A survey on the requirements of applying the framework of inflation targeting in Iran's economy
February 2011
Harmful impacts of high chronic inflation on economy have always required the governors and monetary officials of countries to eliminate the problem and its negative economic consequences. Different methods and monetary systems have been applied to serve the purpose, namely various kinds of exchange rate targeting and monetary variables improvement rate targeting. Studies have shown that in order for...
An evaluation of exchange rate models by carry trade
February 2011
We evaluate the effectiveness of economic fundamentals in enhancing profit of carry trades. We simulate carry trades in Japanese yen and Swiss franc against six target currencies based on forecasts of exchange rate models of economic fundamentals. The performance results are compared against those of the benchmark random walk and AR (1) models. We find that carry trades perform better in risk-adjusted returns and...
Doing business with China: Is China keeping its legal WTO obligations?
February 2011
Is China keeping its legal world trade organization (WTO) obligations? On December 11, 2001, China became the 143rd member of the WTO after 15 years of negotiations. The accession package approved in Qatar for the People's Republic of China includes commitments on transparency and predictability, tariffs, trading rights and distributions, service agreements, TRIPS, import licensing importation and...
Nature and association of public and private investment: Public policy implications for South Africa
February 2011
South Africa has a low investment-to-GDP ratio compared to other developing countries. The share of government investment in the total investment has also been declining. In this context, the paper uses quarterly data from 1960 to 2005 to analyse the nature and relationship between public and private investment in South Africa. The findings of the study have strong policy implications and indicate that...
The Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004 and retirement planning in Nigeria
February 2011
The surest way most old people who have retired from active service solve their financial and other problems in Nigeria is mostly through their pension packets. It is however sadly observed that these monies are usually unreachable to them as at when due because of the manner in which government and other employers handle pension issues. Because of this, some persons who are due for retirement manipulate and...
On multicollinearity in nonlinear econometric models with mis-specified error terms in large samples.
February 2011
The Cobb-Douglas model is a common occurrence in econometrics and other areas of research. Earlier results show that the consequence is more serious when a multiplicative error plagued data set is fitted with an additive error based model than vice-versa. In this study, involving large samples, we investigate the impact of multicollinearity in nonlinear econometric models with mis-specified error terms. .As...
Does the Zimbabwean exchange rate follow a random walk: January 2000 -December 2008?
February 2011
The Purchasing Power Parity [PPP] theory says the price of internationally traded goods should roughly be the same anywhere in the world once the price is expressed in a common price. The question however is that does this theory hold in an economy that has experienced long period of high inflation. In this study, monthly data from January 2000 to December 2008 was used. Unit root tests were applied to the...
Behavioral governance, accounting and corporate governance quality
January 2011
The article explores the concepts of behavioral governance and behavioral accountability both of which look at the quality of the behavior of organization members, especially directors, as the foundation for sound corporate achievement. This author posits that the effectiveness of governance in general and corporate governance in particular is dependent on the behavioral effectiveness of those who govern and...
Estimating the impacts of global system for mobile telecommunication (gsm) on income, employment and transaction cost in Nigeria
January 2011
This study investigated the impact the Global System for Mobile Telecommunication (GSM) has made on the provision of employment opportunities; income of the masses and transaction cost of various economic activities of the masses. Linear regression analytical techniques were used for data analysis. The study made use of primary data obtained from 1,000 respondents’ from 20 selected communities in Ilorin...
Has education (human capital) contributed to the economic growth of Nigeria?
January 2011
Education, generally believed, contributes to the growth of an economy through acquisition of training and skills. For over 160 years, Nigeria had embarked on implementation of education policies affecting primary school, secondary school and tertiary institutions. This study used an econometric model to examine the contributions of primary education, secondary education and tertiary education to economic...
The impact of fiscal policies on consumers’ spending
January 2011
The economic impasse experienced in the UK is being counteracted by aggressive fiscal policies geared toward encouraging spending on consumables. Using the retail price index and data obtained from the Office of National Statistics, this paper assessed the effectiveness of the government’s fiscal measures to stabilize the economy through spending. The article developed a consumer spending model (CSM)...
Economic innovation challenges of financial and tax auditing
December 2010
This paper is concerned with the economic innovation challenges of financial and tax auditing. Current economic conditions provide particular challenges for the Thai government to establish new practices towards auditing profession advancement. The ‘Federation of Accounting Profession and the Revenue Department’ both claim to promote and protect the public interest. The tax auditing is the...
Agricultural trade liberalization and food security in Nigeria
December 2010
It is a fact that the unilateral trade liberalization of 1986 did not produce any sustainable impact on the development of agriculture in Nigeria. It is however, not clear whether the Uruguay Round Agreements on Agriculture (URAA) and the optimism of the Doha Round and its Agenda (DRA) has done any better. Even then Nigeria’s external trade has been conducted within the framework of neutrality or open...
