Effectiveness of alternative channels of monetary policy transmission: some evidence for India

In this article, we have employed ‘shutdown’ methodology, not used before in the Indian context, to study the relative importance of alternative channels of monetary policy transmission. We have, for the first time, studied the impact of monetary policy on consumer price index (CPI) inflation. In response to a shock to the operating target, the maximum decline in gross domestic product growth occurs with a lag of two to three quarters, while the impact on inflation (both CPI and wholesale price index) is felt with a lag of three to four quarters. The interest rate channel is found to be the most dominant channel of monetary policy transmission in India.     

Travelling risks: How did nanotechnology become a risk in India and South Africa?

India and South Africa have invested in nanotechnology since the early 2000s and have identified risks to human health and the environment as an important issue for governance. This is exemplary for a wider trend in which ‘developing countries’ play an increasingly prominent role in the development, production and use of emerging technologies. This validates the claim of the world risk society thesis that countries around the world are now confronted with the risks of emerging technologies. Little is known, however, about the way developing countries deal with the potential risks of emerging technologies. Starting from the observation that the risk colonization of nanotechnology in developing countries cannot be taken for granted, this article draws upon the relational theory of risk in order to investigate how nanotechnology became understood as an object of risk in South Africa and India. The article shows that nanotechnology was constituted as an object of risk in rather different ways in India and South Africa, demonstrating that the spread of risk discourses – and the emergence of a world risk society – cannot be understood without attending to the local context. The article shows that way risk is understood and dealt with changes as risk discourses travel around the world, giving many different faces to the world risk society.     

The Effects of Oil Price Uncertainty on Global Real Economic Activity

This paper investigates the effect of oil price uncertainty on global real economic activity using a quarterly vector autoregressive model with stochastic volatility in mean. Stochastic volatility allows oil price uncertainty to vary separately from changes in the level of oil prices, and allows one to incorporate an extraneous indicator of oil price uncertainty such as realized volatility that greatly improves the precision of the estimated uncertainty series. The estimation results show that an oil price uncertainty shock has negative effects on world industrial production all else equal. For example, it is shown that a doubling of oil price volatility is associated with a cumulative decline as high as 0.3 percentage points in world industrial production.     

我国ODI影响东道国经济增长的路径探析

利用国际面板数据对我国ODI影响东道国经济增长的不同路径进行了实证检验。结论显示：（1）我国ODI通过资本形成与技术进步路径促进了东道国的经济增长;（2）我国ODI通过资本形成路径对东道国经济增长的作用大于就业增长;（3）我国ODI通过技术进步路径对东道国就业增长的路径大于经济增长;（4）我国ODI不仅能够通过技术溢出直接促进东道国的技术进步,也能通过提升东道国的贸易质量间接促进东道国技术进步,从而促进东道国经济增长。     

A new theoretical framework to assess Multinational Corporations’ motivation for Foreign Direct Investment: A case study on Vietnamese service industries

PurposeThis paper develops a new theoretical framework, based on eclectic paradigm and institution theory, to evaluate Multinational Corporations’ (MNCs’) incentives for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The new framework is applied as a case study in the service sector across Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach to investigate the motivational factors of MNCs by using primary data on MNCs working in service industries in Vietnam. This paper introduces five motivational factors, and conducts a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to study the construct validity of the research measures and to cluster the variables into common factors that can be used to present relationships among sets of interrelated variables.FindingsThe SEM results reveal that the key determinants of MNCs’ incentives to invest in service industries are market-seeking government policies and culture, all of which have significantly contributed to FDI.Originality/valueThis study offers new knowledge and insights into the factors that motivate FDI by MNCs in general and in service industries in Vietnam. The findings are plausible and in line with the recent economic reforms launched in Vietnam, along with the increased FDI inflows into the country in the last twenty-five years.     

政策效应对FDI技术溢出的影响--来自中国制造业的证据

研究FDI技术溢出效应是近年国内学者关注的热点问题,大多数学者主要从行业特征、市场结构等角度来考察FDI技术溢出效应的存在性,而少部分学者从整体上讨论了政策效应对FDI技术溢出产生的影响。通过使用交叉变量来测度外贸政策对FDI技术溢出效应的影响程度,研究结果也比较客观地反映了我国制造业的FDI受外贸政策的影响现实,从而对外资政策的调整提供了一定依据。     

中小企业出口融资新模式——结构性贸易融资

传统单一的贸易融资方式已经不能适应国际贸易发展的要求,这就要求我国金融机构不仅需要引入新的国际贸易融资方式,也要充分利用"组合理论"原理,通过搭配不同的国际贸易融资方式,最大限度满足中小企业的融资需求,并相应降低总体的融资风险。结构性贸易融资创造性地利用传统贸易融资方式与现代融资方式,将整个贸易流程作为融资对象,通过组合搭配这些融资方式,使进出口商在承担适度风险的基础上获得全程的融资服务,减少自身的资金占压,为中小企业提供了新的出口融资模式。     

A productivity growth accounting approach to the ranking of developing and developed nations

Productivity growth accounting studies generally focus on productivity growth or decline in more developed countries such as the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members. In this paper, we develop a generalized efficiency index for a much larger set of 57 national governments (NGs), both developing and developed, by employing four components of gross national product and five resource-availability indicators. Using a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) linear-programming approach, we maximize the components of Gross National Product (GNP), subject to minimizing specific resource-input measures. If used with appropriate precautions, the DEA-based comparative production-efficiency measures developed here can be used by individual NGs and international organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to make equitable and sustainable lending-allocation decisions in the public and private sectors of the increasingly interdependent global economy.     

我国P2P网络借贷发展现状及其监管思考

P2P网络借贷,是指帮助投资者与借款人实现直接借贷行为的中介服务行业。发展P2P网络借贷对缓解我国小微企业及个人融资难问题具有非常重要的意义。自2007年“拍拍贷”网贷平台成立以来,我国网络借贷平台数量日益增长,对小额贷款领域贡献明显,但同时由于监管的缺位,一些P2P网络借贷平台不规范操作引发的风险给整个行业发展带来一定的隐患。通过对我国现阶段P2P网贷平台运行模式、发展规模等现状进行梳理总结,发现网贷平台发展良莠不齐,存在借款利率过高和监管不力等问题,为此提出了加快制定相应规章制度、加强监管、完善平台信息公布和加强平台内外部合作等规范P2P网络借贷的政策建议。     

Accounting education, training and the profession in the Commonwealth Caribbean: Integration or internationalisation?

In light of the January 2006 inauguration of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), regional accountants now face the challenge of reshaping the system of professional education and training inherited from the UK-based ACCA at independence or transferred to the Caribbean economies by the American-based CPA and the Canadian-based CGA after independence, in order to better serve the socio-economic needs of Caribbean economies. This paper therefore examines the way forward for the professional education and training in accountancy in the context of the now independent post-colonial developing economies of the Caribbean. Given the structural, economic and social deficiencies deriving from their colonial history, these countries need to move away from the externally derived model of accounting education and its legacy of inappropriate content, methodology and pedagogy. Available evidence suggests that the integration of the accountancy profession could aid and accelerate the successful operation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. In fact, such evidence suggests that the integration of the accounting profession represents the preference of the people of the Commonwealth Caribbean. In addition the evidence suggests that the integration of the profession could contribute significantly to the projection of a Caribbean identity, to economic development and could ultimately make a major contribution to the survival of the Commonwealth Caribbean economies in the global economic system.     

Regional Transfer of Haze Pollutants Embodied in China’s Foreign Trade and Factors Affecting It: A GMRIO-Based Empirical Analysis

The paper estimated the balance of emissions embodied in bilateral trade and the pollution terms of trade between China and six major world economies, including USA, Japan, and others, from 1995 to 2009, and then discussed the factors affecting them using the Structural Decomposition Analysis method. We find that, with the exception of Taiwan, the balances of the haze pollutants emissions embodied in bilateral trades were negative between China and the each of the rest five, and this was mainly resulted from the China export scale effect and intermediate input structural effects. We also find that China has become the “Pollution Refuge” for the economies like USA and Japan.