Pengaruh Produk Domestik Bruto, Tingkat Suku Bunga Tabungan Bank Konvensional dan Nisbah Bagi Hasil Terhadap Jumlah Tabungan Mudharabah

This study aims to utilize the potential funding sources through mudharabah savings by analyzing several factors that are thought to affect the amount of mudharabah savings. The research method used in this study is a quantitative approach by using multiple linear regression analysis as an analysis method and SPSS 25.0 as analysis tool. The resultsnof the researchnare variablesnof Gross Domestic Product (PDB) and Savings Interest Rate of Conventional Banks (SBT) have significant effect on the amount of mudharabah savings. Partially, PDB has positive effect while SBT has negative effect. On the other side, variable of Profit Sharing Ratio (NBH) has no significant effect on the amount of mudharabah savings. All of three independent variables simultaneously affected the amount of mudharabah savings in BSM.

External threat and the limits of democratic pacifism

Scholars widely recognize that democratic dyads are associated with lower hazards of armed conflict and more efficient conflict resolution. Many attempts have been made to challenge the notion of democratic pacifism, but perhaps the most significant is the argument that the Democratic Peace is epiphenomenal to territorial issues, specifically the external threats that they pose. The presence of an external threat might be the mechanism by which democratic dyads, owing to audience costs and resolve, fail to decide contentious issues non-violently. This study seeks to answer the question: “Under what conditions do democratic dyads lower the likelihood of armed conflict?” To do this we propose a hard test of the Democratic Peace. Using an updated global sample of cases, we model joint democracy’s ability to lower the likelihood of armed conflict in the presence of direct external threats in the form of strategic rivalry and territorial contention. The empirical evidence we uncover systematically shows the Democratic Peace to be more limited than previously observed. When we control for each external threat with a simple right-hand-side variable, joint democracy continues to reduce conflict propensities. But when democracies face external threats (i.e. the interaction of democracy and threat), the pacifying effect of democracy is less visible.

The Impact of Chinese Purchases of U.S. Government Debt on the Treasury Yield Curve

Examining monthly data from May of 1985 to May of 2008, we find that increases in Chinese purchases of U.S government debt lead to decreases in Treasury yields. The effect is stronger as the maturity increases: a one percent increase in purchases of U.S. Treasuries by Chinese investors lowers the two-year (ten-year) Treasury yield by 10 to 38 basis points (39 to 55 basis points) on average, ceteris paribus . Overall, the demand-side variable capturing Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasuries improves the cointegrating properties of U.S. interest rates. In-sample and out-of-sample forecasts reinforce that the model with Chinese purchases greatly outperforms basic models of the yield curve. This study has implications for the business world since we document that Chinese investors contribute to lower U.S. Treasury yields and thus to lower U.S. interest rates in general.

The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate. By Eric M. Uslaner. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. 218p. $44.50.

The Movers and the Shirkers is a critique and extension of a well-cited and important research program: attempts to measure the degree to which legislators shirk, or advance their own policy goals at the expense of those held by their constituents. Such analyses (e.g., Joseph P. Kalt and Mark Zupan, "Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics," American Economic Review 74 [June 1984]: 279­ 300; John R. Lott, "Political Cheating," Public Choice 52 [1987]: 169­86) typically assume a principal-agent relation- ship between constituents and elected representatives, and they specify a regression analysis with roll-call behavior as a left-hand side variable and various measures of constituency interests and legislator ideology as right-hand side variables. Previous work (John E. Jackson and John W. Kingdon, "Ideology, Interest Groups, and Legislative Votes," American Journal of Political Science 36 [August 1992]: 805­23) shows that these analyses are bedeviled by measurement and esti- mation issues. Eric Uslaner highlights a more fundamental flaw: By ignoring important and well-understood mechanisms that tie legislators to their constituents, these analyses as- sume what should be tested.