This paper attempts to estimate (i) the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour (ii) returns to scale and (iii) Hicks-neutral disembodIed technical progress in Australian twelve (two digit) manufacturing industries as well as total manufacturing during the period 1968/69 through 1977/78. The method employed to derive the above estimates was the constant elasticity of substitution (C.E.S.) production function. Time series data have been used in that connection. Subject to the limitations of the study, the relative orders of magnitude of the estimates appear to be plausible.

Islam proposes that the banking systems that operate on the basis of an ex ante fixed rate of interest be replaced by a profit-sharing system in which the rate of return to the financial resources is not known and is not fixed prior to the undertaking of the transaction. While in Islam interest is forbidden, trade and profits are permissible and in fact encouraged. The papers in this volume all address one or more of the basic questions at the theoretical level. They represents a start in the attempt to introduce rigor into the analysis of Islamic banking and finance, thereby clarifying the nature of the basic relationships underlying the system.

This paper introduces some theoretical aspects of Islamic banking asset management strategies for reducing economic instability. Since public welfare deteriorates during periods of inflation and unemployment, the procyclical behavior of modern interest-based commercial banks is known to aggravate these fluctuations and ipso facto produce an even more severe impact on welfare. The paper will show that equity-based Islamic banks contain some structural features that reduce these procyclical tendencies and therefore shield public welfare from further deterioration.

This book examines the importance of the Pacific region to the Malaysian economy. Particular emphasis is placed on the contributions of the Pacific to Malaysia's trade expansion and industrial development through foreign investment. The book also traces the trends in the Pacific, discusses the possible impact of such trends on the Malaysian economy in the years ahead, and draws policy implications for the 1990s and beyond.

The U(1) Kac-Moody character functions are derived from a path integral expression. It is shown that point-split regularization of the Virasoro generator also exactly regularizes the path integral. An exact derivation of the Weyl-Kac denominator is then given for an arbitrary Lie group using the semiclassical approximation and the results of the U(1) calculation.

We study the low energy behavior of the four-dimensional nonlinear sigma model with anomaly using the 2+ expansion and renormalization group methods. It is shown that the theory has a non-trivial ir stable fixed point, in addition to the usual trivial fixed point. If pions happen to exist in the non-trivial phase, their propagator would scale at low energies with anomalous exponents.

The main purpose of this paper is to discern the dynamic causal relationship (in the Granger (temporal) sense) among real output, money, interest rate, inflation and exchange rate in the context of two small open economies, such as Singapore and Korea. The Granger-causal chain implied by the authors' evidence that real output more often the authors' predominantly leads (rather than lags) money supply followed by other three endogenous variables, is consistent more with the recent Real Business Cycle theory than with the other two major macroeconomic paradigms such as the Keynesian and the Monetarist.

Although the cointegration technique is being extensively used for hypothesis testing, very little work has been done to substantiate the results derived from this technique either with respect to robustness of model specification or sample stability. This paper focuses on this issue and uses post-float Canadian spot and forward rates, along with those of six other major European currencies, in testing the market efficiency hypothesis (MEH) using cointegration techniques, as a case study. In so doing, emphasis is placed upon the pretesting of each series for stationarity via a menu of unit root tests; iterative tests for the number of cointegrating vectors over the sample period; and extensions of the analysis to construct multi-dimensional models in an examination of the MEH between the Canadian dollar and six major European currencies in both the spot and forward markets.

This paper applies a relatively new concept of fractional cointegration to shed some light on the validity of purchasing power parity as a long-run equilibrium condition, using the Taiwan/US dollar exchange rate. Findings suggest that, while standard tests of cointegration fail to support cointegration between nominal exchange rates, domestic and foreign prices, the fractional cointegration analysis permits deviations from equilibrium to follow a fractionally integrated process and hence captures a much wider class of parity or mean-reversion behaviour. The paper concludes by indicating areas in which fractional cointegration will be a particularly appropriate technique to unearth previously unfounded temporal characteristics.

This paper examines the nature of economic principles in Islam. Two types of economic principles are identified. The first type refers to the economic laws derived from revelation-based sources namely the Quran, Sunnah, Ijtihad and Ijma. The second type refers to economic lwas derived from reasoning and experience. The former is the economic system and the latter is economic theory. Both forms of economic laws are in harmony and have no basis for compartmentalization as there is no conflict between revelation and science in Islam. in theory building, it is shown that Quran based assumptions act as the linking mechanism in harmonizing revelation and science. As revelation is superior to reason and experience. Modification of economic models for empirical verification must not involve changes in Quranic based assumptions. Only the observed or tabi' based assumptions are subjec to modifications.

This paper studies the factors which determine the level of activity of foreign banks in the Malaysian economy, in the contect of the policy framework laid down by the central bank of the country. The authors conclude that, with trade financing as the the main activity of foreign banks, they did not benefit much from the growth of the economy per se. What has actually happened is that the business growth of domestic banks has been at the expense of foreign banks.

