Define The Word Digital Forgery

Define The Word Digital Forgery According to Merriam-Webster, forgery is defined as the crime of falsely and fraudulently making or altering a document (Forgery, Merriam-Webster). So therefore, digital forgery involves falsely altering digital contents such as pictures and documents. Digital forgery has occurred for many years and still remains a relevant topic today. We see it every day in newspapers, magazines, the television, and even the internet. Whether altering the way someone looks, using digital photography in a courtroom, or even bringing a celebrity back from the dead, digital photography and digital television stimulate countless questions and queries about the ethics and morals of digital forgery, with respect to todays technology, and the involvement of digital forgery in our daily lives. The questions that arise because of digital forgery can be addressed and evaluated successfully only through consideration of the history, usage, and ethics of digital forgery in order to determine how and in what wa ys restriction or limitation of digital forgery should occur. Figure Understanding the history of photography and digital forgery helps one realize exactly how digital forgery became a commonly utilized method. Photography dates back to as far as 1826 when a French inventor, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, produced the first everlasting photograph (Photograph, Wikipedia). As time went on, photography got more advanced and more complicated. Soon enough, color photographs were being produced. The first color photograph was produced by a Scottish physicist named James Clerk Maxwell (Photograph, Wikipedia). After the production of color photograph came the invention of film, which led to instant cameras, automatic cameras, and finally digital cameras. Digital photography started first in 1951 with a video tape recorder that produced live images from television cameras by altering the information into electrical impulses and then saving the data onto a magnetic tape (Inventors). Several years later, in the 1960s, NASA used similar technology when they stop ped using analog and began to utilize digital signal with their space probes to map the surface of the moon. This led to the government usage of digital technology with spy satellites and then finally led to digital photography. The first filmless camera was created by Texas Instruments in 1972 followed by the release of the first commercial electronic still camera, the Sony Mavica, in August 1981 (Inventors). The ability to create digital photographs opened up the doors for producing counterfeit images and made it easier for this to be done. However, it wasnt the first time weve seen manipulation in pictures. As a matter of fact, photo manipulation dates back to the 1860s when a picture of John C. Calhoun was edited to have his body with the head of Abraham Lincoln (Photo Manipulation, Wikipedia). Digital forgery escalated in severity during World War II when Joseph Stalin altered photographs for propaganda purposes. For instance, there was a picture taken of Joseph Stalin and NKVD leader Nikolai Yezhov. After Yezhov was executed, the picture was rereleased with Yezhov missing. The photo was manipulated using censors. Figure 1 depicts the before and after pictures regarding this instance. In another case, John Heartfield, who utilized a photo altering technique called photomontage, mocked Adolf Hilter and the Nazis in order to demoralize their misinformed purpose (Photo Manipulation, Wikipedia). The use of digital photography has made it a lot easier for one to manipulate photos today. A program that is exceptionally recognizable is Adobe Photoshop. This is the software used by Adnan Hajj, who manipulated pictures and published them during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict (2006 Lebanon War Photographs Controversies, Wikipedia). Some of the pictures depicted an emphasis of the aftermath of an IDF attack on Beriut. Another one resembled a photograph of an IAF F-16 flying over Southern Lebanon deploying multiple missiles, when it really only deployed one missile (Adnan Hajj Photographs Controversy, Wikipedia). These pictures were removed and Hajj admitted to editing the pictures. After understanding the history and numerous uses of digital forgery, one can begin to assess the ethics involved with digital forgery.http://www.youropinionsarewrong.com/images/random/stalin-airbrush.jpg Based on the previous history and utilization of digital forgery, several relevant questions arise: What ethics are associated with digital forgery? Is digital forgery generally right or wrong? Who or what should take the blame for misleading digital forgery? Should we ever fully believe anything we see anymore in pictures? What can be done about digital forgery? Unfortunately, none of these questions have definite, factual answers. Rather, opinions permeate the essence of the responses to these questions. The significance and validity of each question and response can only be determined by the reader. With the current availability in photo-editing technology, one can alter almost anything in a picture. Often, despite the obvious ethical dilemmas that arise from digital forgery, the individual himself or herself is solely responsible for how cases of digital forgery are evaluated. However, even opinionated evaluation of digital forgery can lead to judgments, laws, rules, limitations, and restrictions on the future of digital forgery, making the ethics involved in digital forgery a necessary topic to consider. In general, is the idea of digital forgery ethically acceptable? To determine whether altering an image is right or wrong, we must establish the reason for which the image is being used. Adjusting a photo for the news, whether digitally or otherwise is most likely not ethical, even though there are understandable exceptions for alteration, such as editing a picture to brighten the details, reduce the blur of a street sign in the distance, or other similar examples. In contrast to the previous application of digital forgery, an image that serves the purpose of providing evidence regarding a crime scene or creature would preferably be void of digital forgery except to bring out inherent detail already contained in the photo. In general though, the majority of digital forgery occurs because digitally altered pictures often appeal to the viewers eyes. As long as these images are not used to mislead, then I believe that digitally altered images are ethically permissible as long as they la ck malicious intent or potential. Another fact to consider regarding this question involves the broad utilization of digital forgery in current times. Picture-editing software often comes readily installed with most current computers, meaning that most people with current computers or lap tops have access to technology for digital editing. Social networking websites, such as facebook.com and myspace.com, give users the ability to post up almost any type of picture or photo, regardless of whether the picture has undergone some type of alteration. Though often misleading, especially in the cases of digital forgery with pictures of the actual user, the question of whether the altering of the picture itself is right or wrong depends on the users viewing the image and their opinions. Depending on the intent of those who partake in digital forgery, the misleading appearances of digital forgery could potentially be detrimental to the other people. Hypothetically, a user of a social network ing website might try to establish a relationship with another user based on the viewing of digitally altered pictures or photographs of that user. What is conveyed on a computer screen with a digitally forged picture may differ greatly from the actual appearance of a user, and this will likely cause a variety of problems for users who try and establish a relationship that is even partially based on the appearance of the other user. However, the user with the altered picture benefits in the sense that he or she increases the likelihood of establishing a relationship with another person based on the digitally altered picture and not the truthful portrayal of that person in reality. Whether the previous situation is overall benevolent or detrimental for both users can only be determined by those users, and whether this application of digital forgery is generally right or wrong can only be determined by an unbiased opinion of another person. Since no test or definite way to prove wheth er an application of digital forgery is generally right or wrong, the decision regarding the ethics of such situations ultimately falls on the individual. Yet, if a ubiquitous verdict is reached conveying that some usage of digital forgery is unethical, who or what should take the blame? Almost indubitably, no individual desires taking blame for any type of situation, regardless of who was responsible for any discommodity associated with the situation. So in reference to the detrimental effects of digital forgery, who or what should be at fault? To understand even the possibilities of who or what should be at fault for negative effects of digital forgery, one must consider the wide array of factors influencing that usage of digital forgery. Technology plays a pivotal role in digital forgery. Because of technology, digital forgery often lacks credibility and believability. Advancements in technology allow people today to alter almost any picture to their preferred specifications, often still believable, but untrue and therefore misleading. Technology, in many ways, provides the means by which digital forgers are capable of producing altered pictures or photographs. However, another point to consider involves the fact that human beings are responsible for these advance ments in technology that allow digital forgery to be accomplished with ease. Though maybe not directly responsible, the people who provide the software or technology for common people to digitally forge do, in a way, provide access to digital forging opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Another influencing factor to consider is societys usage of digital forgery. Magazines, newspapers, websites, and a plethora of other media portray digitally forged pictures, photographs, and images. Countless recalls and cases have formed around excessively exaggerated pictures in magazines and newspapers. Though often not intentionally detrimental, society does place pressure on individuals actions. For example, magazines influence other magazines to use digitally altered pictures. As yet another example, people often succumb to the pressures of being slim and obtaining the socially desired model bodies that society conventionally expects and conveys through magazines and othe r such media. This may cause individuals to take action by harming themselves through unhealthy weight loss practices or even partaking in digital forgery themselves. But since it is ultimately one individual or a group of individuals that are directly responsible for the digital forgery of a specific image, one must consider whether the fault of digital forgery should lie within the individual or group of individuals that directly altered the image itself. Obviously, blaming the misleading or detrimental digitally forged image itself can provide no compensation for those effected in a destructive manner, so only by placing blame on an individual, a group of