Risk management in Chinese banks has traditionally been the Cinderella of its internal functions. Political stricture and developmental imperative have often overridden standard practice of risk management resulting in large non-performing loan (NPL) ratios. The training and practice of risk managers remain second class compared with foreign banks operating in China. This paper surveys Chinese ...

Utilizing the proprietary data of a company operating 10 pawnshops throughout Kentucky and Ohio, and exploiting the randomized variation of the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008, this paper studies the effect of positive liquidity shocks on pawn loan utilization. We uncover a statistically significant 67% decrease in pawn loan utilization in the week following receipt of ESP checks. However, i...

BACKGROUND Attempts to address the huge, and unmet, need for surgical services in Africa by training surgical specialists in well established training programmes in high-income countries have resulted in brain drain, as most trainees do not return home on completion of training for various reasons. Local postgraduate training is key to retaining specialists in their home countries. Internationa...

INTRODUCTION This study examined whether a policy of banning tobacco product retailers from operating within 1000 feet of schools could reduce existing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in tobacco retailer density. METHODS We geocoded all tobacco retailers in Missouri (n = 4730) and New York (n = 17 672) and linked them with Census tract characteristics. We then tested the potential...

We test whether mortality is related to individual income, mean community income, and community income inequality, controlling for initial health status and personal characteristics. The analysis is based on a random sample from the adult Swedish population of over 40,000 individuals who were followed up for 10-17 years. We find that mortality decreases significantly as individual income increa...