Emerging Issues and Development in Economics and Trade Vol. 4

Economy-wide Learning: A Comparative Study of Manufacturing and Non-manufacturing Sectors in Japan

Joseph Junior Aduba — 2020-04-02

In knowledge economies, building technological capability is a continuous process and unarguably key to industrial policy development. Learning [by-doing in the industry] has been linked to a reduction in unit labor cost and overall production cost of goods and services. In this study, we comparatively studied the learning pattern of the Japanese manufacturing and service sector using industrial-level-data. This study is perhaps the first attempt to comparatively study the productivity of the Japanese industry using the learning curve at the aggregate level. Looking back to almost 4 decade-long (1980-2017) of financial input-output data, we estimated the trend in technological learning using various learning models, calculated the annual progress ratios (via production function imputed in log-linear & cubic model) and revealed the dynamic technological learning across the two sectors at the aggregate level. This enabled us to identify years with good learning rates which are synonymous with cost-saving across the two sectors of the economy. The results show that, while learning was restored and sustained in the services sector of the economy in the last decade, the same cannot be said about the manufacturing sector where learning (cost-saving ability) was completely lost. We conclude that (1) as typical of advance economy, Japan is now a service-oriented economy with manufacturing playing a complementary role, (2) the service sector may have benefited from advances in technologies and innovations from the manufacturing to achieve higher productivity at a lower cost.

Importance of Financial Education in Making Informed Decision on Spending: Recent Study

Norman A. S. King — 2020-04-02

The discourse of spending is important if finance is of concern. Those who save money realize the fact that wise spending leads to saving and hence investing. A household that spends unwisely can end up complaining on insufficient funds attained. Governments and organizations which spend unwisely will always cry for budget deficit. Therefore, this chapter provides a discussion on the importance of financial education (financial literacy) in making informed decision on spending. We have people in our families who always cry for insufficiency of funds. And to them they think that God has given an outright favor to some people to enjoy the lives. But we also notice that those who seem prosperous most of them are not Godly. They demonstrate a bad behavior to families, to people near them, to our kids. If their prosperity is a result of God’s blessing, we could at least realize that these people are believers. It was from that line of thinking this study became eminent. This chapter exemplifies the use of mobile phones, food, fuels, and goodwill as among the key aspects which need to be looked at, while utilizing our money. The first part covers the introduction which reveals the definition of financial education as opposed to financial statement analyses (FSA) and or accounts information (AI). The second part reveals the importance of financial education to individuals, governments and financial institutions. The third part is the challenges for attaining financial education and examples that reveal the importance of financial education. The fourth part is the conclusion and recommendations. The chapter concludes that while income attained at any level is important, most suffrage related with insufficient income in many households is due to poor spending caused by lack of financial education. We have noted that most workers once have got a job, the first thing that one would do is ask for financial support from the bank to buy a car. Assuming that the car one has bought is at 15,000 USD, and his/her salary is 700 USD per month. The interest rate of a bank in Tanzania for instance is 19 to 20 percent. This means that you have created a grave onto yourself in the following aspects. 1) You have bought a car while your emirs work does not need you to have a car. 2) You have created an up for and from vehicle which adds expenses to the salaries. 3) You have been asked the financial institutions to take part of the money from your very little money to its bank. What you remain with is very small amount of money. The computation will follow to mark the evidence of spending to the car for a new worker. Hence this is a must-read book to allow the people know how to save money, when to buy a car, when and what types of vehicles you should buy while you are very junior worker, what actually you should not do while at work.

The Policy of the Monetary Authorities during Crises of Global Finance and Post-Crises Recession (1994-2019)

Viacheslav M. Shavshukov — 2020-04-02

Since the beginning of the 80s of twentieth century, a global financial and economic environment system was formed, and one sign of which were the crises of the global finance (crises in Mexico, Southeast Asian countries, the Russian default, the global crisis of 2008-2009). Anti-crisis measures of the monetary authorities are a combination of Keynesian and monetarist prescriptions. The first are nationalization, purchase by state (or regional financial institutions) distressed assets, the maintenance of employment and demand, social programs, state spending on High-tech. The second are tax breaks, reducing rates of discount and rates of interest, avoiding inflation by controlling the money supply. These measures made fundamentals of anti-recessionary policy of the G20. But in 2010-2019 the World economy faced slow recession, downgrades or sluggish growth, risks of new crisis. These processes reflect the pattern of global crises (transition to technological revolution 4.0, new sources of economic growth, and burning civilization issues of mankind) and the new phenomena in the World economy (economic growth slowdown, trade wars, deglobalization).

