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491. Globalization and Scarcity: Multilateralism for a world with limits

Author:
Alex Evans
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Globalization has improved the living standards of hundreds of millions of people – but growing resource scarcity means it risks becoming a victim of its own success. Left unaddressed, scarcity of food, energy, water, land and other key 'natural assets' has the potential to trigger intensifying zero sum competition between states – in the process, increasing poverty, state fragility, economic instability, inflation, and strategic resource competition between major powers.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, Natural Resources, Water, and Food
Political Geography:
Global Focus

492. The 2010 World Cup High-Frequency Data Economics: Effects on International Awareness and (Self-Defeating) Tourism

Author:
Stan Du Plessis and Wolfgang Maennig
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
Abstract:
Without a doubt, the 2010 World Cup of soccer in South Africa was a great experience for both soccer fans, who enjoyed a safe and efficiently-run tournament, and their South African hosts. The sporting and social spectacle was broadcast around the world and focused unprecedented media attention on South Africa. Despite the manifest success of the tournament, its short-term effects on international tourism, which are the nucleus of all other short-term positive effects on economic variables such as employment, income and taxes, have turned out to be of a much smaller magnitude than expected or even as reported during the tournament. This may be attributable to self-defeating prophecy effects. This study is a warning against the abuse of economic impact studies, especially those pertaining to major sporting events. It is also a call to use the “correct” arguments of measurable awareness effects and potential long-term development effects in discussing major sporting events. Methodologically, this study is innovative in its economic analysis of major sporting events because it (i) uses data from social networks and (ii) uses high-frequency daily data on tourism.
Topic:
Economics, Tourism, Sports, World Cup, Facebook, Social Networks, FIFA, and Google
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Global Focus

493. Do Men Slow Down Faster than Women?

Author:
Wolfgang Maennig and Michael Stobernack
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
Abstract:
This paper is the first test of differences between age-related reductions in the performance of men and women. The assumption that men age faster is obvious, because men's life expectancy is generally lower. In addition to other studies on age-related reduction in human performance, this paper examines the data taken from competitions on rowing machines, which have been standardized worldwide and which are hardly affected by weather or temperature. A third innovation is that this study looks for any potential ageing processes specific to gender and physique. Fourth, fractional polynomials have been added to the testing methodology. Contrary to intuition, we find evidence that women are affected by faster age-related reductions in performance.
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Women, Aging, Men, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

494. Counter-Cyclical Economic Policy

Author:
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The effects of the recent economic crisis have stretched policy frameworks in many OECD countries close to breaking point. Recent work by the OECD has examined how policies have interacted with the economic cycle over time and during the recent crisis. The main policy lessons are as follows: • Policy-makers should take into account uncertainties about the functioning of the economy, the nature of economic shocks or the effects of policy and take their decisions accordingly. • Policy in various areas will have to build in greater safety margins and to be more prudent during upswings. • Appropriate fiscal rules can help prepare fiscal policy for the next downturn by leading to swifter consolidation during the upturn. • The monetary and financial policy framework needs to achieve a better articulation between economic and financial stability. • Financial policy needs to strengthen micro-prudential regulation, regulatory interventions may need to target emerging credit-driven bubbles and macro-prudential policies should address systemic risks. • There may be a case for monetary policy leaning against the wind, if asset prices are driven by a credit boom and financial regulation is judged to be insufficiently robust. • Changes to structural policy settings can improve the resilience of the economy to shocks and affect the degree of leverage households and firms take on.
Topic:
Economics, Fiscal Policy, Economic Stability, and Economic Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

