SOURCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA1

This paper provides some empirical evidence on the sources of growth in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). Within the classical convergence framework, several macroeconomic, socio and political factors are identified as affecting the steady state growth paths of the SSA countries. The rejection of the constant technology growth rate assumption implied by the linearised Solow‐Swan growth specification suggests differences in the economies' technology growth rates. An endogenous technology growth model is estimated to measure contributions of diminishing returns and technology transfer to the rate of conditional convergence in the region. The results carry important policy implications for improving the standard of living and economic growth rate of African countries.     

A dynamic analysis of the impact of uncertainty on import- and/or export-led growth: The experience of Japan and the Asian Tigers

Increasing integration of the Asian Tigers with the world economy through trade has exposed their income and trade to greater uncertainty and volatility. This paper models uncertainty in trade and income and re-examines the stability of the trade-growth nexus for Japan and the Asian Tigers in a dynamic framework. We find that in a volatile environment Japan's GDP growth is only import-led while Hong Kong's GDP growth is both export and import growth-led. On the other hand, incorporating uncertainty breaks the causal link between Korea's GDP growth and trade but it does not affect Taiwan's mutually causative relationship between GDP growth, with exports and imports. Lastly, the varied qualitative and quantitative impact of volatility in imports and exports on income growth among the Asian Tigers provides further thought for policy making.     

Competition between auctions

Even though auctions are capturing an increasing share of commerce, they are typically treated in the theoretical economics literature as isolated. That is, an auction is typically treated as a single seller facing multiple buyers or as a single buyer facing multiple sellers. In this paper, we review the state of the art of competition between auctions. We consider three different types of competition: competition between auctions, competition between formats, and competition between auctioneers vying for auction traffic. We highlight the newest experimental, statistical, and analytical methods in the analysis of competition between auctions.     

Foreign Institutional Investment,Ownership, and Liquidity: Real and Informational Frictions

The literature widely documents the negative liquidity impact of foreign participation in firms that permit high foreign institutional ownership. This paper employs a unique setting for the limited participation of qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) in China's A-share market and examines how this impacts on stock liquidity in emerging markets. Contrary to the findings in the literature, foreign investor participation helps enhance the liquidity of affected stocks by promoting trade activities and price discovery. The improvement in liquidity does not occur through the information friction channel, but rather the real friction channel. Our results are robust to endogeneity issue and the possible influence of the global financial crisis, industry effects and the stock exchange. Further, the liquidity improving effects of QFII are even stronger when the analysis is performed on a subsample of QFII firms.     

Does Proximity to School Still Matter Once Access to Your Preferred School Zone Has Already Been Secured?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper examines the relationship between proximity to secondary schools and property values within three school enrollment zones in Auckland,...     

ARE EMPIRICAL MEASURES OF MACROECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY ALIKE?

Abstract There is a plethora of time series measures of uncertainty for inflation and real output growth in empirical studies but little is known whether they are comparable to the uncertainty measure reported by individual forecasters in the survey of professional forecasters. Are these two measures of uncertainty inherently distinct? This paper shows that, compared with many uncertainty proxies produced by time series models, the use of real‐time data with fixed‐sample recursive estimation of an asymmetric bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model yields inflation uncertainty estimates which resemble the survey measure. There is, however, overwhelming evidence that many of the time series measures of growth uncertainty exceed the level of uncertainty obtained from survey measure. Our results highlight the relative merits of using different methods in modelling macroeconomic uncertainty which are useful for empirical researchers.     

The Cascade Effect on Lending Conditions: Evidence from the Syndicated Loan Market

This paper investigates, both theoretically and empirically, how interactions among potential lenders may influence contract terms via informational cascade in the syndicated loan market. Our model shows that the ex‐post observed interest rate is higher and the probability of syndication failure is lower when potential lenders can only observe the decisions of their predecessors versus when they can freely communicate with each other. Empirical tests confirm the model's predictions and the existence of a cascade effect on lending conditions. Using relational distance to proxy for the segmentation of communication, we find that relational distance is positively related to the loan spread and the requirements for collateral and guarantees, but negatively related to the probability of syndication failure.     

Making Trade Policy in a New Democracy after a Deep Crisis: Indonesia

This paper examines the recent political economy of trade policy in Indonesia against the backdrop of two major events: the deep economic crisis of 1997–98, and the transition from three decades of rapid growth under an authoritarian regime to a weaker but democratic state. We investigate both international and domestic trade policy. The international trade policy regime has remained largely open, perhaps surprisingly in view of the unpopularity of liberal economic policies in the wake of the crisis and the forces advocating more protectionist policies. However, this openness is precarious, and lacks both institutional and community opinion support. In contrast, while remaining largely open at the international border, domestic barriers to trade have increased. This conjunction of economic crisis and weak, democratic states is a common phenomenon in the developing world, and the lessons for trade policy from the Indonesian experience over this decade are therefore relevant to many other countries.