The paper examines the asymmetric behavior of the lending-deposit spread in South Africa over the period 1990M1 to 2010M7. The paper employs threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR) unit root tests to detect any asymmetries in the lending-deposit spread. We...

This paper provides empirical evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Portugal by applying autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach from 1971 to 2008. In order to capture Portugal’s historical experience, demographic changes and international trade on...

This paper specifies a model in which we investigate the interrelationship of economic growth, electricity consumption and foreign direct investment. We find that foreign direct investment and electricity consumption are only cointegrated when GDP is the dependent variable. With respect to...

We investigate the empirical validity of the monetary model of the exchange rate (Rand/Dollar=ZAR/$ ) using a technique (ARDL Bounds test) capable of testing for the existence of a long-run relationship regardless of whether the underlying time series are individually I(I) or I(0). Monetary...

In this paper, we assess whether trade among member countries of a regional trade agreement (intra-regional trade) contributes more to output growth than trade with nonmember countries (extra-regional trade). We use Granger causality tests to evaluate the trade-growth relationship in 13...

The paper provides empirical evidence of an EKC – a relationship between income and environmental degradation for Portugal by applying autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) to times series data. In order to capture Portugal’s historical experience, demographic changes, and international...

The paper re-visits the relationship between coal consumption and economic growth by including other supporting variables such as capital use and labor participation rate in Pakistan over the 1972-2009 period. The paper adopts an augmented neoclassical production framework. In doing so, for the...

The focus of this article is an alternative policy approach to bridging the digital divide, through organisational innovations that provide low cost Internet access in rural India. We use survey data from 500 individuals in four states of India: Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan, to...

We firstly introduce existing situations of development of electrostatic spraying technology both at home and abroad. On the basis of such problems as serious drift, loss and deterioration of environment during orchard spraying in Xinjiang, we design and develop a new electrostatic sprayer which...

The urban heat island (UHI), together with summertime heat waves, foster’s biophysical hazards such as heat stress, air pollution, and associated public health problems. Mitigation strategies such as increased vegetative cover and higher albedo surface materials have been proposed. Atlanta,...