The primary aim of this paper is to make an initial attempt to conduct empirical tests in order to discern the dynamic causal chain-in the Granger (temporal) sense rather than in the structural sense-among real output, money, interest rate, inflation, and the exchange rate in the context of two small Southeast Asian developing economies, such as Thailand and Malaysia. The methodology employed uses various unit root tests and Johansen's cointegration test followed by vector error-correction modeling, variance decompositions, and impulse response functions in order to capture both the within-sample and out-of-sample Granger-causal chain among macroeconomic activity. Given the relatively stable macroeconomic environment in these two growth-oriented economies, the results, quite in line with our expectations, tend to suggest that in the Granger-causality sense, money supply (particularly MI) appears to have played the leading role of a policy variable being the most exogenous of all, and the other variables including output, rate of interest, exchange rate, and prices appear to have borne most of the brunt of short-run adjustment endogenously in different proportions in order to re-establish the long-run equilibrium.

Unlike previous studies on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, this paper illustrates how the finding of cointegration (i.e. long-term equilibrium relationship) between these variables, may be used in testing Granger causality. Based on the most recent Johansen's multivariate cointegration tests preceded by various unit root or non-stationarity tests, we test for cointegration between total energy consumption and real income of six Asian economies: India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Non-rejection of cointegration between variables rules out Granger non-causality and imples at least one way of Granger-causality, either unidirectional or bidirectionial. Secondly, by using a dynamic vector error-correction model, we then analyse the direction of Granger-causation and hence the within-sample Granger-exogeneity or endogeneity of each of the variables. Thirdly, the relative strength of the causality is gauged (through the dynamic variance decomposition technique) by decomposing the total impact of an unanticipated shock to each of the variables beyond the sample period, into proportions attributable to shocks in the other variables including its own, in the bivariate system. Results based on these tools of methodology indicate that while all pair-wise relationships shared common univariate integrational properties, only relationships for three countries (India, Pakistan and Indonesia) were cointegrated. For these countries, temporal causality results were mixed with unidirectional causality from energy to income for India, exactly the reverse for Indonesia, and mutual causality for Pakistan. The VDCs were not inconsistent with these results and provided us with an additional insight as to the relatively more dominant direction of causation in Pakistan. Simple bivariate vector-autoregressive models for the three non-cointegrated systems did not indicate any direction of causality, significantly in either direction.

The main purpose of this paper is to discern the dynamic causal chain (in the Granger (temporal) sense rather than in the structural sense) among real output, money, interest rate, inflation and the exchange rate in the context of a small Asian developing economy, such as Indonesia. The methodology employed uses various unit root tests and Johansen's cointegration test followed by vector error-correction modelling, variance decompositions, and impulse response functions in order to capture both the within-sample and out-of-sample Granger causal chain among macroeconomic activity. Given the inward-oriented growth strategy of this small developing economy, where the real output was vulnerable to vicissitudes of the agricultural sector and exports (particularly oil), our results are quite in line with our expectations, and tend to suggest that in the Granger-causality sense, output was relatively the leading variable being the most exogenous of all, and all other variables including money supply, rate of interest, exchange rate, and prices had to bear the brunt of adjustment endogenously in different proportions in order to accommodate that real shock. The Granger-causal chain implied by our evidence that real output more often predominantly leads (rather than lags) money supply and the other three endogenous variables, is consistent more with the recent real business cycle (RBC) theory than with the other two major macroeconomic paradigms such as the Keynesian and the monetarist. This finding has clear policy implications for any accommodative and/or excessive monetary expansion since it is likely to be dissipated in terms of relatively higher nominal variables, such as prices, exchange rates or interest rates rather than real output, for a small developing economy like Indonesia in the context of a relatively unstable macroeconomic environment.

It is demonstrated how the techniques of unit root testing and cointegration may be used to test for common stochastic trends, and their implications for addressing the market efficiency hypothesis (MEH) in a multivariate context within a seven-variable system of major daily (unpublished) spot exchange rates of the Malaysian ringgit. Finding the evidence of two cointegrating vectors, a vector error-correction model is developed to test for the direction of temporal causal dynamics (in the Gratiger sense) within this system before investigating the relative strength of the causality by decomposing the total impact of an unanticipated shock to each of the variables beyond the sample period, into proportions attributable to shocks in the other variables including its own. Results from the analysis tend to suggest a violation of the MEH in a speculative sense, due to the presence of two cointegrating vectors which also withstood the temporal instability test.