Impact of Finger Millet Varieties on Yield and Income of the Farmers in Mandya District, Karnataka

D. Raghupathi — 2020-04-02

The Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana L.) is a staple food in southern Karnataka popularly known and called as ‘Ragi’ in kannada vernacular language. To enhance its productivity the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru (UASB) is engaged in evolving location specific, farmer need based farm technologies through its Zonal Agricultural Research Stations (ZARS) spread over in Southern Karnataka since its inception 1965. To its credit, it has developed and released many farm technologies for the farmers to adopt. Among these, the improved high yielding Finger Millet variety KMR-204 was one. It has genetic advantages over the other local varieties, such as high yielding, blast tolerance, short duration and preferred for late sowing when rains are delayed. Such improved variety was released and recommended during 2011 for wider adoption for the growers in southern dry zone of Karnataka. Since then, many growers had adopted the variety. After lapse of 5 years of its release, the UASB was interested in to find out the performance of the technology on the farmers field and their perception in gaining economic returns when compared to other local varieties. From this backdrop the study was conducted during 2016 in Mandya district, Karnataka, where there is large area under the Finger Millet crop. The district has 7 taluks, from each taluk 2 Finger Millet growing villages were selected. From 14 villages, 210 respondents who have adopted both KMR-204 and Indaf-9 varieties (Before) were selected randomly and interviewed and information was collected. A research design ‘Before and After’ was adopted to compare the results. The findings of the study reveal that, the KMR-204 had given more grain and straw yield compared to that of Indaf-9 variety used before under both rainfed and irrigated conditions. However, the difference in obtaining grain and straw yields was non-significant. Similarly, in case of obtaining net income, though the respondents obtained relatively more income from KMR-204 compared to Indaf-9, the difference was non-significant. Thus the alternate hypothesis is rejected by accepting the null hypothesis. The respondents had favourable perception, with high attributional quotient (0.92) towards KMR-204, implying continued usage of variety. To conclude that the respondents obtained almost equal yields and income from the from the selected Finger millet varieties. The respondents had favourable perception towards KMR-204 variety.

Human Resource Management in Government: Case Study of Vietnam: Brief Overview

Do Phu Hai — 2020-04-02

This article is represented for a case study about human resource management in government of Vietnam. The research objective is to assess the existing system of human resource management in government of Vietnam and find out the direction of human resource management in government. The research demonstrated a moving from the existing system to the professional system from internal weaknesses and external challenges of the human resource management in Government of Vietnam. A combination of career based system and position based system is the right strategy for Vietnam as well as developing countries. Key elements of position based system and new public management should be adopted with a best practice of competency based human resource management framework which is very productive for Vietnam and developing countries.

Economic Growth and Environmental Pollution in Brunei: ARDL Bounds Testing Approach to Cointegration: A New Perspective

Issa Moh’d Hemed — 2020-04-02

Aims: This study examined the short-run and long-run dynamic relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution in Brunei. We adopted Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to scrutinize the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) among the studying variables by using time series data cover the period of 1974 to 2014.

Methodology: The ARDL bound test revealed the existence of a long-run relationship among the integrated variables when CO₂ chosen as a dependent variable.

Results: The results support the existences of EKC hypotheses in the long-run whereas in the short-run an inverted U-shaped curve was not confirmed between GDP and CO₂ in Brunei. The results of Granger causality based on VECM analysis have shown unidirectional causality runs from economic growth to CO₂ in the short-run. Further analysis through stability test indicates the coefficients in the model are stable and do not suffer from structural break within the time taken in the study.

Conclusion: Bruneian government should continue to support global environmental preservation policies to reduce the emission of harmful gases into the atmosphere, applying a modern technology that is not harming to the environment and consumes less energy to mitigate the adverse impact of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases in the country.

