Indo-Pacific glass beads from the Indian subcontinent in Early Merovingian graves (5th–6th century AD)

this article was very interesting :), it talks about how the Merovingian graves had Indian beads, how they were manufactured, their composition, use and how they were traded. Given that we are talking about the 2 centuries after the Roman Empire crashed, its not surprising that the trade routes remained for 2 centuries afterwards although slowly dying. The authors talk about political upheavals in South India in 6th century and changes in fashion. Absolutely fascinating to see presence of Indian Manufactured goods in Europe so early in the human history. 



Peter Francis Jr. has devoted much of his research to Indo-Pacific glass beads. These productions are among the emblematic objects made by South Asian glass workshops for nearly two millennia. Despite their wide distribution, both in Asia and Africa and in the Middle East, these tiny beads have never been reported in Western Europe. They have recently been found in large numbers on funerary sites in Merovingian Gaul, dated to between the middle of the 5th and the middle of the 6th century AD (mainly in the form of necklaces or clothing ornaments). Their presence stimulates reflection on the extensive trade between the Merovingian and the Indian worlds. This contribution discusses the technological, typological and chemical characteristics of these beads, as well as their use.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352226716300095

Indian Cotton Textiles and the Senegal River Valley in a Globalising World: Production, Trade and Consumption, 1750- 1850

this was a fascinating phd dissertation

This thesis addresses how and why West African consumers, especially those along the Senegal River valley, imported and consumed Indian cotton textiles from the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, despite the fact that they produced textiles of various kinds. Using quantitative and qualitative sources collected from France, India, Senegal and the United Kingdom, the thesis fulfils this gap in the existing literature. Throughout this study, it will be shown that local textile production and consumption in West Africa based on factor endowments and natural environment shaped consumer demand and preferences for Indian cotton textiles whose quality was perceived to be more suitable to the life of inhabitants in the region (especially in the savannah and desert areas) than European textiles. In addition, Indian textiles not only suited conspicuous consumption among Africans but also regional economies in which cloth was used as an exchange medium. In the eighteenth century, West African demand for Indian cotton textiles of various types was central to the purchase by European merchants of slaves along coastal areas of West Africa. In the early nineteenth century, which witnessed the transition from the Atlantic slave trade to the trade in commercial agriculture, dark-blue cotton textiles produced in Pondicherry, called ‘guinées’, were of essential importance in the trade in gum Arabic in the lower Senegal River as a currency that replaced a domestically-produced cloth currency. The gum from the region was indispensable in the development of the textile industry in Western Europe at that time. This regional demand influenced the Euro-West African trade and the procurements by Europeans of cotton textiles in India. The thesis argues that historically constructed consumer agency in pre-colonial West Africa had global repercussions from the eighteenth to midnineteenth century. 

Most fascinating story of Indian Ocean trade in textiles and interconnections with slavery

Which Short-Selling Regulation is the Least Damaging to Market Efficiency? Evidence from Europe

An interesting article. I am very jaundiced towards the European Politicians and assorted people who drive their economic future. its a mess, to put it bluntly.

I quote the abstract:

Exploiting cross-sectional and time-series variations in European regulations during the July 2008–June 2009 period, we show that: 1) Prohibition on covered short selling raises bid-ask spread and reduces trading volume, 2) Prohibition on naked short selling raises both volatility and bid-ask spread, 3) Disclosure requirements raise volatility and reduce trading volume, and 4) No regulation is effective against price decline. Overall, all short-sale regulations harm market efficiency. However, naked short-selling prohibition is the only regulation that leaves volumes unchanged while addressing the failure to deliver. Therefore, we argue that this is the least damaging to market efficiency.

This is the idiocy behind the governments and economics people who try to ban short selling. The evidence that banning short selling introduces inefficiencies into the market is clear and incontrovertible. Where they aren't banned, the markets work better, absorb information faster and generally are good eggs. This exacerbates the insider outsider issue. If the idea behind the European Regulators and Politicians was to improve their markets, then this failed miserably. Spreads become wider. Trade volumes reduce. not good.

Economic Freedom and the Stability of Stock Prices: A Cross-Country Analysis

A common sense result but a valuable one indeed. I quote the highlights and abstracts from this paper.

• ADR volatility is inversely related to the economic freedom of the home country.

• ADR volatility is decreasing in home-country, property-right protection.
• ADR volatility is decreasing in the level of home country free trade agreements.
• ADR volatility is increasing in the level of regulation in the home country.

---

This paper investigates the link between economic freedom and the price stability of individual securities in a unique setting. Using a sample of 327 American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), we find an inverse relation between the economic freedom of a ADRs’ home country and the price volatility of the ADR. This negative correlation is driven primarily by certain components of economic freedom, such as property right protection, the soundness of the money, and the level of free trade in the home country. Further, we find evidence that less regulation and less government control of markets in the home country leads to more stable ADR prices.

