Oct 6, 2013 16:46
10 yrs ago
English term

which can be further promoted

English Bus/Financial Finance (general)
Hello,

The following sentence bothers me. I can't decide to what "which" refers to.

"In sum, it seems that shallow FTA agreements promote cross-border deposits – possibly because cross-border finance is more deregulated while larger differences in regulation act as an incentive, which can be further promoted by common currency."

For context, here's what is said previously :

"Cross-border deposits have in general been driven by the existence of an FTA agreement between the bank and customer country. However, such an effect is not statistically significant for the EU. In the European context, the EMU effect seems to dominate as it is significantly positive and with 30.7% also quantitatively important. It is also noteworthy that a similar but slightly smaller effect (25.1%) is found for other currency unions as well."

Thanks a lot for your help :)

Responses

+2
4 hrs
Selected

"which" refers to cross-border deposits

Syntactically, "which" has several possible antecedents, and which of them is intended is a question which has to be determined semantically. In other words, in this case we have to decide what might be further promoted by common currency.

Of course, the first option one considers is the immediately preceding noun, "incentive". But it is not likely that one would speak of "promoting" an incentive, and besides, a common currency would probably involve common regulation, so it would not coexist with and promote larger differences in regulation.

Another possibility is that "which" refers to the fact that FTA agreements promote cross-border deposits, but what is said previously suggests that when there is a common currency FTA agreements have little effect, so it is not likely that the author means that a common currency promotes the effect of FTA agreements.

I think the likeliest reading is that "which" refers to cross-border deposits. The sentence is saying that these are promoted by FTA agreements and can be further promoted by a common currency: a common currency is more effective than FTA agreements in promoting them. This is consistent with what is said previously. The use of the same verb, "promote" suggests that this is the essential parallel: that "cross-border deposits" is the effective object of "promote" in both cases. So "possibly because [...] act as an incentive" is a lengthy parenthetical phrase inserted between "which" and its antecedent, "cross-border deposits".
Note from asker:
Thanks a lot Charles :) Your explanations are really helpful ! I think I may have to rephrase the sentence a bit so as to translate it properly !
Peer comment(s):

agree Anna Herbst : It would be less confusing if the punctuation had been clearer - there should of course have been a dash rather than a comma following "incentive" in the original text.
4 hrs
Thanks again, Anna :) That's quite true; I should have mentioned it.
agree B D Finch : And agree with Anna's comment on the punctuation.
11 hrs
Thanks, B D
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks a lot Charles :-)"
17 mins

which are even more attractive (if there is a common currency)

I understand it as follows: cross-border finance might be hindered if the currency in the other state is different, because of possibly additional bank charges for holding a foreign currency account. So if there is a common currency, that hindrance is non-existent.
Note from asker:
Thanks Henk,
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55 mins

'Which' does not refer to a single word but to a situation ...

and the situation is 'shallow FTA agreements promote cross-border deposits – possibly because cross-border finance is more deregulated while larger differences in regulation act as an incentive' ... IMHO.
Note from asker:
Merci beaucoup ! :)
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