Cost-push shocks and inflation: An empirical analysis from the economy of Pakistan
December 2010
The present study was designed to examine the validity of cost-push and monetary diagnosis of inflation through empirical analysis. The empirical analysis had been conducted by using the technique of ordinary least square using annual data for the periods from 1971 to 1972 and 2006 to 2007. Before applying OLS, the stationarity of the data was checked by augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test. Regression analysis...
Staff welfare and productivity in Patani local government council, Delta State Nigeria
December 2010
The paper examined staff welfare and organization’s productivity, using Patani Local Government Council in Delta State, Nigeria as a reference. The methodology was primarily qualitative and involved use of In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) to secure information from employees at the Council. Motivational models and conflict theory of Dahrendorf were used as the theoretical...
An application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to investment portfolio selection in the banking sector of the Nigerian capital market
December 2010
The importance of investment to the individual, a nation and the world economy cannot be over emphasized. Investment involves the sacrifice of immediate consumption to achieve greater consumption in the future. The Nigerian banking sector has made tremendous success in the recent past. All the banks that approached the capital market through public offers and right issues to raise their capital base recorded...
Exchange rate volatility, stock price fluctuations and the lending behaviour of banks in Nigeria
November 2010
Following the recent global economic crisis, so many macroeconomic maladjustments have unfolded in the Nigerian economy. First, the naira exchange rate depreciated sharply and became more volatile than any other time in nearly a decade; the stock market indices have dived very south relative to their previous year's levels and banks, because of their exposure to foreign credit lines, the stock market by...
Determinants of interest rates in Nigeria: An error correction model
November 2010
This paper analyzes the determinants of interest rate in Nigeria within the framework of a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), using quarterly data between first quarter of 2000 and last quarter of 2008. The study found that the Treasury Bill Rates (TBR) in Nigeria and its hypothesized determinants are generally I (1) series, with two cointegrating equations existing among their linear combinations. Results...
The market reaction to the appointment of an outside CEO: An empirical investigation
November 2010
The primary objective of this study is to examine whether there is a market reaction around the announcement day of an outside Chief Executive Officer (CEO) appointment. A significant market reaction around the announcement would indicate the strategic importance of a CEO and his/her contribution to future firm prospects. Our dataset consists of 158 US firms over the period 1993 to 2005 that appointed an...
A dynamic panel data analysis for relationship between private and public investment in R and D
November 2010
This paper investigates the relationship between private and public investment in R and D, while taking into account the effect of several instruments policies such as subsidies and taxes. We design a new look of knowledge spillovers and R and D cooperation to explain the contribution of public and private R and D on growth. We propose a heterogeneous dynamic panel data model to consider the effect as well as...
Importance of financial education in making informed decision on spending
October 2010
The discourse of spending is important if finance is of concern. Those who save money realize the fact that wise spending leads to saving and hence investing. A household that spends unwisely can end up complaining on insufficient funds attained. Governments and organizations which spend unwisely will always cry for budget deficit. Therefore this paper provides a discussion on the importance of financial...
Neglected and underutilized species (NUS): A panacea for community focused development to poverty alleviation/poverty reduction in Nigeria
October 2010
The boom in the financial system and economy, and challenges of “leaving no one behind”. Poverty becoming dynastic that is, the “poor cannot sleep because they are hungry, and the rich cannot sleep because the poor are awake” in everybody’s interest to have an INCLUSIVE society. Using the World Bank’s estimates (based on 1993 Purchasing Power Parity) about 2.6 billion or...
Customer complaints in banks-nature, extent and strategies to mitigate
October 2010
The present paper analyze the extent of complaints in three types of bank groups, namely, public sector banks, Indian private sector banks and foreign banks. The numbers of complaints are the maximum in public sector banks and the maximum complaints are related to deposit, credit cards and housing loans. The present study is related to 2006 - 2007 to 2007 - 2008.The paper intends to solve these complaints...
Dynamic modeling of stability of money demand and minimum wages
October 2010
Dynamic modeling is a vital policy instrument in measuring macroeconomic stability of the economy and monetary planning. This study was conducted to explore long term dynamic behavior of the narrow money supply to investigate the nexus between money demand and minimum wages and their impact on macroeconomic stability in Sri Lanka. The empirical approach was directed to estimate a Vector Auto regression (VAR)...
Economic growth convergence among Middle East Countries
October 2010
The main result of early neoclassical growth models supports the convergence of economic growth among countries. Given that countries converge to their steady state growth path, countries with lower economic growth will move faster than rich ones based on the neoclassical growth models. A tremendous amount of research studies have investigated the growth convergence among different regions and countries....