If one wants to find out what the broader public and market thinks about your country and the changes its going through, just look at the volatility of your ADRs. A simple way of judging how stable and future proof people think your country is going to be. ADR’s are a way of you and your country’s firms to raise international funds, its a positive cycle, improve your economic freedom, property rights, free trade and regulation and watch the price and risk of your international fund raising efforts improve.

Look before you leap: Why politicians may have a point to be hesitant about the gains from trade

this was a good point to be made. Speaking as an economist, I am always in favour of trade liberalisation. Same with being a banker. Anything that facilitates trade is something that I love because that helps my clients. But politicians are different and I quote the highlights from this paper.

• economists focus on overall welfare, politicians on the income distribution.

• market liberalization increases welfare and changes the income distribution.

• politicians implement distortionary policies to mitigate the distributional effects.

• with inaccurate information, ambiguous net welfare effects may result.

• politicians may have a point when being hesitant about market liberalization.

the abstract:

Economists emphasize the welfare gains of unrestricted trade, but politicians worry about the income distribution effects of increased competition. We show that the welfare gains of a trade shock become ambiguous if inaccurate information hinders optimal income redistribution with distortionary policy instruments. To be sure about the net welfare outcome of a compensated trade shock, the government must know the size of the trade shock and the corresponding size of the policy instrument that is needed to generate a balanced budget. If this is not the case, politicians may have a point when being hesitant about the gains from trade.

So when making arguments about free trade and trade liberalisation, one has to ensure that economists are speaking the same language..I believe that one of the reasons why the WTO deals are so difficult to achieve (besides needing the approval of all the 190 odd countries) is that the WTO is mainly run by economists while the decision makers are mainly politicians who will need to ratify the deal back home. And they are talking different language.

Economists find evidence for famous hypothesis of ‘comparative advantage’

Proving old Ricardo’s concept of “comparative advantage” is interesting.

I quote:

David Ricardo’s concept of “comparative advantage” is one of the most famous and venerable ideas in economics. Dating to 1817, Ricardo’s proposal is that countries will specialize in making the goods they can produce most efficiently — their areas of comparative advantage — and trade for goods they make less well, rather than making all kinds of products for themselves.
As a thought example, Ricardo proposed, consider cloth and wine production in England and Portugal. If English manufacturers are relatively better at making cloth than wine, and Portugal can produce wine more cheaply than England can, the two countries will specialize: England will concentrate on making cloth, Portugal will focus on making wine, and they will trade for the products they do not produce domestically.

So how did they do it?

To arrive at this conclusion, Costinot and Donaldson identified a data source that let them quantify nations’ potential productivity: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an arm of the United Nations, analyzes farming conditions globally, estimating potential agricultural productivity based on factors such as soil type, climate and water availability.
Costinot and Donaldson looked at the numbers from an FAO model of yields of 17 crops on 1.6 million plots of land in 55 countries to examine whether countries specialize in the way Ricardo believed. That is, if a country’s terrain allows it to grow wheat more productively than grapes, comparative advantage suggests that specialization will occur. So Costinot and Donaldson compared the predicted output of crops in each of the 55 countries (based on the FAO data and on prevailing prices) with the actual output of those crops.
The numbers show that Ricardo was right — to an extent, anyway. Costinot and Donaldson analyzed the results so that if the real world worked just as Ricardo supposed, the correlation between productivity and output would be 1.000. Instead, the logarithmic correlation they found was 0.212, with a margin for error of 0.057.

Cool, eh? I will be using this in my own business anyway. Pretty neato…I work in the business of financing international trade, so this will help me identify where we can concentrate matters

Mosques and Urban Development

Religious places are interesting urban and human development artefacts. By and large, religious places are one of the biggest things one can see in human history. One only needs to see the seven ancient wonders of the world to see what I mean:

1. Great Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Colossus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

With the exclusion of the last one and perhaps one can argue the 6th one, rest are religious buildings. How about the medieval wonders?

1. Stonehenge
2. Colosseum
3. Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
4. Great Wall of China
5. Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
6. Hagia Sophia
7. Leaning Tower of Pisa
8. Taj Mahal
9. Cairo Citadel
10. Ely Cathedral
11. Cluny Abbey

Again, mostly religious in nature. Walk around in any city in any country and you will find religious buildings as one of the key urban infrastructure artefacts. Religious buildings also play a huge part in the social dynamics of cities. The second point is that from this year onwards, there are more people in urban areas rather than in rural areas. So its important to know how religious buildings interact with urban development. You need to know this for a variety of reasons, for town planning, for security, for urban warfare, for traffic, to determine the value of your home, etc. etc. So how do you do it? Well, these chaps seem to have done a good job in doing this. I quote:

