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4351. Peace-building and Development in Guatemala and Northern Ireland

Author:
Charles A. Reilly
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:
Guatemala and Northern Ireland signed historic peace accords in 1996 and 1998 respectively. This paper, part of a longer term project comparing lessons learned from implementation in the two cases, focuses especially on Guatemala, making some middle range peace/development policy recommendations for that country's recently elected government and civil society organizations. Despite very different economic development levels, both countries are divided, find peace implementation difficult, and are heavily influenced by outside actors - including their own diaspora. Guatemala is deeply divided internally along class, race and ethnic lines, with more than 15% of its population in the U.S. (and close affinity with Mayan peoples who live across the Mexican border). Ireland too is divided along religious and ethnic lines, a border crosses the island. The North is linked politically to the United Kingdom, with social ties to emigrant populations there, in the south and in the United States. Guatemala, like its Central American neighbor El Salvador, embarked on peace-building with UN oversight, while the Northern Irish had United Kingdom and Irish Republic support for making peace. (Without pre-judging an eventual political resolution of the two Irelands, I'll refer to both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, since that peace process, like Guatemala's, necessarily transcends borders). When compared to Northern Ireland, Guatemalan religious differences are minor, and religious leaders, Catholic, Protestant and Mayan played key roles in the peace process. Emigration figures large in both settings, as do many centuries of colonial or imperial domination. Both countries have struggled with post-accord violence which has reached alarming levels in Guatemala. Peace and development are inseparable - hence I emphasize growth with equity issues that are cause and consequence of both conflicts.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Central America, Mexico, and North Ireland

4352. The Inferior Performance of State Owned Enterprises: Is it due to Ownership or Market Structure?

Author:
Leo A. Grünfeld, Eskil Goldeng, and Gabriel R. G. Benito
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
We analyze differences in performance between private companies (PCs) and state owned enterprises (SOEs), with an emphasis on the effects of market structure. We use a panel covering all registered companies during the 1990s in Norway, a country where SOEs play an important role in regular markets. Return on assets as well as costs measures are used as measures of performance in models that investigate markets where SOEs and PCs actually compete with each other. Although market shares and concentration affect performance, ownership identity still explains most of the inferior performance among SOEs.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Norway

4353. Public Sector Modernisation: Governing for Performance

Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Performance – improving it and measuring it – has pre-occupied governments for at least half a century. Over the past two decades, public sector performance has taken on special urgency as OECD countries have faced recessions, mounting demands for more and better public services, and, in some countries, citizens increasingly unwilling to pay higher taxes. Accompanying these pressures have been demands for more public accountability.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Government

4354. A New World Map in Textiles and Clothing

Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The textile and clothing industries provide employment for tens of million of people, primarily in developing countries, and accounted for USD 350 billion in merchandise exports in 2002, or 5.6% of the world total. The current rules governing world trade in textiles and clothing will change drastically at the end of 2004, when countries will no longer be able to protect their own industries by means of quantitative restrictions on imports of textile and clothing products. What will this mean for cotton growers in Burkina Faso and Turkey, fashion retailers in France and the United States, or shirt factories in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic or China?
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, United States, China, Turkey, and France

4355. Clocking in and Clocking out: Recent Trends in Working Hours

Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The amount of time people spend at work is a key element in several economic and social challenges facing industrial countries, notably those associated with population ageing. OECD governments will need to bring more people into the labour force and keep them there in coming years as the ratio of older to younger people rises if they wish to maintain living standards and finance social protection. One way of doing that is to make working time more flexible. For example, part-time jobs can make it easier for mothers with young children to combine working and parenting. More flexible working hours can also help firms adjust to changing workloads.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy

4356. Farm Household Income: Towards Better Informed Policies

Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Improving the income situation of farm households remains a prominent objective of agricultural policies in many OECD countries. Concerns are often expressed in response to year over year declines in national farm income levels or to fluctuating world commodity prices. Increasingly, however, attention is moving away from such partial indicators of household well-being towards a more comprehensive concept of farm household income which encompasses all income sources available to family members as well as their accumulated wealth.
Topic:
Agriculture, Civil Society, Development, and Economics

4357. Economic Survey of Finland, 2004

Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The transformation of the Finnish economy over the last decade represents one of the few examples of the "new economy" taking hold in Europe. Output and productivity growth over the second half of the 1990s was among the highest in the OECD, and the recovery from the global downturn has been much stronger than for the euro area as a whole. However, imminent population ageing threatens to expose weaknesses in the labour market. Demographic developments, which over past decades have been broadly neutral, could reduce the growth rate of GDP per capita by 1/4 of a percentage point per annum over the remainder of this decade and by almost 1 percentage point over the next decade. This, combined with the likelihood of smaller productivity gains in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, a continuation of falling ICT prices as well as the mediocre performance in the sheltered sectors, threatens the future growth of living standards. Within a decade, and in the absence of further policy changes, these developments together could imply that Finland not only loses its top performer status but could face a protracted period of slow growth, as illustrated in the following scenario.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

4358. Private Health Insurance in OECD Countries

Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Health spending in OECD countries averages more than 8% of gross domestic product (GDP) and the share is rising. Overall, some threequarters of that spending is publicly financed. Private health insurance accounts, on average, for only a quarter of private-sector financing, although there is great cross-country variation. In a third of the OECD member countries at least 30% of the population has private health insurance, while market size is negligible in nearly as many countries. Private health insurance also plays a variety of roles, ranging from primary coverage for particular population groups to a supporting role for public systems.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Human Welfare

4359. Employment Protection: Costs and Benefits of Greater Job Security

Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Deregulating labour markets – for example making it easier for firms to hire and fire employees – is at the heart of the employment debate in many OECD countries. Laws on firing or layoffs and other employment protection regulations are thought by many to be a key factor in generating labour market "rigidity", as well as one reason for the large differences in labour market performance among OECD countries, notably between the United States and some of the larger European countries.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

4360. Economic Survey of Portugal, 2004

Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Convergence of the Portuguese economy toward the more advanced OECD economies seems to have halted in recent years, leaving a significant gap in per capita incomes. The proximate cause is low labour productivity, as employment rates across the board are substantially higher than the EU average. Nor is there a shortage of capital goods in aggregate. But capital equipment in the business sector is not always efficiently used or allocated, and new technologies are not readily adopted. Furthermore, the Portuguese labour force – even its younger members – have had less formal education than workers in other EU countries, including among the new entrants from Central and Eastern Europe, and workers in Portugal also have less access to training than in many other countries. Traditional Portuguese low value-added highly labourintensive products now face increasing competition from developing countries and from the new EU entrants.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe