Please select from the titles below:
- UK Export Behaviour at the Firm Level
- Membership of NAFTA: a Viable Alternative for UK Agro-Food Producers?
- Monetary Uncertainty, the Appropriate Choice of Central Banker and Social Welfare
- Does UK Higher Education Discriminate Against Women?
- Market Power and United States Sectoral Textile Imports
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UK Export Behaviour at the Firm Level (p.1)
by A R Gourlay and J S Seaton We estimate Probit and truncated regression models that incorporate the key theoretical explanations of firm-level export activity for a panel of UK firms over the period 1988 to 2001. Results support the resource-based, human capital and technological innovation explanations of firm-level export activity. In addition, we find that the level of the Sterling-Dollar exchange rate has a significant impact on both the decision to export and the level of export intensity, although the volatility of the exchange rate is found to vary between industries.
Membership of NAFTA: a Viable Alternative for UK Agro-Food Producers (p.21)
by G Philippidis
As the EU enlarges to 25 members, the UK continues to stagnate on further integration, particularly euro membership. Against this background, senior Eurosceptics have mooted NAFTA accession as a possible alternative, whilst a literature search reveals only one corresponding quantitative impact study. This paper revisits this issue, whilst focusing mainly on the impact on agro-food (AF) sectors, since under the auspices of the common agricultural policy (CAP), UK support (non-border) and trade (border) protection is almost exclusively the preserve of AF sectors. Detrimental impacts to farming incomes are expected, whilst potential real income gains to the UK economy are reported.
Monetary Uncertainty, the Appropriate Choice of Central Banker and Social Welfare (p.43)
by P LawlerA number of papers have identified the possibility that less precise monetary control or, alternatively, increased uncertainty with regards to the effects of monetary policy on the economy may enhance social welfare. The present paper introduces monetary uncertainty into a model of monetary policy delegation. It is shown that an increase in uncertainty has an ambiguous effect on the appropriate degree of conservatism of an optimally chosen central banker, but produces an unambiguous fall in welfare.
Does UK Higher Education Discriminate Against Women?
(p.51)
by D Leslie Using a sample of 2.3 million observations on applicants to UK Higher Education institutions from 1996-2001, the paper explores whether the selection process into Higher Education is discriminatory. The answer is no discrimination, even though women are better qualified and are less likely to be offered a place. The lower tier Higher National Diploma sector is a key issue because women (excluding nursing) are less likely to undertake these courses, which are `male orientated'. The policy conclusion is that to encourage less well-qualified females to undertake Higher Education, more appropriate provision is necessary that recognizes the reality of subject gender segregation.
Market Power and Unites States Sectoral Textile Imports
(p.69)
by S Shahnawaz This paper estimates US textiles import elasticities with 20 of its largest textiles exporters by utilizing cointegration methodology. The soon-to-be-implemented abolition of quotas on textiles makes the study of these import elasticities especially relevant to many developing countries particularly to those that have a significant textiles component in their exports. The study uses disaggregated data (4 digit ISIC) to separately consider seven textiles sub-sectors and calculates income and price elasticities for each one. While China appears to be in a position of significant market power in a majority of the textiles sub-sectors examined in this paper, the estimates also identify the particular sub-sectors in which the smaller textile exporters are in a position of some strength. Specifically, the carpets and rugs, and the apparels sectors are identified as those where smaller exporters have relatively more market power.
Page last modified on 15 November 2004