China is transforming itself and the world. This article highlights some of the critical issues facing China, which are discussed in detail by leading scholars in the area in this collection of surveys on the Chinese economy.

Urban environments have become an increasingly important part of the world's ecosystems, and the characteristics that enable animals to live there are not fully understood. A typical urban characteristic is the high level of ambient noise, which presents difficulties for animals that use vocal...

Coal-measure kaolinite is a main gangue mineral in coal deposits. Because of the colloidal particle size, the kaolinite is very stable in coal tailing slurries, leading to a high turbidity of recycled water in coal washing plants. The coagulation of colloidal kaolinite in aqueous suspensions is...

Contracts for Difference (CFDs) have existed for less than twenty years and the market has grown significantly up to the period before the recent international crises. This paper presents an analysis of how CFDs have affected equity market volatility in Ireland. EGARCH models are used to uncover...

We construct and develop a new financial market stress index using twenty-three headline U.K. financial data series. A logistic regression framework provides a parsimonious representation of financial market stress in the U.K. based on the market dynamics around the time of Bank of England...

This research examines the effects of sovereign downgrades on European financial markets between 2005 and 2012. Vector Autoregression (VAR) techniques are used to investigate the presence of contagion effects after a sovereign downgrade across equity indices, five year Credit Default Swaps (CDS)...

This research constructs and develops a financial stress index based on European financial markets. The integration of numerous sovereign states has created difficulty identifying stress in any one single financial component, but incorporating twenty-three headline European stress indicators...

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have existed since the late 1980s, but were first traded on commodity markets in the early 2000s. Their inception has been linked by some market analysts with the large commodity price increases and volatility evident between 2007 and 2009. This research analyses...

This study examines the effects that Contracts for Difference (CFDs) have had on the Australian equity market, either as an accelerant for mispricing, or as a source of increased market functionality through the addition of a new tradable product and increased liquidity. The Australian...

New Zealand shares a wealth of common interests and experiences with Australia. This has tempted some to assume that these economies form an 'Economic Club', in which one would expect to identify common aggregate trends and growth experiences. In this paper we present results that test, and...