Acid Rain (573 words) Essay Example For Students

Acid Rain (573 words) Essay Acid RainAcid rain refers to all types of precipitationrain, snow, sleet, hail, fogthat is acidic in nature. Acidic means that these forms of water have a pH lower than the 5.6 average of rainwater. Acid rain kills aquatic life, trees, crops and other vegetation, damages buildings and monuments, corrodes copper and lead piping, damages such man-made things as automobiles, reduces soil fertility and can cause toxic metals to leach into underground drinking water sources. Rain is naturally acidic because carbon dioxide, found normally in the earths atmosphere, reacts with water to form carbonic acid. While pure rains acidity is pH 5.6-5.7, actual pH readings vary from place to place depending upon the type and amount of other gases present in the air, such as sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxides. The term pH refers to the free hydrogen ions (electrically charged atoms) in water and is measured on a scale from 0 to 14. Seven is considered neutral and measurements below seven are acidic while those above it are basic or alkaline. Every point on the pH scale represents a tenfold increase over the previous number. Thus, pH 4 is 10 times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times more so than pH 6. Similarly, pH 9 is 1O times more basic than pH 8 and 100 times more basic than pH 7. The acid in acid rain comes from two kinds of air pollutants sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). These are emitted primarily from utility and smelter smokestacks and automobile, truck and bus exhausts, but they also come from burning wood. When these pollutants reach the atmosphere they combine with gaseous water in clouds and change to acidssulphuric acid and nitric acid. Then, rain and snow wash these acids from the air. Acid rain affects lakes, streams, rivers, bays, ponds and other bodies of water by increasing their acidity until fish and other aquatic creatures can no longer live. Aquatic plants grow best between pH 7.0 and 9.2 (Bourodemos). As acidity increases (pH numbers become lower), submerged aquatic plants decrease and deprive waterfowl of their basic food source. At pH 6, freshwater shrimp cannot survive. At pH 5.5, bottom-dwelling bacterial decomposers begin to die and leave undecomposed leaf litter and other organic debris to collect on the bottom. This deprives planktontiny creatures that form the base of the aquatic food chainof food, so that they too disappear. Below a pH of about 4.5, all fish die.Acid rain harms more than aquatic life. It also harms vegetation. The forests of the Federal Republic of Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe, for example, are believed to be dying because of acid rain. Scientists believe that acid rain damages the protective waxy coating of leaves and allows acids to diffuse into them, which interrupts the evaporation of water and gas exchange so that the plant no longer can breathe. This stops the plants conversion of nutrients and water into a form useful for plant growth and affects crop yields. Perhaps the most important effects of acid rain on forests result from nutrient leaching, accumulation of toxic metals and the release of toxic aluminum. Nutrient leaching occurs when acid rain adds hydrogen ions to the soil which interact chemically with existing minerals. This displaces calcium, magnesium and potassium from soil particles and deprives trees of nutrition. Science Essays

Short Selling Essays

Short Selling Essays Short Selling Essay Short Selling Essay Short selling Short selling is a practice of selling a borrowed security that the seller does not necessarily own. Short sellers are generally betting that the price of security will go down, and  assume that they will be able to lock of short selling Short seller borrows the security for a given fee and sells it short on the market for Rs 40000. If tomorrow the price of security drops to Rs 38000, short seller could buy it back in order to return the security and lock a profit of 2000 (the price difference between 40000 and 38000), less the borrowing fee. Islamic Point of View Short selling is prohibited (Haram) from the Shariah perspective. Shariah scholars found several reasons behind which, short selling is considered haram, and the reasons are as follows:- 1- selling something you doesn’t own:-In Islamic transactions; to sell something you must first have the ownership of what is being sold or the subject of the sale. Therefore in order to sell a security, the security must be owned by the seller and not borrowed which is the case in short selling. 2- Riba:-Short selling is associated with the conventional borrowing and lending system of securities which includes a series of interest-based charges for services, and interested payments on borrowed securities. And as we all know, charging interest on services and borrowed securities is considered as Riba. 3- Speculation: Since short sellers are watching out for fluctuations in the markets, to sell the share at a higher price and buy it back at a lower price and pocket the difference. Speculation has been perceived negatively due to its resemblance with gambling. 4- Gharar/ Ghobun :- there is uncertainty in the contract and the buyer is also deceived. 5- unjust deeds Hamish Jiddiya Token money, down payment  by a party  intending to purchase certain goods who wishes to confirm the intention to do so by paying an amount to the seller as token money or down payment to secure the goods. Hamish Jiddiya is a collateral given for a promise to purchase. If the buyer is not proceeding to purchase, the seller can demand compensation for the actual damage, if the collateral is higher, the buyer receives an amount back, if the actual damage is higher, the the seller can demand additional compensation above the collateral. Arba’un The term Arba’un means an amount of money that the customer as purchase orderer pays to the Bank after concluding the Murabahah sale, with the provision that if the sale is completed during a prescribed period, the amount will be counted as part of the price. If the customer fails to execute the Murabahah sale, then the Bank may retain the whole amount. Waqf A Wakf is an unconditional and permanent dedication of property with implied detention in the ownership of God in such a manner, that the property of the owner may be extinguished and its profits may revert to or be applied for the benefit of mankind except for purposes prohibited by Islam. Examples of Waqf Land Buildings: one or more persons provide Cash as waqf to purchase land and buildings, e. g. a small shopping complex. Once the complex is purchased, the property may be classified as a waqf property and waqf rules apply. The property may not be sold (except to replace), be gifted, or inherited. The property remains intact and may not be spent. The rental income that is produced by the complex may be used for any shariah compliant purpose. Valid contract The remedy of specific performance presupposes the existence of a valid contract between the parties to the controversy. The terms of the contract must be definite and certain. This is significant because equity cannot be expected to enforce either an invalid contract or one that is so vague in its terms that equity cannot determine exactly what it must order each party to perform. It would be unjust for a court to compel the performance of a contract according to ambiguous terms interpreted by the court, since the court might erroneously order what the parties never intended or contemplated. Example A homeowner (who is over the age of 18 and of sound mind) signed a contract with the appliance store to buy a refrigerator. The homeowner pays for the refrigerator and the appliance store presents the refrigerator for the homeowner to take home. Void contract A void contract is not a contract and has no effect in a court of law and cannot be enforced in a court of law. Most commonly, a void contract will be missing one or all of the essential elements needed for a valid contract. Neither party needs to take action to terminate it, since it was never a contract to begin with. Example A contract that was between an illegal drug dealer and an illegal drug supplier to purchase a specified amount of drugs for a specified amount. Either one of the parties could void the contract since there is no lawful objective and hence missing one of the elements of a valid contract. Voidable Contracts A voidable contract is a contract, which may appear to be valid, and has all of the necessary elements to be enforceable, but has some type of flaw, which could cause one or both of the parties to void the contract. The contract is legally binding, but could become void. If there is an injured party involved, the injured party or the defrauded must take action, otherwise the contract is considered valid. Example A contract entered into with a minor could be voidable. Bai Tawliyah Bai Tawliyah Is a sale and buy-back agreement, is a type of Islamic finance that is a banking activity that is congruent with Shariah, which are the principles of Islamic law. Bai Tawliyah is a part of Islamic finance, such as a Muslim mortgage, where there is transaction of buying and selling between the customer and the financial institution. The financial institution, or the financier, will purchase an asset from a customer and the price that they pay for the asset will be disbursed by the terms that the financial institution lays out. Because of this the asset that is purchased is one that the payments are deferred and the price paid will be done so in installments. The second sale in this type of Islamic finance is done so in order to make the customer obliged to the financial institution. Commutative contracts Commutative contracts are those in which what is done, given, or promised by one party is considered same as the other or in consideration of what is done, given or promised by the other. A contract of sale is an example of a commutative contract. Put in a simple form, commutative contracts are contracts where the contracting parties give and receive something similar or an equivalent. An Example is a sale at less than two thirds of the value. Non-Commutative contract A non-compensatory contract in which a property is donated by one party to another against no consideration. The donor transfers ownership of the property to the done free of any commitment or obligation. Refrences ukessays. com/essays/economics/short-selling. php http://jazaa. rg/knowledge-center/islamic-finance-terminology/h/hamish-jiddiyah/ almustafatrust. org/content/Donate/Islamic/types/waqf. htm http://legal-dictionary. thefreedictionary. com/Valid+Contract trainagents. com/DesktopModules/EngageCampus/CourseContent. aspx? ModuleType=StudentMyCourses;CrsPageType=Topic;CourseRecordID=107;LessonRecordID=1372;TopicRecordID=24861;Demo=True http://definitions. uslegal. com/c/commutative-contracts/ http://majdbakir. com/islamic-finance/n/noncommutative-contract . html

How to Get Your CDL in West Virginia and Wisconsin

How to Get Your CDL in West Virginia and Wisconsin This article is useful for anyone who wants to get a CDL in West Virginia or Wisconsin. If you want to learn about earning a CDL at other states, we have put together a comprehensive guide on how to get a commercial driver’s license in every state of the country. West VirginiaYou need a CDL if you are going to drive:Any vehicle combination with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 26,001+ pounds, as long as the GVWR of the towed vehicle(s) is over 10,000 pounds. (Class A)A single vehicle with a GVRW of 26,001+ pounds; or  this vehicle towing another that is less than 10,000 pounds. (Class B)A vehicle with a weight rating of less than 26,001 pounds,  or such a vehicle towing another that is less than 10,000 pounds:  Vehicles that are designed for 16 passengers or more, including the driver, and  Vehicles used to transport hazardous materials.  (Class C)In order to obtain a CDL:You must be at least 18 years old and have 2 years of driving experience.You must  meet specific physical qualification standards and carry a medical certificate to show evidence of such qualification.If you are unable to become medically certified, you may be eligible for a medical waiver.The ExamsAll applicants must take either a written or oral knowledge test and pass  and answer at least 80% of the questions correctly.  You must test for the desired endorsements you have listed on the test card at the time you test for general knowledge, but you may get a test card for other endorsements at a later date if you wish to add them.If you fail the knowledge exam, you may not retest for 7 days. You may try to pass the exam three times on the original fees.After you pass the written exams, you will receive a commercial driver’s instruction permit. Only after you have your learner’s permit can you then take your road (skills) tests.After you pass your road tests, you can then receive your CDL.WisconsinIf you are going to drive any of the following vehicl es, you must obtain a CDL:Vehicles that weigh 26,000+ pounds, determined by the highest of the following:manufacturer’s gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR)manufacturer’s gross combination weight rating (GCWR) when the towed unit has a GVWR, registered weight, or gross weight of  10,000+ poundsactual weightregistered weightA vehicle carrying hazardous materials that require placarding under federal lawA vehicle designed or used to carry 16+ people, including the driverThe ExamsFirst, you must take and pass the appropriate knowledge test(s) for the vehicle you plan to drive.CDL knowledge tests are free, and take take at least 1 to 1.5 hours to complete. You must answer  80%+ questions correctly to pass.  You must present a valid Class D license at the time of testing.After you pass the knowledge exam, you can obtain your  Commercial Driver Learner permit (CLP).  Your CLP will be valid for 180 days. You can use a  CLP to practice driving with a qualified instru ctor or CDL driver  who has  a valid license at or above the level of your permit.You must hold a CLP  for 14 days prior to taking your road test(s).After you schedule and pass the pre-trip, backing test and skills test(s) with an approved third party tester, you can receive your CDL.

