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One of the largest wind facilities in the world is benefiting from millions of dollars in state tax credits it is not qualified for and does not need, according to a recent series of investigative reports in The Oregonian.…

WASHINGTON — IER President Thomas Pyle released the following response to a speech given today by President Barack Obama at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. In a much-hyped speech on the American economy, President Obama laid out his plan to …

On July 6, a train carrying 72 carloads of crude oil derailed in Lac-Megantic, a small Quebec town just 10 miles from the Maine border. The resulting explosion and fires left an estimated 50 people dead.  The tragedy resulting from …

Prepublication Now Available

Health care in the United States is more expensive than in other developed countries, costing $2.7 trillion in 2011, or 17.9 percent of the national gross domestic product. Increasing costs strain budgets at all levels of government and threaten the solvency of Medicare, the nation’s largest health insurer. At the same time, despite advances in biomedical science, medicine, and public health, health care quality remains inconsistent. In fact, underuse, misuse, and overuse of various services often put patients in danger.

Many efforts to improve this situation are focused on Medicare, which mainly pays practitioners on a fee-for-service basis and hospitals on a diagnoses-related group basis, which is a fee for a group of services related to a particular diagnosis. Research has long shown that Medicare spending varies greatly in different regions of the country even when expenditures are adjusted for variation in the costs of doing business, meaning that certain regions have much higher volume and/or intensity of services than others. Further, regions that deliver more services do not appear to achieve better health outcomes than those that deliver less.

Variation in Health Care Spending investigates geographic variation in health care spending and quality for Medicare beneficiaries as well as other populations, and analyzes Medicare payment policies that could encourage high-value care. This report concludes that regional differences in Medicare and commercial health care spending and use are real and persist over time. Furthermore, there is much variation within geographic areas, no matter how broadly or narrowly these areas are defined. The report recommends against adoption of a geographically based value index for Medicare payments, because the majority of health care decisions are made at the provider or health care organization level, not by geographic units. Rather, to promote high value services from all providers, Medicare and Medicaid Services should continue to test payment reforms that offer incentives to providers to share clinical data, coordinate patient care, and assume some financial risk for the care of their patients.

Medicare covers more than 47 million Americans, including 39 million people age 65 and older and 8 million people with disabilities. Medicare payment reform has the potential to improve health, promote efficiency in the U.S. health care system, and reorient competition in the health care market around the value of services rather than the volume of services provided. The recommendations of Variation in Health Care Spending are designed to help Medicare and Medicaid Services encourage providers to efficiently manage the full range of care for their patients, thereby increasing the value of health care in the United States.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Health and Medicine

Ann Cotton presenting at the UN’s Girls’ Education Initiative. Camfed/CGI

Camfed is a NGO that provides scholarships to keep girls in school.  Camfed was founded in 1991 when their founder, Ann Cotton visited Zimbabwe to investigate why girls’ school enrolment in rural areas was so low. Contrary to the common assumption that families weren’t sending girls to school for cultural reasons, Ann discovered poverty was the main roadblock. Families couldn’t afford to buy books or pay school fees for all their children, so they had to choose who would receive an education. Girls were rarely chosen. The reason was simple: boys had a better chance of getting a paid job after graduation. When Ann returned to Cambridge, UK, she became determined to find a way to help girls go to school in Zimbabwe. She recruited friends and family and sold baked goods to raise money and awareness about the lack of education for girls in Africa. At the end of her grassroots campaign, she supported 32 girls through school. In 1993, Ann formally launched Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education. Camfed’s model has been so successful that it has been replicated in more than 2,000 communities in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

DFID Ghana is supporting Camfed to disburse 20,000 scholarships (see my October 2012 post).  I recently met with Dolores Dickson, Camfed Ghana’s country director to understand their approach in more detail.

What are some of the changes you have seen since you joined Camfed Ghana?

Camfed Ghana’s country director, Dolores Dickson with community members. (Picture:Nicole Goldstein)

Since joining Camfed in 2007, I have seen the tremendous impact we have made on the lives of young women and communities in Ghana, particularly in the Northern part of Ghana. The Northern region has one of the lowest female literacy rates in the country, many of the girls we support come from families where their mothers have never been to school. They are the first generation of girls from their families to go to school. Getting girls from these backgrounds to go to school and to complete is a huge achievement for the girls, their families and communities. I have also seen communities come together, give their time, knowledge and resources (motor bikes, crops and land) to support girls overcome the obstacles that prevented from going to school, such as early marriages, teenage pregnancies and poverty. Chiefs and community elders come together to enact by-laws that aim to prevent early pregnancy; community members come together to support schools with feeding programmes that will keep children in school throughout the school day and community and religious leaders have come together to advocate against child marriage. I have seen change come in individual families because their children have completed school and now have an income to support their parents and other siblings.

