Sri Lanka Gets Closer To IMF Funds After China Support

This October,International Monetary Fund(IMF)staff and the Sri Lankan authorities reached a stafflevel agreement on economic policies to conclude the first review of the 48-month Extended Fund Facility(EFF)-supported programme.Sri Lanka will have access to Special Drawing Right(SDR)254 million(about US$330 million)in financing once the review is approved by IMF Management and IMF Executive Board.

Unequal Distribution of Innovation Efforts for Neglected Tropical Diseases: The Role of Funding Evaluation Criteria

Background: International research and innovation efforts for neglected tropical diseases have increased in recent decades due to disparities in overall health research funding in relation to global burden of disease. However, within the field of neglected tropical diseases some seem far more neglected than others. In this research the aim is to investigate the distribution of resources and efforts, as well as the mechanisms that underpin funding allocation for neglected tropical diseases. Methodology: A systematic literature review was conducted to establish a comprehensive overview of known indicators for innovation efforts related to a wide range of neglected tropical diseases. Articles were selected based on a subjective evaluation of their relevance, the presence of original data, and the breadth of their scope. This was followed by thirteen in-depth open-ended interviews with representatives of private, public and philanthropic funding organizations, concerning evaluation criteria for funding research proposals. Results: The findings reveal a large difference in the extent to which the individual diseases are neglected with notable differences between absolute and relative efforts. Criteria used in the evaluation of research proposals relate to potential impact, the probability of success and strategic fit. Private organizations prioritize strategic fit and economic impact;philanthropic organizations prioritize short-term societal impact;and public generally prioritize the probability of success by accounting for follow-up funding and involvement of industry. Funding decisions of different types of organizations are highly interrelated. Conclusions: This study shows that the evaluation of funding proposals introduces and retains unequal funding distribution, reinforcing the relative neglect of diseases. Societal impact is the primary rationale for funding but application of it as a funding criterion is associated with significant challenges. Furthermore, current application of evaluation criteria leads to a primary focus on short-term impact. Through current practice, the relatively most neglected diseases will remain so, and a long-term strategy is needed to resolve this.

Research funding and citations in papers of Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine, 2019-2020

Purpose:The goal of this study is a comparative analysis of the relation between funding(a main driver for scientific research)and citations in papers of Nobel Laureates in physics,chemistry and medicine over 2019-2020 and the same relation in these research fields as a whole.Design/methodology/approach:This study utilizes a power law model to explore the relationship between research funding and citations of related papers.The study here analyzes 3,539 recorded documents by Nobel Laureates in physics,chemistry and medicine and a broader dataset of 183,016 documents related to the fields of physics,medicine,and chemistry recorded in the Web of Science database.Findings:Results reveal that in chemistry and medicine,funded researches published in papers of Nobel Laureates have higher citations than unfunded studies published in articles;vice versa high citations of Nobel Laureates in physics are for unfunded studies published in papers.Instead,when overall data of publications and citations in physics,chemistry and medicine are analyzed,all papers based on funded researches show higher citations than unfunded ones.Originality/value:Results clarify the driving role of research funding for science diffusion that are systematized in general properties:a)articles concerning funded researches receive more citations than(un)funded studies published in papers of physics,chemistry and medicine sciences,generating a high Matthew effect(a higher growth of citations with the increase in the number of papers);b)research funding increases the citations of articles in fields oriented to applied research(e.g.,chemistry and medicine)more than fields oriented towards basic research(e.g.,physics).Practical implications:The results here explain some characteristics of scientific development and diffusion,highlighting the critical role of research funding in fostering citations and the expansion of scientific knowledge.This finding can support decision-making of policymakers and R&D managers to improve the effectiveness in allocating financial resources in science policies to generate a higher positive scientific and societal impact.

The relation between funding by the National Institutes of Health and the burden of disease

Background:The Institute of Medicine has proposed that the amount of disease-specific research funding provided by the National Institutes of Health(NIH)be systematically and consistently compared with the burden of disease for society.Methods:We performed a cross-sectional study comparing estimates of disease-specific funding in 1996 with data on six measures of the burden of disease.

The relation between funding by the National Institutes of Health and the burden of disease

Background:The Institute of Medicine has proposed that the amount of disease-specific research funding provided by the National Institutes of Health(NIH)be systematically and consistently compared with the burden of disease for society.Methods:We performed a cross-sectional study comparing estimates of disease-specific funding in 1996 with data on six measures of the burden of disease.The measures were total mortality,years of life lost,and number of hospital days in 1994 and incidence,prevalence,and disability-adjusted life-years(one disability-adjusted life-year is defined as the loss of one year of healthy life to disease)in 1990.With the use of these measures as explanatory variables in a regression analysis,predicted funding was calculated and compared with actual funding.

