Sources of Canadian economic growth

We apply modern ideas‐oriented growth accounting, based on the semi‐endogenous growth theory of Jones (2002), to compare the sources of Canadian and US economic growth between 1981–2014. This framework allows us to distinguish between transition dynamics and steady state growth as well as quantify their respective contributions. We find that the bulk of the 1.1 percentage points total average Canadian growth rate of output per hour has been due to transitional factors, mainly capital intensity and domestic human capital growth driven by educational attainment. The growth in excess ideas (total ideas growth minus steady state growth) has contributed a small share of 0.06 percentage points. Two features stand out in comparison to the US growth experience over the same period. First, over a full percentage point of the average US growth of 1.64% is due to excess ideas growth. Second, the “constant growth view” that reconciles large sources of transitional growth with relatively stable average growth is not supported in Canada. We estimate a relatively low elasticity of output with respect to world research effort as the reason behind the small share of R&D‐oriented sources of Canadian growth.     

Technological Innovations in the Control of International Exchange: Lessons for Africa

Empirical studies on international trade highlight the role of innovation on international exchange but do not capture the effect of technological innovation when unobservable common factors (UCFs) are considered. This paper examines the long‐run relationship between technological innovation and international exchange using panel data for eight African countries over the period 1981–2013. The non‐stationarity and cointegration between technological innovation, international exchange, public investment, real gross domestic income and foreign direct investment were examined, controlling for cross‐sectional dependence and heterogeneity between countries. The results suggest that technological innovation in Africa remains low after controlling for UCFs, while public investment, real gross domestic product and foreign direct investment have significant impact on international exchange. Moreover, the results from the homogeneous and heterogeneous estimates, with and without UCFs, show that ignoring UCFs is likely to bias the coefficients. These findings reveal that African countries should invest more in public infrastructures and research and development to upgrade their capability To play an active role in the international market.     

A New Look at Constructed Choice Processes

Normative models of choice assert axiomatically that preferences are consistent, coherent, and determined only by relevant alternatives. In contrast to this classical economic perspective, behavioral models derived from research in psychology and consumer behavior assert that preferences are not guided by an internal, stable utility function but are constructed during the choice process. The current paper is based on a session on constructed choice processes (CCP) at the 2004 Choice Symposium that focused on how the standard CCP model can be enriched by bringing theories and tools from modern research in social cognition to bear on choice phenomenon. The richer conceptual framework presented by new, currently unpublished empirical work provides a novel perspective on choice construction by integrating the roles of subjective construal, experiential information, attribution, goals, and satisfaction in understanding preference construction processes in choice.     

Non-cooperative games on hyperfinite Loeb spaces

We present a particular class of measure spaces, hyperfinite Loeb spaces, as a model of situations where individual players are strategically negligible, as in large non-anonymous games, or where information is diffused, as in games with imperfect information. We present results on the existence of Nash equilibria in both kinds of games. Our results cover the case when the action sets are taken to be the unit interval, results now known to be false when they are based on more familiar measure spaces such as the Lebesgue unit interval. We also emphasize three criteria for the modelling of such game-theoretic situations—asymptotic implementability, homogeneity and measurability—and argue for games on hyperfinite Loeb spaces on the basis of these criteria. In particular, we show through explicit examples that a sequence of finite games with an increasing number of players or sample points cannot always be represented by a limit game on a Lebesgue space, and even when it can be so represented, the limit of an existing approximate equilibrium may disappear in the limit game. Thus, games on hyperfinite Loeb spaces constitute the ‘right' model even if one is primarily interested in capturing the asymptotic nature of large but finite game-theoretic phenomena.     

Recruiting Project Managers: A Comparative Analysis of Competencies and Recruitment Signals From Job Advertisements

This research addresses the competencies organizations use through project manager job advertisements. We develop a list of project manager job competencies; break down the competency components into knowledge, skills, and abilities; and conduct a comparative analysis of the use of these competencies. We examine the online contents of project manager job advertisements in the public domain. Analysis shows that industry job advertisements emphasize “soft skills” and competencies in a manner different than that in the literature. Additionally, differences are found across countries and between industries. Implications from the findings highlight the incongruent dissemination of project manager competencies, regional and industrial demands, and the recruitment of project managers.     