What have been some of your challenges?

One of our challenges is the increasing demand for Camfed’s programmes across the country.  Camfed’s opportunity to start engagement with communities begins with our bursaries, and we need to find ways to reach these girls. The other challenge is the growing demand for higher education from the graduating girls we support through secondary school.

How do communities, parents and girls feel when they complete secondary school?

There is a sense of excitement, a sense of ‘we have done it’ and pride for parents and community members. For the girls there is a sense of achievement and sometimes a sense of apprehension of ‘what next?’ To this I think most of them feel and see their security in ‘Cama’ (our alumni network) particularly when they get to meet with other Cama members, they begin to gain a ‘can do’ attitude and the hope that we are on course but not there yet and we need to keep doing our best. One young woman remarked after completing school, ‘I am going all out now because I know there are people behind me supporting and cheering me on.’

Cama members, alumni network promoting change in their own communities. (Photo:Nicole Goldstein)

What is Cama and what are some of the Cama members doing now? Cama is the network of young women who have been supported through school by Camfed. It is a democratic network with strong values such as ‘giving back’, ethical leadership and promotes volunteerism. As a result most of their members are working in ways that bring about change and social impact to their rural communities. For instance, some Cama members have started a radio show that educates their own communities on healthy practices and advice on financial literacy. Cama Ghana members support on average 3 children who are not directly related to them.

What are your hopes for Camfed Ghana?

Under a new partnership with the MasterCard Foundation, we will be able to support academically gifted young women from the Cama network to access tertiary education in some of the best universities in Ghana, growing a cohort of ethical leaders for Africa. Our partnership with Google also offers the opportunity to bridge the digital divide in rural communities by setting up ICT centres which are run and managed by Cama members. These centres provide employment to young women and create opportunities for the rural communities to access market opportunities and gain information on health and education.

Why do you think Camfed Ghana has been so successful in working with communities?

I think Camfed Ghana has been successful working with communities because we invest in our relationships with communities and governments. We also listen and learn.

Camfed Ghana listens and learns from their community members. (Picture:Nicole Goldstein)

What do you hope for from the DFID-Camfed partnership?

The DFID-Camfed partnership is supporting 20,000 girls to complete secondary education; this is an unprecedented opportunity and investment in a generation of girls in Ghana. This will bring about significant improvements to lives of many families and communities all over the country. Africa is a growing and youthful continent and this investment could not have come at a better time, the results and impact will be seen in the near future.

Final Book Now Available

The Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD) in Colorado is one of two sites that features U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons that need to be destroyed. The PCD features about 2,600 tons of mustard-including agent. The PCD also features a pilot plant, the Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant (PCAPP), which has been set up to destroy the agent and munition bodies using novel processes. The chemical neutralization or hydrolysis of the mustard agent produces a Schedule 2 compound called thiodiglycol (TDG) that must be destroyed. The PCAPP uses a combined water recovery system (WRS) and brine reduction system (BRS) to destroy TDG and make the water used in the chemical neutralization well water again.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Conflict and Security Issues

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Much of the ecological research in the past decades has focused on rural or wilderness areas. Today, however, ecological research has been taking place in our cities, where our everyday decisions can have profound effects on our environment. This research, or urban ecology, includes an important element, trees. Trees have had a variety of environmental benefits for our environment including the sequestering carbon, reducing urban heat island effects, providing vital habitat for wildlife, and making nature accessible. These benefits have important impacts on the physical, socio-economic, and mental health of humans as well. Being exposed to trees has been shown to enhance social cohesion, improve health and recreational opportunities, and increase real estate values.

