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Options for Reforming
the Financial System
-- Shann Turnbull
The paper presents four non-exclusive options for reforming the economy and the financial system. Three options reintroduce cost-carrying money as supported by Gesell1, Fisher2 and Keynes3, but in electronic form. One variant is a government issue redeemable into official money as proposed by the US Bankhead-Pettengill Bill of 1933. A second option is to allow private issues redeemable into official money as occurred during the Great Depression. The third option involves private issues convertible into specified commodities as occurred in Europe in the 1920s. The redemption of a currency into kilo-Watt-hours (kWh) of electricity generated from renewable resources provides a way to create “green” dollars with a stable unit of local value. Green cost-carrying money could make renewable energy cheaper than burning carbon. The fourth option involves using existing fiat money to reduce: (i) the cost of seigniorage; (ii) interest on government debt; (iii) size of organisations considered too big to fail; (iv) tax incentives to favour equity rather than debt; (v) the different types of risks accepted by financial institutions; and (vi) ability of banks and “shadow” banks to create credit to finance derivatives many times greater than the GDP of the global economy. © 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Global Pension Fund Activism:
A Review of the Largest Government Pension Systems
-- Siona Listokin
Public pension funds, as some of the world’s largest institutional investors, can command substantial ownership and influence over corporate governance and strategy. This influence can extend to shareholder activism, and can be at odds with other corporate owners. This study analyses the role of the largest public pension systems in corporate activism in North America, Western Europe and Asia. The paper compares formal fund guidelines for socially responsible investing and ownership, along with shareholder actions such as proxy proposals, class action lawsuits and communication with corporate management. In addition, the study considers possible contradictions between public pension activism and the retirement funds’ dependence from the government sponsor. Implications for India’s civil service pension funds are considered.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Economics of Agrarian Organisations
and Policy Interventions
-- Hrabrin Bachev
There has been a fundamental development in the theory and understanding of market, private, collective and public organisations in recent years. This paper incorporates the achievements of the interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics and suggests a framework for assessing the needs and efficiency of economic organisations and public interventions in agriculture. Our new approach includes: study of farm and other agrarian organisations as governing rather than production structures; assessment of comparative efficiency of alternative market, contract, internal, and hybrid modes of governance; analysis of level of transaction costs and their institutional, behavioural, dimensional, natural and technological factors; determination of effective horizontal and vertical boundaries of farms and other agrarian organisations; specification of the economic role of government and the need for public interventions in agrarian sector; and assessment of comparative and alternative forms of public involvement in agrarian sector. © 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
An Exploratory Case Study on Employee
Grassroots Initiatives and Policy Formulation
for Mitigating Climate Change
-- Abhishek Syal and Poonam Syal
Today’s concerns regarding global warming and climate change must be addressed by the organisations. Supporting initiatives taken by employees at the grassroots level can aid the process of mitigating climate change in a very simple yet holistic and effective manner. This paper presents a case study of an institute where employees were asked about their energy utilisation practices. Statistical analysis as well as qualitative research showed where the policy formulators must form policies and other initiatives that an organisation must undertake or an employee can be motivated to implement to reduce the carbon footprint of the organisation. © 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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