bayesian portfolio selection with multi variate random variance models we consider multi period portfolio selection problems for a decision maker with a specified utility function when the variance of security returns is described by a discrete time stochastic model the solution of these problems involves a dynamic programming formulation and backward induction we present a simulation based method to solve these problems adopting an approach which replaces the preposterior analysis by a surface fitting based optimization approach we provide examples to illustrate the implementation of our approach

stochastic dominance and mean variance measures of profit and loss for business planning and investment in this paper we first extend the stochastic dominance sd theory by introducing the first three orders of both ascending sd asd and descending sd dsd to decisions in business planning and investment to risk averse and risk loving decision makers so that they can compare both return and loss we provide investors with more tools for empirical analysis with which they can identify the first order asd and dsd prospects and discern arbitrage opportunities that could increase his her utility as well as wealth and set up a zero dollar portfolio to make huge profit our tools also enable investors and business planners to identify the third order asd and dsd prospects and make better choices to complement the stochastic dominance approach we also introduce an improved mean variance criterion to decisions in business planning or investment on both return and loss for risk averse and riskloving investors we then illustrate the superiority of the present approaches with well known examples in the literature and discuss the relationship between the improved stochastic dominance and mean variance criteria

tariff endogeneity evidence from 19th century europe abstract this paper tests an endogenous tariff model for six european countries from around the mid 19th century until the eve of world war 1 ww1 the tariff rate was generally cointegrated with real gnp real wages the price level and the external trade balance results from granger causality tests suggest that real gnp and the price level may be important endogenous determinants of tariff levels

has energy efficiency performance improved in china non energy sectors evidence from sequenced hybrid energy use tables we conduct a comparative analysis of two energy efficiency indicators for china heating value energy intensity hei and economic value energy intensity mei we formulate 1997 2002 2007 2012 hybrid energy comparable sequence use tables in an input output accounting framework and compare the two indicators using a randomized block anova the results show that meis and heis have significantly different variability patterns among sectors and are evolutionarily divergent over time the directional changes in mei and hei are found to be inconsistent at both the sectoral and national levels a further analysis with a lmdi index decomposition model shows that the difference between hei lmdi and hei lmdi is principally caused by energy prices based on the evidence from the two indicators and their relationship to energy prices we are unconvinced about china s purported improvements in energy efficiency in recent years

is the wto passe the wto has delivered policy outcomes that are very different from those likely to emerge out of the recent wave of preferential trade agreements ptas should economists see this as an efficient institutional hand off where the wto has carried trade liberalization as far as it can manage and is now passing the baton to ptas to finish the job this paper surveys a growing economics literature on international trade agreements and argues on this basis that the wto is not passe rather and subject to some caveats this survey of research to date suggests that the wto warrants strong support while a more cautious view of ptas seems appropriate

on the incidence of us tariffs this paper provides evidence on the incidence of tariffs on products of export interest to developing countries by investigating the relationship between per capita incomes of us trading partners and tariff rates it constitutes the first attempt to assess the incidence of tariffs imposed by the us on countries that span the entire range of per capita incomes average tariff rates are lower for the poorest and richest countries and higher for countries in the middle of the income distribution this finding is not consistent with the widely held view that tariffs used by industrial nations bear more heavily on products of export interest to poorer developing countries than on imports from industrial nations it is consistent with the tariff escalation pattern reported in earlier studies if advanced countries account for most products at the high end of the fabrication scale results show that poorest countries will find it difficult to escape tariffs by attaining higher levels of economic development

existence of equilibrium in a lobbying economy this paper establishes the existence of equilibrium in a model with a central authority that sets relative prices in response to agents political activity to a small open economy we graft a government price setting program that responds to the lobbying pressure of opposing interests the proof involves reformulating the lobbying economy as a noncooperative generalized game establishing the existence of an equilibrium in the game and showing that a game equilibrium is an equilibrium in the economy agents choice sets are found to be nonconvex a difficulty that we resolve by an appropriate restriction on preferences

