Using a simple model, this paper shows how a strict monetary rule exhibits characteristics similar to those of an exchange rate anchor, in terms of a lack of robustness in the presence of adverse expectations (bad dreams). More specifically, as an anticipated devaluation under an exchange rate...

A comprehensive empirical investigation is carried out to ascertain the import-reducing effect of trade protection barriers. We first present a statistical summary of the status of global trade protection. Then, based on a monopolistic competition trade model and 1994 cross-country data on trade...

The paper examines the direction of causality between total government expenditure and revenue in oil-dependent GCC countries by utilizing a cointegration and error-correction modeling framework, and by calculating a variance decomposition analysis. In addition, it presents impulse responses to...

This paper addresses concerns that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the exception of the GCC economies, has lagged behind in trade liberalization. This delay has adversely affected production efficiency and consumer welfare and could reduce the region`s ability to attract...

This paper empirically examines factors influencing consumers' evaluation and adoption intention of really new products. Combining construal level theory with literature on new product evaluation and adoption, we found an asymmetry in the conditional importance of benefit and cost, both as...

This paper investigates product-specific scale economies of banks with respect to off-balance sheet operations. The cost benefits from the non-separability of outputs available to banks that imply the role of OBS activities on bank scale economies are also examined. We further test whether the...

This study aimed to explore the combustion kinetics of organic matter in Huadian oil shale using thermogravimetric analysis. Increases in particle size or heating rate shifted the combustion process to a higher temperature, because of mass transfer resistance and thermal hysteresis. An...

In this paper, we investigate cross-correlations between interest rate and agricultural commodity markets. Based on a statistic of Podobnik et al. (2009), we find that the cross-correlations are all significant. Using the MF-DFA and MF-DXA methods, we find strong multifractality in both...

A general class of linearly extrapolated variance estimators was developed as an extension of the conventional leave-one-out jackknife variance estimator. In the context of U-statistic variance estimation, the proposed variance estimator is first-order unbiased. After showing the equivalence...