Showing papers on "Economic sector published in 2000"

Economic associations among causes of species endangerment in the United States

Abstract: Associations among causes of species endangerment in the United States reflect the integration of economic sectors, supporting the theory and evidence that economic growth proceeds at the competitive exclusion of nonhuman species in the aggregate.

Economic Associations among Causes of Species Endangerment in the United States

Abstract: Associations among causes of species endangerment in the United States reflect the integration of economic sectors, supporting the theory and evidence that economic growth proceeds at the competitive exclusion of nonhuman species in the aggregate.

Women's Burden: Counter-Geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival(1)

Abstract: "... households and whole communities are increasingly dependant on women fir their survival. [G]overnments too are dependent on their earnings as well as enterprises where profit making exists at the margins of the `licit' economy." The last decade has seen a growing presence of women in a variety of cross-border circuits that have become a source for livelihood, profit-making and the accrual of foreign currency. These circuits are enormously diverse but share one feature: they are profit- or revenue-making circuits developed on the backs of the truly disadvantaged. They include the illegal trafficking in people for the sex industry and for various types of formal and informal labor markets. They also include cross-border migrations, both documented and not, which have provided an important source of convertible currency for governments in home countries. The formation and strengthening of these circuits is largely a consequence of broader structural conditions. Among the key actors emerging in these particular circuits are the women themselves in search of work, but also, and increasingly so, illegal traffickers and contractors as well as the governments of home countries. I conceptualize these circuits as counter-geographies of globalization. They overlap with some of the major dynamics that compose globalization: the formation of global markets, the intensification of transnational and trans-local networks and the development of communication technologies, which easily escape conventional surveillance practices. The strengthening and, in some cases, formation of new global circuits is made possible by the existence of a global economic system and the associated development of various institutional supports for cross-border money flows and markets.(2) These counter-geographies are dynamic; to some extent they are part of the shadow economy, but they also use some of the institutional infrastructure of the formal economy.(3) This article maps some of the key features of these counter-geographies, particularly those involving foreign-born women. I focus on the possibility of systemic links between the growth of these alternative circuits for survival, profit-making and hard-currency earnings, on the one hand, and major conditions in developing countries that are associated with economic globalization, on the other. Among these conditions are growth in unemployment, the closing of a large number of typically small and medium-sized enterprises oriented to national rather than export markets, and high, and often increasing government debt. While these economies are frequently grouped under the label "developing," they are in some cases struggling, stagnant, even shrinking. In the interests of brevity, I will use the term "developing" as shorthand for all these situations. MAPPING A NEW CONCEPTUAL LANDSCAPE The various global circuits that incorporate growing numbers of women have strengthened at the same time as economic globalization has had a significant impact on developing economies. They have had to implement new policies and accommodate new conditions associated with globalization: Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), opening their economies to foreign firms, the elimination of multiple state subsidies, and, it seems almost inevitably, financial crises and the accompanying programs of the IMF. It is now clear that in most of the countries involved, these conditions have created enormous costs for certain sectors of the economy and population and have not fundamentally reduced government debt. Among these costs are the growth in unemployment, the closure of many firms in often traditional sectors oriented to the local or national market, the promotion of export-oriented cash crops which have increasingly replaced survival agriculture and food production for local or national markets and, finally, the heavy, ongoing burden of government debt in most of these economies. …

