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Does the formation of a customs union reduce and eventually eliminate tariffs among member countries to provide mechanisms or regional institutions for social, economic and political development? The literature examined suggests that, although many problems of trade liberalization continue to occur, greater benefits could be obtained by reducing tariffs on a non‐discriminatory basis, or by removing protection from domestic enterprises altogether, and by importing domestic requirements of the products of displaced industries from outside at world market prices. The literature also provides a valid case for protecting certain activities in ECOWAS — particularly trade and industrial enterprises — either for the purpose of increasing income or the rate of economic growth, or in order to achieve certain non‐economic objectives. The implications of economic integration in these terms can best be examined within a broader theoretical framework of developmental theory of trade liberalization. Copyright © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

By 1965, Taiwan has changed from a labor surplus economy into a labor shortage economy. This article examines how rising demand for labor due lo rapid economic growth in Taiwan has been met since 1965. This article attempts to answer 1) Where did the labor supply come from? 2) Has all of the potential labor supply been tapped and exhausted? 3) Is it possible for labor shortage and unutilized labor reserve to occur simultaneously? The authors hope that this study will lead to a better understanding of the limitation of the free market mechanism and help identify the proper public policies to enhance labor utilization.

After surveying the evolution of the major methodologies in inflation hedging, this study presents a unique methodology that uses principal component factor analysis to separate the effects of variability in the real rate of return from the nominal rate of return. This approach allows the effects of both anticipated and unanticipated inflation on rates of return to be estimated more precisely. This study finds that art objects perform well in terms of average real rates of return and that the market, though not perfect, integrates anticipated inflation into the rates of return. However, unanticipated inflation is very often negatively related to the rates of return. Copyright © 1994, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved

This paper discusses a regulatory technique that consists of the use of a controlled chain reaction to influence social and economic processes. It claims that this method was employed by Hungarian control agencies to further centralize the farm sector in the 1970s. Section I of the paper presents three versions of this technique. Section II shows how the institutional structure of Hungarian agriculture made the application of this technique possible. (JEL P21).

This paper examines whether a more restrictive zoning ordinance actually reduces construction of new housing. This may seem at first to be a trivial issue, since why else would a zoning board make the ordinance more restrictive. However, it is possible for landowners to circumvent the zoning law. For example, they can subdivide their land before the zoning change occurs. In addition, they can bargain with the local zoning officials and offer side payments, also known as exactions, for the right to develop their land. This paper examines a famous case of agricultural downzoning in McHenry County, Illinois. It finds that although the number of building permits issued did not fall immediately, in the long run the number of permits issued by the county was significantly reduced. This suggests that developers were able to anticipate the zoning change and subdivide their land before it occurred. (C) 1997 Academic Press.

There have been several studies that have investigated the effect of zoning on housing prices. One hypothesis is that the restrictiveness of zoning laws will vary with the monopoly power of a town. The degree of monopoly power varies with the number of towns in the urban area. Urban areas with few zoning jurisdictions are likely to have higher housing prices than more fragmented urban areas. Previous research on this topic has shown mixed results. The results in this article suggest that towns with more monopoly power do tend to have significantly higher housing prices than more fragmented urban areas.

On 26 November 2001, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the US economy had officially entered into a recession in March 2001. This decision was a surprise and did not end all the conflicting opinions expressed by economists. This matter was finally settled in July 2002 after a revision to the 2001 real gross domestic product showed negative growth rates for its first three quarters. A series of political and economic events in the years 2000-01 have increased the amount of uncertainty in the state of the economy, which in turn has resulted in the production of less reliable economic indicators and forecasts. This paper evaluates the performance of two very reliable methodologies for predicting a downturn in the US economy using composite leading economic indicators (CLI) for the years 2000-01. It explores the impact of the monetary policy on CLI and on the overall economy and shows how the gradualness and uncertainty of this impact on the overall economy have affected the forecasts of these methodologies. It suggests that the overexposure of the CLI to the monetary policy tools and a strong, but less effective, expansionary money policy have been the major factors in deteriorating the predictions of these methodologies. To improve these forecasts, it has explored the inclusion of the CLI diffusion index as a prior in the Bayesian methodology. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

We examine the spillover wealth effects of the Orange County, California bankruptcy announcement in December 1994 on municipal bonds, municipal bond funds, and bank stocks. This bankruptcy is prominent because of unprecedented losses and because it was caused by a highly leveraged derivatives strategy rather than a shortage of tax revenues and excess spending. We find contagion in the bond market with significantly negative abnormal returns for municipal bond funds without direct exposure to Orange County and for non-Orange County municipal bonds. In addition, our findings suggest the contagion spills over to the common stocks of investment and commercial banks that deal in or use derivatives; however, the equities of banks unexposed to derivatives are not affected. © 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Currency substitution represents a shift from domestic currency to foreign currency and is often related to times of high and variable inflation. In this paper, we investigate the extent of currency substitution in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico using a vector error correction (VEC) model. We empirically test this hypothesis by introducing artificial shocks to the system of equations and find that M1 response to a one standard deviation increase in that country's interest rate is negative and significant for Argentina and Brazil but not for Mexico. An artificially introduced one standard deviation increase in nominal exchange rate results in a statistically significant increase in M1 in Argentina and Brazil but again not for Mexico. Based on the patterns of the impulse response functions (IRFs) and the magnitude of the coefficients, we conclude that currency substitution occurs to a greater extent in Argentina and Brazil than Mexico. This is reflective of the implementation of relatively more credible macroeconomic policies in Mexico after the December 1994 crisis. Thus from a policymaking perspective, it is important to consider that the greater the degree of currency substitution, the more sensitive a country's monetary aggregates are to sudden movements in exchange rates, productivity and interest rates. (C) 2003 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper estimates the demand for money (M2) in Ghana for the period 1960 to 1996. The hypothesis is that the different macroeconomic adjustment policies (privatization, removal of foreign exchange controls etc.) which began in the mid 1980s would alter the demand for money function. The results of the study clearly show a structural break in the demand for money function in 1983.

The author developed a simple computer program for the in-class simulation of the repeated prisoner's dilemma game with student-designed strategies. He describes the basic features of the software and presents two examples for the use of the program in teaching the problems of cooperation among profit-maximizing agents.