Abortion Term Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Abortion Term Paper - Essay Example The dominant reasons cited for procurement of abortions are broad and detail concern for or responsibility to other individuals; some women who procure an abortion assert that they cannot afford a child; others cite interference with school, work, or their capability to avail care for dependents while others dread of being a single parent or have problems with their husband or partner (Callahan 116). The discussion makes several clarifications, distinctions, and oppositions that propel the ethical considerations for or against abortion. The core question that manifests in this discussion encompasses two questions, namely: whether abortion is morally wrong. These are unique issues as not everything that is immoral can be regarded as essentially illegal. This essay develops a general argument dwelling on the claim that the vast majority of procured abortions are gravely immoral. Abortion infers the premature removal of a fetus from the Uterus prior to 28 weeks gestation, the random est ablished period of viability or prior to pregnancy reaching its full term. There are two forms of abortion, namely: miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) that happens mainly naturally, statistics indicates that close to 50% of pregnancies end in this manner (Callahan 117). Second, procured abortion encompasses intentional termination of the pregnancy mainly incorporating an operation to expel the fetus from the womb. Viability is entirely a relative term complete with value judgments, rather than a distinct descriptive entity. Although, abortion has over the years grown to become one of the most debate issues within bioethics, no moral consensus has been attained. The lingering debate on when abortions should be carried out, by what means, and the kinds on infants that should be saved demonstrate the complexity of the issue of abortion. The greatest difficulty presented, but abortion literature lies in spotlighting reliable philosophical and scientific arguments amid the dominating rhetorical manipulation (Bok 33). Academically, the issue of abortion centers on the balance between liberties both the mother, plus the baby. Theologically, the issue of abortion flows from two critical questions: 1) at what point is life considered beginning? (Whether at conception or birth); 2) if so, is it a sin to abort a fetus? The explanation suggested by the faiths detail that life commences at conception, and hence the baby is considered to be living from the conception (Monagle and Thomasma 17). Hence, it is a mortal sin (murder) to abort a fetus. The central argument that is mainly against abortion details that: the fetus is in essence an innocent person and it is morally wrong to terminate the life of a guiltless individual. Subsequently, it is morally wrong to terminate the life of a fetus. Some anti-abortionist will admit certain abortions such as abortion prior to implantation, or abortions procured the moment the life of the mother is threatened by a pregnancy, or abortion subsequent to a rape (Callahan 117). These cases of abortion may be considered to be morally permissible. B. The Moral Controversy Surrounding the Problem Public opinion on abortion can be categorized into three camps, namely: conservative, liberal, and moderate (or gradualist) all of which draws on both science and ethical thinking. Conservatives groups such as the Catholic Church perceive the fetus as a human being with full moral rights from conception onward. Conception in this case can be regarded as a critical point since this is the stage in which the embryo develops its distinct genetic code (Singer 189). Liberal approach, on the other hand, concedes that the fetus is

Benjamin Franklin by Edmund Morgan Essay Example for Free

Benjamin Franklin by Edmund Morgan Essay One of the most famous biographies ever written is said to be made by Edmund Morgan, when he accounted that of Benjamin Franklin’s life. He did so by presenting a very special style in analyzing Franklins existence. He made it possible by not narrating an everyday account with the use of dates, but instead accounted for the overall legacy of Franklin’s life. After reading the book, it can be said that the book establishes a broad view of Franklin’s existence. Franklin has been discussed as universally well-known for three things: his discovery of electricity, his writings, and his participation in the American Revolution. In this way, Morgan was able to present how Franklin has influenced the American, the government and the society as a whole. Born on January 17, 1706, young Franklin was presented by the author as a vigorous and curios one. It was also mentioned that his favorite past time was playing chess and singing songs. A further reading of the article shows that he also has his own belief in religion, which is Sin is not harmful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is harmful. Nor is a duty beneficial because it is commanded, but it is commanded because it is beneficial. As an individual, though he believes that God is the creator, he does attend mass and does not read bible. Nevertheless, it was at this stage of his life where he started writing about the virtues he believed in. A decade later, Franklin’s curiosity was instigated, when his English friend sent him Leyden jars for static electricity storage. Immediately, he started his own experiments with electricity. Subsequently, he discovered that a metal rod with a sharp end can ignite a spark from a greater distance than that of a rounded one. Based on the said findings, he proceeded on and proposed to conduct an experiment with a kite and a key to confirm that lightning is indeed electricity. His efforts proved him right, and his successful experiment discovering electricity made him famous. Among the study Franklin has made, includes that of the effect which ocean current has on travel and the pre germ theory. Morgan also touched the life of Franklin being a writer. According to Morgan, Franklin, though he left the field of printing earlier, he never left it totally. This was possible because he continuously carried out his work secretly as a printer in the field of philosophy, alongside with the renowned Poor Richard’s Almanack. He also succeeded in circulating numerous satirical hoax discourses. One of the popular speeches he made talks about a woman who had five illegitimate children and ironically claims to be following God’s word to increase and multiply. Franklin’s prominent pieces of writing talks about the qualities which he said would lead one to moral perfection, which includes Temperance, Chastity, Cleanliness, and Humility. It bears stressing that Franklin wrote these articles based from his own insights of good deeds against faith and not from religious dogma and sermons. The core of Franklin’s writings on religion imparts that a human being can be moral and god-fearing even without dogmatic presence of the church. As for Franklin’s participation in American Revolution, it can be gleaned from Morgan’s statement that the transition of America into an independent nation may not have been as easy were it not for Franklin’s efforts. His international relations with the British government and the French before, during, and after the hostilities proved very useful to America in instituting and re-instituting alliances. In the book, Franklin was presented to be one who is so influential in defending a pre-Revolution Philadelphia from French privateers, evenly allowing the British to preserve their influence in America and the colonies to resist division. This was due to Franklin’s belief that the British government was unyielding, but necessitates several modifications. All the complexities which were faced by Franklin in his life were discussed in the later part of the book. This occurred after he was sent to England in 1764 as a colonial agent, where he realized how complicated for someone from America to tackle these corrections, principally that of the colonists’ aspiration to elect their officials and to enjoy rights. On an ending note, Morgan went further when he made statement that depicted Adams as the most contentious colleague of Franklin during that time, and the reason for making living miserable for Franklin. BOOK REVIEW A reading of the book reveals that it was written in a narrative form, which trails more chronological events in Franklin’s life. Morgan made this possible by utilizing several quotations and pictures from Franklin’s works in telling his account. These help the person who reads in appreciating the events and thoughts from Franklin’s viewpoint. In some way, it can be said that the book is the best speech ever written, which comprises of an all-encompassing prologue, followed by a comprehensive series of events that is supplemented with optimistic tales and motivating truth imparted by Franklin. At this point of view, readers can say that Morgan’s writing technique is interwoven efficiently and wittily. Furthermore, he vividly sketches the outlines of Franklins growing outlook while unremarkably helping his readers grapple the details of his life in politics and the surfacing international condition during the American Revolution. From time to time, he even personally directed statements to the reader and alludes to what he himself is trying to understand about Franklin. On a different note, it could also be said that the story is of an adventure type that take hold of readers with the anecdotes of Franklin’s participation in the political events of 18th-century America. Nevertheless, the author did not lose sight of the significance of the other facet of the mans qualities and the opinion and actions of others toward him. This was the reason for the biographys success since it engages readers attention in the grand live stage show of this intriguing mans life. One of the topics which were concentrated by Morgan in Franklin’s life, is his being diplomat. It was presented by the detailed account of Franklins vital role in the lengthy progression of calculations and miscalculations that pressed the loyal and dutiful British colonies into revolution and forged them into the United States of America. As written, Franklin, can be seen in every event, frequently behind the picture, but always exceptionally influential, a compelling catalyst for change, which has left an impact in the life of Americans and British government and society. Importantly, in this book we can learn that Franklin is the sole man whose signature maybe found on all four of the important founding documents of the American republic which are the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution. As for the impact Franklin’s life and this book may have in the society and public policy, it is important to mention that even if he did not believe in bible writings and the of the existence of God, he seems to have lived in an otherwise moral existence and have not lost sight of the need for people to be living with such religious morality. The most essential aspect of Franklins personality was his unselfish way of sharing to others and his belief that what is right is that which is beneficial. Thus, it can be inferred that one of the lessons in Franklin’s life which is being taught is that, being useful means providing the needs of other inhabitants, not only for one’s self, and that a man with an intelligence concerning him comes only to those individual who possesses a great heart. As for the economy, this book made us learn that Franklin, after experiencing his first achievement, had launched several successful commercial partnerships which lead to the development of the law of partnerships in America. This is said to be one of the many contributions Franklin has made in the history. Aside from the foregoing influences of Franklin has given to the society, it is of everyone’s knowledge that his greatest contribution was his discovery of electricity. This discovery was the product of his scientific curiosity which has originally established his fame in the world. In sum, it can be said that Morgan’s biography of Franklin imparts a representation of the renowned man with the kite that one might not anticipate in an intellectual biography. It is manifest from the opening that Morgan wishes the person who reads to see beyond the characterization of Franklin that we often read in books and articles. In this work, we came to learn, as stated at the outset, that Benjamin Franklin is famously known for three things: his experiments with electricity, his writings, and his involvement in the American Revolution. However, it is important to note that the behavior that Morgan actually wishes for the reader to be aware of is that to successful in this world, one should posse’s inquisitiveness and enthrallment with the world around him, coupled with a serene obsession for the intellectual strength of persons, and a benevolent social servitude. Reference: www. class. uidaho. edu/Engl440/NYRB/NRYB_Edmund_Morgan. htm, Retrieved April 09, 2007. http://www. brothersjudd. com/index. cfm/fuseaction/reviews. detail/book_id/1183/Benjamin%20Fra. htm Retrieved April 09, 2007

Essay --

Is Free Health Care Really Free? Is the health care the government providing really free or not? Free Government Health Care - sometimes Universal health care usually refers to a health care system which provides free healthcare and financial protection to all its citizens. Free or Universal healthcare is against the 1st and 9th amendment. Its against the 1st amendment because people see it as a violation of the right of assembly. Its against the 9th amendment because there are more rights for the americans than the ones that are in the constitution. Free/Universal healthcare has been a more wanted thing for the less fortunate because it covers everything a normal person needs so they do not have to worry about losing their health care and not being able to go to the hospital. I am towards it because there are people in the world that cannot afford health care so if they can get on a computer or use a payphone and sign up. Because if someone were to get a disease and does not have health care it could spread and t hey just might die. Most other people are against this because their ...

Diels alder reaction Essay

Result: For the Diels-Alder reaction: Maleic acid is 0.002 mol 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene is 0.002 mol The theoretical yield is 0.36g Cycloaddition product is 0.358g (maybe it was not completely dry when I weighted.) The % yield of Diels-Alder reaction is 99.4% For the hydrolysis: The theoretical yield of hydrolysis is 0.396g The experimental product yield is 0.28g (some solid left on the filter paper and some for the melting point measurement.) The % yield of hydrolysis is 70.7% The cycloaddition of a conjugated diene and a dienophile, which is drove by forming new ÏÆ'-bonds from Ï€-electrons of the diene and dienophile, which are energetically more stable than the Ï€-bonds. During the Diels-Alder reaction, the temperature should be kept between 60-70 â„Æ'. Because the boiling point of the butadiene is low and do not let it vaporize. After cycloaddition, pour the reaction mixture into 50 ml water under room temperature, the product would precipitate because of the low temperature. The acid added for the hydrolysis part is very important because acids have been used to accelerate the rate of the intra-molecular Diels-Alder reaction. The PEG 200 used in this experiment as the solvent for maleic anhydride is  make the experiments more green, which is less harmful and more environmental friendly. The melting point measurement is helping us to determine what we get basically. Compare with the IR spectra I got, the peak at 1792.62 cm-1 in the first spectra express the C=O bonds of the initial cycloaddition product, and the peak at 1697.14 cm-1 in the second IR spectra shows the C=O bonds of carboxylic acid ( RCOOH) of the final product.

