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822. Smallholders Unite
- Author:
- Derek Byerlee, Alain de Janvry, Joan VanWassenhove, and Donna Barry
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- To the Editor:Paul Collier ("The Politics of Hunger," November/December 2008) sets out three priorities for overcoming the world food crisis: replacing peasant and smallholder farming with large-scale commercial farms, promoting genetically modified crops, and reducing subsidies to biofuels in the United States. Collier got two of these right but missed the boat with his anti-smallholder bias when it comes to modernizing agriculture, especially in Africa. A focus on smallholder farming is a proven strategy for accelerating growth, reducing poverty, and overcoming hunger.
- Topic:
- Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, China, India, and Asia
823. Time for Sober Realism: Renegotiating Relations with Pakistan
- Author:
- C. Christine Fair
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States has sought to help Pakistan transform itself into a stable, prosperous, and democratic state that supports U.S. interests in the region, is capable of undermining Islamist militancy inside and outside its borders, commits to a secure Afghanistan, and actively works to mitigate prospects for further nuclear proliferation. Washington has also hoped that Pakistan, along with India, would continue to sustain the beleaguered peace process to minimize the odds of a future military crisis between them. Between fiscal years 2002 and 2008, the United States has spent more than $11.2 billion, presumably to further these goals. The FY 2009 budget request includes another $1.2 billion.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Washington, and India
824. Criss-Crossing Globalization: Uphill Flows of Skill-Intensive Goods and Foreign Direct Investment
- Author:
- Arvind Subramanian and Aaditya Mattoo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- This paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills, embodied in goods, services or capital from poorer to richer countries. We first present a set of stylized facts. Using a measure which combines the sophistication of a country's exports with the average income level of destination countries, we show that the performance of a number of developing countries, notably China, Mexico and South Africa, matches that of much more advanced countries, such as Japan, Spain and USA. Creating a new combined dataset on FDI (covering greenfield investment as well as mergers and acquisitions) we show that flows of FDI to OECD countries from developing countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia and South Africa as a share of their GDP, are as large as flows from countries like Japan, Korea and the US. Then, taking the work of Hausmann et al (2007) as a point of departure, we suggest that it is not just the composition of exports but their destination that matters. In both cross-sectional and panel regressions, with a range of controls, we find that a measure of uphill flows of sophisticated goods is significantly associated with better growth performance. These results suggest the need for a deeper analysis of whether development benefits might derive not from deifying comparative advantage but from defying it.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Spain, and Korea
825. The Illusion of Equality: The Educational Consequences of Blinding Weak States, For Example
- Author:
- Lant Pritchett and Martina Viarengo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Does the government control of school systems facilitate equality in school quality? There is a trade-off. On the one hand, government direct control of schools, typically through a large scale hierarchical organization, could produce equalization across schools by providing uniformity in inputs, standards, and teacher qualifications that localized individually managed schools could not achieve. But there is a tendency for large scale formal bureaucracies to “see” less and less of localized reality and hence to manage on the basis of a few simple, objective, and easily administratively verified characteristics (e.g. resources per student, formal teacher qualifications). Whether centralized or localized control produces more equality depends therefore not only on what “could” happen in principle but what does happen in practice. When government implementation capacity is weak, centralized control could lead to only the illusion of equality: in which central control of education with weak internal or external accountability actually allows for much greater inequalities across schools than entirely “uncontrolled” local schools. Data from Pakistan, using results from the LEAPS study, and from two states of India show much larger variance in school quality (adjusted for student characteristics) among the government schools—because of very poor public schools which continue in operation. We use the PISA data to estimate school specific learning achievement (in mathematics, science, and reading) net of individual student and school average background characteristics and compare public and private schools for 34 countries. For these countries there is, on average, exactly the same inequality in adjusted learning achievement across the private schools as across the public schools. But while inequality is the same on average, in some countries, such as Denmark, there was much more equality within the public sector while in others, such as Mexico, there was much more inequality among the public schools. Among the 18 non-OECD participating PISA countries the standard deviation across schools in adjusted quality was, on average, 36 percent higher in government than in private schools. In cases with weak states the proximate cause of high inequality again was that the public sector distribution of performance had a long left tail—schools with extremely poor performance. Relying on blinded weak states for top-down control of educational systems can be lose-lose relative to localized systems relying on bottom-up control—producing worse average performance and higher inequality.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Government, Political Economy, and Social Stratification
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan and India
826. Toward Effective Multilateralism: Why Bigger May Not Be Better
- Author:
- Thomas Wright
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The past eight years have been a period of retreat and revival for multilateralism. Retreat in the face of the most concerted unilateralist strategy undertaken by a U.S. administration in half a century, and revival because, during the Bush administration's second term, there was an emerging political consensus that multilateralism was a critical element of U.S. power. Revival, however, promised not simply restoring multilateral institutions in U.S. strategy, but reforming or even replacing those institutions themselves. The ongoing financial crisis_with the Group of 20 (G-20), including leaders from Argentina, China, India, and South Africa, among others, taking on a leading role_has merely been the latest sign that greater multilateral cooperation is both necessary and difficult.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, India, South Africa, and Argentina
