Trade liberalization and unemployment: Theory and evidence from India

A widely held view among the public is that trade liberalization increases unemployment. Using state and industry-level unemployment and trade protection data from India, we find no evidence of any unemployment increasing effect of trade reforms. In fact, our state-level analysis reveals that urban unemployment declines with trade liberalization in states with flexible labor markets and larger employment shares in net exporter industries. Moreover, our industry-level analysis indicates that workers in industries experiencing greater reductions in trade protection were less likely to become unemployed, especially in net export industries. Our results can be explained within a theoretical framework incorporating trade and search-generated unemployment and some institutional features of the Indian economy.     

南疆铁路沿线地区城市化与城市生态环境评价研究

城市化与城市生态环境之间存在着一定的关系.近年来,特别是南疆铁路西延工程全线贯通并投入正式营运以后,铁路对穿越城镇并铁路沿线周边城镇的发展带来了很好的机遇,促进了该区域的经济的发展及城镇化,同时该区域的城镇生态环境也发生了很大的变化.本文在南疆铁路沿线四个城市的2000、2006、2008年统计资料的基础上,首先运用综合评价方法对南疆四城市的城市化水平进行了综合评价,然后分析了南疆四个城市的城市生态环境情况,最后对城镇化与城市生态环境之间的关系进行了分析.结果表明,2000年以来,南疆铁路沿线四城市的城市化水平相对于2000年具有上升趋势.库尔勒市的生态环境水平与城市化水平之间有协调发展特征,但其它三个城市的生态环境水平与城市化水平之间存在不协调发展情况.因此,必须加强阿克苏市、阿图什市、喀什市的城市生态环境的保护工作以促进城市生态环境与城市化水平的协调发展.     

Mutual to Stock Conversion, Information Cost, and Thrift Performance

In the 1980s, a large number of thrifts converted from the mutual to the stock form of ownership. The literature has noted that investors in those conversions earned abnormally high short-term returns. However, over the long run the converters earned very poor returns. The major reason for the poor returns was the extra noninterest operational costs associated with the stock form of ownership. Since those extra operational costs were predictable, the stock offerings may have been overpriced, ex ante as well as ex post.     

Antecedents of importer relationship performance in Latin America

Emerging market importers are increasingly engaging in relationships with foreign suppliers. Nevertheless, characteristics of the institutional and cultural environments of countries may affect relationship behavior. Furthermore, research on relationship marketing primarily focuses on the marketing activities of exporters from developed countries and much less attention is paid to the import side of the exchange process. Thus, the objective of this study is to empirically examine importer relationship performance in a Latin American context. This article proposes and tests a conceptual model that includes the antecedents and outcomes of trust and commitment with a survey of Chilean importers. The model uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to develop the construct measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the model. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the driving forces of trust and commitment and their influence on importing firms' performance in an emerging market context.     

Value relevance of banks: global evidence

Using 28,785 observations of 813 banking institutions in 38 countries during the 1993–2004 period, this study investigates among others, the role of transparency, accounting standards, legal, financing, corporate, and banking environments at the country level and size, risk, and organization form at the bank-specific level affecting the extent of value relevance. The evidence indicates that at the macro-level, the extent of mandated accounting disclosure, differences in accounting measurement practices, and type of legal environment, were the most influencing factors affecting the extent of value relevance of earnings and book values. At the bank-level, the organizational form and risk had the most impact.     

Organizational Form and Expense Preference: Spanish Experience

This article investigates the effect of alternative ownership structures, stock versus mutual, on the cost of production of Spanish depository institutions. By introducing a stochastic frontier analysis in estimating the best–practiced expense–preference behaviour, the empirical approach adjusts for the possibility that the two sectors of the banking industry employ different production technologies and finds evidence that is consistent with expense–preference behaviour by the mutual savings banks.     

Water flow risks and stakeholder impacts on the choice of a dam site

This study evaluates three alternative locations for building a fresh water dam in the Yeşilirmak Valley of North Cyprus. Each of the three sites has different investment costs, water storage capabilities and socio-political repercussions. These kinds of trade-offs have in recent years characterised much of the worldwide debate surrounding the construction of electricity and irrigation dams. Another issue raised in this paper is the appropriate treatment of the risk and variability associated with the availability of water to fill the dam through time. This paper demonstrates how an integrated financial-economic-stakeholder analysis can provide the inputs needed by decision-makers in such situations to make rational political and economic choices.     

Are expansions cost effective for stock exchanges? A global perspective

This paper investigates the existence and extent of economies of scale and scope among the stock exchanges. Evidence from 38 exchanges in 32 countries and 4 continents around the world for the years 1989–1998 portrays the existence of significant economies of scale and scope. The degree of such scale and scope however differs across size and regions. The largest exchanges show an increasing trend of cost effectiveness. The exchanges in North America and Europe report substantially higher economies of scale relative to the exchanges in the Asia-Pacific regions.     

Rice to shrimp: Land use/land cover changes and soil degradation in Southwestern Bangladesh

This paper examines the impact of shrimp farming on rice ecosystem in a village in Southwestern Bangladesh. The village Damarpota has experienced transformation of 274 ha (79%) of its prime quality rice fields into shrimp farms during the period between 1985 and 2003. Prolonged shrimp farming for 5-, 10-, and 15-year period has increased soil salinity, acidity, and depleted soil Ca, K, Mg, and organic C content of all three types of soils in the villages to a variable degree and caused soil degradation that significantly affected the rice yield. Declined yield and acreage of rice jointly reduced the total production of rice and animal fodder. Soil degradation and loss of acreage under rice have threatened the sustainability of the village rice ecosystem.