evidence and explanation for the tariff lobbying paradox endogenous tariffs fall as protectionist lobbying rises recent empirical evidence suggests that u s protectionist lobbying expenditures rose while u s trade barrier fell we find that the same result holds in our panel data sample from 28 countries be

bayesian portfolio selection an empirical analysis of the s p 500 index 1970 1996 in this article we present a technique for implementing large scale optimal portfolio selection we use high frequency daily data to capture valuable statistical information in asset returns we describe several statistical issues involved in quantitative approaches to portfolio selection our methodology applies to large scale portfolio selection problems in which the number of possible holdings is large relative to the estimation period provided by historical data we illustrate our approach on an equity database that consists of stocks from the standard and poor s index and we compare our portfolios to this benchmark index our methodology differs from the usual quadratic programming approach to portfolio selection in three ways 1 we employ informative priors on the expected returns and variance covariance matrices 2 we use daily data for estimation purposes with upper and lower holding limits for individual securities and 3 we use a dynamic asset allocation approach that is based on reestim

aggregation and the role of energy in the economy methods for investigating the role of energy in the economy involve aggregating different energy flows a variety of methods have been proposed but none has received universal acceptance this paper shows that the method of aggregation has crucial effects on the results of the analysis we review the principal assumptions and methods for aggregating energy flows the basic heat equivalents approach economic approaches using prices or marginal product for aggregation emergy analysis and thermodynamic approaches such as exergy we argue that economic approaches such as the index or marginal product method are superior because they account for differences in quality among fuels we apply various economic approaches in three case studies in the us economy in the first we account for energy quality to assess changes in the energy surplus delivered by the extraction of fossil fuels from 1954 to 1992 the second and third case studies examine the importance of energy quality in evaluating the relation between energy use and gdp first a quality adjusted index of energy consumption is used in an econometric analysis of the causal relation between energy use and gdp from 1947 to 1996 second we account for energy quality in an econometric analysis of the factors that determine changes in the energy gdp ratio from 1947 to 1996 without adjusting for energy quality the results imply that the energy surplus from petroleum extraction is increasing that changes in gdp drive changes in energy use and that gdp has been decoupled from between aggregate energy use all of these conclusions are reversed when we account for changes in energy quality 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

bayesian dynamic factor models and portfolio allocation we discuss the development of dynamic factor models for multivariate financial time series and the incorporation of stochastic volatility components for latent factor processes bayesian inference and computation is developed and explored in a study of the dynamic factor structure of daily spot exchange rates for a selection of international currencies the models are direct generalizations of univariate stochastic volatility models and represent specific varieties of models recently discussed in the growing multivariate stochastic volatility literature we discuss model fitting based on retrospective data and sequential analysis for forward filtering and short term forecasting analyses are compared with results from the much simpler method of dynamic variance matrix discounting that for over a decade has been a standard approach in applied financial econometrics we study these models in analysis forecasting and sequential portfolio allocation for a selected set of international exchange rate retur

politically realistic objective functions and trade policy profs and tariffs abstract this paper demonstrates a mathematical correspondence between the deus ex machina tariff formation approach and political economy approach the correspondence implies that the tariff chosen by lobbying influenced policy makers will be equivalent to a tariff chosen by a deus ex machina government that gives too much weight to profits this result allows many political economy issues to be addressed in the simple framework of a deus ex machina government which faces a politically realistic objective function prof

domestic politics foreign interests and international trade policy reply this paper incorporates the foreign interest in the determination of a country s international trade policy into a model of political competition between candidates contesting elective office we envisage foreign and domestic producer interests as expressing political support for a candidate via campaign contributions and candidates as making trade policy pronouncements to maximize political support from producer interests tariffs are divisive but vers are consistent with conciliatory policy positions yielding mutual gain to foreign and domestic interests no candidate has an interest in formulating a trade policy position using a tariff if a ver is a policy option protection in the developed countries has in recent years often taken the form of bilaterally negotiated voluntary export restraints vers rather than the more traditional unilaterally imposed import restrictions the use of voluntary export restraints has been paralleled by interest in the theoretical literature the effects of vers have been compared with tariffs and quotas and vers have been examined in a political economy framework with a view to identifying the gainers and losers from this form of restric

