External Shocks and Their Transmission Channels in Nigeria: A Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Approach

The study examines the sources of external shocks and investigates their transmission channels in Nigeria using the trade-weighted variables from the country’s five top trading partners. Based on the assumption of the small open economy model, the study adopts the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model on quarterly data between 1981 and 2018 using the Bayesian estimation technique. Findings from the study reveal that external shocks have a temporary and short-lived effect on the Nigerian economy. In addition, the article shows that oil price, foreign output, and foreign inflation shock have positive impacts on output gap and inflation, while the impact of foreign interest rate shock on the output gap and inflation is negative and not significant. The study also reveals that external shocks collectively explain 86% and 39%of total fluctuations in the output gap and inflation, respectively. Lastly, the study finds that external shocks transmit to the Nigerian economy via different channels. The study, therefore, concludes that terms of trade and exchange rate channels are the dominant transmitters of external shocks in Nigeria. Based on the findings from the study, important policy implications are highlighted.

Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading in Microgrids and Local Energy Systems

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is an innovative approach for managing increasing numbers of Distributed Energy Resources in microgrids or local energy systems. In P2P energy trading, prosumers and consumers directly trade and exchange power and energy with each other. The development of P2P energy trading is described in five key aspects, that is, market design, trading platforms, power and ICT infrastructure, regulation and policy, and from a social science perspective. A general multiagent framework is established to simulate the behaviour of and interaction between multiple entities in P2P energy trading. A general evaluation index hierarchy is proposed to assess various P2P energy trading mechanisms. Finally, a residential community that is set in the context of Great Britain is studied using multiagent simulation and hierarchical evaluation methods. Both the technical and economic benefits of P2P energy trading are demonstrated.

Photographs of silos

This article explores the dissemination of the photographs and photo-reproductions of the now-canonical North and South American grain elevators, published and disseminated in the early twentieth century in publications such as the 1913 Werkbund Yearbook where Walter Gropius included them as illustrations to his article, and later by Le Corbusier in Vers une architecture, amongst many others. It emphasises that while within architecture discourse the idea of a canon made up of buildings is widely accepted, this article identifies and stresses the role of ‘photographic canons’ as a means to further challenge these constructions. To do so, the article focuses on the moment where these photo-reproductions were consolidated as canonical and the mechanisms that such a construct implied. It investigates the photo-reproductions’ history as objects of trade and exchange, as well as their mobilisation in relation to photographic media and different dissemination platforms to argue that, on the one hand, that this informed their reading as architectural, and thus singular, objects. And on the other, that the materiality of the photo-reproductions’ different instances testifies to their nature as commodities and objects of trade, and therefore to the consolidation of their canonical status.

"Friendly relations between the two races were soon established"?: Pākehā interactions with Māori in the planned settlements of Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth, 1840-1860

<p>This thesis uses a micro-historic approach to explore the personal relationships between Māori and settlers in Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth between 1840-1860 [prior to the Taranaki Wars] as they are presented in personal diaries and letters of early settlers of the New Zealand Company. The vast majority of the scholarship in the area of colonial history is based on ‘official records’, such as New Zealand Company material, as well as sources from the Government, the military, surveyors and newspapers. This research, however, focuses on private records to present the ‘lived experiences’ of the early settlers of the Wakefield settlements with Māori in the ‘contact zone’. As I will argue, settler and Māori in the case study towns did establish a positive space of interaction, a so called Middle Ground, which is characterised by trust, help, trade and exchange, mutual needs, language adoption and knowledge exchange, resulting in real accommodation of ‘the other’. However, this positive space decayed as a result of the shift of power to the settlers’ side in conjunction with increasing prominence of the so-called ‘land question’. This project uses the Hutt Wars in Wellington, the Wairau Incident of 1843 in Nelson and lastly the events in New Plymouth that led to the Taranaki Wars, to determine when and how the Middle Ground was weakened and eroded. Emerging conflict, inevitably, influenced positive personal relationships in the ‘contact zone’ between Māori and Pākehā, which broke down and quickly led to a negative perception of the tangata whenua that, in some areas, still profoundly influences perceptions today. The Middle Ground, as a theoretical framework, was first developed by Richard White for the American Indians and their interaction with the French in the Great Lakes region, but has more recently been used by Vincent O’Malley to theorise the relationship between Pākehā and Māori in Northland prior to 1840. This research extends these findings in time and space and seeks to set Māori-Pākehā history in an international and intercultural context as an example of a possible common colonial experience. This thesis represents the only attempt to construct an overview and critical reflection of the shared experiences of settlers with Māori based on private records. This project is significant in the wider context of early New Zealand history as well as in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi and its impact on current race relations because it offers the possibility of seeing and interpreting Māori-Settler relations in a new, and perhaps far more positive light. We can determine whether Māori experiences are a general experience typical of colonised countries and whether the Middle Ground can be found in different forms in different times and places.</p>

