This is calculated by dividing reinsurance accepted by total gross premiums and provides an indication of the significance of reinsurance accepted in the national insurance market.
• Market share of foreign-controlled companies and branches/agencies of foreign companies in the domestic market, 2007 (Excel file): Gross premiums basis.
• Market share of branches/agencies of foreign companies in the domestic market, 2007 (Excel file): Gross premiums basis.

Draft IFRS standards available for comment

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) today published for public comment an exposure draft of proposed amendments to IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards.

The proposals address the retrospective application of IFRSs in selected areas and are aimed at ensuring that entities applying IFRSs will not face undue cost or effort in the transition process.

The exposure draft proposes:
• to exempt companies from retrospective application of IFRSs for oil and gas assets using the full cost method and for operations subject to rate regulation.
• to exempt companies with existing leasing contracts accounted for in accordance with IFRIC 4

Determining whether an Arrangement contains a Lease from reassessing the classification of those contracts according to IFRSs when the same classification has previously been made in accordance with national GAAP.


The exposure draft Additional Exemptions for First-time Adopters (proposed amendments to
IFRS 1) is open for comment until 23 January 2009.

How to submit a Comment Letter :

• Go to the Comment Letters page.
• Click Submit Comment Letter button.
• Log on using your subscription to eIFRS. If you do not have a subscription, and have not previously registered, you will be required to register. Registration is free and only takes 5 minutes.
• Click Continue button.
• Locate your Comment Letter on your computer using the Browse button and click Upload button when done.
• Click Continue button.

Frye Leadership Institute accepting program nominees for 2009

The Frye Leadership Institute is designed to develop the next generation of higher education leaders emerging from IT and library backgrounds.

Frye helps participants develop:

• Habits of mind that help them think strategically and communicate clearly with diverse audiences
• A broad perspective on higher education, its values, issues, and challenges
• Confidence in their ability to address complex issues A strong network of colleagues and friends
  

From May 31 to June 11, 2009, participants will gather at Emory University for an intensive residential experience that exposes them to higher education leaders and luminaries from around the country.

A significant amount of personal and professional growth results from the networking and group exercises that bring a diverse set of international participants together to share, explore, and learn.

Presentations are intermixed with case studies, brainstorming, role-playing, problem solving, and reflection

Nominations for the 2009 Program Are Due November 14

The selection process is highly competitive. Applicants must first be nominated by a senior institutional officer.

StatsSA - new account launched & get the detail on the Household survey

Tourism Satellite Account Launch
Stats SA is releaseing the first experimental Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) for South Africa in March 2009.
To mark the birth of the first experimental TSA for South Africa, StatsOnline invites you to register your interest in this publication. In return for your registration, they will send you the first release at embargo to your email box.
Click here to register.

General Household Survey (GHS) 2007
The data and metadata for the General Household Survey (GHS) 2007 are now available on CD. To order please contact:Joan Lindeque at 012 3108619.

The data and metadata is also available on StatsOnline . Click "Interactive data" and then "Explore micro data".

Statkon closing dates

Copyright: lusi

STATKON has announced the following closing dates:

Submission of new data sets

Friday, 31 October 2008, 14:00

New requests on existing data

Friday, 7 November 2008

Assistance with research and questionnaire design

27 November 2008

STATKON will re-open:

Monday, 19 January 2009 for assistance with research and questionnaire design, as well as acceptance of new data sets,

and on Monday, 2 February 2009 for data analysis.

African journal archive planned

Sabinet is trying to establish a digital archive of journals that have been published in Africa.

The archive will contain retrospective content with the aim of digitizing where possible, back to the first issue. The collection must be useful to researchers, scholars, professionals and anyone interested in accessing core African journal literature.

They are conducting a survey regarding the content of the archive. Please assist them by filling in the online survey and suggest topics and journals that you would like to see in such an archive

Closing date for the survey: 10th October 2008.

University news from Africa

AFRICA: Unesco conference discusses quality assurance Jane Marshall
How to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through higher education and how to improve the quality of higher education in Africa came under discussion in Dakar this month. Delegates gathered in the Senegalese capital for the Third International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa, organised by the Unesco Bamako Cluster Office and Unesco's regional bureau for education Africa (Breda).





NIGERIA: Panic grips students in illegal universities Tunde Fatunde
The National Universities Commission of Nigeria recently published a list of 31 'illegal' universities - including offshore campuses of foreign universities - that it has not approved, prompting panic in the affected institutions. Students face a bleak future if their qualifications are not recognised, teachers are no longer sure of their jobs while governing councils fear being prosecuted and have been lobbying key people in the legislative and executive arms of Nigeria's 36 states to have their universities recognised and accredited.

NIGERIA: Clipping the wings of degree mills Peter Okebukola
Nigerian higher education system, which has 297 institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) and enrols more than 3.5 million students, is the most expansive in Africa. Highly respected in the past, the system is now sadly paled - among other quality-depressing factors by activities of degree mills.