energy and economic growth in the usa a multivariate approach abstract this paper examines the causal relationship between gdp and energy use for the period 1947 90 in the usa the relationship between energy use and economic growth has been examined by both biophysical and neoclassical economists in particular several studies have tested for the presence of a causal relationship in the granger sense between energy use and economic growth however these tests do not allow a direct test of the relative explanatory powers of the neoclassical and biophysical models a multivariate adaptation of the test vector autoregression var does allow such a test a var of gdp energy use capital stock and employment is estimated and granger tests for causal relationships between the variables are carried out although there is no evidence that gross energy use granger causes gdp a measure of final energy use adjusted for changing fuel composition does granger cause gdp

commercial culture political culture and economic policy polarization the case of japan abstract in this paper we present a model of endogenous policy formation that captures crucial aspects of the japanese commercial and political culture we analyze the influence of certain cultural traits and show that cultural idiosyncrasies are important determinants of policy formation especially the complex interaction of the two types of cultures is shown to have significant consequences for the polarization of policy stances contrasting our model s behavior with the stylized facts of japanese politics we arrive at the conclusion that the model s behavior is compatible with the observed policy positions held by japanese politicians over the last 50 years

the bias in favor of pro tariff lobbies abstract we show that the probability of success of the pro tariff lobby defined as a decreasing function of the ratio of consumer loss to producer gain rent generated by the tariff rises with the tariff under very general conditions this appears as an exception to becker s view that less distortionary measures tend to be adopted over their more distortionary counterparts we then provide a micro foundation for our probability definition using the imperfectly discriminating lobbying framework

optimal strategies for selecting project portfolios using uncertain value estimates abstract practically all organizations seek to create value by selecting and executing portfolios of actions that consume resources typically the resulting value is uncertain and thus organizations must take decisions based on ex ante estimates about what this future value will be in this paper we show that the bayesian modeling of uncertainties in this selection problem serves to i increase the expected future value of the selected portfolio ii raise the expected number of selected actions that belong to the optimal portfolio ex post and iii eliminate the expected gap between the realized ex post portfolio value and the estimated ex ante portfolio value we also propose a new project performance measure defined as the probability that a given action belongs to the optimal portfolio finally we provide analytic results to determine which actions should be re evaluated to obtain more accurate value estimates before portfolio selection in particular we show that the optimal targeting of such re evaluations can yield a much higher portfolio value in return for the total resources that are spent on the execution of actions and the acquisition of value estimates

endogeneous protection factor returns and resource allocation we consider a heckscher ohlin samuelson trade model with two lobbies representing the interests of factor owners and two political parties the lobbies contribute resources to politics equating their returns to political and economic activity at the margin while the parties maximize their probability of election trading off general voter dissatisfaction with protection against the electioneering resources that favorable policies attract from the lobbies the equilibrium level of protection of a factor and its expected rate of return increase with its relative endowment if this relative endowment is high low then the factor will be better worse off than under free trade but at intermediate factor endowment ratios both factors will be worse off under parameter changes making lobbies more sensitive to the commodity price the lobbies contribute more resources to politics and can both be worse off even though the parties are proposing lower trade distortions

estimating the population utility function a parametric bayesian approach abstract in this paper we consider the health utility index mark ii for quantifying and describing a population s health related quality of life over health states composed of multiple attributes this measure can be used for various purposes such as evaluating the severity of the effect of a disease or comparing different treatment methods we present a bayesian framework for population utility estimation and health policy evaluation by introducing a probabilistic interpretation of the multi attribute utility theory maut used in health economics in doing so our approach combines ideas from the maut and bayesian statistics and provides an alternative method of modeling preferences and utility estimation