In order to gain more knowledge into this urban forestry, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) held a workshop February 25-26, 2013. The workshop brought together more than 100 people with various interests in urban forestry research to share information and perspectives, foster communication across specific areas of ecosystem service research, and consider integrated approaches that cut across these realms. The workshop specifically examined current capabilities to characterize and quantify the benefits, key gaps in our understanding, the challenges of planning urban forests in a way that optimizes multiple ecosystem services and more.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Earth Sciences

Today, we are happy to announce a new version of LinkedIn for BlackBerry 10 smartphones is now available for download on BlackBerry World. LinkedIn is a great way to connect with your colleagues, search for job opportunities, network with peers in your industry, and to stay on top of the latest news. Read on for the new features included in today’s update.

LinkedIn for BlackBerry 10 version 10.1.4

Let’s get right to the good stuff – a ton of new features are included in this new release of LinkedIn for BlackBerry 10 smartphones, available on the BlackBerry World storefront. Take a look at the list below and tell us your favorites in the comments.

• Get More from your Recent Updates
  When you first open the app, your recent updates will now include posts from companies that you follow as well as job suggestions 
• Auto Refresh
  The latest LinkedIn update automatically brings you fresh and up to date content. The automatic refresh gets the latest information from your contacts, groups and brands.
• New Notifications
  When a page has content that has been updated since you last visited, you’ll see the BlackBerry spark icon. 
• BBM Connected
  When you publish a new status update from your LinkedIn profile, you now have the option to post it to your BBM status. 
• Search for Companies and Jobs
  On the “Companies” screen you can use the search icon to find out more and follow companies on LinkedIn. Why not start with BlackBerry? You also now have the ability to search for job listings on LinkedIn to explore your career opportunities. 

The LinkedIn apps for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS smartphones can be used as powerful business tools, particularly with today’s updates and the brand new functionality packed into each. How do you use LinkedIn as a mobile professional? Share your tips, and what new feature you’re most excited about, in the comments below – and don’t forget to visit our BlackBerry company page and BlackBerry for Business discussion group on LinkedIn!

The course is more than 20 million square kilometers, and covers 15 percent of the world’s land surface. It’s not a new event in next month’s IAAF World Championships in Moscow but a long-term project to better integrate emerging Eurasian economies.

The eventual aim of a new economic union for post-Soviet states, known as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), is to “substitute previously existing ones,” according to Tatiana Valovaya, Russia’s minister in charge of development of integration and macroeconomics, at a media briefing in London last week.

That means new laws and revamping regulation for “natural monopolies” in the member states, streamlined macroeconomic policy, shared currency policy, new rules on subsidies for the agricultural and rail sectors and the development of oil markets.

Kazakhstan and Belarus are the two other members of what is known as the Single Economic Space (SES), that is, the existing economic partnership between the three bordering countries established in 2012. So far Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan  are co-operative members, Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova have been given observer status.

Since 1995, the SES3 and observer states have been moving ever closer to a shared set of structures under the EEU umbrella.

For Kyrgyzstan, accession depends on the fate of Tajikistan in terms of its accession. Once the blueprint is in place for Tajikistan, that should prepare the ground for Kyrgyzstan’s integration within the EEU.

In theory, economic integration brings improvements in institutional quality, better understood contracts and a reduction in the cost of trade. The World Trade Organisation in a recent report outlined some of the challenges and some potential responses to the global challenges, from agriculture and global climate change to the auto sector.

Russia perhaps sees its part in the acceleration of global trade as developing a fresh perspective on existing post-Soviet ties, moving ever further away from the stigmatic blow-out of the financial crisis.

“The global economic crisis made us realise that we needed to do something about integration because it is the only way which would allow us to find an input for growth,” Valovaya added.

The idea of the revamp of existing partnerships, which have been developing more closely since the new millennium, is to lower the cost of trade through the removal or reduction of trade tariffs, not dissimilar to the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)  the United States has initiated and the Trans-Pacific Partnerships (TPP). Negotiations are ongoing for many emerging nations to play a larger part in customs unions, not solely in the post-Soviet bloc in central Asia.

Twenty five members have applied to join a free-trade zone with Russia, with the country having a particular interest in forming new links with New Zealand and Vietnam.

“Trade with the EEU is only about 30 percent with Europe…the idea is to create an economic union from Lisbon to Vladivostok.,” Valovaya said.

The outcome of post-Soviet integration depends on a vote on around 90 competencies, as rigorous as a political decathlon. Voting rights of the nations that will oversee the transformation of the EEC to the evolved EEU are as follows:

The Russian Federation – 40 votes

The Republic of Belarus – 20 votes
The Republic of Kazakhstan – 20 votes
Kyrgyz Republic – 10 votes
The Republic of Tajikistan – 10 votes

What is the benefit of a new customs union?