individuals, technology, society, or other possible culprits can victims of the detrimental effects of digital forgery hope to acquire some type of compensation. Legal action can be taken regarding digital forgery, but the decision of the courtroom or judge can not universally determine who or what should bear the full or partia l burden of blame regarding digital forgery. Unfortunately, once again, who or what is at fault for malevolent results of digital forgery can only be determined by the individual. But disregarding who or what is to blame for digitally forged images, if so many images are truly so misleading, to what extent should people believe what they see in digital images? The existence of some guidelines for what people should believe and not believe when viewing digital images would seem beneficial. Any digital image, or even non-digital images in some cases, present details to a viewer that are not necessarily readily distinguishable from reality. Basically, an individual often finds it difficult to determine whether an image has been digitally altered or not. Very few ways exist of distinguishing a picture that has been altered from a picture that has undergone no such alteration. Because of this fact, viewers of images are often rightfully suspicious of the details conveyed by images. By being too suspicious however, one might neglect to realize the beauty or significance of an image that contains no digital alteration, and this beauty or significance might have been comprehended if one simply was not so suspicious of image details. So, once again, there exists no such guidelines in regards to the extent one should give credibility to an image oth er than the opinions and personal beliefs of the individual. I, being an individual myself, possess personal beliefs on the ethics, credibility, and accountability of digital forgery. My personal beliefs regarding digital forgery possess heavy influence from my past experiences. While pursuing my degree in computer engineering and simply experiencing the world in general, I have come to several personal conclusions about digital forgery. Regarding the ethics of digital forgery, I believe that digitally altered images that are intended to please the viewers aesthetic preferences and are generally benevolent should be ethically permissible. Images that do otherwise or basically digitally forged images that are intentionally malicious or mislead the viewer into believing a false aspect should be subject to some form of compensatory action and are unethical. With reference to who or what is to blame for the detrimental consequences of digital forgery, I feel that the person who digitally altered the image should be held accountable for his or her pessimistic intentions if it truly did result in someone being harmed through viewing that image. And considering how suspi cious or to what extent people should assign reliability to images in current times, I feel that most images should simply be appreciated and not analyzed with scrutiny. The images I feel that people should be suspicious of include those conveying evidence in a crime scene, details supporting assumptions about some phenomenon, or details that persuade an individual to believe an aspect not previously assumed or proved by other corroborations or support. Of course, as in almost all cases, there remain exceptions to my beliefs depending on the details of the situation itself just as there exist exceptions to almost every rule, law, or belief of mankind. My ethical standards concerning digital forgery basically revolves more around the situation in which digital forgery was used and less on the actual digitally forged image itself. Therefore, my ethical views remain dependent on the situation itself in which digital forgery was used before I can make a finalized ethical decision, and I feel that people should adopt a similar system of perception and inspection so all that cases of digital forgery are evaluated successfully. After understanding the history, ethics, and forming well-informed opinions concerning digital forgery, the question one would likely ponder now is: What can be done to stop the unnecessary use of digital forgery? Several steps have already been taken to stop distasteful digital forgery. Webster University Journal came up with a policy for the ethical use of photographs. They published that the manipulation of photographs is commonly allowed when adjusting the brightness and contrast of the photo, burning and dodging to control the tonal range, correcting the color, cropping a frame to fit a certain layout, and retouching either dust or scratches from the photo. The policy further explains that there are certain manipulation techniques that should never be allowed. These include adding, moving, or removing objects within the frame, changing the color other than to restore what the picture originally looked like, cropping a frame in order to alter its meaning, flopping an image either left or right reversal, and finally painting a photograph in other than its true orientation (Webster). These policies are very ethical in the sense that one can still alter images as an artistic sense, but when it comes to proof, evidence, or publishing, the policies are very accurate and maintain credibility. When using a photograph in a published document, images that are manipulated are often used but should be labeled a certain way. The editor simple cannot include an altered picture and hope the readers assume the picture is edited. Altered pictures should be labeled as a photo illustration and shall never be represented as news photographs. Also, there are cameras out now with special technology to avoid digital forgery. Examples of this include cameras that digitally print a custom signature at the bottom of every picture that is taken and processed. This goal of these specially designed cameras is to stop people from not only stealing what could be copyrighted and publishe d material but also to prevent it from being manipulated and used in media and the courtroom. In fact, many courtrooms prefer evidence and take photographic evidence only with the special signature. Another example is an image authentication system the uses fingerprint technology. The creator of many imaging products today, Epson, previously created new image authentication software that was installed in many of their digital cameras. These cameras function by automatically imprinting a photo with an invisible digital fingerprint immediately after the photo is taken. Since the fingerprint is implanted in the image file, the image can then be verified as unedited and all natural by a computer with the software installed (Digital Cameras). This leads to another way to stop malicious digital forgery, with certain software. The most popular known software that lets users edit digital images is Adobe Photoshop. This software had previously been frequently brought up in scandals of images being altered as forgery. Recently, Adobe created a way for users to still use their product for artistic and personal use, but also for publishing use. They created a suite of photo-authentication tools that released in 2008. Basically, it is a plug-in that users install onto their Photoshop software that adds two photo authentication tools to the program (Wired.com). The first one is the Clone Tool Detector and it determines whether a section in a picture is too similar to another part of a picture. The other tool is the Truth Dots tool, which determines whether there are any missing pixels in a digital image. Determining if the pixels are missing results in a sign that the picture has been cropped, which cannot be noticed by that human eye (MandarinMusing.com). Of course, all these things can help in stopping digital image forgery, but pictures that have been taken without the special authentication signatures or fingerprints, or images edited without Photoshops plug-ins still l ack a system to prevent digital forgery. This can be solved with other special software that can detect digital image forgeries. Today, there are many companies who have produced software that have the ability to detect traces of digital image manipulation without relying on the signatures and watermarks. As a computer science doctoral thesis proposal, Micha Kimo Johnson, of Dartmouth College, created three digital image analysis tools to detect digital image forgery. These consist of illuminant direction, specularity, and chromatic aberration (Network World). The illuminant direction tools focus on the light sources of the image. It looks for consistency through the entire picture and different shadows. The light source is not limited to only sun light but also light from electricity. If the sources of light in the image were not in the same direction, the tool would detect the inconsistencies. The other tool is the specularity tool, which basically analyzes the reflective highligh ts in a picture. For example, if a picture of a group of people were taken and someone was digitally added to the image, the tool would detect the reflection in the eyes of all people in the picture and identify that someone was added. The last tool is the chromatic aberration tool, which scans images based on the camera lens used. When a digital picture is taken, natural distortion occurs and is presented on the image. The tool will identify if any of the distortions do not match the surrounding and categorize the image as a forged copy (Network World). Collectively, there exist numerous ways of detecting digital forgery through the use of specialized software, which helps to inhibit the malicious use of digital forgery. Conclusively, the issue of digital forgery has caused controversy for many years, yet recent advances in technology have helped to detect and discourage unethical uses of digital forgery. Since the creation of photography, photographic manipulation started and led into the forgery of images. Digital forgery has been apparent from the time when Soviet officials would disappear from authorized photographs in World War II to current times as we commonly view countless altered pictures in magazines, depicting celebrities with flawless skin and enhanced physiques. There exist ways to prevent digital forgery, such as special cameras that add signatures and invisible fingerprints when they are digitally processed, special programs plug-ins that prevent the altering of images, and even special software that can detect whether a picture is forged or not. While complete termination of digital forgery is nearly impossible, prevention of digital forgery and its reckless usage is quite possible. However, the altering of digital images is now not only used to deceive, but it has been incorporated into an artistic movement in which people manipulate images to represent different aspects of life for non-harmful purposes. Though it might technically be classified as digital forgery, it only becomes an problem when these forged images are used for the media or as evidence in courtroom. The history, evidence, discussion of ethics, and preventative methods for digital forgery helps inspire this encompassing idea: the manipulation of digital images is not necessarily unethical because of the abundance of benevolent or neutral alteration of photos, yet digital forgery with a criminal or malicious motive can most definitely be classified as unethical, for which identification systems exist to discourage and prevent detrimental digital forgery.