The Evolution of the Value-Added Service Concept

The value added service concept has become popular recently although it has been existent for the past few decades. The concept was formally introduced by the telecommunication industry, a term they used for non-core service offerings that they were offering consumers in order to provide the consumers an incentive for purchase and as a differentiation factor for their business.Some of the characteristics of value added services are that they are usually the non core service or product offering for the business. However it is still possible for the value added services to stand alone operationally and be offered as a separate product. Another important characteristic for a value added service is that although it enhances the basic product/ service offering it should not attempt to cannibalize the main product/service offering for the business, i.e., take the customers away from the main product.The most commonly used value added services include the following:Offering different types of packaging and sizes for the productProviding specific service levels for the products with specific service level agreements for services Rewarding the consumers for their loyalty to the brand by giving them gifts and developing frequent buy programs Providing specific training and education for the product and service or a value added service center like a help line or a customer support center for the clients. â€Å"They are about performing all of those activities as close to the end consumer as possible.† (‘Impact of Value Added Service Center’, 2002)  Provide different types of qualities for the product according to the requirements of the consumer. Premium pricing can be charged on these quality levels.  Providing efficient and speedy delivery service with order tracking facilityIn the recent years however the concept of value added services has changed. Previously consumers expected the core product to be the product itself, but now consumers tend t o expect the product to have specific type of additional services and characteristics in them which were previously only considered value added services. These value added services have now become rudimentary in nature and the consumers now expect the product to have the value added services.Moreover the value added characteristic has also changed talking form of customization for the consumer. An example explaining this change is previously we used to have mobile phone with the basic capability of dialing for calls and receiving calls on a mobile device. Then the SMS, a VAS, was introduced which enabled consumers to send text messages to other people. Now the mobile phone have digital camera, mp3/mp4 players and an operating system which also were introduced as Value added services but now have become an integral feature of the product it self.The reason for the change in the dynamics relating to value added service offering has been mainly due to the consumers’ perception o f the products and their expectations. They have come to expect certain kind of vale added services to be a component of the product itself, even though it is actually a value added service. This has lead to customization for many consumer goods taking place where business are using niche marketing strategies to provide products and services which are very specialized and customized and in natureThe value added services offered have evolved largely also due the technology available to the companies as well. They have tried to differentiate their product/ service offering by making their operations more efficient and investing in technologies which have let them achieve comparative advantage. One of such technological investment has been in the packaging industry.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Evolution isn't a theory in packaging; it's a fact of life. Corrugated and folding carton converters stake their survival on evolving their menu of value-added services to meet the changing needs of their custome rs. That can require a substantial investment in technology.† (‘The Evolution of Relationship Selling’, 2005)In the future as well as the dynamics of consumer consumption decisions and purchase decisions change the value added services offered by corporations and businesses will tend to evolve and change in order to respond to the latent and apparent needs and requirements of the consumer.References:(2005), The Evolution of Relationship Selling, Paperboard Packaging.Mylonopoulos, N. A., Sideris, I. A., (2006), Growth of Value Added Mobile Services Under Different Scenarios of Industry Evolution, Electronic Markets (2002), The Impact of the Value Added Services Center, Warehousing Management Dupin, C., (2002), Sales Evolution, JoC Week

Somalia essays

Somalia essays It was God-awful hot and the dust was everywhere. We were just coming back to the airfield in Moghedishu from an 18 hour patrol in southern Somalia. Jeff was concentrating on driving while Brad was manning the .50 caliber machinegun mounted on the top of the armored humvee. This left me plenty of time to take in the sights, sounds and smells, very rich ones, of the countryside and city. Dust from the afternoon winds found every cranny and nook you could imagine. It was brutal on our weapons, which had to be constantly wiped free. Even when I would take a drink of water from my canteen the taste of dirt was prevalent. When I started this paper, I found out that much has changed in this ancient land. I also found out that much has remained the same. Somalia is a land with a rich history and one full of sorrows. When I set out to start my research, I turned mostly to Government and Non-government web sites for information. Many of these sites were full of valuable information relating to Somalia, its past and how Somalia stands in the world today. I used one book, Delong, Kent, and Steven Tuckey. Mogadishu! Heroism and Tragedy. Westport: Praeger, 1994, for part of my research. Several other news sites were helpful in setting the scene for Somalias current place in the world, to include the War on Terrorism. Also the State department web site was a great help. I had some difficulties in finding books written about Somalia. There were many books written about the Battle of Mogadishu but few about the country itself. The State Department and CIA web sites were most helpful in this area. Both sites had a complete and comprehensive database of the history of Somalia. I also went to several African web sites for information and for their own perspective on events affecting Somalia, both past and present. I was able to use some of the databases from the ECPI library. For the most part this database was very good on the curr...

Dynamic Facilitation A Critical Discussion

Dynamic Facilitation A Critical Discussion Introduction Increased competition, shifting customer demands, technological advancements, shifts in government regulations and workforce demographics are some of the triggers of change that continue to provide the impetus for organizations to continually adopt change (Sitkin et al, 2011), but these change efforts may be ineffective, unsustainable or even elusive if the fundamental principles and the methodologies of change are not effectively grasped and actively applied (Rough, 1997).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Dynamic Facilitation: A Critical Discussion specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More It is with this realization that the present paper seeks to discuss one of the change methodologies referred to as Dynamic Facilitation, with a view to bringing into light its theoretical underpinnings and how the methodology could be applied in contemporary organizational contexts. Theoretical Perspectives of Dynamic Facilitat ion Developed in the decade of the 1990s by Jim Rough, Dynamic Facilitation as a change methodology has attracted considerable interest from researchers, practitioners and organizational change agents (Sitkin et al, 2011; Howard et al, 2005). Rough Martin (2007) describes Dynamic Facilitation as â€Å"†¦an emergent approach to facilitating that helps people address difficult issues creatively and collaboratively, where shifts and breakthroughs are the natural result† (p. 224). Available literature demonstrates that Dynamic Facilitation revolves around bringing together people faced with a similar need and giving them the opportunity to chart the way forward by facilitating a process that will enable the participants to engage in deep, heartfelt and creative quality of thinking known in theoretical terms as â€Å"choice creating† (Rough Martin, 2007). In Dynamic Facilitation, the designated facilitator should not direct or control discussion among the participant s; rather, he plays an active role in ensuring that all participants are allowed the chance to express their views in any form in addition to seeking forclarifications, encouraging opposing views, and ensuring that only one participant speaks at a time (Rough Martin, 2007; Howard et al, 2005). In theoretical terms, therefore, such an arrangement is intended to generate elevated trust, shared understandings, and the spirit of community in an attempt to come up with the best solution(s) to the arising need (Rough Martin, 2007). The major task of the designated facilitator is to attempt to record all the contributions made by participants using four charts, which are purposely labeled â€Å"†¦enquiries/problem statements, difficulties/concerns, information/perspectives, and options/ideas† (Howard et al, 2005, p. 3).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Using some sort of a jigsaw puzzle analogy, the participants in the group may jump around while discussing diverse sections of the bigger picture in a bid to come up with both short- and long-term solutions to the identified need. In recording the participants’ contributions into the four charts, the designated facilitator should ensure that everyone’s contributions are written down. The theoretical underpinning of this process of recording all contributions, according to Howard et al (2005) and Rough (1997), lies in the fact that participants are more likely to expand their focus and listen to the contributions of others in the process of forming the bigger picture if they are well aware that they are free to be fully heard, and that their own contributions are taken into consideration in the search for possible solutions to the presenting need. Consequently, Howard et al (2005) and Rough Martin (2007) note that Dynamic Facilitation encourage participants to be ‘them selves’and to express freely or ‘dump’ the information on their mind to the group. Upon starting to comprehend the complexity of the scenario when considering manifold points of view they, on their own volition, begin to suggest possible solutions to the presenting need. Howard et al (2005) observes that such a self-organization environment, where all participants are allowed to participate without the facilitator attempting to push for any consensus, brings forth important breakthroughs, which are then recorded in the fifth chart. The facilitator should always ensure that the points of convergence brought forward by individual uniqueness and passion are identified as it is these convergences that form the backbone of the solutions to the presenting need. Indeed, Rough Martin (2007) note that â€Å"†¦individual uniqueness and passion, normally seen as liabilities, are valued as assets in the group† (p. 224). The theoretical underpinning of encouragin g this uniqueness is based on the fact that the unique perspectives fronted by participants may well turn out to be the missing portion of the puzzle (Rough, 1997). However, it is always important to note that conclusions should always be unanimous (Rough Martin, 2007), and the consensus statements then communicated to all stakeholders for additional discussion and possible implementation (Howard et al. 2005). Application of Dynamic Facilitation Dynamic Facilitation as a change methodology can be applied in managing change process at a community college, where the decisions made not only affect the school management and students, but also the community at large. An example of a change process affecting the college would be to develop mechanisms aimed at fighting the rising incidences of insecurity within the school’s neighborhood.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Dynamic Facilitation: A Critical Discussion specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/p age Learn More In such a scenario, it is feasible to use this change methodology due to the fact that the processes triggering the change are largely unplanned, thus the need to employ the self-organizing concept to manage change which cannot be planned (Rough, 1997). It can also be argued that this methodology is feasible because it is very effective in dealing with complex situations, where there is no easy answer. Insecurity is one such scenario. A number of stakeholders would be involved in such a change initiative. In the context of therising insecurity problem, it is imperative to involve the college administration, teachers, students, parents and local church leaders, as well as government officials such as the police. Rough (1997) argues that it is these stakeholders who, individually and collectively, elicit creative quality of thinking through their contributions in the dialogue. It is this quality of thinking that is later used to come up with important br eakthroughs. Consequently, it is of fundamental importance to include the right kind of stakeholders in the group for the discussions to become fruitful. It should be noted that while the dynamic facilitator acts to guide and direct the discussion among participants, the sponsor is involved in setting or sketching the outcomes as needed by the organization or community to deal with the presenting problem. To identify the sponsor, therefore, concerted efforts need to be made to identify someone who is well versed with the issues at hand, and who is well respected to command a significant degree of influence in the community (Sitkin et al, 2011). However, it is imperative to note that the influence of the sponsor should not be used to sway the contributions of participants in the group. The success of the change initiative should be measured by how the members are able to attain convergences in discussing particular issues of interest. It should be noted that it is the convergent poin ts of view that contribute to the achievement of the consensus statements, which are then used to come up with breakthroughs to the issues at hand (Howard et al, 2005; Rough Martin, 2007). Lack of convergent points of view among participants therefore implies lack of progress. Lastly, the organization, which is the community college in this case, is expected to gain from reduced cases of insecurity and student complaints in the short-term, but will gain more in terms of positive public image and enhanced student enrollment levels in the long-term.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Conclusion This paper has effectively demonstrated how Dynamic Facilitation can be used as a methodology to manage a seemingly impossible and unplanned change process. The discussion has particularly shed light on how change can be viewed as self-organizing, and how important breakthroughs can be achieved by getting people to freely discuss the presenting problem and by getting them to listen to the contribution of others (Howard et al, 2005). Certainly, it can only be concluded that Dynamic Facilitation represents an increasingly growing paradigm of change management methodologies, particularly at the community level. Reference List Howard, P., Galarneau, T., Perez, J., Shaw, D. (2005). Integrating open space technology and Dynamic Facilitation. Participatory Learning Action, 53(1), 1-6. Retrieved from http://foodsecurity.org/ Rough, J. (1997). Dynamic Facilitation and the magic of self-organizing change. Journal for Quality and Participation, 20(3) 34-38. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database. Rough, J., Martin, D. (2007). Dynamic Facilitation. In: P. Holman, T. Devane, S. Cady (Ed.), The Change handbook: The definitive resource on today’s best methods for engaging whole systems (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Sitkin, S.B., See, K.E., Miller, C.C., Lawless, M.W., Carton, A.M. (2011). The paradox of stretch goals: Organizations in pursuit of the seemingly impossible. Academy of Management Review, 36(3), 544-566. Retrieved from Business Source Premier Database.

