Effects of the financial crisis and low interest rate environment on interest rate pass-through in Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania

In order for monetary policy’s interest rate channel to operate smoothly and effectively, the relevant retail interest rates of the real economy should react quickly and follow the movements of the prime rate. It has been observed that this connection has weakened since the financial crisis and it was suggested that the so called Weighted Average Cost of Liabilities (WACL) might be a better proxy for the banks’ marginal costs than the prime rate or interbank rate. In this study the WACL for Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania is calculated by applying cointegration tests and ARDL models. I examined whether their long-run relationships with the retail loan rates are more stable. Results: 1. Using the WACL instead of the interbank rate yields slightly more stable long-term relationships with the retail loan rates, and the WACL has been proved to be somewhat more stable than the interbank rate. 2. The interest rate pass-through has been efficient for the household loan rates in all three countries, but only in Romania for the corporate loan rates. 3. The results suggest that the central banks can effectively influence the commercial banks’ financing costs even in a low interest rate environment, although this cost represents only one component of the loan rates, and the movements of other components can offset the changes of the prime rate.

Cooling Load Estimation of a Multi-Storey Building: A Heat Transfer Approach

The key objective of this work is to maintain the pre-determined inside conditions & to establish thermal equilibrium the prime rate at which heat needs to be detached from the space. Nowadays one of the most serious problems is environmental issues. For this problem, energy utilization by buildings and enterprises are responsible. Markets, Residential houses, commercial buildings, industry, and Infrastructure consume approximately 72% of the world’s energy. Roughly 60 % of a building’s total energy necessity is distributed to the plant of air-conditioning installed in a big complex or building that is air acclimatized. To limit energy utilization, accurate prediction of the cooling load are important. The elementary heat transfer concepts are used to manually calculate the cooling load of a multi-storey building. This method is derived from CLTD technique of cooling load estimation. We estimate the cooling load at the extreme conditions. So, we have taken the outside conditions as relative humidity 54% and 450C DBT for the month of May during summer. The average outside air velocity during this period is 1.67 m/s. The significance of this work is to show that, actual cooling load prediction results in less capital cost, investment and energy consumed. Thus, accuracy should be paramount when load calculation is being performed.

Floating Rate Notes

This chapter provides an overview of floating rate notes (FRNs). Although FRNs originated in Europe, their first introduction in the United States came in 1974 when Citicorp sold $650 million worth of its 15-year notes. Since that time, FRNs have evolved into a variety of types. FRN types covered in the chapter include the plain, capped, floored, collared, reverse, super, deleveraged, perpetual, and flip-flop. An FRN can have a maturity of up to 30 years and include periodic interest rate adjustments throughout its life. An FRN uses a reference rate, such as London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR), Treasury bill (T-bill) rate, prime rate, or domestic certificate of deposit rate plus a spread to determine its coupon rate. The chapter provides a discussion of such risk factors as interest rate risk, credit risk, call/reinvestment risk, liquidity risk, and market risk. Additionally, it covers FRN valuation using spread for life, effective margin, total adjusted margin, discount margin, and option-adjusted spread methods.

Optimal Resource Scheduler for LTE A based Networks

Long Term Evolution (LTE) may be a commonplace for prime rate radio transmission for cellular telephone and knowledge terminal. It is a complex technology that provides an accumulated network capability and speed by employing a totally special wireless interface beside the counter work enhancements. In the proposed method we deal with the setback of bandwidth administration in LTE-A systems and suggest valuable and profitable solutions to improve the quality of support in these networks. This paper presents an Optimal Resource Schedule which enhances the system throughput of LTE A based networks

Consumer financial vulnerability: identifying transmission linkages that could give rise to higher levels of consumer financial vulnerability

Several macroeconomic indicators point to high consumer financial vulnerability in South Africa. These include, inter alia, a relatively high household debt-to-disposable income ratio, household consumption expenditure outstripping household disposable income and a declining real household net wealth-to-disposable income ratio. 12In a 2009 study, the first level of possible predictors of consumer financial vulnerability was identified. However, no study has been conducted in South Africa to establish the transmission path of consumer financial vulnerability. This paper attempts to identify such a transmission path by determining the order in which the four aspects of the consumer financial vulnerability index, namely consumer income, expenditure, savings and debt servicing vulnerability, impact on one another, making consumers more vulnerable. This was done by means of an econometric modelling technique called Vector Auto regression (VAR) using consumer financial vulnerability data series covering the period Q2 2009 to Q2 2012. 13The VAR results show that expenditure vulnerability received the highest coefficient of determination score. This indicates that expenditure problems are the Achilles’ heel of South African households, which activates the postulated consumer financial vulnerability index (CFVI) transmission path. To determine the extent to which other macroeconomic variables impact on the postulated CFVI transmission path, a consumer price index (CPI) time series was entered exogenously into the existing VAR equation. It appears from the results obtained that the exogenous 113 Consumer financial vulnerability inclusion of CPI in the model made a dramatic difference with respect to income and expenditure vulnerability. By including the prime lending rate variable exogenously in the CFVI transmission path, the strong impact of the prime rate on expenditure vulnerability became evident. Finally, by adding the expanded unemployment variable exogenously to the CFVI transmission path in addition to the CPI and prime rate variables, debt servicing vulnerability was strongly impacted. From the CFVI transmission path findings, it became evident that consumers are not able to afford their required necessities, which leads to their becoming expenditure vulnerable. If consumers cannot generate more income to compensate, they become income vulnerable. They draw on their savings to finance the excess expenditure and become savings vulnerable, and if they cannot afford the necessary credit they require to finance their expenditure and have no savings left, they become debt servicing vulnerable

Towards the Establishment of Relationship between Macroeconomic Indicators and Cost of Public Educational Buildings in Ghana

Cost of building is usually influenced by several factors; one of such is frequent changes in macroeconomic variables. The purpose of this study is to establish the need to conduct further research on the impact of changes in macroeconomic components on the cost of public educational buildings. The study adopted the qualitative research approach; purposive and snowballing techniques were used in selecting respondents. Questionnaire survey was used to obtain primary data from respondents who were Quantity Surveyors and Estimators. The questionnaires were analyzed through descriptive analysis. Secondary data was obtained through literature review. The study revealed that respondents were satisfied with cost management procedures and practices and mainly relied on cash flow, progress reporting, and project cost control methods as means of monitoring and managing project cost. Relative important index, prime rate, interest rate, and inflation were some of the macroeconomic components that professionals considered having impact on cost. The respondents also recommended further studies on the impact of macroeconomic variability on cost of public buildings.