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7181. Legitimate Rule in the European Union

Author:
Frank Schimmelfennig
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Two seemingly contradictory trends dominate the European debate over legitimate rule. On the one hand, there appears to be no ideologically viable alternative to liberal democracy following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. On the other, the rapid progress of European integration has triggered an intense public debate over the European Union's "legitimacy deficit" and active popular opposition in many Western European countries. This paper asks whether these two seemingly contradictory developments can be reconciled. It argues that they can once it is recognized that the modern inter-state system is undergoing profound change. State sovereignty is being undermined by the trans-nationalization of foreign policy and the inter-nationalization of governance. In particular, the European Union has crossed the border from horizontal (or anarchical) interstate cooperation to vertical (or hierarchical) policy making in a multi-level political system in which states are but one level of the policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, International Organization, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe

7182. Trojan Horse or Boomerang: Two-Tiered Investment in the Asian Auto Complex

Author:
Gregory W. Noble
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The last decade has witnessed a momentous transformation in the political economy of East and Southeast Asia. From the 1950s until the early 1980s transnational production played a limited role in the strategies of Northeast Asian governments and firms. Ubiquitous policies of protection and promotion aimed to increase domestic investment, production and exports. Governments discouraged outward investment through financial controls, particularly over foreign currencies; they limited inward foreign investment to narrowly confined niches, and then often subjected it to onerous restrictions to prevent foreigners from gaining a major foothold in the national economy. The few exceptions involved areas in which domestic production was inadequate: investments in Southeast Asian raw materials and energy; investments by Japanese and Western firms in Korea and Taiwan for some labor-intensive products to be sold in local or third-country markets (but rarely in Japan); and a handful of high-tech investments by Western firms such as IBM which enjoyed such strong patent positions that they could not be forced to license their technology. Since the mid-1980s the combination of rapid currency appreciation, rising costs of labor, land and pollution control in Northeast Asia, and liberalizing economic reforms in Southeast Asia led to a huge surge of direct foreign investment, mainly for the production of labor-intensive manufactured goods. The focal point of Northeast Asian economies shifted from export-led growth based on protected domestic markets to management of regional production networks spread throughout Asia.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Japan, Taiwan, Asia, and Korea

7183. Nigeria: Country Profile

Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, was a pioneer in the movement for African independence. In past centuries, its territory was home to a series of powerful and technically-advanced societies, renowned for their artistic, commercial, and political achievements.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Ethnic Conflict, Government, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

7184. The Syndrome of the Ever-Higher Yen, 1971-95: American Mercantile Pressure on Japanese Monetary Policy

Author:
Ronald McKinnon, Kazuko Shirono, and Kenichi Ohno
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
From 1971 through mid-1995, the yen continually appreciated against the U.S. dollar because the Japanese and American governments were caught in a mutual policy trap. Repeated threats of a trade war by the United States caused the yen to ratchet up in 1971-73, 1977-78, 1985-87, and 1993 to mid-1995. While temporarily ameliorating commercial tensions, these great appreciations imposed relative deflation on Japan without correcting the trade imbalance between the two countries. Although resisting sharp yen appreciations in the short run, the Bank of Japan validated this syndrome of the ever-higher yen by following a monetary policy that was deflationary relative to that established by the U.S. Federal Reserve System. The appreciating yen was a forcing variable in determining the Japanese price level. After 1985, this resulted in great macroeconomic instability in Japan--including two endaka fukyos (high-yen-induced recessions).
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Israel, and East Asia

7185. A United States Policy for the Changing Realities of East Asia

Author:
Donald Emmerson, Henry Rowen, Michel Oksenberg, Daniel Okimoto, James Raphael, Thomas Rohlen, and Michael H. Armacost
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, the power and prestige of the United States in East Asia have suffered a worrisome degree of erosion. The erosion is, in part, the by-product of long-run secular trends, such as structural shifts in the balance of power caused by the pacesetting growth of East Asian economies. But the decline has been aggravated by shortcomings in U.S. policy toward East Asia, particularly the lack of a coherent strategy and a clear-cut set of policy priorities for the post-Cold War environment. If these shortcomings are not corrected, the United States runs the risk of being marginalized in East Asia--precisely at a time when our stakes in the region are as essential as those in any area of the world. What is needed, above all, is a sound, consistent, and publicly articulated strategy, one which holds forth the prospect of serving as the basis for a sustainable, nonpartisan domestic consensus. The elements of an emerging national consensus can be identified as follows:
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Foreign Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia

