black market exchange rate and the productivity bias hypothesis abstract previous studies that tested the productivity bias hypothesis employed the official nominal exchange rate in constructing the real rate hence in testing the productivity bias hypothesis in this paper we show that if official real exchange rate does not support the productivity bias hypothesis the real black market rate does this conjecture is tested by using data from chile colombia and costa rica

reforms of environmental policies in the presence of cross border pollution and public private clean up we construct a two country model where pollution from production is transmitted across borders pollution abatement is undertaken by both private producers and the public sector we characterize nash optimal levels of the policy instruments in the two countries emission taxes and funds allocated for public abatement activities we examine the implications of a number of multilateral policy reforms one of our findings is that the magnitude of the beneficial effect of a reform depends on the scope of the reform if it is restricted to a subset of policy instruments then the efficacy of environmental policy reform can be greatly undermined

the spatial and temporal diffusion of house prices in the uk abstract this paper provides a method for the analysis of the spatial and temporal diffusion of shocks in a dynamic system we use changes in real house prices within the uk economy at the level of regions to illustrate its use adjustment to shocks involves both a region specific and a spatial effect shocks to a dominant region london are propagated contemporaneously and spatially to other regions they in turn impact on other regions with a delay we allow for lagged effects to echo back to the dominant region london in turn is influenced by international developments through its link to new york and other financial centers it is shown that new york house prices have a direct effect on london house prices we analyse the effect of shocks using generalised spatio temporal impulse responses these highlight the diffusion of shocks both over time as with the conventional impulse responses and over space

the cost of a licensing system regulation an example from canadian prairie agriculture agricultural legislation and the resultant regulation that usually ensues can often change redirect or even stop the adoption of yieldincreasing technologies that have the potential to generate substantial economic rents this paper offers an example from the canadian wheat sector of how a variety licensing regulation had totally stopped the adoption of a yield increasing technology that had the potential to increase the economic rents flowing to western canadian farmers by 15 25 percent this regulation further prevented high internal rates of return greater than 50 percent from being generated by research into this new technology

tariffs versus quotas in the presence of imperfect competition and cross border externalities we consider trade policies intended to affect the production of a foreign monopolist that generates negative externalities we derive the optimal tariff and optimal import quota and examine which policy measure should be used to maximize domestic welfare we find that if the domestic government does not have full information on the foreign firm s production method and if cross border externalities exist import quotas are in some cases preferable to tariffs otherwise however tariffs are preferable to quotas jel classification f13 f18 droits de douane versus contingentements quand il y a concurrence imparfaite et effets externes trans frontaliers les auteurs examinent les politiques commerciales qui veulent affecter la production d un monopoleur etranger qui engendre des effets externes negatifs on definit le droit de douane optimal et le contingentement optimal des importations et on determine quelle politique devrait etre utilisee pour maximiser le niveau de bien etre au niveau national il appert que si le gouvernement national n a pas une information complete sur les methodes de production de la firme etrangere et si les effets externes traversent les frontieres un contingentement des importations est preferable dans certains cas a des droits de douanes autrement cependant les droits de douane constituent la solution preferable

regional house price interactions in the uk 1975 81 a cross spectral analysis 1986 regional house price interactions in the uk 1975 81 a cross spectral analysis applied economics vol 18 no 9 pp 1011 1023

are asian real exchange rates stationary by applying the newly developed nonlinear stationary test advanced by kapetanios et al journal of econometrics 112 2003 359 in examining the stationary property of 11 asian real exchange rates this paper rejects unit root in 8 us dollar based and 6 japanese yen based rates whereas the augmented dickey fuller adf test has led to no rejection at all

the gains from agricultural research under distorted trade abstract this paper explores the gains from research issue within the framework of a product which is traded with the aid of export subsidies because of the taxpayer burden associated with increased exports it is quite possible for the returns to research to be negative a decline in the rate of protection through a rising world market leads to a linear increase in the gains from research while a rise in the internal support price will cause a non linear and negative response if the supply shift is pivotal and a linear and negative response if it is parallel finally global returns to research will be higher than individual country returns and will always be positive in a free trade environment

pairwise convergence of district level house prices in london this paper investigates the long run convergence of district level house prices in greater london using the recently developed pairwise approach this methodology allows for unit root tests to be conducted on all n n 1 2 possible pairs of house price differentials across the n boroughs of london thus avoiding the need to choose a base borough of reference or the regional average as the benchmark it also permits the estimation consistently of the proportion of the pairs that are stationary and convergent using hm land registry house price data for 33 inner and outer london boroughs over the period 1996q1 2009q2 no overall multidistrict long run convergence is found some evidence of district level segmentation of house prices in greater london is found with the sub group of the boroughs contiguous to the city of london district and the wider central sub market emerging as the clubs with the highest rate of convergence

