Bank of Valletta has just published the 42nd edition of the Bank of Valletta Review. The popular bi-annual publication published by the Bank features four informative papers is now available for download from the Bank’s website www.bov.com. Lino Briguglio is the editor of this edition and is assisted by E.P Delia and Gordon Cordina.
The first paper, entitles Valuation of the Salini National Park by Luciano Pace Parascandalo is a study that aims to obtain a monetary value for the benefits achieved from recreation at the Salini National Park in Malta. This was achieved through the contingent valuation approach through a questionnaire administered to people visiting the park. This study assessed visiting patterns and the environmental importance assigned to the park. The research hypothesis is that individuals who visit Salini Park for recreation are willing to pay a price for visiting the park and that the use of contingent valuation surveys conducted on individuals visiting the park for recreation will elicit a monetary value for the park.
Funding: The University of Malta’s Main Challenge by Philip von Brockdorff deals with the sharp increase in enrolment at the University of Malta over the last 20 years, which combined with the recent economic downturn has made funding more challenging. This paper outlines the current funding structure, mainly through grants on recurrent and capital expenditure issued yearly by the Government of Malta and relates this to student numbers over the years so as to determine whether the UoM has experienced a decline or otherwise in funds per student. The paper also analyses the financial impact of achieving a target participation rate of 35% by 2020 in tertiary education including the effect of the projected increase in student numbers on stipends awarded to full-time University students.
The third paper in this edition, authored by Vanessa Zammit tackles the Asymmetries in the Monetary Transmission Mechanisms in the Euro Area: The Case of the Housing Market. After 10 years of euro and the single monetary policy, the monetary transmission mechanism is still asymmetric across euro area countries, with the housing market being one of the factors behind such divergence. This paper examines the role of housing market channels in the monetary transmission mechanism in the euro area. The speed and extent of the effect of a change in the monetary policy stance on real economic variables in euro area countries is analysed in terms of house price movements and institutional characteristics of mortgage markets such as the interest rate structure, loan-to-value ratios and refinancing possibilities through mortgage equity withdrawal.
Clyde Caruana delves on Measuring the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Welfare State: A Comparative Study of the EU-27 Member States Abstract. Welfare state outcomes go beyond poverty and inequality reduction. Economic literature suggests that welfare is a dynamic concept which benefits may cost in terms of employment, long-term unemployment and economic growth. Moreover the welfare state should also be measured in terms of the resources employed to obtain the desired social outcomes. This paper provides arguments of why it is the structure of
benefits and the institutional setup which bear the most weight behind the success of welfare states. If “poor planned” welfare state spending cause people to remain inactive or dependent there is no reason why not to suppose that “well structured” welfare expenditure cannot influence people to act differently.