Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Evidence from a Threshold Regression Analysis

Using threshold regression techniques developed by Caner and Hansen(2004),this paper examines whether the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth is dependent upon different absorptive capacities. There are three absorptive capacities, namely, initial GDP, human capital and the volume of trade, that are used as threshold variables in our paper. The empirical analysis shows that FDI alone plays an ambiguous role in contributing to economic growth based on a sample of 62 countries covering the period from 1975 through 2000. Under the threshold regression, we find that initial GDP and human capital are important factors in explaining FDI. FDI is found to have a positive and significant impact on growth when host countries have better levels of initial GDP and human capital.

Asymmetric Exchange Rate Exposure and Industry Characteristics : Evidence from Japanese Data

This paper investigates the asymmetric effects of exchange rate exposure on Japanese stock returns at the industry level.Using the asymmetric correlation test of Hong et al.(2007), we examine five major currencies against the yen and thirty-three Japanese sectoral stock returns.Signi ficant asymmetric responses in stock returns to exchange rate changes are found in the pharmaceutical, real estate, and air transportation industries.These findings are consistent with the pricing-to-market and hysteretic behavior for the pharmaceutical and air transportation industries and with the hedging behavior for the real estate industry.The results for the threshold models confirm that the asymmetric exposures are based on industry characteristics.exchange rate exposure, asymmetric correlation, threshold model

Structural Break or Asymmetry? An Empirical Study of the Stock Wealth Effect on Consumption

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the stock wealth effect of consumption exhibits structural change(s) or behaves asymmetrically over business cycles. We first perform a general test of linearity for the behavior of aggregate consumption in response to changes in stock wealth based on Hamilton's (2001) approach. When a nonlinear relation is discovered, we move on to investigate the source(s) of this nonlinearity. We consider two types of nonlinearity: structural break and asymmetry. It is of interest to policy makers whether the sensitivity of consumption to changes in households' financial wealth shows a significant shift over time due to institutional and policy changes, and whether consumption is likely to decline more due to stock wealth shrinkage when the economy is in a downturn, as has been found in investmeconsumption, stock wealth, asymmetric effect, structural change

Partially hydrolyzed guar gum supplement reduces high-fat diet increased blood lipids and oxidative stress and ameliorates FeCl3-induced acute arterial injury in hamsters

Increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and hyperlipidemia can promote arterial thrombus. We evaluated the potential of a partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG) as dietary fiber on lipid profiles and FeCl3-induced arterial thrombosis in the high fat-diet fed hamsters. Our in vitro results found that PHGG is efficient to scavenge O2-•, H2O2, and HOCl. High fat-diet increased plasma triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL, VLDL, methylguanidine and dityrosine level and accelerated FeCl3-induced arterial thrombosis formation (from 463 ± 51 to 303 ± 45 sec). Low dose PHGG supplement significantly decreased the total cholesterol, LDL, methylguanidine and dityrosine level and delayed the time for arterial thrombosis formation (528 ± 75 sec). High dose PHGG supplement decreased the level in triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL and VLDL and further delayed the time for arterial thrombus (671 ± 36 sec). The increased Bax protein and decreased Bcl-2 and HSP-70 protein expression was found in the carotid and femoral arteries of high fat-diet hamsters. Low and high dose of PHGG supplement decreased Bax expression and increased Bcl-2 and HSP-70 protein expression. We found that FeCl3 significantly enhanced intercellular adhesion molecule-1 and 4-hydroxynonenal expression in the endothelial site of damaged artery after 150-sec FeCl3 stimulation. PHGG supplement decreased the endothelial ICAM-1 and 4-hydroxynonenal expression after 150-sec FeCl3 stimulation. Based on these results, we conclude that PHGG supplement can increase antioxidant protein expression and thus decrease oxidative stress induced arterial injury

Assessing the Integrity of Spillway Foundations

The erosion under a spillway can be a long-term issue that threatens the structural integrity of a water reservoir. The spillway under investigation was suspected to be defective after it had been commissioned in 1987 (Figure 1). Potholes and subsurface cavities were confirmed in the safety assessment using various NDT techniques including ground penetrating radar and impact echo. The GPR inspection was able to differentiate the intact region from the cavities under concrete slabs (Figure 2). The impact echo results and associated analyses provided further evidence of inferior condition in the soil under the concrete slabs. The engineering team designed and executed the repair project based on the conclusion of the integrity assessment. Subsequent GPR inspection has been performed so as to monitor the integrity of the spillway in a period of 18 months following the repair

Fault Zone Resistivity Structure and Monitoring at the Taiwan Chelungpu Drilling Project (TCDP)

The Taiwan Chelungpu-fault drilling project (TCDP) has undertaken scientific drilling and directly sampled the sub-surface rupture of the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. Audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) measurements were used to investigate electrical resistivity structure at the TCDP site from 2004 - 2006. These data show a geoelectric strike direction of N15°E to N30°E. Inversion and forward modeling of the AMT data were used to generate a 1-D resistivity model that has a prominent low resistivity zone (< 10 ohm-m) between depths of 1100 and 1500 m. When combined with porosity measurements, theAMT measurements imply that the ground water has a resistivity of 0.55 ohm-m at the depth of the fault zone

Estimation of a panel stochastic frontier model with unobserved common shocks

This paper develops panel stochastic frontier models with unobserved common correlated effects. The common correlated effects provide a way of modeling cross-sectional dependence and represent heterogeneous impacts on individuals resulting from unobserved common shocks. Traditional panel stochastic frontier models do not distinguish between common correlated effects and technical inefficiency. In this paper, we propose a modified maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) that does not require estimating unobserved common correlated effects. We show that the proposed method can control the common correlated effects and obtain consistent estimates of parameters and technical efficiency for the panel stochastic frontier model. Our Monte Carlo simulations show that the modified MLE has satisfactory finite sample properties under a significant degree of cross-sectional dependence for relatively small T. The proposed method is also illustrated in applications based on a cross country comparison of the efficiency of banking industries

Estimation of a Panel Stochastic Frontier Model with Unobserved Common Shocks

This paper proposes a panel stochastic frontier model with unobserved common shocks to control cross-sectional dependence among individual firms. The novel feature is that we separate technical inefficiency (decision-dependent heterogeneity) from the effects induced by individual heterogeneity (decision-independent) caused by unobserved common shocks. We propose a feasible maximum likelihood method that does not require estimating the effects of unobserved common shocks and discuss its asymptotic properties. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed method has satisfactory finite sample properties when cross-sectional dependence exists. Application is illustrated by comparison of the efficiency of savings and commercial banking industries in the US

Estimation of a Panel Stochastic Frontier Model with Unobserved Common Shocks

This paper proposes a panel stochastic frontier model with unobserved common shocks to control cross-sectional dependence among individual firms. The novel feature is that we separate technical inefficiency (decision-dependent heterogeneity) from the effects induced by individual heterogeneity (decision-independent) caused by unobserved common shocks. We propose a feasible maximum likelihood method that does not require estimating the effects of unobserved common shocks and discuss its asymptotic properties. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed method has satisfactory finite sample properties when cross-sectional dependence exists. Application is illustrated by comparison of the efficiency of savings and commercial banking industries in the US