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Chinese consumption now plays a major and increasingly important role in energy and mineral markets for many commodities, such as aluminum, copper, iron and steel, and oil. China and the United States during 2004 (data from U.S. Geological Survey, Central Intelligence Agency, World Bank, International Monetary Fund) (GDP/capita are purchasing power parity basis). The global economic recovery that began in 2003, together with economic growth in China and a widening circle of developing countries, is changing markets in fundamental ways. 1 Trends in production and consumption of mineral materials over time are the result of complex interactions among several factors: stage of national economic development; political events: economic cycles; price fluctuations: unresolved sociopolitical harriers to production; new sources of materials, including recycling; technological and management breakthroughs in mining, processing, or manufacturing; and business practices, ranging from fair and binding contracts backed by law to monopoly, dumping, and corruption.

For many years, mining companies focused their major exploration programs on areas perceived as low investment risk. such as the United States. Canada and Australia. Since the early 1980s. though, there has been a geographic broadening of the focus for mineral exploration. Other events related to the breakup of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and reform in Eastern Europe have resulted in major decreases in consumption of minerals by those countries and increased mineral exports to western countries. This globalization of mineral supply is transforming the industry that is making the investments and the countries in which the companies produce and sell their products. Globalization has required the mining industry to adapt to new social conditions. And the industry has had to adopt new business arrangements appropriate to investing in higher risk environments. These changes included consolidation and changing the way they conduct mineral exploration. Many developing countries have instituted legal reforms to increase their attractiveness as places for mineral investment. For industrial countries, such as the United States. these changes have resulted in increased reliance on foreign sources of supply for an increasing number of mineral commodities and a decrease in their balances of trade.

To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and internet penetration, we examine a panel of 161 countries over the 1999-2001 period. Our candidate variables include economic variables (income per capita, years of schooling, illiteracy, trade openness), demographic variables (youth and aged dependency ratios, urbanization rate), infrastructure indicators (telephone density, electricity consumption), telecommunications pricing measures, and regulatory quality. With the exception of trade openness and the telecom pricing measures, these variables enter in as statistically significant in most specifications for computer use. A similar pattern holds true for internet use, except that telephone density and aged dependency matter less. The global digital divide is mainly-but by no means entirely-accounted for by income differentials. For computers, telephone density and regulatory quality are of second and third importance, while for the Internet, this ordering is reversed. The region-specific explanations for large disparities in computer and Internet penetration are generally very similar. Our results suggest that public investment in human capital, telecommunications infrastructure, and the regulatory infrastructure may mitigate the gap in PC and Internet use.

Use of small arms during training is an important activity associated with the development and proficiency of soldiers. These weapons traditionally have used copper‐jacketed lead projectiles; the copper facilitates the oxidation of the metallic lead resulting in more mobile oxides and carbonates. Consequently, many ranges at installations have high soil concentrations of lead. Many of these ranges are no longer used and have become habitat for wildlife. To address the potential for adverse effects from lead exposure in songbirds, we compared the outputs of traditional deterministic exposure models with a spatial model and compared the results of both with blood‐lead levels from songbird species at two small arms range complexes. An integrative data collection procedure was used and incorporated into the spatially explicit exposure model (SEEM) for two small arms range sites. Site‐specific data were used to refine model input parameters. These data included lead soil concentrations, analysis of lead concentrations in nestling food items, acid‐insoluble ash content of feces (to estimate soil ingestion), location and mapping of singing males, and nest site location and characteristics. Territorial males also were spot‐mapped to determine likelihood of breeding activity. Modeled estimates of risk were compared with blood and feather lead levels of adults and nestlings. Overall, edge species had higher blood‐lead concentrations; however, most had concentrations below subclinical effect levels. Conventional deterministic methods produced risk estimates exceeding 10‐fold the highest SEEM estimates. The spatially explicit exposure model provided good agreement with field observations and therefore produced more accurate risk estimates. The present study provides support for the application of spatial methods over conventional deterministic methods.

This paper summarizes the results of a survey of UK‐based foreign exchange dealers conducted in 1998. It addresses topics in three main areas: the microeconomic operation of the foreign exchange market; the beliefs of dealers regarding the importance, or otherwise, of observable macroeconomic fundamental factors in affecting exchange rates; microstructure factors in FX. We find that heterogeneity of traders' beliefs is evident from the results but that it is not possible to explain such disagreements in terms of institutional detail, rank or trading technique (e.g. technical analysts versus fundamentalists). As expected, non‐observable fundamental factors are thought to dominate short horizon changes in exchange rates, but observable fundamentals are deemed important over much shorter horizons than the mainstream empirical literature would suggest. Finally, market ‘norms’ and behavioural phenomena are very strong in the FX market and appear to be key determinants of the bid–ask spread. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The financial linkages between the People's Republic of China (hereafter ‘China’) and the other Greater China economies of Hong Kong and Taiwan are assessed, and compared against those of China with Singapore, Japan and the United States. For both sets of links, there is evidence that ex post uncovered interest parity tends to hold over longer periods, and the magnitude of the parity deviations is shrinking over time. The deviations depend upon the extent of capital controls, and in certain cases, exchange rate volatility. However, while the money markets of China are increasingly linked to money markets in the rest of the world, our empirical results suggest that the banking sector—the main source of capital for Chinese firms—remains insulated. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We examine the relationship between market structure and the persistence of US dollar‐based sectoral real exchange rates for 14 OECD countries. Our empirical results based on disaggregated data suggest that differences in market structure significantly determine the rates at which deviations from sectoral purchasing power parity decay. Specifically, industries with a larger price‐cost margin are found to exhibit slower parity reversion of their sectoral real exchange rates. Further, as the degree of intra‐industry trade activity increases, sectoral real exchange rate persistence becomes more pronounced. These findings suggest that an imperfectly competitive market structure contributes to the well‐documented persistence in real exchange rates. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper examines whether output per capita in 126 countries is better described as trend or difference stationary, using appropriate finite-sample critical values. Depending upon whether one uses solely a test with a trend stationary null, or solely one with a difference stationary null, very different conclusions are obtained. This outcome suggests that it is useful to consider the tests complementary, rather than competing. We find that when a definite characterization of GDP can be made, it is very likely to indicate a difference stationary process. However, the likelihood of making definite conclusions does vary positively with both income level and data quality.

Working Paper No. 12382 Computer and Internet use, especially in developing countries, has expanded rapidly in recent years. Even in light of this expansion in technology adoption rates, penetration rates differ markedly between developed and developing countries and across developing countries. To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration, both currently and over time, we examine panel data for 161 countries over the 1999-2004 period. We explore the role of a comprehensive set of economic, demographic, infrastructure, institutional and financial factors in contributing to the global digital divide. We find evidence indicating that income, human capital, the youth dependency ratio, telephone density, legal quality and banking sector development are associated with technology penetration rates. Overall, the factors associated with computer and Internet penetration do not differ substantially between developed and developing countries. Estimates from Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions reveal that the main factors responsible for low rates of technology penetration rates in developing countries are disparities in income, telephone density, legal quality and human capital. In terms of dynamics, our results indicate fairly rapid reversion to long run equilibrium for Internet use, and somewhat slower reversion for computer use, particularly in developed economies. Financial development, either measured as bank lending or the value of stocks traded, is also important to the growth rate of Internet use.