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  • Articles  (390)
  • Hindawi  (390)
  • 2010-2014  (390)
  • Economics  (390)
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  • 1
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    A Complex Dynamical Analysis of the Indian Stock Market (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-12-15
    Description: This paper seeks to analyze the dynamical structure of the Indian stock market by considering two major Indian stock market indices, namely, BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty. The recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is applied on the daily closing data of the two series during the period from January 2, 2002, to October 10, 2013. A Rolling Window of 100 and step size 21 are applied in order to see how both the series behave over time. The analysis based on three RQA measures, namely, % determinism (DET), laminarity (LAM), and trapping time (TT), provides conclusive evidence that the Indian equity market is chaotic in nature. Evidences for phase transition in the Indian equity market around the time of financial crisis are also found.
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    Topics: Economics
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  • 2
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    Information in Repeated Ultimatum Game with Unknown Pie Size (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-02-21
    Description: Within existing literature, it is well known that people’s behavior in ultimatum game experiments cannot be explained by perfect rationality model. There is, however, evidence showing that people are boundedly rational. In this paper, we studied repeated ultimatum game experiments in which the pie size is only known to the proposer (player 1), but the transaction history is made known to both players. We found that subject’s behavior can be very well explained by the history-consistent-rationality model (HCR model) of Lee and Ferguson (2010), which suggests that people’s behavior is affected by what they observed in the past. The HCR model is able to yield point predictions whose errors are on average within 5% of the total pie size. The experimental results provide evidence that subjects' behavior is boundedly rational with respect to the transaction history.
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  • 3
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    Social Insurance and Truncated Benefits: Measuring the Impacts of Workers' Compensation (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-09-25
    Description: This study addresses the indirect impacts of state-mandated workers' compensation benefits on workers' wages. The benefit structure of workers' compensation causes a fundamental estimation problem. I develop a new strategy to limit the biases inherent in earlier models. I utilize individual-level census data (between 1940 and 1990) to exploit benefit variation that occurs both across states and within the fifty states over time. The results suggest that wage offsets are not constant across time and may be larger for workers at lower-wage levels.
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  • 4
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    Demand for Meat in the Rural and Urban Areas of Kenya: A Focus on the Indigenous Chicken (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-09-27
    Description: This study intends to estimate the demand for indigenous chicken meat in Kenya, including other available meat products for comparison purposes. Data used was collected from six counties. A total 930 rural and urban households were sampled. Linear Approximated Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) model was used to obtain the demand elasticities and to examine the socioeconomic and demographic factors influencing the meat budget shares. The results ascertain that the socio-demographic factors such as household location, the proportion of household members and the family size are important factors in explaining perceived variations in the consumption of meat products. Indigenous chicken meat, beef and mutton, were identified as necessities. Indigenous chicken meat and beef were identified as substitutes while indigenous chicken, goat and exotic chicken meats were complements. In view of the high expenditure elasticities, therefore, considering a policy option that would enhance consumer income is desirable, since it will result in high consumption thereby providing more incentives for production of meat products. The information generated would be more beneficial to the interest groups in the livestock sector as a whole. This would be utilised in the formulation of effective policies in line with food security and poverty alleviation.
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  • 5
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    Information in Repeated Ultimatum Game with Unknown Pie Size (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-02-08
    Description: Within existing literature, it is well known that people’s behavior in ultimatum game experiments cannot be explained by perfect rationality model. There is, however, evidence showing that people are boundedly rational. In this paper, we studied repeated ultimatum game experiments in which the pie size is only known to the proposer (player 1), but the transaction history is made known to both players. We found that subject’s behavior can be very well explained by the history-consistent-rationality model (HCR model) of Lee and Ferguson (2010), which suggests that people’s behavior is affected by what they observed in the past. The HCR model is able to yield point predictions whose errors are on average within 5% of the total pie size. The experimental results provide evidence that subjects' behavior is boundedly rational with respect to the transaction history.
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  • 6
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    Ownership Structure, Financial Decisions, and Institutional Setting: An International Analysis through Simultaneous Equations (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-08-24
    Description: We analyze the mutual relations among firms’ capital structure, ownership structure, and valuation. Through the estimation of a system of simultaneous equations for a sample of 1,130 firms from 16 countries from both the common law and the civil law environments, our results confirm the differential effect of ownership structure on firms’ value in each setting. Whereas in civil law firms the higher ownership concentration results in an entrenchment and an alignment effect, in the common law firms higher ownership concentration increases the value of the firm. Second, we corroborate the endogeneity of ownership structure since we find that ownership structure is affected by the value of the firm and by the capital structure. Third, our results suggest that corporate finance decisions are taken simultaneously with other mechanisms of corporate governance and conditional on firms’ valuation.
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  • 7
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    Insurance and Banking Interconnectedness in Europe: The Opinion of Equity Markets (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-08-29
    Description: Conditional expected shortfalls calculated for European insurance companies and banks under stressed market conditions are shown to be of similar magnitudes. Measured at 95% and 99% stress levels, on data covering the period from 1995 to 2011, the equity-return tail losses of insurance undertakings and banks are indistinguishable. Granger causality analysis, on all pairs of banks and insurance companies included in the sample, shows that banks and insurance companies have equal propensity to cause each others price movements. Even though the business model of insurance undertakings is different from the business model typically applied by banks, and even though insurance companies are not depending to a similar degree on short term funding as banks, the empirical results indicate that the financial equity markets in Europe do not differentiate their trading of banks and insurance companies in periods of stress.
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  • 8
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    Measuring the Performance of River Basins: Application of Total Factor Productivity Approach to Andhra Pradesh, India (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-08-30
    Description: Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures the growth in output which is not accounted for by inputs. Data Envelopment Analysis which forms the basis for the computation of Malmquist TFP index is used in this paper to study the performance of different river basins in Andhra Pradesh state, India. The results indicated that average technical efficiency of all the basins is only 66%. In all the basins there was a decline in growth of agricultural output during the first two decades, viz., 1979-1980 to 1988-1989 and it had picked in the last decade (1999-2000). All the river basins have TFP change greater than 1 indicating progress in agricultural productivity. Out of the 40 river basins, 14 river basins have technical efficiency change less than 1 indicating decline in TFP growth whereas all the basins have technical changes greater than 1 implying that there is shift in production frontier over years. In general, within the TFP, technical change contributed more than technical efficiency change. Looking at the future options for increasing the agricultural output in the river basins, it is important to focus on improving the TFP growth compared to increasing the quantities of physical inputs.
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  • 9
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    Price Responsiveness of Cigarette Demand in US: Retail Scanner Data (1994–2007) (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-09-03
    Description: This paper investigates the changes in cigarette demand in response to the changes in cigarette prices; smokeless tobacco prices; adoption of clean indoor air laws (CIALs). We used an error-correction econometric method to estimate the cigarette sales adjustment path in response to changes in prices and CIAL coverage in the United States by utilizing scanner data from supermarkets. Finding from this study indicates that smokeless tobaccos are not perfect substitutes for cigarettes, but increases in the price of cigarettes are associated with an increase in smokeless tobacco sales. The error-correction econometric method suggest that the demand for cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is related to each other; a price increase in either product leads to an increase in demand for the other product. However, the adjustment paths are quite different; an increase in cigarette prices lowers cigarette sales in relatively faster rate than decreases in smokeless tobacco prices or adoption of smoke-free laws. Changes in cigarette demand in response to changes in cigarette prices occur relatively quickly; but the full effects of smokeless tobacco price change and the adoption of 100% smoke-free laws on cigarette demand take a longer time.
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  • 10
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    Some New Insights into Trade Potential between the EU and Its Mediterranean Partners (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-08-31
    Description: This paper provides new insights into the calculation of trade potential between the EU and its Southern and Eastern Mediterranean partners (MPs). It is based on an econometric specification which takes into account some new explanatory variables which are not included simultaneously in the previous studies. These include trade costs (tariffs, NTBs, and logistics costs), factor movement (migration and FDI), as well as governance. In addition, specific estimators are implemented in order to account for zero trade flows, endogeneity and dynamics. The main conclusion of this study is that contrary to some results found in previous studies, MPs have reached their export potential with the EU. It is also shown that there is no specificity of the MP-EU trade potential in comparison with the other main PTAs (NAFTA, MERCOSUR, and ASEAN) which have also reached their trade potential. These results have strong policy implications.
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  • 11
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    Stock Prices’ Variability around Earnings Announcement Dates at Karachi Stock Exchange (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-08-30
    Description: The purpose of this study is to investigate how earnings announcement event affects stock returns at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE). For this purpose we use the KSE-100 Index as our sample. We use the CAR Analysis to analyze the impact of earnings announcement over the stock returns around announcement dates. Our results suggest that KSE experiences abnormal stock returns around earnings announcement dates for the overall market and for different categories which indicate that efficient market hypothesis does not hold in Pakistani market and point out the presence of informational dissemination inefficiencies in the market.
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  • 12
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    Investigating the Impacts of Intraregional Trade and Aid on Per Capita Income in Africa: Case Study of the ECOWAS (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-08-17
    Description: In the past 50 years, a striking stylized fact has been the downward—or flat—trend of intra-African trade as a share of Africa’s total trade, while official development assistance (ODA) has experienced a noticeable expansion. During the same period, economic growth performances have not been consistent and robust enough to put a dent in the poverty level across the African continent in general and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in particular. Using a two-stage least square (TSLS) estimation technique, this paper finds out that intra-ECOWAS trade stimulates per capita income growth substantially more than foreign aid, which rather constitutes an impediment to that growth in most specifications. Additionally, comparable results are obtained when the scope of the study is expanded to include trade of ECOWAS members with the rest of the world. As a result, it becomes appropriate to suggest policy recommendations encouraging increased cooperation among member states in an attempt to (i) expand and build new cross-states infrastructures, aimed at boosting communications and telecommunications networks, (ii) accelerate the trade facilitation process by addressing administrative red tapes that balloon both transaction costs and delays in the flows of goods across borders, seaports, and airports, and (iii) develop and diversify the industrial base in member states.