"Friendly relations between the two races were soon established"?: Pākehā interactions with Māori in the planned settlements of Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth, 1840-1860

<p>This thesis uses a micro-historic approach to explore the personal relationships between Māori and settlers in Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth between 1840-1860 [prior to the Taranaki Wars] as they are presented in personal diaries and letters of early settlers of the New Zealand Company. The vast majority of the scholarship in the area of colonial history is based on ‘official records’, such as New Zealand Company material, as well as sources from the Government, the military, surveyors and newspapers. This research, however, focuses on private records to present the ‘lived experiences’ of the early settlers of the Wakefield settlements with Māori in the ‘contact zone’. As I will argue, settler and Māori in the case study towns did establish a positive space of interaction, a so called Middle Ground, which is characterised by trust, help, trade and exchange, mutual needs, language adoption and knowledge exchange, resulting in real accommodation of ‘the other’. However, this positive space decayed as a result of the shift of power to the settlers’ side in conjunction with increasing prominence of the so-called ‘land question’. This project uses the Hutt Wars in Wellington, the Wairau Incident of 1843 in Nelson and lastly the events in New Plymouth that led to the Taranaki Wars, to determine when and how the Middle Ground was weakened and eroded. Emerging conflict, inevitably, influenced positive personal relationships in the ‘contact zone’ between Māori and Pākehā, which broke down and quickly led to a negative perception of the tangata whenua that, in some areas, still profoundly influences perceptions today. The Middle Ground, as a theoretical framework, was first developed by Richard White for the American Indians and their interaction with the French in the Great Lakes region, but has more recently been used by Vincent O’Malley to theorise the relationship between Pākehā and Māori in Northland prior to 1840. This research extends these findings in time and space and seeks to set Māori-Pākehā history in an international and intercultural context as an example of a possible common colonial experience. This thesis represents the only attempt to construct an overview and critical reflection of the shared experiences of settlers with Māori based on private records. This project is significant in the wider context of early New Zealand history as well as in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi and its impact on current race relations because it offers the possibility of seeing and interpreting Māori-Settler relations in a new, and perhaps far more positive light. We can determine whether Māori experiences are a general experience typical of colonised countries and whether the Middle Ground can be found in different forms in different times and places.</p>

The BitcoinHeist: Classifications of Ransomware Crime Families

Ransomware attacks are on the rise and attackers are hijacking valuable information from different critical infrastructures and businesses requiring ransom payments to release the encrypted files. Payments in cryptocurrencies are designed to evade tracing the transactions and the recipients. With anonymity being paramount, tracing cryptocurrencies payments due to malicious activity and criminal transactions is a complicated process. Therefore, the need to identify these transactions and label them is crucial to categorize them as legitimate digital currency trade and exchange or malicious activity operations. Machine learning techniques are utilized to train the machine to recognize specific transactions and trace them back to malicious transactions or benign ones. I propose to work on the Bitcoin Heist data set to classify the different malicious transactions. The different transactions features are analyzed to predict a classifier label among the classifiers that have been identified as ransomware or associated with malicious activity. I use decision tree classifiers and ensemble learning to implement a random forest classifier. Results are assessed to evaluate accuracy, precision, and recall. I limit the study design to known ransomware identified previously and made available under the Bitcoin transaction graph from January 2009 to December 2018.

