This paper examines the effect of secondary and tertiary education on the level and growth of real GDP per-capita to explain the increasing gap of average level of real GDP between the ‘Mid-West’ and the ‘Non MidWest’ in the United States.  Using the data for fifty one states in the United States between 1980 and 2010, this paper finds that both secondary and tertiary education have significant positive effect on the level of real GDP per-capita. However, tertiary education has a higher effect on the level of real GDP per-capita compare to the secondary education. Moreover, tertiary education has a higher effect on the level of real GDP per-capita in the ‘Non Mid-West’. This paper also finds that tertiary education has a positive effect on the growth of real GDP percapita in the ‘Non Mid-West’. This effect is negative for the secondary education. This paper doesn’t find any significant effect of secondary and tertiary education on the growth of real GDP per-capita in the ‘Mid-West’.

Many empirical researches have been dedicated to study the impacts of MNCs on host nations’ growth and trades; however, the consensus among them is still a far reaching destination. Among all aspects of the impact of MNCs, the externalities toward the local firms have lately gained the most attention. By using Thailand’s firm level database combined with an I/O table at the most disaggregate level, this paper is designed to empirically investigate the externalities from the presence of foreign-controlled plants toward the performances of local plants, who reside in identical industries (Horizontal FDI spillovers) / in the related industries (Vertical FDI spillovers). In the study at the overall manufacturing sector, we find that the participation of foreign plants in supplying industries significantly increases the productivity of local plants. In capital and labor intensive industries, we find that there is a strong evidence of positive externalities from the foreign plants’ participation in the downstream industries. Interestingly, the performances of local plants in natural based industries are not significantly influenced by the presences of foreign plants either in the same or related industries.

This study evaluates and compares the efficacy of two competing approaches to value-at-risk for determining the transaction exposure of a multinational enterprise (MNE) conducting business in six specific currencies covering the 2011-2012 time period.  These approaches are: 1) traditional value-at-risk (VaR), also called the variance-covariance approach, and 2) modified value-at-risk (MVaR).  Specifically, the maximum 1-day holding period losses for these two approaches are estimated and compared to provide practical information to assist MNEs in accurately estimating their transaction exposure.  It is found that traditional VaR may significantly underestimate transaction risk.  These findings also provide MNEs critical information for determining if they should, or should not, hedge this risk.  If they opt to hedge, they will, perforce, need to consider the real cost of hedging as well as which hedging technique to employ.

After 1980s, the long-term macroeconomic instability in Turkish Economy has become a serious problem within financial liberalization. Recent institutional changes in Turkish financial market drove us to reexamine the dynamic relationship between the financial instability and macroeconomic instability. The aim of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between economic instability and financial instability for Turkish Economy. The data used in the study are quarterly and cover the period of 1998-2012. In this study, GDP and M2Y/GDP were used as the macro-economic indicator and financial indicator, respectively. Kalman Filter Technique among various algorithmic approaches was used to get economic and financial instability indicators.  After getting both indicators, Box-Jenkins models of both variables were statistically estimated by using Kalman Filter. The relationship between economic instability and financial instability was examined by using Granger Causality test. Consequently, in the short-term, economic instability causes financial instability and financial instability causes economic instability.

The work presented here aims to show different strategies in order to increase the replacement rate obtained by a worker at retirement age. Usually, these strategies are set in a deterministic approach, but in this work we assume that the expected returns of the funds have a stochastic behavior. For this purpose, we take as basis the current accumulation model from a representative Latin American country as Mexico, from which we undertake sensitive analysis in order to optimize the asset allocation of the portfolio, the amount of the contribution rate and the age of retirement, to obtain a target replacement rate. The results suggest that a well-diversified portfolio, an age of retirement of 68 and a contribution of 10% of the salary, is the most effective strategy to follow.

Real estate markets around the world have undergone dynamic changes over the past decades, due to the globalisation and internationalisation of cross-border investments. This paper disentangles the factors that influence the determinants of cross border real estate investments in Asian countries, particularly in South Korea and Singapore, from the perspective of cultural value - Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI). 200 survey samples were collected from these two countries, measuring the investors’ intention to participate in cross-border real estate investment based on two factors; financial factors and security factors. These samples were examined with reference to their reciprocal link with UAI, using logistic binary regression. The outcome of research shows that Singaporean investors, who exhibit a lower UAI, are inclined to be influenced by financial factors rather than security factors, and are more receptive towards cross-border real estate investment than Korean investors. The implication of these findings are not only limited to establishing a conceptual model for the determinants in these two countries, but to meet the imperative needs of academics and practitioners, who wish to effectively manage the regional development of this new trend – cross-border real estate investments.

This paper focuses on the impact of the financial crisis on the productivity of thirty American banks. We have used CCR, BCC, and Malmquist models using data for 5 years. The models study the effects of technological improvements during the years after the financial crisis on national banks and regional banks. Total factor productivity growth rate is positive and technological efficiency is improved and has influenced more than technology to total factor productivity change over the entire sample period. The Malmquist index summary of banks’ average TFPCs shows average annual total factor productivity growth rates are 12.4%, 1.7%, and 2.1% for national banks, state banks, and Arkansas banks, respectively.

Income inequality is an important socio-economic issue, which has deep implications on different aspects of an economy. Sometimes it is argued that, limited access to the opportunities for economic growth is one of the main reasons for persistent income inequality. Theoretically, such argument makes sense in a highly competitive market place. This issue has been discussed in Bergh and Nilsson (2010), Kim and Lin (2011), Benedict (2011), Acar and Dogruel (2012), Stevans (2012) among others. Using panel Cointegration method, this paper explores existence of the long-run relationships between income inequality and two variables that limit access to opportunity like, level of education and female participation in labor force of developing countries. Granger causality test is also  done to get an idea about precedence and underlying dynamics of these variables.

This paper discusses factors influencing Botswana women students’ attitudes to business ownership and barriers thereto. It addresses the gap in existing literature on women’s entrepreneurship in developing countries which predominantly report on entrepreneurship by uneducated, poor rural women in the informal sectors.  Data was obtained in December, 2010 and July 2011 from a survey of seventy six University of Botswana women students and two focus group discussions with ten of these women in December 2011 and April 2012.  A majority (78.9 per cent) of the respondents hold positive attitude towards business ownership and consider it a rewarding economic option. Not surprisingly, their sociocultural status in accessing land and “shortage of money” were listed as major impediments to business start-up (84 per cent). In conclusion, building of awareness among women through education, training, and the media about business ownership as an economic option is suggested.