An empirical test of purchasing power parity in selected developing countries: a panel data approach

Abstract

This paper examines the empirical validity of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for certain large developing economies by using a panel unit root methodology. The test results show that a long run real exchange rate depreciation trend exists in certain developing countries. Without considering this depreciation trend, it is hard to verify the stationarity and to explain the existence of the extremely long half-lives of the real exchange rates. When a linear time trend is included in the tests, the results tend to support the stationarity of the underlying real exchange rate processes, and the half-lives are significantly shorter and their range can be explained by transitory disturbances.     

The Political Power of Big Business: A Response to Bell and Hindmoor

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in debates about the power of business (Culpepper 2011 Culpepper, P. (2011). Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Bell 2012 Bell, S. (2012). The Power of Ideas: The Ideational Mediation of the Structural Power of Business. International Studies Quarterly, 56(4), 661–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00743.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Bell and Hindmoor (2013 Bell, S., Hindmoor, A. (2013). The Structural Power of Business and the Power of Ideas: The Strange Case of the Australian Mining Tax. New Political Economy, ,forthcoming. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2013.796452 [19 (3), pp. 470–486, cross-references updated] [Google Scholar]) make an important, theoretically informed, but empirically rooted, contribution to that debate. In this response, we address both aspects of their contribution, arguing that their treatment of Lindblom is partial and, consequently, so is their explanation of the case. As such, we largely rely on their narrative of the evolution of the Australian mining tax, focusing first on critically examining Bell and Hindmoor's theoretical position, before turning to their analysis of the case.     

The Power Underpinnings,and Some Distributional Consequences,of Trade and Investment Liberalisation in Canada

Criticism of trade and investment liberalisation (TAIL) in North America has drawn attention to weak economic performance, wage-profit redistribution, social dumping and fiscal pressure on government programmes as evidence that the TAIL regime has failed to deliver on some of its key promises. This criticism has been unable, however, to establish satisfactory conceptual and empirical connections between the dramatic distributional changes witnessed in the TAIL era and the institutional reorganisation of power that the TAIL regime entrenched. This article will undertake a quantitative assessment of the Canadian political economy to see who the main beneficiaries of the TAIL era have been, contrasting returns to labour and to capital in the pre-TAIL and TAIL eras. Employing tools from the capital as power framework, two pictures are painted: the first picture examines broad changes in the distribution of income and the second examines differential business performance. The evidence from this inquiry suggests that although the official purpose of TAIL was to enhance the prosperity of all Canadians, this trade deal actually represented – both in its intentions and consequences – a political-economic transformation written by dominant capital for dominant capital.     

中国经济崛起及对美国影响

目前,中国已成为仅次于美国的世界第二大经济体,但也面临来自国内外的严峻挑战。本文分析了中国经济崛起的背景、面临的挑战以及中国崛起对美国的影响。本部分回顾了中国经济发展变迁的过程,认为中国的经济增长源于高储蓄推动的大规模投资和劳动生产率的持续提高。以购买力平价估算,中国的经济规模约相当于美国的80%,但人均国民生产总值远远低于美国。     

“西江经济带”文化发展的世界图景

当下世界经济全球化和文化产业经济的历史发展必然趋势,为西江经济带文化发展绘制了鲜明的世界图景：现实存在的软实力竞争国际环境,使得西江经济带文化发展作为一种文化软实力而发挥特殊作用;世界城市文明形态从“政治型城市”、“经济型城市”向“文化型城市”的转型,赋予了西江经济带文化发展的文化产业绿色经济内涵;世界范围内的城市群战略规划,在推动西江经济带以城市群形态进入国家战略框架的同时,凸显西江城市群与文化生态之间的矛盾,生态优先战略由此成为西江经济带文化发展特别关注的命题。     

Women's Leisure as Political Practice: A Feminist Analysis of Orange Is the New Black

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to examine representations of women's leisure portrayed on the popular Netflix television series Orange Is the New Black (OITNB). Using a feminist lens rooted in the notion of interconnectivity, we draw on four television tropes proposed by Pozner (2010 Pozner, J. L. (2010). Reality bites back: The troubling truth about guilty pleasure TV. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press. [Google Scholar]) that are commonly used to depict women characters on television to analyze representations of women's leisure in the first three seasons of OITNB. Our analysis reveals the complex and messy ways representations of women's leisure on OITNB can be used to discipline, reproduce, but also challenge power relations associated with common media tropes, acting as a form of political practice. We conclude by considering the implications of how these representations can influence the lives of women consuming this media content as part of their leisure.     

