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The present study is an attempt to evaluate the impact of the proposed India-China free trade agreement (FTA) in goods trade on both countries under a static general equilibrium framework.

The study has utilized the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade with the presence of skilled and unskilled unemployment in the world. For analysis purposes, 57 GTAP sectors, representing the whole regional economy, have been aggregated into 43 sectors and 140 GTAP regions, representing the whole world, have been aggregated into 19 regions. The study has also used the updated tariff rates provided by the World Trade Organization for better results.

The preliminary analysis using trade indicators depicted that by utilizing their own comparative advantage, both of the countries can maximize their gains by exporting more to the world. The simulation results from the GTAP analysis revealed that a tariff reduction in all goods trade would be more beneficial for both the countries than the tariff reduction in each other's specialized products. All other regions lose in terms of shifting the Indian imports towards China in a post-simulation environment. Regions with a significant loss are: the European Union (28 members), Southeast Asia, the Unites States, Japan, Korea, West Asia, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

The disaggregated sector-wise analysis has been performed using the latest available GTAP database, version 9.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the international trade characteristics of commerce between Latin American countries and some of the top economies in the world, in order to identify new business opportunities for LATAM firms in dynamical external markets.

A triple indexed gravity model, correcting with robust standardized errors clustered, and a panel data analysis was used to obtain the relationship between Latin American countries and advanced and other emerging economies.

The main finding of this paper is that innovation overcomes gravity effects and parameters typical of a knowledge society are the significant ones to explain trade among different regions. The model that includes an innovation proxy accommodates with the new international theories of trade. Besides, communication capacity is essential to reach consumers abroad with newer and more complex products. Moreover, the constant is significant when innovation is included, which may imply intersectoral trade that behaves relatively stable in bilateral trade.

The findings suggest that the economies that have some relevance in trade, have increasing numbers regarding patents. Thus, the empirical findings relate to the theoretical models which state that comparative advantages may be dynamic due to technological innovation.

This paper shows that innovation is a central parameter to engage in intratrade and develop a knowledge-based economy. Latin America sometimes appears to be a puzzle as to how to improve its economic performance and overcome its social and economic problems. Intratrade seems to be the route to increase Latin American business participation in world trade.

El propósito de este documento es comparar y contrastar las características comerciales internacionales del comercio entre los países latinoamericanos y algunas de las principales economías del mundo, con el fin de identificar nuevas oportunidades de negocios para las empresas de LATAM en mercados externos dinámicos.

Se utilizó un modelo de gravedad triple indexado el que se corrigió con errores robustos estandarizados clusterizados, y un análisis de datos de panel para obtener la relación entre los países latinoamericanos y las economías avanzadas y otras economías emergentes.

Uno de los principales hallazgos es que la incorporación de la innovación en el modelo anula el efecto de las variables típicas asociadas a la gravedad. Por lo que se podría suponer que, los parámetros propios de una sociedad del conocimiento son más importantes para explicar el comercio entre las diferentes regiones. El modelo incluye un variable de innovación que se adapta a las nuevas teorías internacionales del comercio. Otro hallazgo es que la capacidad de comunicación es esencial para llegar a los consumidores en el extranjero con productos más nuevos y complejos. Por último, la constante es significativa cuando se incluye la innovación, lo que podría implicar un comercio intersectorial que se comporta relativamente estable en el comercio bilateral.

Los resultados sugieren que las economías que tienen cierta relevancia en el comercio poseen un número creciente de patentes. Por lo tanto, los hallazgos empíricos se relacionan con los modelos teóricos que establecen que las ventajas comparativas pueden ser dinámicas debido a la innovación tecnológica.

Este documento muestra que la innovación es un elemento central para participar en el comercio interno y desarrollar una economía basada en el conocimiento. América Latina a veces parece ser un enigma sobre cómo mejorar su desempeño económico y superar sus problemas sociales y económicos. El comercio intraindustrial parece ser la ruta para aumentar la participación empresarial de América Latina en el comercio mundial.

This paper examines the impact of regional and non-regional trade on economic growth using annual data from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member countries for the period 2007 to 2017.

Trade data were decomposed into regional (trade among ECOWAS Member States) and non-regional (trade between ECOWAS Member States and the rest of the world). We used the dynamic system GMM to estimate the models and introduced exchange rate, unemployment rate, population growth and gross capital formation as controlled variables.