Summary and Background on The Vagina Monologues

Summary and Background on The Vagina Monologues A night of theater can be much more than getting dressed up to watch a Rodgers and Hammerstein revival for the umpteenth time. Theater can be a voice for change. It can be a call to action. Case in point: Eve Enslers The Vagina Monologues. Playwright and performance artist Eve Ensler interviewed over 200 women from a wide range of ages and cultural backgrounds. Many of them bared their proverbial souls and responded to questions such as: What would your vagina say if it could talk? And If you could dress your vagina, what would it wear? Origins of the Vagina Monologues In 1996, The Vagina Monologues began as a one-woman show, a series of character-driven pieces, almost like poetry, each revealing a different womans experience with topics such as  sex, love, tenderness, embarrassment, cruelty, pain, and pleasure. As the show increased in popularity, it began to be performed by an ensemble of actresses. Politically active theaters and college campuses began producing the Monologues, all of which helped to launch a global movement known as  V-Day. What Is V-Day? According to the official V-Day website: V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls. Are The  Vagina  Monologues Anti-Male? When college students are asked Raise your hand if you are a feminist, often  only one or two students raise their hands. The female students without their hands raised often explain that they dont hate men. Although many would define feminism as equality for the sexes, or the empowerment of women, it seems, sadly, that many people believe feminism is anti-male. With that in mind, it is easy to see why many assume that The Vagina Monologue is an angry rant of naughty words and feverish male-bashing. But Ensler is clearly raging against violence and oppression, not the male species. For further proof that Enslers work is man-friendly, visit the V-Men Page, a section of the V-Day website in which male writers and activists speak out against misogynist violence. Powerful Moments From The Vagina Monologues Below are descriptions of some of the most powerful scenes from the play. The Flood: This monologue, based upon a conversation with a 72-year old woman, combines humorously erotic dream imagery with the pragmatic, worldly views of a tough, outspoken old gal. Picture your elderly great Aunt talking about down there, and youll get an idea of this monologues potential. (During her HBO special, Ensler has great fun with this character.) My Village Was My Vagina: Absolutely the most haunting of the monologues. This piece is in honor of the thousands of victims from rape camps in Bosnia and Kosovo. The monologue alternates between peaceful, rural memories and images of torture and sexual abuse. Powerful, sad, and all-too-relevant. I Was in the Room: This monologue was based upon Enslers personal experience as she watched the birth of her grandchild. Arguably the most touching and optimistic of the monologues, this scene captures the joy and mystery of labor, in all its glorious (and graphic) detail. The Controversial Monologue Sure, the whole show is controversial. Theres shock value simply in the title. However, one particular monologue involves two accounts of molestation. The first incident occurs when the character is 10. In that account, she is raped by an adult male. Later on in the monologue, the character describes a sexual experience with an adult woman, when  the character/narrator is only 16. (In an earlier version of this monologue, the lesbian encounter took place at the age of 13, but Ensler decided to adjust the age). This monologue upsets many viewers and critics because it presents a double standard. The first case of molestation is accurately nightmarish, whereas the second case is portrayed as a positive experience. On the one hand, Ensler generated her monologues from real-life interviews, so it makes sense to display what she learned from her subject. However, considering the mission statement of V-Day, its hard to fault directors or performers for omitting (or perhaps revising) that particular monologue. Other Eve Ensler Plays Although The Vagina Monologues is her most famous work, Ensler has penned other powerful works for the stage. Here are a few worth checking out: Necessary Targets: A gripping drama about two American women who journey to Europe in order to help Bosnian women share their tragic stories with the world. The Treatment: Her most recent work delves into the moral questions or torture, power, and the politics of modern warfare.

Term Paper One Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Term Paper One - Article Example formulate their general HR strategy and then how such will influence their international recruitment strategy and what HR processes and policies they attempt to transfer. Obviously, Marriott International seeks to sustain and create a level of stability in their practices of managing people globally. The company knows that in order to be successful in the UK, it may also have to adjust its HR policies and practices to the particular regulatory, social, and economic conditions of the host country. Increasing regulation and economic instability are determined as two of the most difficult challenges confronting Marriott International in the UK (Nickson, 2013). This paper evaluates the key features of the equality and diversity policy of Marriott International, and critically examines the challenges in operationalizing the policy and the approaches which could be taken to ensure effective implementation. With roughly 133,000 employees across the globe, making up a broad array of cultural experiences, knowledge, and backgrounds, Marriott is thriving by willingly and committedly accepting and nurturing the diversity of its labour force (Clarke & Chen, 2009, p. 253). Consequently, Marriott has received numerous awards and recognitions for their initiatives to foster a diverse workforce, such as the Lifetime Achievement Award granted to the company in 2005 by the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality. Their attempts to nurture a diverse labour force undoubtedly established their general reputation as one of the most respected firms in America (Clarke & Chen, 2009). Not like numerous less profitable companies, an important part of Marriott’s strategy is that diversity concerns are not tackled merely by a separate, independent program that suggests detaching diversity concerns from the core features of the company. Hence, diversity is not only a matter of acquiring a cultur ally diverse workforce, but in looking for ways to incorporate and apply such diversity

New Market Opportunities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

New Market Opportunities - Essay Example The revenue of the Kellogg was 12,397 million Dollars during the year 2010. The revenue figures depicted a compound annual growth rate of 4% during the past five years ending at 2010. The figure below depicts the movement of revenue throughout the period from the year 2005 to 2010: Source: (Kellogg Company, 2011). Leadership Team The leadership team of Kellogg is headed by Chairman of the Board, James M. Jennes. John A. Bryant is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company. Various Senior Vice Presidents and Vice Presidents operate under the Chairman and the President of the company. The various departments of the company are headed by the respective Senior Vice Presidents. Margaret Bath is the Senior Vice President of the Research, Quality and Technology Department. Mark R. Baynes is the Global Chief Marketing Officer and Kris Charles is the Vice President of the Global Communications and Philanthropy Department. An important department dealing with the sustainability i ssues of the company is headed by Dr. Celeste A. Clark. The Chief Financial Officer of Kellogg Company is Ronald L. Dissinger and the department of global human resource is overseen by Dennis Shuler (Kellogg Company, 2009). ... The pyramid below depicts the objectives of Kellogg: Source: (Kellogg Company, 2011). Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Kellogg aspires to develop a strong prospect for business and grow on a continuous basis with proper sustenance of business ethics towards the company’s stakeholders and primarily the environment. The company undertakes a number of projects aimed at the betterment of the society every year. For instance, during the year 2010, the company concentrated upon investments on charities in order to depict their objectives as a company dealing with processed food on a global basis (Kellogg Company, 2011). Product Mix The product mix of Kellogg is consisted of a number of varieties of products. By category, the products of the company are consisted of baking products, beverages, cereal, cones, cookies, crackers, fruit flavored snacks, snack bars, snacks, chips and party mixes, toaster pastries, vegetarian and waffles, pancakes and syrup (Kellogg NA Company, 20 11). The various products under each of the categories are available in innumerable number of brands offered by the company. Current Financial State The financial health of the company can be considered to be stable as the company has sustained its operating profit, sales and earnings per share throughout the last five years, while investing in various profitable business opportunities. Although the operating profit of the company declined during the year 2010 from that in the year 2009 (from $2001 million to $1990 million), the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) during the past five years was 3%. Similarly, the earnings per share of the company also depicted a CAGR of 7 % (Kellogg Company, 2011). Part II: Technological Opportunities

Oil Spills And Their Affects On Our Beaches Research Paper

Oil Spills And Their Affects On Our Beaches - Research Paper Example Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA ’90), which imposed unlimited liability on proprietors and operators of ships and shore facilities who discharge oil  into surrounding waters. This Act met with much criticism, especially from energy company lobbyists, for it contained strict rules and regulations that had the potential to alter international oil trade. For example, the cost of compliance with OPA ’90 was said to be â€Å"$1.3 billion over the next 24 years, but some say the figure will be closer to $7 million by 2015.† (Oshins, 1992, p.54) This is an important statistic in the context of this essay, for it indicates the real reason behind continued instances of oil spills – namely, cost of compliance. Although the OPA ’90 was supposed to deter sub-standard safety measures, it has not fulfilled that end. This is in part due to the perceived excesses in some of its clauses. There is validity to those claims which portray OPA ’90 in negative lig ht, attacking it for the severity of punitive measures it encompasses. For example, under the OPA ’90, â€Å"in addition to removal costs, the responsible party becomes liable for consequential damages: harm to natural resources, economic loss to real or personal property, losses suffered by one who earns subsistence from natural resources, losses in tax revenues, loss to profit or earning capacity, and increased expense of public services.† (Oshins, 1992, p.54) Hence, a major drawback of the legislation is its underlying assumption that exorbitant financial compensation after the event will somewhat prompt oil companies to tighten up their transportation procedures. But this assumption has proven weak. For example, although there are some efforts by major oil companies toward making their oceanic oil transport as risk-free as possible, the frequency of spills has not reduced. The recent British Petroleum disaster is another example of the systemic failure of oil indus try and government agencies. The recent BP disaster is as much a result of human failures as it is due to technical shortcomings and inadequate planning. Even as investigations were started and all pretense of earnestness were shown by politicians, the most important reason has been ignored – namely, that deep sea drilling is inherently risky and continued use of fossil fuels are already affecting marine ecosystems through climate change. Another factor that amplifies risk of oil-spill is the generation of hydrate gas. Under a depth of 1000 feet or more beneath the sea-level hydrate gases such as methane are found in a solid state, compressed into â€Å"molecular cages of ice†. (Allen, 2010, p.12) But if they happen to get destabilized due to a reduction in pressure or rise in temperature, the â€Å"gas-water compound can quickly expand 164 times in volume. If ignited, even ice-bound hydrates burn. This could potentially block the [blowout preventer] stack, kill lines and chokes, obstruct the movement of the drill string, and cause serious operational and safety concerns including blowouts† (Allen, 2010, p.12) In the last thirty years, 165 blowouts were witnessed in U.S. marine zones and 500 worldwide. The Minerals Management Service (MMS), which is the chief government agency looking into the problem, has not taken adequate steps to mitigate this risk. Even in the BP case, the MMS was suspected of colluding with the business corporation: â€Å"