why and when do governments initiate public enterprise reform initiating public enterprise reform is a complex decision influenced by economic factors as well as the ideological biases and personalities of political leaders nevertheless the use of a contracting framework yields important generalizations about what drives the decision this article argues that the decision depends fundamentally on the potential efficiency gains from the reform and its associated transactions costs costs arise because of asymmetries in information and opportunism problems that usually plague contract negotiations the article identifies observable variables that may affect either the potential gains or the transactions costs uses them to construct a simple probit decision making model and tests the model using data from fifteen developing countries over a twenty year period

protectionist responses and declining industries abstract this paper employs a three factor ricardo viner model of a small economy to analyse the effect of a falling world import price on the domestic price of the economy s importable good in the presence of an endogenously determined tariff the outcome is seen to depend on a the way in which the recycled tariff revenue is allocated to the three factor groups and b differences in relative risk aversion across those groups however under reasonable assumptions hillman s 1982 result that a declining industry will continue to decline is seen to hold in our general equilibrium framework

on the application of input output analysis to energy issues abstract the paper develops a static input output i o framework for analysing energy issues in the short run in addition to reviewing the conventional static i o model the paper discusses two problems in its applications i interdependence between the projected sectoral output in the multiplier analysis and ii definition of substitution effect in changing the energy input coefficient the corresponding modifications will be analysed an unconventional supply driven i o model is also discussed here in order to improve the completeness on the application of the input output model

the use and effect of political propaganda in democracies this paper examines the influence of political propaganda on voters and analyses the behavior of the interest groups in the face of the influence being exercised by propaganda semi truths are distributed among the electorate the decision taken by a voter results from his basic opinion and from the parts of information he receives the analysis shows that the greater the likelihood of a certain decision being reached by a fully informed electorate the more probable it is that the same decision will be reached by a rationally uninformed electorate the pecuniary interest of an interest group is however also positively correlated with the probability that the electorate reaches a decision which is agreeable to that interest group it has finally become appar ent that the results of the approach concur well with empirical studies

cooperative lobbying and endogenous trade policy this paper considers trade policies in a small open economy in which two influential interest groups lobby the government since competitive lobbying leads to excessive rent seeking expenditures the lobbies have an incentive to cooperate the outcome of cooperative lobbying is characterized in terms of lobbying and bargaining power of the two groups two important results are derived first if the power of competing interest groups is balanced then cooperation leads to free trade second if it is unbalanced cooperation may on the contrary increase protection

numerical approximations of optimal portfolios in mispriced asymmetric levy markets abstract we present numerical approximations of optimal portfolios in mispriced levy markets under asymmetric information for informed and uninformed investors having logarithmic preference we apply our numerical scheme to kou 2002 jump diffusion markets by deriving analytic formulas for the first two derivatives of the underlying portfolio objective function which depend only on the levy measure of the jump generating process optimal portfolios are then simulated using the box muller algorithm newton s method and incomplete beta functions convergence dynamics and trajectories of sample paths of optimal portfolios for both investors are presented at different levels of information asymmetry mispricing horizon asymmetry in the kou density jump intensity volatility mean reversion speed and sharpe ratios we also apply the proposed newton s algorithm to compute optimal portfolios for investors in variance gamma markets via instantaneous centralized moments of returns

defining total energy use in economic studies does the aggregation approach matter abstract in economic models the aggregate consumption of energy resources is normally expressed either in terms of its total heating value e g btus or barrels of oil equivalent or in terms of its economic value e g divisia indices or total expenditures for most major oecd countries we find that it matters little whether various energy resources consumed in the industrial sector are aggregated in terms of their heating value or their economic value similar trends emerge regardless of which measure is adopted consequently as a practical matter macroeconomic and energy modeling efforts need not be too concerned about which measure of total energy usage is adopted the prominent exceptions are the united states and mexico where measures of total industrial sector energy use based on heating values and economic values diverge greatly due to some unique trends in electrification and energy prices consequently attention to aggregation issues may be an important consideration in efforts to model the energy consumed in the us or mexico

