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622. Urbanization's Infrastructure Demands at Home and Abroad
- Author:
- Charles Cadwell
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Urban Institute
- Abstract:
- Jakarta, with a population of 9.5 million (27 million in the greater metropolitan area) has grown 3.6% per year for the past decade, about double the overall Indonesian population growth rate. By 2025, Jakarta will join the list of megacities, with the center city population reaching 10.8 million, according to a 2010 UN report. This next spurt will make Jakarta larger than Moscow and put it on a par with Paris. The proliferation of gleaming office towers that stretch in all directions from downtown is but one measure of dramatic growth. As you might expect, any prospects for continued growth will require dramatic new investment in infrastructure. Gleaming new toll-ways are already clogged, electricity supply, though much more reliable than in the countryside, is reportedly inconsistent. Corruption in public procurement dominates local and national headlines, keeping the national Anti-Corruption Commission more than busy. Financing infrastructure in the years ahead will require both public and private investment, though investors are understandably wary of a policy environment still dominated by money politics, opaque regulatory processes, and slowing reform momentum.
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Urbanization, and Economic Growth
- Political Geography:
- Indonesia and Southeast Asia
623. A new panel dataset for cross-country analyses of national systems, growth and development (CANA)
- Author:
- Fulvio Castellacci and Jose Miguel Natera
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Missing data represent an important limitation for cross-country analyses of national systems, growth and development. This paper presents a new cross-country panel dataset with no missing value. We make use of a new method of multiple imputation that has recently been developed by Honaker and King (2010) to deal specifically with time-series cross-section data at the country-level. We apply this method to construct a large dataset containing a great number of indicators measuring six key country-specific dimensions: innovation and technological capabilities, education system and human capital, infrastructures, economic competitiveness, political-institutional factors, and social capital. The CANA panel dataset thus obtained provides a rich and complete set of 41 indicators for 134 countries in the period 1980-2008 (for a total of 3886 country-year observations). The empirical analysis shows the reliability of the dataset and its usefulness for cross-country analyses of national systems, growth and development. The new dataset is publicly available.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Government, International Affairs, and Infrastructure
624. A Summary of the Liveability Ranking and Overview
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Abstract:
- The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses, from benchmarking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. The Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations. Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure. Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. For qualitative indicators, a rating is awarded based on the judgment of in-house analysts and in-city contributors. For quantitative indicators, a rating is calculated based on the relative performance of a number of external data points. The scores are then compiled and weighted to provide a score of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. The liveability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category. To provide points of reference, the score is also given for each category relative to New York and an overall position in the ranking of 140 cities is provided.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Environment, Health, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- New York
625. U.S. Foreign Aid: Investing in Countries that Help Themselves
- Author:
- Daniel Yohannes
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Daniel Yohannes, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, discusses the MCC's work with Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Foreign Aid, Infrastructure, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States
626. Cambodia's Bumpy Development Road: Implications for US Interests
- Author:
- Donald Jameson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Cambodia in late 2010, she told senior Cambodian government officials "this does not look like the country I have been reading about in the press." Most first-time visitors to Phnom Penh would likely react similarly. The city hosts a vibrant society, with traffic-clogged streets, a proliferation of stylish restaurants and boutiques, and buildings under construction everywhere, many of them high-rise apartments and office blocks. If the visitor were to venture outside the capital, large-scale investment in infrastructure, especially roads and bridges, with construction underway on additional projects are what greet the eye. In addition, there are extensive land clearing projects underway for new plantations to grow rubber, palm oil, cashews and other tropical products, as well as new industrial sites springing up along main transportation arteries. In short, Cambodia is clearly a country on the move economically.
- Topic:
- Development, Foreign Aid, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- United States, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia
627. Green growth as necessity and liability: The political economy of a low-carbon energy systems transformation in the European Union
- Author:
- Mark Huberty
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- In the last decade, energy systems transformation has become the new and unheralded frontier of European deepening. Starting in 1996, the European Union mandated the liberalization and integration of national energy systems, put a price on greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, established binding targets for renewable energy adoption, mandated the breakup of state energy monopolies, and sponsored the creation of EU-level regulatory and standards-setting bodies for energy infrastructure and markets. Most recently, the Europe 2020 program has established enforceable goals for the integration, liberalization, and decarbonization of the European electricity supply system, and ambitious but aspirational targets in energy efficiency.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Energy Policy, Markets, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Europe
628. Armed Conflicts and Security of Oil and Gas Supplies
- Author:
- Giacomo Luciani
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
- Abstract:
- The paper offers a systematic analysis of the impact of international or civil wars and violent non-state groups on global oil and gas supplies. Statistical evidence points to the fact that international wars are becoming increasingly rare, while civil wars remain frequent. The paper discusses the cases of the Iraq-Iran war and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, showing the limits to the damage that belligerents were able to inflict on oil installations and illustrating how the world was able to compensate for this damage. The Iraqi insurgency following international intervention to replace the Saddam Hussein regime is discussed together with other cases of civil wars in Nigeria, Angola and Sudan. The analysis supports the conclusion that oil and gas installations appear to be much more resilient to armed conflict than is normally acknowledged. History shows that civil wars have caused limited damage to existing installations, but they have hindered the desired investment in new development and attainment of target production levels. However, it is very obvious that government's inability to overcome or reabsorb violent opposition discourages international oil company investment even if the violence does not affect the areas around oil and gas installations.
- Topic:
- Security, Civil War, Oil, Insurgency, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Kuwait and Nigeria
629. The Triple Compact: Improving Accountability in State Building
- Author:
- Ben Rowswell
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
- Abstract:
- As a result of international state-building efforts, progress has been made in Afghanistan, however, political dysfunction and a lack of accountability remain problems. It has been suggested that failures of accountability may, in fact, be a product of the state- building effort itself. In the hybrid form of governance where authority is divided between the government and the international community, it can be difficult for the population to determine where accountability lies, leading to feelings of frustration and disempowerment.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, War, Foreign Aid, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan
630. The Political Feasibility of the Istanbul Canal Project
- Author:
- Mensur Akgün and Sylvia Tiryaki
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
- Abstract:
- Popularly referred to as the “crazy” project, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Istanbul Canal Project has been debated vigorously since its proposal prior to the 2011 elections in the country. While some questioned its economic and ecological feasibility, others carried the discussion towards the Project's political implications. In addition to evaluating these debates, in this policy brief we discuss the Project through a historical perspective that includes the dynamics of the 1936 Montreux Convention. We argue that the feasibility of the Canal Project is valid only after certain changes are made in the application of the Montreux Convention. However, we conclude that this may lead to an outcome in which the signatories would question the legitimacy of the Convention under present conditions.
- Topic:
- Economics and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Central Asia and Turkey