Congratulations to Dr. Preeya Mohan on her latest publications.
1. Journal Tourism Economics entitled "The impact of hurricane strikes on cruise ship and airplane tourist arrivals in the Caribbean" by Pablo Carballo Chanfón, Preeya Mohan, Eric Strobl and Thomas Tveit
Abstract
We investigate the impact of hurricanes on airplane and cruise ship arrivals in the Caribbean. To this end, we construct a monthly panel of airline and cruise ship arrivals and hurricane destruction and employ a panel vector autoregressive model with an exogenous shock (VARX) to quantify the dynamic effects of tourist arrivals after a hurricane for 18 Caribbean countries over the period 2000–2013. The results suggest an immediate decline in the month of a strike and up to one month after on cruise ship (2.33 and 1.21 percentage points) and airplane (0.57 and 0.27 percentage points) arrivals. Moreover, a strong recovery in airplane arrivals in months 3–6 following a hurricane was sufficient to induce a net positive effect of around 2 percentage points of total tourist arrivals into the region.
2. Journal Energy Policy Vol. 153 June 2021 published by Elsevier entitled "Innovation, market failures and policy implications of KIBS firms: The case of Trinidad and Tobago's oil and gas sector"
by Dr. Preeya Mohan, Professor Eric Strobl and Professor Patrick Watson
Abstract
Trinidad and Tobago's oil and gas industry is well established and is one of the oldest in the world, which has led to a large and growing number of oil and gas Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) firms. These firms provide advanced technological or professional knowledge as intensive inputs into the business processes of other organizations. This paper aims to investigate innovation in KIBS firms in the oil and gas sector in Trinidad and Tobago, and to identify market and government failures that hinder their development to inform policy making. The factors that increase KIBS firm's likelihood of introducing an innovation are firm size, age, number of customers, internal research and development, and the use of external information. Moreover, several market failures hinder their potential for innovation and technology diffusion, including information asymmetries, difficulty in obtaining finance, lack of appropriate skills, and limited partnerships/collaboration with research institutions. This study recommends the development of a national innovation policy and program, greater dialogue, and clear communication channels among all industry stakeholders, and the expansion of several existing local policy initiatives, including trade missions and corporate governance programs and training and skills through tertiary educational institutes. Read more ...
3. The International Journal of the Economics of Business entitled, "Violent Crime and Firm Performance: Evidence from the Caribbean."
Abstract
Crime and growing the private sector are pertinent development challenges. Despite their importance there is a paucity of research on crime and business performance, particularly in developing countries, partly because of limited firm level data. This study used cross sectional firm data from the Productivity Technology Innovation survey (PROTEqIN) gathered in 2014 across 13 Caribbean countries to investigate violent crimes and company performance using Ordinary Least Squares regression, and several robustness checks including Instrumental Variables and Propensity Score Matching. The Caribbean provides an apt study given that a key characteristic of the business environment is high exposure to crime. The study found that firm sales and violent crime are negatively associated, even after firm characteristics, other factors which influence sales, and country and sector fixed effects were taken into account. The findings of this study underscore the importance for crime prevention, control and reduction policies to grow the private sector. Read more ...