information technology and productivity evidence from country level data this paper studies a key driver of the demand for the products and services of the global it industry returns from it investments we estimate an intercountry production function relating it and non it inputs to gdp output on panel data from 36 countries over the 1985 1993 period we find significant differences between developed and developing countries with respect to their structure of returns from capital investments for the developed countries in the sample returns from it capital investments are estimated to be positive and significant while returns from non it capital investments are not commensurate with relative factor shares the situation is reversed for the developing countries subsample where returns from non it capital are quite substantial but those from it capital investments are not statistically significant we estimate output growth contributions of it and non it capital and discuss the contrasting policy implications for capital investment by developed and developing economies

the effect of industry delocalization on global energy use a global sectoral perspective abstract sectoral production technologies differ largely across countries so do sectoral energy intensities hence shifts in production locations within global sectors possibly caused by environmental regulations are likely to have an impact on aggregated energy usage and emissions applying a logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition we decompose changes of sectoral energy use from 2001 2011 into three effects sectoral value added energy efficiency and delocalization which in this paper is conceived as a structural effect within sectors between regions our results show that although economic activity and technological progress dominate global energy use developments for most sectors a delocalization towards less efficient production places is ongoing it contributes to annual increases in energy use in the range of 1 6 especially manufacturing sectors which are among the most energy consuming sectors reveal significant increases in energy usage due to delocalization since 2004 this development is accompanied by declining energy intensity improvement rates indicating that delocalization induces second order effects

the impact of domestic trade on china s regional energy uses a multi regional input output modeling to systematically reveal how domestic trade impacts on china s regional energy uses an interprovincial input output modeling is carried out to address demand derived energy requirements for the regional economies in 2007 based on the recently available data both the energy uses embodied in final demand and interregional trade are investigated from the regional and sectoral insights significant net transfers of embodied energy flows are identified from the central and western areas to the eastern area via interregional trade shanxi is the largest energy producer and interregional embodied energy deficit receiver in contrast to guangdong as the largest energy user and surplus receiver by considering the impacts of interregional trade the energy uses of most eastern regions increase remarkably for instance shanghai hainan zhejiang beijing jiangsu and guangdong have their embodied energy requirements 87 49 19 97 13 64 12 60 6 46 and 6 38 times of their direct energy inputs respectively in contrast the embodied energy uses of some central and western regions such as inner mongolia shanxi xinjiang shaanxi and guizhou decrease largely the results help understand the hidden network linkages of interregional embodied energy flows and provide critical insight to amend china s current end reduction oriented energy policies by addressing the problem of regional responsibility transfer

value added content of trade a comprehensive approach abstract this letter provides an approach to decompose the value added content of trade into foreign and domestic components when intermediates are traded the measure adds to the existing literature by considering both exports and imports simultaneously in this way this approach generalizes the commonly applied vertical specialization measures based on exports only which are encompassed

payoffs from investment in information technology lessons from the asia pacific region abstract this paper examines the factors influencing investment in information technology it and the payoffs from investment in it use on productivity and economic growth in 12 asia pacific countries for 1984 1990 it finds a significant positive correlation between growth in it investment and growth in both gdp and productivity over the seven year period countries with higher growth rates in it investment achieved consistently higher growth rates of gdp and productivity this finding is consistent with the notion of it led development it challenges the so called productivity paradox or the notion that investment in it has not paid off in productivity improvements

bank foreign lending mandatory disclosure rules and the reaction of bank stock prices to the mexican debt crisis this paper examines the effects of the mexican debt mora torium in august 1982 on bank valuation the mexican default resulted in the passage of regulations requiring public disclosure of bank fo reign lending exposure the authors find that even in the absence of public disclosure regulations investors were able to discriminate a mong banks with different levels of exposure copyright 1987 by the university of chicago

research note determinants of country level investment in information technology investment in information technology it is an important driver of economic growth and productivity in the united states and other developed countries but as yet it is not shown to be a significant driver in developing countries previous research suggests that it investment and complementary assets are insufficient for developing countries to realize economic benefits this research note examines the factors that influence it investment in developed and developing countries to determine how greater investment might be stimulated to achieve productivity gains we use the flexible accelerator model of investment and find that it is a good predictor of country level it investment we also extend the model to include country level variables and find a negative relationship between it investment and interest rates but positive and significant relationships between investment openness to trade and telecommunications infrastructure when we include interaction effects between national income levels and country variables we find that the impacts of interest rates size of the financial sector teledensity and intellectual property rights are strongest in shaping it investment for developed countries in contrast we find that the impact of openness to trade is greater for developing countries as is the size of government and education levels