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  • 13
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    Long Memory Process in Asset Returns with Multivariate GARCH Innovations (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The main purpose of this paper is to consider the multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) framework to model the volatility of a multivariate process exhibiting long-term dependence in stock returns. More precisely, the long-term dependence is examined in the first conditional moment of US stock returns through multivariate ARFIMA process, and the time-varying feature of volatility is explained by MGARCH models. An empirical application to the returns series is carried out to illustrate the usefulness of our approach. The main results confirm the presence of long memory property in the conditional mean of all stock returns.
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  • 14
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    Would an Increase in High-Skilled Immigration in Canada Benefit Workers? (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This study examines the economic and welfare effects of raising the number of high-skilled immigrants in Canada. It uses a life-cycle applied general equilibrium model with endogenous time allocation decisions between work, education, and leisure. According to the simulation results, raising the number of high-skilled immigrants would boost productive capacity and labour productivity but could lower real GDP per capita. In addition, by raising the supply of high-skilled workers, more high-skilled immigrants would reduce the skill premium and the return to human capital. This in turn would lower incentives for young adults to invest in human capital and have a dampening effect on the domestic supply of skilled workers. Finally, it is found that more high-skilled immigrants would be welfare enhancing for medium- and low-skilled workers but welfare decreasing for high-skilled workers.
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  • 15
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    Oligopolistic Banks, Bounded Rationality, and the Credit Cycle (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-07-20
    Description: This paper studies how boundedly rational default expectations affect the credit cycle. I propose a simple model of oligopolistic bank competition which serves to compare situations with just a portion of boundedly rational banks to situations where either all banks are rational or all banks are boundedly rational. When all banks are boundedly rational, the credit cycle is most amplified relative to the situation where all banks are rational. However, the amplifying effect of bounded rationality on the side of banks largely remains even when only a portion of banks are boundedly rational. Hence, the interest rate decisions of a minority of boundedly rational banks induce the more rational competitors to aggravate the credit cycle.
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  • 16
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    The Real Economics of Climate Engineering (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-08-17
    Description: In 2008 Scott Barrett wrote a paper on “The incredible economics of geoengineering” in which he argued that the potentially low cost of climate engineering (CE) measures together with the quick response of the earth’s temperature to such interventions will change the whole debate about the mitigation of climate change. Whereas Barrett was mostly focusing on the cost of running CE measures, we point out that several determinants of overall economic cost like price or external effects are not yet sufficiently accounted for and that the question of dynamic efficiency is still unresolved. Combining the existing theoretical investigations about the topic from the literature, we show that even though these new measures provide new options to deal with climate change, several of them might also reduce our scope of action. Consequently, we suggest that economic research should shift its focus to portfolios of CE measures and put more emphasis on those measures which control atmospheric carbon concentration and therefore allow extending our scope of action. Additionally, economic research should address the question of phase-in and phase-out scenarios for measures which directly influence the radiation balance.
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  • 17
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    An Assessment of the “Policy View” in Foreign Aid under Asymmetric Information (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The policy view, which argues that foreign aid is effective only in a good policy environment, suggests that aid ought to be given to countries with good policies. This has generated a lot of interest and controversy. We argue that the key recommendation of the policy view runs contrary to other prescriptions, particularly those that arise under asymmetric information. Inefficiencies that derive from information problems often require that policy makers do not base the amount of foreign assistance on the recipient's policy effort. This suggests that donors should be cautious in applying the policy view. We also briefly discuss problems that are likely to emerge in estimating aid's productivity given policy in the light of potential information problems.
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  • 18
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    Discount Rate for Health Benefits and the Value of Life in India (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This study contributes to the literature by estimating discount rate for health benefits and value of statistical life of workers in India. The discount rate is imputed from wage-risk trade-offs in which workers decide whether to accept a risky job with higher wages. The estimated real discount rate varies across regions ranging 2.4–5.1 percent, which is closer to the financial market rate for the study period. The estimated value of a statistical life is Rs. 20 (US $ 1.107) million. The results thus provide no empirical support for utilizing a separate rate of discount for health benefits of life-saving policies in developing countries like India.
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  • 19
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    Sharpe (Ratio) Thinking about the Investment Opportunity Set and CAPM Relationship (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: In the presence of a risk-free asset the investment opportunity set obtained via the Markowitz portfolio optimization procedure is usually characterized in terms of the vector of excess returns on individual risky assets and the variance-covariance matrix. We show that the investment opportunity set can alternatively be characterized in terms of the vector of Sharpe ratios of individual risky assets and the correlation matrix. This implies that the changes in the characteristics of individual risky assets that preserve the Sharpe ratios and the correlation matrix do not change the investment opportunity set. The alternative characterization makes it simple to perform a comparative static analysis that provides an answer to the question of what happens with the investment opportunity set when we change the risk-return characteristics of individual risky assets. We demonstrate the advantages of using the alternative characterization of the investment opportunity set in the investment practice. The Sharpe ratio thinking also motivates reconsidering the CAPM relationship and adjusting Jensen's alpha in order to properly measure abnormal portfolio performance.
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  • 20
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    R&D Direction and North-South Diffusion, Human Capital, Growth, and Wages (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper highlights some recent components related to the endogenous growth literature; in particular, (i) research and development progress, direction, and diffusion; (ii) human-capital accumulation; (iii) wage inequality; (iv) nonscale economic growth, showing how each one has been treated by the existing seminal literature and the expected impact of bringing them together. The connection of the different components is mainly done by involving the leading literature on North-South technological-knowledge diffusion by imitation under trade, and the prevailing literature on intra- and intercountry wage inequality.
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  • 21
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    Gender Gaps in Human Capital in Developing Countries: An Empirical Assessment (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-07-03
    Description: This paper examines the impact of various determinants on gender gaps in human capital in developing countries. We find that female primary completion is dependent on per capita GDP growth, female employment in agriculture, in industry, and in services, and the interactions between per capita GDP growth and female employment in industry and in services. We are also able to show that the ratio of girls to boys’ enrollments in primary and secondary schools is a function of the poverty rate, the fraction of the population with access to an improved water source, and maternal mortality. In addition, we observe that girls’ mortality is dependent upon the fraction of the population having access to improved sanitation and water services, and ethnic fractionalization. Finally, we find that maternal mortality is a function of the fraction of the population with access to improved water services, the fraction of births attended by skilled staff, the fraction of women receiving prenatal care, and ethnic fractionalization. These statistical results can assist developing countries identify areas that need to be improved upon in order to reduce gender gaps in human capital—specifically those concerning female mortality and education.
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  • 22
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    What Are the Economic and Labour Market Effects of an Income Tax Reduction Targeted at Older Workers? (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-07-06
    Description: This paper explores the economic and labour market effects of implementing a tax reduction targeted at older workers. The analysis is conducted with a life-cycle computable general equilibrium model calibrated on Canadian data. The analysis shows that implementing a permanent income tax reduction for workers aged 60 and over has only small macroeconomic effects because the labour supply increase of older workers is partly offset by a reduction in the labour supply at core ages. This induced effect also discourages savings and generates crowding out through private investment but has a favourable impact on lifetime economic welfare. The macroeconomic impact is much larger when the income tax reduction is temporary because workers no longer reduce their hours at core ages and there is no reduction in savings. However, since only current middle-aged and older workers benefit from the tax cut, a temporary income tax cut reduces intergenerational equity.
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  • 23
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    Role of Money in Smaller Pacific Island Countries (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: Pacific island countries (PICs), which attained political independence, are open economies with very small manufacturing base and narrow range of exports of copra and tuna. They are highly dependent on imports ranging from food and mineral fuels to intermediate and capital goods and transport machinery. Four of the 14 PICs, namely Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu, have independent currencies with usual paraphernalia of central banks under fixed exchange rate regimes. Their financial sectors are small and with undeveloped money and capital markets. The nominal exchange rate as an anchor has served the four PICs well by keeping inflation low. The objective of the paper is to investigate whether money has played any significant part in output growth as well as determination of prices in PICs. The findings are that broad money (M2) and exchange rate have a long run as well as short-run casual relationship with both output and prices in all PICs.
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  • 24
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    Post-Communist Health Transitions in Central and Eastern Europe (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have gone through immense political and socioeconomic restructuring after the collapse of communism around 1990. Such transition has affected the lives of populations in these countries in many significant respects. A key aspect of life and wellbeing in any society is that of population health. This paper traces the transitions in population health—life expectancies and mortality rates for both males and females—in seven of the CEE countries during the two decades after the fall of communism. We estimate a series of panel data models to identify some of the common factors that would explain health transitions in these countries, while allowing for country-specific variability. Our findings indicate that the health transitions are strongly country specific. Moreover, income per capita and trade openness are statistically significant common contributors to health transitions.