The results revealed that the estimated coefficient of ECOWAS regional trade is statistically significant and positive in predicting growth, while the non-regional trade coefficient is negative and not statistically significant in predicting growth. Other predictors of growth introduced into the model as controlled variables, such as exchange rate, unemployment rate, population growth and gross capital formation, displayed mixed results. More importantly, population growth, unemployment and exchange rate depreciation hurt economic growth, while gross capital formation promotes economic growth.

The findings provide strong support in favour of the Krugman (1991) hypothesis that regional trade agreements (RTAs) are a better alternative to global trade.

Our decision to disaggregate ECOWAS trade is unique and influenced largely by the objective of the study, which is to establish the type of ECOWAS trade that is a good predictor of growth. The evidence from our findings support the theory that RTAs are a better catalyst to economic growth.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the oil price and the exchange rate for Nigeria between January 1997 and December 2012. Previous empirical studies revealed an ambiguous relationship between crude oil prices and exchange rates, a reason for exploring the differential effects of positive and negative oil price shocks on the exchange rate.

Time series and structural analysis were used.

The findings indicate different responses for the exchange rate with respect to positive and negative oil price shocks. Positive oil price shocks were found to depreciate the exchange rate, whereas negative oil price shocks appreciate the exchange rate. In addition, the asymmetric effects of positive and negative oil price shocks on the real exchange rate were not supported by the statistical evidences. The empirical results were robust to different specifications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to assess the differential impact of positive and negative oil price shocks and the role of oil prices in predicting the exchange rate over long horizons in Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive review of the monetary model of exchange rate determination which is the main theoretical framework on analyzing exchange rate behavior over the last 40 years. Furthermore, we test the flexible price monetarist variant and the sticky price Keynesian variant of the monetary model. We conduct our analysis employing a sample of 14 advanced economies using annual data spanning the period 1880–2012.

The theoretical background of the paper relies on the monetary model to the exchange rate determination. We provide a thorough econometric analysis using a battery of unit root and cointegration testing techniques. We test the price-flexible monetarist version and the sticky-price version of the model using annual data from 1880 to 2012 for a group of industrialized countries.

We provide strong evidence of the existence of a nonlinear relationship between exchange rates and fundamentals. Therefore, we model the time-varying nature of this relationship by allowing for Markov regime switches for the exchange rate regimes. Modeling exchange rates within this context can be motivated by the fact that the change in regime should be considered as a random event and not predictable. These results show that linearity is rejected in favor of an MS-VECM specification which forms statistically an adequate representation of the data. Two regimes are implied by the model; the one of the estimated regimes describes the monetary model whereas the other matches in most cases the constant coefficient model with wrong signs. Furthermore it is shown that depending on the nominal exchange rate regime in operation, the adjustment to the long run implied by the monetary model of the exchange rate determination came either from the exchange rate or from the monetary fundamentals. Moreover, based on a Regime Classification Measure, we showed that our chosen Markov-switching specification performed well in distinguishing between the two regimes for all cases. Finally, it is shown that fundamentals are not only significant within each regime but are also significant for the switches between the two regimes.

The results are of interest to practitioners and policy makers since understanding the evolution and determination of exchange rates is of crucial importance. Furthermore, our results are linked to forecasting performance of exchange rate models.

The present analysis extends previous analyses on exchange rate determination and it provides further support in favor of the monetary model as a long-run framework to understand the evolution of exchange rates.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) to implement integrated project delivery (IPD) systems in the Korean construction industry.

This study categorized potential CSFs and analyzed them using factor analysis and multiple regression analysis to choose the best ones based on responses from Korean construction experts.

In total, 29 potential factors were selected and categorized into 7 CSFs using factor analysis.

The outcomes of the study are useful as a reference for applying the IPD system in different developing countries and mid-sized construction industries.

