Bioeconomic Approach for Assessing Status of Trawl Fishery in the Straits of Malacca

The Straits of Malacca provides half of Malaysia’s total marine fish and seafood supply. Due to depleted fish stock, the Malaysian Government has established a comprehensive legal framework to reduce overfishing in the Straits over the last five decades. However, there are limited scientific studies on the current status of stock recovery. This paper aims to use bioeconomic approach to determine the current trawl fishery status in the Straits. Various statistical tests showed that the Clarke-Yoshimoto-Pooley model was better than the Schnute model in predicting and thus used to estimate the crucial bioeconomic parameters. The current yield and standardised effort of 239,692 tonnes and 931,692 standard fishing days were very close to the estimated biological maximum sustainable yield (239,915 tonnes) and above 18 % of the standardised effort (763,649 standard fishing days) to achieve it. The maximum economic yield was estimated at 201,542 tonnes while the corresponding standardised effort was 396,799 standard fishing days indicating serious economic overfishing in the Straits. If the current effort can be reduced by 57 %, fish biomass and economic rent will increase by 97 % and 835 %, respectively. A price sensitivity analysis predicted that demand-pull fish price inflation could exacerbate the overfishing problem, particularly under unrestrained environment. A 50 % increase in price could lead to a 132 % increase in fishing effort from the base case. The findings of this paper provide valuable insights for fishery managers to refine their existing fishery management program to achieve sustainable fishery for the future.

The Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Inflation and the Implications for Monetary Policy in Africa

Economic debates around mitigating climate change and weather-related events have long centred on fiscal policy tools than those of monetary policy. However, recent discussions point out that monetary policy formulation could also be affected and hence the need to deploy monetary policy tools as well. Our article seeks to investigate the impacts of climate change, particularly extreme weather events, on headline inflation and food price inflation and their apparent implications for monetary policy in Africa over the period 1990–2017. Using a two-step dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments estimation strategy with robust standard errors, we find that weather-related events may need to be large and consequential to cause a significant price hike in Africa. We also find the incidence of droughts and floods to have a bearing on food price inflation. Furthermore, our empirical evidence using mediation analysis, reveals agricultural production to be the critical mechanism whereby extreme weather events affect headline inflation. As central banks are charged with the mandate of ensuring a stable monetary environment, we suggest that monetary policy authorities consider the short and long run impacts of supply shocks caused by extreme weather events on general price levels in their policy formulation.

Better Together? Examining the Impact of Official Secondary Ticketing Partnerships on Consumers’ Attitudes and Behaviors

To overcome the negative stigma due to their association with ticket fraud and price inflation, research has suggested secondary ticket market companies partner with professional sport leagues and teams. Moreover, such a partnership can increase revenues of the ticket market companies. However, additional research is needed to explore how official partnerships influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. Relevant findings clarify the mechanism through which official partnerships affect secondary ticket providers’ financial success and provide insight into consumers’ attitudes toward the ticket resale industry while informing the literature on the effectiveness of sponsorships. Th us, utilizing a multi-study design, the current research examines consumers’ perceptions of official partnerships and assesses their impact on purchase intentions. Also, given historical negative perceptions of the secondary ticket market, the current study investigates the mediating effects of perceived risk and the moderating effects of ticket price.

The Price Effect of Drug Price Ceilings: Intended and Unintended Consequences

Policy makers in many developing countries use maximum price or markup policies to control pharmaceutical costs, which represent 20%–60% of their overall healthcare expenditure. We study the price effect of price ceiling policies by exploiting a major policy shift in China: the elimination of longstanding ceilings on retail drug prices. We collect weekly price and characteristics data on more than 4,500 drug stock keeping units (SKUs) from a leading pharmacy chain. By comparing the rate of discontinuous price jumps across drugs with and without price ceilings during the years before and after the policy change, we find that while price ceilings are effective in containing the prices of some drugs, they can lead to higher prices for others, particularly if the ceilings are set at the national level irrespective of local economic conditions. About 5% of nationally controlled drugs (or more than 125 drugs) had inflated prices because of price ceilings, with an average price inflation of 10%. We attribute this perverse price effect to focal point pricing and asymmetric information about production costs. Further supporting this view, we find the perverse price effect most prominent in lower-income regions where the centrally set price ceilings are arbitrarily high considering their poorer economic conditions. Moreover, drugs with highly concentrated production and less elastic demand face heightened risks of inflated prices under price ceilings. Finally, based on a sample of drugs with available price ceiling data, we find that drugs with manufacturer-specific ceilings are 100% more likely to be priced at or near their ceilings and 70% more likely to experience price drops once the ceilings are removed compared with other drugs with regular ceilings. Overall, this paper documents the unintended perverse effect of price ceilings in pharmaceutical markets and sheds lights on the ongoing debate of drug price regulation. This paper was accepted by Stefan Scholtes, healthcare management.