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    Investigating the Determinants of Nonperforming Loans in the Romanian Banking System: An Empirical Study with Reference to the Greek Crisis (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper aims to investigate the determinants of nonperforming loans in the Romanian banking sector by means of time series modelling. It is motivated by the hypothesis that macroeconomic-cyclical indicators, monetary aggregates, interest rates, financial markets, and bank-specific variables influence the nonperforming loans in the Romanian banking system. Using monthly series that span from December 2001 to November 2010, we cover both the booming period and the recent financial crisis. Given the significant presence of the Greek banks in Romania, the novelty of the paper lies in the introduction of variables that proxy the Greek crisis. Thus, we examine the existence of a potential transmission channel to the Romanian banking system by investigating the impact of the Greek crisis to the Romanian nonperforming loans. Our findings indicate that macroeconomic variables, specifically the construction and investment expenditure, the inflation and the unemployment rate, and the country's external debt to GDP and M2 jointly with Greek crisis-specific variables influence the credit risk of the Romanian banking system. The results have several implications for policymakers, regulators, and managers as the most recent published stress tests on the Romanian banking system are based on end 2008 data.
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  • 26
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    Addiction and the Utilization of Medical Care (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: We investigate the effect of different scales of addictive factors on the utilization of medical services in this paper using a two-part model. Data are from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey and the claims data in the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. The results show that personal addictive behavior is significantly associated with both outpatient and inpatient utilization. Moreover, our result implies that those who smoked at least 20 cigarettes per day might not visit a doctor until the illness was severe. It suggests that the government can accomplish these goals by promotion and education in order to increase public awareness of personal health.
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  • 27
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    Is Farmland As Good As Gold? (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: An analysis of Canadian farmland risk and its return on investment shows that a Farmland Real Estate Investment Trust (F-REIT) and gold would have significantly enhanced portfolio performance over the past 35 years. Investors who desire low-risk portfolios would not have benefited from an F-REIT or gold investment. However, investors in the medium-risk category could have improved the financial performance of their portfolios by including an F-REIT investment rather than gold. The financial gains from F-REIT result from a level of risk that is lower than gold, REITs, and stocks, an expected yield that is greater than for bonds, and a low correlation with other financial asset returns.
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    Consumer Spending and Customer Satisfaction: Untying the Knot (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The recession of 2007–2009 has led to renewed interest in forecasting discretionary consumer spending and whether marketing variables contain predictive content. Using the ACSI customer satisfaction index and both linear and nonlinear methods, this note suggests the index fails to enhance our understanding of the temporal evolution of discretionary spending.
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    Comparative Statics of Central Bank Liquidity Management: Some Insights (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The paper demonstrates the efficacy of liquidity management through both the rate and quantum channels. Using the concepts of autonomous and discretionary liquidity, the paper derives the optimal policy mix of instruments which can be used for stabilizing the price of liquidity. For effective liquidity management, the sufficient condition highlighted in the paper has important implications for developing market-related monetary policy instruments, particularly in emerging market economies.
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    Endogenous Fertility and Development Traps with Endogenous Lifetime (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: We extend the literature on endogenous lifetime and economic growth by Chakraborty (2004) and Bunzel and Qiao (2005) to endogenous fertility. We show that development traps due to underinvestments in health cannot appear when fertility is an economic decision variable and the costs of children are represented by a constant fraction of the parents' income used for their upbringing.
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    Empirical Evidence of Economic Bipolarization in Africa (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper examines the degree of polarization in African countries' per capita GDP distribution between 1966 to 2004. We first use a nonparametric analysis and find that the countries tend to cluster in two classes of per capita GDP. Secondly, by using the Wolfson's bipolarization measure, the results reveal that bipolarization has been accelerating during the two first decades and is still growing. We relate the evolution of polarization during the period to the business sectors. We find that the specialization of the countries is the main factor explaining its evolution, namely, in agriculture and industry sectors.
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    Electronic Waste: A Growing Concern in Today's Environment (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: Over the recent past, the global market of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has grown exponentially, while the lifespan of these products has become increasingly shorter. More of these products are ending up in rubbish dumps and recycling centers, posing a new challenge to policy makers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the e-Waste problem and to put forward an estimation technique to calculate the growth of e-Waste.
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    Medical Cost and Motorcycle Helmet Law in Taiwan (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The objective of this study was to examine whether the implementation of the helmet law had reduced the likelihood of head injury and the associated medical cost in Taiwan. Data were taken from the 1996 and 1998 population-based data. In total, 888,179 and 921,058 effective samples were used in the study from the two years. Two different types of regression model were adopted to evaluate the impact of the motorcycle helmet use law on incidences of head injury and associated medical cost and hospital length of stay. The results reveal that medical cost is down by 11.5 percent and hospital LOS has fallen by 18.58 percent. Thus, with the introduction of the motorcycle helmet use law having had a demonstrably positive influence on motorcycle head injuries and fatalities, significant savings are clearly being achieved, not only in terms of economic and social costs, but also with regard to medical cost.
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    Socioeconomic Conditions and Risk of Mental Depression: An Empirical Analysis for Brazilian Citizens (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The aim of this study is to investigate whether there is any relationship between socioeconomic factors and mental depression, specifically in connection with family income and education. Our empirical model was estimated using the database of three National Household Sampling Surveys (1998, 2003, and 2008) and their special supplements on the health status of the Brazilian population. Analyses for men and women were conducted separately. Family income proved to be a protective factor against depression for both men and women. With regard to the effects of education, the estimates indicate that the maximum risk of depression occurs when women have approximately four years of schooling and men have about eight. Above these levels, the risk decreases as schooling years increase.
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    Unilateral Trade Preferences in the EU: An Empirical Assessment for the Case of Mozambican Exports (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: Unilateral trade preferences are one of the most important instruments offered by developed countries to foster developing country exports. This paper analyzes the impact of unilateral trade preferences on developing countries by focusing on the experience of Mozambique. In this paper, we analyze whether unilateral preferences offered by the EU are “valuable” for Mozambican exporters based on the impact on preferential margins, utilization rates, and export prices. We use a detailed dataset with cif unit values at HS8-digits level covering the period 2000–2007. Our findings indicate that (i) for a large number of product lines, export margins are zero; (ii) utilization rates are generally high; however, (iii) this does not translate into a positive price margins captured by Mozambican exporters compared to MFN competitors. These findings cast doubts on the “value” of preferences and their potential impact on developing country exports.
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    Productivity of Nations: A Stochastic Frontier Approach to TFP Decomposition (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper tackles the problem of aggregate TFP measurement using stochastic frontier analysis. We estimate a world production frontier for a sample of 75 countries over a long period. The “Bauer-Kumbhakar” decomposition of TFP is applied to a smaller sample in order to evaluate the effects of changes in efficiency (technical and allocative), scale effects, and technical change. Estimated technical efficiency scores are compared to productivity indexes offered by nonfrontier studies. We conclude that differences in productivity are responsible for virtually all the differences of growth performance between developed and developing nations and that a large part of this is due to allocative efficiency.
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    A Full Participation Agreement on Global Emission Reduction through Strategic Investments in R&D (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: If an emission reduction agreement with participation of all players is not enforceable because politicians are too myopic or costs of reducing emissions are too high, strategic investments in research and development (R&D) of green technology, for example, sustainable drivetrains, can pave the way for a future treaty. Although no player will rationally reduce emissions on its own, investments in R&D by at least one player can change the strategic situation of negotiations to control emissions: emission abatement costs will decrease so that a treaty with full participation can be achieved in future periods through time consistent sustainable policies.
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    Health Behaviour and Health Assessment: Evidence from German Microdata (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The importance of the individual’s health behaviour for the health production process is beyond controversy. Health relevant behaviour can be viewed as a key variable in the health production process. Changes in the behaviour may influence individual’s assessment of health. Following this idea, we use German microdata to identify determinants of smoking, drinking, and obesity and their impact on health. Our empirical approach allows for the simultaneity of behaviours and self-reported health. In addition, we account for endogeneity of health behaviours and take aspects of reporting heterogeneity of self-reported health into account. We find that health behaviour is directly related to the socioeconomic status and observe gender-specific differences in the determinants of drinking, smoking, and heavy body weight in particular. The influence on health is also gender specific. While we do not find any impact of smoking, overweight is relevant only for males and no clear pattern for alcohol exists.
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    Why Did Americans Reject Compulsory Health Insurance after WWI? An Application of the Lifecycle Model (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: Progressive reformers failed to gain support to implement compulsory health insurance in the US after WWI. Modeling results presented in this paper, using a lifecycle model with sickness risk and precautionary savings, support the conclusion that existing voluntary insurance plans were adequate and welfare-enhancing in the US, that compulsory health insurance as proposed would not be welfare-enhancing, and that Americans' preference to self-insure during most of their working lives was rational, utility-maximizing behaviour.
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    Understanding the Economics of Transportation Projects (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-22
    Description: Understanding the economic impacts of transportation projects is essential for decision makers, officials, and stakeholders as they determine the best course of action for their jurisdiction. Economic impacts can guide decisions of future projects and help explain past economic fluctuations. This study uses an evaluative (ex-post) analysis process to assess the generative economic impacts of transportation projects after completion that can be used to identify the economic impacts of transportation projects while quantifying their relationship. Both pre- and postconstruction data were collected and used to compare the trends of sales tax revenue and employment numbers adjacent to transportation projects in Utah over a 10-year period. Plots of the trends before, during, and after construction for each project in the analysis were generated. A formal process was created for completing the analysis for future study. Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between transportation improvement projects and sales tax revenues. This relationship amounts to approximately a 4.0 percent increase in trends compared to the state overall. Employment demonstrated a 4.5 percent increase compared to the state overall. Although the results are not considered statistically significant, they are considered practically significant and add to the literature on this topic.