Virtual Private Network Architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Virtual Private Network Architecture - Essay Example Basically, the cloud computing platforms (virtual clouds), both private and public, offer an excellent framework for both all the organizations (small, medium and large) to host their applications (e.g. enterprise resource planning systems) by hiring resources on rent, on-demand and paying charging depending on actual usage. In this scenario, an organization’s IT services can be distributed all through the corporation’s data centers and systematically assigned resources in cloud data centers (Wood, Shenoy, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2011; Tchifilionova, 2011). Cloud computing allows enterprises to obtain as much computation and storage resources as they require, while only paying for the precise amount that they use. In this scenario, a VPN (virtual private network) is established by creating a secure communications link between two nodes by following the characteristics of a point-to-point private link. Additionally, a VPN can be employed by the organizations to smooth the process of secure remote access in the cloud, establish and maintain a secure data channel within a network or securely connect two networks together (Researcher's Blog, 2011; Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009). ... advantageous that cloud resources be flawlessly incorporated or combined with an organization’s existing architecture without the need to deal with management, handle substantial configuration, or security concerns. On the other hand, present cloud service providers provide virtual cloud servers as remote units with their own IP address space that is beyond the reach and control of the customer. In addition, this isolation of enterprise resources and clouds augments software and configuration challenges and complexity while putting into practice the services that must communicate with an enterprise’s private network. There emerge various problems when moving an organization’s information system such as enterprise resource planning systems to a virtual cloud. In this scenario, poor communication and lack of coordination between virtual cloud and network resources make the customer once more accountable for autonomously managing for bandwidth guarantees and traffic separation with a separate network service provider. Thus, in order to deal with these challenges, there is a need to improve the cloud computing architecture to flawlessly put together virtual private networks (VPNs) (Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009). In addition, the majority of business organizations are adopting incremental approach for the migration of their enterprise resource planning systems to virtual cloud. However, organizations that are planning to move their resources to virtual clouds must keep in mind that any migration, no matter it is associated with the cloud or not, engages one-time expenditures and a lot of opposition to migration for instance some of the staff members can be against the migration. In addition, there can be some cultural

International business strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

International business strategy - Essay Example In October 31, 1969, the company was incorporated as Walmart stores, Inc. Over time, Walmart stores have grown globally to 8,159 retail stores in 15 different countries (Walmartstores, 2009); and the story of globalization still continues. Cost effectiveness is the core competence of Walmart. They believe to offer best quality products on lowest possible prices and enable their customers to live better by saving money (Walmartstores, 2009). If Walmart wants to enter UK, their primary objective must be to keep up their brand name high; and for this they have to keep the essence of cost effectiveness. To foray in the UK market, Walmart can take several ways. They can go for merger with another company in UK or they can forward their leap by acquiring another retail company in UK. Setting up a new company on its own in UK seems not to be a good choice for Walmart. A new set up will not have any client base, any reputation in the UK market. Moreover Walmart will not be so familiar with the business customs. So setting up a new business and survive in a competitive environment while get accustomed to its people, culture and business customs will be quite a tough way for Walmart to get into UK market. Building a company from scratch seems to be an unnecessary and expensive way to move on. A merger means two companies coming together and forming a new company altogether and in this case the control would be evenly distributed among the owners of both the companies. If Walmart enters in UK market by merger, it needs to share its control of ownership with the other company. Now if Walmart has to hold on its uneven control, it has to go by acquiring a company or companies in UK (DePamphilis, 2008). The current economic state has been tough for the prospective buyers and at the same time has brought source of opportunities for them. During the time of recent downturn, the prices of many

Virtual Private Network Architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Virtual Private Network Architecture - Essay Example Basically, the cloud computing platforms (virtual clouds), both private and public, offer an excellent framework for both all the organizations (small, medium and large) to host their applications (e.g. enterprise resource planning systems) by hiring resources on rent, on-demand and paying charging depending on actual usage. In this scenario, an organization’s IT services can be distributed all through the corporation’s data centers and systematically assigned resources in cloud data centers (Wood, Shenoy, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2011; Tchifilionova, 2011). Cloud computing allows enterprises to obtain as much computation and storage resources as they require, while only paying for the precise amount that they use. In this scenario, a VPN (virtual private network) is established by creating a secure communications link between two nodes by following the characteristics of a point-to-point private link. Additionally, a VPN can be employed by the organizations to smooth the process of secure remote access in the cloud, establish and maintain a secure data channel within a network or securely connect two networks together (Researcher's Blog, 2011; Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009). ... advantageous that cloud resources be flawlessly incorporated or combined with an organization’s existing architecture without the need to deal with management, handle substantial configuration, or security concerns. On the other hand, present cloud service providers provide virtual cloud servers as remote units with their own IP address space that is beyond the reach and control of the customer. In addition, this isolation of enterprise resources and clouds augments software and configuration challenges and complexity while putting into practice the services that must communicate with an enterprise’s private network. There emerge various problems when moving an organization’s information system such as enterprise resource planning systems to a virtual cloud. In this scenario, poor communication and lack of coordination between virtual cloud and network resources make the customer once more accountable for autonomously managing for bandwidth guarantees and traffic separation with a separate network service provider. Thus, in order to deal with these challenges, there is a need to improve the cloud computing architecture to flawlessly put together virtual private networks (VPNs) (Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009). In addition, the majority of business organizations are adopting incremental approach for the migration of their enterprise resource planning systems to virtual cloud. However, organizations that are planning to move their resources to virtual clouds must keep in mind that any migration, no matter it is associated with the cloud or not, engages one-time expenditures and a lot of opposition to migration for instance some of the staff members can be against the migration. In addition, there can be some cultural

Renewable energy will be the most significant challenge for the oil Research Paper

Renewable energy will be the most significant challenge for the oil industry. Explain, by citing three reasons, whether you agree or disagree with this statement - Research Paper Example It is not true that renewable energy will be a challenge for the oil industry because of many factors. The renewable energy requires more infrastructure compared to the petroleum oil (Piotrowiak (2012). This process makes the consumers abandon the renewable sources of energy for oil. The price of oil usually fluctuates. It creates uncertainty in the market. The consumers are subjected to speculation. This process affects the prices of other products given that the industries rely on petroleum oil to run their plant and machinery. The petroleum oil undergoes many processes before obtaining pure oil. However, the other sources of energy like wind energy involves many processes. The transition to the use of electric cars will need an industrial transition from the old model spare parts to the manufacturing of electric vehicle spare parts. The adoption of renewable energy vehicles will require continuous monitoring and control software in order to maintain proper functioning of the vehicle. Thus renewable energy will not be a major challenge for the oil industry. The process will cause an additional cost to the owners of vehicles. According to Chan (2012), the marginal returns from the transport business will drastically reduce. Consequently, many potential investors in the transport will be sent away. The electric vehicles will also require extensive facilities for the safe transmission of electric energy to the intended destination. The transmission facilities will require extra electric energy. The cost of using this form of energy will be high. The common form of renewable component, ethanol, and gasoline are not suitable because of the high oxygen conte nt of the mixture. The high oxygen content makes the mixture unsuitable for pipeline transmission. Safe transmission is financially constraining. The additional costs make the preference of the renewable energy sources

Problems of Modern India and Swami Vivekanand Essay Example for Free

Problems of Modern India and Swami Vivekanand Essay India is one of the fastest developing countries in the world. With its diversified culture, civilization, natural resources, technology and a wealth of skilled human resources, it is also one of the fastest growing economies in the world. But at the same time there are several problems plaguing our Modern India which are affecting the growth and development of our country. Widespread corruption and terrorism are some of the main problems facing India today. Corruption is very widespread in India. It ranks 72 amongst the top most corrupt countries in the world. In India corruption takes the form of bribes, evasion of taxes, misappropriation of funds, and embezzlement amongst others. A study found that more than 50% of the Indian population had firsthand experience of paying bribes or peddling influence to get a job done in a public office. The main consequence of corruption is a loss to exchequer, an unhealthy environment for investment and an increase in cost of government services. Apart from this Corruption also leads to an unethical society. This increases the already existing gap between poor and wealthy. This may lead to unrest and destruction of modern societies. This social evil needs to be curbed so as to bring back moral values in the society as well as to fill the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. Swami Vivekananda was, above all, an honest and ethical man on a righteous path. He had a strong sense of ethics, morals and principles. One of his famous sayings is that â€Å"Unselfishness is God†. Selfishness and greed are the main causes of corruption. If we all followed in Swami Vivekananda’s footsteps and followed his teachings, we would know better than to be so selfish as to extort money from other people in the form of bribes and embezzlement. If more people followed Swami Vivekananda’s teachings and principles, we would not have so many selfish people who only think about what they want and not about the situation of the poor person whom they are forcing to pay bribes. We would not have so many greed driven people who, in spite of having more wealth than the person sitting across them, still extort and bully the other person into paying them massive bribes. If only more people followed the righteous path shown by Swami Vivekananda and put the ideals he taught to practice, the evil of corruption wouldn’t be so rampant in modern India. Terrorism today is a global issue that’s feared by almost every country in the world. But it’s a major issue in modern India owing to the basic religious differences present in India since the time of independence. Religion is the main cause behind terrorism. Terrorists commit acts of terrorism and violence in the name of protecting and promoting their religion. Pakistani militants have constantly attacked India since the Mumbai bombings of 1993 in the name of Jihad. Swami Vivekananda always preached about the importance of uniting religious beliefs for the progress of the human race. He didn’t believe in marginalizing any religion and believed every religion to be equal. He definitely was against any kind of violence especially for the preaching of religion. One of his famous sayings was â€Å"The secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and do good that is the whole of religion†. He preached about spreading religion by doing good and teaching people how to always do good unto others. Terrorists today have chosen the path of violence to spread their religious beliefs which is totally opposite to what Swami Vivekananda taught us so no wonder terrorism is such a big issue. Religious tolerance and respect for one other’s beliefs would go a long way towards helping us curb the evil of terrorism and also help humanity move forward harmoniously on the path of progress in unity. Corruption and terrorism are two of the major issues eating away at our glorious nation and hindering its progress greatly. Following in Swami Vivekananda’s footsteps and practicing the ideals and principles that he preached would help the populace of modern India be less selfish so as to consider the needs of others and less greedy so that people think twice before extorting and bullying some poor guy for their money. It would also increase religious tolerance amongst people so that terrorism is curbed and modern India can progress without such hindrances.

