Trade Dynamics during Delhi Sultanate

Chaos ensures survival, and man's need to constantly procure better goods for evolution is an integral part of this survival. Even before time existed as a concept, trade was prevalent among homo-sapiens. However, what role does trade have in our understanding of history? In Greek Mythology, Mercury (god of commerce) held the caduceus which was a symbol of sacredness and revival. The caduceus and Mercury are nothing but a metaphor for the role of trade in History. Trade ensures the survival of civilization and hence becomes an elixir of evolution. Trade creates history by ensuring that there is movement, connectivity, and chaos. History can be perceived as a subjective concept by many and if there's anything that holds the factual part of history together, it is archaeology. Remnants of trade are often supported by the archaeological evidence of a particular region. Hence, this paper makes an attempt to understand the society during Sultanate by delving into the trade dynamics. It is believed that trade influenced the economy and lifestyle during the Sultanate to a very large extent. Information about the trade will also guide us through the causes of the market and internal reforms that took place in this glorious era. Keywords: Sultanate, trade dynamics, history, survival, internal reforms.

Impact of zoonotic disease outbreaks on international wildlife trade dynamics in Ghana

Wildlife is under intense pressure from trade, which most likely contributes to zoonotic diseases. The study explores the impact of zoonotic disease outbreaks on the wildlife trade of Ghana. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the trends of taxa trade and factors that influence trade from 1975–2018 by combining zoonotic disease data with data from the CITES database. Trade flow showed that reptiles were the most traded group, followed by birds, mammals, and amphibians. Species of the families Pythonidae, Dendrobatidae, Cercopithecidae, and Psittacidae were the most traded. The decade mean number of trade for 1997–2007 was the highest (n = 62) followed by 2008–2018 (n = 54.4). Most exporter countries that traded with Ghana are from Africa and importers from the United States of America, Europe and Asia. Continuous trade in reptiles and birds, especially the endangered pythons and psittacus species, could lead to their extinction in the wild. The outbreak of zoonotic diseases influenced the dynamics of the wildlife trade in Ghana as traders shifted their activities among taxa over a period of time. Because those taxa were observed to harbour zoonotic diseases and constitute high health risks when traded. Mammals’ trade flow decreased with disease outbreaks over time, while reptiles increased. Early detection of zoonotic diseases and the adoption of an expanded education module on avoiding species capable of harbouring pathogens will most likely help reduce trade in wildlife.

Experience Effects in Finance: Foundations, Applications, and Future Directions

This article establishes four key findings of the growing literature on experience effects in finance: (i) the long-lasting imprint of past experiences on beliefs and risk taking; (ii) recency effects; (iii) the domain-specificity of experience effects; and (iv) imperviousness to information that is not experience-based. I first discuss the neuroscientific foundations of experience-based learning and sketch a simple model of its role in the stock market based on Malmendier et al. (2020a, b). I then distill the empirical findings on experience effects in stock-market investment, trade dynamics, and international capital flows, highlighting these four key features. Finally, I contrast models of belief formation that rely on “learned information” with models accounting for the neuroscience evidence on synaptic tagging and memory formation, and provide directions for future research.

Drivers of the live pet trade: the role of species traits, socioeconomic attributes and regulatory systems

The live pet trade is a major driver of both biodiversity loss and the introduction of invasive alien species. Building a comprehensive understanding of the pet trade would improve prediction of conservation and biosecurity threats, with the aim to prevent further negative impacts. We used South Australia’s native wildlife permit reporting system as a data-rich example of a live vertebrate pet market, spanning 590 species across 105 families of terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, birds and amphibians). Using a piecewise Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach, we tested the influence of 11 a priori variables relating to pets (e.g., species traits), pet owners (e.g., socioeconomic metrics), and regulatory systems (e.g., permit requirements) on the quantities of bird and reptile captive keeping, breeding, trading, and escapes into the wild. Birds and reptiles with higher annual fecundity, as well as widely distributed reptiles with higher adult mass, were more likely to be kept in captivity and sold. Species with more stringent permit requirements were possessed, and escaped, in lower abundances. Pet keeping was weakly correlated with regions of lower population densities and higher unemployment rates, yet other socioeconomic variables were ultimately poor at explaining trade dynamics. More escapes occurred in regions which possessed larger quantities of pets, further emphasising the role of propagule pressure in the risk of pet escapes.Synthesis and applications: Species traits are a strong determinant of pet trade dynamics, yet permit systems also play a key role in de-incentivising undesirable trade practices. While our research highlights the potential of trade regulatory systems, we recommend that consistent permit category criteria are established to reduce trade in threatened species, as well as alien species of high biosecurity risk. Implementation of such systems is broadly needed across a greater diversity of wildlife markets and jurisdictions.