Pakistan Commercial Banks Risk Management

Pakistan Commercial Banks Risk Management ABSTRACT The agreement on international banking regulations dealing with how the banks handle the risk, the Basel Accord mainly focuses on the credit risk; according the Basel accord the bank assets divided into five main categories according to how they are risky. The five main categories are as (1) is assets without risk means 0% risk weighted, second one is 10% risk weighted, 3rd is 20% weighted, 4th is 50% weighted and last one is 100% weighted. When the banks perform international transactions they are required according the Basel Accord to hold assets minimum 8% aggregated risk according the Basel 1. The Basel 1 was written in 1988 by the Basel committee on banking supervision. All Banks of G-10 countries have try to implement this accord since the early 1990s. Now a days it is considered largely outdated and Basel committee working on Basel 1 to changing process in the shape of Basel II. This is also called Basel I accord. The document Basel I Capital Accord mainly designs to evaluate the capital in relation with the credit risk, and also the risk that can be a cause of losses in which the risk will occur if the party fail or unable to fulfill the obligations. It is mainly focus on the risk increasing modeling research process that is improvement toward the risk increasing research mode; however, it is over simplified calculations, and also classifications that have been simultaneously called for its disappearance, but the improvement in the shape of the Basel II Capital Accord and also other further agreements that are the sign for the continuously refinement for the risk and capital in the banking sector. Nevertheless, the document Basel I accords, will remain the first international instrument that evaluate the importance of risk with the relationship to capital, and also will remain as a milestone in the banking sector like finance and banking history. This study is mainly related to the risk management practices being followed by the commercial Banks in Pakistan. The questionnaire is used as a main tool to collect primary data and check the extent to which the risk management practices are being carried upon by the commercial banks in Pakistan. The six important aspects of risk management process are categorized as one dependent and five explanatory variables. This study aims to investigate the awareness about risk management practices within the banking sector of Pakistan. This study is comprised of data collected through both, primary as well as secondary sources. The purpose of using primary source data is to check the extent to which different risk management practices have been followed by the commercial banks in Pakistan. Primary data is collected through the use of a questionnaire. The questionnaire comprises a number of statements under one macro statement. It includes Risk Management Practices (RMP) as the dependent varia ble, and different aspects of risk management as the independent or explanatory variables. Whereas, the objective to use secondary data is to link the risk weighted Capital Adequacy Ratio to the different financial indicators of the commercial banks that are used to measure their soundness. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Risk management practices by the Commercial Banks Within the last few years, a number of studies have provided the discipline into the practice of risk management within the corporate and banking sector. An insight of related studies is as follows: Amran, et al. (2009), this article mention the possible availability of risk exposà © in the annual reports of the Malaysian companies. The study was aimed to empirically test the characteristics of the sampled companies. And also the level of risk faced by Malaysian companies with the disclosure made was also assessed and compared. The findings of the research revealed that the strategic risk came on the top, followed by the operations and empowerment risks being disclosed by the selected companies. The regression analysis proved significantly that size of the companies did matter. The stakeholder theory explains well this finding by stating that As company grows bigger, it will have a large pool of stakeholders, who would be interested in knowing the affairs of the company. The extent of risk disclosure was also found to be influenced by the nature of industry. As explored within this study, infrastructure and technology industries influenced the companies to have more risk inform ation disclosed. Hassan, A. (2009), made a study Risk Management Practices of Islamic Banks of Brunei Darussalam to assess the degree to which the Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam implemented risk management practices and carried them out thoroughly by using different techniques to deal with various kinds of risks. The results of the study showed that, like the conventional banking system, Islamic banking was also subjected to a variety of risks due to the unique range of offered products in addition to conventional products. The results showed that there was a remarkable understanding of risk and risk management by the staff working in the Islamic Banks of Brunei Darussalam, which showed their ability to pave their way towards successful risk management. The major risks that were faced by Brunei banks that was the Foreign exchange risk as well as credit risk and also operating risk. For the analysis regression model was used to explain the results which shown that the Risk Identification, or Risk Assessment and Analysis were also the most uncontrollable variables and the Islamic banks in Brunei needed to give more attention to those variables to make their Risk Management Practices more effective by understanding the true application of Basel-II Accord to improve the efficiency of Islamic Bank’s risk management systems. Al-Tamimi (2008) studied the relationship among the readiness of implementing Basel II Accord and resources needed for its implementation in UAE banks. Results of the research revealed that the banks in UAE were aware of the benefits, impact and challenges associated in the implementation of Basel II Accord. However, the research did not confirm any positive relationship between UAE banks readiness for the implementation of Basel II and impact of the implementation. The relationship between readiness and anticipated cost of implementation was also not confirmed. No significant difference was found in the level of Basel II Accord’s preparation between the UAE national and foreign banks. It was concluded that there was a significant difference in the level of the UAE banks Basel II based on employees education level. The results supported the importance of education level needed for the implementation of Basel II Accord. Al-Tamimi and Al- Mazrooei (2007) provide the comprehensive study relating of Bank’s Risk Management of UAE National and Foreign Banks. The outcome of this research is to find out that there are three most important types of risks facing the UAE commercial banks that were foreign exchange risk, 2nd one followed by credit risk and 3rd one is operating risk. And the result also found that the bank of UAE were also efficiently handle the risk; but the variables like as the risk identification, risk assessment and also analysis proved that the banks are more efficient in risk management process. Finally, the outcome of the result showed that there was a huge difference if we compare the UAE National banks and foreign Banks in the practicing the risk assessment and risk analysis as well as risk monitoring and risk controlling process. Koziol and Lawrenz (2008) provided a study in which they assessed the risk of bank failures. They said that assessing the risk related to bank failures is the paramount concern of bank regulations. They argued that in order to assess the default risk of a bank, it is important considering its financing decisions as an endogenous dynamic process. The research study provided a continuous-time model, where banks chose the deposit volume in order to trade off the benefits of earning deposit premiums against the costs that would occur at future capital structure adjustments. Major findings suggested that the dynamic endogenous financing decision introduced an important self-regulation mechanism. Basel Core Principles and Bank Risk: Does Compliance Matter? The recent financial crisis has sparked widespread calls for reforms of regulation and supervision. The initial reaction to the crisis was one of disbelief: how could such extensive financial distress emerge in countries where the supervision of financial risk had been thought to be the best in the world? Indeed, the regulatory standards and protocols of the advanced countries at the center of the financial storm were being emulated worldwide through the progressive adoption of the international Basel capital standards and the Basel Core Principles for Effective Bank Supervision (BCPs). The crisis exposed significant weaknesses in the financial system regulatory and supervisory framework worldwide, and has spawned a growing debate about the role these weaknesses may have played in causing and propagating the crisis. As a result, reform of regulation and supervision is a top priority for policymakers, and many countries are working to upgrade their frameworks. But what should the reforms focus on? What constitutes good regulation and supervision? Which elements are most important for ensuring bank soundness? What should be the scope of regulation? To date, the best practices in supervision and regulation have been embodied by the BCPs. These principles were issued in 1997 by the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, comprising representatives from bank supervisory agencies from advanced countries. Since then, most countries in the world have stated their intent to adopt and comply with the BCPs, making them a global standard for bank regulators. Importantly, since 1999, the IMF and the World Bank have conducted evaluations of countries’ compliance with these principles, mainly within their joint Financial Sector Assessment program (FSAP). The assessments are conducted according to a standardized methodology developed by the Basel Committee and therefore provide a unique source of information about the quality of supervision and regulation around the world. Hence the international community has made significant investments in developing these principles, encouraging their wide-spread adoption, and assessing progress with their compliance. In light of the recent crisis and the resulting skepticism about the effectiveness of existing approaches to regulation and supervision, it is natural to ask if compliance with the global standard of good regulation is associated with bank soundness. Specifically, they test whether better compliance with BCPs is associated with safer banks. They also look at whether compliance with different elements of the BCP framework is more closely associated with bank soundness to identify if there are specific areas which would help prioritize reform efforts to improve supervision. The paper extends their previous work (Demirgà ¼Ãƒ §-Kunt, Detragiache and Tressel, 2008: henceforth DDT), in which they showed that banks receive more favorable financial strength ratings from Moody’s in countries with better compliance with BCPs related to information provision, while compliance with other principles does not affect ratings significantly. The policy message from this study was that countries should give priority to strengthening regulation and regulation in the area of information provision (both to the market and to supervisors) relative to other areas covered by the core principles. Using rating information to proxy bank risk significantly limited the sample size in that study, making it necessary to exclude many smaller banks and many banks from lower income countries. Furthermore, after the recent crisis, the credibility of credit ratings as indicators of bank risk has also diminished, questioning the merit of using these ratings in the analysis. In this paper, they explore whether BCP compliance affects bank soundness, but instead of using ratings they capture bank soundness using the Z-score, which is the number of standard deviations by which bank returns have to fall to wipe out bank equity (Boyd and Runkle, 1993). Because they can construct Z-scores using just accounting information, and because assessment data for additional countries have also become available, they can extend the sample size considerably relative to our earlier study, to over 3,000 banks from 86 countries (compared to 200 banks from 37 countries analyzed in DDT). This is not just a simple increase in sample size: the sample of rated banks was not a representative sample, because rated banks tend to be larger, more internationally active, and more likely to adhere to international accounting standards. From a policy point of view, they would like to investigate the effect of BCP compliance on all types of banks operating in different country circumstan ces, rather than a select subgroup. In this study, the richer sample allows us to explore whether the relationship between BCPs and bank soundness varies across different types of banks. All in all, they do not find support for the hypothesis that better compliance with BCPs results in sounder banks as measured by Z-scores. This result holds after controlling for the macroeconomic environment, institutional quality, and bank characteristics. They also fail to find a significant relationship when they consider different samples, such a sample of rated banks only, a sample including only commercial banks, and samples including only the largest financial institutions. In an additional test, they calculate aggregate Z-scores at the country level to try to capture the stability of the system as a while rather than that of individual banks, but also this measure of soundness is not significantly related to overall BCP compliance. When they explore the relationship between soundness and compliance with specific groups of principles, which refer to separate areas of prudential supervision and regulation, they continue to find no evidence that good compliance is related to im proved soundness. If anything, they find that stronger compliance with principles related to the power of supervisors to license banks and regulate market structure are associated with riskier banks. While these results