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The study, conducted assesses the current state of agricultural finance in the Republic of Kosovo (Kosovo) and determine ways to improve the provision of finance to Kosovo's growing agricultural economy. The study is aimed at informing the full range of stakeholders about the best options to scale up financial services for agriculture. The study relies on data from available statistics as well as on individual and group discussions with stakeholders. Kosovo's business environment is improving, despite slow advancement in the capacity and function of the public institutions responsible for providing guidance and direction to the industry. Government focus on the World Bank (WB) Doing Business indicators has produced encouraging results. According to the Doing Business 2018 report, Kosovo is currently ranked 40th in the world, up from 126th in 2012, a leap of 86 places. In ease of starting a business, Kosovo very substantially improved its ranking, by 160 places. A law on strategic investments is under consideration, and attention is being given to support public institutions that improve the business environment, such as the Business Registration Agency, which ultimately will support investors. These developments are taking place in an economy marked by high general unemployment (30.5 percent) and very high youth unemployment (52.7 percent). The public sector remains the dominant employer and pays higher wages on average than he private sector. The supply of skilled workers is insufficient to satisfy private sector demand. Small and medium enterprises dominate the economic landscape; while these are increasing in number, few grow into larger entities.

This is an excerpt from the 4-volume dictionary of economics, a reference book which aims to define the subject of economics today. 1300 subject entries in the complete work cover the broad themes of economic theory. This extract concentrates on finance.

"We present a dynamic general equilibrium model with agency costs where: i) firms are heterogeneous in the risk of default; ii) they can choose to raise finance through bank loans or corporate bonds; and iii) banks are more efficient than the market in resolving informational problems. The model is used to analyze some major long-run differences in corporate finance between the US and the euro area. We suggest an explanation of those differences based on information availability. Our model replicates the data when the euro area is characterized by limited availability of public information about corporate credit risk relative to the US, and when european firms value more than US firms the flexibility and information acquisition role provided by banks"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

The object of this Bill is to amend the Income Tax Decree, 1974, the Sales Tax Act, 1970, the Finance Decree, 1972, the East African Customs and Transfer Tax Management Act, and the East African Excise Management Act and to introduce a Road User Tax in order to increase recource flow to Government and supply of goods and services

This thesis consists of three articles. The two first articles study information flows in the financial markets, and the third one studies how mutual fund families may use relatively discretionary income sources to channel profits to specific funds within the family. The first article, joint with Daniel Schmidt, studies price and liquidity spillovers in financial markets. Using a quasi-natural experiment, we show that investors look at stock prices to extract signals, and use these to trade. In the second article, I show that mutual fund acquire information through the securities lending market. I show that active mutual funds start selling the stocks that are borrowed from them by short sellers, whereas index funds — that are prohibited from trading — do not. One the other hand, index funds are able to charge higher stock lending fees from the borrowers. I attribute this to them being better lenders in the sense that they can not use the information they gain to trade, and thereby extract profits from the short sellers' information. The third article, also with Daniel Schmidt, studies fund family level policies in allocating securities loans and lending revenues between member funds. We show that fund families deviate from the claimed fair allocation, directing more securities loans and lending profits to index funds. The finding is in line with with funds substituting a lower expense ratio with higher securities lending income. ; Cette thèse se compose de trois articles. Les deux premiers articles étudient les flux d'informations sur les marchés financiers, et le troisième étudie comment les familles de fonds communs de placement peuvent utiliser des sources de revenus relativement discrétionnaires pour canaliser des bénéfices vers des fonds spécifiques au sein de la famille. Le premier article, rédigé en collaboration avec Daniel Schmidt, étudie les retombées de prix et de liquidité sur les marchés financiers. En utilisant une expérience quasi-naturelle, nous montrons que les investisseurs observent les prix des actions pour en extraire des signaux, et les utilisent pour effectuer des transactions. Dans le deuxième article, je montre que les fonds d'investissement acquièrent des informations par le marché des prêts de titres. Je montre que les fonds communs de placement actifs vendent les actions qui leur sont empruntées par des vendeurs à découvert, alors que les fonds indiciels - qui sont interdits de négociation - ne le font pas. D'un autre côté, les fonds indiciels sont en mesure de facturer des frais de prêt de titres plus élevés aux emprunteurs. Je leur attribue le fait qu'ils sont de meilleurs prêteurs dans le sens où ils ne peuvent pas utiliser les informations qu'ils obtiennent pour négocier, et donc tirer des bénéfices des informations des vendeurs à découvert. Le troisième article, également avec Daniel Schmidt, étudie les politiques des familles de fonds en matière de répartition des prêts de titres et des revenus de prêts entre les fonds membres. Nous montrons que les familles de fonds s'écartent de l'allocation équitable revendiquée, en dirigeant davantage de prêts de titres et de bénéfices de prêts vers les fonds indiciels. Cette conclusion est conforme à la substitution par les fonds des frais de gestion plus faibles par des revenus de prêts de titres plus élevés.