Business cycle theory is normally described as having evolved out of a previous tradition of writers focusing exclusively on crises. In this account, the turning point is seen as residing in Clément Juglar's contribution on commercial crises and their periodicity. It is well known that the champion of this view is Schumpeter, who propagated it on several occasions. The same author, however, pointed to a number of other writers who, before and at the same time as Juglar, stressed one or another of the aspects for which Juglar is credited primacy, including the recognition of periodicity and the identification of endogenous elements enabling the recognition of crises as a self-generating phenomenon. There is indeed a vast literature, both primary and secondary, relating to the debates on crises and fluctuations around the middle of the nineteenth century, from which it is apparent that Juglar's book Des Crises Commerciales et de leur Retour Périodique en France, en Angleterre et aux États-Unis (originally published in 1862 and very much revised and enlarged in 1889) did not come out of the blue but was one of the products of an intellectual climate inducing the thinking of crises not as unrelated events but as part of a more complex phenomenon consisting of recurring crises related to the development of the commercial world – an interpretation corroborated by the almost regular occurrence of crises at about 10-year intervals.

In Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects, value for money (VFM) tests and accounting treatment are distinct but related issues. VFM analysis should be concerned with total risk, not just with the sharing of risk, which dominates the accounting treatment decision. A framework is developed for logical thinking about what is meant by “best VFM” in the context of PFI projects. This involves consideration of the full set of alternatives, not an artificially diminished subset. The credibility of analytical techniques can be tarnished if they are misused to legitimate a predetermined decision. A reduction in construction risk may be a powerful source of VFM gains under PFI, but, under UK accounting regulation, this should not influence the accounting treatment decision. New complications about how VFM should be interpreted arise directly from the process of public sector fragmentation: affordability to the client is not necessarily the same as VFM for the public sector as a whole. Only public auditors, such as the National Audit Office, can gain access to PFI documentation on the conditions necessary for a comprehensive assessment of both accounting treatment and VFM. However, such studies require the kind of theoretical underpinning provided in this article, as otherwise the findings are likely to be ambiguous and hence vulnerable to rebuttal. In particular, VFM judgements must make explicit the basis of comparison on which they rest.

The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the special context and unique life experience of the online role-playing game and to provide insights regarding an interpretation of the situational context model.

This study uses netnography, online interviews, and the physical travel of researchers to the field for field participation and observations. The combination of netnography and online interviews combines online and offline studies to achieve more consistency in the data collection, analysis, and other processes. In-person participation in observations makes the research more realistic. The combination of these qualitative methods is helpful in achieving a more comprehensive and accurate research process.

The findings of the study can be classified into a three-stage situational context approach, which is presented in the form of propositions. Finally, the insight of the situational context model was developed.

This study only focussed on office workers and students in online role-playing game. Therefore, the samples should be extended to other massively multiplayer online games, including different nationalities and professions for comparative analysis and related studies. Through the expansion of the sample size, a representative and stable cyber model can be established.

The theoretical contribution of this study is to establish an interpretation of the situational context model and eight related propositions. The study revealed the mystery of female online role-playing games.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) rating agencies have arisen with the aim of providing external and reliable information about business behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to present a multi-criteria methodology for integrating CSR valuations with the financial performance of companies in a unique measure of global sustainability performance.

The authors present a hybrid TOPSIS methodology on transformed scores of both the CSR valuations and the financial ratios. The “attribute-specific evaluation” approach into Multi-attribute Prospect Theory (PT) has been applied and the Design of Experiments (DoE) is used with the TOPSIS value of the firm as the response variable.

The proposal has been applied to 118 companies evaluated by Vigeo and Covalence CSR agencies. The authors also have considered five financial ratios of the companies in order to assess their financial performance. Consistent aggregation for firms has been achieved. Relationships between the different rankings, both those of Vigeo and Covalence and the ones constructed in this research, have been analysed. All top 10 Global sustainable firms rank among the top 10 positions in at least one of the remaining rankings. The results show that Vigeo and Covalence provide different information about the CSR behaviour of the companies.

Another interesting question is to study the discrepancies between Vigeo and Covalence, for example, in which areas there is the greatest divergence between the two agencies and what could be the reasons for this.

The results of this research could be of interest for both investors who want a global picture of companies in their selection process and stakeholders concerned with CSR issues who want to take advantage of different CSR ratings.

The application of PT softens the compensatory behaviour of the classical TOPSIS that may prove unsuitable for social evaluation. The DoE allows the aggregation of the weight sets from various decision markers. The combined methodology facilitates the scoring of new firms and the rank reversal problem can be mitigated with this methodology.