An analysis of industrial–agricultural interactions: a case study in Pakistan

This paper empirically analyzes the relationship between Pakistan's industrial and agricultural sectors. Pakistan was chosen because of its status of a semi‐industrialized country with heavy dependence on the agricultural sector. The relationship between cotton production and industrial growth is also evaluated due to the prominence of this crop in Pakistani agriculture. The results indicate that these sectors are complementary, yet industry tends to benefit more from agricultural growth than vice versa. The timing of this information is critical, as Pakistan's policy makers now face major agricultural policy reforms in their quest for continued industrial development.     

On games with incomplete information and the Dvoretsky–Wald–Wolfowitz theorem with countable partitions

It has remained an open question as to whether the results of Milgrom–Weber [Milgrom, P.R., Weber, R.J., 1985. Distributional strategies for games with incomplete information. Mathematics of Operations Research 10, 619–632] are valid for action sets with a countably infinite number of elements without additional assumptions on the abstract measure space of information. In this paper, we give an affirmative answer to this question as a consequence of an extension of a theorem of Dvoretzky, Wald and Wolfowitz (henceforth DWW) due to Edwards [Edwards, D.A., 1987. On a theorem of Dvoretsky, Wald and Wolfowitz concerning Liapunov measures. Glasgow Mathematical Journal 29, 205–220]. We also present a direct elementary proof of the DWW theorem and its extension, one that may have an independent interest.     

Weak measurability and characterizations of risk

Summary. In the context of a continuum of random variables, arising, for example, as rates of return in financial markets with a continuum of assets, or as individual responses in games with a continuum of players, an important economic issue is to show how idiosyncratic risk can be removed through some device of aggregation or diversification when such risk is explicitly introduced into the model. In this paper, we use recent work of Al-Najjar [1] as a general backdrop to provide a review of the basic issues involved when the continuum is formulated as the Lebesgue interval. We present two examples to argue that the fundamental problem of the non-measurability of sample functions, originally identified by Doob, and further elaborated by Feldman, Gilles and Judd in the economic literature, simply cannot be bypassed by reinterpretations of standard results. We also provide an equivalence result in the spirit of Al-Najjar's efforts; but argue that this elementary result does not go beyond the standard law of large numbers for a sequence of real-valued iid random variables, and as such, is incapable of yielding anything of substantive economic interest beyond this law. Received: April 23, 1998; revised version: April 28, 1998     

Factors influencing destination image and visit intention among young women travellers: role of travel motivation,perceived risks,and travel constraints

There is literature detailing the effects of travel motivation, risks perceptions, and travel constraints on the destination image and travel behaviour of individuals. However, literature explaining these factors in the context of prospective young women travellers is scarce. This study empirically tests a comprehensive model of prospective young women’s travel behaviour, based on cognitive and affective perceptions about destination, travel motivations, perceived risks, and travel constraints. A quantitative study was performed on 370 young university women in Malaysia. The results revealed that the travel motivation of young women has positive effects on the cognitive and affective image, whereas the dimensions of perceived travel risks and travel constraints have negative effects on cognitive and affective destination images. The results also found that cognitive and affective images positively influence the visit intention of prospective young women travellers.     

Import Liberalization in a Developing Country with Import Intensive Industry: The Case of Bangladesh

This paper examines the effect of import liberalization in Bangladesh using a modestly disaggregated numerical general equilibrium model. Because intermediate goods account for a major share of imports, the removal of import restrictions has an overwhelming effect on the supply side of the economy. The domestic manufacturing sector is found to expand, particularly the manufacture of exportables. Sensitivity of the results obtained is tested by perturbing certain key parameters. Additional related results are discussed. [F 1, O 5]