Reading Report#3--Critique

Critique of 《E-Finance: An Introduction》
In “E-Finance: An Introduction”, the author wants to introduce a new type of finance – E-finance by describing electronic technology’s impacts on financial services firms, payment systems and securities markets. This essay is for those readers who have a little knowledge of finance for the author employs many professional terms. The structure of the essay is quite clear and every paragraph is logically organized. At the beginning of each passage there is a suitable topic sentence and the author uses precise definition, reasonable analysis and various examples to support the topic sentence. For instance, when describing “disintermediation”, the author explains many important concepts like liquidity, securitization and so on in order to help readers understand the reasons of disintermediation. Besides that he also uses believable facts such as a recent Federal Reserve Board Report to elaborate the main idea. In conclusion, the author displays the facts and his own opinions very well to enable readers learn a lot from his essay.

Reading Report#3--Summary

Summary of 《E-Finance: An Introduction》
In “E-Finance: An Introduction”, in Journal of Financial Services Research, 2002, the authors Franklin Allen, James Mcandrews, Philip Strahan define E-Finance as “the provision of financial services and markets using electronic communication and computation” (Franklin Allen, James Mcandrews, Philip Strahan, 2002, page 5). First of all, they discuss the different impacts—“disintermediation, consolidation and access to credit “ (Franklin Allen, James Mcandrews, Philip Strahan, 2002, page 10, page 12 and page 13) e-finance technologies exert on financial services firms, including financial intermediaries, insurance and security firms. Later they describe the development of a personal online payment system “in response to a specific demand – online auctions” (Franklin Allen, James Mcandrews, Philip Strahan, 2002, page 19). At last, the writers talk about the information and communication technology’s impact on different financial markets. They state that both the stock market and the foreign exchange market employ electronic trading to a large scale while the bond market barely makes use of electronic trading. In conclusion, they claim that the common access to Internet will endow e-finance with more and more opportunities.

Reading Task #2

Summary of 《 Digital Economy 》
Chapter 4
In “Reduction of Transaction Costs by Using Electronic Commerce in Financial Services: An Institutional and Empirical Approach” in “Digital Economy”, chapter 4, Harbhajan Kehal & Varinder P. Singh, 2005, the authors Thomas Pfahler & Kai M. Grebe, University of Bayreuth, Germany reveal the positive impact of Information and Communication technology on transaction costs reduction in financial services. The authors claim that e-commerce is crucial to financial institutions. Employing “the basic principles of New Institutional Economics” (Thomas Pfahler & Kai M. Grebe, 2005, Page 63), they created a cost model that focuses on the changes of transaction costs under the influence of different technologies—“manual, mail, phone, fax, BTX, online and mobile” (Thomas Pfahler & Kai M. Grebe, 2005, Page 68). In this way, the writers drew the conclusion that electronic commerce is one of the most effective ways to reduce the cost of transactions, which can be proved by “empirical considerations” (Thomas Pfahler & Kai M. Grebe, 2005, Page 72)

Reading Report 1#

In《Socio-Economic Impacts and Influences of E-Commerce in a Digital Economy》in《Digital Economy》, chapter 1, Harbhajan Kehal & Varinder P. Singh, 2005, the author Sushi K. Sharma analyses the impacts and influences of Digital Economy in various aspects. At the beginning he gives the definition that Digital Economy is “ a convergence of communications, computing and information” (Sushi K. Sharma, Page 3, Digital Economy, 2005). Then he discusses “the positive influence of E-commerce for Business” (Sushi K. Sharma, Page 3, Digital Economy, 2005), which benefits both suppliers and customers. Later he talks about Digital Economy’s impacts and influences on society, which includes “digital divide, marginalization, social Isolation, loss of Individuality, privacy invasion and changes of local, social and political values” (Sushi K. Sharma, Digital Economy, 2005). After that he shows the reader how Digital Economy exerts its influence on economy, which consists of “organizational changes of enterprises, negative impacts on local business and community, the inconvenience caused by bundling or tying arrangements, negative effects on tax and employment, the formation of a competitive market, the impact on prices and the threat to SMEs” (Sushi K. Sharma, Digital Economy, 2005). Finally he concludes that electronic commerce brings both positive and negative impacts.

My life at YUELI

Life here is quite interesting. We are required to read a lot of things and I am happy about that. I like reading but usually I have little time to read at university. Now I have got the chance to read a lot of things. Great!

Hello, everybody~It's nice to have a blog here!
My name is Mengxue Wang and my English name is Alice. I am a happy out-going Chinese girl. I will post my course assignments at YUELI on my blog and I hope you will enjoy reading them.I am ready to hear your comments.
Thank you!