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92. Pharmaceutical Price Regulation: Macro-Level Evidence from China between 1997 and 2008
- Author:
- Qiong Zhang, Binzhen Wu, and Xue Qiao
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- This paper uses macro-level data between 1997 and 2008 to evaluate the effects of China's pharmaceutical price regulations. We find that these regulations had short-run effects on medicine price indexes, reducing them by less than 0.5 percentage points. The effects could have been slightly reinforced when these regulations were imposed on more medicines. However, these regulations failed to reduce household health expenditures and the average profitability of the pharmaceutical industry, and firms on the break-even edge were worse off. Finally, although these regulations have no significant effects on the price of substitutes or complements for medicines, they increased expensive medicine imports.
- Topic:
- Economics, Health, Human Welfare, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- China
93. When do ruling elites support productive sectors? Explaining policy initiatives in the fisheries and dairy sectors in Uganda
- Author:
- Fred Muhumuza, Anne Mette Kjær, Mesharch Katusiimeh, and Tom Mwebaze
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper explains the differences in ruling elite support for the fisheries and dairy sectors in Uganda. Although production in Uganda has not generally been promoted in any sustained way, ruling elites have to varying degrees supported the dairy and fisheries sectors. The paper shows that the ruling elite initially supported the fishing industry because of industry pressure. They have failed to enforce fisheries management because there are big political costs associated with such enforcement. The dairy sector in the southwestern milk region was initially supported because the ruling elite wanted to build a coalition of support in this region. Coming from the region himself, the president had a keen interest in dairy cattle. The sector was subsequently regulated because the biggest processor put pressure on the ruling elite to do so. Even when the ruling coalition is fragmented, promoting production is possible if there is strong industry pressure and when the initiatives to promote the sector are also seen to help build or maintain the ruling coalition.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, Poverty, and Social Stratification
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
94. The political economy of the fisheries sector in Uganda: ruling elites, implementation costs and industry interests
- Author:
- Fred Muhumuza, Anne Mette Kjær, Mesharch Katusiimeh, and Tom Mwebaze
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper sets out to explain policies, implementation arrangements and results (PIRs) in Uganda's fisheries sector. Industry actors wanted to be able to keep up with European standards in order to survive in the chilled and frozen fillet export industry. They put pressure on ruling elites to support the establishment of effective hygiene and testing procedures. This helped the fishing industry succeed to an extent that helped create interests in the status quo. Fishermen, their dependents, and the fish processors all wanted to maintain a high level of fish catches. It was politically costly for ruling elites to enforce fisheries management because strict enforcement was unpopular with fishermen, as well as with many fishermen and security agents who benefitted from illegal fishing. Therefore, the success was not maintained: a pocket of efficiency was established with regard to hygiene and testing, but not with regard to enforcing fisheries management. Overfishing and the near collapse of the fishing sector were the results.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Poverty, and Social Stratification
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, and Europe
95. Dynamics of Inflation "Herding": Decoding India's Inflationary Process
- Author:
- Urjit R. Patel and Gangadhar Darbha
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- Compared to immediately preceding years, that is, its own recent history, India's inflation became unhinged (thereby reversing creditable performance) from as far back as 2006. The paper puts forward an empirical framework to analyze the time series and cross-sectional dynamics of inflation in India using a large panel of disaggregated sector prices for the time period, 1994/95 to 2010/11. This allows us to rigorously explore issues that have been, at best, loosely posed in policy debates such as diffusion or comovement of inflation across sectors, role of common and idiosyncratic factors in explaining variation, persistence, importance of food and energy price changes to the overall inflation process, and contrast the recent experience with the past. We find, interalia, that the current period of high inflation is more cross-sectionally diffused, and driven by increasingly persistent common factors in non-food and non-energy sectors compared to that in the 1990s; this is likely to make it more difficult for anti-inflationary policy to gain traction this time round compared to the past. The paper has also introduced a novel measure of inflation, viz., Pure Inflation Gauges (PIGs) in the Indian context by decomposing price movements into those on account of: (1) aggregate shocks that have equiproportional effects on all sector prices; (2) aggregated relative price effects; and (3) sector-specific and idiosyncratic shocks. If PIGs, in conjunction with our other findings, for example, on persistence had been used as a measure of underlying (pure) inflationary pressures, the monetary authorities may not have been sanguine regarding the timeliness of initiating anti-inflationary policies.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
96. Developing a Palm Oil Sector: The Experiences of Malaysia and Ghana Compared
- Author:
