Exports Versus FDI Revisited: Does Finance Matter?

This paper explores the impact of financial constraints on the internationalization strategies of firms. It contributes to the literature by focusing on three aspects: First, the paper studies the impact of financial constraints on exporting relative to FDI. Consistent with theory, the empirical results confirm that the impact of financial constraints is stronger for FDI than for exporting. Second, the paper analyzes the extensive and the intensive margins and finds that financial frictions matter for both. Third, the paper explores the impact on manufacturing as compared to service industries and shows that firms in service industries are affected more than firms in manufacturing. The paper also identifies a threshold effect: Financial constraints do not matter for small firms whose productivity seems to be too low to consider international expansions

Million years of Greenland Ice Sheet history recorded in ocean sediments

Geological records from Tertiary and Quaternary terrestrial and oceanic sections have documented the presence of ice caps and sea ice covers both in the Southern and the Northern hemispheres since Eocene times, approximately since 45 Ma. In this paper focussing on Greenland we mainly use the occurrences of coarse ice-rafted debris (IRD) in Quaternary and Tertiary ocean sediment cores to conclude on age and origin of the glaciers/ice sheets, which once produced the icebergs transporting this material into the adjacent ocean. Deep-sea sediment cores with their records of ice-rafting from off NE Greenland, Fram Strait and to the south of Greenland suggest the more or less continuous existence of the Greenland ice sheet since 18 Ma, maybe much longer, and hence far beyond the stratigraphic extent of the Greenland ice cores. The timing of onset of glaciation on Greenland and whether it has been glaciated continuously since, are wide open questions of its long-term history. We also urgently need new scientific drilling programs in the waters around Greenland, in particular in the segment of the Arctic Ocean to the north of Greenland

Normative values for the profile of mood states for use with athletic samples

The Profile of Mood States (POMS) has been used extensively for the assessment of mood in the sport and exercise environments. The purpose of the study was to develop tables of normative values based on athletic samples. Participants (N = 2,086), comprising athletes at the international (n = 622), club (n = 628), and recreational (n = 836) levels, completed the POMS in one of three situations: pre-competition/exercise, post-competition/exercise, and away from the athletic environment. Differences between the athletic sample and existing norms were found for all mood subscales. Main effects of level of competition and situation were identified. The results support the proposition that the use of the original tables of normative values in sport and exercise environments is inappropriate

New results on a generalized coupon collector problem using Markov chains

We study in this paper a generalized coupon collector problem, which consists in determining the distribution and the moments of the time needed to collect a given number of distinct coupons that are drawn from a set of coupons with an arbitrary probability distribution. We suppose that a special coupon called the null coupon can be drawn but never belongs to any collection. In this context, we obtain expressions of the distribution and the moments of this time. We also prove that the almost-uniform distribution, for which all the non-null coupons have the same drawing probability, is the distribution which minimizes the expected time to get a fixed subset of distinct coupons. This optimization result is extended to the complementary distribution of that time when the full collection is considered, proving by the way this well-known conjecture. Finally, we propose a new conjecture which expresses the fact that the almost-uniform distribution should minimize the complementary distribution of the time needed to get any fixed number of distinct coupons.Comment: 14 page

Purchasing Power Parity and the Real Exchange Rate in Bangladesh: A Nonlinear Analysis

The long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis is examined using data for Bangladesh and its major trading partners - the US, Euro area, Japan and India - during the period 1994 to 2002. We apply recently developed nonlinear econometric techniques and provide strong evidence for highly nonlinear meanreversion of real bilateral Bangladesh taka exchange rates toward a stable long-run equilibrium. Our findings imply strong support for the validity of long-run PPP as well as for the theoretical models which predict nonlinear adjustment in real exchange rates.real exchange rate; purchasing power parity; nonlinearity