the economics of special interest politics the case of the tariff this paper investigates the interaction of politicians and special interest lobbies the goal is to model the equilibrium levels of redistributive policies such as taxes subsidies tariffs and regulatory decisions the model is applied throughout to the setting of tariffs by contributing to political campaigns special interest lobbies generate economic returns higher tariffs generate revenue for import competing industries through higher product prices higher milk support prices raise dairy farm income and so forth the lobby invests to maximize these net economic returns in evaluating their chances of election politicians weigh the favorable effects of special interest money against the unfavorable association with the lobby and the social cost of the redistributive policy section i explores the lobby s problem it describes a formalization of mancur olson s discussion of the voluntary provision of public goods and optimal contributions by lobbies to political campaigns section ii describes determination of the equilibrium tariff positions of each politician in a political campaign

living wages protection for or protection from low wage workers living wage laws are touted as anti poverty measures yet they apply to only a small fraction of workers most commonly covering only employers with city contracts the apparent contradiction between broad anti poverty goals and narrow coverage suggests that goals other than poverty reduction may partly underlie living wage campaigns this paper considers the hypothesis that living wage laws act to maintain or increase rents among unionized municipal workers by raising the wages that city contractors would have to pay living wage laws may reduce the incentives for cities to contract out work that would otherwise be done by unionized municipal employees hence increasing the bargaining power of municipal unions and leading to higher wages for their members the evidence presented here from an analysis of cps data for 1996 2000 indicates that the wages of unionized municipal workers are indeed increased as a result of living wage laws covering contractors

will the aggregation approach affect energy efficiency performance assessment abstract aggregate energy is usually measured in the linear weighted summation of various energy types based on thermal dynamics laws this measurement is scientific and acceptable in the physics or energy engineering world however it implicitly assumes that all energy types are perfectly substitutable and thus may result in distorted conclusions in energy economy research in economics world production factors are usually non linearly aggregated using divisia approach which is derived from microeconomic theory and considers the heterogeneity and imperfect substitutability among various energies using which ruler to measure the aggregate energy the linear one or the others will certainly affect the conclusions and energy saving incentives of the economic agents inequitable energy aggregations may bring out speculations or discouraged behaviors according to china s current provincial energy efficiency performance assessment policy the central government assigned the target of reducing the national aggregate energy intensity by 20 in 2006 2010 to provincial authorities in 2006 and in july 2011 the central government formally released the provincial assessment results based on conventional linear aggregation approach coal equivalent our re examination review this policy and show that the official results are quite different to that based on divisia approach from the perspective of economics some local performances are overestimated and others are underestimated to raise the equity and incentive compatibility of the assessment we suggest the central take the imperfect substitutability or energy structure changes into consideration we also discuss the difficulties and deficiencies when using divisia aggregate approach

the newly industrializing countries in the international system explanations of the growth of the newly industrializing countries nics by neoclassical economists and dependency theorists neglect the role of politics in shaping development strategies different social configurations state structures and ideas about development help explain the divergent policy choices made by the export oriented east asian nics korea and taiwan and the more inward looking countries of latin america particularly mexico and brazil these different strategic choices in turn account for variations in the patterns of external dependency that characterize countries in the two regions

how does the implementation of the policy of electricity substitution influence green economic growth in china abstract to promote the level of electrification reduce environmental pollution and achieve the goal of clean energy usage and green economic growth in china the national development and reform commission and other eight departments jointly issued and implemented the policy of electricity substitution in 2016 electricity substitution aims to replace traditional fossil fuels such as coal and fuel oil with clean electric energy in different fields e g industry transportation and construction and deal with the pollutants at power generation however we still need to find out the exact impact of the policy of electricity substitution on energy saving and emission reduction in this paper we estimate the economically feasible increment of electricity demand according to different classifications in electricity substitution technology furthermore based on the input output model we discuss the relative influence of the policy of lectricity substitution the main conclusions are first the policy of electricity substitution alone is not adequate to reduce the dependence on fossil energy and environmental pollution under china s current power generation structure we should also increase the use of renewable energy second the power sector plays a leading role in stimulating economic output and the increasing electricity consumption due to the policy of electricity substitution can boost the green development of china s economy

