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The Chinese Government has promulgated the "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) to increase trade flows and integrate goods markets between China and BRI countries. The validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) implies well‐integrated goods markets, a precondition for further economic convergence, and the next stage of economic integration in factor, service, and financial markets. Our study aims to examine the validity of the PPP and the extent of goods market integration between China and selected BRI countries in Africa. Since the functional form of the cointegrating relationship may not be exact or linear, we adopt the nonparametric rank tests for analysis without prior knowledge and specification of the functional form. We also address the rank problems that occur in multivariate rank tests. Our empirical results provide strong evidence of an unrestricted PPP relationship with reasonably strong evidence of nonlinearity in the data. We also find that some African BRI countries have experienced goods market integration with China during the second‐half period only. This indicates that the introduction of the BRI in 2013 and China's active involvement in African economic development through BRI projects are leading to enhanced goods market integration between China and Africa. The results indicate favorable prospects of closer economic cooperation in the factor, service, and financial markets to build a free trade area or common markets with BRI countries in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) between two economies implies goods markets of the two are well integrated. This is a pre-condition for further economic convergence. This study examines validity of the PPP between China and European countries. Since the functional form of the cointegrating relationship may not be exact or linear, we adopt the nonparametric rank tests for analysis, without prior specification of the functional form. We also address the rank problems that occur in multivariate rank tests. The results indicate strong support for nonlinear PPP relationships between China and European countries, especially during the second subsample period. This indicates China's rising economic power, particularly in the most recent decade. Although there have been disputes between China and Europe, these results suggest favorable prospects for closer economic cooperation between the two sides and the need for formulation of common policies to pursue an integrated market in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Government has proposed the 'Belt and Road Initiative' (BRI) in order to increase trade flows and economic prosperity among the Belt and Road (BR) member countries. The BRI may call for enlargement of economic cooperation as manifested by forming an economic or monetary union in the long term. It is therefore essential to choose a subset of member countries that fulfils the criteria for joining the potential economic or monetary union. The validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) implies well-integrated goods markets and is a pre-condition for further economic convergence. While the presence of transaction costs causes nonlinearities in the adjustment mechanism, our empirical study applies a three-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) cointegration method for analysis. Our results support the existence of a PPP relationship with China for 12 sampled Asian member countries. Chinese policymakers can prioritize these BR countries for closer economic cooperation. Also, this TAR cointegration method can estimate the unobservable proportional transaction costs from the thresholds. The results reveal BR countries with large thresholds as targets to curtail transaction costs of trading in order to enhance the efficiency in international goods arbitrage and the degree of trade integration along the BR routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; This paper seeks to examine the relationship between board committees and firm performance and the moderating effect of family ownership for public companies in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; This study employs publicly available data from financial databases and annual reports of a sample of 346 firm-year observations of public companies in Hong Kong for the periods 2001-2003.Findings |!|#8211; The empirical evidence indicates that a nomination (remuneration) committee is positively (negatively) related to firm performance, depending on the independence of its composition. Furthermore, family ownership does have an adverse effect on the relationship between board committees, specifically the remuneration committee, and the performance of public companies in Hong Kong.Research limitations/implications |!|#8211; This study is based on publicly available data and the board process is not actually observed.Practical implications |!|#8211; The effectiveness of a board committee is contingent on its independence and family ownership.Originality/value |!|#8211; This paper provides empirical evidence that an independent board committee could enhance the corporate governance of public companies in Hong Kong and would be of interest to regulatory bodies, business practitioners, and academic researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adopts a time-varying parameter model to investigate whether the economic downturn has affected convergence of the consumer price index. The dynamic patterns of the intranational purchasing-power parity coefficients in mainland China before and after the financial tsunami are found to differ, indicating that the convergence has indeed been adversely affected by the downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the energy consumption behavior in China. Use of a cointegration and vector error-correction model; Methodology and model estimation; Evaluation of forecasts; Four major energy inputs.

Constructs a model of Chinese coal consumption data using the cointegration and error-correction approach. Comparison with Henry's general-to-specific approach and similar models; Forecast errors.