Spillovers from agglomerations and inward FDI: a multilevel analysis on sub-Saharan African firms

This paper adopts multilevel analysis to study the agglomeration-performance nexus for domestic firms in sub-Saharan Africa. We show that contextual factors can explain up to 30 % of the variance in firms’ productivity, more than half of which depends on the geographic location. Our results show also that African firms’ productivity is positively correlated to the size of the agglomeration when they locate in larger cities specialized in different sectors, while the relation turns negative when they face direct competition from firms in the same industry. These effects are similar in the services and the manufacturing industries, even if in the latter positive spillovers are found to be conditional to the presence of backward and forward linkages with nearby firms. Finally, we are able to show that these effects are also confirmed when domestic firms locate close to foreign multinationals, especially those coming from the South.     

Implanting competitive strategy: A contingency approach

Competitive business strategies are often formulated with little regard given to the articulation format. This paper examines the strategy formulation process from a systems perspective and argues that articulation of a competitive strategy, such that sustained competitive advantage is created, requires consistency along the entire business chain. Internal consistency within the business chain is built through inter‐linkages. The inter‐linkages are made through four inter‐connective elements: human resources, technological resources, information resources and financial resources. It is argued in this paper that the human factor is of major importance since it integrates the other inter‐connective elements and therefore represents a key factor in the process of articulation and implementation. In view of the critical role of the human element in articulation of business strategy for competitive advantage, the paper develops a human‐factor related contingency framework. The developed contingency framework examines Porter's (1980, 1985) generic strategies with respect to congruent requisites necessary for building competitive advantage.     

UNDERSTANDING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL AND EURO AREA OUTPUT VOLATILITY

This paper addresses two main questions. First, it seeks to establish whether the stylized facts of the ‘great moderation’ that have been documented for the UK and US economies can be found for the Euro area. Second, it explores possible explanations for any changes that have occurred in the volatility of Euro area output fluctuations. In examining why business cycles have moderated, much of the existing literature has tended to concentrate on a few key factors. These include shifts in the structure of the economy, improved monetary policy and a ‘good luck’ factor. This paper, however, follows a relatively new branch of the great moderation literature by focusing on whether international business cycle linkages have changed in a way that may have perpetuated the dampening in Euro area output fluctuations. The results show Euro area output fluctuations to have significantly reduced in variability over the last quarter of a century. The results go on to highlight that, although Euro area cycles differ little from rest of the world cycles, the moderation in Euro area output fluctuations is only marginally due to changes in international business cycle linkages and smaller international and domestic shock variances.     

Accident risk analysis based on motorway exposure: an application of benchmarking technique for human safety

Abstract

Accident risk analysis for human safety and infrastructural improvement are key requirements of the engineering sector. The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize problematic segments of roads based upon the risk evaluation concept and to focus on the severity of accidents regarding human life loss and easy manoeuvring. This study includes the concept of considering road segments as decision-making units for application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique which has no compulsion of the distribution function and critical assumptions, unlike the multiple regression models. According to the proposed methodology, a section of Motorway (M-2) Lahore-Islamabad has been analyzed. Out of 200 segments under consideration, 99 segments were selected with at least one accident and one injury or fatality. Furthermore, for risk calculation and ranking of road segments, the DEA technique along with the cross-risk matrix method was applied. This optimization technique could not only be helpful in ranking but also technical decision-making and prioritizations for safety improvement, policymaking and budget allocation.     

Energy,unemployment and trade

This article investigates the dynamic relationships among sectoral economic activities, macro expenditure patterns, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and unemployment in 41 countries from 1980 to 2014. The state of the art econometric techniques, both linear and non-linear panel and time series estimation techniques are used. The results show that industrialization, services sector, government expenditure and trade openness play a positive role in reducing unemployment, while agriculture and renewable energy consumption increase unemployment. This might be, in part, due to recent technological advancements and large capital intensive investments in agriculture and renewable energy sectors. Therefore, dedicated social and labour market policies need to be adopted to complement greening economic policies.     

Cost and profit efficiencies in transition banking: the case of new EU members

This paper analyses cost and profit efficiencies in commercial banking in the eight Central and Eastern European countries that became new members to the European Union. Common stochastic cost and profit frontiers with country-specific variables are employed in order to take into account macro-economic and financial sector conditions that vary over time and across countries. The impact of foreign ownership on performance is also examined. The results indicate a wide range of cost and profit inefficiency scores across countries and across different size groups. All banking systems in the sample display significant levels of cost and profit inefficiency and there does not seem to be any continuous improvement in performance over time. There is also some evidence that foreign banks perform, on average, better than domestic banks.     

Energy consumption and economic growth: evidence from non-OPEC oil producing states

According to the US EIA (2009, www.eia.doe.gov), out of the 15 largest oil producing nations in the world, 7 are not OPEC members, namely Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America (USA). This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for these non-OPEC oil producing countries. Real GDP per capita is used to measure economic growth; whereas; energy consumption is represented by four sub-variables (electric power, oil, natural gas, and coal energy). Using a panel data covering (1969–2009), this study employs the Pedroni (Econometric Theory, 20, 597–627, 2004) approach to determine cointegration and the (Econometrica, 55, 251–276, 1987) two-step procedure to explore short and long run causal effects. The results suggest that there are long run relationships between the real GDP, labour force, real capital, oil consumption, electricity consumption, gas consumption and coal consumption. Further analyses show that real GDP and oil consumption Granger cause real gross capital formation in the short run; real gross fixed capital and electricity consumption cause oil consumption in the short run; and also oil consumption and gas consumption cause electricity consumption in the short run.