Thursday, October 31, 2019

Child Labour in Bangladesh Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Child Labour in Bangladesh - Essay Example Workers are oftentimes forced to work long hours in unsafe working conditions for little pay and some are forced to start working at a very young age. I will argue whether sweatshops actually raise the standard of living in third world countries, if in fact unfair working conditions are better than no job at all, or if sweatshops are merely exploitation When the terms â€Å"sweatshop† and/or â€Å"child labour† are used, there are a host of images that come to the readers mind. The broad majority of these are of course negative; however, a few scant positive opportunities exist with relation to the term as well. For purposes of this research, this brief analysis essay will consider some of the most relevant pros and cons associated with the existence and operation of sweatshops within the developing world. Furthermore, this paper will also seek to engage the reader with the understanding that regardless of the level of exploitation or non-exploitation that may or may not be taking place within the supply chains of many Multi-National Corporations. As such, this essay will attempt to weight both sides of these arguments in an attempt to determine whether exploitation of vulnerable/at-risk individuals and/or societies defines the means or production across the board or whether this means of production actually helps to raise the standard of living in some of the poorest and most economically depressed regions of the world (Ray & Chatterjee, 2012). As a means of fully understanding this question, this author will first consider the fact that almost invariably when one mentions the down sides of child/sweat shop labour, the phrase itself is nearly invariably used in conjunction with child-labour. Although this is not the case in all situations, the two terms have become so interchangeably used so as to oftentimes blur the

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Starbucks Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Starbucks - Case Study Example It still had to face criticism as people believed that it was not an actual size reduction but just a fad on the part of the company. Due to this they started producing the snickers mini and phased out the giant. The environmental aspects that have positively impacted the company include demography of the area of operation which is within cosmopolitan regions. This also has been amounted to by the technological advancements within these regions especially that their products are furnished brands to the existing products. Lastly, the cultural trends of the regions of operations have been characterized by fashionable products which basically triggered the entry of Snickers into the market space. Moreover, the success of starting the company was amounted to the level of education of the management; this accorded the management technical as well as managerial skills, having studied a bachelor’s degree in business management. By extension, prior experience in a sugar processing far m came in handy as regards the stages of production and general processing. In addition to this there was adequate savings to initiate the company as initial capital. Product Description and Segmentation The Starbuck Company produces products made up of Nougat, caramel and covered with chocolate. They have a range of products, the original snickers, the dark snickers, the almond snickers and the ice cream. The ice cream comes in three forms, a cone, a brownie and a bar. Current Market Target Starbucks Company has enjoyed a whopping 30% market share owing to its quick establishment as regards to the core products which long before never existed to satisfy the consumers’ needs, but if they did then were of poor quality. The main area addressed by Starbuck coming in handy as a cutting edge was their technological inclusion in the venture. This furnished the brand of the product. In addition to their quality products the government was quite impressed and considered funding the e xpansion in the production of this new brand of products. In addition to the aforementioned market share, Starbucks Company’s considerations come along with the knowledge of the customers of probable benefits accruing from the entry of the new product, their willingness and capability to pay higher prices for the new products, their likelihood to adopt the new brand based on their attitude and their criticisms about the product which they would wish to be addressed; especially the health concerns. Proposed Promotion Mix The current advertisement that Starbuck Company has been running is the â€Å"when you are hungry, you are not you†. It is this concept that has received recognition and they have made some really interesting advertisements that have earned them acclaim. This advertisement focuses on the fact that the company products give you energy and makes you young and energetic. Other than this the company has also used various promotion strategies like Push strat egy as well as the pull Strategy which has ensured the maximal exploration of all available channels of distributing the product to the market. In these methods of advertising the company has employed various stratagems like Product comparison advertising; whereby it has enjoyed the benefit of an outstanding product. Other equally competitive marketing

Sunday, October 27, 2019

The Challenges In Paediatric Radiography

