Rethinking the role of private capital in infrastructure PPPs: the experience of Ontario,Canada

Private capital has become a significant feature of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs) on the premise that it incentivizes diligent risk management among private partners. This paper evaluates this claim by examining the PPP programme in Ontario, Canada, where the amount of long-term private capital in PPPs has been reduced. The paper shows that decreasing the amount of private capital after construction does not undermine performance, while producing cost savings for governments. This was achieved by deploying sophisticated procurement and monitoring strategies. These findings suggest that private capital is one of several tools available to achieve positive value for money in PPPs.     

Culture and business networks: International business negotiations with Arab managers

The Arab world is an important economic region due to its natural resources, geographic location and political influence. However, limited attention has been paid to researching and understanding the way business is conducted in this region. We address this gap by exploring the key socio-economic, cultural and political factors that influence the negotiation process between Arab and non-Arab managers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Arab managers in Lebanon with experience in international business. The findings of the study show that: Arab negotiators place emphasis on building relationships and use referent power (wasta); the political uncertainty influences the bargaining power of the Arab negotiators and political volatility in the country influences the Arab managers’ use of time during negotiations.     

The Balance-of-Payments Constraint and Growth Rate Differences Among African and East Asian Economies

The balance-of-payments constrained growth rate model postulates that the balance of payments position of a country is the main constraint on economic growth, because it imposes a limit on demand to which supply can adapt. This paper applies the model to a sample of African and Asian countries aiming at explaining growth rate differences among these countries by quantifying the individual and combined contributions of export growth, capital flows and changes in the terms of trade in each country’s case. The results obtained give support to the argument that, in contrast to Asian countries, the low growth rates in African countries are explained by low export expansion relative to the imports required for the processes of growth and development. This poor performance of African countries is attributed to the low magnitudes of their dynamic Harrod foreign trade multipliers, which are determined by the respective income elasticities of demand for exports and imports. It is asserted that the low dynamic Harrod foreign trade multipliers of African countries are direct products of their excessive dependency on the exportation of primary products. — Le modèle de taux de croissance contrariés par la balance des paiements postule que la position de la balance des paiements constitue le principal obstacle à la croissance économique d’un pays, dans la mesure où elle impose une limite à la demande à laquelle l’offre pourrait s’adapter. Le présent article applique ce modèle à un échantillon de pays africains et asiatiques afin d’expliquer les différences de taux de croissance entre ces pays, en quantifiant la contribution individuelle et collective de facteurs tels que la croissane des exportations, les flux de capitaux et la variation des termes de l’échange dans chaque pays. Les résultats obtenus confortent l’argument selon lequel, contrairement à ce qui se passe dans les pays asiatiques, la modicité des taux de croissance dans les des pays africains s’explique par la faible expansion des exportations par rapport aux importations nécessaires pour assurer le processus de croissance et de développement. Cette performance médiocre des économies africaines est imputée à l’insuffisance de leur multiplicateur dynamique du commerce extérieur de Harrod, qui est déterminé par leurs élasticités-revenu de la demande d’exportations et d’importations. Cette insuffisance est elle-même une conséquence directe de la dépendance excessive de ces pays à l’égard des exportations de produits de base.     

Green Consumerism and Ecolabelling: A Strategic Behavioural Model

The ethos of “green” marketing is to affect tastes and perceptions so that those individuals for whom the attribute of environmental‐friendliness is significant can signal this preference by choosing the “green” alternative. This paper presents a strategic behavioural model of interactions between two agents, a firm and consumer, under conditions of incomplete information. The outcome of the model is that, unless some restrictive and (arguably) unrealistic conditions apply, some proportion of “green” marketing campaigns will be misleading; “green” marketing is not restricted to “green” products, and “green” consumers only adapt their purchasing habits some of the time. Ecolabelling schemes can be used as a means of ameliorating this inefficiency in information‐transfer. Whether state intervention to make ecolabelling mandatory for “green” products is welfare‐improving depends on the balance between the deadweight losses from the process and the gains in terms of facilitating the expression of “green” preferences.     

Effects of COVID-19 in E-learning on higher education institution students: the group comparison between male and female

Quality & Quantity - In response to the emerging and ever solution to the COVID-19 outbreak. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on literature and model to determined E-learning...     

The moderation influence of warranty on customer satisfaction’s antecedents: an empirical evidence from automotive dealerships

The purpose of this article is to investigate the differential influence of product quality and service quality on customer satisfaction (CS) along with the interaction role of warranty presence in the context of automotive dealerships. Survey-based research methodology is adopted in which the population are the car owners who perform repair and maintenance jobs in authorized service centres. It is found that the warranty moderation role is supported wherein the relationship between service quality and CS is strengthened by the warranty presence, contrary to the insignificant relationship between product quality and CS influenced by the warranty moderator; besides, the empirical results provide an evidence that the CS value relies on metrics comprising operational measures for service quality and product quality. The outcome of this study contributes to sensitizing the decision makers from manufacturing and service disciplines to the interdependencies and the prerequisite for overall collaborative development. This study presents the first systematic approach that differentiates the influence of product quality and service quality on CS, wherein the warranty service is primarily introduced as a moderator affecting the antecedent relationship in the context of automotive dealerships.     

Journal Rankings,Collaborative Research and Publication Strategies: Evidence from China

Abstract

The primary focus of our paper is on the potential for in-house journal ranking lists to create friction between international collaborating researchers due to differences in how particular journals are rated on different lists. Using a questionnaire distributed to Chinese accounting researchers, we identify a number of potential friction points between Chinese and UK researchers. We find that almost all of our Chinese respondents use their own school's in-house ranking list as the primary or exclusive reference point for assessing journal quality, and 73% of respondents acknowledge that this has caused problems when working with scholars from other universities because of differences in how their institutions rank journals.     

Spillover across Eurozone credit market sectors and determinants

We examine spillover and its determinants among Eurozone sector level credit markets using time and frequency domain spillover approaches. Based on network theory and connectedness analysis, we identify the sectors that are major transmitters and receivers of spillover during normal and crisis periods. The rolling window analysis shows that short-run spillover among credit market sectors intensifies during global and Eurozone crisis periods. Further, using Bayesian model averaging, we find that overall financial conditions and stock market volatility are the main drivers of total and sector-level spillover. Our findings have important implications for policymakers and investors interested in Euro-area credit risk at the sector level.     

How important is the financial sector to price indices in an inflation targeting regime? An empirical analysis of the UK and the US

This paper investigates whether there are benefits in terms of higher economic stability from incorporating stock prices into the price index targeted by the central banks. It also looks into the question of whether central banks should use stock prices as a component of the output stability index and how the index can be constructed. An optimization technique is employed to estimate weights for the various sectoral prices. The obtained weights, which depend on sectoral parameters, differ from those used in the construction of the consumer price index, CPI. Using data from the UK and the US, our analysis demonstrates that in comparison to the CPI, our measure of inflation leads to a higher output stability. Thus, in an inflation-targeting monetary policy environment, it is important to adopt a broader inflation benchmark than the CPI for the general macroeconomic stability.