Estimating the Impact of Transgenic Bt Cotton on West and Central Africa: A General Equilibrium Approach

West and Central Africa (WCA)’s cotton sector is experiencing rising production costs and lower yields, reversing decades of growth. Declining input use, soil fertility and inefficient chemical pest controls are contributing factors. We evaluate the potential impact of Bt cotton on WCA using a multiregion general equilibrium model and multicountry estimates of Bt-induced productivity. We find that Bt cotton raises growers’ returns, land value and welfare. Released labor from cotton is shifted to food crops hence reducing labor shortage constraints. Overall, results indicate that potential gross benefits from Bt cotton are substantial for WCA cotton sector, and that the economic costs of nonadoption are equally significant.     

Foreign direct investments,institutional quality,and economic growth

Institutional quality is considered to be an important factor in boosting economic growth of a country. This paper explores the role of institutional quality in economic growth and more specifically the role it plays via the channel of foreign direct investments. This paper uses a larger dataset of 104 countries and applies GMM estimation method to a dynamic panel data to evaluate the direct impact of institutional quality on economic growth and the indirect impact of institutional quality on economic growth through enhancing the FDI-induced economic growth. This paper provides evidence that both FDI inflows and institutional quality cause stronger economic growth. The FDI-led growth, however, was only experienced in the low and middle-income countries. In these countries, better institutional quality was also found to be enhancing the FDI-led economic growth. An important finding of this paper is that in the high-income countries, FDI was found to slow down the economic growth. The results are robust and consistent for individual institutional quality indicators and controlling for endogeneity.     

Explaining the accounting disclosure index of stock exchanges by foreign exchange market activity

In this article, researcher-created accounting disclosure index of 23 stock exchanges for the year 1992 and its relationship with variables including foreign exchange turnover, economic and financial indicators were investigated. The accounting disclosure index of global stock exchanges crafted by Adhikari and Tondkar (1992) was regressed on foreign market turnover which was utilized as a proxy for foreign exchange market activity. The OLS results supported that along with the activity of foreign exchange market; GNI per capita, market capitalization, energy and electric consumption, number of listed companies were significantly related with the accounting disclosure index. The foreign market turnover was found to be positively influencing the accounting disclosure index. The models explained about 73% of the variation in the index with an F-ratio of 26.56 indicating the overall significance of the model.     

Accruals quality vis-à-vis disclosure quality: Substitutes or complements?

The impact of accruals quality and disclosure quality on stock returns is a topical issue in market-based accounting research. Most of the debate is centred on their incremental ability to predict future earnings. Recent studies suggest that higher information risk proxied by either lower accruals quality or lower disclosure quality results in higher stock returns. This paper examines the relationship between accruals quality and disclosure quality, and investigates whether they are complements or substitutes in explaining the time-series variation in portfolio returns. Applying portfolio groupings, we find a positive association between accruals quality and disclosure quality, suggesting that firms with higher disclosure quality engage less in earnings management and have higher accruals quality. Asset pricing tests show that an accruals quality factor and a disclosure quality factor explain the time-series variation in the excess returns of similar sets of portfolios. This suggests that they contain similar information and confirms the substitutive nature of accruals quality and disclosure quality factors.     

The ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition and Malaysian manufacturing firms: a case study

The majority of empirical studies dealing with production processes, work organization and industrial relations practices have been conducted in advanced industrial nations. This article reports on a study of the changing nature of work organization and industrial relations policies in the developing economy of Malaysia. It explores the broad patterns of change in human resource management, technology and work organization among Malaysian manufacturing firms in the context of Best's ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition. The question that arises is: does the evidence reveal that Malaysia is embracing elements of the ‘new competition’, or is it still locked into a regime of mass production, or both? The article argues that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ competition should not be treated as a simple, straightforward duality model of development. The distinction between the two approaches is sometimes blurred and not so clear-cut. The case study observes that both systems could be operating side by side at the same time within an organization. Since the Malaysian manufacturing sector is expected to shift from simple assembly and process-type operations using labour-intensive techniques to the more advanced and higher value-added industries, greater investment in HRD to upgrade the skills of the work-force and the adoption of appropriate industrial relations policies that emphasize decentralization, greater employee involvement and continuous innovation will become crucial. To be able to compete successfully in the global economy would require a change in focus in the adoption of industrial relations and human resource development policies. For Malaysia to realize its aspiration to become an industrialized and developed nation by the year 2020 would require radical changes in those policies within the context of an integrated approach to economic and industrial planning.     

The paradox of development in the middle east

At a time of rapid change in the Middle East, the enforcement of Western models of development has eroded traditional Islamic values and undermined Muslims' confidence in themselves and their cultural heritage. The Islamic idea of development cannot be reduced to any of the models prevailing in the West, which are based on concepts of progress and evolution alien to the Islamic worldview. Middle Easterners need to reconstruct an Islamic concept of development rooted in their own cultural values and reflecting the historical development of Islam. Islamic traditions provide a set of political precepts with universal implications, and Islam can make an important contribution to an integrative world order.