Europe’s banking system is weighed down by high levels of non-performing loans (NPLs), which are holding down credit growth and economic activity. This discussion note uses a new survey of European country authorities and banks to examine the structural obstacles that discourage banks from addressing their problem loans. A three pillared strategy is advocated to remedy the situation, comprising: (i) tightened supervisory policies, (ii) insolvency reforms, and (iii) the development of distress...

The expansion of Western education overseas has been both an economic success, if the numbers of American, European, and Australian universities setting up campuses in Asia and the Middle East is a measure -- and a source of consternation for academics concerned with norms of free inquiry and intellectual freedom. Faculty at Western campuses have resisted the new satellite campuses, fearing that colleagues on those campuses would be less free to teach and engage in intellectual inquiry, an...

This book builds on existing conversations surrounding millennials and media use by examining Generation Z’s engagement with new media technologies and comparing it to that of millennials. Ahmet Atay and Mary Z. Ashlock have assembled this edited volume in which contributors focus on three interrelated areas: how millennials and Gen Z use new media technologies and platforms in different contexts; how they use media and what they do with it; and the relationship between the two generations...

The global financial crisis has left a large private sector debt overhang and high levels of non- performing loans (NPLs) in several European countries. Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) represent a significant and weak segment of the nonfinancial corporate sector. SMEs face a number of legal, financial, and regulatory challenges to restructuring that differ from those of larger corporates, such as a rigid and costly insolvency regime, a higher fixed cost to loan restructuring, and ...

The note will make the case for a substantial increase in the VAT in Japan as a core measure of fiscal consolidation, assess its macroeconomic impact (on real activity and inflationary expectations), consider key elements in its design and implementation (dealing with the distributional consequences; ‘big-bang’ versus preannounced step increases); the importance of retaining a single rate and adopting compensating spending measures as needed) and a range of related issues (such as the pros...

This book explores the representations of national Asian histories in digital games. Situated at the intersection of regional game studies and historical game studies, this book offers chapters on histories and heritages of Japan, China, Iran, Iraq, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Turkey, and Russia.The volume looks beyond the diversity of the local histories depicted in games, and the audience reception of these histories, to show a diversity of approaches which can be ...

Kang Hang was a Korean scholar-official taken prisoner in 1597 by an invading Japanese army during the Imjin War of 1592–1598. While in captivity in Japan, Kang recorded his thoughts on human civilization, war, and the enemy's culture and society, acting in effect as a spy for his king. Arranged and printed in the seventeenth century as Kanyangnok, or The Record of a Shepherd, Kang's writings were extremely valuable to his government, offering new perspective on a society...