Benefits of Financial Liberalisation

Benefits of Financial Liberalisation A EUROPEAN POLICY ABSTRACT: This paper extends to test if the short and in the long run. Weak indica- the same short-run increase in cyclical tions are found that this may happen par- volatility arising from financial integration tially due to the anchoring of expectations is observed in this specific sample of â€Å"emerg-provided by the EU Accession, and to the ing markets. This work finds signs that, more robust institutional framework contrary to other emerging markets, this imposed by this process onto the countries in does not happen: for the future Member question. States, financial integration, similarly to the KEY WORDS: Enlargement, European outcome observed in mature market Union, financial liberalization, booms, 81 economies, reduces cyclical volatility both in busts, cycles, volatility. 1. INTRODUCTION Financial and capital flows liberalization can play a fundamental role in increasing growth and welfare. Typically, emerging or developing economies seek foreign savings to solve the inter-temporal savings-investment problem. On the other hand, current account surplus countries seek opportunities to invest their savings. To the extent that capital flows from surplus to deficit countries are well intermediated and, therefore, put to the most productive use, they increase welfare. Liberalization can, however, also be dangerous, as has been witnessed in many past and recent financial, currency and banking crises. It can make countries more vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In particular, if serious macroeconomic imbalances exist in a recipient country, and if the financial sector is weak, be it in terms of risk management, prudential regulation and supervision, large capital flows can easily lead to serious financial, banking or currency crises. A number of recent crises, like those in Ea st Asia, Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Turkey (described, for example, in IMF (2001)), and, to some extent, the Argentinean episode of late 2001, early 2002, have demonstrated the potential risks associated with financial and capital flows liberalization. Central and Eastern Europe has a somewhat different experience, when compared to other emerging regions, concerning the financial liberalization process, as the process there seems to have been much less crisis-prone than in, for instance, Asia or Latin America. This maybe, at least partially, because the current high degree of external and financial liberalization in the Central Eastern European countries (CEECs), beyond questions of economic allocative efficiency, must be understood in terms of the process of Accession to the European Union. The EU integration process implies legally binding, sweeping liberalization measures-not only capital account liberalization, but investment by EU firms in the domestic financial services, and the maintenance of a competitive domestic environment, giving this financial liberalization process strong external incentives (and constraints). Those measures were implemented parallel to the development of a highly sophisticated regulatory and supervis ory structure, again based on EU standards. This whole process happened also with the EUs technical and financial support, through specific programs-like the PHARE one, for these so-called Accession, and the TACIS, for the former Soviet Union ones- and direct assistance from EU institutions, like the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (also, on a very early stage of the transition process, the influence of the IMF in setting up policies and institutions in several countries in the region-an intervention widely considered to haven been successful-was important: see Hallerberg et al., 2002). Additionally, EU membership seems to act as an anchor to market expectations (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001), limiting the possibilities of self- fulfilling financial crises and regional contagion (see Linne, 1999), which had the observed devastating effects in both Asia and Latin America (even a major event, like the Russian collapse of 1998, had very reduced regional side effects). Several regional episodes of financial systems instability did happen (see Vinhas de Souza, 2002(a) and Vinhas de Souza, 2002(b)), but none with the prolonged negative consequences observed in other region (which was also due to the effective national policy actions undertaken after those episodes). This studys main aim is to expand the Kaminsky and Schmukler database (see Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003), from now on indicated as KS, to include the Accession and Acceding Countries from Eastern Europe (namely, for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia). In their original work, KS build an extensive database of external and financial liberalization, which includes both developed countries and countries from emerging regions (but not from Eastern Europe). With that, they create different indexes of liberalization (capital account, banking and stock markets: see Table I below) and using them individually and in an aggregate fashion, test for the effects and causality of this process on financial and real volatility, for the existence of differences between regions, and for the effects of the ordering of the liberalization process. One underlying hypotheses of this work is that the existing regulatory and institutional framework in Eastern Europe, plus a more sustainable set of macro policies, played an important role in enabling liberalization to largely deliver the welfare enhancing outcomes that it is supposed to. Such an â€Å"anchoring role of the European Union in the CEECs, through the process of EU membership, and through the effective imposition of international standards of financial supervision and regulation, may indicate that, beyond multilateral organizations like the IMF or the OECD, a greater, pro-active regional stabilizing role in emerging markets by regional actors, for instance, the United States, or by some regional sub-grouping, like Mercosur, may also be welfare enhancing for other â€Å"emerging regions. 2. CAPITAL ACCOUNT The achieving of capital account liberalization happened rather swiftly in most of the countries in our sample: by the mid 1990s, all bar Bulgaria and Romania had been declared Article VIII compliant (for those two countries, this happened in 1998: see Table II below). One of the main driving forces behind this was the process of European Integration, for which external liberalization is a pre-requisite: in the early to mid-1990s, all the countries had signed Association Agreements with the European Union (frequently preceded by trade liberalization agreements with the EU, also called â€Å"Europe trade agreements, usually with years given to the countries to prepare for their full implementation) and formally applied for EU membership. Another additional factor supporting liberalization was IMF and OECD membership: four of the larger countries in our sample became OECD members during the second half of the 1990s. Another factor to be considered, is the endogenous decision process to liberalize in a sustainable fashion. 3. BANKING SECTOR Financial integration, in the form of the opening up the banking sector to foreign banks, is seen as being positive, on a micro level, as foreign banks are usually better capitalized and more efficient than their domestic counterparts (of course, the domestic banking sector eventually catches-up: for an indication of this process at the ACs, see, among others, Tomova et al., 2003). Also from a macroeconomic perspective, financial integration maybe positive for the Eastern European countries, both for long run growth and, as there are indications that foreign banks do not contract either their credit supply nor their deposit base, in helping to smooth the cycle (see de Haas and Lelyveld, 2003: they find some indication that this is linked to the better capitalization base and prudential ratios, as better capitalized domestic banks behave similarly to foreign banks). Given the bank-centered nature of virtually all the financial systems of the future Member States, this is particularly important for them. In most of the member states, the initial stage of the creation of the two-tier banking system, modeled on the Western European â€Å"universal bank system, was characterized by rather liberal licensing practices and limited supervision policies (aimed at the fast creation of a de novo commercial, private banking sector: see Fleming et al., 1996, Balyozov, 1999, Enoch et al., 2002, Sà ¶rg et al., 2003). This caused a mushrooming of new banks in those countries in the early 1990s. Parallel to this, a series of banking crises, of varied proportions, affected most of those de novo banking systems, due to this lax institutional framework, inherited fragilities from the command economy period (the political need to support state-owned, inefficient industries, with the consequent accumulation of bad loans and also the financing of budget deficits), macroeconomic instability, risky expansion and investment strategies and also sheer inexperience, both from the investor s and from regulators. Progressively, the re-capitalization, privatization and internationalization of the banking system (mostly into the hands of EU financial conglomerates), coupled with the implementation of a more robust, EU-modeled institutional framework, did away with most of those problems. Two of the worst cases where the set of Baltic banking crises and the Bulgarian episode, which are described in more detail below. Other smaller banking crises happened in Estonia in 1994 and 1998, and in Latvia in 1994. Caprio and Klingebiel, 2003, report smaller episodes of â€Å"financial sector distress in the Czech Republic (94-95), Hungary (93), Poland (91-93), Romania (98-00), Slovakia (97) and Slovenia (92-94). The initial proliferation of banks was, quite naturally, followed by a process of consolidation and strengthening-parallel to the privatization of the remnant state-owned components of the financial system- of the banking sector in most of those economies (in Bulgaria, from 81 banks in 1992 to 35 in 2001, in the Czech Republic from 55 in 1995 to 38 in 2001, Estonia, from 42 in 1992 to 7 currently, while Hungary had 33 banks in 2002, showing only a very slight decrease from the early 1990s, Latvia from 56 in 1994 to 23, Lithuania from 27 in 1993 to 13, in Poland from 8 1 in 1995 to 71 in 2001, in Romania from 45 in 1998 to 41 in 2001, in Slovakia from 22 in 2000 to 19 in 2001, and in Slovenia, where the number fell from 25 to 21 during 2001 alone). This consolidation process was frequently led by foreign companies, which now hold the majority of the assets of the banking system in virtually all of them-contrary to the situation in the current EU Member States-bar Slovenia. This process now has a component of regional expansion of the Eastern European banks themselves, or, more precisely in most cases, the regional expansion of Western banks via some of their locally-owned subsidiaries (see Sà ¶rg et al., 2003, ibid). The share of banking assets to GDP, nevertheless, is still far below the Euro area average (which stood at around 265% of GDP by end 2001), compared with 47% in Bulgaria, 136% in the Czech Republic, 72% in Estonia and Latvia, 32% in Lithuania, 63% in Poland, 60% in Hungary, 30% in Romania, 96% in Slovakia and 94% in Slovenia (data also for 2001). Another peculiar feature of the banking system in the region is that foreign currency lending -usually euro-denominated-to residents is very high, especially in the Balti c republics: with 80% of total loans in Estonia, 56% in Latvia and 61% in Lithuania. Also, the Baltic countries have substantial shares of deposits by non-residents, with over 10% in Estonia and Lithuania and close to 5% in Latvia (Latvia, with its close trading ties to Russia, has a particular strategy of selling itself as a stable financial services center to CIS depositors: see IMF, 2003(b), ibid). The supervision system has also substantially improved, and, following recent international-and EU- best practice, is now centered in independent universal supervisory agencies in the most advanced of those countries (Reininger et al., 2002, ibid., estimate that the formal regulatory environment for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is actually above the EU, and that its actual enforcement level is at its average;Liive, 2003, gives a description of the Estonian experience that culminated in the creation of the EFSA -Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority- in January 2002). 3.1 BANKING CRISES IN EASTERN EUROPE The Baltic bank crises were, to different degrees, linked to liquidity difficulties related tolerations with Russia (in the November 1992 Estonian case, by the freezing of assets held by some Estonian banks in their former Moscow headquarters, while the Latvian and Lithuanian episodes of, respectively, March and December 1995, were caused by the drying-up of lucrative trade-financing opportunities with Russia, whose export commodities, at that time, were still below world price levels) and regulatory tightening (Latvia, Lithuania), compounded by the elimination of credit opportunities with the implementation of the Estonian and Lithuanian CBAs (Currency Board Arrangements). In Lithuania, as in Bulgaria, the financing of the budget deficit also played a role. In the Estonian and Latvian cases, around 40% of the assets of the banking system where compromised, in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian cases, around a third. The Bulgarian 1996-1997 crisis eliminated a third of its banking sector, and led the country to hyperinflation (reaching over 2000% in March 1997, see Yotzov, 2002). Its roots lie in the political instability that preceded it (which, on its turn, led to inadequate real sector reform, with state-owned, loss making enterprises being financed via the budget deficit or through arrears with the, at the time, still mostly state-owned part banking sector: those arrears were, in turn, partially monetized by the Bulgarian National Bank -BNB- and the largest state bank, the State Savings Bank -SSB). Periodic foreign exchange crises (March 1994, February 1997) and bank runs (late1995, late 1996, early 1997) were part of this picture. The implementation of tighter supervisory procedures during 1996 (giving the BNB the power to close insolvent banks), and a tightening of policy actually led to more bank runs. A caretaker government in February 1997 (before a newly elected government took power in May) paved the way to longer lasting reform and the implementation of t he CBA, with its tighter budget constraints towards both the government and the banking sector. This reform process happened with the support from multilateral institutionsamely, (namely the IMF). 