A Novel View on Collective Actions and Dynamic Capabilities in Competitive Advantage: Empirical Examination of Minor Export Crop Farms in Sri Lanka

Vilani Sachitra — 2020-04-02

Aims: Agribusiness sector is facing several challenges due to a rapid weather and technological changes. This is urged a collective approach. Literature has acknowledged that agribusiness farms which engage in collective actions generate greater value-add and enhance socio-economic contributions of a country. However, its relative importance along with the dynamic capabilities possessed by farms and subsequently competitive advantage has received very little research attention. Theoretically, this study examines the resource-based view in combination with the dynamic capability theories.

Study Design: Specifically, the minor export crop farm owners involved in the commercial cultivation of cinnamon, pepper and clove in Sri Lanka were surveyed using a personally-administered, structured questionnaire.

Results: The results of regression-based path analysis indicate a significant relationship between collective actions and competitive advantage, as well as between collective actions and dynamic capabilities.

Conclusion: The study has extended our understanding of the importance of collective actions for the minor export crop farm owners. Research and managerial implications are provided together with future research directions.

An Assessment of Tax Morale among Mauritian Taxpayers: Advanced Study

P. Vythelingum — 2020-04-02

Taxation has gained considerable attention in the past few year and lot of studies have been done on tax evasion and tax compliance. This study assesses the level of tax and identifies factors that shape tax morale in Mauritius. A self-developed questionnaire was distributed to 250 randomly respondents and a logistic regression analysis was used to analyse data collected. A high degree of tax morale is required to achieve high level of tax compliance. The result shows that socio -demographic and socio economic factors have an impact on tax morale and it can be seen that social norm, fairness and equity, trust in government and in tax authority are determinants that shape tax morale. The findings are in line with that some authors who found out that there is a positive correlation between inequity and tax evasion. The study recommended that population should be educated, tax system should be simplified, government should be fair and tax authority should respect the population.

Farmers’ Perception towards Sugarcane Technologies of Farm University in Karnataka, India

D. Raghupathi — 2020-04-02

The Zonal Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, has been carrying out the research on major crops like Rice (Oriza sativa L.)., Finger millet (Eleusine coracana)., Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum)., Maize (Zea mays L.) etc., considering the agro-climatic, location specific and need based demands of the farmers since its inception 1930s, many good agricultural practices were developed and they were transferred to farmers. There was need to evaluate the performance of these technologies in farmers’ field from time to time. One such technology selected for the study is, the sugarcane variety CO-86032 which was released during 2003-04 and it was compared with the local prevailing check variety CO-62175. An Ex-post-facto survey type of research design was adopted. The research objectives of the study are to find out the perception of farmers regarding performance of these farm technologies on their field regarding cane yield, income generated out of it and to find out association between cane yields and social factors affecting it. The study was conducted in Mandya, Maddur and Srirangapatna taluks of Mandya district, Karnataka state during 2009-10 and was retested in 2016 on pilot sample to ascertain the impact and performance of technologies among the farmers. The sample size was 270 and the respondents were selected randomly and purposively from afore said taluks of Mandya district. The data were collected from the respondents by administering pre-tested, structured interview schedule. The nominal data were analyzed using Chi square test to draw the inferences. The study found that the local variety CO- 62175 yielded 3.73 ton/ac cane yield more than that of CO- 86032. Majority of the respondents had harvested the cane yield ranging from 51 to 55 ton/ac, from CO-62175 and 56 to 60 ton/ac from CO-62175. Similar cane yield trend was observed in all the three taluks of Mandya district for both the varieties. Regarding jaggery recovery, the respondents obtained 120 kg of jaggery per ton of cane crushed from CO-86032 compared to 95kg from variety CO-62175, around 25 kg additional jaggery was recovered by crushing one ton cane from CO-86032. The perceived reason of respondents was more quality jiggery recovery from crushing the cane and they were willing to adopt the CO-86032 than that of CO-62175 variety. In case of finding out the association between the cane yield and the social variables; family size, land holding and education level of respondents found to have no significant association. It implies that all the 3 independent social variables had no influence on cane yield including the education level. The literacy had not played a key role in enhancing the crop yields. Both illiterate and literate respondents had obtained same crop yield without much difference. The implications of the findings are, though the cane yield of CO-86032 is relatively less compared to CO-62175, majority of the farmers were willing go for continued adoption of it, as it had multiple advantages, such as, high sugar content, pleasant color of consumer preference, better market price etc. Thus it should be promoted in large area in the Mandya and adjoining districts of Karnataka where similar agro climatic conditions exists. Further, there is a need to evolve high yielding varieties retaining the some of its beneficial attributes of CO-86032. The station has released other high yielding varieties which have higher tonnage and sugar recovery, which is beneficial to the both Sugar factory and to the farmers, the former get more quantity of sugar and the latter get more price and profit for more weightage. As of now, the growers have been preferring these verities and has occupied large area in the irrigated command areas.