12-day chase for Lincoln's killer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

12-day chase for Lincoln's killer - Essay Example David Herold helped Lewis Powell into the house of Secretary for State William H. Seward and later fled due to the commotion and rendezvoused with John Wikes Booth outside Washington. John Surratt was a friend of John Wilkes Booth while Mrs. Mary Surratt was his mother. She ran the boarding house where the conspiracy to murder Lincoln and other officials was hatched. George Atzerodt was supposed to kill the Vice President Andrew Johnson but was unable to muster the courage to do so. He spent the evening drinking instead. Lewis Powell entered the house of William H. Seward in hopes of killing him but failed to do so. James W. Pumphrey arranged the horse used by Wilkes to escape from the theatre after assassinating Lincoln. Wilkes hopes to decimate the leadership of the Union by assassinating the top three officials in the government. He believed that this would buy the Confederacy some time to react. 2. Jones’s hid both John Wilkes Booth and David Herold for a full five days in Zekiah Swamp that was near his house. Later he gave them provisions to cross the Potomac River. Thomas Jones was a Confederate supporter so he hid John Wilkes Booth and David Herold. However, as the manhunt gained momentum, Thomas Jones felt it necessary to move the assassins to another location. 3. The Washington Press labelled Booth as a villain and a coward among other deplorable and condescending names. However, Booth noted in his journal that no matter what the newspapers said, he had acted boldly and would not repent on his actions.

Germany and the germans class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Germany and the germans class - Essay Example er polished his oratory skills but at the same time he could afford himself to unbosom himself to his confidents, which was unacceptable during official speeches. Trevor-Roper set himself a mission to study the development of Hitler’s thinking - the point that is usually ignored by historians. Hitler’s personality is revealed through these conversations in all its unpleasant grandeur. The most interesting notes are dated by 1941-1942. At that time Hitler was on the rise and orated with a special inspiration. After Stalingrad, everything changed. It all ended when the Fuhrer, who was hiding in the bunker, increasingly practiced his eloquence only in the circle of sleepy secretaries or in the presence of his aide and doctor... Conversation topics were all but the most essential and urgent - the military one. England, America, India, painting, music, architecture, Aryan Jesus, Bolshevik St. Paul, pharaohs, the Maccabees, Julian the Apostate, King Farouk, vegetarianism and Vikings, the Ptolemaic system, the era of glaciation, Shintoism, prehistoric dogs, spartan soup – despite his utter ignorance, Hitler covered almost all possible issues in his talks. Hitler was tireless in his speeches. Albert Speer and Otto Dietrich unanimously talk about Hitler’s pathological and integral feature â€Å"speech egoism† (Redeegoizmus). It is very interesting to get to know what Hitler reasoned about himself and his empire, how he became a practical politician and political philosopher in one person, Napoleon and Spengler at the same time, who imagined himself to be a Roman emperor entrusted with the sacred mission to plunge the Huns - Russians and destroy Carthage - Britain. I would like to turn attention to Hitler’s opinion of his political opponents on the other side of the English Channel, in the U. S. and Soviet Union. He mentioned that both Anglo-Saxon are worth each other. His general characterization of Roosevelt is striking – the President is an imbecile, a

Benefits of Financial Liberalisation

Benefits of Financial Liberalisation A EUROPEAN POLICY ABSTRACT: This paper extends to test if the short and in the long run. Weak indica- the same short-run increase in cyclical tions are found that this may happen par- volatility arising from financial integration tially due to the anchoring of expectations is observed in this specific sample of â€Å"emerg-provided by the EU Accession, and to the ing markets. This work finds signs that, more robust institutional framework contrary to other emerging markets, this imposed by this process onto the countries in does not happen: for the future Member question. States, financial integration, similarly to the KEY WORDS: Enlargement, European outcome observed in mature market Union, financial liberalization, booms, 81 economies, reduces cyclical volatility both in busts, cycles, volatility. 1. INTRODUCTION Financial and capital flows liberalization can play a fundamental role in increasing growth and welfare. Typically, emerging or developing economies seek foreign savings to solve the inter-temporal savings-investment problem. On the other hand, current account surplus countries seek opportunities to invest their savings. To the extent that capital flows from surplus to deficit countries are well intermediated and, therefore, put to the most productive use, they increase welfare. Liberalization can, however, also be dangerous, as has been witnessed in many past and recent financial, currency and banking crises. It can make countries more vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In particular, if serious macroeconomic imbalances exist in a recipient country, and if the financial sector is weak, be it in terms of risk management, prudential regulation and supervision, large capital flows can easily lead to serious financial, banking or currency crises. A number of recent crises, like those in Ea st Asia, Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Turkey (described, for example, in IMF (2001)), and, to some extent, the Argentinean episode of late 2001, early 2002, have demonstrated the potential risks associated with financial and capital flows liberalization. Central and Eastern Europe has a somewhat different experience, when compared to other emerging regions, concerning the financial liberalization process, as the process there seems to have been much less crisis-prone than in, for instance, Asia or Latin America. This maybe, at least partially, because the current high degree of external and financial liberalization in the Central Eastern European countries (CEECs), beyond questions of economic allocative efficiency, must be understood in terms of the process of Accession to the European Union. The EU integration process implies legally binding, sweeping liberalization measures-not only capital account liberalization, but investment by EU firms in the domestic financial services, and the maintenance of a competitive domestic environment, giving this financial liberalization process strong external incentives (and constraints). Those measures were implemented parallel to the development of a highly sophisticated regulatory and supervis ory structure, again based on EU standards. This whole process happened also with the EUs technical and financial support, through specific programs-like the PHARE one, for these so-called Accession, and the TACIS, for the former Soviet Union ones- and direct assistance from EU institutions, like the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (also, on a very early stage of the transition process, the influence of the IMF in setting up policies and institutions in several countries in the region-an intervention widely considered to haven been successful-was important: see Hallerberg et al., 2002). Additionally, EU membership seems to act as an anchor to market expectations (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001), limiting the possibilities of self- fulfilling financial crises and regional contagion (see Linne, 1999), which had the observed devastating effects in both Asia and Latin America (even a major event, like the Russian collapse of 1998, had very reduced regional side effects). Several regional episodes of financial systems instability did happen (see Vinhas de Souza, 2002(a) and Vinhas de Souza, 2002(b)), but none with the prolonged negative consequences observed in other region (which was also due to the effective national policy actions undertaken after those episodes). This studys main aim is to expand the Kaminsky and Schmukler database (see Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003), from now on indicated as KS, to include the Accession and Acceding Countries from Eastern Europe (namely, for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia). In their original work, KS build an extensive database of external and financial liberalization, which includes both developed countries and countries from emerging regions (but not from Eastern Europe). With that, they create different indexes of liberalization (capital account, banking and stock markets: see Table I below) and using them individually and in an aggregate fashion, test for the effects and causality of this process on financial and real volatility, for the existence of differences between regions, and for the effects of the ordering of the liberalization process. One underlying hypotheses of this work is that the existing regulatory and institutional framework in Eastern Europe, plus a more sustainable set of macro policies, played an important role in enabling liberalization to largely deliver the welfare enhancing outcomes that it is supposed to. Such an â€Å"anchoring role of the European Union in the CEECs, through the process of EU membership, and through the effective imposition of international standards of financial supervision and regulation, may indicate that, beyond multilateral organizations like the IMF or the OECD, a greater, pro-active regional stabilizing role in emerging markets by regional actors, for instance, the United States, or by some regional sub-grouping, like Mercosur, may also be welfare enhancing for other â€Å"emerging regions. 2. CAPITAL ACCOUNT The achieving of capital account liberalization happened rather swiftly in most of the countries in our sample: by the mid 1990s, all bar Bulgaria and Romania had been declared Article VIII compliant (for those two countries, this happened in 1998: see Table II below). One of the main driving forces behind this was the process of European Integration, for which external liberalization is a pre-requisite: in the early to mid-1990s, all the countries had signed Association Agreements with the European Union (frequently preceded by trade liberalization agreements with the EU, also called â€Å"Europe trade agreements, usually with years given to the countries to prepare for their full implementation) and formally applied for EU membership. Another additional factor supporting liberalization was IMF and OECD membership: four of the larger countries in our sample became OECD members during the second half of the 1990s. Another factor to be considered, is the endogenous decision process to liberalize in a sustainable fashion. 3. BANKING SECTOR Financial integration, in the form of the opening up the banking sector to foreign banks, is seen as being positive, on a micro level, as foreign banks are usually better capitalized and more efficient than their domestic counterparts (of course, the domestic banking sector eventually catches-up: for an indication of this process at the ACs, see, among others, Tomova et al., 2003). Also from a macroeconomic perspective, financial integration maybe positive for the Eastern European countries, both for long run growth and, as there are indications that foreign banks do not contract either their credit supply nor their deposit base, in helping to smooth the cycle (see de Haas and Lelyveld, 2003: they find some indication that this is linked to the better capitalization base and prudential ratios, as better capitalized domestic banks behave similarly to foreign banks). Given the bank-centered nature of virtually all the financial systems of the future Member States, this is particularly important for them. In most of the member states, the initial stage of the creation of the two-tier banking system, modeled on the Western European â€Å"universal bank system, was characterized by rather liberal licensing practices and limited supervision policies (aimed at the fast creation of a de novo commercial, private banking sector: see Fleming et al., 1996, Balyozov, 1999, Enoch et al., 2002, Sà ¶rg et al., 2003). This caused a mushrooming of new banks in those countries in the early 1990s. Parallel to this, a series of banking crises, of varied proportions, affected most of those de novo banking systems, due to this lax institutional framework, inherited fragilities from the command economy period (the political need to support state-owned, inefficient industries, with the consequent accumulation of bad loans and also the financing of budget deficits), macroeconomic instability, risky expansion and investment strategies and also sheer inexperience, both from the investor s and from regulators. Progressively, the re-capitalization, privatization and internationalization of the banking system (mostly into the hands of EU financial conglomerates), coupled with the implementation of a more robust, EU-modeled institutional framework, did away with most of those problems. Two of the worst cases where the set of Baltic banking crises and the Bulgarian episode, which are described in more detail below. Other smaller banking crises happened in Estonia in 1994 and 1998, and in Latvia in 1994. Caprio and Klingebiel, 2003, report smaller episodes of â€Å"financial sector distress in the Czech Republic (94-95), Hungary (93), Poland (91-93), Romania (98-00), Slovakia (97) and Slovenia (92-94). The initial proliferation