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    Incomplete Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Collusion-Proofness (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: In an incomplete regulation framework, the regulator cannot replicate all the possible outcomes by himself since he has no influence over some firms in the market. Due to asymmetric information, it may be better for the regulator to allow the unregulated firms to extract a truthful report from the regulated firm through side-payments under collusion, and therefore the “collusion-proofness principle” may not hold. In fact, by introducing an exogenous number of unregulated firms, social welfare differences seem to favour a collusion-allowing equilibrium. However, such result will depend on the relative importance given by the regulator to the consumer surplus in the social welfare function.
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    Growth and Income Inequality: A Comparative Analysis (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper investigates whether the relationship between income inequality and growth changes over time. Two time periods, covering 1970–1985 and 1985–1999, are analyzed and compared. A statistically significant relationship between inequality and growth in either time period fails to emerge. However, there are indications that effect of inequality on growth may be different in the nineties when compared to the seventies. In the literature, a consistent negative effect of inequality on growth is documented although the significance of the effect is open to debate. This paper also finds a negative effect of income inequality on growth in the seventies but, although statistically insignificant, a consistently positive effect in the nineties.
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    Ethnic Disparities in the Graduate Labour Market (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: This paper examines ethnic wage differentials for the entire population of workers who enrolled for the first time as students at Dutch universities (WO) and colleges (HBO) in 1996 using unique administrative panel data for the period 1996 to 2005 from the Dutch tertiary education system. The study breaks down wage differentials into two components: a component which can be explained by the observed characteristics and an unexplained component. The analysis provides new evidence for the magnitude and the origin of ethnic wage differentials by gender. In general, ethnic wage gap is larger for migrant women than migrant men and larger for Western and Caribbean migrants than for Mediterranean migrants. Ethnic minority workers appear to have larger wage surpluses which is almost entirely explained by their observed favourable characteristics. Most notably, Mediterranean female graduates have significantly positive wage discrimination, while Western female graduates seem to face a small wage penalty.
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    Creating Values for Sustainability: Stakeholders Engagement, Incentive Alignment, and Value Currency (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: A shareholder theory of firm and a stakeholder theory of firm may differ in their respective evaluation method of firm performance. Both theories however recognize the importance of value creation as the economic role of firms as institutions. The New Institutional Economics (NIE) emphasizes incentives alignment, while also viewing stakeholder engagements as methods to expand the boundaries of firms. The difference in performance evaluation between the two approaches can be reduced if stakeholders, while formulating incentive alignment, also evaluate the mechanisms of establishing a common currency value. The concomitant development of stakeholder engagement, incentive alignment, and value currency creation is argued to be an evolutionary process with the efficiency implications of the two theories tending to converge.
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    Disease Resistance of Wheat Varieties: Can Private Varieties Withstand the Pressure? (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: US wheat varieties are examined for differential disease resistance between public and private varieties, an issue for critics of plant intellectual property. Analysis using disease resistance rankings of wheat varieties from Kansas and Texas indicate that private varieties are as or more resistant. This finding was further confirmed with two years of Texas data. Thus, the results from the study reject the criticism of private breeding activities that they are more susceptible to disease compared to public varieties. However, private varieties resistance is incorporated from public offerings so that productive private wheat breeding is partly derivative.
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    Tariffs Ranking in Mixed Oligopoly with Revenue Constraint (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: Utilizing linear mixed oligopoly model, this paper explores the magnitude of the maximum-revenue tariff, optimum-welfare tariff, and revenue-constrained optimal tariff that is especially designed for the consideration of the bureaucratic inefficiency. In particular, the tariff ranking issue is examined under both cases of Cournot competition and domestic public leadership. We found that, under Cournot competition, the optimum-welfare tariff is the highest and it is followed by the revenue-constrained optimal tariff while the maximum-revenue tariff is the lowest. But, under Stackelberg public leadership, if the domestic private firms are fewer than the foreign firms, the maximum-revenue tariff becomes the highest and the optimum-welfare exceeds the revenue-constrained optimal tariff.
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    ISD: A New Methodological Approach for Measuring the Sustainability of the German Energy System (2012)
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    Publication Date: 2012-06-21
    Description: The research community has developed three main concepts and indicator systems to measure sustainability: the capital concept, the ecological concept and the multidimensional concept. Whereas a lot of research has been dedicated to the pros and cons of the three/four-pillar sustainability concept, to the shaping of the pillars and their indicators, research on standardized methods to aggregate the indicators to one index is lacking. However, a useful model exists—the GDP—which summarizes the different economic activities of various social actors in one index. An overall sustainability index has the advantage that the sustainability of a system can be expressed in one index. This allows the sustainability status of a system to be better communicated both to the public and to politicians. Against this background, we developed the Index of Sustainable Development (ISD) to measure the sustainability of systems described by multidimensional sustainability concepts. We demonstrate that it is possible to aggregate sustainability indicators of the multidimensional sustainability concepts to one index. We have chosen exemplarily the German sustainability strategy and selected the energy indicators within it because of the importance of the energy sector and due to the good statistical database in this sector.
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    Contribution of Co-Skewness and Co-Kurtosis of the Higher Moment CAPM for Finding the Technical Efficiency (2014)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2014-01-17
    Description: The objective of this paper is to present the technical efficiency of individual companies and their respective groups of Bangladesh stock market (i.e., Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSE) by using two risk factors (co-skewness and co-kurtosis) as the additional input variables in the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The co-skewness and co-kurtosis are derived from the Higher Moment Capital Asset Pricing Model (H-CAPM). To investigate the contribution of these two factors, two types of technical efficiency are derived: (1) technical efficiency with considering co-skewness and co-kurtosis (WSK) and (2) technical efficiency without considering co-skewness and co-kurtosis (WOSK). By comparing these two types of technical efficiency, it is noticed that the technical efficiency of WSK is higher than the technical efficiency of WOSK for the individual companies and their respective groups. As per available literature in the context Bangladesh stock market, no study has been conducted thus far to measure technical efficiency of companies and their respective groups by using the risk factors which are derived from the H-CAPM. In this research, the link between H-CAPM and SFA is established for measuring technical efficiency and it is believed that the findings of this study may be applied to other emerging stock markets.
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    Migration-Driven Aggregation Behaviors of Job Markets in a Multi-Group Environment (2013)
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    Publication Date: 2013-10-22
    Description: This paper introduces a new model describing the aggregate growth of job markets. We divide the job market in each city into two groups: native job market of size and an immigrant job market of size . A reversible migration of jobs exists in both groups. In addition, the interaction between these two groups creates both native and immigrant jobs. A loss of native jobs also takes place due to the interaction. Through studying initial conditions, job-creation rate, and job-loss rate we discover some meaningful results. The size change of native job market is closely related to that of the migration rate, native job-creation rate, and native job-loss rate. We assume that these rates are proportional to the sizes of two groups and find out that for certain initial conditions, immigrants influence native job markets positively. They create more jobs for both job markets. In addition, we can make conclusions about the future trend of the flow of jobs. People will move to places like big cities where there is a higher concentration of job opportunities.
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    Exchange Rate Movement and Foreign Direct Investment in Asean Economies (2014)
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    Publication Date: 2014-03-31
    Description: The inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) are important for a country's economic development, but the world market for FDI has become more competitive. This paper empirically analyses the exchange rate movements and foreign direct investment (FDI) relationship using annual data on ASEAN economies, that is, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. By employing ARDL bounds test approach, the empirical results show the existence of significant long-run cointegration between exchange rate and FDI for the case of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines with all countries recording negative coefficient implying that the appreciation of Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, and the Philippine peso has a positive impact on FDI inflows. Using the ECM based ARDL approach for causality test, both Singapore and the Philippines show long-run bidirectional causality between exchange rate and FDI whereas long-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI in Malaysia. Furthermore, this study also found that short-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI exists in Singapore.
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    Bioeconomics of Commercial Marine Fisheries of Bay of Bengal: Status and Direction (2014)
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    Publication Date: 2014-04-04
    Description: The fishery of the Bay of Bengal (BOB) is assumed to be suffering from the overexploitation. This paper aims to assess the sustainability of current level of fishing effort as well as possible changes driven by anthropogenic and climate driven factors. Therefore, the commercial marine fishery of BOB for the period of 1985/86 to 2007/08 is analyzed by applying Gordon-Schaefer Surplus Production Model on time series of total catch and standardized effort. Static reference points such as open-access equilibrium, maximum economic yield, and maximum sustainable yield are established. Assumptions about potential climatic and anthropogenic effects on r (intrinsic growth rate) and K (carrying capacity) of BOB fishery have been made under three different reference equilibriums. The results showed that the fishery is not biologically overexploited; however, it is predicted to be passing a critical situation, in terms of achieving reference points in the near future. But, on the other hand, economic overfishing started several years before. Higher fishing effort, and inadequate institutional and legal framework have been the major bottlenecks for the proper management of BOB fisheries and these may leads fishery more vulnerable against changing marine realm. Thus, the present study calls for policy intervention to rescue the stock from the existing high fishing pressure that would lead to depletion.
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    Working the Night Shift: The Impact of Compensating Wages and Local Economic Conditions on Shift Choice (2014)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2014-10-10
    Description: The theory of compensating differentials asserts that night shift workers should receive compensating wage differentials due to undesirable work conditions. In weak local economies, workers may have difficulty finding jobs; thus, these workers might be more likely to accept night shift work and be less concerned with the size of the compensating differential for night shifts. Using CPS data from 2001, this paper employs maximum likelihood estimation of an endogenous switching regression model to analyze wages of day and night shift workers and shift choice. The findings indicate the presence of selection bias, thus emphasizing the importance of correcting for self-selection into night shifts. The average of the estimated wage differentials for night shift work is negative for the overall sample, with differentials varying by worker characteristics. The shift differential is found to be a statistically significant predictor of shift choice, indicating that shift premiums play an important role in motivating individuals to select night shift work. Using two measures of local economic conditions and a new method of analyzing interaction effects in the context of an endogenous switching regression model, this paper finds limited evidence that weak local economic conditions lessen the impact of compensating differentials on shift choice.
