Competitiveness, Economic Freedom and Real Exchange Rate. Evidence from Romania

In the new context of European Integration, Romania has to improve some important macroeconomic indicators, such as: competitiveness, economic freedom and real exchange rate for a sustainable economic growth. Many authors emphasize that competitiveness and economic freedom affects economic growth through stimulating investment and business environment. The equilibrium exchange rate is crucial as it directly influences external competitiveness, especially through export prices. For Romania, the competitiveness can be improved through the economic freedom growth and the real exchange rate appreciation. But this appreciation must be accompanied by a rise in productivity and in the quality of the products offered on the external markets in order not to affect Romania’s external competitiveness.competitiveness; economic freedom; real exchange rate; Romania

Institutional Factors and Real Estate Returns - A Cross Country Study

This study provides an empirical study on the relationship between institutional factors and real estate returns. Using data from both developed and emerging market countries, our empirical results show that institutional factors do influence real estate returns and these factors may not be fully priced. We find that when controlling return volatility and level of economic growth, a higher property return is expected in countries where the economy is more efficient and has more economic freedom. Our results support the view that the combination of "lumpiness" of real estate investment and the volatile nature of international capital flows may expose property investors to extra investment risk, which needs to be compensated. Our results also indicate that an improvement in a country's economic efficiency and economic freedom may reduce property variance risk thus enhancing property returns.Economic Freedom index, Institutional Investors' Country Credit Ratings

DOES DEMOCRACY FACILITATE ECONOMIC GROWTH OR DOES ECONOMIC GROWTH FACILITATE DEMOCRACY? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper examines the relationship between democracy and economic growth in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries. As our proxy for democracy we first use the democracy index constructed by Freedom House and then check the sensitivity of our findings using, as an alternative proxy for democracy, the Legislative Index of Electoral Competitiveness (LIEC). We find support for the Lipset hypothesis - in the long run, real GDP Granger causes democracy and an increase in GDP results in an improvement in democracy – in Botswana and Niger with both datasets, for Chad with the Freedom House data only and for Cote d’Ivoire and Gabon with the LIEC data only. Support for the compatibility hypothesis - in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a positive effect on real income - is found for Botswana with the Freedom House data and for Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa and Swaziland with the LIEC data. Support for the conflict hypothesis - in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a negative effect on real income - is found for Gabon with the Freedom House data and Sierra Leone with the LIEC data.Causality, Democracy, Economic Growth, Sub-Saharan Africa.

Economic and Institutional Determinants of FDI Flows to Latin America: A Panel Study

This paper estimates a pooled (fixed-effects) FDI investment function that seeks to identify some of the major economic and institutional determinants of FDI flows to nine major Latin American countries during the 1980-2001 period. First, it develops a conceptual framework of analysis that seeks to identify some of the major economic and institutional determinants of FDI. Second, the paper gives an overview of FDI flows to Latin America during the 1990-2006 period, with particular emphasis on their contribution to the financing of gross capital formation. Third, an empirical model for FDI flows to Latin America is outlined and an economic rationale is provided for the included variables and their expected signs. Fourth, the estimates from a panel regression designed to explain the variation in FDI flows to Latin America during the 1980-2001 period suggests that market size (proxied by real GDP), credit provided by the private banking sector, government expenditures on education, the real exchange rate, and the level of economic freedom have a positive and significant effect. On the other hand, public investment spending, the debt-service ratio, and the volatility of the real exchange rate have a negative and significant effect on FDI flows. The panel unit root tests on the residuals of the relevant panel regressions also suggest that there is a stable, long-term relationship among the included variables; i.e., the selected variables in the reported regressions are cointegrated over the relevant time period. Finally, the paper summarizes the major findings and offers some policy prescriptions for attracting FDI flows to the region and enhancing their positive direct and indirect effectsADF Fisher statistic. Economic Freedom Index (EFI), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Latin America, Panel Unit Root Tests, Pedroni Residual Cointegration Test, Pooled Regression, and Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR)

How do Economic Conditions Affect How the Environment is Treated

This paper focuses on how economic conditions affect how the environment is treated. It creates a correlation between the ease of doing business ranking, human freedom index, economic freedom index, Real GDP growth, inflation, and environmental ranking to see how they impact each other. It also looks into historical changes in environmentalism and finds how the changes correlated with changes in economic conditions

What Is Economic Liberty?

