renewable energy policies and initiatives for a sustainable energy future in malaysia abstract effective policies and incentive on renewable energy re is critical to promote low carbon economy and society in the future re was first introduced in the country s energy mix through the fifth fuel policy which was formulated under the eighth malaysia plan 2001 2005 to reduce dependency on fossil fuel and to address the rising global concern on climate change this paper addresses the re progress and achievement over the past 10 years and discusses the key policies for re programmes funding schemes and incentives that has been introduced by the government of malaysia to develop and promote the utilisation of re the recent re mechanisms under the tenth malaysia plan 2011 2015 will also be highlighted

fixed versus flexible exchange rates and the measurement of exchange rate instability a recent study by rana that examined exchange rate instability in eight asian countries concluded that owing to the non normality of the underlying exchange rate distributions the standard deviation was an erratic and misleading measure of variability the present paper argues that the choice of a suitable measure of instability cannot be made on mathematical grounds alone rana s preferred measure is shown to be inappropriate since it excludes from consideration precisely those observations of greatest significance conversely given the assumption of risk aversion the standard deviation is an entirely consistent measure results are also presented for an expanded study covering more than 150 countries

has the european monetary system led to more exports evidence from four european union countries abstract we attempt to investigate whether the exchange rate mechanism erm period has coincided with an increase in intra eu exports we conclude that this has not been the case but it is likely that the elimination of nominal exchange rate variability arising from a single currency will boost intra european union trade

exchange rate volatility and japan u s commodity trade an asymmetry analysis exchange rate volatility is said to affect trade flows in either direction when increased volatility is separated from decreased volatility asymmetric analysis reveals even more support for the fact that both increased volatility and decreased volatility affect trade flows in either direction we add to this new literature by considering 57 industries that trade between japan and the us in addition to providing evidence of asymmetric response of their trade flows to a measure of exchange rate volatility our approach identifies industries that could benefit from increased exchange rate volatility and those that could be hurt similarly we identify industries that could benefit from decreased volatility and those that could be hurt the overall conclusion is the adverse effects of dollar yen volatility on the trade between the two countries

exchange rate volatility international trade and resource allocation a perspective on recent research abstract recent research on the effects of exchange rate volatility is discussed and directions for future research are explored the need to pay more attention to the effects of diversification and firms characteristic is emphasized it is suggested that while international risk has risen substantially since floating the differential between international and domestic risk may not this could help explain the failure of international trade to fall drastically and suggests that exchange rate volatility has been more a reflection than an independent cause of underlying instability

real effects of exchange rate volatility abstract in the presence of exchange rate volatility and internationally differing rates of time preference investment in the stock of domestic capital is shown to proceed beyond or to fall short of the point where the marginal productivity equals the respective rate of time preference if the national rate of time preference is comparatively low high the respective country winds up as a creditor debtor internationally upon an increases in exchange rate volatility domestic capital of a debtor country creditor country decreases increases the long run effect of increased exchange rate volatility on the trade balance cannot be determined unequivocally

knight on risk and uncertainty it is argued that the received interpretation of knight s classic riskuncertainty distinction as concerning whether or not agents have subjective probabilities constitutes a misreading of knight on the contrary knight shared the modern view that agents can be assumed always to act as if they have subjective probabilities we document our contention that by uncertainty knight instead meant situations in which insurance markets collapse because of moral hazard or adverse selection knight s discussion of market failure although always informal and in places inaccurate was in many respects a remarkable anticipation of the modern literature

exchange rate volatility and international trade a general equilibrium analysis abstract we analyze the relation between exchange rate volatility and the volume of international trade in a general equilibrium stochastic endowment economy with imperfect international commodity markets and treating both variables as endogenous even in the simplest model the sign of the relation depends on the source for the change in volatility for instance more volatility of the endowments and higher costs to international trade both boost exchange risk and lower welfare but the first increases the expected volume of trade while the second decreases trade note that even the inter equilibria relation between trade and welfare is ambiguous

the need to rethink agricultural policy in general and to perform some radical surgery on commodity programs in particular there were some 6 8 million farmers in the united states in 1935 this was the highwater mark for the number of farms in the united states of this total there were a good number of small low production farms in the south one mule sharecropper farms and a good number of small subsistence farms in appalachia and the cut over regions of the lake states at the other end of the size scale there were some very large farms often of the corporate type in california south texas and along the mississippi delta but the overwhelming number of farms in the united states in the mid 1930s were moderate sized family farms in the midwest these farms tended to run between 100 and 200 acres in size in the typical case the family provided the labor and the management of the farming operation and had some equity in it this was a period of deep dark depression

exchange rate effects on the volume and variability of trade flows abstract this paper investigates the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on the volume and variability of trade flows employing a signal extraction framework we show that the direction and magnitude of importers and exporters optimal trading activities depend upon the source of the uncertainty general microstructure shocks fundamental factors driving the exchange rate process or a noisy signal of policy innovations providing a rationale for the contradictory empirical evidence in the literature we also show that exchange rate uncertainty emanating from general microstructure shocks and the fundamental factors reduces the variability of trade flows while that related to a noisy signal of policy innovations increases variability

