Day archives: March 31st, 2014

BIS – Property price statistics, March 31, 2014

“The property price statistics bring together data from different countries. The BIS, with the assistance of its member central banks, 1 has obtained approval of various national data providers to disseminate the statistics as long as the original national sources are clearly indicated. The sources and any relevant disclaimers are listed separately (sources of data). Copyright in these data must …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

BIS – External audits of banks – final document

March 31, 2014: “The recent financial crisis not only revealed weaknesses in risk management, control and governance processes at banks, but also highlighted the need to improve the quality of external audits of banks. Given the central role banks play in contributing to financial stability, and therefore the need for market confidence in the quality …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

The standardised approach for measuring counterparty credit risk exposures

March 31, 2014: “The Basel Committee’s final standard on The standardised approach for measuring counterparty credit risk exposures includes a comprehensive, non-modelled approach for measuring counterparty credit risk associated with OTC derivatives, exchange-traded derivatives, and long settlement transactions. The new standardised approach (SA-CCR) replaces both the Current Exposure Method (CEM) and the Standardised Method (SM) in the …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz

Follow up to previous postings on Aaron Swartz, via the Boston Globe – More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT’s handling of the hacking case persist, By Marcella Bombardieri. “..MIT is a cradle of world-class scientific research with unpublished data and unpatented inventions on its network, and its leaders felt …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Pew – Shrinking Majority of Americans Support Death Penalty

“According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. A significant minority (37%) oppose the practice. While a majority of U.S. adults still support the death penalty, public opinion in favor of capital punishment has seen a modest decline since November 2011, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

New GAO Reports – American Samoa, Defense Acquisitions, National Preparedness, Puerto Rico – Statehood

AMERICAN SAMOA AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS: Economic Indicators Since Minimum Wage Increases Began, GAO-14-381: Published: Mar 31, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 31, 2014. DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs, GAO-14-340SP: Published: Mar 31, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 31, 2014. NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS: HHS Has Funded Flexible Manufacturing Activities for Medical Countermeasures, but It Is Too Soon to …

Subjects: Defense, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research, Legislation, Medicine

Law Firms Are Pressed on Security for Data

Matthew Goldstein, New York Times: “A growing number of big corporate clients are demanding that their law firms take more steps to guard against online intrusions that could compromise sensitive information as global concerns about hacker threats mount. Wall Street banks are pressing outside law firms to demonstrate that their computer systems are employing top-tier technologies to …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Taken by Storm: Business Survival in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Basker, Emek and Miranda, Javier, Taken by Storm: Business Survival in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (March 30, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2417911 “We use Hurricane Katrina’s damage to the Mississippi coast in 2005 as a natural experiment to study business survival in the aftermath of a cost shock. We find that damaged establishments that …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Housing, Legal Research

Federal Employees’ Retirement System: Budget and Trust Fund Issues

Federal Employees’ Retirement System: Budget and Trust Fund Issues, Katelin P. Isaacs, Analyst in Income Security, March 24, 2014 “Most of the civilian federal workforce is covered by one of two retirement systems: (1) the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) for individuals hired before 1984 or (2) the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) for individuals hired in 1984 or …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents