ICT Use in the Developing World An Analysis of Differences in Computerand Internet Penetration

Computer and Internet use, especially in developing countries, has expanded rapidly in recent years. Even in light of this expansion in technology adoption rates, penetration rates differ markedly between developed and developing countries and across developing countries. To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration, both currently and over time, we examine panel data for 161 countries over the 1999-2004 period. We explore the role of a comprehensive set of economic, demographic, infrastructure, institutional and financial factors in contributing to the global digital divide. We find evidence indicating that income, human capital, the youth dependency ratio, telephone density, legal quality and banking sector development are associated with technology penetration rates. Overall, the factors associated with computer and Internet penetration do not differ substantially between developed and developing countries. Estimates from Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions reveal that the main factors responsible for low rates of technology penetration rates in developing countries are disparities in income, telephone density, legal quality and human capital. In terms of dynamics, our results indicate fairly rapid reversion to long run equilibrium for Internet use, and somewhat slower reversion for computer use, particularly in developed economies. Financial development, either measured as bank lending or the value of stocks traded, is also important to the growth rate of Internet use

Supply capacity, vertical specialisation and trade costs : the implications for aggreagate US trade flow equations

This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States over the 1975q1-2010q1 period. This re-examination is warranted because (1) income elasticities are too high to be warranted by standard theories, and (2) remain high even when it is assumed that supply factors are important. These findings suggest that the standard models omit important factors. An empirical investigation indicates that the rising importance of vertical specialization combined with changing tariff rates and transportation costs explains some of results. Accounting for these factors yields more plausible estimates of income elasticities

Three Current Account Balances: A "Semi-Structuralist" Interpretation

Three large current account imbalances -- one deficit (the United States) and two surpluses (Japan and the Euro area) -- are subjected to a minimalist structural interpretation. Though simple, this interpretation enables us to assess how much of each of the imbalances require a real exchange rate adjustment. According to the estimates, a large part of the U.S. current account deficit (nearly 2 percentage points of the 2004 deficit of 5 1/2 percent of GDP) will undergo an adjustment process that involves real depreciation in its exchange rate. For Japan, a little more than 1 percentage point (of GDP) of the current account surplus is found to require an exchange rate movement (real appreciation) as the surpluses adjust down. For the Euro area, less than half a percentage point of its current account surplus is found to require an adjustment via real appreciation.

Supply Capacity, Vertical Specialisation andTrade Costs: The Implications for Aggreagate US Trade Flow Equations

This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States over the 1975-2010 period. This re-examination is warranted because (1) income elasticities are too high to be warranted by standard theories, and (2) remain high even when it is assumed that supply factors are important. These findings suggest that the standard models omit important factors. An empirical nvestigation ndicates that the rising importance of vertical specialization combined with changing tariff rates and transportation costs explains some of results. Accounting for these factors ields more plausible estimates of income elasticities.imports; exports; elasticities; vertical specialization; production fragmentation; trade costs.

Supply Capacity, Vertical Specialization and Tariff Rates: The Implications for Aggregate U.S. Trade Flow Equations

This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States. This re-examination is warranted because (1) income elasticities are too high to be warranted by standard theories, and (2) remain high even when it is assumed that supply factors are important. These findings suggest that the standard models omit important factors. An empirical investigation indicates that the rising importance of vertical specialization combined with decreasing tariffs rates explains some of results. Accounting for these factors yields more plausible estimates of income elasticities, as well as smaller prediction errors.

The Predictive Content of Energy Futures: An Update on Petroleum, Natural Gas, Heating Oil and Gasoline

This paper examines the relationship between spot and futures prices for energy commodities (crude oil, gasoline, heating oil markets and natural gas). In particular, we examine whether futures prices are (1) an unbiased and/or (2) accurate predictor of subsequent spot prices. We find that while futures prices are unbiased predictors of future spot prices, with the exception those in the natural gas markets at the 3-month horizon. Futures do not appear to well predict subsequent movements in energy commodity prices, although they slightly outperform time series models.

The Eurozone in Crisis: Origins and Prospects

Governmen

Conventional and Unconventional Approaches to Exchange Rate Modeling and Assessment

We examine the relative predictive power of the sticky price monetary model, uncovered interest parity, and a transformation of net exports and net foreign assets. In addition to bringing Gourinchas and Rey’s new approach and more recent data to bear, we implement the Clark and West (forthcoming) procedure for testing the significance of out-of-sample forecasts. The interest rate parity relation holds better at long horizons and the net exports variable does well in predicting exchange rates at short horizons in-sample. In out-of-sample forecasts, we find evidence that our proxy for Gourinchas and Rey’s measure of external imbalances outperforms a random walk at short horizons as do some of other models, although no single model uniformly outperforms the random walk forecast.