market reaction to the thrift bailout abstract this paper examines the share price reaction of depository institutions to the financial institutions reform recovery and enforcement act firrea passed august 1989 we find a favorable share price response for thrifts which could be attributed to enhanced depositor confidence reduced risk premiums on deposits reduced agency costs or reduced loan losses among other reasons however the effects of firrea on commercial banks were negligible an intra industry analysis revealed that the variation in share price responses could not be explained by cross sectional differences in thrift capital levels

who produces for whom in the world economy la part du commerce en produits intermediaires dans le commerce international appele aussi commerce vertical n a cesse d augmenter depuis vingt ans cet article propose une nouvelle mesure du commerce international le commerce en valeur ajoutee qui re alloue les flux commerciaux aux pays et aux secteurs produisant les intrants en 2004 le commerce vertical represente 27 du commerce total les repartitions geographique et sectorielle du commerce en valeur ajoutee sont tres differentes de celles du commerce standard la difference entre le commerce en valeur ajoutee et le commerce standard est plus importante dans le cas du commerce regional mais ce n est pas plus le cas en asie qu en amerique

energy use embodied in china s construction industry a multi regional input output analysis abstract the rapid urbanization process was bound to produce considerable energy demand in china which increased the pressure on sustainable development this study employed a multi regional input output model to investigate energy use embodied in the consumption and interregional trade of china s construction industry results show that as a typical demand driven sector the construction industry consumed 793 74 million tons of coal equivalent in 2007 which is equal to 29 6 of china s total national energy consumption regions have been divided according to different driving forces for energy increment shanxi liaoning heilongjiang henan and sichuan were identified to be driven by their extensive construction activities and inefficient construction process interregional imports of the construction industry represented a resource dependent geographical distribution energy flows are from resource abundant areas in the central part to resource deficient areas in the eastern coast by contrast energy exports represented a regional discrete distribution which mainly transferred energy in the form of labor mobility and service supply this study provided insight into the current energy consumption status of provincial construction industry from both regional and sectoral perspectives which can be a basis for energy policy making and implementation

an examination of the impact of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 on commercial banks and savings and loans this paper evaluates the effects of events leading to the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 the evidence suggests that the call for reform by president reagan s housing commission and the senate passage of the bill produced positive abnormal returns to stockholders of large savings and loans and commercial banks stockholders of small s ls and banks on the other hand generally experienced negative abnormal returns furthermore when hopes of passage of the act faded significant negative positive abnormal returns were experienced by stockholders of large small s ls and banks this study examines the impact of the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions gsgdi act of 1982 on commercial bank and savings and loan stockholder returns the gsgdi act represents one of two major revisions of the financial system over the last twenty years the other being the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 19801 the proposal for such a change reflected the growing inadequacy of the regulatory structure of financial institutions to adapt to rapid changes in technology shifting consumer demands for financial services and extremely volatile interest rates efforts to reform the financial system resulted in passage of the gsgdi act of 1982 which included provisions seeking to improve both the implementation of monetary policy and the degree of equity in the regulation of financial institutions such improvements were intended to reduce the operational and financial risk of financial institutions a central issue in the economics of regulation is whether regulatory actions benefit the economic agents they are intended to benefit a large body of literature exists which examines the economic effects of regulation much of this literature has utilized the concepts and methods of welfare economics to assess the extent

the wealth effects of the risk based capital requirement in banking the evidence from the capital market abstract the imposition of risk based capital requirements has been advocated by some regulatory authorities as a means of mitigating the incentive problems created by fixed premium deposit insurance however their imposition also constitutes a requirement to maintain an exogenously influenced capital structure which may adversely affect the values of the firms involved this paper examines the wealth effects of the announcement of the basle committee s intention to impose across international boundaries a pre determined minimum level of risk adjusted capital we find that in general the equity values of a sample of large publicly traded banks decrease at the time of the announcement further those banks with capital levels which are deficient relative to the mandated levels suffer the largest relative losses