of banks was, quite naturally, followed by a process of consolidation and strengthening-parallel to the privatization of the remnant state-owned components of the financial system- of the banking sector in most of those economies (in Bulgaria, from 81 banks in 1992 to 35 in 2001, in the Czech Republic from 55 in 1995 to 38 in 2001, Estonia, from 42 in 1992 to 7 currently, while Hungary had 33 banks in 2002, showing only a very slight decrease from the early 1990s, Latvia from 56 in 1994 to 23, Lithuania from 27 in 1993 to 13, in Poland from 8 1 in 1995 to 71 in 2001, in Romania from 45 in 1998 to 41 in 2001, in Slovakia from 22 in 2000 to 19 in 2001, and in Slovenia, where the number fell from 25 to 21 during 2001 alone). This consolidation process was frequently led by foreign companies, which now hold the majority of the assets of the banking system in virtually all of them-contrary to the situation in the current EU Member States-bar Slovenia. This process now has a component of regional expansion of the Eastern European banks themselves, or, more precisely in most cases, the regional expansion of Western banks via some of their locally-owned subsidiaries (see Sà ¶rg et al., 2003, ibid). The share of banking assets to GDP, nevertheless, is still far below the Euro area average (which stood at around 265% of GDP by end 2001), compared with 47% in Bulgaria, 136% in the Czech Republic, 72% in Estonia and Latvia, 32% in Lithuania, 63% in Poland, 60% in Hungary, 30% in Romania, 96% in Slovakia and 94% in Slovenia (data also for 2001). Another peculiar feature of the banking system in the region is that foreign currency lending -usually euro-denominated-to residents is very high, especially in the Balti c republics: with 80% of total loans in Estonia, 56% in Latvia and 61% in Lithuania. Also, the Baltic countries have substantial shares of deposits by non-residents, with over 10% in Estonia and Lithuania and close to 5% in Latvia (Latvia, with its close trading ties to Russia, has a particular strategy of selling itself as a stable financial services center to CIS depositors: see IMF, 2003(b), ibid). The supervision system has also substantially improved, and, following recent international-and EU- best practice, is now centered in independent universal supervisory agencies in the most advanced of those countries (Reininger et al., 2002, ibid., estimate that the formal regulatory environment for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is actually above the EU, and that its actual enforcement level is at its average;Liive, 2003, gives a description of the Estonian experience that culminated in the creation of the EFSA -Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority- in January 2002). 3.1 BANKING CRISES IN EASTERN EUROPE The Baltic bank crises were, to different degrees, linked to liquidity difficulties related tolerations with Russia (in the November 1992 Estonian case, by the freezing of assets held by some Estonian banks in their former Moscow headquarters, while the Latvian and Lithuanian episodes of, respectively, March and December 1995, were caused by the drying-up of lucrative trade-financing opportunities with Russia, whose export commodities, at that time, were still below world price levels) and regulatory tightening (Latvia, Lithuania), compounded by the elimination of credit opportunities with the implementation of the Estonian and Lithuanian CBAs (Currency Board Arrangements). In Lithuania, as in Bulgaria, the financing of the budget deficit also played a role. In the Estonian and Latvian cases, around 40% of the assets of the banking system where compromised, in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian cases, around a third. The Bulgarian 1996-1997 crisis eliminated a third of its banking sector, and led the country to hyperinflation (reaching over 2000% in March 1997, see Yotzov, 2002). Its roots lie in the political instability that preceded it (which, on its turn, led to inadequate real sector reform, with state-owned, loss making enterprises being financed via the budget deficit or through arrears with the, at the time, still mostly state-owned part banking sector: those arrears were, in turn, partially monetized by the Bulgarian National Bank -BNB- and the largest state bank, the State Savings Bank -SSB). Periodic foreign exchange crises (March 1994, February 1997) and bank runs (late1995, late 1996, early 1997) were part of this picture. The implementation of tighter supervisory procedures during 1996 (giving the BNB the power to close insolvent banks), and a tightening of policy actually led to more bank runs. A caretaker government in February 1997 (before a newly elected government took power in May) paved the way to longer lasting reform and the implementation of t he CBA, with its tighter budget constraints towards both the government and the banking sector. This reform process happened with the support from multilateral institutionsamely, (namely the IMF). 4. STOCK MARKETS The existence of stock markets is assumed to be beneficial for economic performance. In principle, it provides a way for companies to raise capital at lower costs than through simple banking intermediation, and because it is not as restricted a source of capital as internal financing. Also, it is assumed that the existence of alternative modes of finance may reduce the likelihood of credit crunches caused by problems with the banking sector (see Greenspan, 2000). Additionally, the existence of external ownership is (or was, given the recent problems with market-based governance in the US and the EU, and the shift towards a more regulated environment) assumed to provide better governance for the management of firms. The majority of economic analyses seem to support the position that a diversified financing mix is positive for economic growth and stability. As described in the previous section, all the financial sectors in the Member States are bank-centered, with stock markets playing marginal roles in most of them (and, in some, a very marginal role: in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, their average market capitalization in GDP terms is below 5%: see Figure I below). All of these countries had (re-)established stock markets by the mid-90s (see Table III above). About half of the future Member States used them to drive the initial process of re-privatization, either via mass issues of voucher certificates for residents (the most famous case of this strategy was the Czech Republic), or via IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) re-privatization processes, to lock-in domestic and foreign strategic investors (see Claessens at al., 2000). In the voucher-driven privatization, the initial large number of investors and traded stocks in those stock markets was soon concentrated in a rather limited number of institutional investors-domestic and foreign- and â€Å"blue chip stocks. In the IPO-driven markets, the number of stocks and investors actually tended to increase with time, albeit from a rather concentrated base. Even in the largest ones, nevertheless, market capitalization, as a GDP share, was and remains rather low (see Figure I below), and far below the EU average (around 72% of GDP). Only in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia the average market capitalization is above a 20% GDP share, while in Romania is below 1% in several years. Also, the average market turnover is equally below the one observed in comparable EU economies. Similarly to what is observed in the banking sector, the initial regulatory environment was deliberately lax, and the regulators were plagued by much the same problems of inexperience and limited number of staff and resources. This does not mean that domestic agents in those countries lack access to the financial services supposed to be provided by stock markets: the very process of opening up, the increase in cross-border trade in financial services, the harmonization of rules for capital trading with the EU (including the ongoing efforts of the Lamfalussy Committee towards a single European market for securities: according to the current proposal, small and medium size firms would be able to use a simplified prospectus valid throughout the EU and choose the country of its approval), plus the development of information technology, all imply that is not actually necessary-nor economically optimal, given economies of scale-for each individual country to have its own separate stock market. One must also recall that the current national stock markets in the mature developed economies are themselves the result of process of consolidation-and closing-of smaller regional stock markets (as was observed in Bulgari a in the early 1990s), which still today coexist with larger, dominant national stock exchanges even in some mature markets, like Germany and the US. Nevertheless, the observed tendency of domestic larger companies, with presumed better growth prospects, to list abroad (see Table IV below), due to the obvious cost and liquidity advantages of the larger international stock markets, does seems, on balance, to deprive those stock markets of liquidity (see Claessens at al., 2003). On the other hand, nonresidents seem to play a major role in most of those markets (accounting for 77% of the capitalization in Estonia, 70% in Hungary and half of the free-float capitalization in Lithuania). All the specific questions described above concerning the way those stock exchanges were founded and their later developments, plus their relative smallness and shallowness, affect the dynamics of their stock market indexes (SMI), and are clearly reflected by them (as one may see in Figure II, below). This, coupled with the rather limited duration of the series, may affect their adequacy as proxies of financial cycles. Source: Datastream, modified by the authors. The price indexes here were converted to US Dollars and re-based to a common reference period were they equal 100, May of 1998. The country codings are as described in the Annexes. 5. ESTIMATED INDEXES The construction of the index for this new sample of countries was the core of this work. A comprehensive effort was done to crosscheck the information collected from papers and publications with national sources. Below we present the estimated monthly index, for the period January 1990 to June 2003 (see Figure III). The base data for its construction was collected from IMF and EBRD publications, and then exhaustively verified both with national sources and with works written about the individual countries and the region. This is an index that falls with liberalization, where maximum liberalization equals one and minimum three (in this sense, one could actually see it as an index of financial repression). As an additional robustness check, the year-end value of the index here constructed was regressed on the combined EBRDs yearly indexes of banking sector reform and non-banking financial sector reform. The results from a panel regression with the index constructed here on the LHS and the EBRD index on the RHS yield a coefficient of .60, and correlations among the individual country- specific index series range from -0.91 to -0.35. As one may see from Figure III above, the process of integration and liberalization was almost continuous throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The spikes in the â€Å"Full Liberalization Index in the early 1990s do not indicate reversals: the merely reflect the entry into the sample of the newly independent Baltic republics. As former members of the Soviet Union, they â€Å"enter the world as highly closed economies, but those countries introduced liberalization reforms almost immediately from the start. After this, a slight increasing trend, that does reflect a mild liberalization reversal, is observed, starting mid-1994 and lasting until early 1997, from when a continuous liberalization trend is observed. Noteworthy here is the fact that virtually none of the obvious candidates for a reversal of liberalization (the 1997 Asian Crisis, the collapse of the Czech monetary arrangement in 1997, the collapse of the Bulgarian monetary arrangement in 1996/97, the 1998 Russian Crisis, the 1999-2001 oil price shocks-as all those economies are highly dependent of imported energy sources) seems to have driven these mild liberalization reversals. Comparing the Full Index constructed here with the one constructed by KS, for similar time samples, one may observe that the ACs start substantially below the average level of other emerging markets- i.e., they are more liberalized, but both the â€Å"entry of the initially less liberalized former Soviet republics, plus continuous liberalization efforts in the emerging market KS set reverse this situation. A similar liberalization reversal trend in both the ACs and the merging market set is observed from early 1994, but it is actually slightly stronger on the ACs sample, until its reversal in 1996. By the end of our sample, the ACs are clearly below the final value for the emerging set in KSs sample. This sort of remarkably fast pattern of the ACs â€Å"leapfroging towards best international practice is also observed in several types of institutional frameworks, like, for instance, monetary policy institutions and instruments (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001): a process that virtually took decades for Western central banks was compressed in a half a dozen years in the Future Member States. Nevertheless, by the end of the sample, both emerging and ACs are still above the level of mature, developed economies. Analyzing the individual components of the index (see Figure V), one may see that, abstracting again from the initial spikes in the index, which are, as explained above, caused by the addition of new countries to the sample, the 1994/1997 reversal of liberalization was essentially driven by the Financial Sector liberal ization component. As will become clear with the country specific analysis below, this was related, in most cases, to-and here it must be stressed that those were rather limited reversals-to the banking crises that plagued several countries in our sample in the early to mid 1990s. Comparing now the individual components of the Full Index constructed here with the ones from KS, again for emerging and mature economies, it becomes clear that the reversals observed in Figure IV were driven by different sources in the emerging set (increase in capital account restrictions) and ACs set (financial sector): see Figure VI. All the indexes for mature economies are, again as one would expect, substantially lower. One could, in principle, aggregate the countries in our sample in three different groups: rapid liberalizers (the ones that followed a â€Å"big bang early approach, without major reversals: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), consistent liberalizers (the ones that followed a more delayed path, but also without major roll backs: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) and cautious liberalizers (the ones whose liberalization path was either openly inconsistent or downright mistrustful: Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). 