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Begin New Search Topic Economics Publication Year within 25 Years

5431. United States — Economic Propects

Publication Date:
05-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
The US economy is experiencing its longest-ever recorded period of sustained growth. The current expansion, which began in March 1991, is the longest of the 32 which have been registered by the Bureau of Economic Analysis since 1854 and is now in its tenth year and 110th month. Moreover, since 1995, real GDP has grown at an average annual rate of more than 4.25% -- a rate not experienced since the 1960s. The expansion is consistent with the changing pattern of business cycles, insofar as the average length of economic expansions has nearly doubled from about 2.5 years during 1900-53 to about 5 years in the second half of the century (while the average length of contractions has fallen to less than twelve months). However, even allowing for this transformation, the current expansion seems to be exceptional, both for its duration and its strength. The coincidence of a long and inflation-free expansion with the boom in information and communication technologies (ICT) has sparked a debate about their interdependence.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

5432. OECD — Inflation Prospects

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
05-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
Inflation has begun to accelerate throughout the OECD-area, mainly as a result of higher oil prices. The increase comes from a low base and official forecasts suggest that the price outlook is generally benign. However, a further tightening of monetary policy in order to contain inflation at these low levels is now probably the most important threat to asset market valuations and the continued expansion of the global economy. Product market liberalisation, globalisation and the advent of the internet have brought real and lasting changes in pricing behaviour that will not disappear with a global upturn. These trends have been reinforced by improvements in the operation, credibility and effectiveness of national monetary policies. Nevertheless, historical experience suggests that inflationary pressures could accelerate rapidly as the major economies enter their first period of coincident growth since 1988-90. The result is likely to be tighter monetary policy rather than permanently higher inflation and long-term interest rates.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Canada

5433. International: Techno-Stock Troubles

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
The current bubble in 'technology stocks' has led to official concern about over-enthusiasm by investors and the banking consequences of a sudden price collapse. The first signs of the long awaited shift emerged last week, as investors shifted from fashionable technology, media and telecoms (TMT) stock back into traditional 'old economy' blue chips. Capital flooding in from Europe and Japan to the United States has been attracted to booming markets led mostly by these stocks. The rest of the market (misleadingly known as the 'old economy') has risen comparatively little.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Europe

5434. Asia Pacific -- Reform Politics

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
While the region has now emerged from recession, economic reforms remain incomplete and politically contentious. There is a risk that complacency and intransigence will weaken the momentum behind reforms before their full benefits can be felt. For countries not immediately enveloped by it, the East Asian crisis laid bare the risks associated with postponing economic reform without necessarily producing change.
Topic:
Economics, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
East Asia

5435. External versus domestic Vs Coastal versus Interior

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
02-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
China's relatively rapid growth cannot mask the fundamental problems the economy faces. The government will be forced to continue to apply stimulus to the economy, but the sustainability of this approach is limited. The positive impact of eventual WTO membership will take time to be felt, while accession–related reforms and increased foreign competition will prove disruptive. The country has a limited time in which to prepare.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China

5436. East Europe—Bullish Markets

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
Gone are the days when the large investment banks defined their global reach in terms of the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. Indeed, the emerging markets label is fading away in favour of new 'global' buzzwords. However, just one year on from the emerging market crisis that threatened the bull of the world financial market, is this rethinking of the emerging markets premature?
Topic:
Economics and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe

5437. Reducing Urban and Industrial Pollution in Chile

Author:
Joseph M. Lieberson, Mark G. Hodges, and Gene M. Owens
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
In Chile's capital of Santiago, the summer sun rises over a hazy, smog-filled sky. The sky darkens as the day progresses and often turns a light brown. In winter, air quality is even worse, and visibility drops sharply. A ring of mountains and thermal inversions trap pollution in a choking cloud over the city. But the mountains and air currents are not the whole problem. Twenty years ago the air was relatively clean. That was before economic growth accelerated sharply. A rapid increase in industrial production and a major increase in truck, bus, and automobile traffic are all pumping pollutants into the air. The result is a high level of respiratory problems, sickness, and premature death.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Human Welfare, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Chile

5438. Creating a Global Economy

Author:
Joan E. Spero
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
Abstract:
Headlines in recent weeks have been filled with news of earthquakes. From Turkey to Taiwan, tectonic plates have been shifting leaving toppled buildings, trapped victims, and homeless survivors in their wake. In the last decade of the twentieth century, other less visible but equally powerful seismic shifts have also taken place. The tectonic plates of the world's political, security and economic systems have shifted dramatically. The end of the Cold War, the creation of a global, capitalist economy, and the emergence of the United States as the world's only superpower—these and other seismic shifts have toppled the dangerous but stable bipolar international system that had endured for nearly fifty years. Power structures, relations among states, international institutions, and international norms have changed in fundamental ways.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

5439. Tools for Thought: What Is New and Important About the "E-conomy"?

Author:
John Zysman, Stephen S. Cohen, and J. Bradford DeLong
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
There are eras when advancing technology and changing business organizations transform economies and societies. Such episodes do not just amplify productivity in one leading sector. Instead, they give all economic sectors powerful new "tools." Today we are living through such a transformation in our economic landscape, a transformation that warrants a new name: the "E-conomy." Information technologies, data communication and data processing technologies, are tools to manipulate, organize, transmit, and store information in digital form. They are tools for thought that amplify brainpower in the way the technologies of the Industrial Revolution amplified muscle power.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology

5440. Creating Stability: National Preferences and the Origins of European Monetary System

Author:
Mark Aspinwall
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This essay compares the preferences of France, Italy, and Britain on the creation of the European Monetary System in 1978-1979, especially the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which stabilised nominal exchange rates. My claim is that the different conclusions reached by the governments (France and Italy in, Britain out) cannot be explained by economic circumstances or by interests, and I elaborate an intervening institutional variable which helps explain preferences. Deducing from spatial theory that where decisionmakers 'sit' on the left-right spectrum matters to their position on the EMS, I argue that domestic constitutional power-sharing mechanisms privilege certain actors over others in a predictable and consistent way. Where centrists were in power, the government's decision was to join. Where left or right extremists were privileged, the government's decision was negative. The article measures the centrism of the governments in place at the time, and also reviews the positions taken by the national political parties in and out of government. It is intended to contribute to the growing comparativist literature on the European Union, and to the burgeoning literature on EU-member-state relations.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Britain, Iraq, Europe, and France