The auto sector, for example, will reap rewards. Gains are set for domestic-focused companies, according to research from the Boston Consulting Group.

Further integration internally may boost Kazakhstan’s application to join the WTO, which will be submitted by December according to the organisation’s website on June 5.

Final Book Now Available

In 1992 world leaders met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to reaffirm the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that was established on June 16, 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21 by the member states which is a framework for the transition to a more sustainable world. In 2012 the members gathered to assess and reaffirm the importance of progress towards the efforts of Agenda 21.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Health and Medicine

Final Book Now Available

On November 19, 2001 the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created as a separate entity within the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The act also mandated that all checked baggage on U.S. flights be scanned by explosive detection systems (EDSs) for the presence of threats. These systems needed to be deployed quickly and universally, but could not be made available everywhere. As a result the TSA emphasized the procurement and installation of certified systems where EDSs were not yet available. Computer tomography (CT)-based systems became the certified method or place-holder for EDSs. CT systems cannot detect explosives but instead create images of potential threats that can be compared to criteria to determine if they are real threats. The TSA has placed a great emphasis on high level detections in order to slow false negatives or missed detections. As a result there is abundance in false positives or false alarms.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Engineering and Technology

Just as Hungary is worrying foreign investors with a plan to help households laden with foreign currency mortgages – likely to prove expensive for its banks – its trade bank has come up with an interesting structure for a planned bond.

State-owned Eximbank has been holding a roadshow this week for a two-part bond, with one part of the bond guaranteed by the World Bank’s risk insurance arm, Miga.

It’s unusual for Miga, which has been operating since 1988, to guarantee sovereign debt.

The Miga-guaranteed bond tranche will have a top investment grade AAA rating, while the other part of the debt will have a BB+ rating, in line with the rating for Hungary.

The guarantee is likely to make the higher-rated bond tranche appeal to the sort of investors who would normally be unlikely to touch Hungarian debt with a bargepole.

The yield will be lower than on a normal Hungarian bond, but investors will be hoping for a yield pick-up over other high-grade borrowers, like Germany.

It’s a similar structure to the U.S. guarantee for a dollar bond from Tunisia last year, following the ousting of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. The bond was issued at record low yields for Tunisia, due to the guarantee.

Another country that could benefit from a highly-rated entity to guarantee its debt would be Egypt and many investors reckon Washington might be willing to do exactly that, given it refrained from calling the army’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi a coup. Such a  guarantee would help the country in its desperate hunt for hard cash though it has been promised aid by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

But analysts are doubtful the world, or the United States is ready for a U.S.-guaranteed Egyptian dollar-denominated bond just yet.

According to Florence Eid, chief executive of consultancy Arabia Monitor:

This has occurred in the past…going forward this may occur again but we do not think Egypt will issue Eurobonds in the current environment given the elevated credit spread premium on Egypt. Also, with the below-market funding provided by the GCC, the need for such new international issuance is diminished.

“We got momentum, baby! We got the big mo!”

Josh Lyman in the TV series ‘The West Wing’ may have wanted it in a presidential election race, but what of fund management companies? Do asset managers want investors to buy and sell their products as the momentum of fund returns ebbs and flows?

I began wondering about this when faced with comments from two well-respected figures in the funds industry. First, Marcus Brookes, Head of Multi-Manager at Cazenove Capital, so no slouch when it comes to picking funds:

“Some fund managers’ and IFAs’ approach to picking funds is usually quantitative to begin with and it is obvious most guys begin with the stuff that has just done well. It also means you are discounting three-quarters of the sector.”

Next the thoughts of Edward Bonham Carter, Group Chief Executive of Jupiter Investment Management: “You shouldn’t seek that level of consistent outperformance, it doesn’t exist except as a statistical fluke… The industry is flawed, in my view, by implicitly promising or expecting that.”

From this perspective, one of the industry’s main shortcomings – the apparent promise of consistent outperformance by fund managers – becomes more intractable because it is accompanied by investors’ continued willingness to buy funds on this basis. Fund managers’ Gordian knot, if you will.

Mythical side-note: The ox-cart that once belonged to Gordias, king of Phrygia, was tied up with an intricate knot that had no end and so could not be undone. When Alexander the Great found that he could not untie it, he chose to slice the knot in two.

