Search results

While monetary autonomy is self-explanatory for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin with predetermined supply path, it is of great interest to probe into the monetary structures of Stablecoins. In these supply contracts and expands and capital restrictions apply due to the existence of reserves as the exchange rate arrangement adheres to a price rule.

Ever since the launch of Bitcoin and its offspring, examination of cryptocurrencies' trading activity from the empirical finance viewpoint has received much attention and continues to do so. The particular monetary arrangements found in Stable cryptocurrencies (colloquially referred to as Stablecoins), however, have not been properly (1) classified and (2) studied within an empirical international finance and banking context. This paper provides an empirical framework analogous to Impossible Trinity for exploring monetary arrangements across Stablecoins wherein reserves are held as price stability is targeted.

The study findings of existence of the degree of achievement along the three dimensions of the Impossible Trinity hypothesis, namely monetary independence, exchange rate stability and financial openness for a representative sample able to cover all varieties of Stablecoins, provide fresh empirical insights and arguments to this growing literature with respect to the success of their embedded exchange rate stabilization mechanisms. While the hypothesis can be supported for all cryptocurrencies in question, the trade-off combination among exchange rate stability, capital openness and monetary independence varies with the categorical types of Stablecoins.

If Stable cryptocurrencies, therefore, claim the role of global monetary assets freed from sovereign limits and national boundaries, it is critical to explore whether they adhere to traditional monetary frameworks. It goes without saying that in this work the author does not use a complete catalogue of all the available Stablecoins, rather a complete catalogue of all the possible asset classes of Stablecoins. While there is a significant difficulty in finding Algorithmic Stablecoins and, so far, there is plethora of Stable Token initiatives, a broader sample to further examine these under this paper's empirical framework is suggested. Enrichment of the robustness analysis by constructing additional proxies, possibly building time series for the proposed cmo1 subindex and using additional estimation methods is encouraged.

Stablecoins have been developed aiming to address the issue of excessive price variation in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Holders of Stablecoins enjoy the combined advantages of using a blockchain-based digital infrastructure in fulfilling the functions of store of value and media of exchange and of using a traditional currency, which merely plays the role of the unit of account (and in some circumstances the trusted reserve to which is convertible to). Understanding the varieties of Stablecoins and quantifying the components for success of their price stabilization may result in designing better Stablecoins.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have introduced new challenges to money and banking. Cryptocurrencies, which independently float such as Bitcoin, have gained the interest so far due to price variation that allows for gains. But these should be by far not considered to be a substitute to traditional means of payment. Lately, Stablecoins have increasingly gained attention for that USD Tether/Bitcoin pair (a Stablecoin pegged to the US dollar at parity) has outrun the US dollar/Bitcoin pair as the most traded pair in digital exchanges marking the strong position and high demand for Stablecoins.

This approach uncovers the varieties of Stablecoins with respect to their monetary constraints compared to the rest of the cryptocurrencies, which independently float. In this paper, the author provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the exchange rate mechanisms conditional on Stablecoin asset classes accompanied with an empirical study from the monetary viewpoint. This is the first work in this attempt. The empirical framework employed is analogous to the traditional theory of international monetary economics referred to as Impossible Trinityz.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/JES-06-2020-0279

The objective of this chapter is to analyze China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to the European Union in environmental industries.

We combine a narrative approach with statistical analysis. We first review the policy background concerning China’s OFDI and environmental protection. Then, we provide statistics on China’s OFDI to the EU in environmental industries, using firm-level data from one of China’s major provinces: Jiangsu.

We find that the OFDI to the EU in environmental industries experienced a considerable growth in terms of number of investing firms and investment value. The OFDI in environmental industries to the EU was highly concentrated in a few countries, particularly Germany and Luxemburg, and a few industries, particularly new energy.

Using firm-level data from only one province may limit the generalizability of our findings. However, we believe the case of Jiangsu province sheds much light on the situation of entire China because Jiangsu is one of the most important Chinese provinces in terms of OFDI.

The detailed analysis of our Jiangsu’s OFDI in EU’s environmental industries in this chapter can help to inform the investment cooperation in environmental industries between China and EU in terms of both scope of investment partners and target industries.

This study is one of the first to provide a detailed summary statistics on China’s OFDI to the EU in environmental industries. Given China’s growing concerns regarding environmental protection and OFDI, we believe the question merits further analysis.

China is primarily a nonreligious country with less than 10% of people following Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, or other religions. Two major communication paths, the land and sea Silk Roads, directly affected the distribution and development of Muslim tourism and attractions. The combination of Islam with local custom and culture is a unique feature in China, and contributes to its development as a form of ethnic rather than religious tourism. As a result, research in China focuses on ethnic product development, minority sports and anthropological tourism, themed events, and intangible cultural heritage.