a dynamic model of endogenous trade policy empirical evidence suggests that past levels of protection are significant determi nants of current levels of protection we investigate dynamic interactions among interest groups and resulting endogenous links between current and future trade policies we explore these intertemporal links in a small open economy in which lobbying and tariff policies are the outcome of a dynamic game among factor owners the model can generate cycles with prolonged periods of free trade and or prolonged periods of restricted trade i e persistent trade policies an interesting aspect of the environment is the role of lobbying as a partial

explaining price policy bias in agriculture the calculus of support maximizing politicians a model is developed to explain observed patterns of policy intervention in agriculture we analyze the interaction between political support seeking politicians and supportsupplying citizens society consists of a rural and urban group we determine the effects on transfers of relative group size disparities in income endowments between groups and the deadweight loss of redistribution the framework advanced is an alternative to that of the interest group model and is used to explain for example why the export sectors in developing countries are taxed more and why the united kingdom is less adamant for higher price supports than germany

an analysis of co2 emissions of japanese industries during the period between 1985 and 1995 this paper examines the factors that have an effect on co2 emissions produced by japanese industries between 1985 and 1995 by using input output tables the effects of environmental technological changes etc and production technological changes ptc on co2 emissions are considered separately furthermore backward and forward linkage effects in each sector that shows the extent to which each sector spreads or receives co2 emissions impacts across all of sectors will be calculated the results show that both types of technologies contributed to a decrease in co2 emissions during the bubble economy of the late 1980s but not during the recession of the early 1990s trade factors succeeded in decreasing co2 emissions in both periods thus trade structures facilitated the turning of japan into a net importer of co2 emissions between 1985 and 1995 the backward and forward linkage effects also decreased during the boom of the late in 1980s but not the recession of the early 1990s while the chemical products and electrical machinery sectors continued to reduce both effects this indicates that both sectors were relatively successful in decreasing their co2 emissions impacts between 1985 and 1995

consistent multi level energy efficiency indicators and their policy implications in order to cope with the global warming issue most of the asia pacific economic cooperation apec economies have made energy conservation policy a top priority in terms of their energy policies the energy efficiency indicators included in the present paper focus on the micro foundation aspects there are basically two types of energy efficiency indicators namely the economic thermodynamic energy efficiency indicators that use real gdp as the denominator and the physical thermodynamic energy efficiency indicators that are based on the output volume index while the common definitions and consistent methodology used in the present paper fulfill the iea pyramid eei concept the new methodology in this paper compares the decomposition effects between upstream and downstream industries when aggregating efficiency changes these decomposition effects can thereby provide valuable explanations for the energy conservation policy needed by energy policy and government administrators

industrial co2 emissions from energy use in korea a structural decomposition analysis abstract this paper attempts to quantify energy consumption and co 2 emissions in the industrial sectors of korea the sources of the changes in co 2 emissions for the years 1990 2003 are investigated in terms of a total of eight factors through input output structural decomposition analysis changes in emission coefficient caused by shifts in energy intensity and carbon intensity changes in economic growth and structural changes in terms of shifts in domestic final demand exports imports of final and intermediate goods and production technology the results show that the rate of growth of industrial co 2 emissions has drastically decreased since the 1998 financial crisis in korea the effect on emission reductions due to changes in energy intensity and domestic final demand surged in the second period 1995 2000 while the impact of exports steeply rose in the third period 2000 2003 of all the individual factors economic growth accounted for the largest increase in co 2 emissions the results of this analysis can be used to infer the potential for emission reduction in korea

