Monopoly,intermediate goods and the pure theory of international trade

Conclusion In a model with two traded good sectors between which intersectoral flows of intermediate goods are allowed and with a monopolized non-traded good sector, the wage rate in terms of two traded goods increases and the rental of capital in terms of two traded goods decreases when the price of relatively more labor intensive traded good sector increases, though nothing definite can be said about the direction of change in the wage rate and rental in terms of the non-traded good. When prices of traded goods are kept constant and labor and/or capital increase(s), output of the non-traded good sector increases provided that the non-traded good is not inferior, having income elasticity of demand less than unity. The factor intensity condition for the traded goods is in general not sufficient for the validity of the Rybczynski theorem to hold with respect to net outputs of the traded goods. We have derived sufficient conditions for the magnification effect to be observed with respect to net outputs of the traded good sectors. Specifically, we have shown that the factor intensity condition (23) is sufficient for the magnification effect to prevail when only labor increases.     

Matrices with dominant diagonal blocks and economic theory

In this paper we shall define matrices with quasi-strictly-dominant diagonal blocks or quasi-dominant diagonal blocks on the basis of general matrix norms including the spectral norm. Several theorems on such matrices are derived and a simple numerical example and economic models are considered to apply our theorems.     

International linkage of inflation rates in a dynamic general equilibrium

This paper uses the Neumeyer?CYano??s monetary dynamic general equilibrium model to investigate the inter-connectivity of the world economy through bond holding beyond national borders. The possibility that unexpected inflation in one country transmits to another is demonstrated within a framework in which the nominal exchange rate is flexibly determined so that the purchasing power parity holds. Deflation can also be imported through the same channel. Whether inflation or deflation diffuses internationally depends on the level of fiscal deficit. Although a country may suffer from monetary disturbances from abroad, each country can completely defend itself by implementing appropriate fiscal policies.     

DO FOREIGN CURRENCY DEPOSITS PROMOTE OR DETER FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARY DEVELOPMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CROSS‐COUNTRY DATA

Foreign currency deposits (FCD) are prevalent in many low‐income developing countries, but their impact on bank lending has rarely been examined. An examination of cross‐country data indicates that a higher proportion of FCD in total deposits is associated with more private credit only in inflationary circumstances. FCD can lead to a decline in private credit below a certain threshold level of inflation. Given that FCD exhibit persistence, deregulating them in low‐income countries could cause more harm than good to financial intermediary development in the long term.     

Multiple dimensions of mediation within transnational advertising production: cultural intermediaries as shapers of emerging cultural capital

The paper re-conceptualizes cultural intermediaries as shapers of “emerging cultural capital” (Prieur, A., and M. Savage. 2013. “Emerging Forms of Cultural Capital.” European Societies 15 (2): 246–267; Savage, M., F. Devine, N. Cunningham, M. Taylor, Y. Li, J. Hjellbrekke, and A. Miles. 2013. “A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment.” Sociology 47 (2): 219–250) and re-frames their practice of signification and negotiation as informed by “multiple dimensions of mediation.” Drawing on a case study of Nike’s transnational advertising production and interviews with key actors within the context of production, the paper examines how the creative/cultural labour process cuts across global and national fields of cultural production and consumption through which popular culture and middle-brow tastes were mediated, signified and represented. In particular, a television campaign for the Japanese youth market was critically analysed to reveal how specific new tastes, lifestyles and consumption practices were legitimized as emerging forms of cultural capital. Consequently, their taste-making practices are profoundly implicated in symbolic struggles and cultural changes emerging within/from the increasingly “globalizing” field of cultural production.     

Cooperative choice and its framing effect under threshold uncertainty in a provision point mechanism

This paper explores how threshold uncertainty affects cooperative behaviors in the provision of public goods and the prevention of public bads. The following facts motivate our study. First, environmental (resource) problems are either framed as public bads prevention or public goods provision. Second, the occurrence of these problems is characterized by thresholds that are interchangeably represented as “nonconvexity,” “bifurcation,” “bi-stability,” or “catastrophes.” Third, the threshold location is mostly unknown. We employ a provision point mechanism with threshold uncertainty and analyze the responses of cooperative behaviors to uncertainty and to the framing for each type of social preferences categorized by a value orientation test. We find that aggregate framing effects are negligible, although the response to the frame is the opposite depending on the type of social preferences. “Cooperative” subjects become more cooperative in negative frames than in positive frames, whereas “individualistic” subjects are less cooperative in negative frames than in positive ones. This finding implies that the insignificance of aggregate framing effects arises from behavioral asymmetry. We also find that the percentage of cooperative choices non-monotonically varies with the degree of threshold uncertainty, irrespective of framing and value orientation. Specifically, the degree of cooperation is highest at intermediate levels of threshold uncertainty and decreases as the uncertainty becomes sufficiently large.     

Trade Gains and Public Goods

This paper proves that in a multicountry general‐equilibrium model of international trade with local public goods, free trade is beneficial if the governments in the trading world behave strategically with respect to the provision of public goods.     

Optimal Commodity Taxation with a Representative Agent

It is argued that the task of describing the optimal vector of commodity taxes is trivialized by the traditional assumption of a price‐taking representative agent; that, in particular, the assumption of a representative agent ensures that the null vector is optimal.     

The Law of Comparative Advantage Without Social Utility Functions

This paper derives sufficient conditions under which the Law of Comparative Advantage and the General Law of Comparative Advantage are true when the preferences of the trading countries may not be represented by "well-behaved" social utility functions. It shows that in the neoclassical framework with convex technologies, profit maximization and Walras' Law, the laws of comparative advantage under a natural trade are still valid if either the General Law of Demand or the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference holds, or if losers are compensated using lump-sum transfers or consumption taxes.     

Increasing Returns and International Trade

The paper develops a model of international trade with increasing returns toscale by taking into account the possibility of cooperation among agents in an egalitarian economy. It is shown that each country gains from trade in a trading world in which there are arbitrary numbers of increasing-returns-to-scale goods, constant-returns-to-scale goods, factors of production, and countries.