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Theft of public assets from developing countries is an immense problem with a staggering development impact. These thefts diverts valuable public resources from addressing the abject poverty and fragile infrastructure often present in such countries. Although the exact magnitude of the proceeds of corruption circulating in the global economy is impossible to ascertain, estimates demonstrate the severity and scale of the problem at $20 to $40 billion lost to developing countries each year. What this estimate does not capture are the societal costs of corruption and the devastating impact of such crimes on victim countries. Theft of assets by corrupt officials, often at the highest levels of government, weakens confidence in public institutions, damages the private investment climate, and divests needed funding available for core investment in such poverty alleviation measures as public health, education, and infrastructure. This study's key objective is to mobilize policy makers on the existing difficulties in stolen asset recovery actions and convince them to take action on the featured recommendations. Such action will enhance the capacity of practitioners to successfully recover stolen assets. Los países en desarrollo pierden aproximadamente $ 20-40 mil millones cada año por causa de sobornos, malversación de fondos y otras prácticas corruptas. Sólo una mínima parte se recupera. Esta enorme brecha en la recuperación real de los activos robados apunta a la presencia de importantes barreras que impiden su recuperación. Con el fin de llenar este vacío, la Iniciativa para la Recuperación de Activos Robados (StAR) ha lanzado Barreras para la recuperación de Activos, un análisis exhaustivo de estos impedimentos y su impacto negativo. La cooperación internacional es fundamental. La Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra la Corrupción es una plataforma clave para fomentar este tipo de acción colectiva, como lo demuestran los compromisos asumidos por los gobiernos, la sociedad civil y el sector privado aun así, varias de las barreras identificadas no pueden superarse a través de la convención. Basándose en la experiencia de profesionales con experiencia práctica, este estudio tiene por objeto orientar a los responsables de formulación de políticas y promover recomendaciones prácticas destinadas a ayudar a las jurisdicciones en la elaboración de políticas efectivas para recuperar energéticamente los activos robados. El G-20, las organizaciones internacionales, instituciones financieras, agencias de desarrollo y la sociedad civil tienen un papel clave que desempeñar en asegurar un progreso concreto en la implementación de estas recomendaciones. Le détournement des fonds publics représente un obstacle de plus en plus significatif au développement économique des pays émergents. En effet, la disparition de ces ressources publiques essentielles empêche de réduire la pauvreté et pérennise la fragilité des infrastructures de ces pays. S’il est impossible d’évaluer le montant exact des produits de la corruption dans le monde, les estimations témoignent de la gravité et de l’ampleur du problème. Chaque année, on considère que la corruption prive les pays en voie de développement de 20 à 40 milliards de dollars. Ces chiffres ne reflètent pas l’ensemble des coûts de la corruption, ni l’impact dévastateur de ces infractions sur les pays qui en sont victimes. Les détournements de fonds publics perpétrés par des agents publics corrompus, occupant souvent les plus hautes fonctions de l’Etat, sapent la confiance dans les institutions publiques, met à mal le climat nécessaire aux investissements privés, et empêche la mise en œuvre de mesures contre la pauvreté, notamment dans les domaines de la santé publique, de l’éducation et des infrastructures. Réalisée dans le cadre de l’initiative StAR (Stolen Asset Recovery), cette étude s’appuie sur l’expérience de praticiens du monde entier rompus au processus de recouvrement des avoirs, et sur des études effectuées indépendamment par des collaborateurs. Ainsi, une cinquantaine de praticiens originaires à la fois des Etats requérants et requis, traitant quotidiennement des dossiers de recouvrement d’avoirs, ont été consultés afin de passer en revue les conclusions de cette étude avant sa publication. Les obstacles sont classés en trois catégories distinctes qui feront chacune l’objet d’une section : les obstacles d’ordre général et les problèmes institutionnels ; les obstacles juridiques et exigences qui retardent l’entraide judiciaire et enfin, les obstacles opérationnels et les problèmes de communication.

The growing recognition within the water industry that cyclic loading from pressure transients could accelerate pipe failures has motivated the development and application of the Cumulative Pressure‐Induced Stress (CPIS) metric. This metric incorporates both mean pressures, derived from extended period simulation hydraulic models, and the more challenging dynamic pressures (DP). Estimating DP requires high‐temporal‐resolution data to count pressure cycles, yet sparse pressure monitoring locations and the computational complexity of transient modeling hinder network‐wide DP estimation. To overcome these limitations, this study investigates various methods to estimate DP across an entire water distribution network using spatial interpolation techniques and simplified transient modeling, which use pressure monitoring data from a limited number of locations. Applying these approaches to an operational system, we found that inverse distance weighting reliably approximates DP for pipes without direct measurements. The estimation accuracy depends on factors such as the magnitude and proximity of transient sources and the density of sensors throughout the network. By integrating the interpolated DP values with mean pressures to calculate CPIS for each pipe, models predicting pipe failures can more accurately assess causality and forecast future breaks. The resulting insights offer a better understanding of how to estimate benefits associated with hydraulically calming water distribution networks.