Estimation of the equilibrium interest rate in CFA countries in Africa
October 2010
This paper treats determination of neutral or natural interest rate in CFA zone and under zone UEMOA and CEMAC. Methodology used is based on a generalized Taylor rule derived from the goals of monetary policies and budgetary attaches with a quadratic function of reaction which takes into account a target of inflation, public expenditure and interest rate. The estimates highlight a neutral interest rate...
Estimating the growth-maximizing tax rate for Cote d’Ivoire: Evidence and implications
September 2010
This paper investigates the optimal tax burden for the Ivorian economy. To address this issue, the empirical analysis was conducted using both Scully and quadratic regression models and annual data covering the period from 1960 to 2006. These models suggest that the growth-maximizing tax rate is in the range of 21.1 to 22.3% of GDP. At that tax rate, the economic growth rate would be around 6.2% instead of...
Exploring the causality relationship between trade liberalization, human capital and economic growth: Empirical evidence from Pakistan
September 2010
There is a rapidly growing literature on the interaction between trade liberalization and economic growth but few have analyzed the relationship between trade liberalization, human capital and economic growth. This paper attempts to investigate empirically the causality relationship between trade liberalization, human capital and economic growth in Pakistan by employing co-integration and granger causality...
External reserve holdings in Nigeria: Implications for investment, inflation and exchange rate
September 2010
The paper investigates the impact of change in external reserve positions of Nigeria on domestic investment, inflation rate and exchange rate. Using a combination of ordinary least square (OLS) and vector error correction (VEC) methods, it was observed that change in external reserves in the country only influences foreign direct investment (FDI) and exchange rates and no influence of it was found on domestic...
Some empirical literature evidence on the effects of independent directors on firm performance
September 2010
This work is a review of existing literature on the effectiveness of independent directors at ensuring superior firm performance. The study finds that the evidence in this regard are not only mixed, but may also be culture-bound because while some studies, especially most of those structured and conducted in the US, find no positive relationship between the presence of independence directors on the board and...
The impact of three major banking statutes on bank failures in the U.S., 1970 - 2008
August 2010
Bank solvency questions and bank failures in the U.S. have become issues of renewed concern in recent years. Given the significance of bank solvency and bank failures for the health and stability of the U.S. economy, it is imperative to have insights into factors that systematically influence bank failures, including major federal government banking statutes that have been implemented. Accordingly, this...
Is the Senegalese accelerated growth strategy pro-poor?
August 2010
The main purpose of Senegalese accelerated growth strategy (AGS) is to boost economic growth so as to make poor people share its benefits. In any given economy, there is a relationship between growth, poverty reduction and income distribution. In this paper, based on a dynamic computable general equilibrium model and pro-poor measures, the author experiment the quality of AGS pattern. It turns out that...
Can monetary policy enhance remittances for economic growth in Africa? The case of Nigeria
August 2010
Remittances are a vital component of liquidity flows in Nigeria. This paper evaluates the role of monetary policy in enhancing remittances for economic growth. The vector autoregressive methodology is applied with two stage deductions. The monetary policy rate first impacts intervening variables- exchange rate, interest rate, inflation etc- which in turn impact remittance flows. The data set are tested for...
Application of data mining techniques in stock markets: A survey
July 2010
One of the most important problems in modern finance is finding efficient ways to summarize and visualize the stock market data to give individuals or institutions useful information about the market behavior for investment decisions. The enormous amount of valuable data generated by the stock market has attracted researchers to explore this problem domain using different methodologies. Potential significant...
Monetary policy conduct: A hybrid framework
July 2010
This paper examines whether a small-open-economy, DSGE-based, New-Keynesian model can provide a natural framework for monetary policy conduct with the use of a hybrid monetary-policy regime. Allowing for some inflation inertia, a small-open-economy version of the Calvo sticky-price model to investigate hybrid inflation/price-level targeting was developed. This paper explores the proprieties of monetary policy...
A direct formulation of implied volatility in the Black-Scholes model
June 2010
The inverse problem of option pricing, also known as market calibration, attracted the attention of a large number of practitioners and academics, from the moment that Black-Scholes formulated their model. The search for an explicit expression of volatility as a function of the observable variables has generated a vast body of literature, forming a specific branch of quantitative finance. But up to now, no...
Relative responsiveness of trade flows to changes in exchange rate and prices in selected ECOWAS countries: Does Orcutt hypothesis hold?
June 2010
This paper examines the elasticities of both export and import models in selected ECOWAS countries employing quarterly series from 1980Q1 to 2007Q4. Specifically, the objective of the paper is grounded in the need to evaluate the relative responsiveness of trade flows to changes in real effective exchange rate and prices among these countries. The empirical evidence from this paper indicates evidence of long...