Antarctic Ocean Legacy: Towards Protection of the Weddell Sea Region

Ice-bound, wild and remote, the Weddell Sea is a large, deep embayment nestled between the Antarctic Peninsula and Cape Norvegia. Lying south of the Atlantic Ocean, it is one of the most intact ecosystems in the world.At its widest, it is 2,000 km across, with the whole region encompassing 3.4 million km. The Weddell Sea has often been inaccessible to humans, but as research has increased over the past few decades, a picture has emerged of a vibrant marine ecosystem sustained by a combination of currents, seafloor features and ice.This research has revealed incredible biodiversity, particularly on the seafloor, with dozens of new species discovered on recent sampling expeditions. There are many more species yet to be discovered. Several species of whales and dolphins and six species of seals are found in the Weddell Sea, as well as a diversity of fish and seabirds. Even at depths of 6,000 metres, life has been found, underscoring the incredible diversity of life in the region. Nutrient rich currents interact with seafloor features, sea ice and ice shelves in a complex system that results in hotspots of plankton growth on the surface, supporting life from the surface to the ocean depths. The complexity of the Weddell Sea's region's undersea landscape enhances the diversity of life under the waves and ice by creating varied habitats for different undersea animals.The enormous richness of life generated by these interactions supports many seabird and mammal species including emperor penguins, Weddell, crab eater, and elephant seals as well as minke, humpback, blue, and fin whales. These animals come to feed on krill and silverfish, found in the many areas of high phytoplankton production (also known as "primary productivity") throughout the region. Yet climate change is having major impacts on the region with disruption to the icy environment. Changes in sea ice could be devastating for many species whose life cycle depends on pack ice. Protecting the unique, ecologically intact, and diverse deep-water regions of the Weddell Sea in a system of large-scale marine reserves and MPAs would ensure that its rich benthic biodiversity, krill populations, and large predators (including whales) continue to thrive

The distance puzzle revisited: a new interpretation based on geographic neutrality

One of the most remarkable features of globalization is the boost undergone by international trade triggered off by advances in technology that have contributed to reduce the cost of trade (e.g., transportation and communication costs). Under these circumstances, the importance of distance should have diminished over time, which would constitute a boon for countries located far from the main centers of economic activity. However, one of the best-established empirical results in international economics is that bilateral trade decreases with distance. This apparent contradiction has been labeled as the “missing globalization puzzle”. We propose yet another explanation to this apparent contradiction based on the concept of geographic neutrality, which we use to construct international trade integration indicators for two different scenarios, namely, when distance matters and when it does not. Our results indicate that the importance of distance varies greatly across countries, as revealed by disparate gaps between distance-corrected and distance-uncorrected trade integration indicators for different countries. Some factors rooted in the literature explain away the discrepancies, but their importance varies according to the trade integration indicator considered —trade openness or trade connection.Geographic Neutrality, Globalization, Gravity Models, Network Analysis, Remoteness

DOES THE SIZE MATTER? Zipf's Law for cities Revisited

Several authors (Berry 1970, Krugman 1996 or Eaton and Eckstein 1997, among many others) have experienced amazement about the accurate functioning of the law of “least effort†established by Zipf (1949) in most places. Cities, ranked by population, seem to follow almost exactly a log/log function, in which the logarithm of the 'mass' (population, density, etc.) correlates almost perfectly with the logarithm of the order of that mass. This log/log function, advanced by Pareto in the nineteenth century, has seduced quite a number of researchers, for its presence, hypothetically, both in natural phenomena (earthquakes, meteorites, living species) and in the ones which derive from society (language, or cities), which has led to investigate its theoretical basis (Simon 1955, Brakmar et al. 1999, Gabaix 1999). While some authors (Rosen and Resnick 1980, Fan and Casetti 1994) have discussed the linear validity of Zipf's Law, introducing nonlinear models, technical literature has focused on the 'upper tail' of the urban hierarchy, large metropolitan areas, tend to silence the fact that the log / log function does not appear to be a general model. This paper attempts to show that when taking into account all the cases (ie, all populated localities in a particular territory), the log/log model seems to be only a special case of 'the big' ones. In fact it shows that a log/lin model tends to be more efficient, even with 'folded tails'. This has led to the hypothesis which was tested in this study, that the logarithm of the urban mass tends to have a 'normal distribution', leading its cumulative distribution (and ordered by rank) to be spread in a logistical structure, in 'S'. In this sense, the repeated observation of fulfillment of the Law of Zipf in the size of the cities would be just “the tip of the iceberg“, in which small and medium cities also take their part, and where a “law†of a higher level appears. The presented research questions if this “normal†appearance of the logarithm of the mass could be shaped in a simple and elegant form, and makes some experiments in this regard.