As households have become increasingly financialized, family scholars have considered the consequences of assets, credit, and debt for family dynamics. Previous studies that focused on labor force participation or earnings found that inequality between partners has important gendered consequences for relationship stability. We expand on this by considering within-couple financial inequality—the extent to which partners hold assets and debts unequally—and its implications for marital stability. Two competing perspectives—financial equality and financial specialization—offer different predictions. Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we find strong support for the financial equality perspective and little support for the financial specialization perspective. Couples with equal holdings have the most stable marriages. We also find that the positive association between equal financial holdings and marital stability is driven primarily by financial integration, or joint holdings. In some cases, we also find support for a modified version of the gendered institution perspective, as marriages with female partners holding most of the asset or debt are less stable than marriages with male partners holding most or partners holding them equally. We further distinguish among different types of assets and debts in our analyses, in recognition of the growing diversity of financial holdings and their varied implications for relationship quality and stability.

Many new HVAC power cable installations on wind farms, both on- and offshore, have long lengths. In contrast to traditional power cable connections of a few kilometers, the failures of those systems usually result in much higher repair and unsupplied energy costs. To support the quality assurance of newly installed cable systems as well as to create a sound basis for condition-based maintenance, this paper discusses the technical challenges of the field testing of long-length power cable systems using a damped AC testing method and also discusses the best practical applications for the testing and diagnosis of these wind farm HVAC cable systems.

In one of the greatest extensions of property rights in human history, common law countries began giving rights to married women in the 1850s. Before this \"women's liberation,\" the doctrine of coverture strongly incentivized parents of daughters to hold real estate, rather than financial assets such as money, stocks, or bonds. We exploit the staggered nature of coverture's demise across U.S. states to show that women's rights led to shifts in household portfolios, a positive shock to the supply of credit, and a reallocation of labor toward nonagriculture and capital-intensive industries. Investor protection thus deepened financial markets, aiding industrialization.

What explains the growing gap in marriage rates between socioeconomic groups? We present a robust stylized fact not previously documented: marriage rates are higher for individuals with more assets. We argue this may be driven by marriage and cohabitation becoming increasingly similar in a number of ways except for the way assets become marital property to be divided upon divorce in marriage while they remain individual property in the case of cohabitation. We propose that ownership of assets may provide “insurance” to the partner making individually costly, but jointly optimal, investments in children, thus raising the value of marriage.

The Family Stress Model framework proposes that household income can influence child and youth development through caregiver psychological distress. While prior studies have observed stronger associations among households with lower income, the role of assets has been ignored. This is unfortunate, as many existing policies and practices that intend to improve child and family well-being are focused on assets. The purpose of this study is to clarify whether asset poverty moderates the direct and indirect effects of paths linking household income, caregiver psychological distress, and adolescent problematic behaviors. Using the 2017 and 2019 Panel Study of Income Dynamic Main Study and 2019 and 2020 Child Development Supplements, we find that the family stress processes consisting of household income, caregiver psychological distress, and adolescent problematic behaviors are less intensive for families with more assets. These findings not only add our knowledge of FSM by taking account the moderating role of assets but also advance our understanding that assets can benefit child and family well-being through alleviating family stress processes.

This study examines the money-subjective well-being nexus by studying the link between changes in jointly and solely (i.e. respondents’ own and their partner’s own) held gross wealth and changes in married individuals’ subjective well-being. Joint assets reflect norms of sharing responsibilities and resources. Solely held assets, in contrast, offer individual economic independence. Using wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), we estimate individual fixed effects regressions. Although coefficients for all three wealth measures are positive, our results highlight that only increases in jointly held wealth are associated with statistically significant increases in spouses’ life satisfaction in Germany. Despite expectations about a stronger relevance of joint wealth for men compared to women in line with men’s role as a financial provider for the family, we do not find substantial gender differences in the positive association between increases in joint wealth and life satisfaction. In light of the individualisation of marriages, our results highlight that the personal benefits associated with marital sharing of wealth seem to trump those of economic independence and financial autonomy.

Growing research links household financial decisions to physical and mental health status within the nuclear family. We hypothesize that mental health issues (psychological distress) outside of the nuclear family unit are a unique contributor to household portfolio allocation decisions. We use panel data and find that having at least one sibling with psychological distress decreases the probability of risky asset ownership (stocks, mutual funds), decreases risky assets as a share of financial assets, and decreases total amount of risky asset holding. These results have important policy-related implications for understanding the connection between health, portfolio allocation, and wealth building.

This paper analyzes the problem of a principal (she) designing a contract for an agent (he) to form a short-lived partnership to exploit an asset before reselling, as in asset flipping. The agent possesses higher expertise than the principal in the sense that he can form a more-accurate assessment of the resale value of the asset before negotiating the dissolution of the partnership. By dissolving the partnership through a Texas shootout with the agent as proposer, the principal can “neutralize” her partner’s informational advantage and have him disclose the resale value for free. Thus, in the optimal contract, the agent’s superior expertise does not distort the structure of the partnership (i.e., the allocation of shares). The partners attain a higher aggregate surplus ex-ante if the principal commits to giving the asset away to the agent upon dissolving the partnership: She earns a lower revenue but lets all types of the agent enjoy a higher surplus. Thus, at the ex-ante stage, the agent could “bribe” the principal to implement this alternative. However, the additional surplus for lower types is insufficient to compensate the principal, so this higher ex-ante aggregate surplus is unattainable at the interim stage.