5.1 COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY LIBERALIZATION PATH. In Bulgaria, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the substantial stress experienced by the country during the banks runs of 1996/97 and the ultimate collapse of the floating regime in 1997 (beyond ad hoc restrictive measures adopted by the banks themselves). As in most of the countries in my sample, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but does so in a faster fashion. Nevertheless, this is in most cases a data quasi-artifact that arises from the later (re-)constitution of the stock exchange itself. In the Czech Republic, a limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from late1995 to late 1997, namely, via the imposition of limits on banks short-term open positions towards on-residents, as a way to limit the exposure of the financial sector to the inflows brought about by the hard peg and the potential gains with interest rate differentials. After the peg was replaced by the current float regime, this restriction i s duly removed. In Estonia, again, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the bank runs of the early 1990s, the unwinding of the 1997 bubble, nor during the 1998 Russian crisis. Again, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but one more time, this arises from the later constitution of the stock exchange. In Hungary, also no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Hungary was an early reformer, introducing some liberalization measures already during the late 1980s, but the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time, as compared, for instance, with the Baltic countries. In Latvia, a rather limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from mid 1996all the way to early 2003: resulting from the 1996 banking crisis, specific aggregate lending limits to regions (i.e., limits on exposure to non-OECD countries, bar the other Baltic republics) are imposed. In Lithuania, a limited reversal of the f inancial sector liberalization is observed from early 1998, also resulting from the experienced banking crisis: reserve requirements on deposits on foreign accounts by non-resident are introduced; In Poland, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Similarly to Hungary, the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time; In Romania, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed, but the reform path is a decidedly slow and cautious one: at the end of the sample, it has the highest (i.e., less liberalized) score for the â€Å"Full Index of all countries in the sample: 1.60 (see Table V). In Slovakia, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Here, the reform path is characterized by a broad stagnation since the Czechoslovak partition till 1998/1999, when, after a change in the political leadership, reforms are re-started, reaching after that levels similar to the other â€Å"Vise grad countries in a rather quick fashion. In Slovenia, one of the most consistently cautious Member States concerning the advantages of integration and liberalization, reversals are indeed observed in all three indexes, since early 1995in the capital account and financial sector components, and from early 1997 in the stock market one. Since early 1999, with the entry in effect of the EU Association Agreement, across-the-board further (re)liberalization measures have been introduced. 6. FINANCIAL CYCLES AND LIBERALIZATION The financial cycle coding which is used by KS defines cycles as a at least twelve month-long strictly downwards (upwards) movement, followed by a equally upwards (downwards) 12-month movement from the through (peak) of a stock market index, measured in USD, as they should reflect returns from the point of view of an international investor. As described in the stock market section of this work, one must be warned that there are specific factors in the countries in our sample that may affect the effectiveness of a stock market index as an adequate proxy of financial cycles, at least for the sample here considered. Beyond that, these series have a rather limited time extension (our sample covers the 01:1990-06:2003 period). Adapting KS criteria to the limited time dimension of our sample, we use a less stringent definition of â€Å"cycle, the same algorithm as above but with a 3-month window for the cycle (Edwards et al., 2003, use a 6-month window). With this we get 118 observations for all countries in our sample. Of these 118 cycles, 61 are upward, with an average of 7.51 months duration, and 57 are downward, with an average of 8.20 months of duration. 7. CONCLUSION The main aim of this paper was to extend the index developed by Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003, for a specific sample of countries, namely, the previously centrally planned economies from Central and Eastern Europe, and to perform a similar analysis on them. Our results do lend some support to the basic assumption of this study: in spite of all the limitations of the time series used (their shortness, the fact that they were buffeted by several country-specific and common shocks), a re-estimation of KSs core regressions strongly supports the notion that financial liberalization does generate benefits both in the short and in the long run, measured via the extension of the amplitude of upward cycles and its reduction for downward cycles of stock market indexes. Importantly, these results diverge from KS, as in their work â€Å"emerging markets experience a relative short run increase in the amplitude of downward cycles. Another noteworthy feature is that only minor liberalization rever sals, led by the financial sector component, were observed in the aggregate index. Also, those reversals do not seem to be driven by â€Å"contagion from shocks in other emerging markets (like the Asian or Russian crisis), but reflect country-specific shocks. When considering the individual components of the index separately, again signs of minor reversals in financial sector liberalization are observed, related to temporary reactions to the several banking crisis observed in the region. Concerning the importance of institutions and of the EU Accession, this papers initial assumption was that the mostly positive results above would come about due to the anchoring of expectation provided by the perspective of entry into the EU already by mid-2004 (or 2007, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania) for the countries here analyzed, and by the imposition of a more robust macro and institutional framework by the requirements of the Accession process itself. Signs of this are not found in the KS regressions, perhaps because the liberalization index itself captures the effects of the EU Accession process. Finally, using a different framework than KSs to assess the affects of liberalization on financial, real and nominal volatility, most of the econometric results seem to support the previous ones, but they seem to indicate that the capital account liberalization is the element that most consistently and significantly reduces volatility. On this final section, the majority the econometric results seem to support some specific role for the EU Enlargement process in reducing volatility. Benefits of Financial Liberalisation Benefits of Financial Liberalisation A EUROPEAN POLICY ABSTRACT: This paper extends to test if the short and in the long run. Weak indica- the same short-run increase in cyclical tions are found that this may happen par- volatility arising from financial integration tially due to the anchoring of expectations is observed in this specific sample of â€Å"emerg-provided by the EU Accession, and to the ing markets. This work finds signs that, more robust institutional framework contrary to other emerging markets, this imposed by this process onto the countries in does not happen: for the future Member question. States, financial integration, similarly to the KEY WORDS: Enlargement, European outcome observed in mature market Union, financial liberalization, booms, 81 economies, reduces cyclical volatility both in busts, cycles, volatility. 1. INTRODUCTION Financial and capital flows liberalization can play a fundamental role in increasing growth and welfare. Typically, emerging or developing economies seek foreign savings to solve the inter-temporal savings-investment problem. On the other hand, current account surplus countries seek opportunities to invest their savings. To the extent that capital flows from surplus to deficit countries are well intermediated and, therefore, put to the most productive use, they increase welfare. Liberalization can, however, also be dangerous, as has been witnessed in many past and recent financial, currency and banking crises. It can make countries more vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In particular, if serious macroeconomic imbalances exist in a recipient country, and if the financial sector is weak, be it in terms of risk management, prudential regulation and supervision, large capital flows can easily lead to serious financial, banking or currency crises. A number of recent crises, like those in Ea st Asia, Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Turkey (described, for example, in IMF (2001)), and, to some extent, the Argentinean episode of late 2001, early 2002, have demonstrated the potential risks associated with financial and capital flows liberalization. Central and Eastern Europe has a somewhat different experience, when compared to other emerging regions, concerning the financial liberalization process, as the process there seems to have been much less crisis-prone than in, for instance, Asia or Latin America. This maybe, at least partially, because the current high degree of external and financial liberalization in the Central Eastern European countries (CEECs), beyond questions of economic allocative efficiency, must be understood in terms of the process of Accession to the European Union. The EU integration process implies legally binding, sweeping liberalization measures-not only capital account liberalization, but investment by EU firms in the domestic financial services, and the maintenance of a competitive domestic environment, giving this financial liberalization process strong external incentives (and constraints). Those measures were implemented parallel to the development of a highly sophisticated regulatory and supervis ory structure, again based on EU standards. This whole process happened also with the EUs technical and financial support, through specific programs-like the PHARE one, for these so-called Accession, and the TACIS, for the former Soviet Union ones- and direct assistance from EU institutions, like the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (also, on a very early stage of the transition process, the influence of the IMF in setting up policies and institutions in several countries in the region-an intervention widely considered to haven been successful-was important: see Hallerberg et al., 2002). Additionally, EU membership seems to act as an anchor to market expectations (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001), limiting the possibilities of self- fulfilling financial crises and regional contagion (see Linne, 1999), which had the observed devastating effects in both Asia and Latin America (even a major event, like the Russian collapse of 1998, had very reduced regional side effects). Several regional episodes of financial systems instability did happen (see Vinhas de Souza, 2002(a) and Vinhas de Souza, 2002(b)), but none with the prolonged negative consequences observed in other region (which was also due to the effective national policy actions undertaken after those episodes). This studys main aim is to expand the Kaminsky and Schmukler database (see Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003), from now on indicated as KS, to include the Accession and Acceding Countries from Eastern Europe (namely, for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia). In their original work, KS build an extensive database of external and financial liberalization, which includes both developed countries and countries from emerging regions (but not from Eastern Europe). With that, they create different indexes of liberalization (capital account, banking and stock markets: see Table I below) and using them individually and in an aggregate fashion, test for the effects and causality of this process on financial and real volatility, for the existence of differences between regions, and for the effects of the ordering of the liberalization process. One underlying hypotheses of this work is that the existing regulatory and institutional framework in Eastern Europe, plus a more sustainable set of macro policies, played an important role in enabling liberalization to largely deliver the welfare enhancing outcomes that it is supposed to. Such an â€Å"anchoring role of the European Union in the CEECs, through the process of EU membership, and through the effective imposition of international standards of financial supervision and regulation, may indicate that, beyond multilateral organizations like the IMF or the OECD, a greater, pro-active regional stabilizing role in emerging markets by regional actors, for instance, the United States, or by some regional sub-grouping, like Mercosur, may also be welfare enhancing for other â€Å"emerging regions. 