The Challenges In Paediatric Radiography In generally paediatric radiography is take the radiography image of children. The purpose to take the radiography image has two purposes which are for the diagnostic and therapeutic purpose. Diagnostic purpose commonly is for evaluate or see the children body condition in anatomical and pathological aspect. But therapeutic purpose mainly is for treatment like surgical repair the fracture such as insert plate to join the bone that fracture. Children presenting to do radiographic examination range from newborn (neonates), toddlers (12 months to 2 years old), school age (6 to 8 years old) and adolescent (10 to 13 years old) Different age of children group representing the different challenges to the diagnostic radiographer on duty. Diagnostic radiographer have think many or different method to examine the children at same must reduce total dose receive by the children and provide high quality image to radiologist for diagnosis. Paediatric patient will always come with special or in other word say as a unique problem to the radiographer. This situation always challenges diagnostic radiographer in both physically and mentally aspect. They have to use different way to communicate will paediatric patient. Staff on the radiography department must always response to the non verbal communication of paediatric patient. Because they are not like adult patient which can voice any complication to us. Paediatric Patient Consideration Like what have mention above, Paediatric Patient is not like adult patient. When Paediatric Patient present in the department for the diagnostic examination, few aspect should be consider in order to make they fell comfort and friendly. Some Paediatric Patient will not understand the normal word which we use to communicate to adult patient, because adult patient easy to communicate and they can understand the as a radiographer attempt to say and the level of understanding is much higher than child. But for Paediatric Patient, they cant understand the many word. Paediatric Patient has limited range of word or limited knowledge about the world especially if the Paediatric Patient is under school age or adolescent patient and they have lower level of understanding. For school age patient and adolescent patient they may be able to communicate easily than other Paediatric Patient. So, in communication aspect. Radiographer has to shown excellent communication skill to all kind Paediatric P atient according they age. Radiographer must use appropriate, easy and simple wording and language to the Paediatric Patient, the tone of voice must low and friendly. Dont ever using the high tone of voice when talk to Paediatric Patient, they may think you (radiographer) is try to hurting them. Dont ever try to rude to the Paediatric Patient when they are not understand what you (radiographer) attempt to saying. Always observe the non verbal communication of the Paediatric Patient. This kind of communication always provides more information about what Paediatric Patient wants to express. Example of non verbal communication is facial expression, body posture and other. Staff in the department must always allow the Paediatric Patient is company by parent or guardian during the examination in order to comfort them. The present of parent or guardian always make radiographer work become easy, because present of them can give security factor through the eye or physical contact to the Paediatric Patient. The presence of family member which stand behind the protective screen from radiation also reduce the fear of the Paediatric Patient School age and adolescent patient commonly is can do the radiography examination independently. Because the level of understanding of them is higher compare to toddlers. Dont leave the paediatric patient alone in the imaging room. When we left them alone at the imaging room, they will start to fear to the stranger environment and the dark area. This condition will lead to the some unfavourable complication such as rapid heart rate, paediatric patient start to cry or paediatric patient may ingest or inhale foreign body due to the interesting. If the complication is severe and paediatric patient health condition is critical, then the whole department will get in trouble. So , to avoid all this unwanted phenomena happen in imaging department, please dont ever try to left them alone although they are school age or adolescent because they in the range of the age to explore to world. Environmental and privacy factor are also must considered in advance of the examination. Check the imaging room temperature whether too warm or too cold, if the temperature is not suitable for the particular patient, radiographer can adjust the room temperature to the appropri ate degree according to the patient size and age. When radiographer takes off some cloths from they and allow strangers to see their body, try to ask they permission or confirmation from their parent or guardian, because we dont want they feel like shame and uncomforted. If can, try use hospital grown to cover their body after takeoff some their cloths, this can give them comfortable. Role of the Radiographer before Examination Before the examination, radiographer has to do something in order to the whole examination procedure in carry smoothly without facing any problem. In other word, to make sure your (radiographer) work is easy. When you (radiographer) see the imaging request form, make sure you (radiographer) know the name of patient, especially they age and indication. This will help radiographer in aspect of communication, how to talk will them because different age of paediatric patient have different level of understanding, tone of voice and how to handle the paediatric patient will especial indication including alternative method to conduct the examination. Before start examination, make sure that the physical environment in imaging room is suitable for the particular