L’offerta di servizi di microcredito da parte di istituzioni di microfinanza contribuisce ad aumentare l’accesso al credito di una clientela rurale ed accrescere l’efficienza dei mercati locali del credito? Questo studio prova a rispondere alla precedente domanda attraverso lo sviluppo di un modello teorico e l’analisi empirica sulla base di dati raccolti in un villaggio dell’Etiopia. In un mercato finanziario duale (formale/informale), il modello teorico indica che, nonostante non tutti i membri dell’ accordo informale ottengano un microcredito dall’intermediario formale, ogni membro dell’istituzione informale ne beneficia. Infatti, i membri che si trovano in condizione di deficit finanziario beneficiano direttamente di maggiori risorse derivanti dal prestito mentre gli altri membri godono di vincoli di partecipazione meno stringenti. Inoltre, quando il tasso di interesse sui prestiti formali si riduce, aumenta sia l’utilità dei prenditori di fondi che quella di tutti gli altri membri dell’istituzione informale. Gli intermediari formali sottraggono mercato alle istituzioni informali in una misura che dipende dall’ammontare del microcredito e dal tasso di interesse. I dati raccolti nel villaggio rurale etiope confermano solo parzialmente le considerazioni teoriche. In primo luogo, a causa di un diverso ammontare e di una diversa scadenza dei prestiti formali rispetto a quelli informali, nel villaggio i due mercati sembrano complementari. In secondo luogo, l’approccio del prestito di gruppo sembra replicare gli stessi processi di monitoraggio e selezione delle istituzioni informali e pertanto le famiglie a basso reddito rimangono vincolate nell’accesso al credito. In conclusione, se le istituzioni di microfinanza volessero operare con successo nelle aree rurali, dovrebbero, per prima cosa, studiare i processi di selezione dei membri all’interno delle istituzioni informali e, per seconda cosa, offrire una più ampia gamma di prodotti finanziari oltre al credito, come ad esempio prodotti di risparmio e prodotti assicurativi. / Does the provision of formal microcredit increase access to credit of rural clients and efficiency of credit markets? This study tackles this question through the development of a theoretical model and an empirical analysis in an Ethiopian village. In a dual (formal/informal) financial market, the theoretical model suggests that when some members of the informal arrangement get a formal loan, all members benefit from it. The agents who have a current deficit have greater financial resources whereas the agents who have an expected future deficit enjoy looser participation constraints. Furthermore, when the interest rate charged on formal loans decreases, the utility of not only borrowing members but all members in the arrangement increases. Besides, the formal market crowds out the informal market to some extent as long as the formal loan size increases or the interest rate decreases. Evidence from the rural village in southern Ethiopia only weakly confirms the theoretical results because of two reasons. First, due to different size and maturity of loans, the formal microcredit services and the informal risk sharing arrangements appear to be complements in the local market. Second, the group lending approach seems to replicate the same selection and monitoring processes of the informal arrangements and the low-income households remain constrained in their access to credit. Therefore, MFIs that want to operate successfully in rural areas should, first, make an assessment of self-selection processes in the informal arrangements and, second, provide a wider range of financial products besides credit, such as savings and insurance products.

No / This study examines the effect of board composition on the likelihood of corporate failure in the UK. We consider both independent and non-independent (grey) non-executive directors (NEDs) to enhance our understanding of the impact of NEDs' personal or economic ties with the firm and its management on firm performance. We find that firms with a larger proportion of grey directors on their boards are less likely to fail. Furthermore, the probability of corporate failure is lower both when firms have a higher proportion of grey directors relative to executive directors and when they have a higher proportion of grey directors relative to independent directors. Conversely, there is a positive relationship between the likelihood of corporate failure and the proportion of independent directors on corporate boards. The findings discussed in this study support the collaborative board model and the view that corporate governance reform efforts may have over emphasised the monitoring function of independent directors and underestimated the benefits of NEDs' affiliations with the firm and its management. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

I den här uppsatsen beskrivs en ansats till att med hjälp av statistiska metoder förutse utfallet i förmögenhetsrättsliga dispositiva tvistemål. Logistiska- och multilogistiska regressionsmodeller skattades på data för 13299 tvistemål från 5 tingsrätter och användes  till att förutse utfallet för 1522 tvistemål från 3 andra tingsrätter.   Modellerna presterade bättre än slumpen vilket ger stöd för slutsatsen att man kan använda statistiska metoder för att förutse utfallet i denna typ av tvistemål. / BACKROUND: The idea of legal automatization is a controversial topic that's been discussed for hundreds of years, in modern times in the context of Law & Artificial Intelligence. Strangely, real world applications are very rare. Assuming that the judicial system is like any system that transforms inputs into outputs one would think that we should be able measure it and and gain insight into its inner workings and ultimately use these measurements to make predictions about its output. In this thesis, civil procedures on commercial matters amenable to out-of-court settlement (Förmögenhetsrättsliga Dispositiva Tvistemål) was devoted particular interest and the question was posed: Can we predict the outcome of civil procedures using Statistical Methods? METHOD: By analyzing procedural law and legal doctrin, the civil procedure was modeled in terms of a random variable with a discrete observable outcome. Some data for 14821 cases was extracted from eight different courts. Five of these courts (13299 cases) were used to train the models and three courts (1522 cases) were chosen randomly and kept untouched for validation. Most cases seemed to concern monetary claims (66%) and/or damages (12%). Binary- and Multinomial- logistic regression methods were used as classifiers. RESULTS: The models where found to be uncalibrated but they clearly outperformed random score assignment at separating classes and at a preset threshold gave accuracies significantly higher (p<<0.001) than that of random guessing and in identifying settlements or the correct type of verdict performance was significantly better (p<<0.003) than consequently guessing the most common outcome. CONCLUSION: Using data for cases from one set of courts can to some extent predict the outcomes of cases from another set of courts. The results from applying the models to new data concludes that the outcome in civil processes can be predicted using statistical methods.