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The increasing rate of financial irregularities, fraud, and mismanagement rocking Nigerian Tertiary Institutions calls for concern. Despite all control measures put in place by the government, coordinating and regulating agencies, and the institutions themselves, lack of transparency and accountability continues unabated. Literature and documentary evidence have shown that lack of functional internal audit department is one of the factors responsible for the frequent occurrence of these acts. The objective of this study, therefore, is to examine conceptually management support and communication skills as the key factors affecting internal audit task performance in the Nigerian tertiary institutions. Based on the existing literature and the pronouncement of accounting and auditing professional bodies, the study develops a framework of these factors as influencing task performance. The study suggests that adequate management support and effective communication skills of internal auditors will enhance the task performance of internal audit department, hence, curbing the incidence of financial malpractices. The study has policy implications as it will assist the proprietors (government and private individuals), coordinating ministries, regulatory authorities, professional bodies, councils and management of tertiary institutions, and auditors in their decision making and oversight functions.

Capital adequacy ratio is the main indicator for banks to proceed with their operations. Standards for the calculation of the ratio are based on Basel Accord. Key factor for the calculation is credit risk. Credit risk is a function of credit and collateral type. In this case, mortgage has lower risk weight based on its collateral structure on credit risk. This research evaluates the effects of mortgages on capital adequacy ratio to understand the effects of collateral based credits. The findings show positive results between capital adequacy ratio and mortgages of participation banks. However, mortgages have negative impact on capital adequacy ratio of conventional banks. Participation and conventional banks of Turkey are compared on linear regression to analyse the effects of mortgages on capital adequacy ratio. Results are important for further research and professionals.

Elderly becomes one of the crucial issues faced by many countries in the world today. The composition of the elderly population is growing rapidly in both developed and developing countries. The increase in the number of elderly requires attention so that they not only live long but can enjoy their old age happily and improve the quality of their life. In some areas, large numbers of elderly people become burdensome if they have health problems resulting in increased health care costs, decreased income, increased disability, lack of social support and independence. This statement is not entirely true, because there are elderly who are still able to be independent to achieve life satisfaction. This study employed a qualitative approach to get a picture of life and concepts related to elderly life. Emik view of the power was used to analyze the life of elderly from Karo ethnicity. The data were collected by using participant observation and depth interview which was performed on five elderly families and questionnaires for 100 respondents of elderly Karo family in Lingga Village. The strength of informants in establishing rapport became the key of success in this Karo elderly research. The result of the research showed that Karo elderly felt shame if they have to live with their children or be dependent because it is the nature of a Karo person to be independent. It is reinforced by a very strong culture of shame. In addition, Karo people have a standard of life satisfaction which has been a part of their culture. It is the satisfaction of life when all of their children have married and have enough income. In Karo society, it is called Cawir Metua. Someone who has reached the Cawir Mertua is supposed to hold a party to tell people that he or she has achieved satisfaction in life.

The fiscal situation in Colombia has been deteriorating over recent years, as seen in various fiscal indicators. Among the policy actions that can be made to avoid making the situation worse, is the increase of tax collections and thus generate an increase in revenue for the nation. Using a computable general equilibrium model, we estimate the effect of total and partial elimination of current fiscal exemptions. It is found that a full elimination of exemptions, leads to a more neutral tax system, allowing the partial recovery of public finances and economic growth prospects.

Credit greases the wheels of oil consumption—it is prevalent in purchases of cars, trucks, and even the construction of factories. But the traditional view is that it affects oil consumption only through economic activity and the price of oil. I argue that credit is important in its own right. To make my case, I first show that an association between credit and oil consumption growth exists across countries and time. I then give a nod to the traditional view, and conclude by showing that changes in credit alter oil consumption—even after accounting for economic activity and oil prices.

This paper provides evidence on the incidence of poverty among the elderly in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on household survey microdata from 20 countries. The situation of older people is characterized in terms of income, employment, education, health and access to services vis-à-vis the rest of the population. The paper identifies the role played by the current pension systems in Latin America, and assesses the efforts needed to achieve substantial improvements toward the reduction of old-age poverty.

Berggren and Elinder (BE) in this journal write on the relationship between the degree of tolerance in a nation and its rate of economic growth. They are disturbed to find in their cross sections that faster economic growth statistically goes together with intolerance of homosexuals. In this comment, we revisit the issue and demonstrate that the concern expressed by BE is unwarranted if we properly account for “conditional convergence” in the regressions for economic growth. Other things being equal, a country grows faster if it starts from a poorer initial position. In the BE dataset, China since the Deng reforms is a prime example. At about the same time, another group of countries managed to accelerate their economic growth after a long period of stagnation: the ex-communist countries in central and Eastern Europe. Many of these nations also grew exceptionally fast for a number of years, once freedom had been regained and the initial chaos overcome. With simple modeling of these historical initial conditions, we find no statistical pattern that associates bias against homosexuals with weaker economic growth. Our results are robust under alternative specifications.

Recognizing that poverty in the fields of Latin America has not been overcome with the model of agribusiness and agro-exporting, the paradigm of new rurality emerges as a response to meet the demands of the rural areas. This vision is now the basis of rural policies in Latin America and other underdeveloped areas of the world. This document seeks to recover the core elements of this vision in its internal articulation. Then, we will respond to some questions: What can we expect from this paradigm? Can we expect to overcome rural poverty? Which are the merits and limitations of this approach? Tras reconocer que la pobreza en los campos latinoamericanos no ha sido superada con el modelo de los agronegocios y las agroexportaciones, el paradigma de la nueva ruralidad emerge como respuesta para atender las carencias más sentidas en el medio rural. Esta visión, promovida con afán por instituciones multilaterales y por organismos financieros internacionales, ha pasado a ser el eje central de las políticas de Estado orientadas al campo en América Latina y otras zonas subdesarrolladas del orbe. Es intención de este documento recuperar los elementos medulares de este paradigma en su articulación interna. Luego de esta síntesis nos abocamos a responder algunas preguntas: ¿Qué podemos esperar de este paradigma trasladado en la práctica a nuestros países, donde impera la condición de subdesarrollo? ¿Cabe esperar de él éxitos importantes en materia de progreso rural local o microrregional? ¿Cuáles son sus méritos y cuáles sus restricciones?

This paper challenges the notion that changes in flood risk will have a minimal impact on population because of the availability of insurance and that most of the effect, if any, will be borne out by the real estate market. Insurance premiums even when subsidized are a cost that a household will need to pay with the increase in flood risk. The evidence suggests that flood events, historical and contemporaneous, play a role in the determination of the local perceived flood risk. Attractive communities that have positive growth before the flood surprise are hardest hit. They see a persistent 1.4\% dip in population with a 0.7\% decrease in the pre-flood trend. Flooding does not affect population in the rest of the high surprise locations. Instead, they see close to 4\% drop real estate values with the biggest effect among higher tier housing. There is also evidence that flood incidence in these communities is higher among the low-income population as suggested by relief payments by FEMA.

In a real effort experiment with repeated competition we find striking differences in how the work effort of men and women responds to previous wins and losses. For women losing per se is detrimental to productivity, but for men a loss impacts negatively on productivity only when the prize at stake is big enough. Responses to luck are more persistent and explain more of the variation in behavior for women, and account for about half of the gender performance gap in our experiment. Our findings shed new light on why women may be less inclined to pursue competition-intensive careers.