Realizing profits immediately:disposition effect of open-end fund investors in China

This paper explores the disposition effect, the tendency of investors to hold losing investments too long and sell winning investments too soon, by analyzing a unique data set that consists of the buying and selling positions of open-end fund investors in China. Results show that investors' buying and selling behaviors are significantly affected by fund performance. The reasons that lie behind such results are mainly related to the non-persistence of fund performance. When fund performance is non-persistent, investors are not clear about the future returns on funds. So, investors, especially individual investors, would have to realize the profits on hand immediately. Meanwhile, fund investors are highly sensitive to fund age and loading fees, but not sensitive to management fees charged by funds when they buy or sell fund shares.

Aortic Dissection Research in China:Analysis of Studies Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China

Objective The National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)has made great progress in promoting the development of aortic dissection research in recent years.This study aimed to examine the development and research status of aortic dissection research in China so as to provide references for future research.Methods The NSFC projects data from 2008 to 2019 were collected from the Internet-based Science Information System and other websites utilized as search engines.The publications and citations were retrieved by Google Scholar,and the impact factors were checked by the InCite Journal Citation Reports database.The investigator’s degree and department were identified from the institutional faculty profiles.Results A total of 250 grant funds totaling 124.3 million Yuan and resulting in 747 publications were analyzed.The funds in economically developed and densely populated areas were more than those in underdeveloped and sparsely populated areas.There was no significant difference in the amount of funding per grant between different departments’investigators.However,the funding output ratios of the grants for cardiologists were higher than those for basic science investigators.The amount of funding for clinical researchers and basic scientific researchers in aortic dissection was also similar.Clinical researchers were better in terms of the funding output ratio.Conclusion These results suggest that the medical and scientific research level of aortic dissection in China has been greatly improved.However,there are still some problems that urgently need to be solved,such as the unreasonable regional allocation of medical and scientific research resources,and the slow transition from basic science to clinical practice.

The Relation between Performance and Flows of Mutual Funds: Case of the Croatian Fund Market

With pre 2008 euphoria and present depression, inflows to open investment funds and outflows from it shaped general market conditions on the Croatian fund market. This article studies the relationship between performance of open ended investment funds and inflows (outflows) to them on Croatian funds data in an environment without long fund data history, with small number of funds and relatively illiquid underlying equity market. The results suggest that the driving forces behind funds’ flows encompass the combined influence of present month fund’s performance and persistency of past performances. At the end of our analysis we test the significance of the introduced explanatory variables on the data sets that include data for each particular fund. The significance of the introduced explanatory variables varies among different funds, although a general level of the explanatory power is maintained on average.

Multiple Hierarchy Decision Analysis of Science Funds Management System

This article discusses a multiple hierarchy decision analysis in which the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Delphi method were combined with practice of funds management so as to obtain a scientific management system. The design procedures and a practical example have been given to verify the feasibility. The work was supported by China National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF), and the introduced procedures have been used in some departments of the NNSF.

Influence of Outflow of Rural Funds on Financial Support for Agriculture

Since the reform and opening-up,rural finance has made enormous contribution to rural economic development.However,with commercialization reform of financial institutions,the conflict between outflow of large funds and shortage of funds for rural economic development becomes prominent,leading to serious degradation of agricultural support function of rural finance.From the perspective of outflow of rural funds,this paper analyzes the problem of"deviation from agriculture"of rural financial business,and derives the conclusion that it is necessary and urgent to restore agricultural support function of rural finance.Then,it discusses restoration path for agricultural support function of rural finance.Finally,it comes up with some effective paths in accordance with existing problems in agricultural support function of rural finance.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CHINESE NEW FUNDS

The performance of Chinese investment funds was empirically analyzed using the following models, i.e. Jensen model, Treynor Mazuy (T M) model amd Merton Henriksson model. The results show that T M model is fitted to Chinese investment funds best among these three. But none of them can perfectly interpret the new funds’ performance. So, the idea suggested by Jagannathan, Korajczyk (J K) to extend the test was adopted in this paper, and the results show that J K model augmented from the M H can explain the source of excess return of fund Anxin.

‘Smart’copycat mutual funds:on the performance of partial imitation strategies

Using a novel measure of stock-level trade imitation,we uncover‘smart’copycats:fund managers that use their own information when beneficial,and otherwise imitate other managers’better trades.Contrary to previous research,we find that these partial imitation strategies lead to outperformance.Our‘Copycat Score’combines the propensity to imitate and to lead trades.Funds at the high and low ends of the score outperform all others.The Copycat Score is persistent in time,related to other measures of skill,and a good predictor of fund performance.We conclude that smart copycatting is another skill of successful fund managers.