2. CAPITAL ACCOUNT The achieving of capital account liberalization happened rather swiftly in most of the countries in our sample: by the mid 1990s, all bar Bulgaria and Romania had been declared Article VIII compliant (for those two countries, this happened in 1998: see Table II below). One of the main driving forces behind this was the process of European Integration, for which external liberalization is a pre-requisite: in the early to mid-1990s, all the countries had signed Association Agreements with the European Union (frequently preceded by trade liberalization agreements with the EU, also called â€Å"Europe trade agreements, usually with years given to the countries to prepare for their full implementation) and formally applied for EU membership. Another additional factor supporting liberalization was IMF and OECD membership: four of the larger countries in our sample became OECD members during the second half of the 1990s. Another factor to be considered, is the endogenous decision process to liberalize in a sustainable fashion. 3. BANKING SECTOR Financial integration, in the form of the opening up the banking sector to foreign banks, is seen as being positive, on a micro level, as foreign banks are usually better capitalized and more efficient than their domestic counterparts (of course, the domestic banking sector eventually catches-up: for an indication of this process at the ACs, see, among others, Tomova et al., 2003). Also from a macroeconomic perspective, financial integration maybe positive for the Eastern European countries, both for long run growth and, as there are indications that foreign banks do not contract either their credit supply nor their deposit base, in helping to smooth the cycle (see de Haas and Lelyveld, 2003: they find some indication that this is linked to the better capitalization base and prudential ratios, as better capitalized domestic banks behave similarly to foreign banks). Given the bank-centered nature of virtually all the financial systems of the future Member States, this is particularly important for them. In most of the member states, the initial stage of the creation of the two-tier banking system, modeled on the Western European â€Å"universal bank system, was characterized by rather liberal licensing practices and limited supervision policies (aimed at the fast creation of a de novo commercial, private banking sector: see Fleming et al., 1996, Balyozov, 1999, Enoch et al., 2002, Sà ¶rg et al., 2003). This caused a mushrooming of new banks in those countries in the early 1990s. Parallel to this, a series of banking crises, of varied proportions, affected most of those de novo banking systems, due to this lax institutional framework, inherited fragilities from the command economy period (the political need to support state-owned, inefficient industries, with the consequent accumulation of bad loans and also the financing of budget deficits), macroeconomic instability, risky expansion and investment strategies and also sheer inexperience, both from the investor s and from regulators. Progressively, the re-capitalization, privatization and internationalization of the banking system (mostly into the hands of EU financial conglomerates), coupled with the implementation of a more robust, EU-modeled institutional framework, did away with most of those problems. Two of the worst cases where the set of Baltic banking crises and the Bulgarian episode, which are described in more detail below. Other smaller banking crises happened in Estonia in 1994 and 1998, and in Latvia in 1994. Caprio and Klingebiel, 2003, report smaller episodes of â€Å"financial sector distress in the Czech Republic (94-95), Hungary (93), Poland (91-93), Romania (98-00), Slovakia (97) and Slovenia (92-94). The initial proliferation of banks was, quite naturally, followed by a process of consolidation and strengthening-parallel to the privatization of the remnant state-owned components of the financial system- of the banking sector in most of those economies (in Bulgaria, from 81 banks in 1992 to 35 in 2001, in the Czech Republic from 55 in 1995 to 38 in 2001, Estonia, from 42 in 1992 to 7 currently, while Hungary had 33 banks in 2002, showing only a very slight decrease from the early 1990s, Latvia from 56 in 1994 to 23, Lithuania from 27 in 1993 to 13, in Poland from 8 1 in 1995 to 71 in 2001, in Romania from 45 in 1998 to 41 in 2001, in Slovakia from 22 in 2000 to 19 in 2001, and in Slovenia, where the number fell from 25 to 21 during 2001 alone). This consolidation process was frequently led by foreign companies, which now hold the majority of the assets of the banking system in virtually all of them-contrary to the situation in the current EU Member States-bar Slovenia. This process now has a component of regional expansion of the Eastern European banks themselves, or, more precisely in most cases, the regional expansion of Western banks via some of their locally-owned subsidiaries (see Sà ¶rg et al., 2003, ibid). The share of banking assets to GDP, nevertheless, is still far below the Euro area average (which stood at around 265% of GDP by end 2001), compared with 47% in Bulgaria, 136% in the Czech Republic, 72% in Estonia and Latvia, 32% in Lithuania, 63% in Poland, 60% in Hungary, 30% in Romania, 96% in Slovakia and 94% in Slovenia (data also for 2001). Another peculiar feature of the banking system in the region is that foreign currency lending -usually euro-denominated-to residents is very high, especially in the Balti c republics: with 80% of total loans in Estonia, 56% in Latvia and 61% in Lithuania. Also, the Baltic countries have substantial shares of deposits by non-residents, with over 10% in Estonia and Lithuania and close to 5% in Latvia (Latvia, with its close trading ties to Russia, has a particular strategy of selling itself as a stable financial services center to CIS depositors: see IMF, 2003(b), ibid). The supervision system has also substantially improved, and, following recent international-and EU- best practice, is now centered in independent universal supervisory agencies in the most advanced of those countries (Reininger et al., 2002, ibid., estimate that the formal regulatory environment for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is actually above the EU, and that its actual enforcement level is at its average;Liive, 2003, gives a description of the Estonian experience that culminated in the creation of the EFSA -Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority- in January 2002). 3.1 BANKING CRISES IN EASTERN EUROPE The Baltic bank crises were, to different degrees, linked to liquidity difficulties related tolerations with Russia (in the November 1992 Estonian case, by the freezing of assets held by some Estonian banks in their former Moscow headquarters, while the Latvian and Lithuanian episodes of, respectively, March and December 1995, were caused by the drying-up of lucrative trade-financing opportunities with Russia, whose export commodities, at that time, were still below world price levels) and regulatory tightening (Latvia, Lithuania), compounded by the elimination of credit opportunities with the implementation of the Estonian and Lithuanian CBAs (Currency Board Arrangements). In Lithuania, as in Bulgaria, the financing of the budget deficit also played a role. In the Estonian and Latvian cases, around 40% of the assets of the banking system where compromised, in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian cases, around a third. The Bulgarian 1996-1997 crisis eliminated a third of its banking sector, and led the country to hyperinflation (reaching over 2000% in March 1997, see Yotzov, 2002). Its roots lie in the political instability that preceded it (which, on its turn, led to inadequate real sector reform, with state-owned, loss making enterprises being financed via the budget deficit or through arrears with the, at the time, still mostly state-owned part banking sector: those arrears were, in turn, partially monetized by the Bulgarian National Bank -BNB- and the largest state bank, the State Savings Bank -SSB). Periodic foreign exchange crises (March 1994, February 1997) and bank runs (late1995, late 1996, early 1997) were part of this picture. The implementation of tighter supervisory procedures during 1996 (giving the BNB the power to close insolvent banks), and a tightening of policy actually led to more bank runs. A caretaker government in February 1997 (before a newly elected government took power in May) paved the way to longer lasting reform and the implementation of t he CBA, with its tighter budget constraints towards both the government and the banking sector. This reform process happened with the support from multilateral institutionsamely, (namely the IMF). 4. STOCK MARKETS The existence of stock markets is assumed to be beneficial for economic performance. In principle, it provides a way for companies to raise capital at lower costs than through simple banking intermediation, and because it is not as restricted a source of capital as internal financing. Also, it is assumed that the existence of alternative modes of finance may reduce the likelihood of credit crunches caused by problems with the banking sector (see Greenspan, 2000). Additionally, the existence of external ownership is (or was, given the recent problems with market-based governance in the US and the EU, and the shift towards a more regulated environment) assumed to provide better governance for the management of firms. The majority of economic analyses seem to support the position that a diversified financing mix is positive for economic growth and stability. As described in the previous section, all the financial sectors in the Member States are bank-centered, with stock markets playing marginal roles in most of them (and, in some, a very marginal role: in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, their average market capitalization in GDP terms is below 5%: see Figure I below). All of these countries had (re-)established stock markets by the mid-90s (see Table III above). About half of the future Member States used them to drive the initial process of re-privatization, either via mass issues of voucher certificates for residents (the most famous case of this strategy was the Czech Republic), or via IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) re-privatization processes, to lock-in domestic and foreign strategic investors (see Claessens at al., 2000). In the voucher-driven privatization, the initial large number of investors and traded stocks in those stock markets was soon concentrated in a rather limited number of institutional investors-domestic and foreign- and â€Å"blue chip stocks. In the IPO-driven markets, the number of stocks and investors actually tended to increase with time, albeit from a rather concentrated base. Even in the largest ones, nevertheless, market capitalization, as a GDP share, was and remains rather low (see Figure I below), and far below the EU average (around 72% of GDP). Only in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia the average market capitalization is above a 20% GDP share, while in Romania is below 1% in several years. Also, the average market turnover is equally below the one observed in comparable EU economies. Similarly to what is observed in the banking sector, the initial regulatory environment was deliberately lax, and the regulators were plagued by much the same problems of inexperience and limited number of staff and resources. This does not mean that domestic agents in those countries lack access to the financial services supposed to be provided by stock markets: the very process of opening up, the increase in cross-border trade in financial services, the harmonization of rules for capital trading with the EU (including the ongoing efforts of the Lamfalussy Committee towards a single European market for securities: according to the current proposal, small and medium size firms would be able to use a simplified prospectus valid throughout the EU and choose the country of its approval), plus the development of information technology, all imply that is not actually necessary-nor economically optimal, given economies of scale-for each individual country to have its own separate stock market. One must also recall that the current national stock markets in the mature developed economies are themselves the result of process of consolidation-and closing-of smaller regional stock markets (as was observed in Bulgari a in the early 1990s), which still today coexist with larger, dominant national stock exchanges even in some mature markets, like Germany and the US. Nevertheless, the observed tendency of domestic larger companies, with presumed better growth prospects, to list abroad (see Table IV below), due to the obvious cost and liquidity advantages of the larger international stock markets, does seems, on balance, to deprive those stock markets of liquidity (see Claessens at al., 2003). On the other hand, nonresidents seem to play a major role in most of those markets (accounting for 77% of the capitalization in Estonia, 70% in Hungary and half of the free-float capitalization in Lithuania). All the specific questions described above concerning the way those stock exchanges were founded and their later developments, plus their relative smallness and shallowness, affect the dynamics of their stock market indexes (SMI), and are clearly reflected by them (as one may see in Figure II, below). This, coupled with the rather limited duration of the series, may affect their adequacy as proxies of financial cycles. Source: Datastream, modified by the authors. The price indexes here were converted to US Dollars and re-based to a common reference period were they equal 100, May of 1998. The country codings are as described in the Annexes. 