an overview of the driving forces behind energy demand in china s construction industry evidence from 1990 to 2012 abstract the rapid urbanization in china has produced a large demand for energy in the past decades it is therefore urgent to have an understanding of the driving forces behind the energy increase in the construction industry this study applies structural decomposition analysis sda to quantify the effects of driving factors from insight into consumption and production the results show that the energy consumption trajectory of china s construction industry is the result of competition between the effect of increasing final demand and improvement in energy efficiency although the effect of consistent efforts in structure optimization by the central government was significant from 2007 to 2012 the potential to save much energy still lies in structure optimization in energy production and final demand according to the projection structural upgrades in economy would be the most important factor for energy reduction in 2020 scenario analysis further indicated that the percentage change of energy increments in 2020 can be reduced at 22 of 2010 level under the optimistic scenario sector aggregation analysis revealed that more aggregates would increase uncertainty to some extent and result in a misinterpretation of the importance of the underlying factors according to the quantitative analysis in this study the percentage change of total embodied energy consumption in the construction industry should be limited below 25 of 2010 level at the end of the 13th five year plan

the regulation of international lending imf support the debt crisis and bank stockholder wealth abstract in a recent article cornell landsman and shapiro 1986 provide insight in to the impact of selected regulatory responses to the international debt crisis on bank stock prices the current study concentrates on the reaction of bank shareholders to the legislative events that ultimately led to the passage of the international lending supervision act ilsa and to greater u s support of the international monetary fund imf while cornell landsman and shapiro restricted their legislative analysis to when the relevant bills were passed this study also examines when such legislation was introduced in the house or the senate the empirical results indicate that the introduction of such legislation materially influenced bank stockholder expectations in contrast to cornell landsman and shapiro the effect of these events on the risk return complexion of banks is measured furthermore the sensitivity of bank stockholders reactions to the above legislative events is appraised in light of banks latin american loan portfolio risk analysis of the expected impact of greater imf support and the ilsa on bank stockholders supplements the work of cornell landsman and shapiro by providing additional insight into the expected impact of such legislation on bank industry risk unlike cornell landsman and shapiro this study provides evidence that the joint effect of a greater imf quota and the ilsa was a net benefit to stockholders analysis suggests that the perceived benefit of a greater imf quota was apparently diminished by the ilsa however stockholders evidently perceived a general decrease in the risk of the banking industry as a result of the legislative events

virtual carbon and water flows embodied in international trade a review on consumption based analysis in the globalised world greenhouse gas ghg emissions and water consumption are becoming increasingly important indicators for policy and decision making development of footprint assessment techniques over the last decade has provided a set of tools for monitoring co2 emissions and water flows in the world an overview of the virtual co2 emissions and virtual water flow trends in the international trade based on consumption perspective is performed in the current work the review of the recent literature indicates that 1 producers and consumers are located at various places in different parts of the world and consequently they are significant differences in virtual ghg greenhouse gases emissions 2 the us and the eu have high absolute net co2 imports 3 china and some other fast developing countries as india brazil and others are exporting countries and increasingly carry the load of exports of virtual ghg including co2 emissions and virtual water that are triggered due to consumption of the related goods in the importing countries 4 by importing products produced with lower carbon emission intensity and less water consumption than in the domestic industry international trade can reduce global environmental pressure results from analysis indicate that future actions should be focused onto two main areas i to steer regions towards self sufficiency based on more efficient processes and by combining production of surrounding countries ii to develop a mechanism with shared market of virtual carbon and virtual water between trading partners regionally and internationally

multiplicative structural decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy and emission intensities abstract aggregate intensity indicators such as the ratio of a country s energy and emissions to its gdp are often used by researchers and policymakers to study energy and environmental performance this paper analyzes the relationship between energy or emissions and value added or gdp from a different viewpoint namely from the demand rather than the production perspective using the input output i o framework the aggregate embodied intensity aei defined as the ratio of embodied energy or emissions to embodied value added can be defined at the aggregate final demand category and sectoral levels the total aggregate intensity can be presented as a weighted sum of the aeis at the final demand category or sectoral level changes of the aei at different levels can be decomposed to identify the driving forces using multiplicative sda a study using the latest 2007 and 2012 datasets of china indicates that a its aggregate intensity of co 2 emissions was mainly determined by the aei in investment and b the emission intensity effect generally contributed the most to the aei ratio changes at different levels the proposed framework can be applied to other aggregate intensity indicators and extended to multi country region analysis