Understanding Singapore's dynamic parrot trade ecosystem

Singapore is prominent in the global trade of pet birds, primarily parrots. This includes its role as a key international transit hub, and also its growing domestic market, including for threatened species. There is a need to understand the trade beyond volumes and flows, including consumer knowledge, preferences and behaviours, and interactions with vendors, hobbyist groups and supporting industries. We used three methods to examine this: (1) a questionnaire with stakeholders (including parrot owners, hobbyist group members, breeders and supporting industry professionals), about the motivations for parrot ownership and interest in sustainable trade, (2) semi-structured interviews with key informants about trade dynamics, and (3) a review of online hobbyist groups. Based on our findings, we provide an initial mapping of the country's parrot trade ecosystem. Fifty-one per cent of respondents claimed to be a member of a parrot hobbyist group and 64% agreed their participation in such groups had encouraged them to purchase more parrots. The majority (71%) of parrot owners reported a preference for captive-bred rather than wild-caught parrots, and 72% were concerned about the illegal hunting of parrots for commercial trade. Most were willing to pay more (70%) and wait longer (73%) to procure a sustainably sourced parrot. Our approach presents the wildlife trade as a complex social phenomenon, with multiple physical and online channels, regulatory challenges, social networks, and evolving consumer preferences. We also document the pivotal role of hobbyist groups and their untapped potential to leverage these networks to improve sustainable trade.

Policy Implications on Transport Infrastructure–Trade Dynamics: Case of Turkey

Transportation has a mediating position in international trade formation and in the past few decades, Turkey has invested substantially in transport infrastructure to increase connectivity and integration in global transport networks. Still, limited research has been conducted to understand channels and scope of the transport infrastructure development impacts on foreign trade. The objective of this study is to evaluate short-run and long-run causal linkages between transport infrastructure, exports and imports in Turkey for the period between 1987–2019. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is developed considering road and rail transport infrastructure components as well as information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure as a complement to quality transport networks. Results suggest that a speedy road network serves as a locomotive in trade development whereas rail infrastructure can be beneficial if a holistic connectivity plan is developed in a long-term perspective to improve multimodal transportation under a comprehensive, sustained transport policy. Besides, benefits of transport infrastructure investment can be realized in favor of export promotion rather than import growth if a comprehensive policy is followed. In that way transport infrastructure investment would become a stronger instrument to accomplish export competitiveness.

Evaluating the economic impact of water scarcity in a changing world

Water scarcity is dynamic and complex, emerging from the combined influences of climate change, basin-level water resources, and managed systems’ adaptive capacities. Beyond geophysical stressors and responses, it is critical to also consider how multi-sector, multi-scale economic teleconnections mitigate or exacerbate water shortages. Here, we contribute a global-to-basin-scale exploratory analysis of potential water scarcity impacts by linking a global human-Earth system model, a global hydrologic model, and a metric for the loss of economic surplus due to resource shortages. We find that, dependent on scenario assumptions, major hydrologic basins can experience strongly positive or strongly negative economic impacts due to global trade dynamics and market adaptations to regional scarcity. In many cases, market adaptation profoundly magnifies economic uncertainty relative to hydrologic uncertainty. Our analysis finds that impactful scenarios are often combinations of standard scenarios, showcasing that planners cannot presume drivers of uncertainty in complex adaptive systems.