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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the world's largest infrastructure investment that aims to improve economic integration and connectivity throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa. This paper investigates the influence of infrastructure development on trade connectivity in BRI countries. This paper employs network analysis to visualize and quantify the trade connectivity among BRI countries in 2013 and 2020 using the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) data. The study then empirically examines the impact of infrastructure development on trade connectivity from 1990 to 2020 for 76 BRI countries using a dynamic estimator. The dynamic model demonstrates how infrastructure investment can bolster trade connectivity. The results of the network analysis indicate that trade connectivity has significantly improved within BRI countries, in Asia and Europe while it lags behind in African and Central Asian regions.We suggest that that China should channel additional resources toward enhancing the connectivity of African and Central Asian nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical literature on the FDI-growth relationship suggests that FDI with high technological content might play a peculiar role. To investigate the existence and magnitude of this peculiar effect, we collected data for 28 countries over the period 1989 to 2019 and used GMM techniques for empirical estimation. We employed the U.N. International Standard Classification (ISIC) Revision 3 to classify FDI data and follow the criteria laid down by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to distinguish FDI data by technological content. The empirical findings of this article confirm that technology plays an important role in determining the FDI-Growth relationship. Interestingly, the empirical evidence supports a U-shaped relationship between FDI and economic growth when FDI is disaggregated by different technological contents. More specifically, we find strong evidence that in the manufacturing sector, FDI with a higher technological content exhibits a positive association with growth in the host country. We also find evidence pointing towards a positive relationship between FDI and growth in the host country at the other end of the technology spectrum (low-tech). Further investigation confirms the robustness of these findings across different estimation techniques as well as across different sampling strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to the debate on the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth which suggest that the link between FDI and economic growth is rather the consequence of both FDI and growth responding endogenously to economic integration. We investigate if the impact of FDI on growth is dependent on the channel of integration used to attract FDI. We use four different indexes of economic integration including Trade Openness, Chinn-Ito, and KOF and our newly constructed index of financial integration. We employ these four indexes to investigate the role played by economic integration in linking FDI and growth. We use a panel consisting of 134 developing countries and data spanning the period 1989-2017 estimated using the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique. The results show that FDI is an important determinant of growth. The results also suggest that at least some of the integration variables do matter and work as channels to attract FDI leading to growth. However, after stratifying countries by income level, we also find that integration matters mainly for high income countries. Integration variables for other income groups do not show much significance. These are interesting results and may have important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the nature of East Asia’s economic structure, interregional exchange rate stability is an essential requirement for regional economic integration. One way to achieve exchange rate stability is for the region to adopt an anchor currency. However, the choice of a potential anchor is an important question for policy planners. This paper examines the role of 5 major currencies as candidates for an anchor currency in the East Asian region. In particular, the paper examines the dynamic linkages between a selected sample of East Asian currencies with each potential anchor currency, the Australian dollar, Japanese yen, euro, US dollar and Chinese renminbi. Utilizing a recently developed test procedure which distinguishes the long-run Granger non-causality from that in the short-run, this paper does not find any support to the much debated emergence of a yen bloc, euro bloc, or koala bloc. The empirical evidence brought forward in this paper suggests that the US dollar is still a dominant currency in the East Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We showed previously that dietary supplementation with oil from the marine zooplankton (Calanus Calanus finmarchicus oil) attenuates obesity, inflammation, and glucose intolerance in mice. More than 80% of Calanus oil consists of wax esters, i.e., long-chain fatty alcohols linked to long-chain fatty acids. In the present study, we compared the metabolic effects of Calanus oil-derived wax esters (WE) with those of purified eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) + docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) ethyl esters (E/D) in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity. C57BL/6J mice received a high-fat diet (HFD; 45% energy from fat). After 7 wk, the diet was supplemented with either 1% (wt:wt)WE or 0.2%(wt:wt) E/D. The amount of EPA + DHA in the E/D diet was matched to the total amount of n-3 (ω-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the WE v diet. A third group was given an unsupplemented HFD throughout the entire 27-wk feeding period. WE reduced body weight gain, abdominal fat, and liver triacylglycerol by 21%, 34%, and 52%, respectively, and significantly improved glucose tolerance and aerobic capacity. In abdominal fat depots, WE reduced macrophage infiltration by 74% and downregulated expression of proinflammatory genes (tumor necrosis factor-, interleukin-6, and monocyte chemoattractant a protein--1), whereas adiponectin expression was significantly upregulated. By comparison, E/D primarily suppressed the expression of proinflammatory genes but had less influence on glucose tolerance thanWE. E/D affected obesity parameters, aerobic capacity, or adiponectin expression by <10%. These results show that the wax ester component of Calanus oil can account for the biologic effects shown previously for the crude oil. However, these effects cannot exclusively be ascribed to the content of n-3 PUFAs in the wax ester fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of oil extracted from the zooplankton Calanus finmarchicus (Calanus oil) on diet-induced obesity and obesity-related disorders in mice. C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD, 45 % energy from fat) exhibited increased body weight and abdominal fat accumulation