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As the complexity of financial markets keeps growing, so does the need to understand the decision-making and the coordination of the exsuing actions in the marketplace. In particular, the disclosure of information to market participants and its impact on the market outcome mertis attention. This study analyses the role of private and public information in currency crises. Calls for increased dissemination of economic and policy-related information by central banks notwithstanding, the study shows that transparency is not generally conductive to preventing speculative attacks in fixed exchange-rate regimes. Rather, the role of private and public information in the market-place depencs critically on the prevailing market sentiment. The study also highlights the import of market transparency design in an environment that allows for herding and market leadership of individual speculators

Alliances have been increasing at an alarming rate for the past decade. Many of these alliances are used predominately in the supply chain side of businesses and industries. They are used to facilitate communication and interaction between firms that require resources of one another. Alliances facilitate the learning that takes place between firms involved in them. The aim of this article is to take an alliance learning perspective in explaining the processes of information dissemination and communication between firms involved in supply chain management. A conceptual model is developed which examines the learning and information communication dynamics of supply chain management in an alliance setting. Propositions are espoused which led to future research directions being discussed.

In currency exchange markets, there is a conflict between individual decisions and the socially optimal solution. Whereas agents have a coordination motive to take the same position, at the social level effective market coordination per se is not socially valuable, and the central bank aims at driving agents? actions as close as possible to the economic fundamental state. Some studies argue that it might be better to withhold public information because its potential to serve as a focal point induces agents to exaggerate the importance of public announcements. This paper shows that public information should always be provided with maximum precision, but under certain condition not to all agents. Restrictions on the degree of publicity are a better instrument with which to prevent the negative welfare effects of public announcements than restrictions on their precision are. The optimal degree of publicity is always positive.

AbstractIn a linguistically heterogeneous country, one of the critical challenges is to make information accessible to all people. Various communication media can be used: television, radio, telephone, the Internet and others. Malawi needs to embrace Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in order to achieve development in all spheres of human life. Malawi's use of ICTs ranks low. The critical challenge, therefore, is to promote an increased use of ICTs with the aim of improving people's access to information. Given that only a minority of Malawians have access to ICTs, that television has not significantly penetrated into rural areas where 80 % of the population lives, and that there is also a high illiteracy rate, the radio becomes the most accessible form of technology for information dissemination in Malawi.