The 2019 ‘Sanremo’ Music Festival has stimulated a heated debate on immigration and Italy's so-called liberal pro-immigrant elites, as the winner, Alessandro Mahmoud, a 26-year-old rapper born in Milan, is the son of an Italian mother and an Egyptian immigrant, to whom he ‘dedicated’ his winning song, ‘Soldi’ (Money) that speaks about irresponsible fathers. A rapper with an Arabic name winning Italy's most famous festival has shocked many Italians who were used to seeing in Sanremo a reassuring representation of the old traditional canzone italiana. His victory was unexpected in a country, in which anti-immigrant attitudes are becoming mainstream, and the League's movement is deliberately whipping up this nationalist wind. However, Mahmoud represents only the tip of the iceberg as since 2005 a number of so called ‘second generation rappers’ has been growing in Italy, who are using their lyrics to talk about personal and collective discrimination’ experiences. Through a text analysis of the most prominent second generation rap writers, this chapter aims at detecting the claims for belonging they attach to this musicalized social and political forum, shedding light on the question of Italian citizenship that is still denied to second generation young people.

Vertical electrical sounding (VES) and Rayleigh wave exploration are widely used in the exploration of near-surface structure, but both have limitations. This study aims to make full use of the advantages of the two methods, reduce the multiple solutions of single inversion and improve the accuracy of the inversion. Thus, a nonlinear joint inversion method of VES and Rayleigh wave exploration based on improved differential evolution (DE) algorithm was proposed.

Based on the DE algorithm, a new initialization strategy was proposed. Then, taking AK-type with high-velocity interlayer model and HA-type with low-velocity interlayer model near the surface as examples, the inversion results of different methods were compared and analyzed. Then, the proposed method was applied to the field data in Chengde, Hebei Province, China. The stratum structure was accurately depicted and verified by drilling.

The synthetic data and field data results showed that the joint inversion of VES and Rayleigh wave data based on the improved DE algorithm can effectively improve the interpretation accuracy of the single-method inversion and had strong stability and large generalizable ability in near-surface engineering problems.

A joint inversion method of VES and Rayleigh wave data based on improved DE algorithm is proposed, which can improve the accuracy of single-method inversion.

Quello del turismo siciliano è un argomento di cosi vasta portata che non puó esaurirsi in una comunicazione necessariamente contenuta in modesti limiti di tempo.

Sommario: 1° Il bisogno di viaggiare per motivi turistici. 2° Turismo nei tempi antichi e nei tempi moderni in relazione ai nuovi mezzi di trasporto. 3° Turismo sociale. 4° Forme di viaggi collettivi: treni turistici, crociere marittime e fluviali, servizi automobilistici di gran turismo. 5° Politica delle tariffe e miglioramenti nei trasporti ferroviari. 6° La rivincita della strada con lo sviluppo della motorizzazione e del turismo automobilistico. 7° Le autolinee nel sistema dei trasporti terrestri. 8° Azione propulsiva a vantaggio del turismo nei trasporti marittimi ed aerei. 9° Gli effetti economici del turismo.

Nel riprendere come Libero Docente le mie lezioni presso la Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dopo un lungo intervallo di anni in cui il Corso è stato impartito per Incarico, cioè a titolo ufficiale, prima nella facoltà di Scienze Politiche e poi in quella di Economia e Commercie, ritengo opportuno accennare alle vicende di questo insegnamento che ha segnato in certo modo il punto di partenza ed insieme il banco di prova del primo tentativo di sistematica scientifica della trattazione del turismo dal punto di vista economico e statistico. E mancherei ad un preciso dovere e ad un impulso spontaneo del mio animo se in questa occasione non rivolgessi un memore e devoto pensiero al mio grande ed indimenticabile maestro, Augusto Graziani, che seppe inculcarmi la passione per gli studi di economia politica: debbo anzi a lui anche lo specifico orientamento verso l'indagine turistica, perchè il primo tema che egli mi propose nelle esercitazioni di seminario degli Istituti Giuridici dell'Università di Napoli (oh magnifica palestra per noi giovanissimi studenti appena usciti dal Liceo!) fu quello della bilancia dei pagamenti internazionali con particolare riguardo alle cosidette partite «invisibili».

Due to its key role in the successful delivery of construction projects, construction productivity is one of the most researched topics in construction domain. While the majority of previous research is focused on the productivity of labor-intensive activities, there is a lack of research on the productivity of equipment-intensive activities. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by developing a comprehensive list of factors influencing the productivity of equipment-intensive activities and determining the most influential factors through interview surveys.

A list of 201 factors influencing the productivity of equipment-intensive activities was developed through the review of 287 articles, selected from the ten top-ranked construction journals, by searching for construction productivity in the articles’ titles, abstracts or keywords. Next, the most influential factors were determined by conducting interview surveys with 35 construction experts. To ensure that the interviewees were aware of the research objectives and the distinction between labor- and equipment-intensive activities, an information session was held prior to conducting the surveys, and the surveys were conducted in interview format to allow for clarification and discussion throughout the process.

Project management respondents identified foreman-, safety- and crew-related factors as the categories with the most influence on productivity; tradespeople respondents identified foreman-, equipment- and crew-related factors as the most influential categories. In total, 14 factors were identified, for which there was a significant difference between the perspectives of project management and tradespeople regarding the factors’ influence on productivity.

This paper provides a comprehensive list of factors influencing the productivity of equipment-intensive activities. It identifies the most influential factors through an interview survey of 35 construction experts, who are familiar with the challenges of equipment-intensive activities based on their experience with such activities in the industrial construction sector of Alberta, Canada. Additionally, the differences between the factors that influence the productivity of labor- and equipment-intensive activities are discussed by comparing the findings of this paper with previous research focused on labor intensive activities.