cast doubts on whether international efforts to improve financial regulation and supervision should continue to place a strong emphasis on BCPs, a number of caveats are in order. First, insignificant results may simply indicate that accounting-based measures, such as Zscores, do not adequately capture bank soundness, especially for small banks and in low income countries, where accounting standards tend to be poor. They may also reflect low quality in the assessment of BCP compliance, especially in countries where laws and regulations on the books may carry little weight. It might be also argued that assessments are not comparable across countries, despite the best efforts of expert supervisors and internal reviewing teams at the IMF and the World Bank to ensure a uniform methodology and uniform standards. If their negative results arise because compliance assessments do not reflect reality or are not comparable across countries, then at a minimum they should lead us to question the value of these assessments in ensuring that supervision measures up to global standards. Review of related literature of this paper is as follows: Defining good regulatory and supervisory practices is a difficult and complicated task. Barth, Caprio, and Levine (2001, 2004, and 2006) were the first to compile and analyze an extensive database on banking sector laws and regulations using various surveys of regulators around the world, and to study the relationship between alternative regulatory strategies and outcomes. This research finds that regulatory approaches that facilitate private sector monitoring of banks (such as disclosure of reliable, comprehensive and timely information) and strengthen incentives for greater market monitoring (for example by limiting deposit insurance) improve bank performance and stability. In contrast, boosting official supervisory oversight and disciplinary powers and tightening capital standards does not lead to banking sector development, nor does it improve bank efficiency, reduce corruption in lending, or lower banking system fragility. They interpret their findings as a challenge to the Basel Committee’s influential approach to bank regulation which heavily emphasizes ca pital and official supervision. An important limitation of this type of survey is that it mainly captures rules and regulations that are on the books rather than actual implementation. IMF and the World Bank financial sector assessments have often found implementation to be lacking, particularly in low income countries, so that cross-country comparisons of what is on the books may hide substantial variation in the quality of supervision and regulation. BCP assessments have the advantage of taking into account implementation. Of course, assessing how rules and regulations are implemented and enforced in practice is not an exact science, and individual assessments may be influenced by factors such as the assessors’ experience and the regulatory culture they are most familiar with. Nevertheless, although it is difficult to eliminate subjectivity completely, assessments are based on a standardized methodology and are carried out by experienced international assessors with broad c ountry experience. Cihak and Tieman (2008) analyze the quality of financial sector regulation and supervision using both Barth, Caprio and Levine’s survey data and BCP assessments. They find that regulation and supervision in high-income countries is generally of higher quality than in lower income countries. They also note that the correlation between survey data and BCP data tend to be low, always less than 50 percent and in many cases in the 20-30 percent range, suggesting that taking into account implementation may indeed make an important difference. A number of papers also use BCP assessments to study bank regulation and performance. Sundararajan, Marston, and Basu (2001) use a sample of 25 countries to examine the relationship between an overall index of BCP compliance and two indicators of bank soundness: nonperforming loans (NPLs) and loan spreads. They find BCP compliance not to be a significant determinant of these measures of soundness. Podpiera (2004) extends the set of countries and finds that better BCP compliance lowers NPLs. Das et al. (2005) relates bank soundness to a broader concept of regulatory governance, which encompasses compliance with the BCPs as well as compliance with standards and codes for monetary and financial policies. Better regulatory governance is found to be associated with sounder banks, particularly in countries with better institutions. In this paper, as already discussed they rely on the Z-score to measure bank soundness. While the Z-score has its limitations, they believe it is an improvement over measures used in previous studies, namely NPLs, loan spreads, interest margins, and capital adequacy. Because different countries have different reporting rules, NPLs are notoriously difficult to compare across countries. On the other hand, loan spreads or interest margins and capitalization are affected by a variety of forces other than fragility, such as market structure, differences in risk-free interest rates and operating costs, and varying capital regulation. Thus, cross-country comparability is a serious issue. In contrast with ratings, Z-scores do not rely on the subjective judgment of rating agencies’ analysts. Results from the baseline regression, relating bank soundness measured by the Z-score to the degree of compliance with the BCPs. In the sample including all countries, the Zscore is higher, indicating a sounder bank, for banks with lower operating costs in countries with higher GDP per capita. Also, non-commercial banks tend to have higher Z-scores, while the other control variables are not significant. The coefficient of the BCP compliance index is positive but not significant. If they exclude Japanese banks, which account for over 20 percent of the sample, the fit of the model improves markedly (the R-squared increases from 10 percent to 19 percent) and the coefficients of many regressors change substantially.12 This suggests that the variables explaining the Z-score of Japanese banks may be somewhat different than for the rest of the sample, perhaps because of the lingering effects of Japan’s prolonged banking crisis on bank balance sheets. For example, in the sample excluding Japan inflation and the rule of law index are significant (with the expected coefficients), while GDP per capita is not (though the coefficient remains positive). Also, banks with a higher ratio of net loans to assets have higher Z-scores, perhaps because Basel regulation mandating minimum levels of risk-adjustment capital forces these banks to hold more equity. Also, in the sample excluding Japan larger banks have lower Z-scores, likely because they tend to hold less capital than smaller banks. Despite these differences, the coefficient of the BCP compliance index remains insignificantly different from zero also in the sample without Japanese banks. The same is true when they add to the regression additional macro controls, such as exchange rate appreciation, private credit, or the sovereign rating. In the regressions, they explore how the relationship between BCP compliance and bank soundness changes if they alter the sample composition to include various categories of financial institutions to explore whether BCP compliance may affect soundness for alternative types of banks. All these results refer to the sample excluding Japan, so that th e overrepresentation of Japanese banks does not distort the results. The first exercise is to examine the widest sample possible, i.e. one that includes investment banks/securities houses, medium and long-term credit banks, nonbank credit institutions, and specialized government credit institutions. These are institutions that in most countries are unlikely to fall under the perimeter of bank regulation and supervision, so they have excluded them from the baseline sample. When they include them, the sample size grows by 25 percent, but the main regression results are unchanged. In particular, bank soundness is not significantly affected by compliance with the BCPs. If they restrict the sample to commercial banks only, thereby losing about 300 banks compared to the baseline sample, once again they find that regression results remain very close to the baseline. When they focus only on banks rated by Moody’s, as in our earlier work, the sample shrinks considerably (to just over 300 banks), and the coefficient of the BCP compliance index becomes positive and significant, albeit only at the 10 percent confidence level. Thus, BCP compliance seems to have some positive effect on the soundness of this specific group of banks. To explore this issue further, they ask whether this result is driven by the fact that rated banks are larger banks. To do so, they consider two alternative samples: the first includes the largest 10 percent of banks within each country and the second includes the largest 20 percent of banks in the entire sample. In both cases, the BCP compliance index has an insignificant coefficient, as in the baseline sample. The BCP compliance index is the weighted sum of compliance scores for several individual chapters of the Core Principles. Could it be that, even though overall compliance does not seem to matter for bank soundness, some aspects of the Core Principles might be relevant? In fact, it may be possible that the overall index is not significant because of offsetting effects of its different components. In fact, in our previous study of Moody’s ratings, they found that, although overall compliance did not seem to matter, higher financial strength ratings were associated with better compliance with principles related to information provision to supervisors. They address this question by re-running the baseline regressions breaking down the compliance index into seven components, based on the standard grouping of principles used by the Basel Committee. An important caveat is that compliance scores are fairly strongly correlated, which may make it difficult to disentangle the effect of one set of principles from the others. They replicate the regression for different samples of banks to investigate the robustness of the results. There is only one component of the compliance index that has a fairly robust relationship with bank Z-scores, and that is compliance with Chapter 2 of the BCP, i.e. principles having to do with supervisors’ powers to regulate bank licensing and structure. Interestingly, this component of the index is negatively correlated with bank soundness, so that banks in countries were regulators have better defined powers to give out licenses and regulate bank activities tend to be riskier. This result holds in all th e samples except those including only the largest banks. This finding supports the contention that supervisory systems that tend to empower supervisors do not work well (Barth, Caprio, and Levine, 2001, 2004, 2006). So far, they have considered individual bank risk. In principle, bank supervision and regulation should be primarily concerned with systemic risk, rather than individual bank risk, although in practice it is not always easy to make this distinction. Could it be that BCP compliance, while not relevant to individual bank soundness, is important to ensure the stability of system as a whole? To address this question, it would be ideal to test whether BCP compliance reduces the probability of a financial crisis. However, since crises are rare events, this type of test requires a panel of data; since they have BCP compliance assessments only at a point in time, they are restricted to cross-sectional data. Nonetheless, to explore this question they compute a rough measure of systemic soundness as the aggregate equivalent of the individual bank Z-score. More specifically, they aggregate profits and equity of all the banks in the country (for which they have data), they compute the standard d eviation of aggregate profits, and then they compute an aggregate Z-score. This measure tells us by how many standard deviations banking system profits must fall to exhaust all the capital in the banking system. They then regress this measure on the BCP compliance score and a number of macroeconomic control variables. Their measure of systemic soundness is correlated with the macro variables as one might expect: higher growth, low inflation, low inflation volatility, appreciation of the currency, favorable sovereign ratings are all significantly associated with higher values of the aggregate Z-score. Once again, though, the BCP compliance index does not seem to be a significant determinant of banking system soundness. Though it is positive, the coefficient of the BCP index is small and not statistically significant in any specification. Remarks While the causes and consequences of the recent financial crisis will continue to be debated for years to come, there is emerging consensus that the crisis has revealed significant weaknesses in the regulatory and supervisory system. Resulting calls for reform have led to numerous proposals and policymakers in many countries are hard at work to upgrade their regulatory frameworks. This paper seeks to inform the on-going reform process by providing an analysis of how existing regulations and their application are associated with bank soundness. Specifically, they study whether compliance with Basel Core Principles for effective banking supervision (BCPs) is associated with lower bank risk, as measured Z-scores. They find no evidence of a robust statistical relationship linking better compliance with BCPs and improved bank soundness. The analysis of aggregate Z-scores to capture systemic stability issues yields similarly insignificant results. If anything, they find that compliance wit h a specific group of principles, those giving supervisors powers to regulate bank licensing and structure is associated with riskier banks, potentially suggesting that such powers may be misused in practice. While our results may reflect the difficulty of capturing bank risk using accounting measures, or the inability of assessors to carry out evaluations that are comparable across countries, nevertheless they raise questions about the relevance of the Basel Core Principles, the current emphasis on these principles as key to effective supervision, and the wisdom of carrying out costly periodic compliance reviews of BCP implementation in the IMF/World Bank Financial Sector Assessment