Financial development, investment, and economic growth

Abstract: ZHENHUI XU [*] In this article, I use a multivari ate vector-autoregressive (VAR) approach to examine the effects of permanent financial development on domestic investment and output in 41 countries between 1960 and 1993. The VAR approach permits the identification of the long-term cumulative effects of financial development on the domestic variables by allowing for dynamic interactions among these variables. The results reject the hypothesis that financial development simply follows economic growth and has very little effect on it. Instead, there is strong evidence that financial development is important to growth and that investment is an important channel through which financial development affects growth. (JEL E22, E44, E47, 016, 057) Keywords: economic growth, financial development, investment, vector-auto-regression, impulse-response I. INTRODUCTION Interest in the relationship between financial development and economic growth dates back to early this century and has been growing since the 1980s. [1] In the literature, three views have emerged concerning the potential importance of finance in economic growth. The first sees finance as a critical element of growth (Schumpeter [19113; Goldsmith [19691; McKinnon [19733; Shaw [1973]; Fry [1978, 1988]; Bencivenga and Smith [1991]; King and Levine [1993a, 1993b]). In this view, services provided by the financial system are essential for growth, and a repressed financial system, characterized by price distortion, undersaving, negative or unstable returns on savings and investment, and inefficient allocation of savings among competing users, impedes growth. [2] As the financial system develops, households substitute out of unproductive tangible assets, raising the total real supply of credit, the quantity and quality of investment, and thus the rate of economic growth. In addition, financial development can pro mote technological innovations and productivity growth (King and Levine [1993a]). The second view regards finance as a relatively unimportant factor in growth, essentially as the handmaiden to industry and commerce (Robinson [19521; Lucas [1988]; Stern [1989]). In this perspective, the lack of financial development is simply a manifestation of the lack of demand for financial services. As the real sectors of the economy grow, the demand for various financial services rises and will thus be met by the financial sector. Based on this view, financial development simply follows economic growth and has very little effect on it. Like the first one, the third view ascribes effects to finance but focuses on its potential negative impacts on growth (Van Wijnbergen (1983]; Buffie [1984]). Economists holding this view contend that financial development can hinder growth by reducing available credit to domestic firms, This situation arises from the presence of informal curb markets. As the formal financial system develops, households are seen to substitute out of curb-market loans, thus reducing the total real supply of domestic credit. The reduction in the supply of credit can lead to a credit crunch, thereby lowering investment and slowing production and growth. Further, such a credit crunch can retard economic growth beyond the short term by lowering the steady-state capital stock (Wijnbergen (1983]). From these divergent views, three testable hypotheses emerge with sharply different policy implications. The first view suggests that government policies should be directed toward improving the financial system, since financial development has important causal effects on growth. The second view implies that government policies toward improving the financial system will have little effect on growth, since financial development results from growth and has little impact on it. Based on the third view, there is a potential danger of financial development. Under certain institutional arrangements, government efforts toward financial development can cost an economy its long-term growth by reducing total real supply of domestic credit. …

Economic Reforms in Ghana: The Miracle and the Mirage

Abstract: Part 1 Macroeconomics, structure and growth: a review of macroeconomic and sectoral policies and growth the political economy of reform fragile still? the structure of Ghana's economy, 1960-1994 a social accounting matrix of the economy of Ghana. Part 2 Fiscal, savings and investment policies: fiscal trends in Ghana public expenditures and their performance an assessment of savings and investment. Part 3 The external sector: exchange rate policy and the balance of payments the external trade sector external finance, foreign aid and debt. Part 4 Factor markets: intervention and liberalization - changing policies and performance in the financial sector labour under structural adjustment. Part 5 Sectoral performance: industrial sector policies and performance agricultural sector policies and performance. Part 6 Socio-economic development: the evolution of social policy poverty in the changing environment gender participation under economic reforms. Part 7 The way forward: structural adjustments and after - which way forward?

E-Commerce: Impacts and Policy Challenges

Abstract: E-commerce -- an application of the Internet -- has expanded exponentially over the past 5 years and is widely expected to continue to develop rapidly in the medium-term Much, however, remains to be done to fully exploit the opportunities offered by e-commerce And as e-commerce develops, it could have profound impacts in individual sectors of the economy as well as for macroeconomic performance and economic policies This paper assesses the potential outcomes and economic impacts of e-commerce in the business to business and business to consumer spheres; the forces underlying its expansion and the possible implications for structural and macroeconomic policy management

