The impact of exchange rate uncertainty on trade flows is still the center of attention in international economics. A few studies that have looked at this effect in Hong Kong have used either aggregate data between Hong Kong and the rest of the world or between Hong Kong and several of her major...

This paper explores the impact of profitability on depth of outreach in microfinance institutions, a trade-off between which is commonly known as ‘mission drift', using a unique panel database containing 4--6 years' observations from 409 MFIs in 71 countries. The concerns for ‘mission drift'...

This paper examines whether parents exhibit gender preference in the allocation of family resources to their adult children. Gender preference is defined in the context of an altruistic model for inter-vivos transfer from parents to children extended to include educational investment. Data from...

Employing data for 1981--2009, this paper examines the factors influencing the volatility of state output, using India as a case study. The analysis appears to suggest that high income states exhibit relatively higher output volatility. At the state-level, the proximate determinants of a decline...

A prolific theoretical and empirical literature has examined the relevance of structures and institutions to public utility performance, with a particular emphasis on the discrete role of ownership. The empirical findings are inconsistent and mostly indeterminate. A narrow emphasis on ownership...

The electricity generation sector is considered the most competitive segment of the industry and has undergone significant reforms in recent years. Liberalization, market opening and privatizations have characterized, with country-specific variations, the European electricity supply market. This...

The current challenges facing the energy sector cast doubt on the universal applicability of a wholly privately-owned, competitive and independently-regulated energy industry. In this paper, we discuss these challenges and ask why it is that they have led to the emergence of new forms of public...

Changes between state and market production of public services can be analysed as ‘pendulum’ swings, reflecting political struggles. The extensive re-municipalisations in the water sector and France and the energy sector in Germany provide evidence on this question. This is not the result of...

This paper offers a selective review of research on the existence and effects of prosocial behavior among individuals who work in public organizations. We first present evidence from the empirical literature documenting the importance of such phenomena and their features. We then discuss...

We test the hypotheses of industry return rates either gravitating around or converging towards a common value in Taiwan and New Zealand. We adopt various econometric approaches. The results are then nested in a meta-analytic framework together with those of the past literature. Various kinds of...