do changes in the fundamentals have symmetric or asymmetric effects on house prices evidence from 52 states of the united states of america abstracttime series studies that have tried to establish the long run relationship between house prices and economic fundamentals have been criticized due to low power of their cointegration tests on the other hand those who have used panel data and panel tests to increase the power have found mixed results both groups have assumed that changes in the fundamentals have symmetric effects on house prices in this article we use nonlinear ardl approach to cointegration and error correction modelling and quarterly data from each of the states in the us to show that changes in the fundamentals have asymmetric effects on house prices in the short run as well as in the long run cointegration between house prices and fundamentals is established in 30 states and in district of columbia

genetically modified crops and product differentiation trade and welfare effects in the soybean complex a partial equilibrium four region world trade model for the soybean complex is developed in which roundup ready rr products are weakly inferior substitutes to conventional ones rr seeds are priced at a premium and costly segregation is necessary to separate conventional and biotech products solution of the calibrated model illustrates how incomplete adoption of rr technology arises in equilibrium the united states argentina brazil and the rest of the world row all gain from the introduction of rr soybeans although some groups may lose the impacts of rr production or import bans by the row or brazil are analyzed u s price support helps u s farmers despite hurting the united states and has the potential to improve world efficiency

the black market exchange rate vs the official rate in testing ppp which rate fosters the adjustment process abstract in testing the purchasing power parity theory ppp researchers hardly pay attention to the speed with which the exchange rate adjusts to a change in relative prices in this paper we show that the speed of adjustment is faster when the black market exchange rate is used in testing the ppp as compared to the official exchange rate this could be another reason as to why central banks should unify the two rates

evaluating returns to agricultural research a review this paper reviews and compares the most common approaches used to evaluate public agricultural research investment ex post studies fall into two major groups a consumer and producer surplus analyses estimating average rates of return to research and b production function analyses estimating marginal rates of return to research ex ante studies fall into four groups a those using scoring models to rank research activities b those employing benefit cost analysis to establish rates of return to research c those using simulation models and d those using mathematical programming to select an optimal mix of research activities

harmonization and optimal environmental policy in a federal system with asymmetric information abstract should environmental policy be set at the federal level to counter incentives for environmental dumping when states act non cooperatively assuming that environmental damage costs are known only by state governments i ask whether this asymmetry of information could rationalize a federal government harmonizing environmental policies across states i show that asymmetric information narrows the difference in environmental policies across states relative to full information but does not justify harmonization the welfare loss from harmonization rises sharply with the variance in damage costs across states and can erode the benefit of setting policy at the federal level to counter environmental dumping

tariffs and the adoption of clean technology under asymmetric information this paper examines the effect of a tariff on the decision of a foreign monopolist to adopt clean technology which reduces the flow of a negative cross border externality the clean technology increases the marginal cost of production relative to the dirty technology but only the firm knows the extent of the increase under complete information despite its protectionist motivation the importing country s optimal tariff induces the firm to adopt the clean technology if and only if it is globally efficient to do so under incomplete information this efficiency property is disrupted and the firm biases its choice in favour of dirty technology jel classification f13 f18 ce memoire examine l effet d un tarif douanier sur la decision d un monopoleur etranger d adopter une technologie qui reduise le flux d effets externes negatifs a travers la frontiere la technologie propre accroit le cout marginal de production par rapport a ce qu il serait avec une technologie salissante mais seule l entreprise connait la taille de cet accroissement en regime d information complete malgre ses motivations protectionnistes le tarif optimal du pays importateur entraine l entreprise a adopter la technologie propre si et seulement si c est globalement efficient de le faire en regime d information incomplete cette propriete est perturbee et l entreprise tend a faire ses choix en faveur de la technologie salissante

public and private returns from joint venture research an example from agriculture public research institutions are turning increasingly to the private sector for additional financial support such a trend in the short run lessens the need for public research expenditures but may in the long run prove to be very costly to the economy as a whole this is because private funding increases the chance that the direction of research will shift so that private benefits are enhanced such a shift is especially costly if public research funds are then not forthcoming that would have the potential of producing the maximum level of benefits to the economy as a whole a case study of canadian barley research is used to illustrate this problem

