Month: June 2018

EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENT OF 6 MAJOR CONTAINER PORTS IN THE WEST AFRICA REGION

G. KONSTANTINIDIS

M.Sc. University of Piraeus

giannkonstant@gmail.com

T. PELAGIDIS

Professor, University of Piraeus & NR Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, US. 21, Lambraki Ave., GR-18533

pelagidi@unipi.gr.

Abstract

Container terminal efficiency is a critical factor in the contemporary global trade. We apply the DEA and SFA methods to evaluate efficiency of 6 major ports in the West Africa region to investigate whether these ports can become the main hubs of container transport to African inland in the future. The DEA and SFA methods were applied to a number of inputs such as total quay length; total terminal area, number of quayside cranes, number of gantry cranes and number of reach stackers and single output, to measure efficiency.

Keywords: Transportation Economics, Ports, Efficiency, Sea Trade

JEL classification: R41, R11
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INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL INNOVATIONS ON THE DEMAND FOR MONEY IN AUSTRALIA USING DOLS AND FMOLS AND COMPARING THEIR PREDICTIVE POWERS

Payam MOHAMMAD ALIHA

Ph.D candidate, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia

payammaliha@gmail.com

Tamat SARMIDI

Associate Professor Dr. at Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia

tamat@ukm.edu.my

Fathin FAIZAH SAID

Dr. at Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia

fatin@ukm.edu.my

Abstract

In this paper we apply two different estimation methods, namely DOLS and FMOLS to estimate real demand for money in Australia with the inclusion of financial innovations. We use a conventional money demand function that was enriched with a proxy for financial innovations. This sum of the number of cheques, credit cards, charge cards, ATM and direct entry payment was included in the regression model to proxy the effect of financial innovations on the money demand. The results indicate that the estimated coefficient of TPI using DOLS is not significant yet it is highly significant using FMOLS and it bears positive sign so that 1 percent increase in TPI leads to the increase of money demand by 0.24 percent. Also, using “Root Mean Squared Error” as the benchmark for predictive power, we conclude that FMOLS is superior to DOLD when it comes to forecasting.

Keywords: financial innovations, money demand, dynamic OLS, fully modified OLS, forecast

JEL classification: E41, E42, E52

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EFFECTS OF FISCAL CONSOLIDATION ON REGIONAL ECONOMICS RESILIENCE: INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN METTERS?

Christophe FEDER

Professor, University of Aosta Valley, Str. Cappuccini, 2, Aosta, Italy

c.feder1@univda.it

Vinko MUŠTRA

Assistant professor, Faculty of economics, business and tourism, University of Split, Cvite Fiskovića 5, Split, Croatia

vmustra@efst.hr

Abstract

After the Great Recession, in the European Union (EU) emerges an heterogenous level of both national fiscal consolidation and regional economics resilience. The paper uses the EUROSTAT database of EU-27 at NUTS 2 level over the period 2000-2009 to test how fiscal consolidation affects the regional economics resilience. We find that the fiscal consolidation and regional economic resilience are negatively correlated. Moreover, we show that the negative effect of taxation is higher than the positive effect of public spending.

Keywords: Regional economic resilience, Fiscal consolidation, Institutions, European Union

JEL classification: R12, E62, H23, H72
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