Current Issue : July - September Volume : 2015 Issue Number : 3 Articles : 5 Articles
The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of farm size on economic efficiency among wheat producers and\nto suggest ways to improve wheat production in the country. Specifically, the study attempts to estimate the levels of technical,\nallocative, and economic efficiencies among the sampled 130 large and small scale wheat producers in Nakuru District. The socialeconomic\nfactors that influence economic efficiency in wheat production have also been determined. Results indicate that the\nmean technical, allocative, and economic efficiency indices of small scale wheat farmers are 85%, 96%, and 84%, respectively.The\ncorresponding figures for the large scale farmers are 91%, 94%, and 88%, respectively. The number of years of school a farmer\nhas had in formal education, distance to extension advice, and the size of the farm have strong influence on the efficiency levels.\nThe relatively high levels of technical efficiency among the small scale farmers defy the notion that wheat can only be efficiently\nproduced by the large scale farmers....
This study assesses the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth in a sample of 96 countries from 1990 to 2010. Ordinary Least\nSquares (OLS) and Extreme Bound Analysis are mainly estimated in order to investigate whether public investments, human capital,\nand political stability affect growth controlling for initial output and human capital levels. Furthermore, in this empirical research\nfour subsets of independent variables were used: (a) demographic factors, (b) political determinants, (c) region variables, and (d)\nvariables regarding macroeconomic policy.Empirical results suggest that there is an important difference in the impact of public and\nprivate sector investments on the growth of per capita income.Moreover, political indicators such as corruption control, rule of law,\nand government effectiveness have a high impact on economic growth. Demographic factors, including fertility rate and mortality\ngrowth, as well as several macroeconomic variables, like inflation rate index and government consumption, were estimated to be\nstatistically significant factors of economic performance. Fiscal volatility may also be a new possible channel of macroeconomic\ninstability that leads to lower growth. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in detail....
The purpose of this study is to propose a new economic index, namely, real national income average growth rate (RNIAGR),\nwhich measures the performance of economic growth with consideration for income distribution. This study also develops another\nnew economic index, called five-scale real national income average growth rate (FSRNIAGR), which simplifies the calculation of\nRNIAGR. The merits of these new indexes are discussed to justify their efficacy. This paper also justifies the use of proposed index\nby showing that this index can actually measure the ordering of social welfare. To highlight the difference between this new index\nand the traditional ones, this paper compares the index with real economic growth rate using the data of Taiwan. In addition, this\npaper shows that when the real growth stagnates or even declines, this new index indicates that income distribution deteriorates....
An experiment is designed to explore risk conception and evaluation of investors. A new risk measurement, which is called martingale variance, is included. The new measure uses previous return as benchmark instead of mean return to calculate variance. The results show that respondents are more care about expected loss than variance, but are indifferent between variance and loss probability. Meanwhile, the respondents prefer martingale semivariance to martingale variance significantly. The weighted martingale semivariance also dominates martingale semivariance. The results can be helpful to explain the relationship between risk and return....
This study explores the recent performance of growth and value stocks by using the data of\nthe Russell-Nomura Japan value and growth indices. This research is significantly important\nin order to judge the effectiveness of investment management and strategy in the recent\nJapanese equity markets. The recent full sample period under our analyses is from January 4,\n2010 to March 20, 2014. Our investigations as to the value spreads, growth spreads, and\nvalue-growth spreads in Japan derive the following evidence. First, (1) in the recent Japanese\nstock markets, the value spreads over Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX) are statistically\nsignificantly positive in all six Russell-Nomura Japan value indices. Second, (2) in the recent\nstock markets in Japan, the growth spreads over TOPIX are also statistically significantly\npositive in all six Russell-Nomura Japan growth indices. Third, (3) in our above full sample\nperiod, growth style indices generally outperform the value style indices, and in particular,\nafter the inauguration of the new Abe cabinet in December 2012, smaller-size growth stock\nindices strongly outperform the same size category value indices....
Loading....