5. ESTIMATED INDEXES The construction of the index for this new sample of countries was the core of this work. A comprehensive effort was done to crosscheck the information collected from papers and publications with national sources. Below we present the estimated monthly index, for the period January 1990 to June 2003 (see Figure III). The base data for its construction was collected from IMF and EBRD publications, and then exhaustively verified both with national sources and with works written about the individual countries and the region. This is an index that falls with liberalization, where maximum liberalization equals one and minimum three (in this sense, one could actually see it as an index of financial repression). As an additional robustness check, the year-end value of the index here constructed was regressed on the combined EBRDs yearly indexes of banking sector reform and non-banking financial sector reform. The results from a panel regression with the index constructed here on the LHS and the EBRD index on the RHS yield a coefficient of .60, and correlations among the individual country- specific index series range from -0.91 to -0.35. As one may see from Figure III above, the process of integration and liberalization was almost continuous throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The spikes in the â€Å"Full Liberalization Index in the early 1990s do not indicate reversals: the merely reflect the entry into the sample of the newly independent Baltic republics. As former members of the Soviet Union, they â€Å"enter the world as highly closed economies, but those countries introduced liberalization reforms almost immediately from the start. After this, a slight increasing trend, that does reflect a mild liberalization reversal, is observed, starting mid-1994 and lasting until early 1997, from when a continuous liberalization trend is observed. Noteworthy here is the fact that virtually none of the obvious candidates for a reversal of liberalization (the 1997 Asian Crisis, the collapse of the Czech monetary arrangement in 1997, the collapse of the Bulgarian monetary arrangement in 1996/97, the 1998 Russian Crisis, the 1999-2001 oil price shocks-as all those economies are highly dependent of imported energy sources) seems to have driven these mild liberalization reversals. Comparing the Full Index constructed here with the one constructed by KS, for similar time samples, one may observe that the ACs start substantially below the average level of other emerging markets- i.e., they are more liberalized, but both the â€Å"entry of the initially less liberalized former Soviet republics, plus continuous liberalization efforts in the emerging market KS set reverse this situation. A similar liberalization reversal trend in both the ACs and the merging market set is observed from early 1994, but it is actually slightly stronger on the ACs sample, until its reversal in 1996. By the end of our sample, the ACs are clearly below the final value for the emerging set in KSs sample. This sort of remarkably fast pattern of the ACs â€Å"leapfroging towards best international practice is also observed in several types of institutional frameworks, like, for instance, monetary policy institutions and instruments (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001): a process that virtually took decades for Western central banks was compressed in a half a dozen years in the Future Member States. Nevertheless, by the end of the sample, both emerging and ACs are still above the level of mature, developed economies. Analyzing the individual components of the index (see Figure V), one may see that, abstracting again from the initial spikes in the index, which are, as explained above, caused by the addition of new countries to the sample, the 1994/1997 reversal of liberalization was essentially driven by the Financial Sector liberal ization component. As will become clear with the country specific analysis below, this was related, in most cases, to-and here it must be stressed that those were rather limited reversals-to the banking crises that plagued several countries in our sample in the early to mid 1990s. Comparing now the individual components of the Full Index constructed here with the ones from KS, again for emerging and mature economies, it becomes clear that the reversals observed in Figure IV were driven by different sources in the emerging set (increase in capital account restrictions) and ACs set (financial sector): see Figure VI. All the indexes for mature economies are, again as one would expect, substantially lower. One could, in principle, aggregate the countries in our sample in three different groups: rapid liberalizers (the ones that followed a â€Å"big bang early approach, without major reversals: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), consistent liberalizers (the ones that followed a more delayed path, but also without major roll backs: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) and cautious liberalizers (the ones whose liberalization path was either openly inconsistent or downright mistrustful: Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). 5.1 COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY LIBERALIZATION PATH. In Bulgaria, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the substantial stress experienced by the country during the banks runs of 1996/97 and the ultimate collapse of the floating regime in 1997 (beyond ad hoc restrictive measures adopted by the banks themselves). As in most of the countries in my sample, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but does so in a faster fashion. Nevertheless, this is in most cases a data quasi-artifact that arises from the later (re-)constitution of the stock exchange itself. In the Czech Republic, a limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from late1995 to late 1997, namely, via the imposition of limits on banks short-term open positions towards on-residents, as a way to limit the exposure of the financial sector to the inflows brought about by the hard peg and the potential gains with interest rate differentials. After the peg was replaced by the current float regime, this restriction i s duly removed. In Estonia, again, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the bank runs of the early 1990s, the unwinding of the 1997 bubble, nor during the 1998 Russian crisis. Again, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but one more time, this arises from the later constitution of the stock exchange. In Hungary, also no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Hungary was an early reformer, introducing some liberalization measures already during the late 1980s, but the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time, as compared, for instance, with the Baltic countries. In Latvia, a rather limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from mid 1996all the way to early 2003: resulting from the 1996 banking crisis, specific aggregate lending limits to regions (i.e., limits on exposure to non-OECD countries, bar the other Baltic republics) are imposed. In Lithuania, a limited reversal of the f inancial sector liberalization is observed from early 1998, also resulting from the experienced banking crisis: reserve requirements on deposits on foreign accounts by non-resident are introduced; In Poland, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Similarly to Hungary, the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time; In Romania, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed, but the reform path is a decidedly slow and cautious one: at the end of the sample, it has the highest (i.e., less liberalized) score for the â€Å"Full Index of all countries in the sample: 1.60 (see Table V). In Slovakia, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Here, the reform path is characterized by a broad stagnation since the Czechoslovak partition till 1998/1999, when, after a change in the political leadership, reforms are re-started, reaching after that levels similar to the other â€Å"Vise grad countries in a rather quick fashion. In Slovenia, one of the most consistently cautious Member States concerning the advantages of integration and liberalization, reversals are indeed observed in all three indexes, since early 1995in the capital account and financial sector components, and from early 1997 in the stock market one. Since early 1999, with the entry in effect of the EU Association Agreement, across-the-board further (re)liberalization measures have been introduced. 6. FINANCIAL CYCLES AND LIBERALIZATION The financial cycle coding which is used by KS defines cycles as a at least twelve month-long strictly downwards (upwards) movement, followed by a equally upwards (downwards) 12-month movement from the through (peak) of a stock market index, measured in USD, as they should reflect returns from the point of view of an international investor. As described in the stock market section of this work, one must be warned that there are specific factors in the countries in our sample that may affect the effectiveness of a stock market index as an adequate proxy of financial cycles, at least for the sample here considered. Beyond that, these series have a rather limited time extension (our sample covers the 01:1990-06:2003 period). Adapting KS criteria to the limited time dimension of our sample, we use a less stringent definition of â€Å"cycle, the same algorithm as above but with a 3-month window for the cycle (Edwards et al., 2003, use a 6-month window). With this we get 118 observations for all countries in our sample. Of these 118 cycles, 61 are upward, with an average of 7.51 months duration, and 57 are downward, with an average of 8.20 months of duration. 7. CONCLUSION The main aim of this paper was to extend the index developed by Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003, for a specific sample of countries, namely, the previously centrally planned economies from Central and Eastern Europe, and to perform a similar analysis on them. Our results do lend some support to the basic assumption of this study: in spite of all the limitations of the time series used (their shortness, the fact that they were buffeted by several country-specific and common shocks), a re-estimation of KSs core regressions strongly supports the notion that financial liberalization does generate benefits both in the short and in the long run, measured via the extension of the amplitude of upward cycles and its reduction for downward cycles of stock market indexes. Importantly, these results diverge from KS, as in their work â€Å"emerging markets experience a relative short run increase in the amplitude of downward cycles. Another noteworthy feature is that only minor liberalization rever sals, led by the financial sector component, were observed in the aggregate index. Also, those reversals do not seem to be driven by â€Å"contagion from shocks in other emerging markets (like the Asian or Russian crisis), but reflect country-specific shocks. When considering the individual components of the index separately, again signs of minor reversals in financial sector liberalization are observed, related to temporary reactions to the several banking crisis observed in the region. Concerning the importance of institutions and of the EU Accession, this papers initial assumption was that the mostly positive results above would come about due to the anchoring of expectation provided by the perspective of entry into the EU already by mid-2004 (or 2007, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania) for the countries here analyzed, and by the imposition of a more robust macro and institutional framework by the requirements of the Accession process itself. Signs of this are not found in the KS regressions, perhaps because the liberalization index itself captures the effects of the EU Accession process. Finally, using a different framework than KSs to assess the affects of liberalization on financial, real and nominal volatility, most of the econometric results seem to support the previous ones, but they seem to indicate that the capital account liberalization is the element that most consistently and significantly reduces volatility. On this final section, the majority the econometric results seem to support some specific role for the EU Enlargement process in reducing volatility.