does real exchange rate volatility affect sectoral trade flows this article investigates empirically the effect of real exchange rate volatility on sectoral bilateral trade flows between the united states and its top 13 trading partners our investigation also considers those effects on trade flows that may arise through changes in income volatility and the interaction between income and exchange rate volatilities we provide evidence that i exchange rate volatility does not systematically affect sectoral trade flows ii income volatility has little impact on trade flows and iii the effect of the interaction term on trade flows is opposite that of exchange rate volatility dampening its impact on trade flows

exchange rate uncertainty and foreign trade abstract this paper starts with reviewing the existing literature on exchange rate uncertainty and trade flows it then argues that potential costs of medium term uncertainty in exchange rates and competitiveness are likely to be much larger than that of exchange risk which has been the focus of the existing literature two measures of medium term exchange rate uncertainty are constructed one is a weighted function of the magnitude of past movements in nominal exchange rates and the current deviation of the exchange rate from equilibrium while the second depends on both the duration and the amplitude of misalignment from equilibrium exchange rates the empirical evidence reported in the paper suggests that when exchange rate uncertainty is defined over a medium term period it does affect adversely trade flows of the industrial countries under review with the notable exception of the united states

the effects of real exchange rate risk on international trade abstract by assuming real profit maximization and uncertain prices as well as exchange rates we conclude that it is uncertain percentage changes in the real exchange rate that are risky in international trade empirical estimation of fourteen bilateral trade flows among industrialized countries finds a significant negative effect on trade quantity from such risk in a number of these cases the expectation variable has a positive effect in a larger number of cases significant price effects from the expectation variable are fewer and from risk are negligible

differential human capital and structural evolution in agriculture abstract the growth of market capitalism and the technological advances of the last two centuries underlie the relentless process of structural change in agriculture substantial occupational migration out of farming and geographical migration from rural to urban areas is a characteristic of most if not all economies in the 20th century the process of rural urban migration and the resulting urban problems have received considerable attention the fate of the residual farm population has received less scrutiny and is less well understood in the united states we observe considerable farm poverty increasing farm size inequality and a disturbing decay of rural communities for the last half century the problem of low farm incomes has been perceived as a farm problem amenable to solutio by appropriate farm policy in this paper a model is proposed which suggests that farm poverty and inequality are inevitable consequences of a rural urban migration process in which two types of human capital play a fundamental role general human capital determines a person s expected nonfarm income while farming specific human capital determines his her productivity in farming it is argued that inadequate human capital combined with positive rural urban migration cost positive farm technology adoption costs and inelastic demand for farm output can explain persistently high levels of farm poverty and increasing farm size inequality the model suggests that traditional farm policies are inappropriate programs that directly address the problems of inadequate human capital are advocated

exchange rate volatility and international trade the purpose of this note is to show that a positive effect of exchange rate volatility on export production has a theoretical basis the key to this claim is that as the exchange rate volatility increases so does the value of the real option to export to the world market higher volatility increases the potential gains from trade this may explain part of the mixed empirical findings regarding the effects of exchange rate risk on international trade

human capital adaptive ability and the distributional implications of agricultural policy the ability to adapt efficiently to an economic environment that has been altered in a specific way may be a scarce resource in agriculture schultz 1 the setting that i wish to focus upon is one in which farmers face uncertainty about the future course of events production technologies prices and governmental policies and production is dynamic a large share of inputs is purchased from the nonfarm sector and a significant share of output is exported information is available on past realizations of events storing and analyzing information is costly consequently farmers are not assumed to have complete information farmers are assumed to differ in their adaptive ability which is viewed as a form of human capital and to employ efficiently the information that they acquire the thesis of this paper is that adaptive ability is unimportant when the processes generating the variables which farmers take as exogenous are stationary and unaltered however when these processes undergo structural change adaptive ability is expected to affect the quality of production marketing and investment decisions farmers who have superior adaptive skills are expected on average to make better decisions furthermore given the highly competitive nature of u s agriculture successfully adapting to structural change is selective farmers possessing poor adaptive skill can be expected to comprise a relatively large share of the persons forced by economic circumstances to seek alternative employment or retirement provided governmental intervention does not neutralize this selection process when farmers make production marketing and investment plans their decision rules can be expected to incorporate the anticipated values of uncertain variables that are exogeous to their choices the unanticipated components of these exogenous variables however may confuse them and reduce the efficiency of otherwise good plans 2 when shocks occur because of domestic or foreign macroeconomic policy u s agriculture is saddled with transmitting business cycle disturbances

on the comparative statics of a competitive industry with inframarginal firms recently economists have begun to develop a theory of the perfectly competitive firm and industry in long run equilibrium in contrast to the traditional model2 in which all prices are parametric this new theory takes explicit recognition of the fact that output price must adjust to exogenous changes in input prices before the industry can be said to be in long run competitive equilibrium the focus of this analysis has been to derive implications of competitive theory which can be tested using data generated by observing individual firms in