Fund buyers wanting to cut the knot could simply ignore fund managers’ potential ability to outperform and instead choose index tracking funds, be they mutual funds or ETFs. Interestingly, Europeans remain far less enamoured of passively managed funds than investors in either the US or Asia Pacific. Among equity fund assets in these three regions, Lipper data reveals that the proportion invested in passives in the latter two regions are 32 percent and 30 percent respectively. In Europe it is just 16 percent.

This may well become more of a challenge for European asset managers in the years ahead – there are already signs of this in the UK in light of the changes brought about by the Retail Distribution Review – but for now active managers can continue to scrap amongst themselves and still have a much larger investor base.

An alternative is to ignore the Gordian knot – who cares if there’s an ox cart knocking about the place anyway – and embrace momentum investing. In the words of Dennehy Weller, a firm of independent financial advisers, “this means buying an investment (in this case a fund) which is already performing well, the likelihood being that it will continue to perform well.” This firm is one that has turned such a philosophy into a process that self-directed investors can experience for themselves, or what they call Dynamic Fund Selection.

They are not alone among professional fund selectors in using momentum to improve returns for clients. Juan Vicente Casadevall of financial advisory firm Kessler & Casadevall says “there are a number of factors we have learned through the years that lead us to have some biases in our research process. One of them is momentum which seems at odds with a financial product that is aimed at investors for the medium and long term. But we have identified that placing a higher weight to the most recent performance of funds relative to their benchmarks can add value.”

The knock-on effect of ‘hot’ money flowing between funds, driven less by a view of the long-term prospects for the fund and more by shorter term factors, is that asset managers will sometimes lose the “big mo” as swiftly as they got it in the first place.

Sure enough, many international fund managers have to manage high levels of volatility in sales flows. Lipper’s historical analysis of fund sales suggests that European groups selling their funds cross-border have to manage redemption rates typically twice as great as those found in the U.S., averaging 66 percent for the former (using Lipper data) but just 29 percent for the latter (using ICI data) in recent years. So there is a real incentive for fund managers to change the status quo.

Clearly this situation is not simply the result of momentum investors, but both Brookes’ “quantitative lemmings” and Bonham Carter’s characterization of fund managers’ implicit promises, will have played their part.

Seeking sympathy for fund managers will always be a thankless task, but for those active fund managers in Europe selling their funds internationally the pressure to perform seems to be increasing at a time when the use of passive funds is rising. The Gordian knot is getting tighter.

Updated: Updated with new links and video for anniversary of the opening ceremony.

A year on from the London 2012 opening ceremony, the inspirational power of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is delivering lasting change in sport, communities, the economy, east London and awareness and perceptions around disability.

Celebrating the London 2012 Olympic legacy

Read ‘Inspired by 2012’ – a new report about building a lasting Olympic legacy.

Speaking about the Olympics legacy, Prime Minister David Cameron said:

With companies across the country we are harnessing the Olympic momentum and delivering the lasting business legacy of the Games that will help make Britain a winner in the global race.

But that’s not where the good news ends. The Games are also delivering a strong social legacy. Last summer, Games Makers changed the way Britain views volunteering. Since then, thousands of people have been inspired to get involved with their local sports clubs.

Economic legacy of London 2012

The UK economy has seen a £9.9 billion trade and investment boost from the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, 1 year into a 4-year programme of activity and events.

This boost comes from businesses securing contract wins, additional sales and new foreign investment in the last year. An independent report projects the total benefit to the UK from hosting London 2012 could reach up to £41 billion by 2020.

Read more about the economic boost from London 2012.

Volunteering legacy of London 2012

The UK has also seen an increase in volunteering since the Games, halting the steady decline seen since 2005.

An event in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park kickstarted a summer of ‘Join In’ activity to encourage people to volunteer locally.

Sporting and cultural legacy of London 2012

1.4 million more people are playing sport at least once a week than in 2005 when the Olympic bid was won. Meanwhile, £1 billion investment is going into youth and community sport over 5 years to encourage greater participation and improve facilities.

The legacy of all the permanent venues on the Olympic Park was secured within a year of the Games – the park has started to reopen this summer with major sports, music and cultural events set to take place.

London 2012 also brought forward investment in east London by a generation and 70,000 unemployed Londoners were helped into Games-related employment, creating a labour market legacy.

Read more about the London 2012 Olympic legacy.