purchasing power parity in the presence of foreign exchange black markets the case of india the empirical validity of b ppp eb as a long run constraint between india and the us is examined in the preesence of foreign exchange black markets in a triariate model the official exchange rate is found to be coinergrated with both the price ratio and the black market exchange rate both the official exchange rate and price ratio respond to correct short run departures from b ppp eb also both the official and the black market exchange rates respond to correct departures from their own equilibrium relation the two sources of endogeneity in the official rate follow rate follow as indian authorities aimed to stabilize domestic prices and reduce uncertainty about the dollar price of rupees

purchasing power parity in the long run a test of the dollar pound exchange rate 1890 1978 this paper tests the purchasing power parity ppp hypothesis by analyzing t he long run tendency of the dollar pound exchange rate using data sin ce 1890 two different models are considered 1 a na ive model and 2 a modified monetary model the conditions of propor tionality and symmetry cannot be rejected when using the naive model the final results using the monetary model however indicate that t he existence of permanent deviations from ppp cannot be ruled out copyright 1987 by ohio state university press

asymmetric responses of house prices to changes in the mortgage interest rate evidence from the australian capital cities we examine the dynamic and asymmetric responses of house prices to changes in mortgage interest rates in australia from january 1995 to november 2017 we propose a threshold intervention model to d

international trade rules and environmental cooperation under asymmetric information with asymmetric information about local costs relative to international benefits of direct environmental policy countries will rely too heavily on trade policy in controlling cross border externalities in negotiated agreements the unilateral externality policy chosen before negotiations by an exporter provides a signal about its local cost modifying the information used in negotiations the greater the exporter s incentive to use an externality tax as a second best trade instrument the better the signal consequently exogenous limits on the unilateral use of trade policy in the absence of environmental cooperation can diminish the informational problem and improve the performance of prospective environmental agreements copyright 1997 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

the political economy of public research investment and commodity policies in agriculture an empirical study the paper tests a political economy theory of simultaneous government decision making on income redistribution through commodity policies and on public research investment in agriculture we use data from 37 countries on agricultural protection and public agricultural research expenditures pari the empirical results are consistent with the political economy hypotheses the analysis suggest that structural changes in the economy have important effects on the political incentives for governments not only to subsidize or tax farmers but also to invest in public agricultural research furthermore the analysis supports the hypotheses that the impact of such structural changes on government decision making on pari is non linear and conditional on other factors regarding the impact of political institutions the results suggest that more democracy neither leads to more distortionary transfers agricultural protection nor to lower investment in public goods pari

the impact of income economic openness and interest rates on housing prices in china evidence from dynamic panel quantile regression the rapid growth of housing prices has attracted the attention of the whole of society in china this article adopts the dynamic panel quantile regression to investigate the impact of income econo

understanding the financing of innovation and commercialization the case of the canadian functional food and nutraceutical sector we develop and implement two models to show what factors affect a firm s decision to seek external financing and the level of financing obtained in the canadian functional food and nutraceutical sector data from a national survey of functional foods and nutraceutical firms in canada conducted by statistics canada in 2003 is used for this analysis firm size being privately held and engaging in contractual arrangements have negative impacts on the likelihood of a firm seeking external funding while firms which are intensively involved in the functional food and nutraceutical sector with greater prospects for business expansion and or involved in partnerships are more likely to seek external financing larger firms and those involved in functional food and nutraceutical research and development receive a greater amount of capital when they decide to raise capital however firms focused on functional foods and nutraceuticals as opposed to more diversified firms and those involved in product developm

is there long run convergence among regional house prices in the uk this paper investigates the long run convergence of regional house prices in the uk existing studies have failed to reach a consensus on whether or not regional house prices exhibit long run convergence with each other the application is proposed of a new test involving unit root testing of the first principal component based on regional national house price differentials using mix adjusted quarterly data for 1973 2006 it is found that the first principal component is stationary this suggests that all uk regional house prices are driven by a single common stochastic trend further analysis suggests that those regions that are more distant from london exhibit the highest degrees of persistence with respect to deviations in house price differentials

judging agricultural policies a survey this survey provides a structured picture of 40 years of literature which uses welfare economic tools to judge agricultural policy challenges and developments of normative agricultural policy analysis are discussed in an easily accessible graphical framework it is shown how the literature has gone from examining a very small discrete set of simple policies to a much broader often continuous set of policies that combine policy instruments simultaneously the importance of the pareto criterion used to explore the limits of how government can affect welfare is revealed moreover given the importance of the objective of income redistribution in agricultural policy agricultural economists have often departed from the purely efficiency oriented tradition in economics it is shown that they have tried to incorporate equity considerations by either adding these criteria as constraints to the social welfare function or directly incorporating these criteria in the functional form of the social welfare function

