Fluctuations in energy prices impact production costs and inflation. This study examines whether inflation data can predict volatility in energy markets. Both inflation and energy market volatility exhibit complex behaviour over time, including structural shifts due to demand and supply shocks....

This paper examines the macroeconomic determinants of volatility of commodity futures. The focus of this paper is on two emerging commodity markets, China and India. It covers commodity futures from different sectors, including agricultural commodity futures, metal futures and oil futures. The...

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a high profile initiative to narrow the inequality of access to ICT and improve educational performance. However, there is little empirical evidence on its impacts. In order to assess the effectiveness of OLPC, we conducted a randomized experiment of OLPC with...

The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme on the rate of dropping out. To meet this goal, we conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to assess the impact of the CCT...

A significant gap remains between rural and urban students in the rate of admission to senior high school. One reason for this gap may be high tuition and other school fees at the senior high school level. By reducing student expectations of attending high school, high tuition and school fees...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between option’s implied volatility smirk (IVS) and excess returns in the Germany’s leading stock index Deutscher-Aktien Index (DAX) 30. Design/methodology/approach – The study defines the IVS as the difference in...