Shortageflation 3.0: War economy – State socialism – Pandemic crisis

The crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted governments and central banks to take unorthodox measures aimed at protecting the standard of living of people and sustaining the production and service activities of companies. The policy of aggressively increasing the supply of money has entailed a significant rise in the budget deficit and public debt. It is important to consider the extent of its impact on the escalation of inflation processes and to formulate suggestions regarding the economic policy. Inflation is already higher than the official indicators show it, because it is partly suppressed. The increase in the general price level does not fully reflect the actual inflation rate. We are dealing with shortageflation – the simultaneous occurrence of price inflation and repressed inflation accompanied by shortages. It is methodologically interesting to compare this current phenomenon, 3.0, with the suppression of inflation in the war economy, 1.0, and in the economies of state socialism, 2.0. Such comparisons highlight not only the similarities of these processes but also the differences resulting from the specificity of responses of households and businesses. This paper discusses five channels of unloading excessive savings, indicating the most beneficial ones from the point of view of sustainable economic development in the post-pandemic future. It is particularly important to prompt the conversion of compulsory savings into voluntary savings, and at the same time, to stimulate the transformation of the inflationary monetary reserves into the effective demand expanding the use of existing production capacities and investments creating new capacities.

Inflation Dynamics

<p>This thesis studies inflation dynamics, investigating both reasons why prices change, and why they sometimes do not. It investigates four areas that are of interest to monetary policy makers, but where our knowledge is incomplete. The first area investigated is the causes of price stickiness at the firm level. Insight is given by a large survey of price-setting behaviour of New Zealand firms. There is a large degree of heterogeneity in price-setting practices between, and within, sectors. Explicit contracts, implicit contracts and strategic complementarity are the most widely recognised causes of price rigidity. Menu costs and sticky information are not widely recognised. The second area investigated is how exporters price, and in particular the decisions over currency of invoice and whether to differentiate prices across markets. In sharp contrast to commonly held views, we find that primary sector firms do differentiate prices across markets. Indeed, these firms are more likely to do so in New Zealand than firms in other sectors. Larger, and more productive firms, are more likely to differentiate prices. This thesis then studies the influence that global inflation factors have on domestic inflation. A CPI database for 223 countries and territories extends the previous research, which focuses on high income countries. Global factors explain a large share of the variance of national inflation rates in advanced countries, but not for less developed countries. More generally, global factors have greater influence in countries with higher GDP per capita, financial development and central bank transparency. Global factors explain a large share of the variance of food and energy prices but a much smaller share of the variance of other sub-components. Finally, this thesis carries out the first systematic analysis of the impact on inflation of disasters caused by natural hazards. There is a large degree of heterogeneity, with disasters having little significant effect in advanced countries, but having effects that can persist for years in developing economies. There are also differences between types of disasters and sub-indices of inflation. Storms have a short-run impact on food price inflation that lasts for the first two quarters, before being reversed in the subsequent two. Earthquakes reduce CPI inflation excluding food, housing and energy.</p>