Sustainability and Halal: Procedure, Profit and Ethical Practice

Halal certification is a technological and technocratic transformation that facilitates increasingly complex food production and global supply chain management. However, the discourse and materiality of global trade and the growth of consumers for which halal certification is in demand have been the target of ethical criticism that puts forward the vulnerabilities of human, non-human, and environmental relations. This paper proceeds through some steps to elucidate questions of halal ethics in practice, halal certification, and Muslim trade and exchange networks. The research method uses a descriptive qualitative approach, using library sources. The results of the analysis and discussion show that the halal discursive tradition that centralizes intra-Muslim networking, trade, and exchange, is significant to consider the ethical stakes of halal certification for marginalized and precarious Muslim populations around the world. Drawing on ethnographic insights on the meat market in Mumbai, I argue that exclusive political intimacy and economic growth mean halal certification can play a part in the marginalization of the Muslim workforce and trade in the city. Therefore, the question of sustainability and halalness must consider the new formation of halal's ethical requirements to bridge the gap between the ethics of trade and intra-Muslim exchange and global trade conditions.

Real Effective Exchange Rate Misalignment of the Tunisian dinar

In the Tunisian context, the issue of the misalignment of the real exchange rate has arisen for some time for some reason, a question that has intensified after the adoption of the floating regime. In this article, we will look at the assessment of the effects, if any, of the misalignment of the real effective exchange rate (REER) to its equilibrium value over the period from 1986 to 2015. The results show that the equilibrium level of the long-run exchange rate depends on productivity, the terms of trade and government spending. Two sub-periods are noted, that of a positive mismatch (undervaluation) from 1986 to 2003 followed by another negative mismatch (overvaluation) from 2004 to 2015. Such a result can be explained by the orientation of Tunisia towards the flexibility of the real exchange rate which in turn is likely to reduce the degree of imbalance of the real exchange rate. Similarly, the Tunisian authorities must adopt gradual reforms in their decisions on liberalization and financial integration and they are called upon to strengthen their trade and exchange policies to meet the challenge of the new international financial architecture. Finally, concerning the misalignment, we found the difference between the observed exchange rate and the equilibrium exchange rate is very low, especially since the implementation of the structural adjustment plan.

The impact of economic uncertainty and financial stress on consumer confidence: the case of Japan

PurposeThis study explores the response of consumer confidence in policy uncertainty in the Japanese context. The study also considers the dynamism of stock market behavior and financial stress and its impact on consumer confidence, which has remained unaddressed in the literature. The role of these control variables has important implications for policy discussions, particularly when other countries can learn from Japanese experiences.Design/methodology/approachThe nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model postulated by Shin et al. (2014) was used for studying the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty. This method has improved estimates compared to traditional linear cointegration methods.FindingsThe findings confirm the asymmetric impact of policy uncertainty on the consumer confidence index in Japan. The impact of the rise in policy uncertainty is greater than that of a fall in asymmetry on consumer confidence in Japan. Furthermore, the Wald test confirmed asymmetric behavior.Originality/valueThe contribution of this study is threefold. First, this study contributes to the extant literature by analyzing the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty, controlling for both the financial stress and stock price indices. Second, to test the robustness of the exercise, the study utilized different frequencies of observations. Third, this study is the first to utilize the concept of Arbatli et al. (2017) to formulate a combined index of uncertainty based on economic policy uncertainty index, along with uncertainty indices such as fiscal, monetary, trade and exchange rate policies to study the overall impact of policy uncertainty.