Programs. Pakistan Commercial Banks Risk Management Pakistan Commercial Banks Risk Management ABSTRACT The agreement on international banking regulations dealing with how the banks handle the risk, the Basel Accord mainly focuses on the credit risk; according the Basel accord the bank assets divided into five main categories according to how they are risky. The five main categories are as (1) is assets without risk means 0% risk weighted, second one is 10% risk weighted, 3rd is 20% weighted, 4th is 50% weighted and last one is 100% weighted. When the banks perform international transactions they are required according the Basel Accord to hold assets minimum 8% aggregated risk according the Basel 1. The Basel 1 was written in 1988 by the Basel committee on banking supervision. All Banks of G-10 countries have try to implement this accord since the early 1990s. Now a days it is considered largely outdated and Basel committee working on Basel 1 to changing process in the shape of Basel II. This is also called Basel I accord. The document Basel I Capital Accord mainly designs to evaluate the capital in relation with the credit risk, and also the risk that can be a cause of losses in which the risk will occur if the party fail or unable to fulfill the obligations. It is mainly focus on the risk increasing modeling research process that is improvement toward the risk increasing research mode; however, it is over simplified calculations, and also classifications that have been simultaneously called for its disappearance, but the improvement in the shape of the Basel II Capital Accord and also other further agreements that are the sign for the continuously refinement for the risk and capital in the banking sector. Nevertheless, the document Basel I accords, will remain the first international instrument that evaluate the importance of risk with the relationship to capital, and also will remain as a milestone in the banking sector like finance and banking history. This study is mainly related to the risk management practices being followed by the commercial Banks in Pakistan. The questionnaire is used as a main tool to collect primary data and check the extent to which the risk management practices are being carried upon by the commercial banks in Pakistan. The six important aspects of risk management process are categorized as one dependent and five explanatory variables. This study aims to investigate the awareness about risk management practices within the banking sector of Pakistan. This study is comprised of data collected through both, primary as well as secondary sources. The purpose of using primary source data is to check the extent to which different risk management practices have been followed by the commercial banks in Pakistan. Primary data is collected through the use of a questionnaire. The questionnaire comprises a number of statements under one macro statement. It includes Risk Management Practices (RMP) as the dependent varia ble, and different aspects of risk management as the independent or explanatory variables. Whereas, the objective to use secondary data is to link the risk weighted Capital Adequacy Ratio to the different financial indicators of the commercial banks that are used to measure their soundness. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Risk management practices by the Commercial Banks Within the last few years, a number of studies have provided the discipline into the practice of risk management within the corporate and banking sector. An insight of related studies is as follows: Amran, et al. (2009), this article mention the possible availability of risk exposà © in the annual reports of the Malaysian companies. The study was aimed to empirically test the characteristics of the sampled companies. And also the level of risk faced by Malaysian companies with the disclosure made was also assessed and compared. The findings of the research revealed that the strategic risk came on the top, followed by the operations and empowerment risks being disclosed by the selected companies. The regression analysis proved significantly that size of the companies did matter. The stakeholder theory explains well this finding by stating that As company grows bigger, it will have a large pool of stakeholders, who would be interested in knowing the affairs of the company. The extent of risk disclosure was also found to be influenced by the nature of industry. As explored within this study, infrastructure and technology industries influenced the companies to have more risk inform ation disclosed. Hassan, A. (2009), made a study Risk Management Practices of Islamic Banks of Brunei Darussalam to assess the degree to which the Islamic banks in Brunei Darussalam implemented risk management practices and carried them out thoroughly by using different techniques to deal with various kinds of risks. The results of the study showed that, like the conventional banking system, Islamic banking was also subjected to a variety of risks due to the unique range of offered products in addition to conventional products. The results showed that there was a remarkable understanding of risk and risk management by the staff working in the Islamic Banks of Brunei Darussalam, which showed their ability to pave their way towards successful risk management. The major risks that were faced by Brunei banks that was the Foreign exchange risk as well as credit risk and also operating risk. For the analysis regression model was used to explain the results which shown that the Risk Identification, or Risk Assessment and Analysis were also the most uncontrollable variables and the Islamic banks in Brunei needed to give more attention to those variables to make their Risk Management Practices more effective by understanding the true application of Basel-II Accord to improve the efficiency of Islamic Bank’s risk management systems. Al-Tamimi (2008) studied the relationship among the readiness of implementing Basel II Accord and resources needed for its implementation in UAE banks. Results of the research revealed that the banks in UAE were aware of the benefits, impact and challenges associated in the implementation of Basel II Accord. However, the research did not confirm any positive relationship between UAE banks readiness for the implementation of Basel II and impact of the implementation. The relationship between readiness and anticipated cost of implementation was also not confirmed. No significant difference was found in the level of Basel II Accord’s preparation between the UAE national and foreign banks. It was concluded that there was a significant difference in the level of the UAE banks Basel II based on employees education level. The results supported the importance of education level needed for the implementation of Basel II Accord. Al-Tamimi and Al- Mazrooei (2007) provide the comprehensive study relating of Bank’s Risk Management of UAE National and Foreign Banks. The outcome of this research is to find out that there are three most important types of risks facing the UAE commercial banks that were foreign exchange risk, 2nd one followed by credit risk and 3rd one is operating risk. And the result also found that the bank of UAE were also efficiently handle the risk; but the variables like as the risk identification, risk assessment and also analysis proved that the banks are more efficient in risk management process. Finally, the outcome of the result showed that there was a huge difference if we compare the UAE National banks and foreign Banks in the practicing the risk assessment and risk analysis as well as risk monitoring and risk controlling process. Koziol and Lawrenz (2008) provided a study in which they assessed the risk of bank failures. They said that assessing the risk related to bank failures is the paramount concern of bank regulations. They argued that in order to assess the default risk of a bank, it is important considering its financing decisions as an endogenous dynamic process. The research study provided a continuous-time model, where banks chose the deposit volume in order to trade off the benefits of earning deposit premiums against the costs that would occur at future capital structure adjustments. Major findings suggested that the dynamic endogenous financing decision introduced an important self-regulation mechanism. Basel Core Principles and Bank Risk: Does Compliance Matter? The recent financial crisis has sparked widespread calls for reforms of regulation and supervision. The initial reaction to the crisis was one of disbelief: how could such extensive financial distress emerge in countries where the supervision of financial risk had been thought to be the best in the world? Indeed, the regulatory standards and protocols of the advanced countries at the center of the financial storm were being emulated worldwide through the progressive adoption of the international Basel capital standards and the Basel Core Principles for Effective Bank Supervision (BCPs). The crisis exposed significant weaknesses in the financial system regulatory and supervisory framework worldwide, and has spawned a growing debate about the role these weaknesses may have played in causing and propagating the crisis. As a result, reform of regulation and supervision is a top priority for policymakers, and many countries are working to upgrade their frameworks. But what should the reforms focus on? What constitutes good regulation and supervision? Which elements are most important for ensuring bank soundness? What should be the scope of regulation? To date, the best practices in supervision and regulation have been embodied by the BCPs. These principles were issued in 1997 by the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, comprising representatives from bank supervisory agencies from advanced countries. Since then, most countries in the world have stated their intent to adopt and comply with the BCPs, making them a global standard for bank regulators. Importantly, since 1999, the IMF and the World Bank have conducted evaluations of countries’ compliance with these principles, mainly within their joint Financial Sector Assessment program (FSAP). The assessments are conducted according to a standardized methodology developed by the Basel Committee and therefore provide a unique source of information about the quality of supervision and regulation around the world. Hence the international community has made significant investments in developing these principles, encouraging their wide-spread adoption, and assessing progress with their compliance. In light of the recent crisis and the resulting skepticism about the effectiveness of existing approaches to regulation and supervision, it is natural to ask if compliance with the global standard of good regulation is associated with bank soundness. Specifically, they test whether better compliance with BCPs is associated with safer banks. They also look at whether compliance with different elements of the BCP framework is more closely associated with bank soundness to identify if there are specific areas which would help prioritize reform efforts to improve supervision. The paper extends their previous work (Demirgà ¼Ãƒ §-Kunt, Detragiache and Tressel, 2008: henceforth DDT), in which they showed that banks receive more favorable financial strength ratings from Moody’s in countries with better compliance with BCPs related to information provision, while compliance with other principles does not affect ratings significantly. The policy message from this study was that countries should give priority to strengthening regulation and regulation in the area of information provision (both to the market and to supervisors) relative to other areas covered by the core principles. Using rating information to proxy bank risk significantly limited the sample size in that study, making it necessary to exclude many smaller banks and many banks from lower income countries. Furthermore, after the recent crisis, the credibility of credit ratings as indicators of bank risk has also diminished, questioning the merit of using these ratings in the analysis. In this paper, they explore whether BCP compliance affects bank soundness, but instead of using ratings they capture bank soundness using the Z-score, which is the number of standard deviations by which bank returns have to fall to wipe out bank equity (Boyd and Runkle, 1993). Because they can construct Z-scores using just accounting information, and because assessment data for additional countries have also become available, they can extend the sample size considerably relative to our earlier study, to over 3,000 banks from 86 countries (compared to 200 banks from 37 countries analyzed in DDT). This is not just a simple increase in sample size: the sample of rated banks was not a representative sample, because rated banks tend to be larger, more internationally active, and more likely to adhere to international accounting standards. From a policy point of view, they would like to investigate the effect of BCP compliance on all types of banks operating in different country circumstan ces, rather than a select subgroup. In this study, the richer sample allows us to explore whether the relationship between BCPs and bank soundness varies across different types of banks. All in all, they do not find support for the hypothesis that better compliance with BCPs results in sounder banks as measured by Z-scores. This result holds after controlling for the macroeconomic environment, institutional quality, and bank characteristics. They also fail to find a significant relationship when they consider different samples, such a sample of rated banks only, a sample including only commercial banks, and samples including only the largest financial institutions. In an additional test, they calculate aggregate Z-scores at the country level to try to capture the stability of the system as a while rather than that of individual banks, but also this measure of soundness is not significantly related to overall BCP compliance. When they explore the relationship between soundness and compliance with specific groups of principles, which refer to separate areas of prudential supervision and regulation, they continue to find no evidence that good compliance is related to im proved soundness. If anything, they find that stronger compliance with principles related to the power of supervisors to license banks and regulate market structure are associated with riskier banks. While these results cast doubts