The present study aims to investigate the dynamics of primary commodity prices and the role of speculation over time. In particular the relationship between speculation and price volatility on the one side, and the linkage between excessive speculation and price volatility on the other side, is...

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals’ preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low...

The paper reviews and evaluates the global political discussions of G-8 and G-20 Member countries on food security and food price volatility since the L’Aquila Initiative in 2009. It shows that some progress was achieved with respect to better coordination of agricultural policies and stricter...

The role of futures markets in stabilizing spot prices has been extensively discussed. Nevertheless, the ability of these markets to achieve the stabilizing function significantly depends on whether they are ‘efficient’ in the sense that futures prices ‘fully reflect’ the available...

The 1994 reforms in China were remarkably successful in stabilizing the economy and raising revenues for the benefit of sustainable growth and permitting the central government to redistribute resources to poorer regions through an equalization framework. However, the rise of informal local...

Should tax reforms be guided by rules of thumb suggested by the IMF, or directions or reform based on analytical approaches, such as optimal tax theory? In many cases, the applications of the directions of reform—which suggest a differentiation of the structure given distributional, incentive...

The naturalization of asylum seekers is modeled as an economic problem. In choosing their level of investment in host-country-specific human capital, asylum seekers take into consideration the probability of their being naturalized. The government of the host country chooses the probability of...

A data set of 560 credit files from Thai commercial banks is compiled. The loans granted between 1992 and 1996 follow a pattern known from mature markets as a similar set of variables explains much of the variance in interest rate spread. A second finding is the expected higher importance of...

Biofuels production has experienced rapid growth worldwide as one of several strategies to promote green energy economies. Indeed, climate change mitigation and energy security have been frequent rationales behind biofuel policies, but biofuels production could generate negative impacts, such as...