Globalization and the connection of remote communities: A review of household effects and their biodiversity implications

The remote regions of the world provide refuge to a disproportionate amount of the Earth's biodiversity. As globalization continues, isolated human communities in these regions are increasingly connected to global market, migration, and technology networks. We review the diffuse literature on the household effects of changing market access, migration, and technology adoption in remote regions and implications for native biodiversity. Market access affects biodiversity in remote communities through changes in household economics and social networks. Migration, either to or from remote settlements, affects biodiversity through changes in population, remittances, human capital, and social networks. Finally, we consider effects due to production, public infrastructure, and information and communication technologies. There is much ambiguity surrounding these causal pathways, and thus we also examine the roles of various ecological, household, community, and institutional mediating factors in determining the impacts of global connection. Finally, we explore the limitations of our current knowledge and research practices and propose directions for future work to address key uncertainties in theory and evidence as well as weaknesses in methodological approaches. We recommend a broad and interdisciplinary mode of inquiry as the best means toward clarifying globalization's impacts on human settlements and the biodiversity harbored in the Earth's remaining remote regions.     

Manufacturing versus Distribution: Implicit Pricing of Real Property Characteristics by Submarket

This article develops and tests the idea that the industrial real estate market is an aggregate market consisting of at least two submarkets—manufacturing and distribution. While there is no observable difference in implicit pricing of most industrial property characteristics across these two submarkets, some property-characteristic implicit prices do differ. Therefore, manufacturing and distribution submarket property-pricing functions are best estimated in aggregate, while making allowances for variability of coefficients on some property characteristics. For this sample of 331 industrial property sales from the southeastern region of the United States, the two submarkets vary with regard to implicit pricing of building volume, below-average building condition, site area, and dock-high doors.     

The impact of race and other variables on the composition and value of individual portfolios

Summary and Conclusions This study indicates that socio-economic variables play an important role in the determination of portfolio allocation and the value of assets in the portfolio. However, it should be noted that these factors are not sole determinants. Relevant variables, such as expectations and attitudes, have not been considered here, although where other variables have been studied, no definitive results were stated.15 Importantly, race is a significant determinant of portfolio diversity but not of the value of assets in the portfolio. Therefore, it does make a difference in portfolio composition whether an individual is black or white, but if the individual maintains a diversified portfolio, race becomes immaterial.     

Analysts' Forecasts in Asian-Pacific Markets: The Relationship among Macroeconomic Factors, Accounting Systems, Bias and Accuracy

In this study, we describe determinants of accuracy/bias of analysts' forecasts in 13 economies of the Asian‐Pacific region. Examination of the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts allows us to judge how accounting systems and macroeconomic distinctions in this region affect earnings predictability. As many investors rely on analysts' earnings forecasts instead of producing their own, the growth of international investment means forecasts in non‐US markets will become increasingly important to investors worldwide. Using a sample of firms with data available on Global Vantage and I/B/E/S International, we find that the analysts on average have a pessimistic bias in Asian‐Pacific markets. We examine whether macroeconomic factors explain part of the difference in the size of analyst forecast errors, using the global competitiveness rankings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). We expect that those nations which are more open to foreign trade and investment and are ranked more highly by the WEF in its Global Competitiveness Index will also have more accurate analyst forecasts, as increased global competitiveness demands greater integration into the world economy, and such integration should lead to more transparent financial statements and more accurate earnings forecasts. Our findings are consistent with this prediction. We also find that countries with low book‐tax conformity have more accurate earnings forecasts.     

Redistributing the energy tax burden in the Philippines

This paper uses an aggregate modelling approach to assess the impacts of a redistribution of the taxes and duties that currently exist on crude oil and refined petroleum products on the Philippine economy. The approach used in the analysis consists of a general equilibrium model composed of fourteen producing sectors, fifteen consuming sectors, three household categories classified by income and a government. The effects of replacing the taxes and duties on crude oil and refined petroleum products with a more broad based tax on manufacturing and service sectors output on prices and quantities are examined. The results are revealing. For example, the consequences of redistributing the tax burden away from petroleum products to the manufacturing and service sectors of the Philippine economy will be an increase in output by all producing sectors of about 3.5 percent or about 2.4 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in the consumption of goods and services by about 6.1 percent or 1.6 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in total utility by 6.9 or 1.9 hundred billion Philippine pesos, and virtually no change in tax revenue for the government. When subjected to a sensitivity analysis, the results are reasonably robust with regard to the assumption of the values of the substitution elasticities. That is, while the model's equilibrium values do vary in response to different assumptions of the values of these elasticities, the fluctuations are not so enormous to suggest that the model is unrealistically sensitive to these parameters.Notation Y _j Total production in sectorj (j=1, 2, ..., 14) - CD _j Consumer demand for productj - GE _j Government endowment of productj - UM _j Imports of productj - _LRAS_jl RAS balanced input-output intermediate demands - GD _j Government demand for productj - INV _j Investment in sectorj - UX _j Exports of productj - SL _c Supply of labor by householdc (c=1, 2, 3) - SK _c Supply of capital by householdc - SD _c Supply of land by householdc - DL _j Demand for labor in the industryj - DK _j Demand for capital in the industryj - DD _j Demand for land in industryj - GDL Government demand for labor - GDD Government demand for land - TL _j Tax on labor in industryj - TK _j Tax on capital in industryj - TD _j Tax on land in industryj - GCE _i Consumer demand for consumer producti (i=1, 2, ..., 15) - Z _ji A 14×15 transformation matrix - RCS _ic RAS balanced matrix of each household's demand for each consumer good - TC _j Excise tax on consumer goodj - TRN _c Transfer payment to householdc - PIT _c Personal income tax payment for householdc - TAU _c Marginal income tax rate for householdc - SAV _c Savings in householdc - GC _c Gross consumption of householdc - ZTA Consumption plus leisure coefficient - TE Total government endowments - EM _j Demand elasticity of export demand - FE _j Endowment/demand sector of adjusted elasticity of export demand - GSK _j Government endowment of capital in industryj - GDK _j Government demand for capital in industryj - GTL Government wage taxes on its own employees - TXO _j Government output tax on industryj - TC _c Consumption taxes on householdc - CG _c Total government consumption by householdc - SAV _c Total savings by householdc - INV _j Total investment by industryj The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the policies of the organizations with which they are affiliated. They would like to thank Wildrido Cruz of the World Bank and Climenta Habido of the Philippine government for help in acquiring the requisite data to calibrate the model used in the analysis. They would also like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.     

东南亚敲起油荒警告

当原油价格在2006年年中时上涨到70美元俑时，东南亚国家政府不得不正视油荒的残酷事实；如果不能尽快找到替代石油的新能源，国民收入水平将不能维持目前水平。[第一段]     

THE IMPACT OF SPOUSE'S CAREER-ORIENTATION ON MANAGERS DURING INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

The increasing internationalization of business and the rise of dual-earner couples in the labour force combine to make the area of international human resource management and career development complex and important. This article examines results obtained from 67 American expatriate managers (EXM) in Japan of whom 47 per cent were part of a dual-earner couple in America. the study found that career-oriented spouses were almost seven times as likely to find employment after an international transfer as non-career-oriented spouses. It is argued that because career-oriented spouses in general were able to find employment and avoid major job interruptions, there was no significant difference between the adjustment of expatriate managers whose spouses worked in the US before the transfer but not after and EXMs whose spouses worked before and after the transfer.