energy efficiency achievements in china s industrial and transport sectors how do they rate abstract china is experiencing intensified industrialisation and motorisation in the world s largest emerging economy energy efficiency is expected to play a critical role in the ever rising demand for energy based on factual overviews and numerical analysis this article carries out an in depth investigation into the effectiveness of policies announced or implemented in recent decades targeted at energy conservation in the energy intensive manufacturing and transportation sectors it highlights nine energy intensive sectors that achieved major improvements in their energy technology efficiency efforts under the umbrella of the 11th five year plan these sectors performances reflect the effectiveness of china s energy conservation governance numerous actions have been taken in china to reduce the road transport sector s demand for energy and its ghg emissions by implementing fuel economy standards promoting advanced energy efficient vehicles and alternative fuels coal based energy saving technologies especially industrial furnace technologies are critical for china s near and medium term energy saving in the long run renewable energy development and expanding the railway transport system are the most effective ways to reduce energy use and ghg emissions in china fuel economy standards could reduce oil consumption and ghgs by 34 35 per cent

implicit policy preferences and the assessment of negotiable trade policy reforms abstract formal multilateral trade negotiations increase the pressure brought to bear on protectionist economies by foreign interests this paper explores the hypothesis that successful negotiations yield mixes of policy reforms which contribute to internationalist objectives but which minimally disturb the prior domestic political market equilibrium this disturbance is measured using weighted objective functions the weights in which embody revealed policy preferences governments are assumed to reflect these preferences in a strategic trade policy formation process which uses empirically based conjectures as to the responses of other governments and private agents the approach is applied to the negotiations on agricultural trade policy and in particular to the protectionist common agricultural policy of the european community

political systems and distortions an empirical study this paper studies empirically why price distortions are more prevalent in some countries than in others we find no significant difference between democracies and dictatorships but frequent regime changes reduce distortions political systems factional subordinate that encourage redistributive activities rda tend to have more distortions allowing for different effects of rda in democracies and dictatorships there is a positive and significant effect of rda on distortions in dictatorships in democracies distortions destroying lobbying seems more important since no significant relation between rda and distortions can be found

international capital markets and interest groups capital market integration has increased the scale and mobility of capital movements within and among nations to unprecedented levels integration is fairly recent frankel concludes from his review of the literature that barriers in the major world financial markets were sufficiently low that by 1989 financial markets could be viewed as being fully integrated the scale and mobility of capital flows among nations has numerous implications to currency values interest rates wealth and through current capital account linkages to relative product and factor prices capital flows that have real economic effects also affect the functioning of policy instruments and how effective they are in remunerating an interest group at the expense if any of others this paper provides insights into the process and linkages by which the integration of capital markets has altered economic policy through interest group pressures on government if economic policy is viewed as the outcome of interest groups seeking through the power of the state that which cannot be provided by the market alone then capital market adjustments that affect the return to policy instruments can also affect the returns to lobbying resources and hence the balance of political influence among the various groups 2 this type of explanation for economic policy has been forwarded under the rubric of models of rent seeking krueger 1974 3 the paper is organized as follows 4 selected historical evidence linking capital markets to pressures for legislation in the united states and other countries is briefly reviewed in some cases capital market adjustments have eased pressures for protection while in other cases adjustments either forced policy change because of a liquidity constraint or made unprofitable the lobbying for sustaining policy in face of these adjustments the discussion in the next section provides deeper insight into capital market lobbying linkages discussion focuses on the results from a simple model of rent seeking where government intervenes in markets and provides sector specific public goods