Risk Measurement and Performance Evaluation of Equity Funds Based on ARMA-GARCH Family Model

There are few comprehensive studies on risk measurement and performance evaluation of stock funds in China. This paper uses the ARMA-GARCH family model to analyze the volatility characteristics of equity funds under the t-distribution and Generalized error distribution (GED), and combines CVaR, PM (Second revised sharp ratio) and CVaR-RAROC (Revised RAROC) to comprehensively evaluate equity funds risk and performance. The empirical analysis of five equity funds in China from October 28, 2010 to May 17, 2019 shows that: Comprehensive evaluation of the risk and performance of equity funds can comprehensively and effectively examine the risks and returns of equity funds, helping investors, financial institutions and regulatory agencies to more fully understand the risks and performance of equity funds.

Market efficiency of gold exchange-traded funds in India

Background:Gold exchange-traded funds,since introduction,are primarily aimed at tracking the price of physical gold in the financial market.This,a category of exchange-traded funds,whose units represent physical gold,is traded on exchanges like any other financial instrument.In the Indian financial market,gold exchange traded funds were introduced a decade ago to facilitate ordinary households'participation in the bullion market.They were also designed to assist in the price discovery mechanism of the bullion market.Presentation of the hypothesis:In this paper,it is attempted to check if one of the constituents of price discovery mechanism,informational efficiency,has been achieved in gold exchange-traded funds’market.Information efficiency becomes evident only when all available information is reflected in the market price of the instrument.Testing the hypothesis:Therefore,in order to assess the weak-form efficiency of the gold exchange-traded funds market,the daily returns of five gold exchangetraded funds traded on the Indian Stock Exchange over the period March 22,2010,to August 28,2015,were used.The non-parametric runs test,the parametric serial correlation test,and the augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test are employed.Implications of the hypothesis:The test results provide evidence that the efficient market hypothesis does not hold for the gold exchange-traded funds’market in India.Further,the test results address several underlying issues with respect to price discovery in the market under study and suggest that the Indian market for this derivative is not weak-form efficient.Hence,the factors affecting gold exchange traded-funds’market warrant the attention of the country’s regulatory bodies,as appropriate legislation in support of market efficiency is needed.

Case Study of the Ways Private Equity Funds Apply to Dodge Capital-flow Control

In this article,several cases are cited to demonstrate how foreign private equity firms circumvent Chinese government restrictions on capital flows and investing in strategic and sensitive sectors. Speci cally,private equities investing in Chinese companies to be listed abroad can use the Red-chip,Sheng Da or overseas option models. Private equities investing in domestically-listed Chinese companies can resort to foreign-funded banks,underground banking,stock-holder borrowing,stocks held by the third party,equity bonds or local investment company purchases.

Social Security Funds Clamor for Reform

This paper analyzed the institutional deficiencies inherent in China's social security system based on a dissection of various social security fund violations. It holds that the unscientific design in social security system is the root cause for social security fund violations, which is reflected in low level of social security unification, irrational investment system and legislative loopholes etc. Currently, China's social security funds are facing risks in management and in system; The key of risk control lies in the reforming of the overall framework of social security system through the following aspects: 1) readjust the unified account system structure to raise the level of unification; 2) reform funds investment system to boost ROI; 3) speeding up legislative to regulate the administrative costs and the behaviors of its entities.

Study on the squeezing effect of open-ended pipe piles

During the installation of a pipe pile,the soil around the pile will be squeezed out. This paper deals with this squeezing effect of open-ended pipe piles using the cylindrical cavity expansion theory. The characteristics of soil with different tension and compression moduli and dilation are involved by applying the elastic theory with different moduli and logarithmic strain. The closed-form solutions of the radius of the plastic region,the displacement of the boundary between the plastic region and the elastic region and the expansion pressure on the external surface of the pipe piles are obtained. When obtaining these solutions,the soil plug in the open-ended pipe pile is considered by employing an incremental filling ratio to quantify the degree of soil plugging. Moreover,the effects of the ratio of tension and compression moduli,angle of dilation and incremental filling ratio on the radius of the plastic region and the expansion pressure on the external surface of the pipe pile are investigated. The parametric analyses show that it is necessary and important to consider the difference between the tension modulus and compression modulus,dilation angle and incremental filling ratio for studying the squeezing effect of open-ended pipe pile installation. It is concluded that the analytical solutions presented in this paper are suitable for studying the squeezing effect of open-ended pipe piles.