A Panel Granger Causality Test of Investment in ICT Capital and Economic Growth： Evidence From Developed and Developing Countries

This paper applies the Pairwise Panel Granger Causality test to examine the relationship between ICT （information and communication technology） expenditure and the rate of growth of GDP （gross domestic product） per capita. This is accomplished by using cross-country time-series data for a total of 70 developed and developing countries for the period from 2003 to 2008. The study reveals that the existence of causality and its direction differ across different income-group of countries and over the number of lags included. ICT investment expenditure as a percentage of GDP appears to cause the rate of growth of GDP per capita for the high income group and all income groups combined with lags higher than one year. However, for the upper- and lower-middle income groups, the study detects causality in neither direction. Also, when only one lag is included, the study suggests no causality in either direction for any of the income-groups of countries.

The Role of Nuclear Regulators in Reviewing Population Growth Projections

One of the roles of nuctear regulators is to review population projections calculated by applicants for populations lying in the vicinity of nuclear power plants. This paper examines methods of calculating rates of growth and thus calculating future population growth. This paper is concerned about regulators making sure that nuclear power plants are not located near densely populated centers and that population centers located near nuclear power plants do not become densely populated. In the case of El Dabaa city in the north coast of Egypt, south west of the nominated plant site, three rates of growth 1.5%, 2.5% and 3% were identified. The first is the current population growth rate of the city, the second is the average national growth rate and the third is the expected growth rate of the city when the nuclear power plant gets constructed and operated. In all three cases, this city is a population center and rules of distance from the nuclear power plant shall apply. Thus the further natural growth of this city should be controlled and directed away from the downwind of the plant.

CONTACT PROCESS ON HEXAGONAL LATTICE

In this article, we discuss several properties of the basic contact process on hexagonal lattice H, showing that it behaves quite similar to the process on d-dimensional lattice Zd in many aspects. Firstly, we construct a coupling between the contact process on hexagonal lattice and the oriented percolation, and prove an equivalent finite space-time condition for the survival of the process. Secondly, we show the complete convergence theorem and the polynomial growth hold for the contact process on hexagonal lattice. Finally, we prove exponential bounds in the supercritical case and exponential decay rates in the subcritical case of the process.

China＇s Growth Slowdown： Lessons from Japan＇s Experience and the Expected Impact on Japan, the USA and Germany

China is switching from economic growth based on extremely rapid capital accumulation to economic growth based on structural reforms and accelerated total factor productivity growth. Meanwhile, China will also face a serious excess saving problem as capital accumulation slows and, hence, needs to reduce its private saving rate. Based on this analysis, we estimated the economic impact of China＇s growth slowdown and hypothetical economic transformation on Japan, the USA and Germany using the worm input-output database. We compared the following three scenarios for China＇s final demand in 2020 and economic growth from 2015 to 2020： （i） an optimistic scenario （GDP growth rate = 6.2%, investment/GDP = 0.501）; （ii） a slowdown scenario （GDP growth rate = 4%, investment/GDP = 0.501）; and （iii） a structural reform scenario （GDP growth rate = 6.2%, investment/GDP = 0.3）. Our analysis suggests that Japan and Germany would suffer more from structural reforms in China than from a slowdown in growth. Meanwhile, for the USA, the employment decline triggered by structural reforms wouM be much smaller than the employment decline caused by a slowdown in growth.

Data analysis of flow of litigation into different channels in China

Following reform and opening up, China witnessed a rapid increase in legal cases, but the rate of increase has undergone a marked decline since 1997. The reasons this has occurred in a period of social transformation are threefold： a non-litigious dispute-settling mechanism, judicial policy and the credibility of the courts. A data analysis of the average annual rate of growth, the correlation coefficient and the respective proportions of solutions under the litigious and the non-litigious dispute-settling mechanisms indicates that the slowing of the rate of growth of litigation has been accompanied by a decrease in the role of the people＇s mediation system and the economic arbitration system. However, it is the strengthening of administrative dispute-settling mechanisms, a judicial policy of not accepting cases, the reform of litigation fees and a series of institutional cbnstructs aimed at judicial corruption that has curbed the rapid increase of legal cases.

On a Version of Rosenthal’s Inequality for Locally Square Integrable Martingales

In this paper, we study the constants in a version of Rosenthal’s inequality for locally square integrable martingales. We prove that the order of growth rates of the constants is the same as in the case of discrete time martingales.