Coming to Terms with Leisure and Globalization

Abstract

This article is concerned with the engagement of leisure studies as an academic field and as organized, professional intervention with the phenomenon of globalization, using the exemplificatory case of the World Leisure and Recreation Association’s (now World Leisure’s) Sao Paulo Declaration on Leisure and Globalization as a point of reference. Deploying a combination of globalization theory and ‘autoethnographic’ research in relation to instances of mediated leisure culture, it reflects on conceptual imprecision and potential contradictions in the Declaration as indicative of wider problems in the disciplinary field. Leisure studies researchers are enjoined to avoid complicity in promoting both dystopian and utopian versions of globalization theory, and sceptically to assess the complex interaction of globalizing and other macro/micro processes. The article concludes by arguing for a wide‐ranging, critically reflexive leisure studies research agenda supported by principled strategic interventions in leisure power relations.     

Leadership,power and racism: lifeguards’ influences on Aboriginal people’s experiences at a Northern Canadian aquatic facility

Using a Foucauldian and postcolonial lens, this case study examines the ways in which leadership styles used by lifeguards and supported by the structure, rules and regulations at a northern Canadian swimming pool influenced Aboriginal people’s experience of the facility. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a focus group were used to identify the ways in which Eurocentric lifeguard training, exercises of power, institutional racism and an absence of cultural competency can intersect to influence Aboriginal people’s use of a local pool and their considerations of lifeguarding as a potential employment opportunity. On the basis of these findings, the study suggests that the development and implementation of anti-discriminatory policies and procedures for swimming pools and the inclusion of cultural competency teachings in lifeguard training are necessary measures to enhance Aboriginal people’s experiences at northern swimming pools, to foster opportunities to become lifeguards and to augment Euro-Canadian lifeguards’ capacity to maintain a safe and welcoming aquatic environment in a cross-cultural context.     

Sex: The Power of the Powerless? The Use of Sex as a Spousal Influence Strategy in Vacation Purchase Decisions

This study is the first to test empirically the common notion regarding sexual manipulation as a spousal influence strategy during couples' vacation purchasing decisions. The study examined whether the use of sex as a spousal influence strategy is more prevalent among individuals who have less marital power than their spouses. Marital power is treated as two-dimensional: the first dimension is objective and composed of actual economic resources; the second is subjective and composed of feelings. A sample of 192 married or cohabiting men evaluated their own and their partner's use of sex as a means of exerting influence during a vacation decision process. Female subjects with low levels of subjective marital power and male subjects with low levels of objective marital power used sex as a spousal influence strategy at a higher frequency. The study found that during a vacation decision process, the use of sex as a spousal influence strategy is impacted by the marital power balance between the spouses. Second, economic power is not the dominant factor that affects the use of this influence strategy; rather, it is interpersonal power that is influential. The findings imply that sex may be used as a power strategy by the powerless.     

Factors affecting biasing of capital budgeting cash flow forecasts: evidence from the hotel industry

This study contributes to a neglected aspect of the capital budgeting process, namely, the proposal development stage, which is primarily concerned with project cash flow estimation. Given that the deployment of sophisticated selection techniques is severely undermined when directed to input data suffering from bias, it is surprising that minimal empirical research has sought to explore for antecedent factors associated with biasing of capital budgeting cash flow forecasts. This paper reports the findings of a survey concerned with determining factors associated with biasing of capital budget cash flow forecasts in hotels that are mediated by a management contract. Statistically significant support is provided for the view that higher levels of biasing of capital budget cash flow forecasts occur in the presence of: high emphasis attached to the payback investment appraisal method; deficient reserve funds for furniture, fittings, and equipment (FF&E); low operator accessibility to reserve funds for FF&E; shorter periods of time to management contract expiry; and high emphasis attached to non-financial factors in capital budgeting appraisal.