- Lindsay Whitfield and Niels Fold
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper explores what can be learned about the development of a productive sector and the factors that affect the process of upgrading and innovation, through a comparative assessment of the experiences of Malaysia and Ghana in the palm oil sector. The purpose is not to carry out a direct comparison of the trajectories of the sectors in the two countries, which would serve only to emphasize the failures in the 'construction' of the palm industry in Ghana. Rather, the role of context must be acknowledged, such that learning starts with understanding key points in the industries' trajectories that either break or accelerate path dependency. Thus, the paper focuses on the differing contextual factors and initial conditions, and how they shaped early divergent paths and industry structures, as well as the presence or absence of factors supporting expansion and diversification within each country's trajectory.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Malaysia
97. India's Water Challenges
- Author:
- Suresh P. Prabhu
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Threats of international water conflicts have garnered headlines in many parts of the world including South Asia. Yet, there are almost no examples of outright water war in history. Instead, national water tensions and issues in water management continue to bedevil South Asia and the largest country in the region. India's population currently stands at 1.2 billion people and is expected to reach 1.6 to 1.8 billion by 2050. For a country that already ranks among the lower rungs of the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index, faced by the stresses of such population growth, India will have to design a plan to satisfy basic human needs for survival, and identify—and maximize—the use of key inputs that drive India's economic growth. One common source that cuts across all criteria for basic survival and economic development is water. It is predicted that by 2050, the per capita availability of water at the national level will drop by 40 to 50 percent due to rapid population growth and commercial use. The main sectors that are heavily dependent on water, such as India's agriculture and power generation, will also affect the quality of water available, both for other productive sectors and for public use. The demand for, availability, and varying use of water all have an impact on India's water resource management and its relations with neighboring countries.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Water
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Southeast Asia
98. When Voicelessness Meets Speechlessness – Struggling for Equity in Chinese-Ghanaian Employment Relations
- Author:
- Karsten Giese and Alena Thiel
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- In this article Chinese-Ghanaian employment relations are analyzed using the concepts of foreignness, the psychological contract, equity, and cross-cultural communication. Based on a qualitative study conducted in Accra, Ghana, we discuss the labor market in general and introduce the conditions under which Chinese sojourners operate their family trade businesses in the city. After discussing the phenomenon of Ghanaian employment within Chinese trade companies from a theoretical perspective, we explain how Chinese employers' and Ghanaian employees' culturally based perceptions of employment relations are contradictory and prone to conflict. We then show how, under the condition of the employers' foreignness, Ghanaian employees perceive their psychological contracts as being violated and Chinese employers regard the equity of exchange relations as distorted. We discuss how Ghanaian employees cope with this situation by means of voice, silence, retreat or destruction, while Chinese employers, who lack both sufficient language skills and effective sanctions, choose to endure perceived distortions of equity and in some cases ultimately terminate employment relations when inadequate cross-cultural communication results in a failure to mediate conflicts.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- Africa, China, and Ghana
99. China's Economic Restructuring: Role of Agriculture
- Author:
- Zhang Hongzhou
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- While China has achieved extraordinary economic success in the past decades, its economic structural risks have increased significantly as well. As Chinese top leaders have repeatedly emphasized, economic restructuring is a critical task facing China's economy. To restructure China's economy, the country needs to find a new engine for growth to replace the export and investment led growth model, address social inequality and protect the environment. The key approaches identified by the Chinese government include urbanization, upgrading the manufacturing sector and developing strategic industries. However, through in-depth analysis, this paper finds that the effectiveness of these measures remains in question as they fail to target at all the root causes of China's economic problems.
- Topic:
- Economics, Environment, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Social Stratification
- Political Geography:
- China and Israel
100. America's Voluntary Standards System--A "Best Practice" Model for Innovation Policy?
- Author:
- Dieter Ernst
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- For its proponents, America's voluntary standards system is a "best practice" model for innovation policy. Foreign observers however are concerned about possible drawbacks of a standards system that is largely driven by the private sector. There are doubts, especially in Europe and China, whether the American system can balance public and private interests in times of extraordinary national and global challenges to innovation.
- Topic:
- Development, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- China, America, and Europe