Globalization in India: With special reference to the 1990s
May 2010
The paper describes the process of economic integration in India and the benefits that the economy received from the same, especially in the era of 1990s. Internationalization of capital flows (represented by FDI inflows) and internationalization of trade flows (represented by trade openness) are used as the indicators for this study. The paper also explores the interface between FDI inflows and trade...
Education and economic performance: Lessons from West Africa
May 2010
The study of economic growth across countries has been of utmost interest to economists explaining the various factors that contribute to the growth and development of countries. Thus, in recent times “human resources have been recognized to constitute the ultimate basis for the wealth of nations. In other words, while capital and natural resources are passive factors of production, human being are the...
Waves of technological innovations and the end of the information revolution
April 2010
The article is about new views on the theory of “long waves” and especially from the point of view of technological progress, importance of which is stressed. It developed a new conception of waves of technological innovations in a modern society (from 1600 AD). The last 5th wave (based on a progress in informatics and telecommunications) is just coming to an end. Today economic crisis (2008) must...
The essential infrastructures’ preparation assessment for establishing the electronic stock exchange in Iran
April 2010
Establishing an electronic stock exchange market can be a perfect example of new technologies and IT utilization in the stock market in Iran and thus it can pave the way and provide the opportunity for all walks of life to invest in the stock exchange market. The essential infrastructures’ preparation assessment for opening the electronic stock exchange in Iran helps us identify the essential...
Cointegrating and causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in ECOWAS countries
March 2010
The aim of this paper is to re-examine the cointegrating and causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in the ECOWAS countries. To this end, we use the Pesaran et al. (2001) approach to cointegration and the procedure for non - causality test of Toda and Yamamoto (1995). Data are from the World Bank (2007) and cover the period 1960 - 2005. We show that there is a positive long -...
Stock market prices and the random walk hypothesis: Further evidence from Nigeria
March 2010
The weak form hypothesis has been pointed out as dealing with whether or not security prices fully reflect historical price or return information. To carry out this investigation with the Nigerian stock market data, we employed the run test and the correlogram/partial autocorrelation function as alternate forms of the research instrument. The results of the three alternate tests revealed that the Nigerian...
What corporate social responsibility reporting adds to financial return?
February 2010
Using a Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) for panel data, this study investigates the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on financial performance, for 154 European firms between 2000 and 2008. The CSR index reveals whether or not the firm published a social report for year t. Statistical evidence shows that this index is negatively and significantly associated with the expected return on...
Information technology, financial deepening and economic growth: Some evidence from a fast growing emerging economy
February 2010
We empirically assess the role of information technology and financial deepening in Qatar’s fast growing economy. Our analysis follows the vector-error-correction modeling technique that is capable of exploring long-run relations and short-run causal dynamics. We further investigate the common permanent components of the cointegrating system to identify the main driving...
Budget balance through revenue or spending adjustments? An econometric analysis of the Ivorian budgetary process, 1960 - 2005
January 2010
This paper uses annual data for the period of 1960 - 2005 to investigate the causal relationship between government revenues and spending in Côte d’Ivoire. The empirical findings reveal a positive long-run unidirectional causality running from revenues to expenditures. This implies that achieving fiscal consolidation should focus more on reducing government spending rather than raising...
Analysis of the importance of general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT) and its contribution to international trade
January 2010
The establishment of trade organizations requires a number of provisions. However, the negotiators wanted to create an institution in which trade issues could be analyzed on a multilateral basis. Since its enforcement date on 1st January 1948, GATT has given international trade a new face. The international trade barely regulated before 1947, has since then become well structured and organized through the...
Is intervention effective after all?
January 2010
This study examines the effectiveness of direct official intervention in terms of whether the intervention by the Central Bank in the foreign-exchange market does offer effective or lasting instruments for exchange rates. The study is confirmatory research since it offers a descriptive survey of the impact of the Central Bank’s intervention on exchange rates across several economies. The paper makes key...
Is India the panacea to the global crisis?: A multi-dimentional approach
December 2009
The need for flexibility in business and pricing models came out as the strongest requirement of (Chief Executive Officers’) CEOs at the Dataquest-Nasscom roundtable discussion. Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2009 was one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the year, with the industry waiting for answers and insights from global leaders on how to survive the ongoing wrath of the downturn. As...
The challenges of energy supply for Sierra Leone’s economic development
December 2009
Energy problems in developing and under developed countries are serious and widespread. Lack of access to sufficient and sustainable supply of energy affects over 85% of the population in these countries. Over 3 billion people are without electricity and a similar number remains dependent on fuels such as animal dung, plant residue, kerosene, wood and charcoal as a source of fuel for lighting and cooking....
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