In a competitive electricity market with highly fluctuated electricity price, local distribution companies (LDCs) need to purchase electric power from several energy markets, such as spot markets, long-term tolling agreements and forward contracts, to maximize profits and minimize risks....

The consensus in growth literature has recognized the significant effects of institutions (including social capital and political institutions) towards economic growth. Utilizing the World Value Survey (WVS)’s trust variable that has often been used to represent social capital, and employing...

In this paper we investigate the relevance of the Balassa-Samuelson effect to the determination of regional inflation in China, for the period 1985 – 2000. To do this, we first construct annual measures of Chinese inflation and industry input on regional and sectoral basis. Then we generalize...

As part of its monetary policy strategy, the European Central Bank has formulated a reference value for M3 growth. A pre-requisite for the use of a reference value for M3 growth is the existence of a stable demand function for that aggregate. However, a large empirical literature has emerged...