Hale and Sabbagh (1991) failed to find cointegration (i.e. a long-term equilibrium relationship) between crime and unemployment in the case of England and Wales. The present study (based on multiple cointegration tests preceded by various unit root or non-stationarity tests) is the first attempt at putting the analysis of crime in a temporal Granger-causal framework in the Australian case (1963-90) by binding the relationship between different categories of crime and their socioeconomic determinants within a multivariate cointegrated system. The results, based on the most recent methodology, broadly indicate that, although the relative importance of the determinants of crime varied by type of crime, of all the determinants it is `dwelling commencements' (a proxy for `wealth') that appears to impact more or less on all the categories of crime significantly, followed by `urbanization' .

In this paper robust elasticity estimates of coal demand for China are derived using annual data 1953-92. In so doing, we illustrate the use of a powerful yet practically convenient and recently developed modelling procedure devised by Stock and Watson (known as Dynamic OLS (DOLS)), who provide evidence, based on Monte Carlo simulations, of this estimator being superior in small samples compared to a number of alternative estimators, as well as being able not only to accommodate higher orders of integration but also to account for possible simultaneity within regressors of a potential demand system. Furthermore, cointegration and error-correction methods are employed to derive short-run price and income elasticities. Estimated results are quite robust not only in terms of statistical prowess but also in terms of economic intuition and indicate that, over the long run, both price and income elasticities are close to unity. While short-run price and income elasticities are less (in absolute value) than their long-run counterparts, there seems to be some divergence in short-run parameters from a subsample analysis. Overall, results seem to imply that for China, coal consumption should remain relatively constant as future modernization strategies for economic development are pursued. In addition, the study has clear methodological implications for estimating the long- and short-run elasticities in a demand function in general, and in a wide variety of fields in future applied research.

This paper is an attempt at re-examining the question of causality between money and prices both in the bivariate and multivariate context of a small developing economy, based on an improved methodology. Pakistan is used as a case study. The study tends to suggest rather strongly that in the case of Pakistan during the period under consideration (1970/71 to 1993/94), contrary to earlier findings, it was price that was the leading variable as the structuralist maintain and not the other way around as the monetarist maintain

The stock market crash of October 1987 earmarked fears of a deep-seated financial crisis. In recent years, while there has been a number of empirical studies devoted to examinations of the number of common trends in a system of stock price indexes, only a minority has focused on what effect the crash has had on the characteristics [namely, the amount of co-movements amongst markets, their dynamic linkages, and implications for the transmission or propagation mechanism] of major stock markets. In this paper, we demonstrate how the techniques of unit root testing, cointegration, vector error-correction modelling (VECM) and forecast error variance decomposition (VDC) analysis, may be used to shed some light on these concerns in the context of six major international stock markets. Using two non-overlapping samples, we find evidence of a single cointegrating vector (or five common trends) over each of the pre- and post crash samples. A VECM is then constructed in which the temporal causal dynamics are examined, followed by decomposing the total impact of an unanticipated shock to each of the variables beyond the sample period, into proportions attributable to shocks in the other variables including its own. Results tend to broadly indicate: (1) the crash does not appear to have affected the relative leading role played by the US market over other markets; (2) the German and, British markets seem to have become more dependent on other markets over the post-crash era relative to the pre-crash; and (3) provide confirming evidence that, in general, the crash has brought about a greater interaction amongst markets, with a greater role for fluctuations in explaining shocks across markets (including that for the U.S.

Proposes to re-examine empirically the causal relationship between defence spending and economic growth in mainland China. First, using a VAR modelling technique with suitable diagnostics, e.g. Akaike's FPE statistics and a likelihood ratio test for over and under-fitting the causal model, the results indicate a positive unidirectional causality flowing from defence spending to economic growth. Second, by evaluating a dynamic vector error correction model, variance decomposition and impulse response functions, then analyses the direction, duration and strength of Granger-causality between defence spending and economic growth. The results broadly indicate that defence spending and economic growth did share a common trend over the sample period under analysis, but it was the former which stimulated the latter. Moreover, it is defence spending that has a much more perceptible and prolonged effect on economic growth, giving rise to implications that although expenditure on defence may have been politically motivated, over the long?run this spending did play a significant indirect role in enhancing the growth potential of this, for many years, closed?door economy.

Unlike most empirical works on fertility analysis, this study investigates the question as to whether family-planning programs can "cause" a significant fertility decline in a country characterized by very low levels of socioeconomic development. The analysis is based on the application of the following dynamic time-series techniques in a multivariate context: cointegration, vector error-correction modeling, variance decompositions, and impulse response functions. These four dynamic tools are recently developed and hitherto untried in fertility analysis in the context of a poor developing economy such as Bangladesh. Our findings appear to be consistent with the new theoretical view that holds that fertility decline may result from either of two distinct developmental phases, one short-term and the other long-term. According to this view, the second phase (comprising the "sufficient" condition for fertility decline) incorporates the conventional view that in the long term, fertility decline may result from a complex dynamic interaction with organized family planning and significant socioeconomic structural change.