Thai Environment Support Physical Activity Health And Social Care Essay

Introduction:In older grownups, physical activity is necessary to supply and keep wellness. ( 1 ) Physical environment, a construct of environment which includes both natural characteristics and human concepts, ( 2,3 ) is significantly associated with physical activity engagement within older people. ( 4-8 ) While the significance of physical environment is good recognized, an accurate step to place the specific features of the physical environment in relationship to one ‘s physical activity, with regard to older Thai people ( aged 60 old ages and older ) , presently non good established. Most of the physical environment questionnaires presently being used have been developed in Western states and most of these graduated tables used within all ages. ( 9-12 ) Furthermore, different dependability among urban and rural respondents have been noticed. ( 14 ) Some questionnaires are designed utilizing either neighborhood-focused graduated tables or community-focused graduated table to measure the physical environment ( 5,12,14 ) , whereas others uses both. ( 8,15 ) Prior research has found that facets of physical environment, i.e. safety, traffic volume, street lighting, unattended Canis familiariss, pavements and accessible public diversion installations, influence one ‘s physical activity, ( 5-8 ) whereas other groundss suggest ambiguous consequences. ( 12,14,16 ) These incompatibilities may be related, peculiarly in older grownups, to the type of measuring used to measure the physical environment. The Environmental Supports for Physical Activity Questionnaire ( ESPA ) is a measuring designed to capture and measure the back uping societal and physical environment for physical activity typically performed by all ages. ( 4,17 ) While non all ESPA attributes apply to the aged Thai who live in either urban or rural countries, most properties are closely congruous with this population. In add-on, the coefficient differences between urban and rural respondents of the ESPA were little when compared with other questionnaires. ( 13 ) As a consequence, ESPA was chosen for physical environment appraisal in senior Thai individuals. The differences in geographic characteristics, civilization and forms of life of aged Thais, may be influenced non merely by their vicinity and community environments but besides place environment. Merely over three-quarterss of senior Thais resided in their ain places. ( 18 ) Most spend the bulk of their twenty-four hours in family jobs, household attention activities, horticulture, every bit good as take parting in community groups activities. ( 5-6 ) With progressing age, the place environment and close milieus become the major life infinite where senior citizens perform their mundane activities and spend most of their clip. ( 19 ) Harmonizing to the findings of the preliminary survey in 10 older Thais, place was most often mentioned as a favourite topographic point for prosecuting in physical activity because of safety concerns and convenience. Even though ESPA focuses chiefly on vicinity and community environmental properties, the relationship of place environment and physical a ctivity of older people is still unknown. After obtaining written consent from the writer, the ESPA was translated into Thai by the translation-back interlingual rendition method. ( 20 ) Some points of the ESPA questionnaire were deleted and the questionnaire format reviewed. Deleted points reflected physical activities and topographic points that are unfound in the Thai context. Five pages of the graduated table and assorted types of picks that was thought by the research worker to be hard to reply were besides removed from the questionnaire. Furthermore, a demand exists to measure home-focused graduated table as an facet of the physical environment of aged Thais. The modified ESPA was conceptualized to include three subscales, with the six points functioning as supportive vicinity and community environments, and four new points as supportive of place environment. The new one page questionnaire was named â€Å" Thai Environment Support for Physical Activity in older Tai people ( TESPA ) † . However, if there is low m istake in the appraisal, the account of the relationship between physical environment and physical activity will be raised. For these grounds, the TESPA needs to be validated for the older Thai population.AimThe intent of this survey was to measure TESPA among Thai seniors for dependability and cogency.InstrumentsFour instruments were used to roll up informations. They included: demographic informations questionnaire ; the Chula Mental Test ( CMT ) ; the International Physical Activity Questionnaire – Long signifier ( IPAQ-L ) ; and the TESPA Demographics: The research worker designed a demographic information questionnaire which was used to obtain demographic and socioeconomic informations about each topic. The Chula Mental Test ( CMT ) : The CMT is a 13 points, interview manner, used to mensurate cognitive map of older Tai who have trouble reading and authorship. ( 21 ) Entire tonss indicate cognitive map and scope from 0-19. The cogency and dependability of the CMT was acceptable. ( 21 ) The IPAQ-L: The IPAQ-L assesses the frequence, strength and continuance of all day-to-day physical activity undertaken by five spheres including: work-related activities ; transport-related activities ; domestic jobs ; leisure clip related activities and clip exhausted sitting during the old 7 yearss. ( 22 ) The entire physical activity equals the MET ( metabolic equivalents ) mark, which is the amount of proceedingss spent in each sphere multiplied by the MET value. ( 23 ) Threshold values for the IPAQ-L in this survey included the undermentioned classs: insufficiently active ( & lt ; 600 MET-min/week ) , and sufficient active ( & gt ; 600 Met-min-week ) . ( 24 ) After obtaining written consent from the writer, the IPAQ-L was translated into Thai by the translation-back interlingual rendition method. ( 20 ) The content was validated by three experts in gerontologies and a content cogency index ( CVI ) of 0.96 obtained. The stableness by test-retest over two hebdomads utilizing the S pearman correlativity coefficient of the IPAQ-L was reported to be 0.77 in the pilot survey. The TESPA: the TESPA is composed of 10 points: three vicinity points, three community points, and four place points ( see Table 1 ) . Neighborhood environment is referred to older people ‘s perceptual experiences of support including: features, entree, and barriers to physical activity in an country within a 10-minutes walk from their place. ( 17 ) Community environment support refers to older people ‘s perceptual experiences of convenience and the safe behavior of physical activity in their community within a 20-minutes thrust from their place. ( 17 ) Home environment support is defined as participants ‘ perceptual experiences of convenience and safety, both in and around their place, in relation to their physical activity battle. The Likert graduated table was used to measure physical environment for physical activity. Possible responses were 1 ( strongly disagree ) , 2 ( disagree ) , 3 ( neither agree nor disagree ) , 4 ( agree ) , and 5 ( strongly agree ) . The possible tonss ranged from 10 to 50. Higher tonss indicated a higher degree of sensed physical environment support towards physical activity.MethodThe cross-sectional design was conducted in two stages. Phase I involved quantifying the TESPA that had been implemented during the pilot survey. Phase II included using TESPA to the current survey ; concept cogency was accomplished through usage of confirmatory factor analysis and the known-group method.Phase 1: Quantification of the TESPAValidation and finding of the dependability of TESPA ‘s psychometric belongingss was accomplished. Three geriatric experts determined the content cogency of the TESPA graduated table. When the CVI reached an acceptable value, the pilot survey was conducted. Prior to garnering informations, two research helpers, nursing alumnuss with maestro ‘s grades who had old research experience, were trained to interview participants who met the standards. The research helpers were instructed and tested to corroborate their apprehension of sample standards, definitions, and base constructs of each questionnaire until a satisfactory degree had been reached at the discretion of the research worker. Each research helper and the research worker interviewed 5 samples and inter-rater dependability was assessed. Agreement between the research helpers and the research worker ranged from 78-92 % , with an mean understanding of 87 % . The pilot survey was carried out on October 2008. The purposes were to measure the feasibleness, and to measure psychometric belongingss utilizing TESPA. After obtaining moralss blessing from the IRB, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, consent was obtained from the managers of two Primary Care Units ( PCU ) , in two small towns ( one located in an urban environment and the other in a rural country ) , in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand. Participants were older Thai people who met the undermentioned inclusion standards ; 60 old ages of age and over, nomadic and cognitively capable of replying inquiries accurately. No wellness jobs or ongoing interventions that would disrupt engagement in physical activity such as holding suffered a recent cardiovascular event ( anterior 6 months ) , nephritic failure, liver cirrhosis, human immunodeficiency virus, major surgery in the last 6 hebdomads, or a history of medicine usage for the bosom or blood vass during the last three months. Fifteen older people from each puting were recruited utilizing purposive sampling. Each possible participant was given an informed consent signifier that explained the intents of the survey, undertakings to be completed and the length of clip needed to finish the interview, every bit good as its benefits, hazards, types of questionnaires they would be asked to reply, and that they could retreat at anytime without reverberations. The participants were interviewed at their places or at a local temple, whichever suited them. A codification figure was assigned to each participant to maintain confidentiality. Furthermore, stableness of dependability of the TESPA was obtained in two hebdomads, whereas internal consistence was assessed at baseline. The participants were