世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

Ethnic Groups in Conflict

This paper presents a test diagnostic that determines whether financial shocks are due to the propagation of idiosyncratic shocks originating in a single source country (or group of countries), or a reflection of market interdependence due to factors common across markets The test is given by the ratio, λ, of the unconditional to the conditional correlation coefficient between markets We demonstrate analytically that the test statistic is robust to heteroscedasticity due to conditional market volatility, to the impact of omitted variables (particularly important in the event that shocks may be transmitted between any two markets via a third ‘intermediate’ market) and to the impact of endogeneity between markets Size and power characteristics of the test are strong An application to the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998, the subprime crisis of 2007 and the European crisis of 2009 demonstrates its empirical tractability For the Asian and the subprime crises, the λ‐test suggests that propagation of shocks was predominantly due to common fundamentals: in the European crisis shock propagation by contrast is indicated to be due to idiosyncratic shocks centred on Cyprus, Greece and Latvia

Diagnosing the Source of Financial Market Shocks: An Application to the Asian, Subprime and European Financial Crises

This paper surveys the literature on the manufacturing sector in South Africa , focusing on concentration and markup levels, with a view to inform policy. The literature has employed a number of different measures of industrial concentration, namely, the Gini and Rosenbluth indices, the Occupancy Count, the C5% index and to a lesser extent. Concentration Ratios and the Herfmdahl-Hirschman index. Generally, manufacturing industry concentration is found to be high and increasing up to 1996. However, all the measures show decreasing concentration post 1996. In respect of markups, the evidence suggests that markups in South Africa are significantly higher than they are in comparable industries world-wide and they appear to be non-declining. However, there are dissenting voices on this point. We then juxtapose the concentration and price-cost margins findings to industry performance (at the macro level). In particular, we review the literature that examines the relations between concentration and price-cost margin s on the one hand and output growth, productivity growth, employment, employment growth, investment and export and import competitiveness on the other. We then draw implications for competition policy in South Africa, pointing out areas that need further research as well as international best practices.

South african manufacturing industry structure and its implications for competition policy

This paper examines whether there necessarily exists a conflict between allocative and productive efficiency in small open economy markets. That productive efficiency favours market concentration is not in dispute, and the sole question we face is whether allocative efficiency suffers under high market concentration. We proceed theoretically and econometrically. We find that the conflict between productive and allocative efficiency is not necessarily as stringent as the international competition policy literature suggests should be the case. In particular, we note that the strategic interaction between the large domestic producer and its competitors makes feasible a range of alternative price elasticities of demand, and empirically that all price elasticities of demand are less than or equal to unity. Nevertheless the impact of market structure is such as to render feasible a wide range of possible levels of pricing power.

Price Elasticities and Pricing Power in Emerging Markets: The Case of Petrochemicals Derived Plastics in South Africa

Recent cross sectional growth studies have found that ethnolinguistic fractionalization is an important explanatory variable of long-run growth performance. In the present paper we follow the call of earlier studies to conduct a more detailed clinical analysis of the growth experience of a specific country. South Africa constitutes an interesting case in which to explore these questions. The results of this study provide important nuance to the existing body of evidence. We find that fractionalization is subject to strong change over time. In addition, we find strong evidence of webs of association between the various social, political and institutional dimensions. Thus various forms of social cleavage tend to go hand in hand which presents the danger of spurious inference of association. Further, the direction of association in the preponderance of cases runs from economic to social, political and institutional variables, rather than the other way around. However, there remain significant impacts from some, but only some fractionalization indexes on economic growth. Which social cleavage, when, how and for what period of time will depend on the historical path of specific societies.

Fractionalization and Lon-Run Economic Growth: Webs and Direction of Association between the Economic and the Social - South Africa as a Time Series Case Study

Johannes Fedderke

Papers

Diagnosing the Source of Financial Market Shocks: An Application to the Asian, Subprime and European Financial Crises

South african manufacturing industry structure and its implications for competition policy

Price Elasticities and Pricing Power in Emerging Markets: The Case of Petrochemicals Derived Plastics in South Africa

Fractionalization and Lon-Run Economic Growth: Webs and Direction of Association between the Economic and the Social - South Africa as a Time Series Case Study

Introduction: a symposium on fostering growth in South Africa