on whether international efforts to improve financial regulation and supervision should continue to place a strong emphasis on BCPs, a number of caveats are in order. First, insignificant results may simply indicate that accounting-based measures, such as Zscores, do not adequately capture bank soundness, especially for small banks and in low income countries, where accounting standards tend to be poor. They may also reflect low quality in the assessment of BCP compliance, especially in countries where laws and regulations on the books may carry little weight. It might be also argued that assessments are not comparable across countries, despite the best efforts of expert supervisors and internal reviewing teams at the IMF and the World Bank to ensure a uniform methodology and uniform standards. If their negative results arise because compliance assessments do not reflect reality or are not comparable across countries, then at a minimum they should lead us to question the value of these assessments in ensuring that supervision measures up to global standards. Review of related literature of this paper is as follows: Defining good regulatory and supervisory practices is a difficult and complicated task. Barth, Caprio, and Levine (2001, 2004, and 2006) were the first to compile and analyze an extensive database on banking sector laws and regulations using various surveys of regulators around the world, and to study the relationship between alternative regulatory strategies and outcomes. This research finds that regulatory approaches that facilitate private sector monitoring of banks (such as disclosure of reliable, comprehensive and timely information) and strengthen incentives for greater market monitoring (for example by limiting deposit insurance) improve bank performance and stability. In contrast, boosting official supervisory oversight and disciplinary powers and tightening capital standards does not lead to banking sector development, nor does it improve bank efficiency, reduce corruption in lending, or lower banking system fragility. They interpret their findings as a challenge to the Basel Committee’s influential approach to bank regulation which heavily emphasizes ca pital and official supervision. An important limitation of this type of survey is that it mainly captures rules and regulations that are on the books rather than actual implementation. IMF and the World Bank financial sector assessments have often found implementation to be lacking, particularly in low income countries, so that cross-country comparisons of what is on the books may hide substantial variation in the quality of supervision and regulation. BCP assessments have the advantage of taking into account implementation. Of course, assessing how rules and regulations are implemented and enforced in practice is not an exact science, and individual assessments may be influenced by factors such as the assessors’ experience and the regulatory culture they are most familiar with. Nevertheless, although it is difficult to eliminate subjectivity completely, assessments are based on a standardized methodology and are carried out by experienced international assessors with broad c ountry experience. Cihak and Tieman (2008) analyze the quality of financial sector regulation and supervision using both Barth, Caprio and Levine’s survey data and BCP assessments. They find that regulation and supervision in high-income countries is generally of higher quality than in lower income countries. They also note that the correlation between survey data and BCP data tend to be low, always less than 50 percent and in many cases in the 20-30 percent range, suggesting that taking into account implementation may indeed make an important difference. A number of papers also use BCP assessments to study bank regulation and performance. Sundararajan, Marston, and Basu (2001) use a sample of 25 countries to examine the relationship between an overall index of BCP compliance and two indicators of bank soundness: nonperforming loans (NPLs) and loan spreads. They find BCP compliance not to be a significant determinant of these measures of soundness. Podpiera (2004) extends the set of countries and finds that better BCP compliance lowers NPLs. Das et al. (2005) relates bank soundness to a broader concept of regulatory governance, which encompasses compliance with the BCPs as well as compliance with standards and codes for monetary and financial policies. Better regulatory governance is found to be associated with sounder banks, particularly in countries with better institutions. In this paper, as already discussed they rely on the Z-score to measure bank soundness. While the Z-score has its limitations, they believe it is an improvement over measures used in previous studies, namely NPLs, loan spreads, interest margins, and capital adequacy. Because different countries have different reporting rules, NPLs are notoriously difficult to compare across countries. On the other hand, loan spreads or interest margins and capitalization are affected by a variety of forces other than fragility, such as market structure, differences in risk-free interest rates and operating costs, and varying capital regulation. Thus, cross-country comparability is a serious issue. In contrast with ratings, Z-scores do not rely on the subjective judgment of rating agencies’ analysts. Results from the baseline regression, relating bank soundness measured by the Z-score to the degree of compliance with the BCPs. In the sample including all countries, the Zscore is higher, indicating a sounder bank, for banks with lower operating costs in countries with higher GDP per capita. Also, non-commercial banks tend to have higher Z-scores, while the other control variables are not significant. The coefficient of the BCP compliance index is positive but not significant. If they exclude Japanese banks, which account for over 20 percent of the sample, the fit of the model improves markedly (the R-squared increases from 10 percent to 19 percent) and the coefficients of many regressors change substantially.12 This suggests that the variables explaining the Z-score of Japanese banks may be somewhat different than for the rest of the sample, perhaps because of the lingering effects of Japan’s prolonged banking crisis on bank balance sheets. For example, in the sample excluding Japan inflation and the rule of law index are significant (with the expected coefficients), while GDP per capita is not (though the coefficient remains positive). Also, banks with a higher ratio of net loans to assets have higher Z-scores, perhaps because Basel regulation mandating minimum levels of risk-adjustment capital forces these banks to hold more equity. Also, in the sample excluding Japan larger banks have lower Z-scores, likely because they tend to hold less capital than smaller banks. Despite these differences, the coefficient of the BCP compliance index remains insignificantly different from zero also in the sample without Japanese banks. The same is true when they add to the regression additional macro controls, such as exchange rate appreciation, private credit, or the sovereign rating. In the regressions, they explore how the relationship between BCP compliance and bank soundness changes if they alter the sample composition to include various categories of financial institutions to explore whether BCP compliance may affect soundness for alternative types of banks. All these results refer to the sample excluding Japan, so that th e overrepresentation of Japanese banks does not distort the results. The first exercise is to examine the widest sample possible, i.e. one that includes investment banks/securities houses, medium and long-term credit banks, nonbank credit institutions, and specialized government credit institutions. These are institutions that in most countries are unlikely to fall under the perimeter of bank regulation and supervision, so they have excluded them from the baseline sample. When they include them, the sample size grows by 25 percent, but the main regression results are unchanged. In particular, bank soundness is not significantly affected by compliance with the BCPs. If they restrict the sample to commercial banks only, thereby losing about 300 banks compared to the baseline sample, once again they find that regression results remain very close to the baseline. When they focus only on banks rated by Moody’s, as in our earlier work, the sample shrinks considerably (to just over 300 banks), and the coefficient of the BCP compliance index becomes positive and significant, albeit only at the 10 percent confidence level. Thus, BCP compliance seems to have some positive effect on the soundness of this specific group of banks. To explore this issue further, they ask whether this result is driven by the fact that rated banks are larger banks. To do so, they consider two alternative samples: the first includes the largest 10 percent of banks within each country and the second includes the largest 20 percent of banks in the entire sample. In both cases, the BCP compliance index has an insignificant coefficient, as in the baseline sample. The BCP compliance index is the weighted sum of compliance scores for several individual chapters of the Core Principles. Could it be that, even though overall compliance does not seem to matter for bank soundness, some aspects of the Core Principles might be relevant? In fact, it may be possible that the overall index is not significant because of offsetting effects of its different components. In fact, in our previous study of Moody’s ratings, they found that, although overall compliance did not seem to matter, higher financial strength ratings were associated with better compliance with principles related to information provision to supervisors. They address this question by re-running the baseline regressions breaking down the compliance index into seven components, based on the standard grouping of principles used by the Basel Committee. An important caveat is that compliance scores are fairly strongly correlated, which may make it difficult to disentangle the effect of one set of principles from the others. They replicate the regression for different samples of banks to investigate the robustness of the results. There is only one component of the compliance index that has a fairly robust relationship with bank Z-scores, and that is compliance with Chapter 2 of the BCP, i.e. principles having to do with supervisors’ powers to regulate bank licensing and structure. Interestingly, this component of the index is negatively correlated with bank soundness, so that banks in countries were regulators have better defined powers to give out licenses and regulate bank activities tend to be riskier. This result holds in all th e samples except those including only the largest banks. This finding supports the contention that supervisory systems that tend to empower supervisors do not work well (Barth, Caprio, and Levine, 2001, 2004, 2006). So far, they have considered individual bank risk. In principle, bank supervision and regulation should be primarily concerned with systemic risk, rather than individual bank risk, although in practice it is not always easy to make this distinction. Could it be that BCP compliance, while not relevant to individual bank soundness, is important to ensure the stability of system as a whole? To address this question, it would be ideal to test whether BCP compliance reduces the probability of a financial crisis. However, since crises are rare events, this type of test requires a panel of data; since they have BCP compliance assessments only at a point in time, they are restricted to cross-sectional data. Nonetheless, to explore this question they compute a rough measure of systemic soundness as the aggregate equivalent of the individual bank Z-score. More specifically, they aggregate profits and equity of all the banks in the country (for which they have data), they compute the standard d eviation of aggregate profits, and then they compute an aggregate Z-score. This measure tells us by how many standard deviations banking system profits must fall to exhaust all the capital in the banking system. They then regress this measure on the BCP compliance score and a number of macroeconomic control variables. Their measure of systemic soundness is correlated with the macro variables as one might expect: higher growth, low inflation, low inflation volatility, appreciation of the currency, favorable sovereign ratings are all significantly associated with higher values of the aggregate Z-score. Once again, though, the BCP compliance index does not seem to be a significant determinant of banking system soundness. Though it is positive, the coefficient of the BCP index is small and not statistically significant in any specification. Remarks While the causes and consequences of the recent financial crisis will continue to be debated for years to come, there is emerging consensus that the crisis has revealed significant weaknesses in the regulatory and supervisory system. Resulting calls for reform have led to numerous proposals and policymakers in many countries are hard at work to upgrade their regulatory frameworks. This paper seeks to inform the on-going reform process by providing an analysis of how existing regulations and their application are associated with bank soundness. Specifically, they study whether compliance with Basel Core Principles for effective banking supervision (BCPs) is associated with lower bank risk, as measured Z-scores. They find no evidence of a robust statistical relationship linking better compliance with BCPs and improved bank soundness. The analysis of aggregate Z-scores to capture systemic stability issues yields similarly insignificant results. If anything, they find that compliance wit h a specific group of principles, those giving supervisors powers to regulate bank licensing and structure is associated with riskier banks, potentially suggesting that such powers may be misused in practice. While our results may reflect the difficulty of capturing bank risk using accounting measures, or the inability of assessors to carry out evaluations that are comparable across countries, nevertheless they raise questions about the relevance of the Basel Core Principles, the current emphasis on these principles as key to effective supervision, and the wisdom of carrying out costly periodic compliance reviews of BCP implementation in the IMF/World Bank Financial Sector Assessment Programs.