4. STOCK MARKETS The existence of stock markets is assumed to be beneficial for economic performance. In principle, it provides a way for companies to raise capital at lower costs than through simple banking intermediation, and because it is not as restricted a source of capital as internal financing. Also, it is assumed that the existence of alternative modes of finance may reduce the likelihood of credit crunches caused by problems with the banking sector (see Greenspan, 2000). Additionally, the existence of external ownership is (or was, given the recent problems with market-based governance in the US and the EU, and the shift towards a more regulated environment) assumed to provide better governance for the management of firms. The majority of economic analyses seem to support the position that a diversified financing mix is positive for economic growth and stability. As described in the previous section, all the financial sectors in the Member States are bank-centered, with stock markets playing marginal roles in most of them (and, in some, a very marginal role: in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, their average market capitalization in GDP terms is below 5%: see Figure I below). All of these countries had (re-)established stock markets by the mid-90s (see Table III above). About half of the future Member States used them to drive the initial process of re-privatization, either via mass issues of voucher certificates for residents (the most famous case of this strategy was the Czech Republic), or via IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) re-privatization processes, to lock-in domestic and foreign strategic investors (see Claessens at al., 2000). In the voucher-driven privatization, the initial large number of investors and traded stocks in those stock markets was soon concentrated in a rather limited number of institutional investors-domestic and foreign- and â€Å"blue chip stocks. In the IPO-driven markets, the number of stocks and investors actually tended to increase with time, albeit from a rather concentrated base. Even in the largest ones, nevertheless, market capitalization, as a GDP share, was and remains rather low (see Figure I below), and far below the EU average (around 72% of GDP). Only in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia the average market capitalization is above a 20% GDP share, while in Romania is below 1% in several years. Also, the average market turnover is equally below the one observed in comparable EU economies. Similarly to what is observed in the banking sector, the initial regulatory environment was deliberately lax, and the regulators were plagued by much the same problems of inexperience and limited number of staff and resources. This does not mean that domestic agents in those countries lack access to the financial services supposed to be provided by stock markets: the very process of opening up, the increase in cross-border trade in financial services, the harmonization of rules for capital trading with the EU (including the ongoing efforts of the Lamfalussy Committee towards a single European market for securities: according to the current proposal, small and medium size firms would be able to use a simplified prospectus valid throughout the EU and choose the country of its approval), plus the development of information technology, all imply that is not actually necessary-nor economically optimal, given economies of scale-for each individual country to have its own separate stock market. One must also recall that the current national stock markets in the mature developed economies are themselves the result of process of consolidation-and closing-of smaller regional stock markets (as was observed in Bulgari a in the early 1990s), which still today coexist with larger, dominant national stock exchanges even in some mature markets, like Germany and the US. Nevertheless, the observed tendency of domestic larger companies, with presumed better growth prospects, to list abroad (see Table IV below), due to the obvious cost and liquidity advantages of the larger international stock markets, does seems, on balance, to deprive those stock markets of liquidity (see Claessens at al., 2003). On the other hand, nonresidents seem to play a major role in most of those markets (accounting for 77% of the capitalization in Estonia, 70% in Hungary and half of the free-float capitalization in Lithuania). All the specific questions described above concerning the way those stock exchanges were founded and their later developments, plus their relative smallness and shallowness, affect the dynamics of their stock market indexes (SMI), and are clearly reflected by them (as one may see in Figure II, below). This, coupled with the rather limited duration of the series, may affect their adequacy as proxies of financial cycles. Source: Datastream, modified by the authors. The price indexes here were converted to US Dollars and re-based to a common reference period were they equal 100, May of 1998. The country codings are as described in the Annexes. 5. ESTIMATED INDEXES The construction of the index for this new sample of countries was the core of this work. A comprehensive effort was done to crosscheck the information collected from papers and publications with national sources. Below we present the estimated monthly index, for the period January 1990 to June 2003 (see Figure III). The base data for its construction was collected from IMF and EBRD publications, and then exhaustively verified both with national sources and with works written about the individual countries and the region. This is an index that falls with liberalization, where maximum liberalization equals one and minimum three (in this sense, one could actually see it as an index of financial repression). As an additional robustness check, the year-end value of the index here constructed was regressed on the combined EBRDs yearly indexes of banking sector reform and non-banking financial sector reform. The results from a panel regression with the index constructed here on the LHS and the EBRD index on the RHS yield a coefficient of .60, and correlations among the individual country- specific index series range from -0.91 to -0.35. As one may see from Figure III above, the process of integration and liberalization was almost continuous throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The spikes in the â€Å"Full Liberalization Index in the early 1990s do not indicate reversals: the merely reflect the entry into the sample of the newly independent Baltic republics. As former members of the Soviet Union, they â€Å"enter the world as highly closed economies, but those countries introduced liberalization reforms almost immediately from the start. After this, a slight increasing trend, that does reflect a mild liberalization reversal, is observed, starting mid-1994 and lasting until early 1997, from when a continuous liberalization trend is observed. Noteworthy here is the fact that virtually none of the obvious candidates for a reversal of liberalization (the 1997 Asian Crisis, the collapse of the Czech monetary arrangement in 1997, the collapse of the Bulgarian monetary arrangement in 1996/97, the 1998 Russian Crisis, the 1999-2001 oil price shocks-as all those economies are highly dependent of imported energy sources) seems to have driven these mild liberalization reversals. Comparing the Full Index constructed here with the one constructed by KS, for similar time samples, one may observe that the ACs start substantially below the average level of other emerging markets- i.e., they are more liberalized, but both the â€Å"entry of the initially less liberalized former Soviet republics, plus continuous liberalization efforts in the emerging market KS set reverse this situation. A similar liberalization reversal trend in both the ACs and the merging market set is observed from early 1994, but it is actually slightly stronger on the ACs sample, until its reversal in 1996. By the end of our sample, the ACs are clearly below the final value for the emerging set in KSs sample. This sort of remarkably fast pattern of the ACs â€Å"leapfroging towards best international practice is also observed in several types of institutional frameworks, like, for instance, monetary policy institutions and instruments (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001): a process that virtually took decades for Western central banks was compressed in a half a dozen years in the Future Member States. Nevertheless, by the end of the sample, both emerging and ACs are still above the level of mature, developed economies. Analyzing the individual components of the index (see Figure V), one may see that, abstracting again from the initial spikes in the index, which are, as explained above, caused by the addition of new countries to the sample, the 1994/1997 reversal of liberalization was essentially driven by the Financial Sector liberal ization component. As will become clear with the country specific analysis below, this was related, in most cases, to-and here it must be stressed that those were rather limited reversals-to the banking crises that plagued several countries in our sample in the early to mid 1990s. Comparing now the individual components of the Full Index constructed here with the ones from KS, again for emerging and mature economies, it becomes clear that the reversals observed in Figure IV were driven by different sources in the emerging set (increase in capital account restrictions) and ACs set (financial sector): see Figure VI. All the indexes for mature economies are, again as one would expect, substantially lower. One could, in principle, aggregate the countries in our sample in three different groups: rapid liberalizers (the ones that followed a â€Å"big bang early approach, without major reversals: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), consistent liberalizers (the ones that followed a more delayed path, but also without major roll backs: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) and cautious liberalizers (the ones whose liberalization path was either openly inconsistent or downright mistrustful: Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). 5.1 COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY LIBERALIZATION PATH. In Bulgaria, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the substantial stress experienced by the country during the banks runs of 1996/97 and the ultimate collapse of the floating regime in 1997 (beyond ad hoc restrictive measures adopted by the banks themselves). As in most of the countries in my sample, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but does so in a faster fashion. Nevertheless, this is in most cases a data quasi-artifact that arises from the later (re-)constitution of the stock exchange itself. In the Czech Republic, a limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from late1995 to late 1997, namely, via the imposition of limits on banks short-term open positions towards on-residents, as a way to limit the exposure of the financial sector to the inflows brought about by the hard peg and the potential gains with interest rate differentials. After the peg was replaced by the current float regime, this restriction i s duly removed. In Estonia, again, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the bank runs of the early 1990s, the unwinding of the 1997 bubble, nor during the 1998 Russian crisis. Again, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but one more time, this arises from the later constitution of the stock exchange. In Hungary, also no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Hungary was an early reformer, introducing some liberalization measures already during the late 1980s, but the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time, as compared, for instance, with the Baltic countries. In Latvia, a rather limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from mid 1996all the way to early 2003: resulting from the 1996 banking crisis, specific aggregate lending limits to regions (i.e., limits on exposure to non-OECD countries, bar the other Baltic republics) are imposed. In Lithuania, a limited reversal of the f inancial sector liberalization is observed from early 1998, also resulting from the experienced banking crisis: reserve requirements on deposits on foreign accounts by non-resident are introduced; In Poland, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Similarly to Hungary, the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time; In Romania, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed, but the reform path is a decidedly slow and cautious one: at the end of the sample, it has the highest (i.e., less liberalized) score for the â€Å"Full Index of all countries in the sample: 1.60 (see Table V). In Slovakia, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Here, the reform path is characterized by a broad stagnation since the Czechoslovak partition till 1998/1999, when, after a change in the political leadership, reforms are re-started, reaching after that levels similar to the other â€Å"Vise grad countries in a rather quick fashion. In Slovenia, one of the most consistently cautious Member States concerning the advantages of integration and liberalization, reversals are indeed observed in all three indexes, since early 1995in the capital account and financial sector components, and from early 1997 in the stock market one. Since early 1999, with the entry in effect of the EU Association Agreement, across-the-board further (re)liberalization measures have been introduced. 6. FINANCIAL CYCLES AND LIBERALIZATION The financial cycle coding which is used by KS defines cycles as a at least twelve month-long strictly downwards (upwards) movement, followed by a equally upwards (downwards) 12-month movement from the through (peak) of a stock market index, measured in USD, as they should reflect returns from the point of view of an international investor. As described in the stock market section of this work, one must be warned that there are specific factors in the countries in our sample that may affect the effectiveness of a stock market index as an adequate proxy of financial cycles, at least for the sample here considered. Beyond that, these series have a rather limited time extension (our sample covers the 01:1990-06:2003 period). Adapting KS criteria to the limited time dimension of our sample, we use a less stringent definition of â€Å"cycle, the same algorithm as above but with a 3-month window for the cycle (Edwards et al., 2003, use a 6-month window). With this we get 118 observations for all countries in our sample. Of these 118 cycles, 61 are upward, with an average of 7.51 months duration, and 57 are downward, with an average of 8.20 months of duration. 7. CONCLUSION The main aim of this paper was to extend the index developed by Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003, for a specific sample of countries, namely, the previously centrally planned economies from Central and Eastern Europe, and to perform a similar analysis on them. Our results do lend some support to the basic assumption of this study: in spite of all the limitations of the time series used (their shortness, the fact that they were buffeted by several country-specific and common shocks), a re-estimation of KSs core regressions strongly supports the notion that financial liberalization does generate benefits both in the short and in the long run, measured via the extension of the amplitude of upward cycles and its reduction for downward cycles of stock market indexes. Importantly, these results diverge from KS, as in their work â€Å"emerging markets experience a relative short run increase in the amplitude of downward cycles. Another noteworthy feature is that only minor liberalization rever sals, led by the financial sector component, were observed in the aggregate index. Also, those reversals do not seem to be driven by â€Å"contagion from shocks in other emerging markets (like the Asian or Russian crisis), but reflect country-specific shocks. When considering the individual components of the index separately, again signs of minor reversals in financial sector liberalization are observed, related to temporary reactions to the several banking crisis observed in the region. Concerning the importance of institutions and of the EU Accession, this papers initial assumption was that the mostly positive results above would come about due to the anchoring of expectation provided by the perspective of entry into the EU already by mid-2004 (or 2007, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania) for the countries here analyzed, and by the imposition of a more robust macro and institutional framework by the requirements of the Accession process itself. Signs of this are not found in the KS regressions, perhaps because the liberalization index itself captures the effects of the EU Accession process. Finally, using a different framework than KSs to assess the affects of liberalization on financial, real and nominal volatility, most of the econometric results seem to support the previous ones, but they seem to indicate that the capital account liberalization is the element that most consistently and significantly reduces volatility. On this final section, the majority the econometric results seem to support some specific role for the EU Enlargement process in reducing volatility. Benefits of Financial Liberalisation Benefits of Financial Liberalisation A EUROPEAN POLICY ABSTRACT: This paper extends to test if the short and in the long run. Weak indica- the same short-run increase in cyclical tions are found that this may happen par- volatility arising from financial integration tially due to the anchoring of expectations is observed in this specific sample of â€Å"emerg-provided by the EU Accession, and to the ing markets. This work finds signs that, more robust institutional framework contrary to other emerging markets, this imposed by this process onto the countries in does not happen: for the future Member question. States, financial integration, similarly to the KEY WORDS: Enlargement, European outcome observed in mature market Union, financial liberalization, booms, 81 economies, reduces cyclical volatility both in busts, cycles, volatility. 