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This study employs the bounds testing approach to cointegration to investigate the relationships between the prices of two strategic commodities (oil and gold) and the financial variables (interest rates, exchange rates and stock prices) of Japan-a major oil-consuming and goldholding country. Our results suggest that the prices of gold and stock can help form expectations of higher inflation over time. In the short run, only gold prices impact the interest rate in Japan. Overall the findings of this study could help the Japanese monetary authority in conducting monetary policy and investors of Japanese yen in building their optimal portfolios. Specifically our findings suggest that the optimal choice in the long term for those who invest in yendenominated assets would be to include gold in their portfolios.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Governance, vulnerability to climate change, and green growth: international evidence Terms of use: Documents in Thai-Ha Le, Youngho Chang, and Donghyun Park AbstractThe authors examine the role of governance and vulnerability to climate change in green growth using a global panel dataset. They find that governance has a positive effect on environmental performance and vulnerability to climate change has a negative effect. Promoting good governance and reducing climate change vulnerability can thus contribute to a cleaner environment. They find qualitatively similar results for the subsample of high-income countries, but governance has an insignificant effect for the subsamples of upper-middle-income, and lower-middle-and-low-income countries. Highincome countries have strong environmental policies to protect the environment whereas other countries need to strengthen their relatively weak environmental policies. This suggests a need for substantial economic, technological and financial support from the international community for strengthening the environmental institutional capacity of developing countries. JEL Q56

Arsenic in drinking water is a severe public health risk in Vietnam especially in the Red River Delta (RRD), northern Vietnam. Located in the RRD, Hanam is the most affected province by arsenic contamination of groundwater. Several programs have been initiated and implemented in Vietnam especially in the rural areas to address the problems of arsenic in drinking water, among those piped water from centralized water plants. However, it is the fact that like many developing countries, in Vietnam efforts have been focused mainly on engineering aspect of technologies, while the nature of water users' needs is neglected. This study assessed the determinants of piped water connection in arsenic contaminated areas of the RRD based on a field survey of 443 households in Hanam province. We found that, most of the respondents in RRD were aware of arsenic contaminated water but did not have deep knowledge on the issue and long-term health effect of consuming arsenic contaminated water. Connection fee, arsenic awareness index and household expenditure presented the most influential factors affecting the decision of getting connected. We discussed the implication of connection subsidies, awareness raising and collective action policy for providing safe water for the welfare of all society.