Determinants of Female Fertility in Taiwan, 1966–2001: Empirical Evidence from Cointegration and Variance Decomposition Analysis*

This study investigates the determinants of the fertility rate in Taiwan over the period 1966–2001. Consistent with theory, the key explanatory variables in Taiwan's fertility model are real income, infant mortality rate, female education and female labor force participation rate. The test for cointegration is based on the recently developed bounds testing procedure while the long‐run and short‐run elasticities are based on the autoregressive distributed lag model. Among our key results, female education and female labor force participation rate are found to be the key determinants of fertility in Taiwan in the long run. The variance decom‐position analysis indicates that in the long run approximately 45percent of the variation in fertility is explained by the combined impact of female labor force participation, mortality and income, implying that socioeconomic development played an important role in the fertility transition in Taiwan. This result is consistent with the traditional structural hypothesis.     

ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY FOR FIJI

For more than a century, the sugar industry has been perceived as the backbone of the Fijian economy, given its contributions to gross domestic product (GDP) and employment generation. However, because of the non-renewal of land leases and the gradual withdrawal of preferential prices by the European Union, the industry is on the verge of collapse. We use the Fiji computable general equilibrium model to simulate the economy-wide impact of a 30% reduction in sugar production. Among our key results, we find that in the long run a 30% reduction in sugar production leads to a 2.1% fall in exports, and government expenditure and real consumption fall by 1.9% and 1.6%, respectively. These declines in the aggregate demand components are reflected in a fall of approximately 1.8% in Fiji's GDP. The negative repercussion of declining economic growth is reflected in a 1.5% decline in real national welfare.     

A comparative analysis of differential consumer response across supermarket and specialty store in the candy category

Retailing industry has undergone tremendous change in its complexity and sophistication over the past few years. Globally we are witnessing the evolution of retailing industry from traditionally micro-managed small retail formats like mom and pop store to modern corporate-managed large retail formats like supermarkets. Consumers are also shopping across these various store formats even for the products in similar categories. In this research, we posit that consumer purchases in the similar categories may very well be characterized by differential responses to marketing mix across different store formats. The proposed model accounts for the influences that these diverse response parameters and preferences have on one another as well as consumer heterogeneity. Our results show that sensitivities to marketing mix as well as correlations in preferences do indeed vary across formats for consumer purchases in similar categories.     

The J‐Curve: Evidence from Fiji*

This article provides new evidence on both long run and short‐run determinants of trade balance for Fiji and investigates evidence of J‐curve adjustment behaviour in the aftermath of a devaluation. We adopt a partial reduced form model that models the real trade balance directly as a function of the real exchange rate and real domestic and foreign incomes. Cointegration analysis is based on a recently developed autoregressive distributed lag approach—shown to provide robust results in finite samples. The long run elasticities are also estimated using a dynamic ordinary least squares approach and the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FM‐OLS) approach. Amongst our key results we find that there is a long‐run relationship between trade balance and its determinants. There is evidence of the J‐curve pattern; growth in domestic income affects Fiji’s trade balance adversely while foreign income improves it.     

A polynomial goal programming approach to a class of quality control problems

The traditional quality control approach based on statistical tools has been very useful and effective when output and input qualities can be denned in terms of a single characteristic. However, in process industries such as paper, the output quality is denned in terms of two or more distinct characteristics; hence, reducing the deviation of one output characteristic from its permissible limits could result in forcing other output and/or input characteristics to deviate from their respective limits. Compounding this phenomenon is the fact that most of these industries produce substantial amounts of pollutants whose characteristics are a function of the input and output characteristics. Thus, with increasing costs of waste treatment and stringent pollution standards, there arises a notion of a trade-off between attaining market specified output characteristics and meeting federally regulated pollution standards.In this article a general process quality control problem has been formulated that reflects the above trade-off both in terms of a linear and a polynomial goal programming problem. Major advantages and differences between the two formulations are highlighted and illustrated with a practical example drawn from the paper industry.Three separate cases each with different priorities assigned to the output, pollutant and input characteristics are developed and solved under both formulations. Based on the analysis it is observed that the different solutions that result are contingent on the assumptions concerning the priorities associated with each goal and the manner by which one chooses to incorporate tradeoffs between goals in the objective function. Additionally, it is found that the solutions obtained under polynomial goal programming formulation are more conducive for implementation in practical quality control contexts.     

Demographic trends and the impact of family welfare programmes in India

The authors examine population growth trends and evaluate family planning programs in India. They note that despite intensified efforts and government claims of increased acceptance of family planning, the birth rate has remained stationary since 1977.     

Fatal attraction: Using distance to measure contagion in good times as well as bad

This paper proposes a new measure of contagion that is good at anticipating future vulnerabilities. Building on previous work, it uses correlations of equity markets across countries to measure contagion, but in a departure from previous practice measures contagion using the relationship of these correlations with distance. Also in contrast to previous work, our test is good at identifying periods of “positive contagion,” in which capital flows to emerging markets in a herd-like manner largely unrelated to fundamentals. Identifying such periods of “fatal attraction” is important as they provide the essential ingredients for subsequent crises and rapid outflows of capital.     

Inventory of differential items selling from two shops under a single management with periodically increasing demand over a finite time-horizon

Inventories of differential items including the defective ones purchased/produced in a lot and sold from two shops (primary and secondary shops) under a single management are considered here over a finite time-horizon. A primary shop receives the differential units in a lot but sells only the non-defective ones whose demand periodically increases with time and decreases during the shortage period in such a way that it comes back to the initial value at the beginning of the next cycle. Hence in this shop, shortages are allowed and fully backlogged. Moreover, at the beginning of the next cycle, the retailer purchases purely non-defective units at a higher price to meet up the shortage amount along with the usual lot of differential units for regular sale. The defective units identified at the time of selling at the primary shop are continuously transferred to the adjacent secondary shop from which the defective ones are sold at a reduced price after some rework. Normally, the price of a defective item is fixed depending upon the quantum of its defect and people go for these items if they are cheap. Hence, demand for these units is dependent on the selling price, which is again inversely proportional to the rate of defectiveness. There may be five scenarios for dealing with defective units depending upon the coincidence of the time periods at two shops. For all scenarios, problems have been mathematically formulated and solved by the use of both parametric study and a gradient-based non-linear optimisation method. The models are illustrated with the help of numerical examples.     

Comparing the Value Relevance of Two Operating Income Measures

Prior research has shown that pro-forma (recurring operating) earnings reported by managers and analysts are more value relevant than GAAP net income. Since GAAP net income contains many non-operating items that reduce its value relevance compared to operating earnings, comparing the value relevance of GAAP net income with operating earnings unduly favors operating earnings. We show that operating earnings reported by managers and analysts are more value relevant than a measure of operating earnings derived from firms' financial statements, as reported by Standard and Poor's. Our evidence is important because it indicates that operating earnings reported by managers and analysts contain value relevant information beyond that provided by operating earnings obtained by sophisticated users from firms' financial statements.