Economic liberty is best understood in opposition to economic domination. This article develops a radical republican conception of such domination. In particular, I argue that radical republicanism provides a more satisfactory account of individual economic freedom than the market-friendly liberties of working, transacting, holding, and using championed by Nickel and Tomasi. So too, it avoids the pitfalls of other conceptions of economic liberty which emphasize real freedom, alternatives to immiserating work, or unalienated labor. The resulting theory holds that economic domination occurs when someone’s access to civic capabilities is contingent on the arbitrary economic power of others. Socialist institutions—suitably configured—can deliver on this individual economic freedom, allowing the dominating power of proprietors, shareholders, landlords, and managers to be kept in check, and providing an unconditional minimum that allows individual citizens to be less beholden to others in meeting many of their most fundamental civic needs. Thus, I conclude that socialism can be championed as a politics of individual economic liberty

Low-cost natural interface based on head movements

Sometimes people look for freedom in the virtual world. However, not all have the possibility to interact with a computer in the same way. Nowadays, almost every job requires interaction with computerized systems, so people with physical impairments do not have the same freedom to control a mouse, a keyboard or a touchscreen. In the last years, some of the government programs to help people with reduced mobility suffered a lot with the global economic crisis and some of those programs were even cut down to reduce costs. This paper focuses on the development of a touchless human-computer interface, which allows anyone to control a computer without using a keyboard, mouse or touchscreen. By reusing Microsoft Kinect sensors from old videogames consoles, a cost-reduced, easy to use, and open-source interface was developed, allowing control of a computer using only the head, eyes or mouth movements, with the possibility of complementary sound commands. There are already available similar commercial solutions, but they are so expensive that their price tends to be a real obstacle in their purchase; on the other hand, free solutions usually do not offer the freedom that people with reduced mobility need. The present solution tries to address these drawbacks. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V

The EU enlargement and economic growth in the CEE new member countries

This paper analyses whether EU enlargement contributed to economic growth and real convergence in the ten new member countries from Central and Eastern. In this paper, we aim to check whether the EU enlargement contributed to economic growth of ten new member countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE-10), including their real convergence towards the EU-15 development level. To this end, we econometrically test the relationships between selected macroeconomic variables linked to the EU enlargement and the rate of economic growth of the CEE-10 countries over the period 1996-2007. The variables comprise: (i) the progress of market or structural reforms, (ii) economic freedom, (iii) foreign aid, and (iv) the FDI inflow. In the first part of the study, we test the convergence hypothesis (both beta and sigma) for the CEE-10 group towards the EU-15 countries. In the subsequent parts, we build an econometric model and carry out the correlation and regression analyses, with a view to find out the possible effect of the EU membership on economic growth of the CEE countries. The last part of the paper develops possible scenarios of the real convergence of the CEE countries towards the EU-15. Our results indicate that the EU enlargement significantly contributed to economic growth of the CEE-10 countries and their catching up with the EU-15 development level. This conclusion has been supported by both the convergence analysis and the econometric test of economic growth determinants. According to our projections, the actual process of real convergence between individual CEE-10 economies and the EU-15 may take between 8 and 33 years.Growth, Financial Integration, Trade, The EU Enlargement and Economic Growth In the CEE New Member Countries, Economic Papers

Government Spending and Inclusive-Growth Relationship in Nigeria: An Empirical Investigation

This study has investigated the relationship between government spending and inclusive growth in Nigeria over the period 1995 to 2014. Specifically, it examined how, and to what extent, government spending on education, government spending on health, economic freedom, public resource use, and real GDP growth rate have impacted on inclusive growth in the country. It used the Dickey-Fuller GLS unit root test to ascertain the order of integration of the series. Consequently, through the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing technique, the study found that in the long-run government spending on health, economic freedom, public resource use and real GDP growth rate had significantly positive influence on inclusive growth. In the short-run, however, only real GDP impacted significantly on inclusive growth while other variables were not significant in causing inclusive growth. Thus, in conclusion, government spending in the form of redistributive spending on health propelled inclusive growth in Nigeria

Is There a Link Between Economic Freedom and State Economic Growth?

Increasing the reach of government into everyday economic interactions, whether through the government as a consumer/producer or as a taker of taxes, is not likely to create an environment in which economic activity will flourish. Improving economic growth requires that individuals and firms make decisions that allow them to combine labor, capital, and technology to produce goods and services. This means that increased government intrusion into the market, onerous regulations, and lack of competition in labor markets all can hinder economic growth. The question addressed in this study is: Does Missouri’s record in promoting economic freedom help explain its lack of economic success? To answer this question, changes in a measure of economic freedom in each state are compared to the growth rates of real output. Comparing the behavior of these two measures over time indicates that states that have experienced improvements in economic freedom over the past couple of decades— slower increases in government involvement in the economy—are, on average, more likely to have experienced higher rates of economic growth. Looking specifically at Missouri, the results suggest that Missouri’s tepid economic growth is related to its equally lackluster record in improving the economic freedom of its citizens and businesses