paediatric patient including the room temperature and all the facility including the suitable immobilization devices is provide. This is very important factor to ensure the work can carry smoothly. After then, introduce yourself (rad iographer) including your age and name or other relevant information about yourself. Try asking the paediatric patient name, bringing them walk around the imaging department, and introducing some staff and the instrument to them to make them familiar in new environment to avoid the feeling of strange and fear from of the paediatric patient. When taking to the paediatric patient, try use simple and appropriate language to give the instruction to them. To ensure them whether they understand or not, you can ask the feedback from them. If you failure to communicate with them, you can explain the instruction to them parent or guardian. Otherwise radiographer has to think other way to communicate. Let the child known about the examination mean tell them what will happen before, during and after the examination, the whole procedure about the examination, inform them during examination will have some noisy from the movement of table , x ray tube and anode rotation. When talking to them, mak e sure talk at the eye level in order to get the trust and cooperation from them. Try to establish the rapport with them, ask the question from them. Always allow the parent and guardian present in imaging room to give better feeling to child. Preparation for the Examination When preparing for the examination, radiographer always prepared alternative way to perform the examination. The primary method may not be allowed by the imaging room condition such as lack of immobilization devices, temperature too cold or other factor. Patient condition also one of the factor which make radiographer prepare alternative way to perform examination. They may come with wheel chair, with trolley or limited in movement. Some child may have disability, so have use other method to do the examination. Before the paediatric patient enter the imaging room, in advance take the image receptor, immobilization pads to the imaging room. Place the image receptor, immobilization devices, x ray tube and table on the correct position according to examination request. So, this action will can decrease the working noise like movement of the X ray tube and table during the examination. Choose the suitable exposure factor like low Mas for examination according to the part be x ray and pat ient age and size. Make sure that the exposure factor that select can produce high quality image if not the examination need to repeat, it will give more dose to the paediatric patient. Radiographer also can collimate the radiation field to the size of cassette and place the anatomical marker in advance, so this will reduce time for the child in the imaging room. When the stages of preparation are complete, position the paediatric patient accurate and allow parent or guardian accompanies their child, and gives the lead grown to them. Immobilization Devices Immobilization devices are instrumentation that can found in radiology department. This kind instrumentation in create to make the radiography examination undergo more successfully. Immobilization devices normally have few important functions. The devices can hold the patient in position according to the radiography examination procedure requirement. Radiographer will use these devices when the desire position of the paediatric patient cannot be achieved. Other than this function, immobilization devices also can prevent movement of the paediatric patient due to the physical condition. Patient movement during the examination will cause artifact on the image that produce. Artifact effect on the radiography image will make the radiologist difficult to diagnose and cannot further evaluate the image. If the examination is repeated due to image artifact, this will cause double exposure to the paediatric patient. Another function of the immobilization devices is to make patient in comfort p osition. Paediatric patient may feel uncomforted when place their hand or feet on the x ray table relative cold. So, when use the devices, we can direct contact of childs body part to the x ray table and child also feels comfortable. The immobilization devices also can use to compress the thicker part of patient like during the abdomen examination. Thicker part means have many tissue, these tissue will attenuate the total amount of x ray and dose receive by patient is high. The type of immobilization devices is adhesive tape, sandbags, compression bands, towels, ace bandages and radiolucent sponges Radiation Protection and Dose Reduction for Paediatric Patient Whenever the paediatric patient come to imaging department, radiographer must apply the radiation protection to the paediatric patient and parent, guardian or family member when they in the imaging room. Application of the Radiation protection has 2 functions in imaging department. One is to reduce the total effective dose receive by the patient and the scattered radiation receive by the radiographer. If the dose receive by the patient and radiographer is exceed the recommend dose, the bad effect will happen to they like loss of hair, effect the reproductive part, effect the eye and other. Another function is to protect the patient, radiographer, family member from direct expose by the primary beam. This protection is very important in order to reduce the total dose receive by them. The selection of the exposure factor like KvP, MaS should be according to the examination requirement, patient size and patient age. Normally, small and low age patient is requiring low exposure factor th an adult patient. Radiographer must