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10041. Currency Boards vs. Dollarization: Lessons from the Cook Islands

Author:
Richard C. K. Burdekin
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Modern currency boards are not necessarily precluded from financing government spending and may feature only partial foreign reserve backing. The potential dangers are highlighted by the Cook Islands case, where accelerating rates of currency issuance, combined with rising government budget deficits, led to a crisis of confidence in 1994. It is unlikely that the seigniorage gained from the short-lived currency board experiment outweighed the costs associated with the swings in policy. In the end, delayed fiscal retrenchment was accompanied by an abrupt contraction in the money supply as the local currency was withdrawn in 1995 and full dollarization re-established.
Political Geography:
Island

10042. Macroeconomic Effects of Central Bank Transparency: The Case of Brazil

Author:
Helder Ferreira de Mendonça and José Simão Filho
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Nowadays there is a tendency for central banks to increase transparency in the conduct of monetary policy. Central bank transparency could be defined as the existence of symmetric information between monetary policymakers and other economic agents. High degrees of transparency reduce uncertainty, improve the private-sector inference about central bank goals, and increase the effectiveness of monetary policy. There is now an increasing literature that measures the effects of transparency on average inflation, output volatility (Chortareas, Stasavage, and Sterne 2002), the efficiency of monetary policy (Cecchetti and Krause 2002), and the volatility of financial markets (Ehrmann and Fratzscher 2005).
Political Geography:
Brazil

10043. On the Death of the Resurrected Short-Run Phillips Curve: A Further Investigation

Author:
Masoud Moghaddam and James E. Jenson
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In a recent issue of this journal, Richard Reichel (2004) takes issue with the resurrected Phillips curve (PC) in William Niskanen's (2002) article. Accordingly, Niskanen's reformulation of the PC provides empirical evidence for a weak, but statistically significant, short-run (in the same year) tradeoff between inflation and unemployment rates in the United States. Furthermore, the unemployment rate is directly and significantly determined by the one-period lagged value of the inflation rate, which implies an upward sloping PC, consistent with the type of PC explicated by Milton Friedman (1987). Reichel's main point of contention is that the variables in the reformulated version of PC are nonstationary, meaning that statistical properties (such as conditional mean and variance) vary with time. Thus, Niskanen's findings are spurious.
Political Geography:
United States

10044. Parrot Talk: The Repetition of Common Fallacies

Author:
Anthony de Jasay
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Many social scientists and political journalists keep parrots as useful labor-saving pets. These parrots are hidden in their masters' bosoms and are so well trained that when they start talking, we believe we hear their masters' voices. One can nevertheless recognize that it is the parrot holding forth, by the fact that it is always the same few texts that are repeated. Most of the parrots like one or other of the brief texts that are reproduced here in italics.

10045. Book Reviews: The Healthcare Fix: Universal Insurance for All Americans

Author:
Jagadeesh Gokhale
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
This book is about how and why a severe economic and financial crisis may well unfold in the United States within the next few years. The main reason: politicians have been increasingly profligate with the public purse—expanding government entitlement and nonentitlement spending, seemingly without regard for future economic consequences.
Political Geography:
United States

10046. Book Reviews: See Government Grow: Education Politics from Johnson to Reagan

Author:
Neal McCluskey
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Only a dozen years ago, the Republican Party platform called for abolition of the U.S. Department of Education. Perhaps a holdover from what many thought would be a government-leveling tidal wave when the GOP won control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in 1994, the 1996 platform declared that “the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula. . . . That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.”
Political Geography:
United States

10047. Book Reviews: Regulation and Public Interests: The Possibility of GOOD Regulatory Government

Author:
Peter Van Doren
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In theory, scientific (positive) and philosophical (normative) inquiry are quite distinct. The former involves the testing of hypotheses through the use of experiments or the estimation of statistical models using data, while the latter utilizes theological or philosophical analysis to conclude how people and institutions should behave.

10048. The political realism of Augustine and Morgenthau: Issues of Man, God, and just war

Author:
Bettina Dahl Soendergaard
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
Augustine and Morgenthau are examples of classical political realists who base their arguments on the nature of man. Both believe that man is born evil but they differ on the question if man can improve. Augustine also believes that the statesman has a moral purpose while Morgenthau believes that the consequences of man's nature can only be counterbalanced. This difference is rooted in Morgenthau and Augustine's different views of the meaning of peace. To Morgenthau, peace is power balance and stability and a permanent peace cannot be achieved. Augustine, however, describes two kinds of peace, the earthly peace and God's peace. The article discusses these differences and how it impacts their views on moral and war. These different views have similarity with the different views that led to the Reformation in the 1500's and their difference is as great.
Topic:
War

10049. Postcolonialism and Postcoloniality: A Premortem Prognosis

Author:
Narasingha P. Sil
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
Postcolonialism as theory, contrasted with postcoloniality as reality, was born sometime during the earlier period of the Cold War that had developed Sphinx-like following the World War II announcing the death of Europe and the rise of two extra-European superpowers. Naturally, the end of the War also began a decade-long process of decolonization, marking the end of European political domination over most of Asia and Africa. The collapse of the continent that owned almost one half of the globe generated a profoundly unsettling soulsearching and re-examination of the values and norms of metropolitan civilization informed by the Enlightenment masculist and quasi-racist rationality, although a critique of Western bourgeois views and values dates back to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and later Rudolf Pannwitz (1881-1969), author of The Crisis of European Culture (1917), and Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), author of The Decline of the West (1918).
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Asia

10050. Transboundary Water Cooperation in Africa: The Case of the Nile Basin Initiative

Author:
Wondwosen Teshome B.
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
At present, more than 55 percent of the World's population lives in internationally shared river basins. Shared waters could be either a source of conflict or a source of cooperation and prosperity. Today, the growing need for water resources for development has brought intense political and economic tensions among the countries that share rivers that flow across two or more countries. The aim of this paper is to identify the economic, social and political benefits of the transboundary cooperation by using the Nile Bain Initiative (NBI) as a case study. It also attempts to identify the obstacles that hinder transboundary cooperation in the Nile Basin. The paper argues that the riparian states in the Nile Basin should work for “benefit-sharing” rather than “water-sharing” and this should be the basis for their transboundary cooperation. It also claims that implementing the concept of benefit-sharing would help in solving problems that are caused by divergent interests among the riparian states in the Nile basin and the up stream-down stream problems frequently manifested in the area. The paper concludes by suggesting the main points that have to be considered in transboundary cooperation.
Topic:
Economics and Water
Political Geography:
Africa