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    Are Eurozone Fixed Income Markets Integrated? An Analysis Based on Wavelet Multiple Correlation and Cross Correlation (2014)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2014-08-29
    Description: This paper investigates the synchronization of fixed income markets within Eurozone countries using the new wavelet based methodology. Conventional wavelet methods that use multivariate set of variables to calculate pairwise correlation and cross correlation lead to spurious correlation due to possible relationships with other variables, amplification of type-1 errors, and results, in the form of large set of erroneous graphs. Given these disadvantages of conventional wavelet based pairwise correlation and cross-correlation method, we avoid these limitations by using wavelet multiple correlation and multiple cross correlations to analyze the relationships in Eurozone fixed income markets. Our results based on this methodology indicate that Eurozone fixed income markets are highly integrated and this integration grows with timescales, and hence there is almost no scope for independent monetary policy and bond diversification in these countries.
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    Rural Credit and Farms Efficiency: Modelling Farmers Credit Allocation Decisions, Evidences from Benin (2014)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2014-08-29
    Description: This paper analyses farmers’ credit allocation behaviors and their effects on technical efficiency. Data were collected from 476 farmers using the multistage sampling procedure. The stochastic frontier truncated-normal with conditional mean model is used to assess allocation schemes effects on technical efficiency. Tobit model reveals the impact of farmers’ sociodemographic characteristics on efficiency scores. Results reveal that farm revenue (about 2,262,566 Fcfa on average) is positively correlated with land acreage, quantity of labour, and costs of fertilizers and insecticides. Farmers’ behaviors respond to six schemes which are categorized in two allocations contexts: out-farm and in-farm allocations. The model shows that only scheme (e) positively impacts technical efficiency. This scheme refers to the decision to invest credit to purchase better quality of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and so forth. The positive effect of the scheme (c) may be significant under conditions of farmers’ education level improvement. Then, scheme (e) is a better investment for all farmers, but effect of credit allocation to buy agricultural materials is positive only for educated farmers. Efficiency scores are reduced by household size and gender of the household head. Therefore a household with more than 10 members and a woman as head is likely to not be technically efficient.
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    Effect of Physician Gender on Demand for Pap Tests (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-09-19
    Description: People’s demand for preventive medical care is one type of investment in health. The aim of this paper is to examine women’s demand for secondary prevention in Taiwan, focusing on the role a physician’s gender plays in women’s inclination to undergo Pap tests. Our estimation results show that regional ratio of female doctors has a positive and significant effect on utilization of Pap tests for the full sample and for women aged below 30. In addition, doctor’s gender matters only in utilization of Pap tests not in other types of preventive healthcare services in Taiwan. We suggest that the government may consider liberalizing medical laws to make it legal for trained female nurses or nurse practitioners to perform Pap tests in order to encourage the utilization of Pap tests, especially in rural and mountain areas. The government may also consider subsidizing the use of cervical cancer vaccines to help females prevent cervical cancer.
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    The Effect of Exchange Rate Movements on Trade Balance: A Chronological Theoretical Review (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-08-25
    Description: This paper evaluates the current state of the literature concerning the effects of exchange rate movements on trade balance. Thus, this paper is a review article and provides a survey of the alternative theories that focus on the effect of exchange rate changes on the trade balance. It systemizes the literature into four distinct reviews and approaches following the chronological order. The paper presents the (a) Standard Theory of International Trade, (b) Elasticity Approach, (c) Keynesian Absorption Approach, and (d) Monetary Approach. The study shows that higher attention should be given for the most plausible dynamic theory in this field, known as the J-Curve.
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    Investigating the Existence of Chaos in Inflation Data in relation to Chaotic Foreign Exchange Rate (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-10-22
    Description: Foreign exchange (ForEx) rates are amongst the most important economic indices in the international monetary markets. ForEx rate represents the value of one currency in another and it fluctuates over time. It is related to indicators like inflation, interest rate, gross domestic product, and so forth. In a series of works, we investigated and confirmed the chaotic property of ForEx rates by finding positive largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE). As inflation influences ForEx, in this work we would like to address the specific question, Is inflation data also chaotic? We collected data for time period of 2000 to 2013 and tested for nonlinearity in data by surrogate method. Calculating LLE, we find existence of chaos in inflation data for some countries.
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    Public Investments, Human Capital, and Political Stability: The Triptych of Economic Success (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-09-10
    Description: This study assesses the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth in a sample of 96 countries from 1990 to 2010. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Extreme Bound Analysis are mainly estimated in order to investigate whether public investments, human capital, and political stability affect growth controlling for initial output and human capital levels. Furthermore, in this empirical research four subsets of independent variables were used: (a) demographic factors, (b) political determinants, (c) region variables, and (d) variables regarding macroeconomic policy. Empirical results suggest that there is an important difference in the impact of public and private sector investments on the growth of per capita income. Moreover, political indicators such as corruption control, rule of law, and government effectiveness have a high impact on economic growth. Demographic factors, including fertility rate and mortality growth, as well as several macroeconomic variables, like inflation rate index and government consumption, were estimated to be statistically significant factors of economic performance. Fiscal volatility may also be a new possible channel of macroeconomic instability that leads to lower growth. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in detail.
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    Exchange Rates and Monetary Fundamentals: What Do We Learn from Linear and Nonlinear Regressions? (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-09-10
    Description: This paper revisits the association between exchange rates and monetary fundamentals with the focus on both linear and nonlinear approaches. With the monthly data of Euro/US dollar and Japanese yen/US dollar, our linear analysis demonstrates the monetary model is a long-run description of exchange rate movements, and our nonlinear modelling suggests the error correction model describes the short-run adjustment of deviations of exchange rates, and monetary fundamentals are capable of explaining exchange rate dynamics under an unrestricted framework.
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    Analysis of Economic Efficiency and Farm Size: A Case Study of Wheat Farmers in Nakuru District, Kenya (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-10-17
    Description: The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of farm size on economic efficiency among wheat producers and to suggest ways to improve wheat production in the country. Specifically, the study attempts to estimate the levels of technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies among the sampled 130 large and small scale wheat producers in Nakuru District. The social-economic factors that influence economic efficiency in wheat production have also been determined. Results indicate that the mean technical, allocative, and economic efficiency indices of small scale wheat farmers are 85%, 96%, and 84%, respectively. The corresponding figures for the large scale farmers are 91%, 94%, and 88%, respectively. The number of years of school a farmer has had in formal education, distance to extension advice, and the size of the farm have strong influence on the efficiency levels. The relatively high levels of technical efficiency among the small scale farmers defy the notion that wheat can only be efficiently produced by the large scale farmers.
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    The Impact of Infrastructure Spending in Sub-Saharan Africa: A CGE Modeling Approach (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-10-31
    Description: In this paper we construct a standard CGE model to explore the impact of scaling up infrastructure in six African countries. As the debate on the importance of scaling up infrastructure to stimulate growth and provide a push to African economies, some analysts raise concern on financing these infrastructures after construction and that external funding of these can create major distortion and have a negative impact on the trade balance of these countries. This study aims to provide insights into this debate. It draws from the infrastructure productivity literature to postulate positive productive externalities of new infrastructure and Fay and Yepes (2003) for operating cost associated with new infrastructure. We compare various infrastructure investments funded with different fiscal tools. These investments scenarios are compared to nonproductive investment that can be interpreted as a business as usual scenario. Our results show that foreign aid does produce Dutch disease effects but the negative impacts are strongly dependent on the type of investments performed. Moreover, growth effects contribute to attenuate the negative effects.
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    Determinants of Household Savings in India: An Empirical Analysis Using ARDL Approach (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-07-17
    Description: Indian economy witnessed significant transformations in the postreform period both in terms of change in policy paradigm adopting greater market orientation and overall macroeconomic performance with development of a broad-based financial market and increasing global integration. Guided by the fact that domestic savings play a critical role in augmenting capital accumulation and contributing to achieve and sustain high economic growth, an attempt to review and reassess the role of various factors influencing domestic savings under the changed environment is quite relevant for sustaining the growth momentum. In this backdrop, the present study empirically analyzed the role of various determinants of household savings in India with the latest available data. It employed ARDL approach for this purpose due to its suitability for estimating an equation with a mix of stationary and nonstationary variables of order (1) and address potential endogeneity problems. The estimated results revealed that GDP, dependency ratio, interest rate, and inflation have statistically significant influence on household savings in India, both in the long run and short run. As regards policy implications, we suggest that ensuring price stability and avoiding any disruption to the growth process will be useful for augmenting savings and sustaining the savings-growth spiral in India.
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    Predictable Dynamics in the Small Stock Premium (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-02-21
    Description: We start this paper by providing a detailed study of how the mean monthly return on the Small-Minus-Big (SMB) Fama-French factor is affected by the January effect and the stock market return during the preceding month and preceding calendar year. We then proceed to building a predictive model for the monthly SMB factor return that incorporates the January effect and the dependence on both the market return during the preceding month and preceding calendar year. Our findings suggest that a positive small stock premium appears mainly during the years following the years with a negative return on the market as the result of a delayed and stronger reaction of small stocks to good news and a stronger January effect. We also argue that the January effect constitutes a much lesser part of the size effect than it was previously supposed.
