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AbstractThis paper examines the relative importance of global, regional, country and idiosyncratic factors as well as the determinants that underpin fluctuations in international trade flows across different regions of the world. Our analysis starts by using a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model (BDFM) to simultaneously estimate the four dynamic factors, followed by the application of Bayesian model averaging to identify the variables that explain the shares of variance. Our key findings are: (i) international factors are the most important in explaining fluctuations in international trade, suggesting that the interconnections between economies and policies/shocks at the regional and global level tend to be more important than country‐level factors and (ii) regional integration, particularly when the agreement goes beyond trade in goods, is positively related to the share of the regional factor and inversely related to the importance of the global factor. Furthermore, the regional factor is more important in the case of economically large trade blocks. Overall, our analysis illustrates the usefulness of applying a BDFM model to study the co‐movements of international trade series.

Research in the West has clearly shown that attitudes developed in school greatly contribute to the views of students on societal and national issues, especially toward their country and leaders. In the newly independent and developing countries, the schools play an even more important role in value formation, since the material used in school is often prepared with a definite and clear objective of inculcating certain specific values in the young—above and beyond the task of imparting factual, scientific information. There, school teachers also are likely to convey attitudes and values different from those received at home, especially concerning development and national integration.

PurposeThe relative benefit of sector and regional diversification is a topic of continuing interest to academics, however, the issue has not previously been investigated in Italy. Additionally, previous studies have used geographically defined regions, rather than economically functional areas, when performing the analysis even though most would argue that it is the economic structure of the area that will lead to differences in demand and hence property performance. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to use the economically defined regions of Italy to test the relative benefits of regional diversification versus sector diversification within the Italian real estate portfolio.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses the dummy variable methodology of Heston and Rouwenhorst on the sector and regional affiliation of 27 cities in Italy using annual data over the period 1989 to 2007 for three property‐type: residential, retail and offices and four economically defined regions: the North West, the North East, the Centre of Italy and the South and Islands.FindingsIn contrast, to previous studies it is found that the sector and regional factors effect the returns of properties in Italy in almost equal measure, which is probably a result of using the diverse economic regions of Italy rather than arbitrary geographically locations. Nonetheless, the results show that the sector factor has started to dominate the regional effect in Italy since 1997.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to study the relative benefits of sector and regional diversification in Italy. Additionally, this is the first paper to use regions which are defined on an economic functional basis rather than a geographical basis. The results suggest that, unlike managers in other countries, Italian real estate managers need to monitor both the regional and sector composition of their portfolios.

There have been a number of ambitious studies on an international scale in recent years attempting to identify and compare "industry patterns" or "national patterns" of industrial conflict in different countries. Outstanding among these have been two analytical surveys, "The Inter-Industry Propensity to Strike," by Kerr and Siegel, and Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, by Ross and Hartman. One of the findings in this latter study, incidentally, was that, among the fifteen countries surveyed, there has been a relatively high incidence of strikes in Canada—second only to the United States, in fact.This paper is based on the premise that, in Canada, the individual province, or perhaps better, the region, is the most fruitful unit for studying such phenomena as industrial conflict. For regional differences in several respects are more pronounced in Canada than in most comparably industrialized countries, so that the portrayal of behaviour patterns in terms of national averages or configurations can lead to highly misleading conclusions.British Columbia, next only to Quebec, perhaps, offers a particularly interesting area for research in this field, because it is a separate and distinct industrial complex, and has experienced patterns of industrial conflict that differ markedly in certain important respects from other major regions of the country.It is not my intention, however, to emphasize the unique or special features of the labour scene in British Columbia. The field of industrial relations in general has suffered too much already, perhaps, from a plethora of detailed descriptive studies of matters of purely local scope and interest.

This paper analyses the determinants of the size of the informal economy using crosscountry regressions. Two sets of global data using indirect estimation techniques and the perception of business leaders for 109 countries as well as a regional set for Latin America based on direct data are used to estimate the size of the informal economies. Indirect estimation techniques arrive at higher estimates of the size of the informal economy than the perceptions of business leaders because they include not only the (fundamentally legal) activities of the informal sector, but also those activities which are illegal per se. Both kinds of estimate show strong regional differences in the size of the informal economies. Regressions on a set of indicators covering the intensity of regulations, taxes and the cost of establishing a business reveal that the intensity of labour regulations seems to be the most important factor in explaining the size of the informal economy in cross-country regressions using the rational behaviour approach. Socio-cultural indicators are only important in explaining the size of the informal economies in Latin America. Government efficiency is an important factor in explaining the size of the informal economy in world regressions. Regional regressions reveal that different aspects of governance dominate the relationship between government efficiency and the size of the informal economy in the different regions. Governments that seek to limit or decrease the size of the informal economy must therefore start from a country-specific analysis of the reasons why economic agents choose to conduct their business in the informal sector.