State dependence,serial correlation and heterogeneity in the union membership dynamics

In order to distinguish the true and spurious state dependence from the complicated dynamics of union membership, the simulation estimators incorporating the lagged dependent variables, unobserved individual heterogeneity and correlations among the errors are implemented in this article to study union membership dynamics. It is found that the true state dependence of union membership under multivariate t assumption is much higher than the standard dynamic panel probit estimators which are under multivariate normal assumptions. On the other hand, the spurious state dependence (the variance of the unobserved individual heterogeneity) is estimated to be higher when using the standard dynamic panel probit estimators than under multivariate t assumption. Moreover, blacks and married men are found to have higher union membership true state dependence than whites and unmarried men.     

The effect of social capital on post-earthquake reconstruction (programmes) in Nantou County,Taiwan: an assessment

The study aims, through an examination of social capital on post-earthquake reconstruction programmes, to assess the impact of government's programmes on integrated community development and to draw policy implications. To this end, the study explores the programmes implemented by the government in the communities of Nantou County after the earthquake. The findings show that of the three measurements, ‘infrastructure improvement’ satisfied most respondents in the three survey areas, but in Lugu Township and in Nantou City, further improvements are needed in ‘unemployment reduction’ and ‘respondents betterment’.     

Are house prices in South Africa really nonstationary? Evidence from SPSM-based panel KSS test with a Fourier function

This study applies the sequential panel selection method (SPSM) to investigate the time-series properties of provincial house prices for entire, large, medium and small middle-segments of South Africa. Quarterly time-series data were collected from nine provinces in South Africa for different house-size categories over the period of 1978.Q1 to 2012.Q4. Whereas other panel-based unit-root tests are joint tests of a unit root for all members of a panel and are incapable of determining the mix of integrated of order zero (I(0)) series and integrated of order one (I(1)) series in a panel setting, the SPSM proposed by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) can clearly identify how many and which series in the panel are stationary processes by classifying a whole panel into a group of stationary and nonstationary series. The empirical results from several panel-based, as well as standard pure time-series, unit-root tests, indicate that house prices for the nine provinces studied here are either stationary or nonstationary. However, results from the SPSM using the panel version of the Kapetanios et al. (KSS, 2003) test with a Fourier function unequivocally indicate that house prices are stationary for the nine provinces under study. Our test results have important economic and policy implications for South Africa.     

Do insurance activities enhance the performance of financial services holding companies?

Stiroh and Rumble (2006) and Yeager et al. (2007) have argued that extension of banks into nonbanking activities produces no diversification benefits for financial services holding companies (FSHCs) eligible to consolidate banking and insurance products. We investigate the effect of aggregate nonbank activities, as well as two main areas of insurance business, namely agency and underwriting enterprise, on the risk-adjusted performance of FSHCs. Our sample includes a quarterly panel data of FSHCs over the period 2003–2011. We find that the effect of FSHCs’ entry into agency insurance activities on their risk-adjusted returns is dependent on their size; it is positive for FSHCs in the top quartile of our sample (assets greater than $4.495 billions), but negative for smaller and mid-size FSHCs. The effect of underwriting insurance activities on risk-adjusted returns is generally negative or statistically insignificant, except for some of the largest-size firms.     

Revisiting Purchasing Power Parity in OECD

This study revisits Purchasing Power Parity theory (PPP) in the 34 OECD countries during January 1994–August 2013. We use a new panel stationary test with both sharp breaks and smooth shifts, a novel approach to panel unit-root testing, proposed by Bahmani–Oskooee et al. (2014). The results indicate that the PPP holds in half of the 34 OECD countries. These results indicate the importance of proper modelling of both sharp breaks and smooth shifts in real effective exchange rate series of OECD countries.     

Resolving the innovation puzzle of latecomers: the case of Taiwan

In the currently rapidly changing business world, innovation has not only become the key to survival and success, but also the defining challenge of organisations. For latecomer firms, however, because of their inherent resource constraints, innovation has become a far more complex undertaking, similar to a multidimensional puzzle. Although there have been an increasing number of practitioner-based surveys, a discrepancy still remains between academia and industry concerning the role and importance of R&D in innovation. Therefore, this study carried out an industry–university–institution survey of Taiwan, based on a multidimensional framework of the innovation puzzle: human, R&D, flow and connection. The results reveal several interesting clues and provide a better understanding of the innovation puzzle for latecomers, and more importantly, resolves the puzzle that could help latecomers identify where new opportunities lie and what weaknesses they must strengthen.     

A Note on Inflation Targeting

The authors present a pedagogical graphical exposition to illustrate the stabilizing effect of price target zones. Based on a textbook AD-AS apparatus, they find that authorities' commitment to defend a price target zone will affect the public's inflation expectations and, in turn, reduce actual inflation. They also find that, when the economy experiences supply shocks, the announcement that the monetary authorities intend to defend a price target zone will reduce the variability of domestic prices but raise the variability of domestic output relative to a free-price regime. However, when the economy experiences demand shocks, a price target zone tends to lower the variability of both domestic prices and out-put relative to a free-price regime.     

The asymmetric information and price manipulation in stock market

The interaction between asymmetrically informed traders has been mostly investigated in theoretical frameworks. Not only there are relatively few empirical studies but, if any, the mostly focus on cross-sectional analysis and use very short samples. In this study, we blend theoretic with empirical, and propose a new signalling system of turning points in the economy to examine the extent of volatility of these markets relative to their tranquil periods. The signalling system proposed here is based on the Markov-switching model. Differing from the existing literatures, the study employs three phases and time-varying transition probability, and captures the states of volatility. After examining the causality between high volatility and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) by using moving average and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, the portfolio's profitability of FPI and individual investors in different periods are compared. Finally, the investigation of FPI's leading effect is studied.     

The political economy of tariff protection in China: evidence from the WTO accession

We analyze China's tariff rates at WTO accession using a political economy approach. A model drawing on Branstetter and Feenstra ( 2002 ) is used to derive an optimal tariff rate for each industry. The model predicts that a government would set a high tariff rate if an industry is of large state‐owned enterprise (SOE) share, multinational share, or small foreign import share. From the model we reveal the Chinese government's preference towards different interest groups under the binding tariff constraint from the WTO commitments. The estimated structural parameters imply that the political weights on both the SOE profits and consumer income diminish with the economic opening. More important, the government still favours SOEs over consumer income. Our findings are consistent with the special features of China's economy.     

基于MRCI的中国能源消费变动及驱动因素分析

如何减缓能源消费的过快增长是应对能源安全和气候变化的重要课题。通过对投入产出分析原理和无残差的完全结构分解法（MRCI）量化分析发现,产出规模效应和生产结构效应对中国能源消费增长起到主导作用,是主要驱动因素,而中国能源强度效应能有效抑制中国能源消费的增长;人口规模效应和人均生活能耗效应对中国能源消费增长的影响相对较小,但也有一定的促进作用。因此,依靠技术创新、提高能源使用效率,控制人口增长、引导居民向低能耗方向发展有利于减少中国能源消费水平。