1. INTRODUCTION Financial and capital flows liberalization can play a fundamental role in increasing growth and welfare. Typically, emerging or developing economies seek foreign savings to solve the inter-temporal savings-investment problem. On the other hand, current account surplus countries seek opportunities to invest their savings. To the extent that capital flows from surplus to deficit countries are well intermediated and, therefore, put to the most productive use, they increase welfare. Liberalization can, however, also be dangerous, as has been witnessed in many past and recent financial, currency and banking crises. It can make countries more vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In particular, if serious macroeconomic imbalances exist in a recipient country, and if the financial sector is weak, be it in terms of risk management, prudential regulation and supervision, large capital flows can easily lead to serious financial, banking or currency crises. A number of recent crises, like those in Ea st Asia, Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Turkey (described, for example, in IMF (2001)), and, to some extent, the Argentinean episode of late 2001, early 2002, have demonstrated the potential risks associated with financial and capital flows liberalization. Central and Eastern Europe has a somewhat different experience, when compared to other emerging regions, concerning the financial liberalization process, as the process there seems to have been much less crisis-prone than in, for instance, Asia or Latin America. This maybe, at least partially, because the current high degree of external and financial liberalization in the Central Eastern European countries (CEECs), beyond questions of economic allocative efficiency, must be understood in terms of the process of Accession to the European Union. The EU integration process implies legally binding, sweeping liberalization measures-not only capital account liberalization, but investment by EU firms in the domestic financial services, and the maintenance of a competitive domestic environment, giving this financial liberalization process strong external incentives (and constraints). Those measures were implemented parallel to the development of a highly sophisticated regulatory and supervis ory structure, again based on EU standards. This whole process happened also with the EUs technical and financial support, through specific programs-like the PHARE one, for these so-called Accession, and the TACIS, for the former Soviet Union ones- and direct assistance from EU institutions, like the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (also, on a very early stage of the transition process, the influence of the IMF in setting up policies and institutions in several countries in the region-an intervention widely considered to haven been successful-was important: see Hallerberg et al., 2002). Additionally, EU membership seems to act as an anchor to market expectations (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001), limiting the possibilities of self- fulfilling financial crises and regional contagion (see Linne, 1999), which had the observed devastating effects in both Asia and Latin America (even a major event, like the Russian collapse of 1998, had very reduced regional side effects). Several regional episodes of financial systems instability did happen (see Vinhas de Souza, 2002(a) and Vinhas de Souza, 2002(b)), but none with the prolonged negative consequences observed in other region (which was also due to the effective national policy actions undertaken after those episodes). This studys main aim is to expand the Kaminsky and Schmukler database (see Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003), from now on indicated as KS, to include the Accession and Acceding Countries from Eastern Europe (namely, for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia). In their original work, KS build an extensive database of external and financial liberalization, which includes both developed countries and countries from emerging regions (but not from Eastern Europe). With that, they create different indexes of liberalization (capital account, banking and stock markets: see Table I below) and using them individually and in an aggregate fashion, test for the effects and causality of this process on financial and real volatility, for the existence of differences between regions, and for the effects of the ordering of the liberalization process. One underlying hypotheses of this work is that the existing regulatory and institutional framework in Eastern Europe, plus a more sustainable set of macro policies, played an important role in enabling liberalization to largely deliver the welfare enhancing outcomes that it is supposed to. Such an â€Å"anchoring role of the European Union in the CEECs, through the process of EU membership, and through the effective imposition of international standards of financial supervision and regulation, may indicate that, beyond multilateral organizations like the IMF or the OECD, a greater, pro-active regional stabilizing role in emerging markets by regional actors, for instance, the United States, or by some regional sub-grouping, like Mercosur, may also be welfare enhancing for other â€Å"emerging regions. 2. CAPITAL ACCOUNT The achieving of capital account liberalization happened rather swiftly in most of the countries in our sample: by the mid 1990s, all bar Bulgaria and Romania had been declared Article VIII compliant (for those two countries, this happened in 1998: see Table II below). One of the main driving forces behind this was the process of European Integration, for which external liberalization is a pre-requisite: in the early to mid-1990s, all the countries had signed Association Agreements with the European Union (frequently preceded by trade liberalization agreements with the EU, also called â€Å"Europe trade agreements, usually with years given to the countries to prepare for their full implementation) and formally applied for EU membership. Another additional factor supporting liberalization was IMF and OECD membership: four of the larger countries in our sample became OECD members during the second half of the 1990s. Another factor to be considered, is the endogenous decision process to liberalize in a sustainable fashion. 3. BANKING SECTOR Financial integration, in the form of the opening up the banking sector to foreign banks, is seen as being positive, on a micro level, as foreign banks are usually better capitalized and more efficient than their domestic counterparts (of course, the domestic banking sector eventually catches-up: for an indication of this process at the ACs, see, among others, Tomova et al., 2003). Also from a macroeconomic perspective, financial integration maybe positive for the Eastern European countries, both for long run growth and, as there are indications that foreign banks do not contract either their credit supply nor their deposit base, in helping to smooth the cycle (see de Haas and Lelyveld, 2003: they find some indication that this is linked to the better capitalization base and prudential ratios, as better capitalized domestic banks behave similarly to foreign banks). Given the bank-centered nature of virtually all the financial systems of the future Member States, this is particularly important for them. In most of the member states, the initial stage of the creation of the two-tier banking system, modeled on the Western European â€Å"universal bank system, was characterized by rather liberal licensing practices and limited supervision policies (aimed at the fast creation of a de novo commercial, private banking sector: see Fleming et al., 1996, Balyozov, 1999, Enoch et al., 2002, Sà ¶rg et al., 2003). This caused a mushrooming of new banks in those countries in the early 1990s. Parallel to this, a series of banking crises, of varied proportions, affected most of those de novo banking systems, due to this lax institutional framework, inherited fragilities from the command economy period (the political need to support state-owned, inefficient industries, with the consequent accumulation of bad loans and also the financing of budget deficits), macroeconomic instability, risky expansion and investment strategies and also sheer inexperience, both from the investor s and from regulators. Progressively, the re-capitalization, privatization and internationalization of the banking system (mostly into the hands of EU financial conglomerates), coupled with the implementation of a more robust, EU-modeled institutional framework, did away with most of those problems. Two of the worst cases where the set of Baltic banking crises and the Bulgarian episode, which are described in more detail below. Other smaller banking crises happened in Estonia in 1994 and 1998, and in Latvia in 1994. Caprio and Klingebiel, 2003, report smaller episodes of â€Å"financial sector distress in the Czech Republic (94-95), Hungary (93), Poland (91-93), Romania (98-00), Slovakia (97) and Slovenia (92-94). The initial proliferation of banks was, quite naturally, followed by a process of consolidation and strengthening-parallel to the privatization of the remnant state-owned components of the financial system- of the banking sector in most of those economies (in Bulgaria, from 81 banks in 1992 to 35 in 2001, in the Czech Republic from 55 in 1995 to 38 in 2001, Estonia, from 42 in 1992 to 7 currently, while Hungary had 33 banks in 2002, showing only a very slight decrease from the early 1990s, Latvia from 56 in 1994 to 23, Lithuania from 27 in 1993 to 13, in Poland from 8 1 in 1995 to 71 in 2001, in Romania from 45 in 1998 to 41 in 2001, in Slovakia from 22 in 2000 to 19 in 2001, and in Slovenia, where the number fell from 25 to 21 during 2001 alone). This consolidation process was frequently led by foreign companies, which now hold the majority of the assets of the banking system in virtually all of them-contrary to the situation in the current EU Member States-bar Slovenia. This process now has a component of regional expansion of the Eastern European banks themselves, or, more precisely in most cases, the regional expansion of Western banks via some of their locally-owned subsidiaries (see Sà ¶rg et al., 2003, ibid). The share of banking assets to GDP, nevertheless, is still far below the Euro area average (which stood at around 265% of GDP by end 2001), compared with 47% in Bulgaria, 136% in the Czech Republic, 72% in Estonia and Latvia, 32% in Lithuania, 63% in Poland, 60% in Hungary, 30% in Romania, 96% in Slovakia and 94% in Slovenia (data also for 2001). Another peculiar feature of the banking system in the region is that foreign currency lending -usually euro-denominated-to residents is very high, especially in the Balti c republics: with 80% of total loans in Estonia, 56% in Latvia and 61% in Lithuania. Also, the Baltic countries have substantial shares of deposits by non-residents, with over 10% in Estonia and Lithuania and close to 5% in Latvia (Latvia, with its close trading ties to Russia, has a particular strategy of selling itself as a stable financial services center to CIS depositors: see IMF, 2003(b), ibid). The supervision system has also substantially improved, and, following recent international-and EU- best practice, is now centered in independent universal supervisory agencies in the most advanced of those countries (Reininger et al., 2002, ibid., estimate that the formal regulatory environment for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is actually above the EU, and that its actual enforcement level is at its average;Liive, 2003, gives a description of the Estonian experience that culminated in the creation of the EFSA -Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority- in January 2002). 3.1 BANKING CRISES IN EASTERN EUROPE The Baltic bank crises were, to different degrees, linked to liquidity difficulties related tolerations with Russia (in the November 1992 Estonian case, by the freezing of assets held by some Estonian banks in their former Moscow headquarters, while the Latvian and Lithuanian episodes of, respectively, March and December 1995, were caused by the drying-up of lucrative trade-financing opportunities with Russia, whose export commodities, at that time, were still below world price levels) and regulatory tightening (Latvia, Lithuania), compounded by the elimination of credit opportunities with the implementation of the Estonian and Lithuanian CBAs (Currency Board Arrangements). In Lithuania, as in Bulgaria, the financing of the budget deficit also played a role. In the Estonian and Latvian cases, around 40% of the assets of the banking system where compromised, in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian cases, around a third. The Bulgarian 1996-1997 crisis eliminated a third of its banking sector, and led the country to hyperinflation (reaching over 2000% in March 1997, see Yotzov, 2002). Its roots lie in the political instability that preceded it (which, on its turn, led to inadequate real sector reform, with state-owned, loss making enterprises being financed via the budget deficit or through arrears with the, at the time, still mostly state-owned part banking sector: those arrears were, in turn, partially monetized by the Bulgarian National Bank -BNB- and the largest state bank, the State Savings Bank -SSB). Periodic foreign exchange crises (March 1994, February 1997) and bank runs (late1995, late 1996, early 1997) were part of this picture. The implementation of tighter supervisory procedures during 1996 (giving the BNB the power to close insolvent banks), and a tightening of policy actually led to more bank runs. A caretaker government in February 1997 (before a newly elected government took power in May) paved the way to longer lasting reform and the implementation of t he CBA, with its tighter budget constraints towards both the government and the banking sector. This reform process happened with the support from multilateral institutionsamely, (namely the IMF). 