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    Segmented Labor Markets and the Distributive Cycle: A Roadmap towards Inclusive Growth (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-05-01
    Description: The paper builds on the Goodwin (1967) model which describes the distributive cycle of capitalist economies whereby mass unemployment is generated periodically through the conflict about income distribution between capital and labor. We add to this model a segmented labor market structure with fluid, latent, and stagnant components. The model exhibits a unique balanced growth path which depends on the speeds with which workers are pushed into or out of the labor market segments. We investigate the stability properties of this growth path with segmented labor markets and find that, though there is a stabilizing inflation barrier term in the wage Phillips curve, the interaction with the latent and stagnant portions of the labor market generates potentially (slowly) destabilizing forces if policy measures are absent that regulate these labor markets. We then introduce an activating labor market policy, where government in addition acts as employer of last resort thereby eliminating the stagnant portion of the labor market, whilst erecting benefit systems that partially sustain the incomes of workers that have to leave the floating/latent labor market of the private sector of the economy. We show that such policies guarantee the macrostability of the economy’s balanced growth path.
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    The Government Subsidy Strategy Choice for Firm’s R&D: Input Subsidy or Product Subsidy? (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-04-16
    Description: To encourage enterprises to conduct technology innovation, the government needs to formulate appropriate subsidies policy. This paper compares two R&D subsidy policies in a supplier-manufacturer supply chain, in which the manufacturer conducts R&D activity for quality improvement. By means of game theory, we investigate the optimal decisions of the players under the two R&D subsidy policies, that is, input subsidy policy and product subsidy policy. Finally, we compare the profits and welfare to explore the better R&D subsidy policy and provide decision support for government to formulate subsidy policy. The results show that under input subsidy policy the optimal production output, quality improvement, profits, government subsidies, and social welfare are all lower than those of product subsidy policy. Therefore, the government should use product subsidy strategy to encourage enterprise R&D activities.
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    An Empirical Analysis of Unpaid Leave in Taiwan (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-11-13
    Description: This paper investigates the factors influencing unpaid leave or furlough in Taiwan. The data used is from the First Social Image Survey in 2009, which focused on work situation, cross-strait relations, interpersonal trust, institutional trust, and other related issues. The sample ages are from 19 to 89. The method used is probit modelling for examining the influences on unpaid leave. The main empirical results find that older workers, people with highest educational attainment, widows and widowers, middle class workers, and workers living in eastern areas are less likely to take unpaid leave from the labour market. In particular, male Mainlander workers are more likely to take unpaid leave. Moreover, female workers with highest educational attainment, widowed, and of middle class are less likely to take unpaid leave. Finally, workers with high earnings are less likely to take unpaid leave, but female workers with high family income and female workers who are divorced or separated have a higher probability of unpaid leave.
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    The Effect of Monetary Policy on Commodity Prices: Disentangling the Evidence for Individual Prices (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-12-25
    Description: We study the effect of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices. While most of the literature has found that expansionary shocks have a positive effect on aggregate price indices, we study the effect on individual prices of a sample of four commodities. This set of commodity prices is essential to understand the dynamics of the balance of payments in Colombia. The analysis is based on structural VAR models; we identify monetary policy shocks following Kim (1999, 2003) upon quarterly data for commodity prices and their fundamentals for the period from 1980q1 to 2010q3. Our results show that commodity prices overshoot their long run equilibrium in response to a contractionary shock in the US monetary policy and, in contrast with literature, the response of the individual prices considered is stronger than what has been found in aggregate indices. Additionally, it is found that the monetary policy explains a substantial share of the fluctuations in prices.
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    Phillips and Wage Curves: Empirical Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-09-01
    Description: This study is an empirical examination of the existence and characteristics of the Phillips curve and the wage curve in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The findings indicate that there is no evidence of the existence of the short-term Phillips curve. Instead, the data suggests that in the short-term an increase in inflation leads to an increase in unemployment. The estimated wage curves indicate that only increases in real payment increase employment. The conclusion of this study is that increases in inflation might have a negative short-term impact on the level of employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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    The Effectiveness and Sustainability of the Sterilization Policy in China (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-08-21
    Description: The aim of this paper is to examine the sterilization policy in China. First, several indices are used to measure the status of China’s markets and to determine effectiveness and sustainability of the sterilization policy and the possible impacts it may have induced. Second, within a microeconomic framework, we incorporate the housing price variable into the target loss function of the monetary authority to explore its financial capabilities and evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of China’s sterilization policy. The empirical results show that Chinese monetary authorities sterilize almost all of the effects of international capital inflows and increase foreign exchange reserves on the monetary base. That is, increased capital mobility does not sabotage the independence of the Chinese monetary policy. Nevertheless, analyses of the sustainability of sterilization policy indicate that the sustainability of the monetary sterilization policy has been seriously challenged since March 2008, which suggests that Chinese monetary authority has endured tremendous pressure for unsustainable sterilization.
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    The Long-Term Impact of Human Capital Investment on GDP: A Panel Cointegrated Regression Analysis (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-08-06
    Description: This study aims to determine the long-run impact of physical and human capital on GDP by using the panel data set of 13 developed and 11 developing countries over the period 1970–2010. Gross fixed capital formation is used as physical capital indicator while education expenditures and life expectancy at birth are used as human capital indicators. Panel DOLS and FMOLS panel cointegrated regression models are exploited to detect the magnitude and sign of the cointegration relationship and compare the effect of these physical and human capital variables according to these two different country groups. As a consequence of panels DOLS and FMOLS models, the impact of physical capital and education expenditures on GDP in the developed countries is determined as higher than the impact in the developing countries. On the other hand, the impact of life expectancy at birth on GDP is determined as higher in the developing countries.
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    Econometric Analysis of Landscape Preferences in Canterbury, New Zealand (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-08-18
    Description: The landscape of rural Canterbury, New Zealand, has evolved from tussock grasslands to one of the most productive dairying areas in the world. While these changes represent a boon for Canterbury’s economy, the visual impact of land-use change has been dramatic. In this paper, we evaluate which changes to the Canterbury landscape have been most pronounced, how people react to those changes, which aspects of the rural landscape are of greatest importance to both urban and rural residents of Canterbury, and whether cost-effective means of mitigating visual changes to the landscape exist. We find that the majority of Cantabrians hold unfavourable views of recent changes to the landscape—particularly with regard to dairying—a finding that is consistent across both urban and rural survey respondents. Using a visual assessment study with cross-classified random effect, we find that dairy cows, irrigators, and silage bales significantly reduce viewers’ subjective evaluations of landscapes while shelterbelts dramatically increase their subjective evaluations. Moreover, native New Zealand shelterbelts are preferred to exotic shelterbelts, but both are preferred to having no shelterbelts, suggesting that the negative visual impacts of dairy farming may be ameliorated by intensified tree planting.
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    Theocharis Problem Reconsidered in Differentiated Oligopoly (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014-08-18
    Description: Oligopolies with product differentiation are examined with both quantity-adjusting and price-adjusting firms. Conditions are given for the positivity of the equilibrium outputs as well as for that of the equilibrium prices. The stability of the positive equilibria is then investigated; the positivity and stability conditions are also compared. The dependence of these conditions on the number of firms, their qualifications and the degree of relation between the goods is discussed. The analysis is given by assuming both discrete- and continuous-time scales.
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  • 73
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    Effect of Physician Gender on Demand for Pap Tests (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: People’s demand for preventive medical care is one type of investment in health. The aim of this paper is to examine women’s demand for secondary prevention in Taiwan, focusing on the role a physician’s gender plays in women’s inclination to undergo Pap tests. Our estimation results show that regional ratio of female doctors has a positive and significant effect on utilization of Pap tests for the full sample and for women aged below 30. In addition, doctor’s gender matters only in utilization of Pap tests not in other types of preventive healthcare services in Taiwan. We suggest that the government may consider liberalizing medical laws to make it legal for trained female nurses or nurse practitioners to perform Pap tests in order to encourage the utilization of Pap tests, especially in rural and mountain areas. The government may also consider subsidizing the use of cervical cancer vaccines to help females prevent cervical cancer.
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    Phillips and Wage Curves: Empirical Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This study is an empirical examination of the existence and characteristics of the Phillips curve and the wage curve in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The findings indicate that there is no evidence of the existence of the short-term Phillips curve. Instead, the data suggests that in the short-term an increase in inflation leads to an increase in unemployment. The estimated wage curves indicate that only increases in real payment increase employment. The conclusion of this study is that increases in inflation might have a negative short-term impact on the level of employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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    Are Eurozone Fixed Income Markets Integrated? An Analysis Based on Wavelet Multiple Correlation and Cross Correlation (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper investigates the synchronization of fixed income markets within Eurozone countries using the new wavelet based methodology. Conventional wavelet methods that use multivariate set of variables to calculate pairwise correlation and cross correlation lead to spurious correlation due to possible relationships with other variables, amplification of type-1 errors, and results, in the form of large set of erroneous graphs. Given these disadvantages of conventional wavelet based pairwise correlation and cross-correlation method, we avoid these limitations by using wavelet multiple correlation and multiple cross correlations to analyze the relationships in Eurozone fixed income markets. Our results based on this methodology indicate that Eurozone fixed income markets are highly integrated and this integration grows with timescales, and hence there is almost no scope for independent monetary policy and bond diversification in these countries.
