A rise in interest rates at a time when Israel's economic recovery is slacking Jimmy Choo Shoes also hamper hopes of a rebound in the Israeli petrochemicals market. In 2010, Israel's petrochemicals industry included capacities of 450,000tpa ethylene, 345,000tpa propylene, 125,000tpa benzene, 230,000tpa xylenes, 165,000tpa PE, 450,000tpa PP, 160,000tpa PVC and 60,000tpa of methanol. BMI does not envisage any substantial increase in capacities over the next five years, with no plans for new petrochemicals plants over the medium term. However, BMI expects new investment plans following the privatisation of the main player in the sector, Oil Refineries Ltd (ORL), and its likely expansion over the forecast period. In the long term, the privatisation of ORL is Christian Louboutin Rolando Hidden-Platform Pump Dark Redto result in moderate capacity expansion and the possibility of some domestic gas-based production. The new owners are also likely to integrate the two privatised entities that were created from ORL, centred on the Ashdod and Haifa refineries respectively, with their other interests in the petrochemicals sector. The Israeli petrochemicals sector is likely to remain focused on domestic sales and is not expected to rival other Christian Louboutin Rolando Hidden-Platform Pump Red in the region. This is primarily due to the country's lack of upstream activity. While Gulf States have developed petrochemicals industries on the back of their domestic gas and oil production, Israel's gas and oil production is negligible. If recent offshore gas discoveries are confirmed, there may later be some scope to develop the petrochemical industry further. Israel Petrochemicals Report Q1 2011 ? Business Monitor International Ltd Page 6 In BMI's Middle Eastern and African Petrochemicals Business Environment Rankings matrix, Israel lies in sixth place, with a score of 55.2 points. The country lies 2.1 points ahead of South Africa and 1.8 points behind Iran. With no planned significant growth in petrochemicals capacities over the medium term, Israel's score is unlikely to change much over the next five years, although it could be improved by better Political, Economic and Business Risk ratings.This paper investigates the time-varying corporate bond index returns in a multi-factor smooth transition regression model. We find that expected index returns vary between weak and strong economic regimes, where the transition from one regime to the other is governed by the 3-quartered growth of industrial production. Weak economic regimes are characterized by low growth of industrial Christian Louboutin Rolando Nappa leather, vice versa for strong economic regimes. Further, risk factor sensitivities are generally more negative in strong economic regimes than in weak regimes, implying that index returns are low when economic conditions are good and high when economic conditions are poor. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]Using bilateral trade data in total and technology-and-skill-intensive manufactured goods for 28 developing countries that account for 82% of all developing country manufactures exports between 1978 and 2005, this paper explores the effects of financial development on the pattern of specialization in South-South and South-North trade. The empirical results using dynamic panel regressions and comprehensive sensitivity tests suggest that financial development in the South has an economically and statistically significant positive effect on the share of total and technology-and-skill-intensive manufactures exports in GDP, and total exports in South-South trade. In contrast, no such significant or robust effect of financial development is found in South-North trade. Overall, the positive effect of financial development is found to be asymmetric favoring South-South significantly more than South-North trade. In addition, financial development is found to be increasing technology-and-skill-intensive manufactured goods exports significantly more than total manufactured or merchandise goods exports. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]This paper considers the problem of how to price a conspicuous product when the economy is in a recession that disrupts capital markets. A conspicuous product in this context is a luxury good for which demand is increasing in brand image. Brand image here means the ability of a consumer to impress observers by conspicuously displaying consumption of the good. Brand image is built up when the good is priced high enough to make it exclusive, and eroded if the good is discounted.