Do emerging market economies still constitute a homogenous asset class?

The fundamentals of emerging market economies (EMEs) have improved significantly over the past few years and their integration into the global economy and international financial markets has strengthened. In 2005, net inflows of foreign private capital to EMEs reached a record level of USD 400 billion. Outstandings of government securities issued by EMEs on international markets increased six-fold between 1994 and 2005, rising from less than USD 50 billion to over USD 300 billion. Over the same period, their bank loan outstandings were more than halved, falling from USD 250 billion to USD 100 billion. This considerable surge in market financing has been underpinned by substantial efforts to modernise the financial sector, which has enabled EMEs to offer investors an increasingly wide and sophisticated range of financial instruments and thus to attract new types of investors. Overall, EMEs are tending to put in place financial structures similar to those in advanced countries (1|). At the same time, several recent indices suggest that investors no longer necessarily regard emerging assets as a homogenous bloc in their portfolio choices. Their wariness vis-à-vis these markets and their attendant risks appears to be shifting towards greater discrimination between EMEs on the basis of their specific characteristics, or the type of financial instrument offered (2|). Nevertheless, these trends do not prevent emerging markets from being subject to occasional disruptions, especially if the economic and financial environment were to become less favourable. The narrowness of these markets, the dependence on the decisions of non-resident investors, and the low level of risk premia maintain uncertainty as to their reaction in the event of large-scale unforeseen shocks (3|). Against this backdrop, market participants are justified in basing their investment and financing decisions on a range of criteria assessed over the whole economic cycle.

How might climate change affect economic growth in developing countries ? a review of the growth literature with a climate lens

This paper reviews the empirical and theoretical literature on economic growth to examine how the four components of the climate change bill, namely mitigation, proactive (ex ante) adaptation, reactive (ex post) adaptation, and ultimate damages of climate change affect growth, especially in developing countries. The authors consider successivelythe Cass-Koopmans growth model and three major strands of the subsequent literature on growth: with multiple sectors, with rigidities, and with increasing returns. The paper finds that although the growth literature rarely addresses climate change per se, some issues discussed in the growth literature are directly relevant for climate change analysis. Notably, destruction of production factors, or decrease in factor productivity may strongly affect long-run equilibrium growth even in one-sector neoclassical growth models; climatic shocks have had large impacts on growth in developing countries because of rigidities; and the introducing increasing returns has a major impact on growth dynamics, in particular through induced technical change, poverty traps, or lock-ins. Among the most important gaps identified in the literature are lack of understanding of the channels by which shocks affect economic growth, lack of understanding of lock-ins, heavy reliance of numerical models assessing climate policies on neoclassical-type growth frameworks, and frequent use of an inappropriate"without climate change"counterfactual.Economic Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Climate Change,Achieving Shared Growth,Population Policies

Beyond the crisis: revisiting emerging Europe’s growth model

Focusing on the nexus between economic growth and the buildup of external vulnerabilities, this paper provides a systematic account of different growth strategies followed in Central and Eastern Europe in 2000-08 and then uses this growth diagnostics to derive implications for a post-crisis recovery. The main findings point to three policy lessons for improving growth sustainability. First, greater reliance on tradable sectors should be the cornerstone of a future growth model. Second, enhancing domestic sources of bank credit funding would contribute to the mitigation of external vulnerabilities and make the domestic financial system more resilient to global financial shocks. Third, prudential and macroeconomic policies will have to be more proactive in managing capital inflows, including funneling these inflows into investment in export-oriented industries.sustainable economic growth, sources of growth, external vulnerabilities

Investing in Green Mutual Funds: Determining the Environmental Screens Applied in Actively Managed Funds

Managers of environmentally focused mutual funds hold a leadership position with investors, and have an ethical responsibility to explain the environmental screens. The public filings of environmentally focused, actively managed funds were reviewed to determine what non-financial screening information was made public. Content analysis was conducted on the screening verbiage for environmental key words as a means of identifying screen passages within the prospectus. Quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the commonality of the holdings for environmentally focused funds. The results identified few patterns or search terms that could be effectively used on the textual content. The holdings had little commonality between the funds, except for the specific environmental investment sectors of alternative energy, climate change, and water

"Entrepreneurship: what are the typical capabilities to create competitive resources? A discussion from case studies"

It appear that a golden opportunity was missed at the beginning of the 1990's. Several people began to study businesses from the point of view of resources, but very few took the same approach to entrepreneurship (Naman & Slevin, 1993). We believe the reason for this lies in the difficulties to identify the source of and the transformation processes employed for these resources. Yet, the question of the creation of resources is centred around entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur can be defined as someone who wishes to start-up a business primarily using resources he believes he controls. He is the actor who finally enacts his dreams after long consideration and chooses a trajectory that partly determines the nature of his corporate purpose. Both of these are characteristics of the “resource-based” approach. Lastly, an entrepreneur is someone who lives in hope of finding a sustainable place on his target market. To do this, he must differentiate, even if his resources are initially relatively standardised. The question of strategic differentiation based on the exploitation of resources with similar sources, is at the centre of the “resource-based” approach (Peteraf 1993). This takes us back to the assumptions of Edith Penrose (1959). The combination and specific exploitation of resources renders such resources specific and determines their value. In sum, by looking at entrepreneurship from the point of view of resources, we underline that the entrepreneur produces resources, the very act of which modifies his competencies and capabilities. The success or failure of a business creation is partly dictated by what has gone before, which influences the present and future. Therefore, history affects the ability of the entrepreneur to maintain a distinctive spiral comprising three essential characteristics: resources, competencies and organisational capabilities.