testing for long run convergence across regional house prices in the uk a pairwise approach this article tests for stochastic convergence in uk regional house prices using the recently developed pairwise approach this approach allows for unit root tests to be conducted on all n n 1 2 possible pairs of house price differentials across n regions in the uk thus avoiding the need to choose a base region or alternative national figure as the benchmark using mix adjusted house price data from 1973 q4 to 2008 q4 the main finding is that there is no evidence of long run convergence among regional house prices or of an equilibrium relationship towards which uk regional house prices have a tendency to gravitate

cross border pollution terms of trade and welfare we construct a two good general equilibrium model of international trade for two small open economies where pollution from production is transmitted across borders governments in both countries impose emission taxes non cooperatively within this framework we examine the effect of changes in the degree of cross border pollution on nash emission taxes emission levels and welfare we do so under two scenarios when changes in cross border pollution do not affect domestic pollution non strategic and when they do strategic we also examine the effect of changes in international terms of trade on pollution and welfare when cross border pollution is non strategic

the gains from research into tradable commodities this paper develops a model for assessing the aggregate level and distribution of the benefits of reseach into tradable commodities it estimates gains to australia and to the rest of the world from research into the wool and wheat industries

trading rules and the environment does equal treatment lead to a cleaner world abstract in this paper we consider a three stage game in the context of a competing exporters model to compare and contrast the effects of discriminatory and uniform most favored nation mfn tariffs on countries choice over environmental standards for varying degrees of pollution spillovers because of the presence of punishment effects and stronger own and cross tariff effects we find that discrimination yields higher standards than mfn and free trade independently of the extent of pollution spillovers when pollution is local and incentives to free ride on other countries abatement efforts are weak we show however that welfare is larger under mfn than under discrimination in a dynamic setting we consider the impact of symmetric and asymmetric treatments on the sustainability of an international environmental agreement iea and obtain that multilateral cooperation is easier to sustain under discrimination than under mfn or free trade

domestic farm policy and the gains from trade this paper assesses the extent to which the gains from agricultural trade are influenced by both u s domestic policy and tariff and nontariff trade barriers it shows theoretically that the volume of trade can be substantial but the gains nonexistent empirical results along with rent seeking arguments support the no gains from trade hypothesis

cointegration and tests of purchasing power parity nonstationarity in the levels of spot exchange rates and domestic and foreign price indices makes the use of conventional tests of the absolute version of purchasing power parity ppp inappropriate if ppp is true inter country commodity arbitrage ensures that deviations from a linear combination of spot exchange rates and domestic and foreign price levels should be stationary under these conditions exchange rates and price levels should form a cointegrated system we find the null hypothesis of no cointegration cannot be rejected for all five countries thus violating the long run absolute version of ppp

market distortions and benefits from research the benefits from cost reducing research and their distribution under a range of price policies are compared with those that would arise in the absence of the policies while any price policy affects the distribution of research benefits the net national or world benefits may be reduced lef unchanged or increased depending on the nature of the policy and the significance of the country in the world market for the commodity some implications for decisions on price policies and for distortions in incentives for the allocation of resources to research are raised

the politics of underinvestment in agricultural research this paper develops a political economy framework that determines the factors causing underinvestment in public research expenditures governments are unable to fully compensate for unequal income distribution effects of research because of either their inability to make credible commitments or ofdeadweight costs associated with compensation

war news and black market exchange rate deviations from purchasing power parity wartime south vietnam abstract this study evaluates the impact of war news on black market exchage rate deviations from purchasing power parity ppp in wartime vietnam the greater the number and intensity of u s troop engagements with the enemy the greater the confidence in the south vietnamise government and its fist currency during the period of heaviest u s military operations from 1967 to mid 1969 about 20 25 percent of the value of the piaster on the black market can be attributed to this confidence factor the results suggest that where variables to measure the news are available short run deviations from ppp can be readily explained

public pollution abatement regional capital mobility and tax competition the environmental economics literature has ignored the effects of the interaction among capital mobility private and public pollution abatement and cross border pollution on environmental policies we analyze these effects in the context of a general equilibrium model we find among other things that i when countries are symmetric the presence of public pollution abatement makes nash equilibrium pollution taxes efficient while lump sum taxes remain inefficient and ii when countries are asymmetric both taxes are inefficient and the nash equilibrium pollution taxes depend mainly on the direction of capital mobility factor intensity and the degree of cross border pollution these results indicate that policy cooperation is more important when countries are different