Explaining historical urban development using the locations of mosques: A GIS/spatial statistics-based approach, Irem Ayhana and K. Mert Cubukcu, City and Regional Planning, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

Religious buildings, including temples, churches, synagogues and mosques have always been one of the integral components of the urban layout. This paper aims to answer the question whether the historical spatial development of a large-size city can be approximated using historical geographical and categorical data pertaining to its places of worship. We use data for 525 mosques built in Izmir, Turkey, over the years 1550–2008 and maps of built-up areas for the same period. Based on the results of GIS/spatial statistics-based analyses using the three basic measures of spatial statistics (mean center, weighted mean center and standard deviational ellipse), we conclude that the spatial distribution of mosques is a close proxy of urban development. Thus, location data for places of worship, often available and accessible, can be used to derive historical urban development over a given period.

Here’s the relevant image of the city.

 

this is how the mosques were constructed by time period:

And immediately you can see the differences between the construction period and how the city grew. In terms of going into statistical measures, this image now shows how the mean centres of the city changed by time:

As you can imagine, various things like land values to traffic patterns will change dramatically based upon this kind of data. Very interesting stuff.

Grand Hyatt Hotels are no longer fit to live in :(

I have recently moved jobs. Unfortunately, for this job, I will be travelling like an absolute idiot all over the world. Very interesting and tough job with loads of travelling (a travel blog perhaps?).

Few of my old cards, I have junked or thrown away an equal amount...

Sad, very sad.

 

 

 

 

 

Last time I was in such a travelling job, I collected so many hotel and airline cards that it was ridiculous, a clutch of gold, platinum, silver, blue, green cards were good, but then I realised, all that showed was that I was away from my kids and missed important days of them growing up. 

But in this job, have to travel again but I know which hotel chain to avoid now. The Hyatt hotel chain is pretty good, I have to admit, good rooms, good customer service, good frequent user programme and so on and so forth. But hey, no drinks, no stay. After a long day at work, you need a drink.

Oh! well, there are other hotels in Cairo but the image of fun loving enjoyable Cairo is slowly but steadily going down the tubes. Mind you, this is a perfect example of hypocritical thinking, stop drinking alcohol but I can find 1000's of other cases in a hotel which violate some interpretations of Sharia law, ranging from its financing to bathrooms to employment tribunals to banking, inheritance, and and and. But amusing, none the less.

And guess what? this will again blow up into a huge issue...

Technorati Tags: Cairo,Egypt,Saudi Arabia,Sharia,Islam,Muslims

Russia and Lufthansa have a fight but they dont even know why!

This was so strange. Lufthansa and the Russian Government are apparently having a fight. So much so that Russia has banned Lufthansa cargo flights from transiting Russian Airspace. But they dont even know why they are fighting!!!

Lufthansa has asked the government in Berlin to intercede in a dispute with
Russian authorities that has forced the German airline's cargo aircraft to avoid
Russian airspace since Sunday. Although the two sides yesterday could not even
agree on the cause of disruption to Lufthansa Cargo's vital Europe-to-Asia
flights, German observers spoke of yet another sign of a resurgent Russia.
Gerrit Wiesmann, Frankfurt

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Ummah Trading System

I again came across one of the concepts which just does my head in. The association of strange things with religion. This shows up in many manifestations. Like the idea that the jews are behind everything. Or that the Jews are extra-special because they have got a huge number of nobel prizes. Or that Hinduism had something to do with the decades long low economic growth rate in India (thank you, Mr. Mahalanobis for that gem). And now we see a post by Yahya Brit bemoaning about the fact that intra OIC trade was pathetic.

Trade happens because somebody wants to buy something and somebody has something to sell. Governments, as is their wont, put in barriers to trade. So if the trade between 2 countries is not high enough, the reason (ceretis paribus) is that nobody wants/can buy things, nobody has things to sell or there are government barriers such as not purchasing olives and oranges from Israel (But merrily using Israeli patented medical equipment - lets not go there, never you mind)

And these barriers are not Islamic, they are stupid economics (proving the point that stupidity is religion independent - trade barriers have been put up by Hindu, Christian, Shinto, and and and... countries). So the fact that the OIC countries are not trading between them is not due to the common religion or the common ummah but because they are either not able to purchase stuff, or make stuff which people want to buy or have stupid barriers.

If this basic logical and economics argument does not come across properly, then think about the flip side of the argument, Mr. Brit. The only thing which is common across these OIC countries is the fact that they have the same religion. Now if you are really interested to link economics and trade with religion, then the fact that the trade is low becomes the fault of the religion or the followers or both. Now you see how strange this position is?

No Sir, stick to basics, transparency, education, productivity, venture capital, low tariff barriers, democracy, rule of law, etc. etc. and you will see trade increase :)

Happy trading :)