Asian economic integration: a perspective on South Asia

This paper argues in favor of open regionalism and continent-based integration in Asia. These are the effective instruments of outward-oriented development. The enlargement of trading blocs into continent-based integration also serves as a countervailing power to stem the excesses of economic globalism. The case made in the paper shows the need for institutional changes for promoting economic development. Institutional changes along with open regionalism are essential to enhancing outward-oriented development in South Asia. Respectable progress has been made in these areas across the continents in general, and in Asia in particular (ASEAN, SAARC, APEC). Efforts on these initiatives must be redoubled as we start the 21st century.     

The demand for money and the variability of the rate of inflation : An emperical note

In this note we incorporate the effect of inflation variability on the demand for money in Pakistan. It is found that this variable has a significant impact on money demand function. Our results are similar to those of Klein while they differ with Blejer.     

Simulation of a blood-inventory-bank system in a hospital

A blood-bank inventory system has been analysed viewing it as an inventory-hank system where the demand forecasting forms a part of the inventory model. A simulation model incorporating the “desired-beginning-inventory-level” policy has been used for the analysis of system-performance. Optimal inventory policy-guidelines have been suggested for a hospital blood-bank using blood shortage and blood out-dating as the two important components of the measure of effectiveness. Numerical results have been given.     

Bangladesh's trade and economic relations with the socialist countries

After her independence in 1971, the economic relations between Bangladesh and the European socialist countries developed to a greater extent than before. But the socialist countries still remain relatively small trading partners of Bangladesh. Their share in the total aid received by the heavily aid-dependent Bangladesh has also not been very great. It is not possible to arrive at any precise estimate of the terms of trade and aid between Bangladesh and the socialist countries, but some rudimentary measurements show that they are unlikely to have been very different from those between Bangladesh and the rest of the world.     

Equilibrium in abstract economies without ordered preferences and with a measure space of agents

We report a generalization of Aumann's (1966) existence theorem to economies without ordered preferences and with externalities in consumption. Our work can alternatively be viewed as a generalization of the Shafer–Sonnenschein (1975) theorem to economies with a continuum of agents.     

Optimum allocation in multivariate stratified random sampling with overhead cost

The problem of allocating the sample numbers to the strata in multivariate stratified surveys, where, apart from the cost involved in enumerating the selected individuals in the sample, there is an overhead cost associated with each stratum, has been formulated as a non-linear programming problem. The variances of the posterior distributions of the means of various characters are put to restraints and the total cost is minimized. The main problem is broken into subproblems for each of which the objective function turns out to be convex. When the number of subproblems happens to be large an approach has been indicated for obtaining an approximate solution by solving only a small number of subproblems.     

Innovation and Growth: A Schumpeterian Model of Innovation Applied to Taiwan

Following Schumpeter, we assume that innovation in specific firms, or groups of firms, can have economy-wide effects. Models based on this idea can be shown to have multiple equilibria. The idea of a positive feedback loop innovation system, or POLIS, is formalized by picking an appropriate sequence of equilibria over time. It is shown that POLIS has empirical relevance by applying the formal model to an actual economy. The 1997-98 financial crisis in many Asian countries, most notably South Korea, seemed to have reversed the conventional wisdom regarding the "East Asian miracle". This paper applies the concept of a POLIS to the case of Taiwan to show that, at least in this case, neither the view that the miracle was a mirage nor the view that the growth was a result of factor accumulation only is correct. Ultimately, technological transformation--in particular the creation of a positive feedback loop innovation system--is what makes the difference between sustained growth and gradual or sudden decline. Although problems remain in both the real and the financial sectors, the successes of Taiwan in building the preconditions for an innovation system are worth examining. Upon careful examination of Taiwan's system of innovation within the above Schumpeterian model it is found that Taiwan has a fighting chance of building a POLIS in the near future.     

The public R&D and productivity growth in Australia's broadacre agriculture: is there a link?

This paper investigates the dynamic relationships between research and development (R&D) expenditure and productivity growth in Australian broadacre agriculture using aggregate time series data for the period 1953 to 2009. The results show a cointegrating relationship between R&D and productivity growth and a unidirectional causality from R&D to TFP (total factor productivity) growth in Australian broadacre agriculture. Using the dynamic properties of the model, data from beyond the sample period are analysed by employing the variance decomposition and the impulse response function. The findings reveal that R&D can be readily linked to the variation in productivity growth beyond the sample period. Furthermore, the forecasting results indicate that a significant out‐of‐sample relationship exists between public R&D and productivity in broadacre agriculture.