preponderantly older ( average age = 70+ 4.19 old ages ) , lived with partner ( 53.3 % ) , employed ( 62.6 % ) , females ( 76.7 % ) , who had an simple instruction ( 80 % ) and a household income of less than 5,000 Baht ( USD 147 ) per month ( 76.7 % ) . A significant proportion ( 63.3 % ) of them had lived in a municipal country for an norm of 44.6 old ages in their ain abode. Although 50 % ( n=15 ) of the participants felt they had a sufficient degree of physical activity, 20 % ( n=6 ) said their physical activity degree was low. Merely 23.3 % ( n=7 ) reported holding no current wellness jobs, and 16.7 % of them were hypertensive. Their most frequent type of physical activity was household-related activities, followed by leisure clip, transportation-related and occupational activities.Phase 2: Measuring the InstrumentPhase II involved finding of the concept cogency of the TESPA. A sample of 320 aged was obtained via multi-stage random trying from 12 small town s in six states of Thailand. One individual from each household was selected utilizing a systematic random trying technique from a list of household names provided by the PCU unit of each small town. None of the selected names were involved in any of anterior pilot surveies. Datas were collected between November 2008 and April 2009. Prior to the interview, the research worker introduced herself, established resonance, explained the intent of the survey, the parts the participants would do, the choice standards and emphasized the confidentiality or namelessness of the information being collected. Potential participants were eligible if they scored & gt ; 15 on the CMT, were able to ambulate without assistive devices and were willing to take part. The interview procedure took about 15-20 proceedingss. A 5 minute remainder was given after completion of each questionnaire. Participants were ab initio asked to finish the questionnaire on personal informations, and the TESPA, followed by the IPAQ-L questionnaires. Each participant were given a hankie for their clip take parting in the interview.Datas analysisDescriptive informations are presented as average + SD. The internal dependability of the graduated table was based on an alpha coefficient greater than o r equal to 0.70 ; ( 25 ) stableness of the graduated table was analyzed by merchandise correlativity coefficient. Reliability of each point, overall dependability, and concept cogency of the graduated table were determined utilizing structural equation mold ( SEM ) . ( 26 ) The known-group technique was conducted utilizing the multivariate analysis of discrepancy, to compare the physical environment of those who reported sufficient physical activity and those who did non. Statistical significance for analyses except SEM was defined as P & lt ; 0.05. SPSS version 17.0 was used.ConsequencesTable 1 depicts participants ‘ age, which ranged from 60 to 94 old ages old. One-half of the participants ( 50.0 % ) age ranged in between 60-69 old ages. The participants were preponderantly females ( 55 % , n=176 ) , and married ( 64.4 % , n=206 ) who had an simple instruction ( 75.6 % , n=242 ) .In add-on, family activities had the highest degree of engagement, followed by transit related activities, leisure, and business, severally.Insert table 1 herePhase 1: Quantification of TESPAThe CVI of the TESPA questionnaire was 0.92. The dependability coefficients and the test-retest dependability of the graduated table were 0.73 and 0.76 severally. Besides, the alpha coefficient of place had the highest value, followed by vicinity and community, severally ( i= 0.83,0.66, and 0.06 ) . The TESPA was culturally appropriate for aged Thais and the processs were followed without any trouble.Phase 2: Measuring the InstrumentThe entire amount tonss of the TESPA ranged from 19.00 to 50.00, with a mean of 34.87 ( SD=6.47 ) . Based on collateral factor analysis, the findings demonstrated that the concept of TESPA was composed of place, vicinity, and community environment subscales. The correlativity among points ranged from 0.02 to 0.77 and the entire graduated table could explicate 61.01 % of the discrepancy of physical environment. The place, vicinity, and community subscale could account for 29.4 % , 19.7 % , and 12.0 % of the discrepancy, severally. The measurement theoretical account testing was designed to gauge which ten points were used as indexs for the theoretical account. Although the original theoretical account was statistically important, th e theoretical account was non consistent with the informations /df= 4.59 and a RMSEA value greater than 0.05 ( = 151.54, df= 33 ; P & lt ; 0.0001 GFI= 0.91 ; RMSEA= 0.06 ; NFI= 0.88 ; CFI= 0.91 ) . Based on alteration indices, mistake covariances were allowed to correlate. The revised measuring theoretical account ( see Figure 1 ) was re-assessed and findings indicated that overall fit indices had improved. The revised theoretical account was fit with the following data/df= 1.33 ( =33.27, df= 25, p=0.13, GFI= 0.98, RMSEA= 0.03, NFI= 0.98, CFI= 0.99 ) . Furthermore, the correlativities between subscales presented significantly low to chair values ( Home-Neighborhood, r=0.51, P & lt ; 0.01 ; Home-Community, r=0.29, P & lt ; 0.01 ; Neighborhood-Community, r=0.38. P & lt ; 0.01 ) .Insert figure 1 hereTable 2 illustrates the burdens with t-values and squared multiple correlativity coefficients among each ascertained variables for the TESPA graduated table. The squared multiple correlativ ities for ascertained variables of the latent variables ranged from 0.02 to 0.92. The R2 of points 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 were acceptable indexs, but points 1, 7, 8, 9, and 10 which were less than 0.40.Insert Table 2 hereTable 3 shows differences in the TESPA subscale between the two physical activity degree ( P & lt ; 0.05 ) .Insert Table 3 hereDiscussion:Testing of the TESPA measuring provided extra grounds for the cogency and dependability. The findings are discussed in the undermentioned subdivision. The content cogency and concept cogency of the TESPA graduated table were acceptable. Continued support for the concept cogency of the graduated table was besides provided through collateral factor analysis ( LISREL 8.80 pupil edition ) and the known-group method. The TESPA measuring theoretical account demonstrated that all measured sub-scales had important low to high parametric quantity estimations, which were related to their specific concepts and validated the relationships among ascertained variables and their concepts. The known-group technique is an scrutiny of relationships based on theoretical anticipation. ( 27 ) Within the known-group method, the findings demonstrated that all three physical environment all three subscales and entire tonss were significantly correlated with physical activity. This determination indicated that older people who had sufficient degree of physical activity scored significantly higher in each of three factors – supportive place, vicinity , and community environment – than those who did non. The bulk of the seniors sampled have lived in their place for a average 30 old ages ; accordingly, they were familiar with the physical features of their environment in and outside the place. In add-on, engagement in family activities had the highest degree of engagement, followed by transit related activities, leisure, and business, severally. As a ground, senior citizens determine the facets of their physical environment to which they are exposed, and in bend, that physical environment modifies their behaviour. It is possible that the friendly environment contributed to physical activity battle, while unfriendly environments discouraged activity. Therefore, although place environment is restricted by country and instruments, the determination demonstrates that it can be included as an extra facet for supplying physical activity battle. Sing dependability, the TESPA exceeded the coveted standard of 0.70 for new graduated tables, peculiarly ; place subscale had the highest value. However, the dependability for vicinity and community subscale were depicted less than the old survey. ( 13 ) Although the R2 for points 1, 7, 8, 9 and 10 indicated that they were irrelevant for the TESPA graduated table, the measuring theoretical account had a good tantrum with the empirical information. It is the first clip this graduated table has been validated in aged Thais, moreover this survey produced normative informations for comparing in the aged, which were non found in other surveies. Approximately 61 % of the discrepancy in the TESPA graduated table was explained by the 10 points, whereas 39 % of the discrepancy in this graduated table remains unexplained. Matching with the SCT attack, Bandura argues that about all facets of the physical environment can act upon one ‘s determination about physical activity battle. ( 3 ) O wing to the fact that the TESPA measuring includes merely safety, convenience, and handiness ; it is possible that other facets such as policy ( 28 ) may farther lend to physical activity. Extra work is needed to place these yet unidentified facets.Restrictions and recommendations:This survey was limited by homogeneousness of the sample. The bulks of participants were female, married, with low socioeconomic position, and lived in their place. Continued rating of the psychometric belongingss both in other samples and extra new points are recommended. Additionally, the usage of an utilizing nonsubjective measuring should be considered, to further add to the cogency of the findings and confirm the subjective study. However, based on three subscales of the TESPA, use of these factors with cognitive behavioural and policy schemes may promote the aged to increase their physical activity battle. This consequence can widen cognition of the physical environment for physical activity measuring.DecisionsThe TESPA was developed from the modified ESPA and the findings of a qualitative survey of older Thai people. Psychometric rating of the TESPA graduated table, including cogency and dependability, were chiefly satisfactory. Although the testing of the TESPA graduated table represents an initial effort, the consequences of the current survey suggest that the definition of the physical environment should include the place environment, every bit good as vicinity and community environment as these besides contains both incentives and obstructions for older Thai people set abouting physical activity.