Abstract We show how decentralized individual investments can efficiently allocate capital to innovating firms via equity crowdfunding. We develop a model where consumers have privately known consumption preferences and may act as investors. Consumers identify worthwhile investments based on their own preferences and invest in firms whose product they like. In the presence of aggregate demand uncertainty, an efficient capital allocation is achieved if all groups of consumers have enough liquidity to invest. If some groups of consumers cannot invest, capital flows reflect preferences of liquid investors but not future demand. Comparing with traditional financing forms, crowdfunding in the absence of liquidity constraints can be superior unless traditional financiers are fully competitive and perfectly informed.
In this paper we present the main features of the current system of financing of local self-governments (LSG) in Serbia and propose the principles and directions for its further improvements, given the current level of decentralization. For this purpose, we analyzed the current legal framework in the area of LSG jurisdiction on the one hand, and model of financing of LSGs, on the other. In addition to that, we tried to depict a financial position of LSGs and local public utility companies (LPUCs) using financial data for the period from 2011 to 2013, in order to design principles for systematic regulation of this area, the latter being of particular importance in the dominant context of fiscal consolidation policy. The general conclusions and recommendations point to the necessity to design such a concept of financing of LSGs which has a firm link between jurisdiction, i.e. type of public services provided by LSG level, and sources for financing of these jurisdictions/services - aligned in terms of quality and availability of these services with the objective possibilities. Analysis of the financial data indicates that there is relatively firm evidence in support of the conclusion that the main source of bad financial position of certain LSGs reflected in a high level of outstanding stock of payables to suppliers, lies in the inappropriate financing of public utilities and local institutions founded by LSGs.
Darba mērķis ir Ethereum decentralizētas programmatūras platformas pētīšana. Darbā tiek pētītas tehnoloģijas uz kurām balstās decentralizētās programmatūras platforma, programmatūras izstrādes process tajā un platformas stiprās un vājās puses. Darba praktiskajā daļā, tiek izveidots decentralizētas kopfinansēšanas sistēmas prototips Ethereum platformā.
La tecnología trajo conceptos que, fundidos con el campo económico, permitieron soluciones a problemas que la sociedad enfrentó varias veces a lo largo de su historia, como: inflación, ciclos económicos, instituciones financieras no confiables y la falta de universalización de servicios financieros a toda población. Este artículo pretende elucidar tanto la parte conceptual de Bitcoin abordando los aspectos históricos, económicos y jurídicos, así como los posibles beneficios sociales que la moneda puede traer como una primera alternativa, basada en tecnología, al dinero tradicional controlado por el Estado. El método utilizado para ello es el deductivo y la técnica de investigación es la bibliográfica, partiendo de ejemplos de la utilización del dinero a lo largo de la historia y del ascenso de Bitcoin como moneda.
Renewable energies, especially photovoltaic (PV), have started a trend towards a decentralization of energy systems. With decreasing levelized costs of energy of new renewable energies, self-consumption concepts become increasingly attractive and have even reached grid parity in some countries already. So called "prosumers" (households that are producers and consumers at the same time) start to replace grid consumers, conducting self-consumption with their locally produced electricity by the PV plants. Since complete autarky cannot be reached with a PV plant for a household, prosumers still consume electricity from the main grid. This on-going diffusion of self-consumption concepts is significantly influenced by the interplay of network externalities within the system, such as learning from peers, altering the perceived utility by households of the investment into decentral generation. The increasing penetration of PV significantly contributes to the creation of a more sustainable power supply in Europe and is considered and supported in many nations by governmental energy strategies. Nevertheless, such decentralization dynamics also lead to multiple challenges in the energy system. New investors enter the energy market, utility companies are forced to adjust their business models and grid operators face technical as well as financial challenges. The presented paper focusses on the financial challenges of grid operators caused by decentralization trends of the electricity system.