495. The Taylor Rule and Interval Forecast For Exchange Rates

Author:
Jian Wang and Jason J. Wu
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper attacks the Meese-Rogoff (exchange rate disconnect) puzzle from a different perspective: out-of-sample interval forecasting. Most studies in the literature focus on point forecasts. In this paper, we apply Robust Semi-parametric (RS) interval forecasting to a group of Taylor rule models. Forecast intervals for twelve OECD exchange rates are generated and modified tests of Giacomini and White (2006) are conducted to compare the performance of Taylor rule models and the random walk. Our contribution is twofold. First, we find that in general, Taylor rule models generate tighter forecast intervals than the random walk, given that their intervals cover out-of-sample exchange rate realizations equally well. This result is more pronounced at longer horizons. Our results suggest a connection between exchange rates and economic fundamentals: economic variables contain information useful in forecasting the distributions of exchange rates. The benchmark Taylor rule model is also found to perform better than the monetary and PPP models. Second, the inference framework proposed in this paper for forecast-interval evaluation can be applied in a broader context, such as inflation forecasting, not just to the models and interval forecasting methods used in this paper.
Topic:
Economics, Exchange Rate Policy, and Models
Political Geography:
Global Focus

496. Currency Crashes in Industrial Countries: Much Ado About Nothing?

Author:
Joseph Gagnon
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Sharp exchange rate depreciations, or currency crashes, are associated with poor economic outcomes in industrial countries only when they are caused by inflationary macroeconomic policies. Moreover, the poor outcomes are attributable to inflationary policies in general and not the currency crashes in particular. On the other hand, crashes caused by rising unemployment or external deficits have always had good economic consequences with stable or falling inflation rates.
Topic:
Economics, Exchange Rate Policy, Inflation, and Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

497. Border Prices and Retail Prices

Author:
David Berger, Jon Faust, John H. Rogers, and Kai Steverson
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We analyze retail prices and at-the-dock (import) prices of speciÖc items in the Bureau of Labor Statisticsí(BLS) CPI and IPP databases, using both databases simultaneously to identify items that are identical in description at the dock and when sold at retail. This identiÖcation allows us to measure the distribution wedge associated with bringing traded goods from the point of entry into the United States to their retail outlet. We Önd that overall U.S. distribution wedges are 50-70%, around 10 to 20 percentage points higher than that reported in the literature. We discuss the implications of this for measuring the size of the "pure" tradeables sector, exchange rate pass-through, and real exchange rate determination. We Önd that distribution wedges are very stable over time but there is considerable variation across items. There is some variation across the country of origin for the imported item, for our major trading partners, but not as much as the cross-item variation. We also investigate the determinants of distribution wedges, Önding that wedges do not vary systematically with exchange rates, but are related to other features of the micro data.
Topic:
Economics and Exchange Rate Policy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

498. Labor Market Search in Emerging Economies

Author:
Emine Boz, Ceyhun Bora Durdu, and Nan Li
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper shows that labor markets of emerging economies are characterized by large fluctuations in wages while employment fluctuations are subdued. We find that a real business cycle model of a small open economy that embeds a Mortensen-Pissarides type of search-matching frictions can account for these aforementioned regularities. Moreover, the joint interaction of countercyclical interest rates and search-matching frictions can go a long way in accounting for higher consumption variability relative to output and countercyclical current account observed in emerging markets. Extending this baseline model to incorporate procyclical variations in the technical efficiency at which matches are generated, the model can match the unemployment variability observed in the data.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Global Focus

499. Financial Globalization and Economic Policies

Author:
Eswar Prasad, Kenneth Rogoff, M. Ayhan Kose, and Shang-Jin Wei
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
We review the large literature on various economic policies that could help developing economies effectively manage the process of financial globalization. Our central findings indicate that policies promoting financial sector development, institutional quality and trade openness appear to help developing countries derive the benefits of globalization. Similarly, sound macroeconomic policies are an important prerequisite for ensuring that financial integration is beneficial. However, our analysis also suggests that the relationship between financial integration and economic policies is a complex one and that there are unavoidable tensions inherent in evaluating the risks and benefits associated with financial globalization. In light of these tensions, structural and macroeconomic policies often need to be tailored to take into account country specific circumstances to improve the risk-benefit tradeoffs of financial integration. Ultimately, it is essential to see financial integration not just as an isolated policy goal but as part of a broader package of reforms and supportive macroeconomic policies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

500. The Shape of the World to Come

Author:
Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good. Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world—a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231517904
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN