The Relationship Between Commodity Prices and Freight Rates in the Dry Bulk Shipping Segment: A Threshold Regression Approach

AbstractForeign investment in Africa's mineral resources has increased dramatically. This paper addresses three questions raised by this trend: do commercial mining investments increase the likelihood of social or armed conflict? If so, when are these disputes most prevalent? And, finally, what mechanisms help explain these conflicts? I show, first, that mining has contrasting effects on social and armed conflict: while the probability of protests or riots increases (roughly doubling) after mining starts, there is no increase in rebel activity. Second, I show that the probability of social conflict rises with plausibly exogenous increases in world commodity prices. Finally, I compile additional geo-spatial and survey data to explore potential mechanisms, including reporting bias, environmental harm, in-migration, inequality, and governance. Finding little evidence consistent with these accounts, I develop an explanation related to incomplete information—a common cause of conflict in industrial and international relations. This mechanism rationalizes why mining induces protest, why these conflicts are exacerbated by rising prices, and why transparency dampens the relationship between prices and protest.

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Tourism and environmental performance: New evidence using a threshold regression analysis

Tourism Economics ◽

10.1177/13548166211042450 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135481662110424

Author(s):

Zhike Lv ◽

Ting Xu

Keyword(s):

Environmental Performance ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Tourism Development ◽

Threshold Level ◽

Optimal Level ◽

Negative Influence ◽

Threshold Regression ◽

Regression Approach ◽

New Evidence ◽

Panel Threshold Regression

To verify whether the effect of tourism on environmental performance differs by the level of tourism development, a panel threshold regression approach is applied to observe the effects of tourism on environmental performance in 97 countries over the 2002–2012 periods. Our results suggest that tourism always has a significant negative influence on the environmental performance, implying that tourism will unavoidably result in environmental degradation, irrespective of how high the level of tourism development. However, when tourism development exceeds a certain value, tourism will relatively have less influence on environmental performance. In terms of policy prescriptions, considering that tourism wills inevitably worse environmental qualities, this finding implies that policymakers should consider the optimal level of tourism development at around the estimated threshold level to minimize the negative impact of tourism on environmental quality.

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