4. STOCK MARKETS The existence of stock markets is assumed to be beneficial for economic performance. In principle, it provides a way for companies to raise capital at lower costs than through simple banking intermediation, and because it is not as restricted a source of capital as internal financing. Also, it is assumed that the existence of alternative modes of finance may reduce the likelihood of credit crunches caused by problems with the banking sector (see Greenspan, 2000). Additionally, the existence of external ownership is (or was, given the recent problems with market-based governance in the US and the EU, and the shift towards a more regulated environment) assumed to provide better governance for the management of firms. The majority of economic analyses seem to support the position that a diversified financing mix is positive for economic growth and stability. As described in the previous section, all the financial sectors in the Member States are bank-centered, with stock markets playing marginal roles in most of them (and, in some, a very marginal role: in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, their average market capitalization in GDP terms is below 5%: see Figure I below). All of these countries had (re-)established stock markets by the mid-90s (see Table III above). About half of the future Member States used them to drive the initial process of re-privatization, either via mass issues of voucher certificates for residents (the most famous case of this strategy was the Czech Republic), or via IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) re-privatization processes, to lock-in domestic and foreign strategic investors (see Claessens at al., 2000). In the voucher-driven privatization, the initial large number of investors and traded stocks in those stock markets was soon concentrated in a rather limited number of institutional investors-domestic and foreign- and â€Å"blue chip stocks. In the IPO-driven markets, the number of stocks and investors actually tended to increase with time, albeit from a rather concentrated base. Even in the largest ones, nevertheless, market capitalization, as a GDP share, was and remains rather low (see Figure I below), and far below the EU average (around 72% of GDP). Only in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia the average market capitalization is above a 20% GDP share, while in Romania is below 1% in several years. Also, the average market turnover is equally below the one observed in comparable EU economies. Similarly to what is observed in the banking sector, the initial regulatory environment was deliberately lax, and the regulators were plagued by much the same problems of inexperience and limited number of staff and resources. This does not mean that domestic agents in those countries lack access to the financial services supposed to be provided by stock markets: the very process of opening up, the increase in cross-border trade in financial services, the harmonization of rules for capital trading with the EU (including the ongoing efforts of the Lamfalussy Committee towards a single European market for securities: according to the current proposal, small and medium size firms would be able to use a simplified prospectus valid throughout the EU and choose the country of its approval), plus the development of information technology, all imply that is not actually necessary-nor economically optimal, given economies of scale-for each individual country to have its own separate stock market. One must also recall that the current national stock markets in the mature developed economies are themselves the result of process of consolidation-and closing-of smaller regional stock markets (as was observed in Bulgari a in the early 1990s), which still today coexist with larger, dominant national stock exchanges even in some mature markets, like Germany and the US. Nevertheless, the observed tendency of domestic larger companies, with presumed better growth prospects, to list abroad (see Table IV below), due to the obvious cost and liquidity advantages of the larger international stock markets, does seems, on balance, to deprive those stock markets of liquidity (see Claessens at al., 2003). On the other hand, nonresidents seem to play a major role in most of those markets (accounting for 77% of the capitalization in Estonia, 70% in Hungary and half of the free-float capitalization in Lithuania). All the specific questions described above concerning the way those stock exchanges were founded and their later developments, plus their relative smallness and shallowness, affect the dynamics of their stock market indexes (SMI), and are clearly reflected by them (as one may see in Figure II, below). This, coupled with the rather limited duration of the series, may affect their adequacy as proxies of financial cycles. Source: Datastream, modified by the authors. The price indexes here were converted to US Dollars and re-based to a common reference period were they equal 100, May of 1998. The country codings are as described in the Annexes. 5. ESTIMATED INDEXES The construction of the index for this new sample of countries was the core of this work. A comprehensive effort was done to crosscheck the information collected from papers and publications with national sources. Below we present the estimated monthly index, for the period January 1990 to June 2003 (see Figure III). The base data for its construction was collected from IMF and EBRD publications, and then exhaustively verified both with national sources and with works written about the individual countries and the region. This is an index that falls with liberalization, where maximum liberalization equals one and minimum three (in this sense, one could actually see it as an index of financial repression). As an additional robustness check, the year-end value of the index here constructed was regressed on the combined EBRDs yearly indexes of banking sector reform and non-banking financial sector reform. The results from a panel regression with the index constructed here on the LHS and the EBRD index on the RHS yield a coefficient of .60, and correlations among the individual country- specific index series range from -0.91 to -0.35. As one may see from Figure III above, the process of integration and liberalization was almost continuous throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The spikes in the â€Å"Full Liberalization Index in the early 1990s do not indicate reversals: the merely reflect the entry into the sample of the newly independent Baltic republics. As former members of the Soviet Union, they â€Å"enter the world as highly closed economies, but those countries introduced liberalization reforms almost immediately from the start. After this, a slight increasing trend, that does reflect a mild liberalization reversal, is observed, starting mid-1994 and lasting until early 1997, from when a continuous liberalization trend is observed. Noteworthy here is the fact that virtually none of the obvious candidates for a reversal of liberalization (the 1997 Asian Crisis, the collapse of the Czech monetary arrangement in 1997, the collapse of the Bulgarian monetary arrangement in 1996/97, the 1998 Russian Crisis, the 1999-2001 oil price shocks-as all those economies are highly dependent of imported energy sources) seems to have driven these mild liberalization reversals. Comparing the Full Index constructed here with the one constructed by KS, for similar time samples, one may observe that the ACs start substantially below the average level of other emerging markets- i.e., they are more liberalized, but both the â€Å"entry of the initially less liberalized former Soviet republics, plus continuous liberalization efforts in the emerging market KS set reverse this situation. A similar liberalization reversal trend in both the ACs and the merging market set is observed from early 1994, but it is actually slightly stronger on the ACs sample, until its reversal in 1996. By the end of our sample, the ACs are clearly below the final value for the emerging set in KSs sample. This sort of remarkably fast pattern of the ACs â€Å"leapfroging towards best international practice is also observed in several types of institutional frameworks, like, for instance, monetary policy institutions and instruments (see Vinhas de Souza and Hà ¶lscher, 2001): a process that virtually took decades for Western central banks was compressed in a half a dozen years in the Future Member States. Nevertheless, by the end of the sample, both emerging and ACs are still above the level of mature, developed economies. Analyzing the individual components of the index (see Figure V), one may see that, abstracting again from the initial spikes in the index, which are, as explained above, caused by the addition of new countries to the sample, the 1994/1997 reversal of liberalization was essentially driven by the Financial Sector liberal ization component. As will become clear with the country specific analysis below, this was related, in most cases, to-and here it must be stressed that those were rather limited reversals-to the banking crises that plagued several countries in our sample in the early to mid 1990s. Comparing now the individual components of the Full Index constructed here with the ones from KS, again for emerging and mature economies, it becomes clear that the reversals observed in Figure IV were driven by different sources in the emerging set (increase in capital account restrictions) and ACs set (financial sector): see Figure VI. All the indexes for mature economies are, again as one would expect, substantially lower. One could, in principle, aggregate the countries in our sample in three different groups: rapid liberalizers (the ones that followed a â€Å"big bang early approach, without major reversals: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), consistent liberalizers (the ones that followed a more delayed path, but also without major roll backs: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) and cautious liberalizers (the ones whose liberalization path was either openly inconsistent or downright mistrustful: Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). 5.1 COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY LIBERALIZATION PATH. In Bulgaria, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the substantial stress experienced by the country during the banks runs of 1996/97 and the ultimate collapse of the floating regime in 1997 (beyond ad hoc restrictive measures adopted by the banks themselves). As in most of the countries in my sample, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but does so in a faster fashion. Nevertheless, this is in most cases a data quasi-artifact that arises from the later (re-)constitution of the stock exchange itself. In the Czech Republic, a limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from late1995 to late 1997, namely, via the imposition of limits on banks short-term open positions towards on-residents, as a way to limit the exposure of the financial sector to the inflows brought about by the hard peg and the potential gains with interest rate differentials. After the peg was replaced by the current float regime, this restriction i s duly removed. In Estonia, again, virtually no sign of a liberalization reversal is observed, even during the bank runs of the early 1990s, the unwinding of the 1997 bubble, nor during the 1998 Russian crisis. Again, the stock market is the last one to liberalize, but one more time, this arises from the later constitution of the stock exchange. In Hungary, also no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Hungary was an early reformer, introducing some liberalization measures already during the late 1980s, but the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time, as compared, for instance, with the Baltic countries. In Latvia, a rather limited reversal of the financial sector liberalization is observed from mid 1996all the way to early 2003: resulting from the 1996 banking crisis, specific aggregate lending limits to regions (i.e., limits on exposure to non-OECD countries, bar the other Baltic republics) are imposed. In Lithuania, a limited reversal of the f inancial sector liberalization is observed from early 1998, also resulting from the experienced banking crisis: reserve requirements on deposits on foreign accounts by non-resident are introduced; In Poland, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Similarly to Hungary, the profile of its reform path is much more discounted through time; In Romania, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed, but the reform path is a decidedly slow and cautious one: at the end of the sample, it has the highest (i.e., less liberalized) score for the â€Å"Full Index of all countries in the sample: 1.60 (see Table V). In Slovakia, no signs of any liberalization reversal are observed. Here, the reform path is characterized by a broad stagnation since the Czechoslovak partition till 1998/1999, when, after a change in the political leadership, reforms are re-started, reaching after that levels similar to the other â€Å"Vise grad countries in a rather quick fashion. In Slovenia, one of the most consistently cautious Member States concerning the advantages of integration and liberalization, reversals are indeed observed in all three indexes, since early 1995in the capital account and financial sector components, and from early 1997 in the stock market one. Since early 1999, with the entry in effect of the EU Association Agreement, across-the-board further (re)liberalization measures have been introduced. 6. FINANCIAL CYCLES AND LIBERALIZATION The financial cycle coding which is used by KS defines cycles as a at least twelve month-long strictly downwards (upwards) movement, followed by a equally upwards (downwards) 12-month movement from the through (peak) of a stock market index, measured in USD, as they should reflect returns from the point of view of an international investor. As described in the stock market section of this work, one must be warned that there are specific factors in the countries in our sample that may affect the effectiveness of a stock market index as an adequate proxy of financial cycles, at least for the sample here considered. Beyond that, these series have a rather limited time extension (our sample covers the 01:1990-06:2003 period). Adapting KS criteria to the limited time dimension of our sample, we use a less stringent definition of â€Å"cycle, the same algorithm as above but with a 3-month window for the cycle (Edwards et al., 2003, use a 6-month window). With this we get 118 observations for all countries in our sample. Of these 118 cycles, 61 are upward, with an average of 7.51 months duration, and 57 are downward, with an average of 8.20 months of duration. 7. CONCLUSION The main aim of this paper was to extend the index developed by Kaminsky and Schmukler, 2003, for a specific sample of countries, namely, the previously centrally planned economies from Central and Eastern Europe, and to perform a similar analysis on them. Our results do lend some support to the basic assumption of this study: in spite of all the limitations of the time series used (their shortness, the fact that they were buffeted by several country-specific and common shocks), a re-estimation of KSs core regressions strongly supports the notion that financial liberalization does generate benefits both in the short and in the long run, measured via the extension of the amplitude of upward cycles and its reduction for downward cycles of stock market indexes. Importantly, these results diverge from KS, as in their work â€Å"emerging markets experience a relative short run increase in the amplitude of downward cycles. Another noteworthy feature is that only minor liberalization rever sals, led by the financial sector component, were observed in the aggregate index. Also, those reversals do not seem to be driven by â€Å"contagion from shocks in other emerging markets (like the Asian or Russian crisis), but reflect country-specific shocks. When considering the individual components of the index separately, again signs of minor reversals in financial sector liberalization are observed, related to temporary reactions to the several banking crisis observed in the region. Concerning the importance of institutions and of the EU Accession, this papers initial assumption was that the mostly positive results above would come about due to the anchoring of expectation provided by the perspective of entry into the EU already by mid-2004 (or 2007, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania) for the countries here analyzed, and by the imposition of a more robust macro and institutional framework by the requirements of the Accession process itself. Signs of this are not found in the KS regressions, perhaps because the liberalization index itself captures the effects of the EU Accession process. Finally, using a different framework than KSs to assess the affects of liberalization on financial, real and nominal volatility, most of the econometric results seem to support the previous ones, but they seem to indicate that the capital account liberalization is the element that most consistently and significantly reduces volatility. On this final section, the majority the econometric results seem to support some specific role for the EU Enlargement process in reducing volatility.