using low MaS to the small and young patient. Because the MaS control the total x ray beam that produce, amount of the x ray is direct proportionally to the MaS. Mean when increase the MaS; we will increase the amount of the x ray. Short examination time should be apply, so the examination period will be short and further reduce the movement of patient. Movement of patient can cause the artefact on the radiography image. Accessory equipment should be provide in the department to hold the patient in the position, so it can reduce the movement of the patient and decrease the possibility to repeat the examination. Proper collimation also one of the way that can reduce the radiation expose to the patient. Radiographer can collimate the primary beam to the area to be exam and no longer than unnecessary area. So, patient unnecessary part would not expose to the radiation. When the parent or family member is in the imaging room to hold their child during examination, radiographer must provide the lead grown to them to avoid direct expose by the radiation. Before any examination, ask patient (female above 10 years old) last menstrual period. If they are suspecting in pregnant, the examination cannot be perform. Because the radiation will directly affected the fetus. While the radiographer is applying the radiation protection to the patient, must also produce the high quality image. Point for the Radiographer This is meant the thing which radiographer must do before, during and after the examination. Before the examination, a clear and simple instruction should give to the child, dont try using the language level more than they understanding level. When they want change to hospital grown, please give the sufficient time to them. Because paediatric patient is take slightly longer time than adult and ask the family member to assist them. Avoid behave rudely to them, because this will hurt them. What to Think about Paediatric Patient When handle them, radiographer must use appropriate approach dont ever use threatening approach toward them. Communication skill is very important especially communicate will child due to the level of understand, appropriate language must apply. The concept of ALARA must apply in all the examination. Patient care in one of the aspect which radiographer has to apply, like give blanket during examination, assists patient whenever they need.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The honor code Essay -- essays research papers

How will the honor code impact my academic and campus life?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout my years at Xavier and beyond I intend to follow the Xavier Honor Code so I can become a cooperative and responsible person. By being a student at Xavier I notice I will have to take responsibility of my actions and faults. In order for Xavier to trust me and to allow me to continue attending their school, I will have to follow their rules and be respectful. Not only should I do these things, but also I have to respect myself in order to respect others. In following the Honor Code at Xavier I will learn more about others, the school, and myself. The Honor Code will impact my academic and campus life because it will lead my way to the future by becoming a successful young black woman.  ...

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Foreign Market Entry Strategies Essay

When an organization has made a decision to enter an overseas market, there are a variety of options open to it. These options vary with cost, risk and the degree of control which can be exercised over them. The simplest form of entry strategy is exporting using either a direct or indirect method such as an agent, in the case of the former, or countertrade, in the case of the latter. More complex forms include foreign direct investments which may involve joint ventures, or export processing zones. Having decided on the form of export strategy, decisions have to be made on the specific channels. Many agricultural products of a raw or commodity nature use agents, distributors or involve Government, whereas processed materials, whilst not excluding these, rely more heavily on more sophisticated forms of access. These are discussed in this paper. The three main ways are by direct or indirect export or production in a foreign country. Exporting Exporting is the most traditional and well established form of operating in foreign markets. Exporting can be defined as the marketing of goods produced in one country into another. Whilst no direct manufacturing is required in an overseas country, significant investments in marketing are required. The tendency may be not to obtain as much detailed marketing information as compared to manufacturing in marketing country; however, this does not negate the need for a detailed marketing strategy. Here the manufacturing is home based thus, it is less risky than overseas based. Besides giving an opportunity to â€Å"learn† overseas markets before investing in bricks and mortar, it also reduces the potential risks of operating overseas. Exporting methods include direct or indirect export. In direct exporting the organization may use an agent, distributor, or overseas subsidiary, or act via a Government agency. The disadvantage is mainly that one can be at the â€Å"mercy† of overseas agents and so the lack of control has to be weighed against the advantages. For example, in the exporting of African horticultural products, the agents and Dutch flower auctions are in a position to dictate to producers. According to Collett3 (1991) exporting requires a partnership between exporter, importer, government and transport. Without these four coordinating activities the risk of failure is increased. Contracts