ex post assessment of china s industrial energy efficiency policies during the eleventh five year plan abstract china implemented a package of policies during the 11th five year plan 2006 2010 to improve industrial energy efficiency this assessment provides a methodology that establishes a causal relationship between policy implementation and energy conservation effects to enhance the confidence in the research findings this assessment applies two distinctive and independent approaches one top down and the other bottom up this assessment finds that industrial energy efficiency policies collectively achieved energy savings of 322 mtce 9 4 ej against the baseline scenario this accounted for 59 of the sector s total energy savings from 2006 to 2010 the remaining energy savings were realised through autonomous technology improvement 33 and sector level structural shift 8 correspondingly cumulative avoided co2 emissions realised through energy efficiency policies amounted to 760 million tons this assessment concludes that industrial energy efficiency policies were effective in realising energy conservation targets but energy conservation effects were not achieved in a cost effective way command and control measures were dominantly implemented with economic incentives and informational measures taking a complementary role while market based instruments did not play an important role as china is planning on implementing a nationwide emissions trading scheme special attention needs to be paid to policy interaction and coordination

a discontinuous mispricing model under asymmetric information we study a discontinuous mispricing model of a risky asset under asymmetric information where jumps in the asset price and mispricing are modelled by levy processes by contracting the filtration of the informed investor we obtain optimal portfolios and maximum expected utilities for the informed and uninformed investors we also discuss their asymptotic properties which can be estimated using the instantaneous centralized moments of return we find that optimal and asymptotic utilities are increased due to jumps in mispricing for the uninformed investor but the informed investor still has excess utility provided there is not too little or too much mispricing

decomposition of us manufacturing energy intensity and elasticities of components with respect to energy prices this paper proposes an analysis of changes in the us manufacturing energy intensity between 1974 and 1998 the starting point is a three term decomposition of an intensity index which evaluates annually the respective contributions of changes in industrial structure efficiency gains at the sectoral level and substitution between energy resources to aggregate productivity improvements then we study the time paths followed by each of these three components using spectral analysis techniques we show that they behave very differently as the structural influence plays a part mainly in the short run substitution between energy resources acts principally in the long run and the changes in sectoral intensity cause both trend variations and cyclical ones finally we focus on the effect of energy price evolution on each of the three components allowing energy price rises and decreases to have asymmetric effects we estimate both the long run impacts and the short run adjustments

multinational firms political competition and international trade policy this paper considers how the presence of multinational firms influences international trade policy that is determined as the outcome of political competition multinational firms have plants to protect in all policy jurisdictions and hence are more protectionist than national firms that at least have an interest in free trade in export markets nonetheless because of changed incentives for firms to provide political support for free trade and protectionist candidates an increased multinational presence via either merger or direct foreign investment has a liberalizing influence on trade policy copyright 1993 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

energy efficiency fallacies revisited abstract a number of governments including that of the uk subscribe to the belief that a national program devoted to raising energy efficiency throughout the economy provides a costless indeed profitable route to meeting international environmental obligations this is a seductive policy it constitutes the proverbial free lunch not only avoiding politically unpopular measures like outlawing taxing or rationing offending fuels or expanding non carboniferous sources of energy like nuclear power but doing so with economic benefit the author of this contribution came to doubt the validity of this solution when it was offered as a way of mitigating the effect of the opec price hikes of the 1970 maintaining that economically justified improvement in energy efficiency led to higher levels of energy consumption at the economy wide level than in the absence of any efficiency response more fundamentally he argues that there is no case for preferentially singling out energy from among all the resources available to us for efficiency maximization the least damaging policy is to determine targets enact the restrictive measures needed to curb consumption and then leave it to consumers intermediate and final to reallocate all the resources available to them to best effect subject to the new enacted constraints and any others they might be experiencing there is no reason to suppose that it is right for all the economic adjustment following a new resource constraint to take the form of improvements in the productivity of that resource alone as many others have argued any action to impose resource constraint entails an inevitable economic cost in the shape of a reduction in production and consumption possibilities there would be no free lunch in the last few years debate about the validity of these contentions has blossomed especially under the influence of writers on the western side of the atlantic in this contribution the author outlines the original arguments for questioning whether raised efficiency leads to lower consumption reports more recent developments and offers some insights as food for further thought