measuring and analysing the effects of short term volatility in real exchange rates this paper examines short term volatility in the real effective exchange rates of industrial countries and its impact on their imports it yields three conclusions first volatility has not diminished as markets have gained experience with floating exchange rates the trend appears to be in the opposite direction for some countries second exposure to short term volatility has differed among countries japan and sweden have experienced much more than most other industrial countries third volatility appears to depress the volume of international trade this third finding is consistent with results reported by cushman and by akhtar and hilton and challenges earlier findings by hooper and kohlhagen

short run fluctuations in foreign exchange rates evidence from the data 1973 1979 abstract the paper examines the statistical properties of daily changes in foreign exchange fx rates for nine currencies it finds that these changes are leptokurtotic i e have long tailed and sharp peaked histograms the evidence suggests that this leptokurtosis does not arise from an underlying paretian stable distribution nor from a stationary mixture of normal distributions but rather from normal processes with time varying parameters this finding casts doubt on the validity of many standard techniques t stats arima methods some moving statistics for estimating the time varying parameters are also presented

fixed versus flexible exchange rates and measurement of exchange rate instability comment this paper comments on brodsky 1984 in which he refers to my november 1981 article the paper reiterates the point that the standard deviation cannot be used to draw statistical inferences when the underlying distribution is non normal stable paretian in such a case both the scale and characteristic exponent have to be considered

real dollar exchange rate under the bretton woods and floating exchange rate regimes abstract the focus of the paper is on real exchange rates for the dollar over the period 1957 to 1985 most such exchange rates followed an almost steplike pattern showing relatively little movement in the late 1950s and 1960s falling abruptly and then remaining low in the 1970s and finally in the 1980s rising back to levels close to those that prevailed initially contrary to much recent commentary therefore the period that appears different is not the last five years but the decade that preceded them an important factor underlying this pattern of exchange rate movement according to results presented in the paper was the behavior of monetary policy and hence inflation in the united states what remains to be established is the precise mechanism linking money and real exchange rates and the relative strength of those links

exchange rate variability and the export demand for malaysia s semiconductors an empirical study this article examines the effects of exchange rate variability on export demand for semiconductors which is the largest sub sector of electronics industry in malaysia as reported by malaysian industrial development authority mida 2004 the empirical results which are estimated based on the johansen s multivariate cointegration tests and error correction model suggest that there is a unique long run relationship among quantities of export relative price real foreign income and real exchange rate variability the major finding of this article is that the variability of real exchange rate has some effect on semiconductor exports in both the long run and the short run in the light of rapid advances in technology in the global markets for electronics products the findings are useful to policy makers for the design and target of appropriate exchange rate and industrial policies to enhance the export competitiveness of semiconductor industry

has exchange risk depressed international trade the impact of third country exchange risk abstract this paper argues that the effect of exchange risk on bilateral and aggregate trade flows should be analyzed by including the impact of third country exchange risk factors in addition to direct bilateral or multilateral risk after a theoretical examination of these effects us bilateral export flow to its six largest trading partners are analyzed empirically i find individuality and jointly significant third country risk effects in most cases in contrast to some recent bilateral efforts i find a steadily growing negative impact on trade flows from exchange risk during floating and in contrast to recent aggregate trade flow studies i conclude that there was no temporary decline in exchange risk during the late 1970s

land accumulation dynamics in developing country agriculture abstractunderstanding land accumulation dynamics is relevant for policy makers interested in the economic effects of land inequality in developing country agriculture we thus explore and simultaneously test the leading theories of micro level land accumulation dynamics using unique panel data from paraguay the results suggest that farm growth varies systematically with farm size a formal rejection of stochastic growth theories that is gibrat s law and that titled land area may have considerable influence on land accumulation furthermore our estimates indicate that a dualistic agrarian structure is the likely product of the unfettered operation of land markets

the effects of exchange rate variability on international trade a meta regression analysis the trade effects of exchange rate variability have been an issue in international economics for the past 30 years the contribution of this article is to apply meta regression analysis mra to the empirical literature on average exchange rate variability exerts a negative effect on international trade yet mra confirms the view that this result is highly conditional by identifying factors that help to explain why estimated trade effects vary from significantly negative to significantly positive mra evidence on the pronounced heterogeneity of the empirical findings may be instructive for policy first by establishing that average trade effects are not sufficiently robust to generalize across countries and second by suggesting the importance of hedging opportunities hence of financial development for trade promotion for the practice of mra we make a case for checking the robustness of results with respect to estimation technique model specification and sample

exchange rates and prices the adjustment of relative prices to exchange rate movements is explained in an industrial organization approach given labor costs in the respective currencies exchange rate movements change costs for firms selling in the home market and thus disturb the industry equilibrium the extent of absolute and relative price adjustment is shown to depend on market integration product substitutability the relative number of domestic and foreign firms and the market structure the impact of exchange rates on prices is illustrated in a variety of approaches including the cournot a dixit and j stiglitz 1977 and s salop 1979 models some empirical evidence is offered in support of the theory copyright 1987 by american economic association