Dead Poets Society :: essays research papers

When I first saw Dead Poets Society, it was nothing I expected. The film is quite serious and it is without question the best movie I've ever seen. It takes place in 1959 at Welton Academy, a private collage prep school for boys where discipline is the most important goal and any demonstration of a free thought is strictly prohibited . One voice stands out among narrow-minded administration-John Keatings, eccentric and inspiring teacher. He wants his students to "suck the bone of life to the marrow", "to seize the day", and to make their lives "extraordinary". Keatings teaches poetry, but his students get a lot more than that- they learn passion, courage, and romance. Group of his students dare to form Dead Poets Society, a secret organization. One of the boys, Neil, who wants to be an actor but whose overbearing father forbids him to , commits a suicide and dies . His roommate , Todd, is trying to live up to expectations after his brother becomes the school's valedictorian. At the end, Mr. Keatings is fired after being accused of having a negative impact on his students. Self-esteem becomes one of the centers of the movie. Neil's low self-esteem reveals itself only in the relationship with Neil's father, but leads Neil to his tragic end. On the other hand, Todd, with the help of Professor Keatings, was able to build up his self-esteem . John Keatings wasn't a regular professor: his teaching methods were very different from those of others in Welton Academy. The relationship between Todd and professor Keatings is quite interesting because we can see the transformation that Todd went through from being afraid to answer teacher's question to being the first one to show his appreciation for Mr. Keatings when doing so could lead to expelling from the school.It is very interesting to see how John Keatings establishes the relationship with his students. He is quite open with his students about his attitude towards the world and his ideas about the purposes of life, and other general things, however, at the same time he doesn't reveal his personal life. This is very understandable due to the fact that he is a teacher, and his role as a teacher prevents him from getting too personal with his students. Moreover, in my opinion, it was very important to keep this barrier between the professor and his students because otherwise they could've lost their respect for him as a teacher.

Causes of the Great Depression Essay -- United States History Economic

Causes of the Great Depression Throughout the 1920’s, new industries and new methods of production led to prosperity in America. America was able to use its great supply of raw materials to produce steel, chemicals, glass, and machinery that became the foundation of an enormous boom in consumer goods (Samuelson, 2). Many US citizens invested on the stock market, speculating to make a quick profit. This great prosperity ended in October 1929. People began to fear that the boom was going to end, the stock market crashed, the economy collapsed and the United States entered a long depression. The Great Depression of the thirties remains the most important economic event in American history. It caused enormous hardship for tens of millions of people and the failure of a large fraction of the nation’s banks, businesses, and farms. The stock market crash in October 1929 is believed to be the immediate cause of the Great Depression, but there were many other factors and long-term causes that developed in the years prior to the depression. The 1920’s may have been prosperous for some Americans, but the growing prosperity was actually weakening the economy. Many US citizens were never participating in the boom from the start. There were some wealthy individuals, but 60% of people were living below the poverty line. The coal mining industry had expanded greatly, creating many jobs, but with the introduction of oil and gas, the production of coal was decreased along with the amount of jobs. The United Mine Workers Union’s membership fell from 500,000 in 1920 to 75,000 in 1928 (Temin, 33). The cotton industry experienced similar unemployment problems. In the agricultural industry, an increase in production was met with a decrea... ...n increased 50 %, but workers could not buy goods as fast as the industry produced them because their wages were low. Workers reduced their spending to hold down their debts, the amount of money in circulation decreased, and business became even worse. The Stock Market Crash was an immediate cause of the Great Depression, but there were many long-term causes that gradually weakened the economy. Bibliography Matthews, Layth. â€Å"What Caused the Great Depression of the 1930’s?† Internet. http://www.shambhala.org. 2002. Samuelson, Robert. J. â€Å"Great Depression.† The Concise Encyclopedia of economics. Internet. http://www.econlib.org. 2002. Tanner, Neal. â€Å"The Easy Life of the ‘20’s Contributed to Great Depression.† Overview: The Great Depression. Internet. http://www.marist.edu/summerscholars. 2002. Temin, Peter. Lessons from the Great Depression. 1989.

Focalization in Richard Wrights :: essays research papers fc

Focalization in Richard Wrights Bright and Morning Star 1. Introduction 3 2. Narration 4 3. Focalization 5 - 6 4. Conclusion 6 5. Bibliography 7 1. Introduction The presentation of events in narratology differs greatly with the purpose of the text. Certain events would seem less authentic if they were to be presented in a third-person narrative, other events just can’t be described objectively within a first-person narrative. Sometimes the events call for a non-involved description but on the other hand are too personal not to include thoughts and views of the character. In this case a different perspective is needed to view the events, not to describe them. For analytical purposes one can assume that the different aspects on narration are chosen for reason by the`implied author ´, a substitute agent which is "the governing consciousness of the work as a whole." (Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction Contemporary Poetics, London / New York, 1983). This agent therefore presents the events through the mediation of a certain perspective, the focalizer, and verbalizes them through a different agent, the narrator. The analys is of both narrator and focalizer can give further insights into the purpose of a story and can help to overcome hermeneutical differences in the interpretation. I will begin my narratological analysis of Richard Wrights Bright and Morning Star with the aspect of the narrator and his role and purpose in the interpretation. Since the aspect of narration is not my main topic I will keep the analysis short and in direct relation to the focalizer. I will then concentrate on the aspect of focalization and the different levels of pervasion of the focalized. The degree to which the lead character is focalized can be directly related to aspects of interpretation and certain linguistic features which I will specify. I will then conclude my analysis by showing that the described aspects serve to evoke a certain perspective and atmosphere and are therefore useful for contextual interpretation. 2. Narration In Richard Wrights Bright and Morning Star the events are mediated through a third-person narrator who describes events past to him. Using the terminology of Rimmon-Kenan the narrating agent can be classified as an ulterior extra-diegetic, heterodiegetic narrator. The first aspect defining the narrator is the relationship between narration and story, the time when the story is being narrated. The most frequent form is the narration of events after they happened, the ulterior narration, as in Bright and Morning Star. The use of the past tense is the most prominent indication of an ulterior narration.