827. The United States, India, and Global Governance: Can They Work Together?
- Author:
- Teresita C. Schaffer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Two snapshots convey the flavor of India's pursuit of a larger role in global governing councils. The first dates from India's most recent accession for a two-year term to the United Nations Security Council in January 1991, just as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was coming apart and the end of the Cold War was in sight. The first major issue to come before the council was the package of resolutions that would end the first Iraq war. Harried Indian diplomats, faced with draft resolutions being pressed on them with great insistence by their U.S. counterparts, spoke of their need to ''find the non-aligned consensus.'' Whatever decision India made was bound to alienate an international constituency it cared about. For Indian officials, this moment captured both the advantages and drawbacks of participating in the world's decisionmaking. The then—Indian ambassador to the United States, Abid Hussein, expressed considerable frustration in a private conversation with me at the time: ''Do you realize that we will have to do this for two years?''
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- United States, India, and Soviet Union
828. Ottoman De-Industrialization 1800-1913: Assessing the Shock, Its Impact and the Response
- Author:
- Jeffrey G. Williamson and Şevket Pamuk
- Publication Date:
- 02-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- India and Britain were much bigger players in the 18th century world market for textiles than was Egypt, the Levant and the core of the Ottoman Empire, but these eastern Mediterranean regions did export carpets, silks and other textiles to Europe and the East. By the middle of the 19th century, they had lost most of their export market and much of their domestic market to globalization forces and rapid productivity growth in European manufacturing. Other local industries also suffered decline, and these regions underwent de-industrialization as a consequence. How different was Ottoman experience from the rest of the poor periphery? Was de-industrialization more or less pronounced? Was the terms of trade shock bigger or smaller? How much of Ottoman de-industrialization was due to falling world trade barriers—ocean transport revolutions and European liberal trade policy, how much due to factory-based productivity advance in Europe, how much to declining Ottoman competitiveness in manufacturing, how much to Ottoman railroads penetrating the interior, and how much to Ottoman policy? The paper uses a price-dual approach to seek the answers. It documents trends in export and import prices, relative to each other and to non-tradables, as well as to the unskilled wage. The impact of globalization, European productivity advance, Ottoman wage costs and policy are assessed by using a simple neo-Ricardian three sector model, and by comparison with what was taking place in the rest of the poor periphery.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Europe, Turkey, India, and Egypt
829. Promoting Cross-LoC Trade in Kashmir
- Author:
- Moeed Yusuf
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Since 2005, Pakistan and India have pursued out-of-the-box thinking on Kashmir and have allowed nominal human interaction and economic exchanges across the Line of Control (LoC). One of the most promising recent developments has been the formation of the Federation of Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Joint Chamber), the first formal joint establishment across the Line of Control, which is poised to play a central role in future efforts at increasing economic collaboration. The Joint Chamber is still in its infancy and faces a number of critical challenges that are indicative of the potential stumbling blocks any effort at enhancing economic collaboration across the Line of Control is likely to face. Currently, a consensus is missing on the future direction of the Joint Chamber. Not only are the central governments in Islamabad and New Delhi skeptical about according this new body a pivotal position in cross–LoC trade, but even the business communities in the Indian and Pakistani parts of the state suffer from internal differences on the scope of the Chamber's activities. Perhaps most worrisome is the Kashmiri business community's reluctance to lobby proactively for expansion of ties beyond trade in goods. Investment, joint ventures, and transit trade through Pakistani Kashmir and Pakistan hold the real potential if economic interdependence is to ameliorate the long-standing political tensions over Kashmir. The Joint Chamber members need to agree on a clear vision for the Chamber, preferably including concerns not only relevant to goods trade but also to trade in services, investment, joint ventures, and transit trade. To cover this broad horizon the Chamber would have to increase its capacity by involving entities such as trade associations and the civil society at large. Before tangible gains can be made, the Joint Chamber needs a number of scoping exercises to determine the true potential for economic collaboration on all fronts. The current dearth of information is a major shortcoming in determining the specific areas that could expand the hitherto nascent cross–LoC interaction. The Joint Chamber is already engaged in advocating for an increase in the nominal goods trade initiated across the LoC in October 2008. Protocols for physical travel and communication between traders, marketing and banking facilities, and an expansion of the scope of engagement are obvious next steps for this process. The key to the Joint Chamber's success is to strike a delicate balance between nudging the governments to open up and remaining pragmatic about the necessarily incremental nature of the gains.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Islam, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, South Asia, and India
830. Unconventional partners: Australia-India cooperation in reducing nuclear dangers
- Author:
- Rory Medcalf and Amandeep Gill
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- To reduce the grave dangers posed by the continued existence and spread of nuclear weapons, and the risk that they will one day again be used, unconventional diplomacy is needed. Part of the problem is the way in which global agreements or pragmatic interim solutions are often obstructed by longstanding divisions among nations: nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) members and nonmembers; Western states and the non-aligned. New partnerships and platforms for dialogue could cut across these stale categories, at least on some issues, and expand the space for agreement and new thinking. Australia and India could take the lead in crafting one such new partnership.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Peace Studies, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Australia/Pacific