A Note on the Modelling and Interpretation of a Public Goods Game Experiment

This paper presents an alternative interpretation of an experimental public goods game dataset, particularly on the understanding of the observed antisocial behaviour phenomenon between subjects of a public goods experiment in different cities around the world. The anonymous nature of contributions and punishments in this experiment are taken into account to interpret results. This is done by analysing dynamic behaviour in terms of mean contributions across societies and their association with antisocial punishment. By taking into account the heterogeneity between the cities in which the public goods experiment has been performed, this analysis show a contrasting interpretation. Instead of one trend across cities, two opposite trends are seen across different cities. In addition, we find that the presence of these trends to have an impact on the role antisocial and prosocial behaviour in public goods games. When accounting for these trends, the antisocial and prosocial behaviour is found to have a significant role in Western societies

Microfinance and Household Poverty Reduction: Empirical Evidence from Rural Pakistan

This study examines whether household access to microfinance reduces poverty in Pakistan and, if so, how and to what extent. It draws on primary empirical data gathered by interviewing 1,132 households in which both borrower and non-borrower households were interviewed in 2008-9. Sample selection biases have been controlled partially by using propensity score matching. The study reveals that microfinance programmes had a positive impact on the participating households. Poverty-reducing effects were observed on a number of indicators, including expenditure on healthcare, clothing, household income, and on certain dwelling characteristics, such as water supply and quality of roofing and walls

The dynamics of income inequality in Africa: An empirical investigation on the role of macroeconomic and institutional forces

Reducing income inequality is a crucial goal of sustainable development as income inequality often viewed as harmful to economic growth. The main aim of this paper was to empirically assess the macroeconomic and institutional drivers of income inequality in Africa. We use a Kuznets curve framework, which emphasises the role of income per capita in explaining the time path of inequality. In contrast to much of the literature, we explicitly examine the possibility of the existence of multiple income steady states. Using the concept of clubs of convergence, we show that per capita income is divergent and identify four steady states to which groups of economies converge (i.e., high-income to low-income economies). Using panel data models and a data set encompassing 52 African countries spanning the years 1980–2017, we show that once these multiple steady states are accounted for, the Kuznets curve relationship becomes unstable. Our findings suggest that inequality may be increasing in high-income countries in Africa, while decreasing in low-income or the least developed economies. In addition, the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors in explaining income inequality is limited and differ across convergence clubs. Evidence suggests the importance of fiscal, employment and monetary policies and the rule of law to tackle inequality in high-income economies, while they have no statistically significant role in low-income economies’ income inequality

A Structural Break Approach to Analysing the Impact of the QE Portfolio Balance Channel on the US Stock Market

Following the 1929 Wall Street collapse, the initial response to the institutional failures and collapsing financial system was to allow the markets to self-correct, which led to a significant period of economic depression. In contrast the US (and UK) governments responded to the 2008 financial crisis with extra liquidity for the banking sector and a stimulus package, but why was there such a different response? Following a light touch approach to Bear Stearns and Lehmann’s, it became clear that without greater intervention, the effect would become contagious throughout the financial system. One of the most important forms of intervention was Quantitative Easing (QE) and historically low interest rates. This study finds that QE substantially reduced the Equity Risk Premium on S&P equities through a 9.6% rise in prices, thus reducing returns. Consequentially, this drives portfolios to seek risker asset classes to make up for the shortfall in returns. This suggests that the combination of low interest rates and QE, when compared to expansion alone, has had a marked change on equity prices and ERP. Furthermore, there is evidence that regime shifts support these findings. Such unforeseen consequences in the equity markets is of great interest to policy makers when deciding on a response to such exceptional circumstances, and researchers investigating monetary policy responses to the next inevitable extreme financial crisis

Fatty acid-binding protein 5 (FABP5)-related signal transduction pathway in castration-resistant prostate cancer cells: a potential therapeutic target

In this short communication, a novel fatty acid-binding protein 5 (FABP5)-related signal transduction pathway in prostate cancer is reviewed. In castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) cells, the FABP5-related signal transduction pathway plays an important role during transformation of the cancer cells from androgen-dependent state to androgen-independent state. The detailed route of this signal transduction pathway can be described as follows: when FABP5 expression is increased as the increasing malignancy, excessive amounts of fatty acids from intra- and extra-cellular sources are transported into the nucleus of the cancer cells where they act as signalling molecules to stimulate their nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ). The phosphorylated or biologically activated PPARγ then modulates the expression of its downstream target regulatory genes to trigger a series of molecular events that eventually lead to enhanced tumour expansion and aggressiveness caused by an overgrowth of the cancer cells with a reduced apoptosis and an increased angiogenesis. Suppressing the FABP5-related pathway via RNA interference against FABP5 has produced a 63-fold reduction in the average size of the tumours developed from CRPC cells in nude mice, a seven-fold reduction of tumour incidence, and a 100% reduction of metastasis rate. Experimental treatments of CRPC with novel FABP5 inhibitors have successfully inhibited the malignant progression of CRPC cells both in vitro and in nude mouse. These studies suggest that FABP5-related signal transduction pathway is a novel target for therapeutic intervention of CRPC cells