Endogenous Private Transfer and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics in a Two-Sector Dependent Economy

Government to government transfers are treated understandably as exogenous in open economy macro models. Even private transfer like remittances are treated as exogenous in the extant literature. In this paper we examine the effects of endogenous private transfer (remittances) on the real exchange rates using a dynamic two-sector dependent economy model. We examine the effects of demand and supply shocks and found that the dynamic patterns for real exchange rates depends on endogeneity of the transfer and the factor intensity of the traded and non-traded sectors

Accounting for City Real Exchange Rate Changes in India

We examine the role of non-traded goods in the city real exchange rate changes in India. Using the Mean Squared Error (MSE) decomposition we find that non-traded goods explain about 30% of the variation of the Indian city real exchange rate changes, rather than the small amount found in other cross-country studies. We also analyze the role of consumption elasticity of substitution between traded and non-traded goods

Oil Prices and Remittances: Impacts of Oil Price Shocks on the Macroeconomy of a Small, Oil Importing, and Labor Exporting Country

We examine the dynamic effects of an oil price shock on a small open economy that imports oil and exports labor to the oil exporting countries. We find that the reduction in output resulting from the oil price shock is at least partially mitigated by an accompanying increase in remittances from the expatriated labor. We also show that with a jump in oil price, domestic labor use decreases and labor export increases, oil consumption falls, and steady-state capital and consumption fall. However, consumption may intially jump up depending on the relative sizes of the negative supply effect and the positive remittance effect. Although consumption will eventually fall below the pre-shock level as steady state is approached, the initial consumption increase may be sufficiently large and long lasting to make the shock scenario welfare improving

Macroeconomic Interdependence and Integration in Africa

There is a renewed interest in the debate on integration in Africa since the creation of the Africa Union in 2002. This study investigates the feasibility of a full-fledge union in Africa from an economic standpoint. Towards this goal, we examine both the contemporaneous and dynamic relations in the short- and long-run among six key macro variables--consumer price level, gross domestic product, consumption, investment, trade flows and government expenditures--in eight African countries. In the quarterly data from 1976 to 2005, we observe the existence of common trends in real output, price level, private consumption, government consumption, investment and trade flows among these eight countries. In addition, we also note that there exist common cycles in real output, investment and trade flows for these countries. These two critical findings indicate the existence of some macroeconomic interdependence among these countries. Thus, the chances for success of integration in Africa driven by these eight countries are appreciable

Currency Substitution in Selected African Countries

This study investigates the presence of currency substitution in eight African countries--Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia--for the period 1976 to 2005 using both regional and US dollar as anchor currencies. We find that currency substitution is prevalent in Ghana and Nigeria when CFA franc is used as an anchor currency. However, when US dollar is used as an anchor currency there is no evidence of currency substitution in Ghana but we still observe the presence of currency substitution in Nigeria. Also we find presence of currency substitution in South Africa but not in Egypt when the US dollar is the anchor currency. For Kenya, Tunisia and Zambia there is no evidence of currency substitution irrespective of the anchor currencies considered. In the case of Morocco, we observe no evidence of currency substitution when the Egyptian pound is used as anchor currency but there is weak evidence of currency substitution when the US dollar is considered

Managerial Competence and Inventory Management in SME Financial Performance: A Hungarian Perspective

This study examines how managerial skills and inventory management affect the financial performance of SMEs in Hungarys Business Products and Services sector. It employs a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative research through semi-structured interviews with 73 inventory and financial managers, alongside a quantitative survey involving 210 participants representing various SME experiences. Qualitative methods like thematic and hermeneutic analysis are used to explore participant experiences deeply, while the quantitative survey assesses specific variables. The findings reveal a consensus among participants on the pivotal roles of managerial competence and advanced inventory management practices. Managerial competence encompasses data-driven decision-making and adaptability, while advanced inventory techniques like Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) and Activity-Based Cost (ABC) analysis significantly impact profitability. Inventory management is identified as a key mediator between managerial decisions and financial outcomes. The study emphasizes the importance of investing in managerial development, education, and sustainable growth for SMEs. Recommendations include adopting advanced inventory management techniques, prioritizing customer satisfaction, embracing continuous improvement, expanding globally, and promoting knowledge sharing to optimize SME operations. These insights offer practical guidance for SMEs to enhance growth and competitiveness across diverse business settings

Desalination Performance of Nano porous Mos2_2 Membrane on Different Salts of Saline Water: A Molecular Dynamics Study