7186. The Coming Global Pension Crisis: The Aging of the World's Population and Its Implications for Capital Flows

Author:
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Haruhiko Kuroda, Dr. Norbert Walter, Robert C. Pozen, Thomas W. Jones, Alice M. Rivlin, Marshall Carter, Olivia S. Mitchell, Russell J. Cheetham, Yves Guerard, Jan Svejnar, David Hale, Martin S. Feldstein, and Robert D. Hormats
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Social Security has been described as the crown jewel of American federal government programs. It is widely recognized to be the major reason why the poverty rate among the elderly in the United States has fallen in half since 1959 and is lower today than the poverty rate for any other population group as a whole. Fifteen million older Americans are kept out of poverty by Social Security.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and America

7187. Participatión Ciudadana y Retos Ambientalistas Frente a los Riesgos de la Globalización y del TLCAN

Author:
Sofía Gallardo C.
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement different view regarding the possible environmental risks and the measures that had to be taken in order to be able to manage them were expressed. Some environmental organizations for the first time sought to influence international trading issues in local, national and trinational networks. Current globalization processes have established new challenges to the citizens because they have forced them to focus their political action simultaneously in national, regional and global public scenarios. Therefore, Mexican, Canadian and American citizens have been increasingly involved in their countries' economic integration processes, creating awareness of the possible risks generated by the current globalization patterns and of the ways in which they can be affected. This paper concentrates on the challenges that civic organizations in general, and environmental groups in particular, have had to confront in order to maintain or try to improve their living standards with the implementation of NAFTA and offers some considerations on the successes and failures of civic and environmental actions in the purview of NAFTA.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
America, Canada, North America, and Mexico

7188. Theoretical Confidence Level Problems with Confidence Intervals for the Spectrum of a Time Series

Author:
Jon Faust
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Textbook approaches to forming asymptotically justified confidence intervals for the spectrum under very general assumptions were developed by the mid-1970s. This paper shows that under the textbook assumptions, the true confidence level for these intervals does not converge to the asymptotic level, and instead is fixed at zero in all sample sizes. The paper explores necessary conditions for solving this problem, most notably showing that under weak conditions, forming valid confidence intervals requires that one limit consideration to a finite-dimensional time series model.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, and Education

7189. Money, Politics, and the Post-War Business Cycle

Author:
Jon Faust and John S. Irons
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
While macroeconometricians continue to dispute the size, timing, and even the existence of effects of monetary policy, political economists often find large effects of political variables and often attribute the effects to manipulation of the Fed. Since the political econometricians often use smaller information sets and less elaborate approaches to identification than do macroeconometricians, their striking results could be the result of simultaneity and omitted variable biases. Alternatively, political whims may provide the instrument for exogenous policy changes that has been the Grail of the policy identification literature. In this paper, we lay out and apply a framework for distinguishing these possibilities. We find almost no support for the hypothesis that political effects on the macroeconomy operate through monetary policy and only weak evidence that political effects are significant at all.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Political Economy, and Politics

7190. The Accumulation of Human Capital: Alternative Methods and Why They Matter

Author:
Ann L. Owen and Murat F. Iyigun
Publication Date:
05-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We show how the ability o accumulate human capital through formal education and through a learning-by-doing process that occurs on the job affects the dynamic behavior of the human capital stock under a liquidity constrained and a non-constrained case. When there are alternatives to formal schooling in the accumulation of human capital, investing resources in increasing school enrollment rates in low-income countries may not be the most efficient means of increasing the human capital stock. In addition, removal of the liquidity constraints may not be sufficient to escape a development trap.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Education, and International Trade and Finance