Results of Research
“Teaching Methods and Assessment Techniques for the Undergraduate Finance Course – A Canadian Survey” Advances in Financial Education. Volume 2, Spring 2004.

Paper titled “Teaching Methods and Assessment Techniques for the Undergraduate Finance Course - A Canadian Survey” accepted at the Financial Education Association annual conference. Florida, USA (April 2003).

My current research in this area has focused on the valuation of the financial services companies in the new economy. This research used the “Value Creation Index Model” developed by the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation (with permission). The results of this research identified and provided useful information on the factors creating value in the financial services companies in Canada and compared and contrasted these to the findings in the United States. The study was timely given the recent financial irregularities and scandals in the corporate sector in the US.

Results of Research
A paper titled, “Valuing Intangibles Using the Value Creation Index Model: Experience with the Canadian Financial Services Industry” was accepted at the 2003 European Applied Research Conference in Venice, Italy.

Financial markets and transactions play in important role in maintaining stability in the world. The ability of financial markets and governments to ensure this stability is dependent upon accurate and complete information concerning the flow of funds. Hundi and Hawala are non-documented transactions and as such do not register on the radars of the financial markets, leading to anomalies and distortions which in turn can cause instability in the global financial markets. This is all the more important because of the sheer size of these non-documented transactions, with estimates in the range of several billions of dollars.

Previous research has led to developing a framework for understanding Hundi and Hawala transactions. The research effort thus far has traced the origins, examined different variations, and enumerated the advantages of this system over formal channels. Lastly, in an over-arching glance, it considered socio-economic implications, regulatory issues, and anticipated possible future directions. Results from these previous research projects have been received very well in the academic and practitioner communities and led to conference presentations at:

• Paper presented at the Atlantic Schools of Business Conference 2003, Halifax, Canada.
  
  
• Paper accepted at the 38th Annual Assembly of CLADEA (Latin American Council of Management Schools). Lima, Peru. The paper was also published in CLADEA’s referred conference proceedings.
  
  
• Invited by the College of Business and Management, University of Sharjah to deliver a seminar on Informal Value Transfer Systems. Sharjah, UAE.
  
  
• Results of the research have also been shared with financial institutions, law enforcement agencies and other researchers.
  
  
• Invited by the UAE Central Bank to attend the Second International Hundi and Hawala Conference in Dubai, 2004.

The current research project will be completed in partnership with a researcher at The World bank in Washington, D.C. and will address the regulatory aspect of money transfers, informal value transfer systems (IVTS) and microfinance. The results of the research are planned to be presented at a conference and later published in a peer-reviewed journal.

This research project is aimed to present a global survey of the implementation of Special Recommendation VI of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF). The survey will be administered to the central banks of a number of countries. The proposed paper will address questions such as how many countries have enacted new regulations on informal payments systems since FATF issued the recommendation? How many remittance service providers have been registered? How have regulators responded to the new regulations? What capacity constraints, if any, have been encountered?

Emerging approaches to international standards need to sufficiently take into account specific domestic circumstances. Developing effective regulatory and supervisory standards for informal funds transfer systems is a complex process. Differences in the stages of economic development in general, and the financial sector in particular, imply that national regulators need to give careful consideration to country-specific circumstances and national legal systems, especially when the following principles are applied:

• Attempts to over-regulate or regulate without understanding their inner workings cannot be expected to work.
  
  
• Attempts to regulate without the consensus and input of operators, users and intermediaries will violate the element of trust that is one of their defining and time-abiding elements.
  
  
• Attempts to regulate strictly will drive hawala more underground; will provide incentives for secrecy and better organization and resistance to authority in general.

The IVTS topic is of great interest to a number of stakeholders, including governments, central banks, law enforcement agencies, regulators and the academic community. I am privileged to have a researcher at The World Bank partner with me on this project. The opportunities for conference presentation and publication for this research effort are very bright.

Results of Research
Paper titled, "Hundi and Hawala: Myths and Realities" was accepted at the Atlantic Schools of Business Annual Conference held in October 2003 in Halifax, NS.

"Understanding Hundi and Hawala - An Informal Value Transfer System" published in the refereed conference proceedings at the 38th Annual Assembly of CLADEA (Latin American Council of Management Schools) held in Lima, Peru. 2003.

The initiative will allow for sharing of information on the use of the experiential methodology and the role it plays in developing leadership, team building, initiative, problem-solving and communication skills with interested stakeholders in the academic and other communities. Some of these other communities include; ACE, Camp Centennial, Dobson Center and ACOA. In a recent meeting, Mr. Cameron Laker, Campus Relations Director of ACE (Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship) encouraged me to share the results of my research as he felt that this approach could serve as a model for entrepreneurship education at various Canadian universities. This initiative will allow for sharing of this innovative approach to entrepreneurship education among various stakeholders and result in conference presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals.

A paper on the topic has been recently presented at the 2004 STLHE (Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) Conference in Ottawa. A proposal has also been submitted to another conference. Feedback received from these events will be incorporated in the final paper, which will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Results of Research
Presented an interactive learning session titled, "An Experiential Approach to Entrepreneurship Education" at the 2004 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE). Ottawa, Canada. 2004.

Department of Economics

• Research Interests

• rural housing
• information technology adoption and use
• community economic development
• rural development

Department of Geography

• Legacies of the North American Industrial Past: Constructing Heritage Landscapes in Post-Industrial Maritime Canada.

• The Geography of Speech Language Pathology Under-Servicing in New Brunswick

• Heritage Buildings of Sackville, NB

• Collective Memory and the Oral History of St. Ann’s, Westcock, NB

• The Persistence of a Geography of Poverty in Rural and Small Town New Brunswick, 1941-91

• Managing the Marsh: a historical geography of microscale management issues on the Tantramar marshlands in the 19th century

• Landscape and Memory: Atlas de littératures acadienne et anglophone du Canada Atlantique

Brad is a human ecologist whose interest is in the relationship between socio-economic and environmental change, especially in coastal areas.  Specific research projects include human influence on the ecology of mangrove forests in the Philippines; environmental history of salt marshes in Atlantic Canada; and the impacts of aquacultural development on traditional fisheries in the Bay of Fundy.