ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND ENDOGENOUS GROWTH: AN EXPLANATION USING AK MODEL

Abstract: This research investigates the impacts of economic integration on endogenous growth by an application of the AK learning-by-doing model. Assuming that the knowledge that increases the productivity of labor will be created by accumulated capital, we divide economic integration into two different categories: one-way and two-way integration. The results show that two identical countries cannot have any benefits from economic integration. If two countries are different, the domestic country should only integrate with foreign countries that have a lower cost of capital of wage, or higher learning coefficient (the speed of transferring accumulated capital to knowledge) in the case of one-way integration. The same conclusion is still drawn in the case of two-way integration for two similar countries.Keywords: economic integration, endogenous growth, AK mode

FLIGHT-TO-QUALITY OR CONTAGION DURING U.S. SUBPRIME CRISIS: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM’S FINANCIAL MARKETS

Abstract: This study investigates whether contagion or flight-to-quality occurred in Vietnam’s financial markets during the US subprime crisis in 2007. We apply the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation model (ADCC-GARCH (1,1)) to daily stock-index and bond index returns of Vietnam’s and US stock markets. We test for contagion or flight-to-quality by using a test for difference in dynamic conditional correlation means. The results show a contagion between the US and Vietnam’s stock markets, confirming the widespread influence of the US stock market on a young market like Vietnam. This result suggests a low benefit from diversification for investors holding portfolios containing assets in Vietnam’s stock market and US stock market during the crisis. Moreover, the relationship between Vietnam’s stock and bond markets represents a flight-to-quality during the US subprime crisis. This finding shows that the investors tend to hold less risky assets, i.e., bonds, instead of stocks during this turbulent period in Vietnam.Keywords: international financial contagion, flight-to-quality, Vietnam, US subprime crisis, ADCC-GARC

NOISE TRADER RISK: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM STOCK MARKET

Abstract: This paper investigates the existence of noise trader risk in Vietnam’s stock market and its effect on the daily returns of stock prices. The methodologies contain the estimation of GARCH (1,1) model to filter the residuals using the moving average method to calculate the impact of information traders. Noise trader risk or the risk that is caused by noise traders is derived by subtracting the residuals by the rational traders’ impact. We find that the noise trader risk does exist in Vietnam’s stock market and its impact on daily returns of stocks is unpredictable. Meanwhile, we find a positive impact of information traders on the stock returns. It increases the daily stock returns, and in turn, helps the market to correct itself because the stock prices move back to its fundamental value.Keywords: noise trader risk, GARCH (1,1), Vietnam’s stock marke

Diversifying Group Recommendation

Recommender-systems has been a significant research direction in both literature and practice. The core of recommender systems are the recommendation mechanisms, which suggest to a user a selected set of items supposed to match user true intent, based on existing user preferences. In some scenarios, the items to be recommended are not intended for personal use but a group of users. Group recommendation is rather more since group members have wide-ranging levels of interests and often involve conflicts. However, group recommendation endures the over-specification problem, in which the presumingly relevant items do not necessarily match true user intent. In this paper, we address the problem of diversity in group recommendation by improving the chance of returning at least one piece of information that embraces group satisfaction. We proposed a bounded algorithm that finds a subset of items with maximal group utility and maximal variety of information. Experiments on real-world rating datasets show the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach

Characterization of pig farms in Hung Yen, Hai Duong and Bac Ninh provinces

peer reviewedIn order to characterization of pig farms in the Red River Delta, a study was conducted on 90 pig farms in Hung Yen, Hai Duong and Bac Ninh provinces from June to December 2006. Results show that most of the pig farms had been built for five years with a small size (0.5 hectare per farm). The invested capital was about 300-400 millions VND per farm. Four main sow groups used in the farms included crossbred exotic sows (51.1%), crossbred sow between local and exotic breeds (14.4%), purebred Landrace and Yorkshire breeds (15.6 and 18.9%, respectively). The boars were various (Duroc 30%, Yorkshire 21%, Landrace 13%, PiÐtrain × Duroc 36% and others). The pigs farms were faced with several difficulties such as limited land, lack of invested capital, uncontrolled quality of breeding pigs, high costs of feed, poor hygiene condition and diseases

Probabilistic Schema Covering

Schema covering is the process of representing large and complex schemas by easily comprehensible common objects. This task is done by identifying a set of common concepts from a repository called concept repository and generating a cover to describe the schema by the concepts. Traditional schema covering approach has two shortcomings: it does not model the uncertainty in the covering process, and it requires user to state an ambiguity constraint which is hard to define. We remedy this problem by incorporating probabilistic model into schema covering to generate probabilistic schema cover. The integrated probabilities not only enhance the coverage of cover results but also eliminate the need of defining the ambiguity parameter. Both probabilistic schema covering and traditional schema covering run on top of a concept repository. Experiments on real-datasets show the competitive performance of our approach

Bootstrapping Uncertainty in Schema Covering

Schema covering is the process of representing large and complex schemas by easily comprehensible common objects. This task is done by identifying a set of common concepts from a repository called concept repository and generating a cover to describe the schema by the concepts. Traditional schema covering approach has two shortcomings: it does not model the uncertainty in the covering process, and it requires user to state an ambiguity constraint which is hard to define. We remedy this problem by incorporating probabilistic model into schema covering to generate probabilistic schema cover. The integrated probabilities not only enhance the coverage of cover results but also eliminate the need of defining the ambiguity parameter. Experiments on real-datasets show the competitive performance of our approach

A Survey on Some Parameters of Beef and Buffalo Meat Quality

A survey was carried out on 13 Vietnamese Yellow cattle, 14 LaiSind cattle and 18 buffalos in Hanoi to estimate the quality of longissimus dorsi in terms of pH, color, drip loss, cooking loss and tenderness at 6 different postmortem intervals. It was found that the pH value of longissimus dorsi was not significantly different among the 3 breeds (P>0.05), being reduced rapidly during the first 36 hours postmortem, and then stayed stable. The value was in the range that was considered to be normal. Conversely, the color values L*, a* and b* tended to increase and also stable at 36 hours postmortem, except that for LaiSind cattle at 48 hours. According to L* scale, the meat of Yellow and LaiSind cattle met the normal quality but the buffalo meat was considered to be dark cutters. The tenderness of longissimus dorsi was significantly different among the breeds (P<0.05). The value was highest at 48 hours and then decreased for LaiSind and buffalo, but for Yellow cattle the value decreased continuously after slaughtering In terms of tenderness buffalo meat and Yellow cattle meat were classified as “intermediate”, while LaiSind meat was out of this interval and classified as “tough”. Drip loss ratio was increased with the time of preservation (P<0.05). The cooking loss ratio was lowest at 12 hours and higher at the next period, but there was no significant difference among the periods after 36 hours postmotem.Peer reviewe