Ms. Rachel—the fastest-growing phenomenon in children’s educational entertainment—brings her signature teaching style to her debut picture book! With favorite songs and language development techniques from her videos, Ms. Rachel asks young readers to help her find a very special surprise just for them. Ms. Rachel is looking for something very special, and she needs your help finding it! With more than 20 important milestones featured—including gestures and speech—Ms. Rachel brings educational expertise to her debut picture book. Using key lessons from her YouTube channel and threading them into an interactive story, she shows kids and parents alike fun ways to engage and play! Fans of Ms. Rachel will recognize characters and music from their favorite videos while Ms. Rachel guides readers through exercises like pointing and call and response. After the adventure ends, you can use the helpful tips included on the back to assist with brain and language development for your little one. Kids are sure to read and reread this new classic! With fun song lyrics and recognizable phrases, there’s plenty to keep them delighted and engaged with their favorite teacher. And, as always, she makes sure they know just how special they are!
Anticipatory military activities, which include both preemptive and preventive military actions, are at the centre of American strategic doctrine – however, states rarely use these activities. Rachel Bzostek puts forward an integrated analysis to help understand why states have or have not undertaken such activities in the past. By exploring what kinds of strategic or structural elements compel states or leaders to take anticipatory military action, as well as how these concepts are viewed in both international law and the just war tradition, this book uses case studies to examine those elements that have played an influential role in the decision-making process. Ideal as a course reader for upper division undergraduate and graduates in security studies, international law, US foreign policy and those involved in the teaching and training of the military.
Geoeconomic fragmentation (GEF) is becoming entrenched worldwide, and the European Union (EU) is not immune to its effects. This paper takes stock of GEF policies impinging on—and adopted by—the EU and considers how exposed the EU is through trade, financial and technological channels. Motivated by current policies adopted by other countries, the paper then simulates how various measures—raising costs of trade and technology transfer and fossil fuel prices, and imposition of sectoral subsidies—would affect the EU economy. Due to its high-degree of openness, the EU is found to be exposed to GEF through multiple channels, with simulated losses that differ significantly across scenarios. From a welfare perspective, this suggests the need for a cautious approach to GEF policies. The EU’s best defence against GEF is to strengthen the Single Market while advocating for a multilateral rules-based trading system.
This paper finds that reforms introduced by the IMF to promote transparency have created more informed markets and reduced borrowing costs for those emerging market countries that volunteered for them. Using a quarterly panel estimation with fixed country effects, we find that sovereign spreads fall following the adoption of three different transparency reforms. The effects are economically important, especially for those countries with low initial transparency. We use two-stage least squares to address any endogeneity in the timing of reforms exploiting internal IMF timetables that are unrelated to country events. Next, using a panel GARCH specification, we show that spreads move more than normal in the days immediately following publication of IMF country documents.
Europe’s high pre-existing level of financial development can partly account for the relatively smaller reach of fintech payment and lending activities compared to some other regions. But fintech activity is growing rapidly. Digital payment schemes are expanding within countries, although cross-border and pan-euro area instruments are not yet widespread, notwithstanding important enabling EU level regulation and the establishment of instant payments by the ECB. Automated lending models are developing but remain limited mainly to unsecured consumer lending. While start-ups are pursuing platform-based approaches under minimal regulation, there is a clear trend for fintech companies to acquire balance sheets and, relatedly, banking licenses as they expand. Meanwhile, competition is pushing many traditional banks to adopt fintech instruments, either in-house or by acquisition, thereby causing them to increasingly resemble balanced sheet-based fintech companies. These developments could improve the efficiency and reach of financial intermediation while also adding to profitability pressures for some banks. Although the COVID-19 pandemic could call into question the viability of platform-based lending fintechs funding models given that investors could face much higher delinquencies, it may also offer growth opportunities to those fintechs that are positioned to take advantage of the ongoing structural shift in demand toward virtual finance.
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