Mean Reversion of Real Exchange Rates and Purchasing Power Parity in Turkey

The important concept of purchasing power parity (PPP) has a number of practical implications. Our central objective is to examine the stationarity of Turkey’s real exchange rates to test for the empirical validity of PPP. Our results from conventional univariate unit root tests fail to support PPP. However, when we use the empirical methodology developed by Caner and Hansen (2001), which allows us to jointly consider non-stationarity and non-linearity, we find evidence of non-linear mean reversion in Turkey’s real exchange rates. This implies that PPP holds in one threshold regime but not in another.Turkey, purchasing power parity, real exchange rate, unit root, non-linearity

Foreign Output Shocks and Monetary Policy Regimes in Small Open Economies: A DSGE Evaluation of East Asia

East Asia’s small open economies were hit in varying degrees by the sharp drop in the output of major industrial countries during the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-2009. This highlights the role of monetary policy regimes in cushioning small open economies from adverse external output shocks. To assess the welfare impact of external shocks on key macroeconomic variables under different monetary policy regimes, we numerically solve and calculate the welfare loss function of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We find that CPI inflation targeting minimizes welfare losses for import-to-GDP ratios from 0.3 to 0.9. However, welfare under the pegged exchange rate regime is almost equivalent to CPI inflation targeting when the import-to-GDP ratio is one while the Taylor-type rule minimizes welfare when the import-to-GDP ratio is 0.1. We calibrate the model and derive welfare implications for eight East Asian small open economies.

Foreign Output Shocks and Monetary Policy Regimes in Small Open Economies: A DSGE Evaluation of East Asia

East Asia’s small open economies were hit in varying degrees by the sharp drop in the output of major industrial countries during the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-2009. This highlights the role of monetary policy regimes in cushioning small open economies from adverse external output shocks. To assess the welfare impact of external shocks on key macroeconomic variables under different monetary policy regimes, we numerically solve and calculate the welfare loss function of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We find that CPI inflation targeting minimizes welfare losses for import-to-GDP ratios from 0.3 to 0.9. However, welfare under the pegged exchange rate regime is almost equivalent to CPI inflation targeting when the import-to-GDP ratio is one while the Taylor-type rule minimizes welfare when the import-to-GDP ratio is 0.1. We calibrate the model and derive welfare implications for eight East Asian small open economies.Trade channel, Import-to-GDP ratio, small open economies, welfare, exchange rate regimes, inflation targeting, Taylor rule, foreign output shock

Introducción : Los senderos transitables del ELE: aportaciones a la investigación y la evaluación

Los trabajos que componen este número se proponen ofrecer nuevas aportaciones en distintos ámbitos del ELE. Las reflexiones y conclusiones extraídas por los distintos autores abren nuevas líneas de investigación que permitirán profundizar y mejorar diversos aspectos de la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera. Asimismo, esperamos que las contribuciones que se presentan permitan, tanto a profesores como a evaluadores de las pruebas, analizar su labor profesional con el fin de dar respuesta a las necesidades que presentan los estudiantes extranjeros

Locus of Equity and Brand Extension

Prevailing wisdom assumes that brand equity increases when a brand touts its desirable attributes. We report conditions under which the use of attribute information to promote a product can shift the locus of equity from brand to attribute, thereby reducing the attractiveness of extension products. This effect is moderated by the degree of ambiguity in the learning environment, such that prevailing wisdom is refuted when ambiguity is low but is supported when ambiguity is high

Consumer Learning and Brand Equity

A series of experiments illustrates a learning process that enhances brand equity at the expense of quality-determining attributes. When the relationship between brand name and product quality is learned prior to the relationship between product attributes and quality, inhibition of the latter may occur. The phenomenon is shown to be robust, but its influence appears sensitive to contextual variations in the learning environment. Tests of process are inconsistent with attentional explanations and popular models of causal reasoning, but they are supportive of associative learning models that portray learners as inherently forward lookin

Asian citrus psyllid stylet morphology and applicability to the model for inter-instar stylet replacement in the potato psyllid

In Hemiptera, presumptive stylets for each consecutive postembryonic instar are manufactured prior to ecdysis to replace the ecdysial stylets discarded with the exuviae. With the discovery that the bacterium “Candidatus” Liberibacter solanacearum accesses the tissues involved in the stylet replacement process of the potato psyllid, a hypothesis was formed that the bacterium could adhere to the stylets of freshly emerged instars and hence gain access to the host plant when feeding is resumed. Although unproven, it was imperative that a model for stylet replacement be built. Stylet morphology and the stylet replacement process of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), vector of “C.” L. asiaticus, causal pathogen of citrus greening disease, are comparable to the potato psyllid model system. Morphology consists of a basal terminus with its tab-shaped auricle, a base, shaft, and an apical terminus. Each of the four auricles act as a platform for the replacement apparatus, which is compacted into a tight aggregate of cells, the ‘endcap’. As modeled, on apolysis of larval instar hypodermis, the aggregate ‘deconstructs’ and expands into a snail shell-shaped tube, the ‘atrium’, that houses the presumptive stylet as it is synthesized. Completed stylets then despool from the atrium and are fitted into their functional positions as the next instar emerges from its exuviae.Funding was provided by a grant from USDA-NIFA Award 2014- 70016-23028, 2015-2020, “Developing an Infrastructure and Product Test Pipeline to Deliver Novel Therapies for Citrus Greening Disease”

The impact of employee empowerment on organisational performance: The mediating role of employee engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour

Purpose: This study assesses the mediating role of employee engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour in the relationship between employee empowerment (structural, psychological) and organisational performance in non-commercial banks in Ghana.Design/methodology: A structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the proposed hypothesis based on 304 employees selected from eight non-commercial banks in the Bono Region, Ghana.Findings: Neither structural nor psychological empowerment are a direct contributor to organisational performance but they positively influence organisational citizenship behaviour and employee engagement. Employee engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour show no effect on organisational performance. Organisational citizenship behaviour was also found to be a significant mediator in the relationship between employee empowerment (structural and psychological) and organisational performance but employee engagement is not a significant mediator.Practical implications: The study offers managers information to help deal with absenteeism, increase employee psychological health, promote better home life, improve employee retention and increase job satisfaction. Practitioners are offered insights to help involve their employees in decision-making and offer them the freedom to act on their own. Finally, practically, the results reveal the need to retain employees who have organisational citizenship behaviour to improve performance.Originality/value: The study serves two purposes: as a confirmatory and as a hypothesised model. The confirmatory model entails goodness of fit and chi-square test. The hypothesised model relies on examining the interactions among structural and psychological empowerment, organisational citizenship behaviour, employee engagement and organisational performance in a developing econom

Predictability of exchange rates with Taylor rule fundamentals: Evidence from inflation-targeting emerging countries

We investigate the out-of-sample predictability of U.S. dollar exchange rates with Taylor rule fundamentals in thirteen emerging countries with inflation-targeting monetary policy regimes. We find some evidence of out-of-sample exchange rate predictability for Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Philippines, Thailand, and South Africa. Plots of the coefficients of U.S. inflation and Philippine inflation predict the direction of the U.S. dollar-Philippine peso exchange rates to be opposite to that predicted by the Taylor principle