bank acquisition and stockholders wealth abstract bank mergers are a control mechanism for reallocating resources because regulation has a pervasive influence on bank decision making unlike industrial firms bank mergers are subject to regulatory approval bank shareholder returns are analyzed at the time of federal reserve approval of mergers to assess whether regulation reduces differential information between bank managers and outsiders or reduces managers ability to take advantage of differential information empirical tests indicate there are negative returns to acquiring banks for external mergers but normal returns for internal mergers emergency mergers generate positive returns before and upon announcement more negative results occur in states with branching restrictions and in cases when equity financing is used

the influence of energy efficiency on other natural resources use an input output perspective abstract energy efficiency improvements reduce the costs of energy services and under some circumstances increase the available income this generates an additional increase of consumption of goods and services that need additional energy to be produced distributed and consumed this effect is known as the indirect rebound effect in the literature however beyond this additional increase of global energy consumption there is also a variation of the use of other natural resources due to the same mechanism this effect which we label as direct and indirect cross rebound effect is generally not considered by academia nor policy making when designing and implementing energy policies this research conceptualizes this effect develops a methodology for its estimation and provides estimates for the spanish economy results show that an energy efficiency in households could increase the use of minerals and water while reducing the use of energy fossil fuels and metal ores in spain these reductions however are lower than the expected ones from an input output perspective leading to positive direct and indirect cross rebound effects between 64 6 and 74 7 for energy equivalent to direct and indirect rebound effect 48 63 for fossil fuels 84 89 for metal ores backfire for non metallic minerals 147 134 and extreme backfire for water 1191 1628

the impact of an unexpected political resignation on exchange rates based on the theory of economic regulation political shocks are examined as unexpected events in the light of the efficient markets hypothesis and a political resignation is taken as an example of such an event the hon j dawkins mp resigned as the federal treasurer of the australian government on friday 17 december 1993 there have been a number of studies on the effect of economic and political events on stock prices this study considers the impact of dawkin s resignation on the foreign exchange rates of the major traded currencies in australia the traditional event study methodology based on the market model and the lesser used multivariate methodology of seemingly unrelated regressions are used for the analysis the sample of currencies is considered both as a portfolio and on an individual basis with efficiency of the currency markets being tested for anticipatory event related and persistence effects the paper concludes by contrasting the findings of the two methodologies the study repo

e commerce readiness institutional environment and international competitiveness a systematic cross country analysis of e commerce activity reveals that although physical infrastructure explains much of the variation in basic internet use e commerce activity also depends significantly on a supportive institutional environment chief among the characteristics of such an environment are national respect for the rule of law and secondarily the availability of credible payment channels such as credit cards these results suggest that an institutional environment that facilitates the building of transactional integrity is critical to the development of e commerce

the impact of the 1980 depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act on market value and risk evidence from the capital markets the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 1980 brought about major changes in the banking industry this study employs capital market data to examine the act s impact on the relative competitive positions of distinct classes of firms within the industry the evidence supports the hypothesis that federal reserve system banks profited from the regulatory change at the expense of nonmember banks and savings and loans copyright 1988 by ohio state university press

composition of energy outflows embodied in the gross exports of the construction sector abstract energy sustainability has great importance in the development of the economy and society since energy is a necessary driving force for economic growth the construction sector accounts for a greater percentage of global energy consumption than most other sectors the structure of exports in the current trade pattern has affected the transmission of sectoral embodied energy through changes in regional economies this paper uncovers the composition of productions for gross exports and examines embodied energy from the viewpoint of value added through a case study in the construction sector multi regional input output tables have been used to process the data relevant to economic trade and energy input while the production of gross exports in 40 countries has been decomposed into the exports of value added trade and the exports of vertical specialisation trade based on data from world input output tables the decomposition and reorganisation clearly show the pathways and composition in the trade activities of gross exports the embodied energy of value added exports accounted for 60 90 of gross exports in the construction sectors of 37 countries the framework for sharing production in the construction sector still dominated the connections among many countries especially the trade relationships between large economies in the process of vertical specialisation trade the foreign value added of the construction sector was still limited by significant events such as the global financial crisis the construction sectors were ranked between 5 and 11 in all 35 domestic sectors in 34 countries as measured by the total export of embodied energy so the creation of high value added is enhanced by improvement in energy efficiency in the construction sector however the reduction of energy consumption in the construction sector may indirectly increase energy consumption in its upstream sectors because of the connection between exports and related production the balance between energy consumption and creation of value added in exports is an important consideration for government supervision and sectoral development local construction markets need to strengthen their ability in the supply of intermediate goods which benefits value added exports and domestic demand moreover developing national and international supply chains can positively offset the impact of the imbalanced distribution of globalised production