The article highlights the essence of budgetary control. The features of control in the public sector performance are grounded as well as the relationship between verifiability and the controllability. It is proved that the achievement of public finance management needs its controllability. There is no alternative verifiability by ensuring controllability of budget resources. The classification criteria of budgetary control types according to the different classification criteria are developed. It has allowed to distinguish its following types: scheduled, unscheduled, previous, current, next, state, municipal, specialized, departmental, public, external, internal, solid, selective, comprehensive, effective, ineffective, centralized, decentralized, legislative, realizable, further, active, passive, available, projected, intermediate, final, mixed. The purpose of the article is to provide a classification criteria of budgetary control development, taking into account the role and functions of control in public finance management. The subject of the study is a set of financial relationships arising during the budgetary control due to appropriation of financial resources. Methodology. The following methods have been used in the process of writing: cognition, induction, deduction, analysis and synthesis. Results of the survey. Thus, the main directions of budgetary control implementation we can consider the following ones: monitoring compliance with procedures for preparation, review and approval of state and local budgets; the implementation of revenue and expenditure of the budget at the national and local levels control; detection of theft of public funds, as well as their misuse; accuracy of accounting control; increasing the revenue base of the state budget detection; preventive measures to combat corruption and bribery in the public sector. The author’s approach to classification criteria of budgetary control types, unlike existing ones considers budgetary control as a complex in all its manifestations. It allows implementing budgetary control in full and at all stages of the budget process. It will significantly increase its efficiency and effectiveness. Value/originality is specified in the following items. Classification of budgetary control, which differs from previous approaches in more detail and grouping features has been improved according to: the degree of planning and subordination:, control entities, stages of implementation, level of activity, time direction, nature of action, implementation and assessment according to the timing, forms of implementation, the scope that makes more effective budgetary financial management control.
In this paper we propose to use the Grand Canonical Minority Game (GCMG, a highly simplified financial market model) as a model of bitcoin market to show how the lack of an income for “miners”, similar to yield earned by bond holders, could be a structural reason for high volatility of bitcoin price in a reference currency. Coherently with present analysis, the introduction of future contracts on bitcoin would have the effect of reducing the overall market volatility.
The past several years have seen the surprising and rapid rise of Bitcoin and other “cryptocurrencies.” These are decentralized peer-to-peer networks that allow users to transmit money, tocompose financial instruments, and to enforce contracts between mutually distrusting peers, andthat show great promise as a foundation for financial infrastructure that is more robust, efficientand equitable than ours today. However, it is difficult to reason about the security of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is a complex system, comprising many intricate and subtly-interacting protocol layers. At each layer it features design innovations that (prior to our work) have not undergone any rigorous analysis. Compounding the challenge, Bitcoin is but one of hundreds of competing cryptocurrencies in an ecosystem that is constantly evolving. The goal of this thesis is to formally reason about the security of cryptocurrencies, reining in their complexity, and providing well-defined and justified statements of their guarantees. We provide a formal specification and construction for each layer of an abstract cryptocurrency protocol, and prove that our constructions satisfy their specifications. The contributions of this thesis are centered around two new abstractions: “scratch-off puzzles,” and the “blockchain functionality” model. Scratch-off puzzles are a generalization of the Bitcoin “mining” algorithm, its most iconic and novel design feature. We show how to provide secure upgrades to a cryptocurrency by instantiating the protocol with alternative puzzle schemes. We construct secure puzzles that address important and well-known challenges facing Bitcoin today, including wasted energy and dangerous coalitions. The blockchain functionality is a general-purpose model of a cryptocurrency rooted in the “Universal Composability” cryptography theory. We use this model to express a wide range of applications, including transparent “smart contracts” (like those featured in Bitcoin and Ethereum), and also privacy-preserving applications like sealed-bid auctions. We also construct a new protocol compiler, called Hawk, which translates user-provided specifications into privacy-preserving protocols based on zero-knowledge proofs.