The role of government in economic development

Abstract: In the first phase, lasting from 1940 to 1979, government was assigned a primary, entrepreneurial role. The intellectual roots of this view can be found in the writings of the pre-Marshallian classical economists and in their immediate post-WWII followers, Sir Arthur Lewis, Paul N.Rosenstein-Rodan, Ragnar Nurkse, Hans W.Singer, Raul Prebisch, Albert O. Hirschman and Harvey Leibenstein. They viewed economic development as a growth process that requires the systematic reallocation of factors of production from a low-productivity, traditional technology, decreasing returns, mostly primary sector to a high-productivity, modern, increasing returns, mostly industrial sector. But, unlike the later neoclassical development economists who assume that there are few technological and institutional impediments to the requisite resource-reallocation, classical development economists assume that the resource reallocation process is hampered by rigidities, which are both technological and institutional in nature. Investment lumpiness, inadequate infrastructure, imperfect foresight, and missing markets impede smooth resource transfers between sectors in response to individual profit maximisation and provide the bases for classical, structuralist approaches to economic development. Technological external economies in infrastructural and ‘basic’ industrial projects would lead to co-ordination failures that would cause private agents to underinvest in them.

Comparing Accountability in the Public and Private Sectors

Abstract: Analysis of public accountability tends to concentrate on public sector institutions. However, increasing use of the private sector in the provision of public services suggests the need to compare accountability in the two sectors. While private sector (for-profit) companies are more accountable in terms of their 'bottom line', accountability requirements in the public sector are generally more stringent, particularly with regard to process and general policy.

Women in the informal sector: a global picture, the global movement

Abstract: Over the past two decades, employment in the informal sector has risen rapidly in all regions in the world. Until the recent Asian economic crisis, it was only the oncerapidly-growing economies of East and Southeast Asia that experienced substantial growth of modern sector employment. However, in the wake of that crisis, most of these countries have experienced a decline in formal wage employment and a concomitant rise in informal employment. Even before the crisis, official statistics indicated that the informal sector accounted for over half of total non-agricultural employment in Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly half in East Asia, and as much as 80 percent in other parts of Asia and in Africa. And, in terms of urban employment, the informal sector accounted for well over half in Africa and Asia and a quarter in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Cooptation and Corporatism in China: The Logic of Party Adaptation

Abstract: The political implications of China's economic reforms center on the adaptability of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Can it successfully adapt to the new economic and social environment that its reforms are creating? Or is its ability to cope being undermined by these changes? In the midst of rapid economic change, scholars have identified trends that may be evidence of potential political transformation. Entrepreneurs and skilled expertise are being recruited into the party. Cooptation facilitates adaptation by bringing in new elites who may invigorate the party with new ideas and new goals. In addition, local party and government officials are developing corporatist arrangements to promote economic change. These trends give hope to some that economic reform will eventually lead to gradual political change, allowing China's transition from communism to be more like Hungary or Poland (or even Taiwan) and thereby avoid the turmoil that accompanied political change in the rest of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Along with these promising signs of rejuvenation are contrary signs of disintegration. Large numbers of party members are abandoning their party responsibilities to pursue economic opportunities. The nonstate sector of the economy is growing so fast that most enterprises do not have party organizations within them, and few new members are being recruited from their workforce. In some rural areas, party organizations are paralyzed, recruitment of new members is difficult, and lineage-based clans are competing with the party for influence. These are warning signs of disintegration, of a party unable to manage its members, to have direct institutional links with the most dynamic sectors of the economy, or to control its society.

Tools for Thought: What is New and Important about the "E-conomy"?

