Nlandu Mamingi

Equity and bond flows to Latin America and Asia: the role of global and country factors

Abstract This paper investigates the factors motivating the large capital flows to a number of developing countries in recent years. We use monthly US capital flows to nine Latin American and nine Asian countries to analyze the behavior of bond and equity flows. Employing a panel data approach, we find that although global factors—the drop in US interest rates and the slowdown in US industrial production—are important in explaining capital inflows, country-specific developments are at least as important, especially for Asia. We also find that equity flows are more sensitive than bond flows to global factors, but that bond flows are generally more sensitive to a countrys credit rating and secondary market debt price.

Inspections, pollution prices, and environmental performance: evidence from China

In environmental economics, monitoring and enforcement issues have attracted relatively little research effort. Moreover, the bulk of the literature on these issues has been of a theoretical nature. Few have empirically analysed the impact of monitoring and enforcement activities on the environmental performance of polluters. Moreover, all existing studies have been performed in the context of developed countries. A purpose of the current paper is to partially fill this important gap by exploring the impact of both inspections and pollution charges on the environmental performance of polluters in China. While pollution charges represent an important pillar of the Chinese environmental regulatory system, our results indicate that inspections dominate and better explain the environmental performance of industrial polluters.

Incomplete Enforcement of Pollution Regulation: Bargaining Power of Chinese Factories

Only a limited number of papers haveempirically examined the determinants of themonitoring and enforcement activities performedby the environmental regulator. Moreover, mostof these studies have taken place in thecontext of developed countries. In this paper,we empirically examine the determinants of theenforcement of pollution charges in China.More precisely, we seek to identify thecharacteristics which may give firms more orless bargaining power with local environmentalauthorities pertaining to the enforcement(collection) of pollution charges. Firms fromthe private sector appear to have lessbargaining power than state-owned enterprises.Firms facing an adverse financial situationalso appear to have more bargaining power.Finally, we also show that the higher thesocial impact of a firms emissions (asmeasured by the presence of complaints), thesmaller the bargaining power of the firms withlocal environmental authorities.

Saving-investment correlations and capital mobility: The experience of developing countries

Abstract This paper estimates saving and investment correlations for 58 developing countries in order to assess the degree of capital mobility in the Feldstein-Horioka sense for these countries. Using a new estimation technique, fully modified ordinary least squares, that simultaneously corrects for serial correlation, endogeneity, and sample bias (asymptotically), the study finds that many developing countries are financially integrated in the long run. Moreover, the estimation results do show that saving-investment correlations for middle-income countries tend to be lower than those for low-income countries.

The impact of prices and macroeconomic policies on agricultural supply: a synthesis of available results

This paper reviews the literature dealing with the link of agricultural prices and macroeconomic policies to agiicultural supply with particular emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the study echoes the stylized facts on price elasticities underlined in previous literature reviews, the paper points out that our understanding of the quantitative dimensions of agricultural supply response is weak given the importance of this assumed response for growth, poverty alleviation, and the environment Indeed, issues such as simultaneity of variables, data pooling, omission of variables, and asymmetry in supply responses to price changes have not been adequately addressed in many instances.

Testing for cointegration: Power versus frequency of observation — another view

Abstract Contrary to Hookers finding (Economics Letters, 1993, 41, 359–362), Monte Carlo experiments reveal that Shiller and Perrons fundamental result (Economics Letters, 1985, 18, 381–386), according to which data span is more important than the number of observations in terms of the power of tests, carries over to the cointegration setting with the ADF test.

Pesticide use in Brazil in the era of agroindustrialization and globalization

This study examines the trend in pesticide use in Brazil in the 1990s in the context of agroindustrialization and globalization (trade liberalization). It also seeks to document the environmental costs and human health hazard associated with pesticide use in Brazil. Results from time series data indicate that agricultural trade liberalization has led to increased pesticide use in Brazil, particularly in export crops. Results from cross-section municipality-level data point to higher incidence of pesticide use in municipalities with high income, higher levels of education, large-size farms, predominance of export crops, and with high prevalence of sharecropping. Finally, the study finds that Brazils agricultural growth in the era of trade liberalization has been clouded by serious human health problems and environmental damage caused by pesticide use.

Labor Market Regulation and Employment in the Caribbean

This research project focuses on the demand side of the labor market by examining the impact which labor market regulations have had on employment creation in the English-speaking Caribbean countries of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Although a recent IADB report on labor market reform in Latin America and the Caribbean indicates that the English-speaking Caribbean countries have a lower level of labor market inflexibility than Latin American countries, the regulatory environment in both the labor and commodity markets has had some adverse impact on employment creation in the region (IADB, 1996). Results from a study of the operations of the labor market in the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development (CGCED) suggest that these regulatory measures do have some effect on the operation of businesses in the region (see Abt Associates, 1998).

Aggregation over time, error correction models and Granger causality: A Monte Carlo investigation

Abstract Using Monte Carlo experiments, this paper documents the existence of Granger causality distortion in error correction models owing to aggregation over time. The distortion depends on the degree of cointegration, the data span, the sample size, and the type of aggregation.

How Prices and Macroeconomic Policies Affect Agricultural Supply and the Environment

The author studies the literature on how agricultural prices and macroeconomic policies affect agricultural supply and how that supply affects the environment. He addresses the question of how effective agricultural incentives are in boosting the agricultural supply, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The literature generalizes that farmers are rational. They increase their output in response to an increase in real output prices. The agricultural supply response is inelastic in the short run, but elasticities for individual crops are generally higher that those for aggregate output. Elasticities are higher in the long run that in the short. In theory, if farmers are rational, if output responds to price increases, measures should be taken to eliminate price distortion. There are four potential sources of bias in the estimates: a) disregard for the simultaneity of variables; b) the ommission of key variables; c) improper pooling of data from different countries; and d) in most time series studies, the aggregate supply response is treated as reversible, but, according to fixed assets theory, the supply response is irreversible. There is clearly a link between agricultural incentives and the environment. But quantitative data on relative aspects of the subject are very inadequate.