The politics of Chinese trade and the Asian financial crises : questioning the wisdom of export-led growth

Between 1987 and 1996 Chinese exports increased by an average of 14% each year. During this decade, export growth became a crucial determinant of overall economic growth. However, as a consequence of the East Asian financial crises, Chinese export growth slowed, threatening the successful implementation of plans to restructure the domestic Chinese economy. This paper traces the reasons for the rapid growth and subsequent slowing of Chinese exports, and asks whether the strategy provides a solid basis for the long term development of the Chinese economy. In particular, the paper focuses on the role and significance of the processing trade in boosting Chinese exports. The high proportion of imported components in processed exports questions whether China is really benefiting as much from export growth as aggregate trade figures seem to suggest

An Analysis of Adaptation as a Response to Climate Change

Climate change is likely to have relevant effects on our future socio-economic systems. It is therefore important to identify how markets and policy jointly react to expected climate change to protect our societies and well-being. This study addresses this issue by carrying out an integrated analysis of both optimal mitigation and adaptation at the global and regional level. Adaptation responses are disentangled into three different modes: reactive adaptation, proactive (or anticipatory) adaptation, and investments in innovation for adaptation purposes. The size, the timing, the relative contribution to total climate-related damage reduction, and the benefit-cost ratios of each of these strategies are assessed for the world as a whole, and for developed and developing countries in both a cooperative and a non-cooperative setting. The study also takes into account the role of price signals and markets in inducing and diffusing adaptation. This leads to two scenarios: A pessimistic one, in which policy-driven adaptation bears the burden, together with mitigation, of reducing climate damage; and an optimistic one, in which markets also autonomously contribute to reducing some damages by modifying sectoral structure, international trade flows, capital distribution and land allocation. For all scenarios, the costs and benefits of adaptation are assessed using WITCH, an integrated assessment, intertemporal optimization, forward-looking model. Extensive sensitivity analysis with respect to the size of climate damages and of the discount rate has also been carried out.Climate change impacts, mitigation, adaptation, integrated assessment model

Aquaculture Asia, vol. 8, no. 4, pp.1-52, October - December 2003

CONTENTS: Freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium nobilii a promising candidate for rural nutrition, by Pitchimuthu Mariappan, P. Balamurugan, and Chellam Balasundaram. Snapshots of a clean, innovative, socially responsible fishfarm in Sri Lanka, by Pedro Bueno. Introduction of rainbow trout Onchorynchus mykiss in Nepal: Constraints and prospects, by Tek Bahadur Gurung, Sadhu Ram Basnet. Tilapia seed production in Ho Chi Minh City, Southern Vietnam, by H. P. V. Huy, A. MacNiven, N. V. Tu, Ram C. Bhujel and David C. Little. Seaweed Mariculture: Scope And Potential In India, by Sajid I. Khan and S. B. Satam. Growth enhancement of carp and prawn through dietary sodium chloride supplementation, by P.Keshavanath, B. Gangadhara and Savitha Khadri. Fertilization, soil and water quality management in small-scale ponds, by S. Adhikari Shrimp harvesting technology on the south west coast of Bangladesh, by S. M. Nazmul Alam, Michael J. Phillips and C. K. Lin. The “Gher Revolution”, by M.C. Nandeesha [Farmers as Scientists series] Aquaculture Compendium – case study component, by Peter Edwards. Rice-Fish Culture in China, by Fang Xiuzhen. Exercising responsibilities to tackle aquatic animal diseases, by CV Mohan. Application of immunostimulants in larviculture: Feasibility and challenges, by ZhouJin. Marine Finfish Sectio

THE GROCERY RETAILING SECTOR IN GERMANY: ECR ACTIVITIES IN COMPARISON TO THE USA

The German food retail sector and food manufacturers are in a state of transition due to a complex mix of technological and market forces. Competition continues to increase due to sluggish demand and increasing consumer mobility. The high degree of domestic and international concentration increases the intensity of competition. The top 20 food retailers obtain far more than two-thirds of total sales. Because of the increased competition among retailers, the number of retail stores will continue to decline. Food manufacturers fear the buying power of retailers in many ways. Distrust and struggle over the terms of trade characterize the relation between retailers and manufacturers. ECR activities in Germany lag behind relative to the US due to various cultural and procedural differences as well as strategic reasons. However, ECR provides a catalog of measures to achieve more efficiency and customer focus.Industrial Organization, Marketing,

China's absorptive State: research, innovation and the prospects for China-UK collaboration

China's innovation system is advancing so rapidly in multiple directions that the UK needs to develop a more ambitious and tailored strategy, able to maximise opportunities and minimise risks across the diversity of its innovation links to China. For the UK, the choice is not whether to engage more deeply with the Chinese system, but how. This report analyses the policies, prospects and dilemmas for Chinese research and innovation over the next decade. It is designed to inform a more strategic approach to supporting China-UK collaboration