as well as impaired glucose tolerance compared with mice fed a normal chow diet (10 % energy from fat). Supplementing the HFD with 1·5 % (w/w) Calanus oil reduced body-weight gain, abdominal fat accumulation and hepatic steatosis by 16, 27 and 41 %, respectively, and improved glucose tolerance by 16 %. Calanus oil supplementation reduced adipocyte size and increased the mRNA expression of adiponectin in adipose tissue. It also reduced macrophage infiltration by more than 70 %, accompanied by reduced mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-6 and monocyte chemotactic protein-1). The effects of Calanus oil were not only preventive, but also therapeutic, as the oil proved to be beneficial, regardless of whether the supplementation was started before or after the onset of obesity and glucose intolerance. Although the present study cannot pinpoint the active component(s) of the oil, there is reason to believe that the n-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA and/or antioxidants are responsible for its beneficial effects. It should be noted that the concentration of n-3 fatty acids in the Calanus oil diet was considerably lower than the concentrations used in similar studies reporting beneficial effects on obesity and obesity-related abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the nature of money supply in Australia over two separate monetary policy regimes: monetary and inflation targeting. The post-Keynesian theory on endogenous money was tested with the aim of investigating whether endogenous money supply, if it did exist, followed the accomodationist, structuralist or liquidity preference viewpoints. Data used are quarterly series from 1977 to 2007 and we used vector error-correction model for long-run and short-run causality tests. We found that money supply is endogenous in Australia even when the central bank targeted monetary aggregates during the period 1977 to 1993. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tetradecylthioacetic acid (TTA) is a novel peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) ligand with marked hypolipidemic and insulin-sensitizing effects in obese models. TTA has recently been shown to attenuate dyslipidemia in patients with type 2 diabetes, corroborating the potential for TTA in antidiabetic therapy. In a recent study on normal mice, we showed that TTA increased myocardial fatty acid (FA) oxidation, which was associated with decreased cardiac efficiency and impaired postischemic functional recovery. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to elucidate the effects of TTA treatment (0.5%, 8 days) on cardiac metabolism and function in a hyperlipidemic type 2 diabetic model. We found that TTA treatment increased myocardial FA oxidation, not only in nondiabetic (db/+) mice but also in diabetic (db/db) mice, despite a clear lipid-lowering effect. Although TTA had deleterious effects in hearts from nondiabetic mice (decreased efficiency and impaired mitochondrial respiratory capacity), these effects were not observed in db/db hearts. In db/db hearts, TTA improved ischemic tolerance, an effect that is most likely related to the antioxidant property of TTA. The present study strongly advocates the need for investigation of the cardiac effects of PPAR ligands used in antidiabetic/hypolipidemic therapy, because of their pleiotropic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hearts from type 2 diabetic (db/db) mice demonstrate altered substrate utilization with high rates of fatty acid oxidation, decreased functional recovery following ischemia, and reduced cardiac efficiency. Although db/db mice show overall insulin resistance in vivo, we recently reported that insulin induces a marked shift toward glucose oxidation in isolated perfused db/db hearts. We hypothesize that such a shift in metabolism should improve cardiac efficiency and consequently increase functional recovery following low-flow ischemia. Hearts from db/db and nondiabetic (db/+) mice were perfused with 0.7 mM palmitate plus either 5 mM glucose (G), 5 mM glucose and 300 µU/ml insulin (GI), or 33 mM glucose and 900 µU/ml insulin (HGHI). Substrate oxidation and postischemic recovery were only moderately affected by GI and HGHI in db/+ hearts. In contrast, 01 and particularly HGHI markedly increased glucose oxidation and improved postischemic functional recovery in db/db hearts. Cardiac efficiency was significantly improved in db/db, but not in db/+ hearts, in the presence of HGHI. In conclusion, insulin and glucose normalize cardiac metabolism, restore efficiency, and improve postischemic recovery in type 2 diabetic mouse hearts. These findings may in part explain the beneficial effect of glucose-insulin-potassium therapy in diabetic patients with cardiac complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high rate of software piracy is a growing concern for software developers as well as businesses and governments. It is argued here that the piracy rate is influenced by expected benefits and costs to the pirates. A model is developed using a set of variables that may affect such benefits and costs and hence piracy rate in a country, and tested for a large sample of 53 countries. The results of this paper suggest that the existing socio-economic conditions and the lack of proper institutions in developing and emerging economies may be responsible for high software piracy rates. One may, therefore, infer that the current trends of globalization and socio-economic development may help software piracy in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. This study attempts to determine the causal relationship between budget and current account deficits as well as the direction of such causality. A selected sample of some developed and developing countries with annual time series data is used and cointegration techniques are applied to bring evidence regarding this important issue. Our results do not support any long-run relationship between the two deficits for developed countries while the data for developing countries do not reject such a relationship. However, our results suggest a causal relationship between the two deficits for most of the sample countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While early work on money demand estimation focused primarily on the importance of domestic variables, many studies in later years have suggested that foreign variables also influence the domestic demand for money in an open economy. With the rapid financial market liberalization in some of the Asian economies in the last couple of decades, open economy factors have become very important in the determination of money demand. Therefore, this paper aims to ascertain the degree to which foreign opportunity cost variables influence money demand in the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea. Cointegration analysis is performed and an error correction model estimated using quarterly time-series data. The empirical results support the inclusion of foreign opportunity cost variables in the money demand function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]