between buyer and seller are a must. Forwarders and agents can play a vital role in the logistics procedures such as booking air space and arranging documentation. Foreign direct investment Besides exporting, other market entry strategies include licensing, joint ventures, contract manufacture, ownership and participation in export processing zones or free trade zones. Licensing: Licensing is defined as â€Å"the method of foreign operation whereby a firm in one country agrees to permit a company in another country to use the manufacturing, processing, trademark, know-how or some other skill provided by the licensor†. It is quite similar to the â€Å"franchise† operation. Coca Cola is an excellent example of licensing. In Zimbabwe, United Bottlers have the licence to make Coke. Licensing involves little expense and involvement. The only cost is signing the agreement and policing its implementation.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Price Discovery in Illiquid Market

| A synopsis on| Price Discovery in Illiquid markets: Do Financial Asset Prices Rise Faster Than They Fall? | | Submitted by:Dinesh MaharjanMBAe-Trimester VIG-one| 4/13/2013| Richard C.. Green, Dan Li and Norman schurhoff. Price discovery in illiquid market: Do financial asset prices rises faster than they fall. The journal of Finance. VOL LXV, No. 5, OCTOBER 2010| Submitted To: Kiran Thapa Portfolio Management and Security Analysis (Course instructor) Ace Institute of Management I. IntroductionIn OTC bond markets many investors face high costs of trade, and these costs appear to be related to the lack of price transparency. This journal studies the consequences this has for efficient price discovery. In the municipal bond market, unlike the markets for most consumer goods, dealers trade with retail customers as both buyers and sellers and as in consumer markets, in municipal bond market prices appear to â€Å"rise faster than they fall. This asymmetric price adjustment, referred to as â€Å"rockets and feather†, is generally understood by economists to be inconsistent with perfect completion between sellers.Sellers appear to exploit local market power due to the search cost of information that customers face and opportunistically delay the recognition of price movements in dealing with customers The report reflects the asymmetric price adjustment in a major OTC financial market using a comprehensive sample of all trades in municipal bonds over a 5- year period. The report focuses on how the dealers take advantage through manipulation of bond price. On average dealers are â€Å"buying wholesale† and â€Å"selling retail†, the asymmetric movement in prices benefits dealers.II. Objectives of Study * The main purpose of this paper is to study the price discovery in municipal bond. * To analyze How and why the price of the municipal bond rise faster than they fall (rockets and feathers) i. e. asymmetric price adjustment * Study the cross-secti on behavior of bond price with regard to macroeconomic news, treasury yield and how dealers exploit the opportunity of price asymmetry. * To study behavior of intermediaries with respect to price movement, bid-ask spread III. Literature ReviewGreen, Hollifield, and Schurhoff (2007b) show that that newly issued bonds exhibit some peculiar behaviors and high levels of price dispersion. As shown in Green, Hollifield, and Schurhoff (2007a), dealer purchase from and sales to customers are roughly in same value. There are a large number of bounds outstanding, but most individual bonds trade infrequently; intraday price variation can be large compared to movements in fundamentals (Green, Hollifield, and Schurhoff). Hence this paper employs only panel data methods and focus on transactions data aggregated at a daily frequency.Studies on the treasury market generally find that price react almost instantaneously to surprises in scheduled macroeconomic announcements, that the announcements tri gger abnormally high volume, and that there is little autocorrelation in returns after the first minute (Ederington and Lee ( 1993, 1995), Fleming and Remolona (1999), and Balduzzi, Elton, and Green (2001), Piazzesi (2005) studies the price reaction to the FOMC meeting statements and finds that the price response to surprises in these announcements is more sluggish, perhaps because of the qualitative nature of the announcements and their unexpected timing.Harris and Piwowar (2006) and Green, Hollifield and Schurhoff (2007a), investigate the cross-section determinants of dealer trading profits, but whether markups differ when prices are rising versus falling. If prices rise faster than they fall, as in markets for retail goods, then the markup should increase during market rallies by more than if it falls when prices are decreasing. Search costs have been used to explain price dispersion in OTC markets and hidden costs in financial services.Carlin (2009) describes how opacity in fina ncial markets can be interpreted as intermediaries imposing gratuitous search costs on consumers, and how this sustains monopoly profits in equilibrium. Green (2007) uses search costs to explain price dispersion and shows that even when intermediaries must compete for issuers’ business, the resulting monopoly rents can be sustained. IV. Data and Methodology The study of price discovery in the municipal bond market is conducted using data provided by Municipal securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), a self-regulatory industry group.These data include all trades made by registered broker-dealers in municipal securities from May 1, 2000 to October 19, 2006. There are 1,615 trading days during the period. Trades are reported in 1,559,894 bonds. This paper applies a number of