Cross country maize market linkages in Africa: integration and price transmission across local and global markets

In order to study short‐run price shock propagation, we model twenty seven Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) domestic maize markets within a Global Vector Autoregression framework. The main purpose is to fully embed multilateral trade flows as a way to better structure local price transmission dynamics and interdependencies, and get a more comprehensive picture of food price shocks propagation. We found significant between‐country market contagion and prompt regional price shock propagation when trade connection exists. Yet, the integration of SSA domestic maize markets within the continent and with global markets remains generally weak. Furthermore, under regular market conditions, most local price series appear to be more responsive to regional neighbors than to global shocks.     

The life cycle of authenticity: neo-nomadic tourism culture in Kazakhstan

The paper presents the findings related to the stages of life cycle of authenticity where Kazakhstani nomadic culture in a post-Soviet heritage evolves towards tourist consumption. Using a qualitative case-study research approach, the analysis of data traces stakeholders’ perception of authenticity of various elements of Kazakhstani cultural tourism. The study intertwines inextricably with the processes of authenticity, commodification and cultural change as Kazakhstani traditions have evolved to a neo-nomadic tourism culture where authenticity becomes a currency at play and a point of differentiation from other tourism destinations. The findings offer an original approach to understand the transformation of authenticity at various stages of Kazakhstani tourism development and explore how authenticity is positioned in the influx of tourists and supporting roles from local governments and organisations.     

Implications of mandatory labeling of GM food in India: Evidence from the supply side

We assess the supply-side economic implications of introducing a strict mandatory labeling policy for genetically modified (GM) food in India as proposed in 2006. We apply our analysis to the case of cottonseed oil and soybean oil, two products that would be the first affected by such regulation. We find that GM food labeling would generate adjustment and implementation costs and consumer benefits would not always be visible and would highly depend on the degree of enforcement.     

Calculating load factors for the transatlantic airline market using supply and demand data – A note on the identification of gaps in the available airline statistics

This paper takes a critical view of the verification of load factors for the direct transatlantic airline market by combining supply and demand-data. The supply-related data originate from the Official Airline Guide, a well-known data source that contains information on scheduled flights. The demand-related data originate from the Marketing Information Data Transfer database, a data set containing information on actual airline bookings. Combining both data sets enables us to calculate the seat occupancy of direct flights between North-West Europe and the US for 2001. Based on the results, we assess the utility of the joint use of these data sources for aviation economic research, and identify various gaps in the available airline statistics.     

Firm heterogeneity and aggregate business services exports: Micro evidence from Belgium,France, Germany and Spain

This paper uses detailed micro data on services exports at the firm–destination–service level to analyse the role of firm heterogeneity in shaping aggregate services exports in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain from 2003 to 2007. We decompose the level and the growth of aggregate services exports into different trade margins paying special attention to firm heterogeneity within countries. We find that the weak export growth of France is at least partly due to poor performance by small exporters. By contrast, small exporters are the most dynamic contributors to the aggregate exports of Belgium, Germany and Spain. Our results highlight the importance of firm heterogeneity in understanding aggregate export growth.     

Alternative to beta coefficients in the context of diffusions

We develop an alternative to the beta coefficient of the CAPM theory. We show the link between this notion and the Wiener chaos expansion of the underlying processes. In the setting of Markov diffusions, we define the drift-neutral beta, which is the quantity of benchmark such that the resulting portfolio is immune to an infinitesimal change of drift on the Brownian motion driving the benchmark. Our approach yields a coefficient which in many practical cases depends on the initial values of both the portfolio and its benchmark. It can also be used to take into account extreme risks and not only the variance. We study several classical diffusion processes and give a full analysis in the case of Jacobi processes. Examples with credit indices show the efficiency of the method in hedging a portfolio.     

Payments and liquidity under adverse selection

Informational asymmetries regarding the future value of assets affect their role in exchange. I construct a random-matching economy composed of two assets: a risk-free bond and a Lucas tree whose terminal value is privately known to its holder. No restrictions are imposed on payment arrangements. The main finding supports a pecking-order theory of payments: Agents use their risk-free bonds first in order to finance their spending shocks, and they use their information-sensitive assets only if their holdings of bonds are depleted. The theory has implications for the optimal provision of risk-free bonds, the structure of asset returns, and liquidity.     

A comment on “School choice: An experimental study” [J. Econ. Theory 127 (1) (2006) 202-231]

We show that one of the main results in Chen and Sönmez (2006, 2008) [6] and [7] does no longer hold when the number of recombinations is sufficiently increased to obtain reliable conclusions. No school choice mechanism is significantly superior in terms of efficiency.