71 research outputs found
Small arms production and transfers in Southeast Asia
Get PDFThis work offers the first comprehensive study of small arms production and transfers, both licit and illicit, in Southeast Asia. It includes detailed country studies of all ten ASEAN states, covering national production, inventories and holdings, known imports and exports, societal problems with small arms and weaknesses in existing gun control legislation. It also summarises intra-state conflicts and addresses the sometimes considerable small-arms holdings of non-state actors such as insurgent groups and private armies. The study concludes that Southeast Asia has a serious problem with the leakage of legally-owned weapons and with the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons. Furthermore, despite the growing international profile of small arms issues, ASEAN's members have been slow in taking effective action to combat illegal arms transfers
The Economics-Security Nexus in the US-China Trade Conflict decoupling dilemmas
Get PDFFor more than two decades, China was enmeshed in transnational trade and investment networks. The complex interdependence that characterised the relationship between the United States and China is now threatened by policies that incentivise decoupling, including the partial unwinding of multinational supply chains. Since 2018 the âtrade warâ between the US and China has taken on elements of a âtech warâ, in which national security concerns replace economic logic. The area for winâwin gains is reduced, as both countries pursue policies of greater technological autonomy. The bilateral rift creates challenges for companies and third parties who have no wish to take sides and complicates APECâs goal to promote growth and accelerate regional economic integration
The Quantity Theory of Money is Valid. The New Keynesians are Wrong!
Get PDFWe test the quantity theory of money (QTM) using a novel approach and a large new sample. We do not follow the usual approach of first differentiating the logarithm of the Cambridge equation to obtain an equation relating the growth rate of real GDP, the growth rate of money and inflation. These variables must then again be âintegratedâ by averaging in order to obtain stable relationships. Instead we suggest a much simpler procedure for testing directly the stability of the coefficient of the Cambridge equation. For 125 countries and post-war data we find the coefficient to be surprisingly stable. We do not select for high inflation episodes as was done in most empirical studies; inflation rates do not even appear in our data set.
Much work supporting the QTM has been done by economic historians and at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman and his associates. The QTM was a foundation stone of the monetarist revolution. Subsequently belief in it waned. The currently dominant New Keynesian School, implicitly or explicitly denies the validity of the QTM. We survey this history and argue that the QTM is valid and New Keynesians are wrong
The importance of belief dispersion in the response of gold futures to macroeconomic announcements
Get PDFWe investigate the behaviour of gold futures around the release of macroeconomic announcements. Market activity, in terms of traded volume, returns, and volatility, responds to new information quickly, with the majority of the reaction complete within 90-s. Surprises on the announcement of unemployment rate and GDP have the largest impact. Contrary to prior results for the equity market, gold futures exhibit greater reactions to âgoodâ economic news (which is negative for gold prices) and the magnitude of the response does not appear to increase during recession. Importantly, we employ a novel measure of belief dispersion, and we are able to demonstrate that the market response to macroeconomic news is significantly larger when belief dispersion is wider
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