Financial Analysis as a Consideration for Stock Exchange Investment Decisions in Tanzania: Recent Trends

Norman A. S King — 2020-04-02

Stock exchange investment in Tanzania is growing fast, and many people of different varieties of income are participating in the purchase of shares commonly known as stock exchange. However, there is seemingly little concern on the use of financial analysis on the part of local individual investors when purchasing the shares. Hence, this chapter presents the findings of the study on financial analysis as a consideration for stock exchange investment decision making in Tanzania. The study was originally conducted for four months from July to October 2006. Perhaps it is true that knowledge is vital in all essence, hence we have amalgamated some resent knowledges to make our book more current and understandable. As it is indicated that this chapter is a study which incorporates six brokers, indeed yes but the current situation has seen an increase of brokers to 13. In that regard, we have talked to them in order to amplify this study, and all have cemented the earlier study, and had few new comments. It adopted a survey study incorporating all thirteen registered brokers in Tanzania located in Dar es Salaam. First, the introduction was given, which provided the essentials and the need for financial statements analysis as far as decisions regarding investment is concerned, after which the literature review was done. This was followed by a presentation of the role of Dares salaam stock exchange. Subsequently, the methodology of the study was given, followed by data analysis and discussion of findings. Finally, conclusions and recommendations were given. The chapter concludes that most of investors in Tanzania do not depend on the financial statements analysis of the firms when investing mainly because most of these investors have not acquired knowledge on the importance of financial statements in making decisions regarding the investment. However, big investors such as financial institutions and firms do consider financial statement analysis when investing. This calls for the people and education institution to verge the training of the students on how it is worthy understanding the use of financial information. This should e done through education provided by the people who work with Dar es salaam Stock Exchange and the affiliated institutions. Colleges must understand that purchasing of stocks and affiliated ventures are worthy and should not be considered as a mere business, it is a real business.

Crop by-products and Residues Availability and Utilization as Feed Resources for Small Ruminant Production Systems in Khana Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria

G. A. Kalio — 2020-04-02

In Nigeria the most difficult problem in ruminant feeding is the scarcity of energy and protein feedstuffs during the dry season. There is also competition between ruminant species with humans for the utilization of cereals. This can be resolved by utilizing crop or agricultural by-products to ameliorate feed deficit problems. This article reviewed the state of availability and utilization of crop by-products as livestock feeds for small ruminants in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. It was revealed that the predominant crop by-products in order of availability and utilization as livestock feeds were cassava peels, yam peels, sweet potato peels, plantain peels, banana peels, cocoyam peels, maize sievate and fried garrisievate. Their use is highly recommended because of their ready availability, cheapness and acceptability that can help to solve the problems of food deficits for small ruminants in the area. Factors that will limit their use are: availability in terms of time, location, seasonality and storage, high cost of their handling and transportation from the production site to the farm, their high moisture contents that causes storage problems, mould growth such as aflatoxin which may cause toxicity and the presence of anti-nutritional factors. Despite these shortcomings they can be seen as possible options to solve the problems of feed scarcity in traditional sheep and goat farming systems.

The Prospect of Catastrophe Securitization in China: Recent Developments

Jong-Hag Jang — 2020-04-02

The purpose of this paper is to prospect catastrophe securitization in China. The catastrophe security market is well developed in developed countries, but in much of Asia it is in its early stages. The reason attributed for this is the close interdependencies of corporates and insurance companies in funding their risk exposures and the lower prevalence of sophisticated risk management practices. However, things slowly started changing in Asia, especially in China, with corporate recognizing that better risk management practices have a positive affect on their financial earnings. The securitization of catastrophe risk has the potential to rapidly alter the China’s risk management landscape. Through development of the catastrophe security markets, policyholders can be protected from (re)insurer’s credit risk, (re)insurers can overcome the limitation of capacity, and investors investing capital markets can diversify their portfolios. The growth and survival of the catastrophe security market in China lies in coming up with the products to suit the diverse needs of various customers and act as a close substitute for the traditional insurance market.