Bitcoin scripts currently do not enable loops. Therefore, they are commonly considered to be not Turing Complete. This limits the types of algorithms the Bitcoin scripts can execute to linear or tree-like instructions. This white paper describes the invention of an Oracle module that: • Continuously monitors the state of Blockchain. • Makes decisions based on the current state. • Generates the next set of transactions to be written onto the Blockchain. The above processes is executed continuously by the Oracle in parallel to the Blockchain network. It therefore implements looping constructs that makes the combined Oracle and Blockchain system Turing Complete. As old blocks cannot be erased from the Blockchain, but new blocks can be added, the Oracle and the Blockchain will work as a non-erasable Turing Machine as described in Minsky et al. (1967). We will discuss the use of the Oracle in applications including: • Distributed data storage • Distributed computing • The control of drones. We will also describe how metadata storage and digital signature authorization on the Blockchain can be useful features for implementing these applications.
In last thirty years Poland has gone a long way toward democracy and decentralization. Role of public participation in planning is increasing rapidly and recently many new instruments of empowering the community is being introduced, participatory budgeting is one of the most important. On the other hand, urban regeneration is one of the most important challenges of polish cities are facing. Technical and transport infrastructure investments are, in most cases, financed by public sphere. We can also observe increasing role of NGO's in neighbourhood regeneration process but their scope of actions is mostly limited to soft projects. The paper tries to answer the question whether participatory budget can fill this gap and be a source of financing local community needs. This paper shows the creation and evolution of participatory budgets in Poland as well as the process of their implementation including examples of projects financed from participatory budget in Polish cities. It consists of analyses of participatory budgets’ expenditures structure and influence of the projects on the neighbourhood and the city. It also assesses long term influence and identify barriers, challenges and opportunities of using this instrument in urban regeneration process.
Michel Avital, Roman Beck, John Leslie King, Matti Rossi · 5 authors
The panel focuses on blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The topic has drawn much attention recently in both business and academic circles. The blockchain is a distributed, immutable digital record system that is shared among many independent parties and can be updated only by their consensus. If unbiased and incorruptible blockchain-based information systems become prevalent repositories of our records, trusting other humans with<br/>constructing and maintaining key records to define the resources at our disposal could become unnecessary. In principle, blockchain could provide a decentralized information infrastructure that no one fully controls, thereby no one has absolute power and no one can distort past or current records. The full potential let alone implications of blockchain is still unknown. The panel explores blockchain challenges and opportunities from the IS research perspective.
Bitcoin is a crypto currency with several advantages over approaches. Transactions are confirmed and stored by a peer-to-peer network in a blockchain. Therefore, all transactions are public and soon solutions where designed to increase privacy in Bitcoin. Many come with downsides, like requiring a trusted third-party or requiring modifications to Bitcoin. In this paper, we compare these approaches according to several criteria. Based on survey, coin Join emerges as the best approach for anonymizing Bitcoins today.
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
I show that the prices of the internationally traded crypto-currency bitcoin can be used to estimate a currency's unofficial exchange rate and capital controls at a daily interval. Two important bitcoin features are documented: (1) Bitcoin-based exchange rates approximate the behavior, but not the level, of unofficial exchange rates, and (2) Bitcoin prices contain a bitcoin-trend term and must be appropriately normalized prior to being used for this purpose. Bitcoin-based exchange rates reveal that (3) there is no consistent pattern of Granger causality between unofficial rates and official rates by exchange rate regime or barriers at the daily frequency, and (4) that countries can engage in short-interval capital controls.
Enterprise systems play a central role in the business processes and management of data within an organization. However it is not uncommon for organizations to posses a multitude of autonomous systems. This thesis examines the way organizations can integrate financial data from different autonomous source systems and examines different factors that can have an impact on data integration processes. The empirical findings were gathered through a case study at Sandvik, a large Swedish industrial firm, making use of qualitative research techniques. The findings contribute to create an in-depth understanding of financial data integration processes. The empirical findings show how an organization can accomplish financial data integration without tight coupling of autonomous systems. Moreover the research contributes by describing various organization and technological factors that impact data integration. The findings indicate that a decentralized organizational structure and singular system architecture play an important role in financial data integration processes. Hereby the research helps to further explore the topic integration within enterprise system research and provides context behind the organizational and technological factors that influence financial data integration processes.