ZIMBABWE: Academics and students doubt power deal Clemence Manyukwe
Academics and students in Zimbabwe have greeted a political power-sharing deal struck earlier this month with caution. Students see little chance of the settlement between long-ruling Zanu-PF party and the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) succeeding, mainly owing to mistrust of autocratic President Robert Mugabe. But lecturers hope it will deliver academic freedom and a return of donors who cut support as oppression deepened

ZAMBIA: University offers free Aids treatment Clemence Manyukwe
The University of Zambia is offering anti-retroviral treatment to students and staff free of charge to reduce the impact of the HIV-Aids pandemic on the African country's oldest institution of higher learning and the skilled graduates it produces.

SENEGAL: Anti-brain drain computing grid installed
Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar is the first university in sub-Saharan Africa to benefit from installation of a computing grid under the Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa project jointly run by Unesco, Hewlett-Packard and the CNRS, France's national scientific research centre. The new infrastructure will make it easier for researchers at the university to collaborate with colleagues abroad, and give them access to considerable information technology resources.


ANGOLA: Launch of 'knowledge and research' portal
The Ministry of Science and Technology has launched a 'knowledge and research' portal, accessible to the public, on which postgraduate works may be logged, researchers can contact one another, and academic and scientific information will be published.

University news from the West

THE Awards 2008: shortlist
It is four years since the launch of the Times Higher Education Awards.For the 2008 Awards, more than 130 institutions have submitted an impressive 500-plus entries. As always, shortlisting has been a difficult task, but the entries in the 18 categories paint a picture of a higher education sector that is innovative, imaginative and inspirational

Howdy partners
As state funding for public education plummets, US universities are forging mutually beneficial alliances at local level. Jon Marcus reports


SPECIAL SERIES: How universities help fight crime Keith Nuthall
It's the mother of clichés: crime pays. But, happily for many of the world's top universities, this is sometimes true. With commercial and financial crime becoming ever more complex, academics are responding to demand and becoming experts on a subject that the private and public sectors want to understand. In the first of an occasional series of articles, University World News this week takes a look at some of the better-known North American academics in a cutting edge and developing field.

US: Experts tackle commercial criminals Monica Dobie
Companies fighting commercial crime are always on the lookout for new resources and tools to deal with the problem. Where better to look than the world's best universities in America?

EUROPE: EIT starts work with first board meeting Keith Nuthall
The often controversial European Institute of Innovation and Technology has begun operations, with its newly appointed governing board having its first meeting and the European Commission claiming it will help close Europe's research spending gap compared with the United States.

INDIA: Big grant for biomedical research Subbiah Arunachalam
Biomedical research in India is in for good times. The UK-based Wellcome Trust, the world's largest private sector funding agency for biomedical research, has joined with India's Department of Biotechnology to create a new biomedical research career programme. The £80 million (US$148.3 million), five-year partnership will not only boost cutting-edge biomedical research but also complement the recent Wellcome Trust investment to support public health research in the country.

RUSSIA: Study into training for oil and gas industry Nick Holdsworth
Russia's ability to produce specialist graduates for the oil and gas industries will be put under the spotlight in a new European Union-funded comparative study. The six-month investigation, Building Capability in Russian Educational Institutions, is being put out to tender and is expected to be ready to start next year.

US: Investigating collaboration in graduate education
The American Council of Graduate Schools* is to investigate international collaborations in graduate education, following the award of a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The study will include joint and dual degrees, and student and faculty exchange programmes.


New Questions on Women, Academe and Careers
Top scholars gather to share research findings and works in progress that explore why gender gaps persist in the professoriate and other prestigious jobs on campuses.

Did My Job Disappear?
Either in the classroom or at career services, top business schools scramble to counsel students and recent alumni whose job prospects may have taken a hit with the recent shakeups on Wall Street.

Covering Up or Scaring Off?
High school counselors remain divided on what they should tell colleges about the disciplinary records of applicants. Should admissions officers know if potential students were suspended?

The Competition to Be Transparent
Long criticized for providing too little information about their prices and performance, college groups are now pouring (often overlapping) information onto the Internet.

Planning for Contraction
Timothy Burke looks at the changing economic landscape for higher education -- and sees a coming period of relative austerity.

Can Higher Education Regulate Itself?
Amid "pause" in federal push to toughen oversight of campuses and accreditors, academic leaders begin discussion of how to persuade public (and elected officials) that colleges can govern themselves.

I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please
Comprehensive study finds that students overwhelmingly prefer having their lectures available online, either for remote access or for later viewing.



It's All About Teaching - Latest NYT Magazine Education Issue steven bell
The New York Times Magazine fall education issue is now available online and this issue's theme is "It's All About Teaching". From the issue description: Does teaching make you a bad writer ? Could it make you a good president ? How would you teach on YouTube ? How would you teach in Dubai ? How can you teach with ... style ? From Alaska to Alabama to the Persian Gulf , we look at the mysteries of teaching in all its variety. There's too much here to describe it all so just take a look for yourself.

IHEs Improve Their Environmental Friendliness steven bell
Two out of three colleges and universities are more environmentally friendly than they were a year ago, according to a leading annual survey, as students press for more sustainable practices on their campuses. Just 15 schools received the highest grade. Colleges were graded on a range of factors - administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities, and shareholder engagement.