Abstract: There are eras when advancing technology and changing business organizations transform economies and societies. Such episodes do not just amplify productivity in one leading sector. Instead they give all economic sectors powerful new tools. Today we are living through such a shift in our economic landscape, a shift that warrants a new name: the E-conomy. Information technologies, data communication and data processing technologies, are tools to manipulate, organize, transmit, and store information in digital form. They are tools for thought that amplify brainpower in the way the technologies of the Industrial Revolution amplified muscle power. The story of the revolution in information technology is at once a story of technology and a story of innovations in business organization and practice. The two stories are yoked together; they pull forward together. The technology story is underpinned, and measured, by the doubling of semiconductor capability and productivity every-eighteen-months –a rate that has carried us from the room-sized vacuum-tube computers to the modern Internet -- and by the complementary surge in the capacity of the communications network to transmit digital information. Changes in business organization and practice are the second driver of this transformation. The E-conomy is as much a story about changes in business organization, market structures, government regulations, and human experience as it is about new technology. While these changes are spreading across industries and countries, they are more difficult to measure. Taken together, the business innovations represent a new business ecology that includes a prominent role for venture capital, the start-up, the spinoff, and new option based ways of compensating skilled workers and entrepreneurs – innovations that have unleashed a tsunami wave of new business and new technology. The E-conomy is generating substantial and unexpected increases in productivity that have motored our recent surge in economic growth and that have enlarged the margin for monetary policy. But the economic transformation is not about soft landings, smooth growth, permanently rising stock prices, government surpluses, and low rates of interest and inflation. It is about structural transformation and developments that carry disruption and change. The policy issues are moving rapidly from the narrowly technical through the narrowly legal into fundamental questions of how to organize our markets and society. Under the best of circumstances the risks of policy making are high. This background briefing on the E-conomy is aimed to provide a context and a structure for policy debate by defining the stakes, the forces, the issues at play, and an agenda – not a choice of outcomes. For the past fifty years, US government policy has played a major role in enabling America to lead in developing information technology--and just as important--in creating the conditions for America to lead in the use of information technology throughout the economy. The American government largely got policy right under three important headings -- headings we use to structure the agenda that follows: 1) Public investment in science and technology and in the technological-age education of people needed to realize the benefits of the E-conomy. Included under this heading is the re-opened question of the role of government and the institutional structures that create the next generations of technology and equip them with launch markets. 2) Rule making for the E-conomy, which extends across such thorny issues as privacy, security, and the definition of new property rights and responsibilities necessary for markets to function effectively in consonance with enduring values and purposes. 3) Flexibility and inclusion: the basic issues of institutional and labor flexibility and fairness. Compounding the policymaking challenge is the fact that the E-conomy is necessarily global. It is a network of networks that crosses borders in a world organized into nation-states. This requires, if not common rules, then harmonization, compatible rules that allow the economic networks to operate as a single large global system. It is a tough agenda.

The Challenge of Health Sector Reform: What Must Governments Do?

Abstract: List of Tables List of Figures List of Boxes List of Acronyms Preface Notes on the Contributors Health Sector Reform and New Public Management The Structure and Performance of Health Systems Explanations of Performance and Reform Responses Bureaucratic Commercialisation: Decentralization of Hospital Management Increasing Government Finance: Charging the Users Government Purchase of Private Services Regulating and Enabling the Private Sector Taking Account of Capacity Reforming Health Sector Reform References Index

Port Privatisation: Objectives, Extent, Process, and the UK Experience

Abstract: The role of the private sector has expanded significantly in many important economic sectors over recent decades. Ports have not been immune from this advance, and many ports around the world have benefited from private sector intervention. This paper considers objectives commonly associated with the privatisation of seaport functions. A framework is presented (Port Privatisation Matrix) that can be used to help establish the extent of private sector intervention in any given port. This is followed by a discussion of the main methods used to bring about private sector intervention in ports, with examples as appropriate. Finally, the paper considers the rather unique form of port privatisation (i.e. transfer of property rights etc.) adopted in the United Kingdom. The evidence suggests that the state does not need to transfer seaport property rights in order to benefit from private sector expertise. Indeed, due to the specific nature of port investment, and bearing in mind the key objective of ports to facilitate trade, this may be counter-productive.

Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Public Sector: The Dance of the Chameleon

Abstract: This article explores the application of corporate entrepreneurship within the public sector. It outlines research that investigates whether those factors, which the literature describes as stimulating corporate entrepreneurship in the private sector, apply to the public sector. It concludes that entrepreneurship is a strategic phenomenon and, as a consequence, the unique environmental influences on public sector bodies generate stimulants and constraints to corporate entrepreneurship,which vary from those applicable to the private sector.

Corruption, Structural Reforms, and Economic Performance in the Transition Economies

Abstract: Recent studies have highlighted the adverse impact of corruption on economic performance. This paper advances the hypothesis that corruption is largely a symptom of underlying weaknesses in public policies and institutions, a formulation that provides deeper insights into economic performance than do measures of “perceived corruption.” The hypothesis is tested by assessing the relative importance of structural reforms vs. corruption in explaining macroeconomic performance in the transition economies. The paper finds that for four widely used measures of economic performance—growth, inflation, the fiscal balance, and foreign direct investment—structural reforms tend to dominate the corruption variable.

