Administrative Justice, Environmental Governance, and The Rule of Law in Malawi

This paper examines the impact of administrative law on the rule of law and governance in Malawi, using environmental agencies as a case study. Its findings expose a number of limitations of administrative law in facilitating good environmental governance. These include regulatory or power capture by “invisible Barons” who wield their power to undermine the effectiveness of administrative law and the rule of law. Procedural fairness and improprieties are drawn from specific cases, then analyzed and discussed. The study found that political considerations affect the rate and direction of rulemaking more than judicial considerations

The African President Center President-in-Residence inaugural lecture by His Excellency Rupiah B. Banda

This is the archive of a speech given by President Banda of Zambia, APC's 8th President in Residence, on April 2, 2012

The Sri Lankan Rupee and Purchasing Power Parity during the Current Floating Period

This paper examines the empirical validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis in a Sri Lankan context using exchange rates for six foreign currencies during the period January 1986 to November 2000. Both graphical and econometric methods are used in the analysis. Graphical analysis indicates that the spot exchange rates for the currencies except for the Indian rupee follow the respective PPP exchange rates closely during certain time periods only and real exchange rates are non-stationary thus violating a necessary condition for the PPP to hold. The results of econometric methods are also consistent with those of the graphical methods. In addition, the symmetry and proportionality hypotheses implied by the PPP were rejected. These results refute the validity of PPP hypothesis to Sri Lanka. While these results have implications for policy makers, they may be corroborated using other econometric techniques such as cointegration and error-correction models and nonlinear models.Sri Lankan rupee, Purchasing power parity, Japanese yen, real exchange rates

EFFICIENCY OF FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKETS: A DEVELOPING COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE

This study tests weak and semi-strong form efficiency of the foreign exchange market in Sri Lanka using six bilateral foreign exchange rates during the recent float. Weak-form efficiency is examined using unit root tests while semi-strong form efficiency is tested using co- integration and Granger causality tests and variance decomposition analysis. Results indicate that the Sri Lankan foreign exchange market is consistent with the weak -form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. However, the results provide evidence against the semi - strong version of the Efficient Market hypothesis. These results have important implications for government policy makers and participants in the foreign exchange market of Sri Lanka.Efficient market hypothesis, Sri Lanka, foreign exchange market, Japanese yen, Variance decomposition

Purchasing Power Parity Hypothesis in Developing Economies:Some Empirical Evidence from Sri Lanka

Purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis has attracted a lot of attention from academics and policy-makers particularly, during the recent float. Most previous studies used data from the developed world. This study examines the validity of the PPP hypothesis using data during the recent float from Sri Lanka. In contrast to previous studies, we use unit root tests which take into account unknown means and trends in the real exchange rates as well as graphical techniques. Both these techniques overwhelmingly reject the empirical validity of the PPP hypothesis for Sri Lanka. The results from widely-used unit root tests, however, provide mixed evidence. We attribute these inconclusive results to the low power of the widely-used unit root tests and their inability to account for unknown trends and means in the real exchange rates.Real exchange rates, Sri Lanka, Purchasing power parity, ERS test, DF-GLS test, US dollar

The mincut graph of a graph

In this paper we introduce an intersection graph of a graph $G$, with vertex set the minimum edge-cuts of $G$. We find the minimum cut-set graphs of some well-known families of graphs and show that every graph is a minimum cut-set graph, henceforth called a \emph{mincut graph}. Furthermore, we show that non-isomorphic graphs can have isomorphic mincut graphs and ask the question whether there are sufficient conditions for two graphs to have isomorphic mincut graphs. We introduce the $r$-intersection number of a graph $G$, the smallest number of elements we need in $S$ in order to have a family $F=\{S_1, S_2 \ldots , S_i\}$ of subsets, such that $|S_i|=r$ for each subset. Finally we investigate the effect of certain graph operations on the mincut graphs of some families of graphs

Efficiency of the Foreign Exchange Market of Papua New Guinea During the Recent Float

This paper examines the validity of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) for the foreign exchange market of Papua New Guinea (PNG) using data on spot exchange rates for four major foreign currencies during the recent float. The unit root test results indicate that all the four exchange rates are random walks supporting the weak-form of the EMH. However, the Johansen multivariate cointegration test, the Granger causality test and variance decomposition analysis provide evidence that there are long-run as well as short-run predictable relationships among the spot exchange rates, refuting the validity of EMH in its semi-strong form. Further, evidence is found that the Australian dollar plays a vital role in driving the movements of exchange rates in PNG. These results have important implications for participants in the foreign exchange market and policy makers in PNG.Efficient market hypothesis, Papua New Guinea, foreign exchange market, Japanese yen, Variance decomposition