Spatial income and public capital: a case of a Spanish region

The objective of this paper is to analyse major determinants of disposable per capita income at a local municipality level for a territory of Spain: the Valencian region. A cross-sectional spatial study for an averaged period (2010–2013) will allow us to control for intraregional correlation, paying special attention to the role of real public investment and its possible effects on disposable personal income. A reference framework for economic and social policymakers will be provided by the specification of the model.     

The nature of urbanisation in LDCs

The urbanisation experience of the less developed countries shows distinct differences to that of the industrialised countries. What are the reasons for this and what are the implications for development policy?     

Sustainable fisheries development in the tropics: trawlers and licence limitation in Malaysia

Sustainable fisheries development requires sound fisheries management. Area licence limitation programmes may form the cornerstone for most tropical multispecies fisheries management programmes. An empirical analysis of Peninsular Malaysian fishing trawlers is used to design an area licence limitation programme that conforms to the multiproduct production technology, and cost and revenue structures to best accommodate condtions of asymmetric information between the regulator and fishing vessels.     

Monetary policy shocks and the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices: evidence from structural and factor‐augmented VAR analyses

Fluctuation in commodity prices is a significant and timely issue to be studied. This study is to examine the impact of monetary policy and other macroeconomic shocks on the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices. The major contributions of this study are twofold. First, unlike other studies that use indexes, this study analyzes the commodities individually, affording the inclusion of commodity‐specific fundamentals such as the level of inventory—an important determinant of commodity price—in a structural VAR framework. Second, it exploits a rich data set of agricultural commodity prices which includes commodities that are usually overlooked in the literature, and extracts a common factor using the dynamic factor model to understand the extent of comovement of the prices and to gauge the extent to which macroeconomic shocks drive the “comovement” in a factor‐augmented VAR (FAVAR) framework. The findings show that monetary policy, global economic conditions, and the U.S. dollar exchange rates play an important role in the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices.     

Some European Perceptions of Japan's Work-ethos in the Tokugawa Era: A Limited Survey of Observations from the West's First Encounters Offers Parallels to Today's

Abstract . During the Tokugawa Era (1603-1867), early European travelers from several nations encountered the work-ethos of previously secluded Japan and recorded their observations in correspondence, articles and books. These perceptions are categorized under three headings, effort propensity, social efficiency capital and social rationality. Analysis of the construct thus achieved indicates that from this aspect the Japanese—in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries—appear to have been an industrious, efficient and disciplined people. These findings offer striking parallels to the observations in our contemporary literature. We shall not know how accurate these observations are until the economic and social historians supply more exhaustive evidence based on Japanese as well as European sources. But discrete use can be made of the information we now have.     

Does Ecological Footprint Impede Economic Growth? An Empirical Analysis Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

This paper examines the relationship between income and environmental quality using environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. The hypothesised link is tested using time‐series analysis of 22 countries over the period 1961–2011. The degree of environmental impacts of economic activity is measured using ecological footprint (EF) per capita as explanatory variable, while real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and its quadratic and cubic forms are used as predictor variables in these countries. First, the EKC hypothesis is tested through examining the relationship between EF and GDP using linear, quadratic and cubic functions. Further, the long‐run relationship between EF and GDP is investigated using a vector error correction model. It was found that there is a cointegrated relationship between the variables in almost all countries, which was statistically significant, and EKC supported in 10 countries. Additionally, almost all error correction terms are correct in sign and are significant, which implies that some percentage of disequilibria in EF in the previous year adjusts back to the long‐run equilibrium in the current year. Therefore, an efficient trade‐off between environmental protection and economic benefits should be taken, and EF should be reduced through changing consumption patterns, improving the efficiency of use of resources and cleaner technology choices.     

Time Series Analysis of Strategic Pricing Behavior in the US Airline Industry

A positive relationship betweencompetitive pressure and technical efficiency has been demonstratedby several studies; other studies hold forth that airline marketsbehave strategically. We bring these two literatures togetherby presenting a time series methodology to examine strategicpricing behavior and discussing the implications for airlineefficiency. We find evidence of dynamic, route-level, parallel( i.e. strategic) pricing despite highly variable price structures.A stable price relationship is consistent with successful coordinationof dynamic oligopolists and may highlight those routes wheresignificant market power exists. In light of previous research,this indicates that the airlines on these routes may not be attainingmaximum technical efficiency. For policy makers, this methodologyis useful for analyzing other markets which behave strategically.     

Modelling the dynamics,structural breaks and the determinants of the real exchange rate of Australia

This paper examines the dynamics, structural breaks and determinants of the real exchange rate (RER) of Australia derived from an inter-temporal general equilibrium model. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modelling results show that a one per cent increase in: (1) terms of trade appreciates the RER by 0.96–1.05 per cent in the long-run; (2) government expenditure appreciates the RER by 0.53–0.46 per cent in the long-run; (3) net foreign liabilities appreciates the RER by 0.18–0.22 per cent in the long-run; (4) interest rate differential depreciates the RER by 0.007–0.01 per cent in the long-run; (5) openness in trade depreciates the RER by 1.15–1.31 per cent in the long-run; and (6) per-worker labour productivity depreciates the RER by 0.38–0.55 per cent in the long-run. The two endogenously determined structural breaks are positive but are statistically insignificant. The speed of adjustment towards equilibrium is high with short-run disequilibrium correcting by nearly 39–47 per cent per quarter. These results add new insights to the literature on the determinants of RER in Australia. Apart from the terms of trade, the effects of other determinants of RER are contrary to the results obtained in previous studies.     

The structure of Islamic economics: A comparative perspective on markets,ethics and economics

A comparative examination of mainstream economic doctrines and their recent developments is undertaken with a view to find out how ethics has been treated in these. The principal focus here is to identify the new paradigm that can treat ethics endogenously in preference formation, the market and the economic order. The quest for this paradigm leads us to an examination of Islamic economics. Islamic economics is presented in terms of its epistemological roots. Thereby, a general systems view of interactions, integration and creative evolution among economic and social possibilities is shown to lead to the paradigm of Islamic political economy. Some Islamic financial and economic instruments are examined to bring out the pervasive causality of the principle of universal complementarity across diversity in a general systems perspective of Islamic political economy as premised on its epistemological roots.