The business environment in Tanzania after socialism: challenges of reforming banks, parastatals, taxation and the civil service

Abstract: In the process of structural adjustment and economic liberalization, former strong socialist sub-Saharan African countries are experiencing additional challenges in their efforts to develop the private sector, compared to those that had relatively market oriented economies. Tanzania is known for its past strong socialist orientation. This article assesses the country's effort to reform the banking system, state owned enterprises, taxation system and the public services sector, and the emergence of the private sector. Comparisons are made where relevant with the experiences from transition economies in Eastern Europe. Major reforms have taken place in all the sub-sectors, and there is significant increase in the participation by the private sector in the economy with increased production. Private banks have increased from zero in I994 to thirteen in i998. Over 40 per cent of former state owned enterprises have been divested, 50 per cent of which were sold. Some are performing well, contributing to government income and reversing the drain through subsidy. The taxation system has improved. It now recognises the role played by the private sector and has introduced new mechanisms to collect taxes e.g., VAT, and plugging tax evasion loopholes. Private sector investment has increased and major developments are notable in mining and tourism. Although the overall impact of liberalization on the areas examined has been positive, significant weaknesses remain, especially in the regulatory frameworks required to prevent abuses of their position by private enterprises. Both corruption and an uncertain legal environment inhibit the realisation of benefits from reform. The 'trickle down' of welfare to poorer sections of society has been inadequate, as has the extension of financial services to small

Factors driving global economic integration

Abstract: Global economic integration is not a new phenomenon. Some communication and trade took place between distant civilizations even in ancient times. Since the travels of Marco Polo seven centuries ago, global economic integration—through trade, factor movements, and communication of economically useful knowledge and technology—has been on a generally rising trend. This process of globalization in the economic domain has not always proceeded smoothly. Nor has it always benefited all whom it has affected. But, despite occasional interruptions, such as following the collapse of the Roman Empire or during the interwar period in this century, the degree of economic integration among different societies around the world has generally been rising. Indeed, during the past half century, the pace of economic globalization (including the reversal of the interwar decline) has been particularly rapid. And, with the exception of human migration, global economic integration today is greater than it ever has been and is likely to deepen going forward. 1

Military spending and economic growth in South Africa

Abstract: This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the economic effects of military spending on the South African economy. It estimates a neo-classical model common in the literature at the level of the macroeconomy and at the level of the manufacturing sector. An attempt is made to improve upon the model by allowing the data to determine the dynamic structure of the model through an ARDL procedure. No significant impact of military spending is found in aggregate, but there is a significant negative impact for the manufacturing sector. This suggests that the cuts in domestic military procurement that have occurred since 1989 could lead to improved economic performance in South Africa through their impact on the manufacturing sector.

Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development: Rent-seeking and Economic Development in Thailand

Abstract: The Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s has intensified debates over the consequences of corruption and rent-seeking for economic growth. The events that began in Thailand in 1997 and spread rapidly to the rest of the region have allowed critics to say, ‘We told you so’. These critics were able to draw upon a substantial body of economic theory linking corruption and rent-seeking with poor economic performance. Neo-classical economic theorists have long assumed that ‘clientelism and the rent-seeking behaviour associated with it are fundamentally inimical to national economic growth’ (Maclntyre 1995: 4). Practitioners of the public choice school of economics have devoted considerable attention to the undesirable consequences of rent-seeking. Gordon Tullock, one of the pioneers of the public choice school of economics, went so far as to suggest that rent-seeking ‘is one of the basic reasons for Asia's backwardness. Asian countries have been doing this for a very long time’ (Tullock 1980: 25). State-centred explanations of economic growth also assume that clientelism and rent-seeking are harmful to growth. Much of the literature on the role of the state in promoting rapid growth in the East Asian newly industrializing countries stresses the importance of insulating state officials from rent-seeking. There are two major problems with explaining Thailand's problems by focussing mainly on clientelism, corruption and rent-seeking. The first is that it experienced several decades of sustained, rapid economic growth prior to 1997. If clientelism, corruption and rent-seeking are so damaging, how did Thailand grow so fast for so long?

