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1452. Composite Indexes of Leading, Coincident, and Lagging Indicators: January 1999
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Conference Board
- Abstract:
- The leading index increased 0.5 percent, the coincident index increased 0.2 percent, and the lagging index increased 0.4 percent in January. Taken together, the three composite indexes and their components show generally healthy conditions: The coincident indicators show that, although industrial production fell slightly, the first quarter of 1999 started on a positive note. The leading indicators are almost unanimous in predicting continued growth through at least the middle of the year. Signs of cyclical imbalances and other factors that might jeopardize the economy's stability remain relatively subdued.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States
1453. U.S. Assistance for Market Reforms: Foreign Aid Failures in Russia and the Former Soviet Bloc
- Author:
- Janine R. Wedel
- Publication Date:
- 03-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the governments of the United States and other Western countries have provided massive aid to promote a transition to the free market in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. But aid for market reforms in the region has been largely ineffective. Whether provided in the form of technical assistance, grants to political groups or nongovernmental organizations, loans and guarantees to the private sector, or direct financial aid to post-communist governments, that aid has been plagued by a number of problems. The failed $22.6 billion bailout of Russia by the International Monetary Fund in July 1998 only confirmed the flawed nature of the aid-for-reform approach.
- Topic:
- Economics and Emerging Markets
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union
1454. Time to Terminate the ESF and the IMF
- Author:
- Anna J. Schwartz
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- The International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund are undemocratic institutions unaccountable for their actions. Their current functions have little to do with their original missions. The ESF is used by the executive branch to circumvent Congress in the provision of foreign aid. Its foreign exchange interventions have, in any event, always been wasteful and ineffective at controlling the relative price of the U.S. dollar. The IMF has also been used to provide massive bailouts in the cases of Mexico in 1995 and of Asian countries since 1997. Defenders of the IMF as an international lender of last resort are misinformed since the IMF does not and cannot serve that purpose. Both institutions should be abolished, not reformed, because they are not needed to resolve currency crises and they preclude superior solutions.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Asia, and Mexico
1455. Labor Costs and International Trade
- Author:
- Stephen Golub
- Publication Date:
- 03-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- On January 13, 1998, Stephen Golub, professor of economics at Swarthmore College, led the sixteenth seminar in AEI's series Understanding Economic Inequality. Mr. Golub's presentation sought to dispel fallacious but widespread views concerning the effects of competition from low–wage countries in international trade, including the view that such competition has significantly increased wage inequality in the United States.
- Topic:
- Economics and Emerging Markets
- Political Geography:
- United States
1456. Benefits and Burdens: The Politically Dominated Economics of U.S. Alliances with Japan and Korea
- Author:
- Charles Wolf and Michele Zanini
- Publication Date:
- 04-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Alliances are organizations between or among independent entities that concert to produce “collective goods” for the mutual benefit of alliance members. The statement applies whether the alliances are between or among countries, corporations, universities, research centers, or other institutions. Of course, the nature of the collective goods, as well as the membership in the collectivity, differs across these cases. That the goods (or benefits) are “collective” means that their availability to one alliance member (or their production by any member) implies their availability to the other members of the alliance.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, Israel, East Asia, and Korea
1457. Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest
- Author:
- Amy Korzick Garmer, Anthony Corrado, Angela Campbell, Henry Geller, Tracy Westen, Charles Firestone, Robert Corn-Revere, Monroe E. Price, Forrest P. Chisman, Andrew Graham, Steven S. Wildman, D. Karen Frazer, and Andrew L. Shapiro
- Publication Date:
- 12-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- In January, 1998, the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society Program convened the first in a series of meetings to examine the public interest in the United States' communications system. With funding provided by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, the Program hosted the initial session of the Aspen Institute Working Group on Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest on January 25–27, 1998, at the Institute's Wye River Conference Center. The conference brought together twenty-three legal scholars, lawyers, economists, and policy advocates, representing a variety of experiences and perspectives, to consider two issues: (1) the theoretical and legal bases for the imposition of public interest obligations on those using the electromagnetic spectrum for broadcasting purposes, and (2) other public interest implications of the move to digital broadcasting. It is the hope of the Working Group that the ideas generated at this and subsequent meetings will add to the ongoing public dialogue on broadcasting and the public interest, and will prove useful to the ongoing debate over the public interest responsibilities that should accompany broadcasters' receipt of new digital television licenses.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
1458. The American Economy and the East Asian Crisis: Deconstructing Goldilocks
- Author:
- Thomas I. Palley
- Publication Date:
- 04-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Over the last nine months the global economy has been roiled by a financial crisis that has moved through Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Korea. Japan has also been affected by its wake, as has Russia. So too has Latin America, where Brazil has had to raise interest rates substantially to fend off an incipient currency crisis.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Japan, Asia, and Brazil
1459. International Capital Mobility and Monetary Politics in the U.S. Congress, 1960–1997
- Author:
- J. Lawrence Broz
- Publication Date:
- 10-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Prevailing approaches to the politics of monetary policy in the United States are based on closed economy assumptions, which is appropriate for analyzing the period before about 1980. However, the opening of U.S. and foreign financial markets since the early 1980s has had a profound effect on domestic monetary policy and domestic monetary politics. The major policy effect is that the transmission channels of monetary policy now include the exchange rate. The major political effect is that the exchange rate has become a focus of concern for well-organized industries in the traded goods sector and, by extension, for Congress. This paper presents statistical evidence showing that the forces driving congressional activity on monetary policy have changed dramatically with the international financial integration of the U.S. economy. Exchange rates, as opposed to interest rates, now largely determine congressional attentiveness to monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States
1460. 100 Companies Receiving The Largest Dollar Volume Of Prime Contract Awards—Fiscal Year 1997
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- U.S. Economic Statistics Briefing Room
- Abstract:
- This report presents summary data on the 100 companies, and their subsidiaries, receiving the largest dollar volume of Department of Defense (DoD) prime contract awards during fiscal year (FY) 1997. Table 1 lists the 100 companies in alphabetical order and gives their associated rank. Table 2 identifies the parent companies in rank order, with their subsidiaries, and gives the total net value of awards for both the parent company and its subsidiaries. In many cases, the parent company receives no awards itself, but appears on the list because of its subsidiaries. Table 2 also shows what percentage of the total awards each company's awards represent, as well as the cumulative percentage represented by all companies. Table 3 lists the top 100 companies DoD-wide in rank order and breaks the totals into three categories of procurement: Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT); Other Services and Construction; and Supplies and Equipment. Table 4 lists the top 50 companies for each of the Reporting Components in rank order, and by category of procurement.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States