The ongoing negotiation of the EU's multi-annual budget is heavily constrained by how the decision process takes place. Governments focus on narrowly defined national interests, rather than on securing a better budget for Europe. While the budget is small in size, it could be used as a powerful political tool for much needed economic growth policies on a larger scale.
This paper investigates the impact of religious denominations on values and attitudes that are thought to be conducive to economic growth and are usually pronounced in favor of Protestants. The model is based on the same strategy as in (Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales 2002). To isolate the effect of religion from other effects, socio-demographic controls such as gender, age, educational and income level and country fixed effects are included in all regressions. The analysis uses the World Values Survey to investigate twelve attitudes in the overall impact of religious denominations followed by the analysis controlling for the dominant religion of the country. The paper contributes to the research by: (1) including more Muslim countries, which leads to different results from that of (Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales 2002) where Muslims represented mostly minority religion in researched countries; (2) evaluating precisely the differences between Protestants and other religious denominations. The results thus are not dependent on such an unspecified group of people who answered that they do not belong to any religious denomination; (3) including new attitudes like determination or confidence in major companies that are emphasized especially in (Kuran 2011). The results show that neither overall analysis nor analysis with the control for dominant religion proved the hypothesis that Protestants have significantly higher values and attitudes considered advantageous for economic development compared to other religious denominations. Is it because of the changes of values and attitudes over time?
South Korea’s rising status in regional and global affairs has received much attention in recent years. But in academic, media and policy debates South Korea is usually regarded as a mere middle power that, due to its geopolitical situation, has only limited leeway in its foreign policy. Accordingly, it must constantly maneuver between its larger neighbors: China, Japan and Russia. However, this perspective neglects the fact that the same geopolitical constraint also applies to other states in the region. No country can easily project its power over others. We use the concept of “regional power” as a template to discuss South Korea’s rising stature in regional and global politics. We argue that Seoul seems quite capable of keeping up with other assumed regional powers. Hence, we not only provide a novel account of South Korea’s foreign policy options but also go beyond current approaches by asking about the (undetermined) possibilities for Seoul’s regional relations.
Banks in emerging markets are increasingly weighty in global finance and still enjoy plenty of room to grow in their home markets. But they will do so in innovative ways that set them apart from the lenders of the developed world.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and Science and Technology