Inflation Dynamics

<p>This thesis studies inflation dynamics, investigating both reasons why prices change, and why they sometimes do not. It investigates four areas that are of interest to monetary policy makers, but where our knowledge is incomplete. The first area investigated is the causes of price stickiness at the firm level. Insight is given by a large survey of price-setting behaviour of New Zealand firms. There is a large degree of heterogeneity in price-setting practices between, and within, sectors. Explicit contracts, implicit contracts and strategic complementarity are the most widely recognised causes of price rigidity. Menu costs and sticky information are not widely recognised. The second area investigated is how exporters price, and in particular the decisions over currency of invoice and whether to differentiate prices across markets. In sharp contrast to commonly held views, we find that primary sector firms do differentiate prices across markets. Indeed, these firms are more likely to do so in New Zealand than firms in other sectors. Larger, and more productive firms, are more likely to differentiate prices. This thesis then studies the influence that global inflation factors have on domestic inflation. A CPI database for 223 countries and territories extends the previous research, which focuses on high income countries. Global factors explain a large share of the variance of national inflation rates in advanced countries, but not for less developed countries. More generally, global factors have greater influence in countries with higher GDP per capita, financial development and central bank transparency. Global factors explain a large share of the variance of food and energy prices but a much smaller share of the variance of other sub-components. Finally, this thesis carries out the first systematic analysis of the impact on inflation of disasters caused by natural hazards. There is a large degree of heterogeneity, with disasters having little significant effect in advanced countries, but having effects that can persist for years in developing economies. There are also differences between types of disasters and sub-indices of inflation. Storms have a short-run impact on food price inflation that lasts for the first two quarters, before being reversed in the subsequent two. Earthquakes reduce CPI inflation excluding food, housing and energy.</p>

Electric Vehicles in the Pacific Islands? An Investigation of the Possibilities of Electro-mobility in Samoa

<p>The identification of alternative transport modes is urgently required as fuel price inflation is adversely affecting Samoa’s energy security and increasingly its economic and social well-being. The Samoan government has recognised the society-wide implications of fuel dependency and is moving towards improving fuel use efficiency of the national transport fleet and the identification of viable alternative transport fuels. This research analysed findings from global transport stakeholder organisations and modelled the energy consumption of electric vehicles (BEVs) under Samoan conditions. The results pointed to lower operating cost of BEVs which led to stakeholder support for the eCar pilot project aimed at establishing the feasibility of electro-mobility. The study adopted a postdevelopment approach as it provided information about BEV technology and invited Samoan transport stakeholders to contribute to mutual learning about alternative transport modes via a series of participative workshops. Postdevelopment thinking also pointed to assumptions made under prevailing conceptions of the modernist development project which may see the promotion of electro-mobility in the form of a commercial technology which is unaffordable to the majority of Samoans. The study concludes that in order to make electro-mobility accessible to a wider section of society, the concept of electro-mobility needs to be deconstructed into its components and rebuild to suit Samoa’s conception of modernity. This could literally mean BEV retrofit conversions of second hand cars to take advantage of the well documented energy efficiency of the electric motor and discounting the status enhancing ownership of a commercial BEV.</p>

Electric Vehicles in the Pacific Islands? An Investigation of the Possibilities of Electro-mobility in Samoa

<p>The identification of alternative transport modes is urgently required as fuel price inflation is adversely affecting Samoa’s energy security and increasingly its economic and social well-being. The Samoan government has recognised the society-wide implications of fuel dependency and is moving towards improving fuel use efficiency of the national transport fleet and the identification of viable alternative transport fuels. This research analysed findings from global transport stakeholder organisations and modelled the energy consumption of electric vehicles (BEVs) under Samoan conditions. The results pointed to lower operating cost of BEVs which led to stakeholder support for the eCar pilot project aimed at establishing the feasibility of electro-mobility. The study adopted a postdevelopment approach as it provided information about BEV technology and invited Samoan transport stakeholders to contribute to mutual learning about alternative transport modes via a series of participative workshops. Postdevelopment thinking also pointed to assumptions made under prevailing conceptions of the modernist development project which may see the promotion of electro-mobility in the form of a commercial technology which is unaffordable to the majority of Samoans. The study concludes that in order to make electro-mobility accessible to a wider section of society, the concept of electro-mobility needs to be deconstructed into its components and rebuild to suit Samoa’s conception of modernity. This could literally mean BEV retrofit conversions of second hand cars to take advantage of the well documented energy efficiency of the electric motor and discounting the status enhancing ownership of a commercial BEV.</p>

High producer price inflation will persist into 2022

Headline INTERNATIONAL: High producer inflation will persist