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    Rural Credit and Farms Efficiency: Modelling Farmers Credit Allocation Decisions, Evidences from Benin (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper analyses farmers’ credit allocation behaviors and their effects on technical efficiency. Data were collected from 476 farmers using the multistage sampling procedure. The stochastic frontier truncated-normal with conditional mean model is used to assess allocation schemes effects on technical efficiency. Tobit model reveals the impact of farmers’ sociodemographic characteristics on efficiency scores. Results reveal that farm revenue (about 2,262,566 Fcfa on average) is positively correlated with land acreage, quantity of labour, and costs of fertilizers and insecticides. Farmers’ behaviors respond to six schemes which are categorized in two allocations contexts: out-farm and in-farm allocations. The model shows that only scheme (e) positively impacts technical efficiency. This scheme refers to the decision to invest credit to purchase better quality of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and so forth. The positive effect of the scheme (c) may be significant under conditions of farmers’ education level improvement. Then, scheme (e) is a better investment for all farmers, but effect of credit allocation to buy agricultural materials is positive only for educated farmers. Efficiency scores are reduced by household size and gender of the household head. Therefore a household with more than 10 members and a woman as head is likely to not be technically efficient.
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    Exchange Rates and Monetary Fundamentals: What Do We Learn from Linear and Nonlinear Regressions? (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper revisits the association between exchange rates and monetary fundamentals with the focus on both linear and nonlinear approaches. With the monthly data of Euro/US dollar and Japanese yen/US dollar, our linear analysis demonstrates the monetary model is a long-run description of exchange rate movements, and our nonlinear modelling suggests the error correction model describes the short-run adjustment of deviations of exchange rates, and monetary fundamentals are capable of explaining exchange rate dynamics under an unrestricted framework.
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    The Effect of Monetary Policy on Commodity Prices: Disentangling the Evidence for Individual Prices (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: We study the effect of monetary policy shocks on commodity prices. While most of the literature has found that expansionary shocks have a positive effect on aggregate price indices, we study the effect on individual prices of a sample of four commodities. This set of commodity prices is essential to understand the dynamics of the balance of payments in Colombia. The analysis is based on structural VAR models; we identify monetary policy shocks following Kim (1999, 2003) upon quarterly data for commodity prices and their fundamentals for the period from 1980q1 to 2010q3. Our results show that commodity prices overshoot their long run equilibrium in response to a contractionary shock in the US monetary policy and, in contrast with literature, the response of the individual prices considered is stronger than what has been found in aggregate indices. Additionally, it is found that the monetary policy explains a substantial share of the fluctuations in prices.
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    Technical Efficiency and Technical Change in Canadian Manufacturing Industries (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This study applies the “true fixed effects” panel stochastic frontier methodology to the Canadian KLEMS data set to estimate technical change and technical efficiency in the Canadian manufacturing sector. To account for the endogeneity of capital inputs as well as the possible problems related to omitted variables, a two-stage residual inclusion method is pursued. The first stage is estimated using the dynamic panel GMM method. The results show that Canadian manufacturing industries experienced significant declines in technical efficiencies during the last ten years. This suggests that the observed slowdown in TFP growth during the recent past is partly due to declining technical efficiency.
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    A Complex Dynamical Analysis of the Indian Stock Market (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper seeks to analyze the dynamical structure of the Indian stock market by considering two major Indian stock market indices, namely, BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty. The recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is applied on the daily closing data of the two series during the period from January 2, 2002, to October 10, 2013. A Rolling Window of 100 and step size 21 are applied in order to see how both the series behave over time. The analysis based on three RQA measures, namely, % determinism (DET), laminarity (LAM), and trapping time (TT), provides conclusive evidence that the Indian equity market is chaotic in nature. Evidences for phase transition in the Indian equity market around the time of financial crisis are also found.
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    Investigating the Existence of Chaos in Inflation Data in relation to Chaotic Foreign Exchange Rate (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: Foreign exchange (ForEx) rates are amongst the most important economic indices in the international monetary markets. ForEx rate represents the value of one currency in another and it fluctuates over time. It is related to indicators like inflation, interest rate, gross domestic product, and so forth. In a series of works, we investigated and confirmed the chaotic property of ForEx rates by finding positive largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE). As inflation influences ForEx, in this work we would like to address the specific question, Is inflation data also chaotic? We collected data for time period of 2000 to 2013 and tested for nonlinearity in data by surrogate method. Calculating LLE, we find existence of chaos in inflation data for some countries.
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    Analysis of Economic Efficiency and Farm Size: A Case Study of Wheat Farmers in Nakuru District, Kenya (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of farm size on economic efficiency among wheat producers and to suggest ways to improve wheat production in the country. Specifically, the study attempts to estimate the levels of technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies among the sampled 130 large and small scale wheat producers in Nakuru District. The social-economic factors that influence economic efficiency in wheat production have also been determined. Results indicate that the mean technical, allocative, and economic efficiency indices of small scale wheat farmers are 85%, 96%, and 84%, respectively. The corresponding figures for the large scale farmers are 91%, 94%, and 88%, respectively. The number of years of school a farmer has had in formal education, distance to extension advice, and the size of the farm have strong influence on the efficiency levels. The relatively high levels of technical efficiency among the small scale farmers defy the notion that wheat can only be efficiently produced by the large scale farmers.
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    Working the Night Shift: The Impact of Compensating Wages and Local Economic Conditions on Shift Choice (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: The theory of compensating differentials asserts that night shift workers should receive compensating wage differentials due to undesirable work conditions. In weak local economies, workers may have difficulty finding jobs; thus, these workers might be more likely to accept night shift work and be less concerned with the size of the compensating differential for night shifts. Using CPS data from 2001, this paper employs maximum likelihood estimation of an endogenous switching regression model to analyze wages of day and night shift workers and shift choice. The findings indicate the presence of selection bias, thus emphasizing the importance of correcting for self-selection into night shifts. The average of the estimated wage differentials for night shift work is negative for the overall sample, with differentials varying by worker characteristics. The shift differential is found to be a statistically significant predictor of shift choice, indicating that shift premiums play an important role in motivating individuals to select night shift work. Using two measures of local economic conditions and a new method of analyzing interaction effects in the context of an endogenous switching regression model, this paper finds limited evidence that weak local economic conditions lessen the impact of compensating differentials on shift choice.
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    An Empirical Analysis of Unpaid Leave in Taiwan (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper investigates the factors influencing unpaid leave or furlough in Taiwan. The data used is from the First Social Image Survey in 2009, which focused on work situation, cross-strait relations, interpersonal trust, institutional trust, and other related issues. The sample ages are from 19 to 89. The method used is probit modelling for examining the influences on unpaid leave. The main empirical results find that older workers, people with highest educational attainment, widows and widowers, middle class workers, and workers living in eastern areas are less likely to take unpaid leave from the labour market. In particular, male Mainlander workers are more likely to take unpaid leave. Moreover, female workers with highest educational attainment, widowed, and of middle class are less likely to take unpaid leave. Finally, workers with high earnings are less likely to take unpaid leave, but female workers with high family income and female workers who are divorced or separated have a higher probability of unpaid leave.
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    Public Investments, Human Capital, and Political Stability: The Triptych of Economic Success (2014)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This study assesses the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth in a sample of 96 countries from 1990 to 2010. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Extreme Bound Analysis are mainly estimated in order to investigate whether public investments, human capital, and political stability affect growth controlling for initial output and human capital levels. Furthermore, in this empirical research four subsets of independent variables were used: (a) demographic factors, (b) political determinants, (c) region variables, and (d) variables regarding macroeconomic policy. Empirical results suggest that there is an important difference in the impact of public and private sector investments on the growth of per capita income. Moreover, political indicators such as corruption control, rule of law, and government effectiveness have a high impact on economic growth. Demographic factors, including fertility rate and mortality growth, as well as several macroeconomic variables, like inflation rate index and government consumption, were estimated to be statistically significant factors of economic performance. Fiscal volatility may also be a new possible channel of macroeconomic instability that leads to lower growth. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in detail.
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    The Effect of Exchange Rate Movements on Trade Balance: A Chronological Theoretical Review (2014)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2014
    Description: This paper evaluates the current state of the literature concerning the effects of exchange rate movements on trade balance. Thus, this paper is a review article and provides a survey of the alternative theories that focus on the effect of exchange rate changes on the trade balance. It systemizes the literature into four distinct reviews and approaches following the chronological order. The paper presents the (a) Standard Theory of International Trade, (b) Elasticity Approach, (c) Keynesian Absorption Approach, and (d) Monetary Approach. The study shows that higher attention should be given for the most plausible dynamic theory in this field, known as the J-Curve.
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    Permissiveness toward Illegal Actions in Uruguay: Has This Attitude Changed in Time? (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-09-05
    Description: The aim of this paper is to assess the willingness to justify illegal actions (or permissiveness) in the case of Uruguayans. We introduce new factors within the analysis: whether this attitude has changed between 1996 and 2006. In line with previous findings, some sociodemographic variables (age, education, beliefs in God, and patriotism) reduce the probability of being permissive. We also add new elements to the discussion and present some particularities of the Uruguayan case: the role of political affiliation depends on the ideological ground of the elected political party, permissiveness has dramatically changed and it is much higher in 2006.
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    Political Failures and Intergovernmental Competition (2012)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2012-08-23
    Description: In normative public economics, intergovernmental competition is usually viewed as harmful. Although empirical support for this position does not abound, market integration has intensified competition among developed countries. In this paper we argue that when assessing welfare effects of intergovernmental competition for various forms of political failures (the public choice critique), the outcome is ambiguous and competition can be welfare improving.
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    Nonlinearity of the Relationship between Human Capital and Exportation in Brazil (2012)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2012-09-19
    Description: For Brazil to realize the economic benefits of competitive advantage, it is critically important that the country's policy makers have an awareness of the determinants of Brazilian exports. Our study aims to evaluate the role of human capital measured by the average years of workforce formal education, in the value of exports from each Brazilian state from 1995 through 2006, highlighting differences among the states and/or regions. Based on the Dixit and Woodland (1982) model, our empirical analysis is implemented by running a regression of data organized into a panel that takes into account the fixed effects (i.e., the amenities) found in each of the 27 Brazilian states (including the Federal District). Our findings are consistent with the selected theoretical model and indicate that human capital in Brazil has a nonlinear effect on exportation with an inflection point of 6.7 years of formal education.