The freshwater crisis is a growing concern and a pressing problem for the world because of the increasing population, civilization, and rapid industrial growth. The water treatment facilities are able to supply less than 1% of the total water demand. Water desalination can be a potential solution to deal with this alarming issue. Researchers have been exploring for quite some time to find novel nano-enhanced membranes and manufacturing techniques to increase the efficiency of the desalination process. Graphene and graphene modified membranes showed huge potential as desalination membranes for comparatively easier synthesis process and higher ion rejection rate than conventional filter materials. Currently, single-layer Mos$_2$ has been discovered to have the same potential of water permeability and ion rejection rate as graphene membrane in a more energy-efficient way. For almost analogous nano porous structure of the graphene membrane, almost 70% of the higher water flux is obtained from the Mos$_2$ membrane. In this work, it has been shown that nano porous Mos$_2$ membranes provide a promising result for desalinating other salts of seawater alongside NaCl. We have also observed the effect of variations in ions, pore size, and pressure on water permeation and ion rejection rates in the water desalination process. In this study, water permeation increased significantly by increasing the pore area from 20{\AA} to 80{\AA}. The rate of water filtration increases in proportion to both applied pressure and pore size, sacrificing the ion rejection rate for the type of ions studied. A combination of salt ions in the saline water for desalination has also been studied, where the rejection rates for the different ions are separately represented for various applied pressures. For seawater, the Mos$_2$ membrane has showed quite promising performance in the study of ion variation

EFFECT OF FABRIC STRUCTURE ON RIB FABRIC PROPERTIES

In this work,1×1Rib,1×1Skeleton rib, 2×2English rib, 2×2Swiss rib, 6×3Derby rib were produced with 20/2 Ne and 32/2 Ne combed ring yarn and V-bed knitting machine of 14 Gauge. In addition, Wales per 3cm, Course per 3cm, Stitch density, Stitch length, Tightness factor, GSM, Dimensional Stability of fabric were tested. According to test result, Wales per 3cm, Stitch density, Cover factor, GSM of 1×1Rib were higher than the 1×1Skeleton rib;Wales per 3cm, Course per 3cm, Stitch density, Stitch length, Cover factor, Shrinkage%, extension% of 2×2English rib were higher than the 1×1Rib; Wales per 3cm, Stitch density, GSM, Shrinkage%, extension% of 2×2Swiss rib were higher than the 1×1Rib; in 6×3Derby Rib values of the properties were higher than other structure; shrinkage and extension percentage increase with the increase of needle drop in knitting

Interference issues and mitigation method in WSN 2.4GHz ISM band: A survey

Current lifestyles promote the development and advancement in wireless technologies, especially in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) due to its several benefits.WSN offers a low cost, low data rate, flexible routing, longer lifetime, and low-energy consumption suitable for unmanned and long term monitoring.Among huge WSN applications, some key applications are smart houses, environmental monitoring, military applications, and other monitoring applications.As a result, ubiquitous increase in the number of wireless devices occupying the 2.4GHz frequency band.This causes a dense wireless connection followed by interference problem to WSN in the 2.4GHz frequency band. WSN is most affected by the interference issue because it has a lower data rate and transmission power compared to WLAN.Despite efforts made by researchers, to the author's knowledge, the interference issue is still a major problem in wireless networks.This paper aims to review the coexistence and interference issues of existing wireless technologies in the 2.4GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band.Keywords— Coexistence, Frequency Spectrum, IEEE 802.15.4, Interference, WSN, 2.4GHz ISM ban

Estimation of hydraulic conductivity and its uncertainty from grain-size data using GLUE and artificial neural networks

peer reviewedaudience: researcher, professionalVarious approaches exist to relate saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) to grain-size data. Most methods use a single grain-size parameter and hence omit the information encompassed by the entire grain-size distribution. This study compares two data-driven modelling methods, i.e.multiple linear regression and artificial neural networks, that use the entire grain-size distribution data as input for Ks prediction. Besides the predictive capacity of the methods, the uncertainty associated with the model predictions is also evaluated, since such information is important for stochastic groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are combined with a generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) approach to predict Ks from grain-size data. The resulting GLUE-ANN hydraulic conductivity predictions and associated uncertainty estimates are compared with those obtained from the multiple linear regression models by a leave-one-out cross-validation. The GLUE-ANN ensemble prediction proved to be slightly better than multiple linear regression. The prediction uncertainty, however, was reduced by half an order of magnitude on average, and decreased at most by an order of magnitude. This demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms classical data-driven modelling techniques. Moreover, a comparison with methods from literature demonstrates the importance of site specific calibration. The dataset used for this purpose originates mainly from unconsolidated sandy sediments of the Neogene aquifer, northern Belgium. The proposed predictive models are developed for 173 grain-size -Ks pairs. Finally, an application with the optimized models is presented for a borehole lacking Ks data