The system of slavery and resulting

The system of slavery and resulting racial prejudice evoked negative reaction from many Americans. Their views came into conflict with the perception of slave labor as `normal` and economically sound part of everyday life prevalent in the mainstream community. some of them resorted to peaceful means for propaganda of their worldview like Harriet Beecher Stowe; others like Nat Turner initiated armed struggle to overthrow the hateful system.Nat Turner’s rebellion continues to evoke a mixed response, depending supposedly on the race of the evaluator and position on racial issues. On the one hand, Nat Turner was definitely a man of great leadership skills, able to motivate many people to fight against inhuman conditions of the Southern plantations.On the other, he is known to have ordered the murder of al white people including children and women, and the list of the rebellion’s casualties includes many people whose contribution to exploitation was but marginal.Similarly qu estionable are the methods of guerrilla warfare used by John Brown to liberate the slaves. This story demonstrates that centuries after, America continues to be divided on the issue of race and ways to overcome racial tensions.Harriet Beecher Stowe is certainly a less controversial figure. Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is undoubtedly one of the most influential books in US history. Its significance was succinctly expressed by Abraham Lincoln in a personal meeting with the writer in 1862: â€Å"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!†[1]While the President’s words were surely a polite exaggeration, it is certain that Stowe’s novel helped wake up many citizens who, much like herself before 1850, remained passive onlookers of slaves’ sufferings, informed those remote from the issue, and helped shape and develop the Abolitionist Movement.However, in the South she received negative publicity as people began to accuse her of exaggerating the horrors of slavery. To this date, Americans still live to some extent in the shadow of these events. Still, debates continue as to the need to compensate descendants for the atrocities of slavery, methods to be used for the rehabilitation of the African American community, and heroes of the anti-slavery struggle.For centuries, women remained on the sidelines of American society. Slowly but gradually, their role continued to rise as women’s rights entered the political agenda of the United States as an important issue. This change was made possible by the efforts of many outstanding women who upheld the cause of female liberation through the toughest of times.Harriet Beecher Stowe can be considered a precursor of the Feminist movement. In a letter to George Eliot, Stowe insisted that â€Å"emancipation of slaves must be followed by the emancipation of women†[2]. In an attempt to combine the two, Stowe wrote in New York newspaper Independent that wom en can be active in the abolitionist cause, striving to leverage their influence by signing petitions, sharing information, and organizing community anti-slavery events[3].[1] Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. (2005). Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life and Timeline. Retrieved June 10, 2006, from http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/[2] Cavendish, R. (2001). Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. History Today 51 (6), 54.[3] Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. (2005). Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life and Timeline. Retrieved June 10, 2006, from http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/

Factory Farming Essay Essay

Factory farming is one of the most controversial topics talked about around the world. Most people just believe their perfectly packaged meat from the supermarket comes from a normal farm. Little do they know, it’s much more than that. Consumers have no idea what animals go through just for them to have a great chicken or steak dinner. Jessica Leader of the Huffington Post states, 99% of the meat in the United States comes from factory farms. (Leader, paragraph1). Factory farming according to Webster’s Dictionary is a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost. This doesn’t sound so hurtful or damaging, but according to the Huffington Post, these operations cause distress for the animals that live there, and they are given chemicals, antibiotics and sometimes they even have diseases (Paragraph 2). Factory farming, in my opinion is really animal savagery and there is nothing healthy or positive about it. There are actually many health and environmental problems associated with industrial farming. For example, Jonathan Foer in his book, â€Å"Eating Animals† states â€Å"These animals are genetically engineered, restricted in mobility and fed unnatural diets.† (Page 34) Anything unnatural obviously can’t be healthy for the animals let alone the people who are being fed these animals after they are packaged and sent away to markets. In addition, factory farms are not healthy for the environment. A farm with 10,000 hogs produces as much fecal waste as a small city with 40,000 people, says Robert Martin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of public health. (Kristof, Nicholas, page 2). Food people are consuming and fecal waste should not even be in the same association with each other. The hogs in a single country of North Carolina produce half as much waste as all of the people living in New York City. That fact right there clearly shows that factory farms are usin g very unsanitary conditions just to harm these animals, as well as the environment. Although not intentional, these farms hurt the animals without a care because people need to eat. Mass amounts of waste is a perfect example of air pollution. Soil used for vast crops as well as the manure are  the largest contributors to air pollution from the farms. Another big health risk of factory farming is the use of chemicals/antibiotics. Antibiotics are medicine prescribed from a doctor to humans or animals to kill infections and more then 80% of antibiotics was produced in 2011 to be fed to livestock. (Leader, #2) Factory farmers are giving these to the animals who aren’t sick. Routinely they are given antibiotics, in order to help them grow quicker in small living conditions. Infections can also be given because of antibiotics, which puts Americans at risk everyday because of overuse (Paragraph 13). The animals are fed the medicines to fight disease that they don’t have, pretty much infecting the humans as well. People could be getting sick because of the f oods their eating everyday without even knowing it. Taking antibiotics not prescribed to you sometimes allows unwanted bacteria to grow causing a person to get sick when they weren’t going to be in the first place. Although there seems to be no positive reasons as to why factory farming could benefit anyone, the only benefit besides people not starving really is it’s efficiency. Because it’s a fast and organized system, these farms have no choice but to make a lot of money for themselves and the government. Consumers are obviously buying all things that are being made mainly because they don’t really know what’s being put into the meat they are buying. Because there are not enough reasons to convince me why factory farming is positive to anyone at all, I think that it’s a very negative way to get our food. Kristof states in his article â€Å"Is That Sausage Worth This?† that animals, â€Å"Live out their adult lives without exercise or meaningful social interaction; it’s like a life sentence of solitary confinement in a coffin†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Kristof, Nicholas, Paragraph 7). In no way, shape or form is that fair to an innocent animal. Animals shouldn’t have to be kept prisoners in small places just to be poisoned, killed and eaten. All of the various drugs and chemicals are harming the animals and humans that it touches. More animals are being slaughtered and fed different chemicals that aren’t safe for people to be eating all the time. If the government truly cared about societies health, they would try to stop unsanitary and unhealthy conditions such as this. In 1906, a situation just as similar to this had risen with the meat packing industry. In that year, Upton Sinclair a reformer/socialist released his book The Jungle which told a horrible story of Chicago’s meat packing industry. Because of this book, society started to change severely. The issue of the unsanitary and unfair working conditions got to the president and he knew he had to make a change. President Theodore Roosevelt had a bill signed on June 30th of that same year, called The Meat Inspection Act. This banned packers from using unhealthy dyes, chemical preservatives and adulterants. By studying what happened to improve the industry in the 1900’s I believe that our food system could then make some changes. This act should still be in effect, but the way it’s been worked around, it seems as if factory farming really isn’t harming people at all. It’s an undercover system. Obama already started trying to fix these problems by undertaking a push beginning in 2010 to strengthen antitrust of the meat industry. Kristof, Nicholas, Paragraph 4). I still believe that overtime they could find better products to give the animals that are safer and healthier for both them to live a little longer, and us to be healthier. Personally, I believe that if people including myself start to buy more healthier, organic foods, and less meat, producers will start to realize that maybe people are seeing the truth. Organic foods are just made in a safer way, without really harming animals and they’re also more nutritious as well. Also, in some way people need to be informed of what’s really being put into their food and actually try to make a difference instead of sitting there and watching themselves be harmed by things that should be giving them a better well being. Over time, hopefully factory farms die out and there will be a better system to produce our foods. Analysis of Sources Form Give the following information for each source that you use in your research paper. Source 1) Title of Source 9 Facts About Factory Farming that Will Break Your Heart . Name of Author Jessica Leader . Date of publication March 17, 2014  . Publisher: The Huffington Post . Where did you find the source? Online . Type of Source (Is your source a book, magazine, newspaper, journal, etc?) The source is an online article from a newspaper. Credentials of the author: Check your source for information about the author or google his/her name) Jessica Leader is the Huffpost Green associate editor. Publisher: How long has the publisher been in business? What other publications does the publisher publish?____Not sure how long the publisher has been in business, but she wrote several articles in the Huffington Post . Reasons why this source is reliable:____Real information and real live pictures to show how gruesome factory farming is. Reasons why this source may be unreliable: There may be some opinions listed, not all people may be heart broken from this. Source 2) Title of Source Eating Animals . Name of Author Jonathan Safran Foer . Date of publication 2009 . Publisher: Little, Brown and Company . Where did you find the source? I was told to read this novel last semester in English 12. Type of Source (Is your source a book, magazine, newspaper, journal, etc?) Source is a book . Credentials of the author: Check your source for information about the author or google his/her name) Foer is most known for his two novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Known especially for his storytelling in non-traditional ways . Publisher: How long has the publisher been in business? What other publications does the publisher publish? His first novel was published in 2002, and he’s written many other books as well. Reasons why this source is reliable: first hand source, someone who has experienced and studied factory  farming on his own. Reasons why this source may be unreliable: The novel includes a lot of his opinion and a reader may interpret those things as facts. Source 3) Title of Source Is That Sausage Worth This? Name of Author Nicholas Kristof . Date of publication February 19, 2014 . Publisher: The New York Times . Where did you find the source? CUNY online library . Type of Source (Is your source a book, magazine, newspaper, journal, etc?) Online, newspaper article. Credentials of the author: Check your source for information about the author or google his/her name) Columnist for The New York Times since 2001, writes op-ed columns that are in the paper twice a week. Mr. Kristof won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006. Publisher: How long has the publisher been in business? What other publications does the publisher publish? He joined the Times in 1984, and as well as columns in the paper he is the author of a chapter in a book on George W. Bush. Reasons why this source is reliable: He has been in the business for a very long time, so he is clearly smart and speaks facts. Reasons why this source may be unreliable: Newspaper columnists can too make mistakes when writing. Source 4) Title of Source The Unhealthy Meat Market . Name of Author Nicholas Kristof . Date of publication March 12, 2014 . Publisher: The New York Times . Where did you find the source? CUNY online library . Type of Source (Is your source a book, magazine, newspaper, journal, etc?) Online, newspaper article. Credentials of the author: Check your source for information about the author or google his/her name) Columnist for The New York Times since 2001, writes op-ed columns that are in the paper twice a week. Mr. Kristof won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006. Publisher: How long has the publisher been in business? What other publications does the publisher publish? He joined the Times in 1984, and as well as columns in the paper he is the author of a chapter in a book on George W. Bush. Reasons why this source is reliable: He has been in the business for a very long time, so he is clearly smart and speaks facts. He wouldn’t continue to be working with the Times if he wasn’t knowledgable. Reasons why this source may be unreliable: Sometimes there are errors in breaking news. WORKS CITED Leader, Jessica. â€Å"9 Facts About Factory Farming That Will Break Your Heart (GRAPHIC PHOTOS).† The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/factory-farming-facts_n_4063892.html Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009. Print. Kristof, Nicholas. â€Å"Is That Sausage Worth This?.† The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/kristof-is-that-sausage-worth-this.html Kristof, Nicholas. â€Å"The Unhealthy Meat Market.† The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/kristof-the-unhealthy-meat-market.html