Globalization and patterns of economic development

Abstract: Globalization and Patterns of Economic Development. — One of the most important challenges facing economics is to understand why globalization spurs economic growth to a greater extent in some parts of the world than in others. While part of the answer rests with differences in national economic policies, such policy differences are only part of the story. Differences in physical geography and resource endowments also cause countries to experience very different patterns of economic development in the global economy. In this article, five different patterns of economic development are described, and it is illustrated how they are related to the underlying geography, economic policies, and resource endowments of a country.

Corporate Governance under ‘New Public Management’: an exemplification

Abstract: A key feature of the 'New Public Management' reforms has been the adoption, by public sector bodies, of modes of organisation and governance more usually associated with the private sector. This paper seeks to identify the general model of corporate governance prevailing in the private sector and reviews the extent to which its elements are paralleled in the public sector. It uses NHS trusts as exemplars to examine whether sufficient congruity exists between them to allow governance models created in the private sector to be applied to the public sector. If such a transfer is not appropriate, trusts would require tailor made governance models. It would also highlight the extent to which private sector techniques can be transferred to the public sector without modification. The conclusion is that the study of corporate governance in NHS trusts shows that the transplant of private sector culture, as reflected in modes of corporate governance, is not complete, necessary or possible.

Tools for Thought: What is New and Important about the "E-conomy"?

Abstract: There are eras when advancing technology and changing business organizations transform economies and societies. Such episodes do not just amplify productivity in one leading sector. Instead they give all economic sectors powerful new "tools." Today we are living through such a shift in our economic landscape, a shift that warrants a new name: the "E-conomy." Information technologies, data communication and data processing technologies, are tools to manipulate, organize, transmit, and store information in digital form. They are tools for thought that amplify brainpower in the way the technologies of the Industrial Revolution amplified muscle power. The story of the revolution in information technology is at once a story of technology and a story of innovations in business organization and practice. The two stories are yoked together; they pull forward together. The technology story is underpinned, and measured, by the doubling of semiconductor capability and productivity every-eighteen-months –a rate that has carried us from the room-sized vacuum-tube computers to the modern Internet -- and by the complementary surge in the capacity of the communications network to transmit digital information. Changes in business organization and practice are the second driver of this transformation. The E-conomy is as much a story about changes in business organization, market structures, government regulations, and human experience as it is about new technology. While these changes are spreading across industries and countries, they are more difficult to measure. Taken together, the business innovations represent a new business ecology that includes a prominent role for venture capital, the start-up, the spinoff, and new option based ways of compensating skilled workers and entrepreneurs – innovations that have unleashed a tsunami wave of new business and new technology. The E-conomy is generating substantial and unexpected increases in productivity that have motored our recent surge in economic growth and that have enlarged the margin for monetary policy. But the economic transformation is not about soft landings, smooth growth, permanently rising stock prices, government surpluses, and low rates of interest and inflation. It is about structural transformation and developments that carry disruption and change. The policy issues are moving rapidly from the narrowly technical through the narrowly legal into fundamental questions of how to organize our markets and society. Under the best of circumstances the risks of policy making are high. This background briefing on the E-conomy is aimed to provide a context and a structure for policy debate by defining the stakes, the forces, the issues at play, and an agenda – not a choice of outcomes. For the past fifty years, US government policy has played a major role in enabling America to lead in developing information technology--and just as important--in creating the conditions for America to lead in the use of information technology throughout the economy. The American government largely got policy right under three important headings -- headings we use to structure the agenda that follows: 1) Public investment in science and technology and in the technological-age education of people needed to realize the benefits of the E-conomy. Included under this heading is the re-opened question of the role of government and the institutional structures that create the next generations of technology and equip them with launch markets. 2) Rule making for the E-conomy, which extends across such thorny issues as privacy, security, and the definition of new property rights and responsibilities necessary for markets to function effectively in consonance with enduring values and purposes. 3) Flexibility and inclusion: the basic issues of institutional and labor flexibility and fairness. Compounding the policymaking challenge is the fact that the E-conomy is necessarily global. It is a network of networks that crosses borders in a world organized into nation-states. This requires, if not common rules, then harmonization, compatible rules that allow the economic networks to operate as a single large global system. It is a tough agenda.