Contents:Introduction: How Multilevel Finance has Contributed to the Crisis and is Affected by it? Ehtisham Ahmad, Massimo Bordignon and Giorgio BrosioPART I MANAGING SUBNATIONAL LIABILITIES IN EUROPE1. Promoting Stabilizing and Sustainable Ssub-national Fiscal Policies in the Euro AreaTeresa Ter-Minassian2. Political Economy of Information Generation and Financial Management for Subnational Governments. Ehtisham Ahmad3. History of the Constitutional Limits in Germany and the New Debt Brake -Experiences and Critique: Georg MilbradtPART II INCIPIENT PROBLEMS IN THE BIGGEST COUNTRIES IN EUROPE4. The German ExperiencePaul Bernd Spahn5. French Subnational Public Finances: On the Difficulty of being a Decentralized Unitary State. Pierre GarelloPART III THE TROUBLED COUNTRIES OF SOUTHERN EUROPE6. Economics and Politics of Local Greek GovernmentGiorgios Chortareas and Vassileios E. Logothetis7. PortugalMario Fortuna8. Multi-level Finance and Governance in Spain: The Impact of the Euro CrisisSantiago Lago Penas and Alberto Sole Olle9. Economic Crisis and Fiscal Federalism in Italy Maria Flavia Ambrosanio, Paolo Balduzzi and Massimo BordignonPART IV CITIES, THE OLYMPICS AND GROWTH 10. A Tale of Two Cities: The Olympics in Barcelona and Torino. G. Brosio, J. Suarez Pandiello and S. PipernoPART V ACCESSION STATES11. The Impact of the Global Crisis on Macedonian Local Governments.Marjan NikolovPART VI SOME GENERAL LESSONS12. Clientelistic Politics and Multilevel Finance: Some Implications for Regional Inequality and GrowthAlex Mourmouras and Peter Rangazas 13. Incentives Facing Local Governments in the Absence of Credible EnforcementLeo Fulvio Minervini and Annalisa VinellaIndex
This paper presents an analysis of the decentralization process that has been taking place in Bolivia over the last couple of decades. It starts with a review of the legal framework that determines the distribution of responsibilities and financial resources to the sub-national governments (9 departments and 339 municipalities), and continues with an analysis of the evolution and distribution of financing to these entities between 2001 and 2013. It then proceeds to describe the resulting progress in social indicators between 2001 and 2012 at the municipal level, and identifies the main remaining gaps in basic services by 2012. Finally, the paper offers an analysis of the factors that are most closely associated with progress in the main social indicator used by the Bolivian government - the Unsatisfied Basic Needs index. This provides the basis for a final section on recommendations for public investment in Bolivia.
In this paper, I analyze Bitcoin price formation and adoption rates at a global and national level. In determining Bitcoin prices, I consider contemporaneous and lagged values of traditional determinants of currencies, such as inflation and industrial production, and digital currency specific factors, primarily public interest. Using monthly time-series data across five years (2011 – 2016), I find that global public interest in Bitcoin, measured by Google searches for the keyword ‘Bitcoin,’ has a positive and significant impact on Bitcoin prices. I extend the analysis to a country level by employing a proxy for adoption rates, represented by the number of local Bitcoin client downloads, which is a useful predictor of prices. I examine pooled data across 12 countries to show that searches for ‘Bitcoin’ can be used to predict adoption rates and, consequently, prices. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first academic article to study Bitcoin usage at a national level. I find that contemporaneous values of traditionally used macroeconomic determinants of currency prices, except inflation, do not have a significant impact on Bitcoin prices.