rule-based filters to clean the transactions data, eliminate bonds with missing observations, correct obvious clerical errors, and supply missing data items where possible and excludes a small number of trades on holidays and weekends. Most studies of the rockets and feathers phenomenon are based on data that are of high frequency on the time- series dimension.The municipal market, in contrast, involves a huge cross section but trading in individual bonds is relatively infrequent. Therefore this paper propose statistical models that aggregate all transaction in a bond at the daily level, and construct proxies for effective bid-ask spreads, half spreads, and yield spreads over comparable Treasuries. The study is based on empirical analysis which employed following set of explanatory variables and controls * Bond issue and issuer characteristics: Issue size, coupon, maturity in years, modified duration, indicator for callable, tax exempt and insured bonds. Indicator variables for the U. S. state of issuance and calendar year fixed effects. * Order flow variables: short-term rate, term premium, and default spread. * Controls for the average par size traded on a given day, or for the par size a nd the daily changes in the size of the trades used to measure bid, ask, and midpoint price/yield. To evaluate the impact that news events have on volume the regression analysis is conducted, whether the day saw the good bad or neutral news. Also conducted a cross-section regression of the daily change in the yield (price) against the surprise variable (news).To measure the underlying price movements, Lehman Brother’s Long Term Municipal Price Index is used to proxy for the market price level. Regression on markup on round- trip transaction against the change in the index over the period between the initial purchase and final sale is conducted. V. Analysis: a. Asymmetric price adjustment The asymmetric price adjustment is associated with opportunistic timing by the broker-dealers who intermediate trades in the market. The analysis shows that on the ask side of the market, where dealers are selling, prices rise faster than they fall.On the bid side, where dealers are buying, p rices fall faster than they rise. The profits on retail trades rise in rallies faster than they decrease when prices fall. This evidence suggests that dealers opportunistically delay recognition of movements in fundamentals. b.. The effect of macroeconomic news events on Price (yield) and volume: The regressions show that, while Treasury rates respond quickly to macroeconomic movements, municipal rates do not. Yield spreads also respond dramatically and persistently because the prce adjustment for municipals is so slow. It is found that the municipal yields (price) respond sluggishly to news.Also there is no effect in transactions volume in bond due to news impact. c. Implicit Half- Spreads and Asymmetric Price Adjustments To analysis how effective half- spreads respond to change in the midpoint, proxy for the bond’s value. When the midpoint of the bond rises, the average sales price less the midpoint (ask-side effective spread) is unaffected, but it rises when values fall. T hus, on the ask side, price rise faster than they fall. Similarly, the bid-side effective half-spread rises when prices rise, but is unaffected when price fall. Thus, the prices that dealers pat fall faster than they rise.In short, when underlying values move to dealers’ advantage, dealers quickly adjust prices up or down to maintain a constant profit margin. In contrast, when price movements decrease the cost of bond that dealers are selling, or increase the cost of a bond they are buying , dealers’ transactions prices are sticky. d. Asymmetric Yield spread Dynamics: Next analysis is the movement over time of yield spreads between municipals and Treasuries using a partial adjustment model. When the spread of the Treasury yield over the municipal midpoint yield is high, the municipal’s yield tends to rise and thus the price tends to fall.The reverse occurs when the yield spread is unusually narrow. The analysis shows that yield spreads widen faster than they shr ink. Alternatively stated, municipal price rise faster than they fall. e. Search costs and Asymmetric price dispersion: The analysis shows that within-day dispersion in the prices at which dealers sell to customers is higher when prices are falling than when they are rising. It is also found exact opposite for prices at which dealers buy from customers. Taken together, these findings suggest that dealers are exploiting search frictions on both sides of market.V. Conclusion Investor, financial intermediaries and regulators should concern regarding the consequences of limited transparency in financial markets. It is clear from the analysis that opacity in the municipal bond market affects the dynamic behavior of prices. Price discovery is slow, and price rise faster than they fall. Intermediaries appear to opportunistically time their responses to new information about fundamentals in the prices at which they trade with investors. The dealer markups on inventory positions increase fas ter when prices rise than they decrease when price fall.Implicit bid-ask spreads adjust slowly when they are relatively wide and adjust quickly when they are relatively narrow. Implicit half-spreads respond more quickly to price movements when this benefits dealers. Yield spreads relative to treasuries also adjust with asymmetric speed when they suggest that municipal prices should rise versus fall. In conclusion, these findings suggests that intermediaries benefit from the lack of price transparency and decentralization, and thus from the search costs imposed on investors, in the OTC market.