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    Commodity Food Prices: Review and Empirics (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-03-18
    Description: The present paper provides a literature review of studies examining the potential causes and consequences of recent surges in food and agricultural commodity prices. Furthermore, this paper uses the structural trend methodology proposed by Koopman et al. (2009) to analyze movements in the IMF monthly commodity food price index for the period 1992(11)–2012(10) and to provide forecasts for the period 2012(11)–2014(12). The empirical results indicate that commodity food prices present seasonality and cyclicality with the longest periodicity of two years. The empirical findings identify certain structural breaks in commodity food price series as well as outliers. These structural breaks seem to capture the trend component of the price series well, while the outliers take account of temporal effects, that is, short-lived spikes. Finally, the presented forecasts show high and volatile commodity food prices.
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    Economics of Agricultural and Food Markets (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-03-20
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    Economic Impacts of Using Switchgrass as a Feedstock for Ethanol Production: A Case Study Located in East Tennessee (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-21
    Description: One of the major motivations to establish a biobased energy sector in the United States is to promote economic development in the rural areas of the nation. This study estimated the economic impact of investing and operating a switchgrass-based ethanol plant in East Tennessee. Applying a spatially oriented mixed-integer mathematical programming model, we first determined the location of biorefinery, feedstock draw area, and the resources used in various feedstock supply systems by minimizing the total plant gate cost of feedstock. Based on the model output, an input-output model was utilized to determine the total economic impact, including direct, indirect, and induced effects of feedstock investment and annual production in the study region. Moreover, the economic impact of ethanol plant investment and annual conversion operation was analyzed. Results suggest that the total annual expenditures in an unprotected large round bale system generated a total $92.5 million in economic output within the 13 counties of East Tennessee. In addition, an estimated $234 million in overall economic output was generated through the operation of the biorefinery. This research showed that the least-cost configuration of the feedstock supply chain influenced the levels and types of economic impact of biorefinery.
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    Induced Land Use Emissions due to First and Second Generation Biofuels and Uncertainty in Land Use Emission Factors (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-04-05
    Description: Much research has estimated induced land use changes (ILUCs) and emissions for first generation biofuels. Relatively little has provided estimates for the second generation biofuels. This paper estimates ILUC emissions for the first and second generation biofuels. Estimated ILUC emissions are uncertain not only because their associated land use changes are uncertain, but also because of uncertainty in the land use emission factors (EFs). This paper also examines uncertainties related to these factors. The results suggest that converting crop residues to biofuel has no significant ILUC emissions, but that is not the case for dedicated energy crops. Use of dedicated energy crops transfers managed natural land and marginal land (cropland-pasture) to crop production. Producing biogasoline from miscanthus generates the lowest land requirement among alterative pathways. The largest land requirement is associated with switchgrass. The difference is due largely to the assumed yields of switchgrass and miscanthus. The three major conclusions from uncertainty in emissions analyses are (1) inclusion or exclusion of cropland-pasture makes a huge difference; (2) changes in soil carbon sequestration due to changes in land cover vegetation play an important role; and (3) there is wide divergence among the emission factor sources, especially for dedicated crop conversion to ethanol.
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    The Cost of Diabetes-Related Complications: Registry-Based Analysis of Days Absent from Work (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
    Description: The aim of this study was to estimate the annual number of days absent from work associated with diabetes-related complications. Registry data were obtained for 34,882 individuals aged 18–70 years with hospital-diagnosed diabetes (ICD-10 codes: E10–E14) identified from a large national sample (40% of the Danish population) with 6 years of hospital utilisation data. The occurrence of a complication was defined as a hospital admission with a specified diagnosis or procedure code. Data on sickness episodes with municipal subsidy were retrieved for each individual. Days absent from work attributable to complications were defined as the estimated difference in absence days between individuals with and without the specified complication and were estimated for the first and subsequent years after the initial episode of the recorded complication. Angina pectoris, ischaemic stroke, and heart failure were the three most frequent complications in the population. Heart failure, amputation, renal disease, and peripheral vascular disease were on average associated with more than three-month additional absence from work during the first and subsequent years. Leg ulcers and neuropathy were associated with more days absent from work during the first year than in subsequent years. Diabetes complications are associated with a substantial number of additional days absent from work. The avoidance of these complications would benefit both patients and society.
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    A Case Study of Probit Model Analysis of Factors Affecting Consumption of Packed and Unpacked Milk in Turkey (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
    Description: This paper focused on the effects of some sociodemographic factors on the decision of the consumer to purchase packed or unpacked fluid milk in Sivas, Turkey. The data were collected from 300 consumers by using face-to-face survey technique. The sample size was determined using the possibility-sampling method. Probit model has been used to analyze the socioeconomic factors affecting milk consumption of households. Four estimators (household size, income, milk preferences reason, and milk price) in the probit model were found statistically significant. According to empirical results, consumers with lower household size and higher income levels tend to consume packed milk consumption. Our study findings suggest that consumers who were sensitive to price were less likely to consume packed milk and believe that packed milk price is expensive compared to unpacked milk price. Also, milk price was effective factor concerning packed and unpacked milk consumption behavior. The majority of consumers read the contents of packed fluid milk and are affected by safety food in their shopping preferences.
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    China after the Global Financial Crisis (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
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    Demand for Fresh Vegetables in the United States: 1970–2010 (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
    Description: This paper analyzes a demand system for eight major fresh vegetables in the USA using the most recently available dataset (1970–2010). A first-differenced Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA-AIDS) is applied to estimate price and expenditure elasticity of demand, imposing homogeneity and symmetry restrictions. We find that not only are consumers responsive to changes in own-prices but they also respond significantly to changes in prices of other fresh vegetables that are consumed together. Conditional budget share allocation to lettuce, cabbage, and celery has declined, while the share of the consumer dollar going to tomatoes, peppers, and onions has increased over the period. Except for cabbage, all own-price elasticity estimates are negative, less than unity in absolute value, and statistically significant. About half of the 56 cross-price elasticities are negative and significant, indicating high, albeit asymmetric, complementarities among these fresh vegetables. Expenditure elasticities are positive and significant for all but one of these eight vegetables. Over the period under consideration, demand and expenditure elasticities remained fairly stable.
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    Economic Risks of Aflatoxin Contamination in Marketing of Peanut in Benin (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
    Description: Aflatoxin (AF) is a human health, nutrition, and financial risk to many people in the developing world. AF contamination in peanut is caused by the fungi: Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. AF is a potent carcinogenic toxin that also causes millions of dollars of financial losses to people in Africa. The fungus producing the AF can be reduced to an acceptable level by proper drying, sorting, storage, and cleaning of peanut. Government intervention and regulation can also encourage market participants to reduce AF contamination. In this paper, we examine the financial risk associated with sorting, and storing of peanut and peanut products along the marketing chain. Study results show that the prices paid for peanut, prices received, the costs of sorting and storage are dominant factors in reducing AF levels in peanut. Practices such as drying, sorting, and storing, however, pose financial risks to market traders of peanut. Unless government intervenes by requesting an AF-reduced peanut and provides assistance for market liberalization where market participants consider quality in trading decisions, suppliers of peanut will be reluctant to adopt AF-reducing techniques.
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    Food Price Inflation Rates in the Euro Zone: Distribution Dynamics and Convergence Analysis (2013)
    Hindawi
    Details
    Publication Date: 2013-03-07
    Description: It is widely recognized that inflation as a monetary phenomenon is determined by money supply changes. In the short run, however, several factors may lead to inflation rate differentials among different regions in the same country or among different countries in a monetary union. This paper examines the mean reversion attitude of food price inflation rates in the Euro zone, borrowing the concepts and developments from the recent growth literature and using panel unit root tests. Additionally, in order to capture sufficiently the evolving distributional dynamics, nonparametric econometric methods are also implemented. Finally, the comovement of the inflation rates among different food subgroups is also explored. The data consist of monthly observations of the EU harmonized consumer price indices of food and three different food subgroups (meat, bread and cereals, and vegetables) for the 12 older member states of the Euro zone, covering the period from 1997 to 2010. The results do not fully support the hypothesis of the food price inflation rates convergence for the whole period under investigation. Mean reversion shows up in different time periods and in different food categories. Moreover, the analysis of distribution dynamics sheds light to different aspects of convergence and highlights processes like club formation and polarization.
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    Firm’s Decisions Based on Consumers’ Choices in Ecocertified Food Markets (2013)
    Hindawi
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    Publication Date: 2013-03-08
    Description: The present paper proposes a framework for examining whether a food production enterprise, attempting to build an ecocertification strategy, connects the creation of environmental value with the creation of economic value, balancing environmental sustainability with economic sustainability. More specifically, the paper combines demand theory with a discreet choice consumers’ model in an embryonic ecocertified food market, to examine whether economic value is created and to identify the determinants of this value creation. An empirical investigation of the model using consumer data indicates that a variety of factors, such as consumer’s age and profession, family’s income and purchasing strategy, product quality association in consumers’ mind and the retailing outlet, play an important role in shaping the respondents’ intention to pay for the ecofriendliness of products. The proposed framework can help enterprise management to balance the consumers’ and enterprise owners’ claims in cases where certification schemes or standards exist that enable enterprises to communicate social responsibility to their customers.
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