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13131. International Explanations for Stock Market Opening

Author:
Susan Minushkin
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Most studies on financial market liberalization focus on wealthy countries, emphasizing international, economic or domestic political factors as explanations for financial liberalization or have specified the conditions under which one factor dominates in causal significance. They have not tested whether their arguments are applicable to the middle-income countries that comprise the 'emerging markets.' Focusing on these countries, this paper seeks to isolate and test a series of propositions derived from international approaches. The main contribution of this article is to provide some first-cut testing of the existing hypotheses, as a guide for other researchers in terms of the timing, pace and style of financial opening in middle-income countries.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance

13132. A Theoretical and Statistical Assessment of the Structural Reform in Latin America

Author:
Jorge A. Schiavon
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This working paper argues that the institutional variation between Latin American countries is one of the central variables that explains the huge differences in the implementation, and level of consolidation of the structural reform process in Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s, an issue still unexplained in a satisfactory way in the existing literature. The argument is tested and supported using a statistical model that includes macroeconomic indicators in the explained side of the equation (structural reform), and constitutional, electoral, and party system data on the explanatory side (institutional configuration).
Topic:
Development and Government
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Central America

13133. Brazil, India and South Africa: Three Pathways to Regional (In)security

Author:
Varun Sahni
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regional security problems of Brazil, India and South Africa in the Southern Cone of South America, South Asia, and southern Africa, respectively. The three states are treated as emerging powers, i.e., middle powers that have the capability and intention to maneuver their way into great power status. a study of the regional distributions of military and socioeconomic capability suggest Brazilian regional primacy, Indian regional dominance and South African regional supremacy. Furthermore, while Brazil's neighbors ignore its regional status, India's neighbors contest it and South Africa's neighbors acknowledge it. In the first three sections of the paper, the three regional powers studied in their respective regions, with emphasis on the geographical boundaries, historical evolution, cultural characteristics and power dynamics of each region. A comparative analysis of the nuclear option chosen by each emerging power is presented in the section immediately following the three case studies. The final section situates the regional security of the emerging powers in the context of U.S. grand strategy and analyzes security cooperation between Brazil, India, South Africa and the U.S. It is concluded that in their quest to transcend their regional bounds and have a global impact, the regional security context is a critical factor for the emerging powers.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, India, South Africa, Brazil, and South America

13134. EMU Effects on International Trade and Investment

Author:
Harry Flam and Per Jansson
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The partial effect of nominal exchange rate volatility on exports from each EMU member to the rest of the EMU is estimated on annual data for 1967-97, using modern time-series methods. The long-run relations between exchange rate volatility and exports are mostly negative and in several cases insignificantly different from zero. Thus, these estimates do not provide much support for the hypothesis that the elimination of nominal exchange rate volatility will significantly increase trade within the EMU. However, the EMU will presumably lead to geographical concentration of production and therefore indirectly to increased trade within the EMU and, during a transitional stage, to increased foreign direct investment, both within the EMU and between the EMU and the rest of the world.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

13135. The Impact of EMU on European Transition Economies

Author:
David Begg
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
An interesting theory of transition must give a convincing account of structural adjustment and supply side improvement. In this paper, I discuss the incentives for government to undertake costly supply side improvement and how these relate to incentives governing the design of monetary and fiscal policy during transition. The government cares about deviations of inflation, output and government spending from their ideal levels, is subject to a budget constraint in which inflation yields some real revenue, and recognizes the distortionary effects of excess levels of taxation. Costly structural adjustment enhances future output by reducing supply side distortions.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

13136. From Rhetoric to Policy: Towards Workable Conflict Prevention at the Regional and Global Levels — Report on a Workshop

Author:
David Carment, Albrecht Schnabel, and Abdul-Rasheed Draman
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This piece constitutes a report of the workshop “From Rhetoric to Policy: Towards Workable Conflict Prevention at the Regional and Global Level” held at INSTRAW, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic from December 14-16, 1998. Jointly organised by the United Nations University and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, the workshop drew participants from the UN system, the academic community and practitioners in the field. The workshop, which represents the second stage of a general project aimed at 'Translating Rhetoric into Policy,' focussed on examining training needs for conflict prevention through the involvement of local actors.
Topic:
Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations

13137. EMU and the Developing Countries

Author:
Benjamin J. Cohen
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to explore economic and political implications of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) for developing countries. In strictly economics terms, influences will be communicated through both trade and financial channels. Economies in the developing world will be affected by changes in European growth rates as well as by EMU's impact on transaction costs and enterprise competitiveness within Europe; they will also be impacted by changes in the structure and efficiency of Europe's capital markets. Modifications may be anticipated in borrowing and investment practices at the private level as well as in reserve and debt-management policies at the official level. In political terms, developing countries will be most directly influences by the anticipated rivalry between Europe's new single currency, the euro, and the dollar, which will compel developing countries to reconsider their own national currency strategies. Three conclusions stand out. First, except for selected groups of countries with particularly close ties to the EU, most economic linkages appear marginal at best. It is much easier to enumerate possible channels of transmission than to find many that appear quantitatively significant. Second, among economic effects of EMU, financial channels seem to matter more than trade channels. And third, across the full range of possible linkages, the most lasting influences for developing countries may well turn out, notably, to be political rather than either trade or financial. Significant changes are likely in exchange-rates regimes in many parts of the developing world.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

13138. Will the Euro Trigger More Monetary Unions in Africa?

Author:
Patrick Honohan and Philip R. Lane
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
We analyse the prospects for greater monetary integration in Africa, in the wake of EMU. We argue that the structural characteristics of African economies are quite different to the EMU members but that much can be gained from monetary cooperation, as an external agency of restraint and in promoting stability in the financial sector. EMU has only a marginal impact on the net benefits of monetary cooperation but the euro would be a natural anchor for any African monetary unions. Indeed, the most likely route to new monetary cooperation in Africa is via a common peg to the euro.
Topic:
Emerging Markets and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

13139. Globalization, Marginalization and Development

Author:
S. Mansoob Murshed
Publication Date:
02-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper surveys issues related to globalization, and the obstacles to the successful integration of vulnerable economies. For many developing countries, the positive benefits of the increased globalization that has been taking place since around 1980 remain distant and elusive. The economies of many countries in the developing world remain extremely vulnerable to domestic and external shocks. They have, effectively, become marginalized from the world system. To a great extent, the obstacles to the successful participation of vulnerable developing economies in the international system are rooted in the causes of their underdevelopment and poor economic performance. Nevertheless, the new rules of the game and the international economic environment prevalent since about 1980 following accelerated globalization, leaves them vulnerable in novel ways. Developing in the arrangements for conducting multilateral trade and technology transfer have left nations in the South more vulnerable than in the past. The ability to conduct independent macroeconomic policy is severely constrained. Nations are more reliant on volatile international capital markets, for finance and investment; many developing countries are completely eschewed by international private capital markets. The problem of poverty in many developing countries seems to have been exacerbated following globalization. When we consider the obstacles to the meaningful participation of vulnerable developing economies in the international system, many are domestic in origin, but external factors beyond the control of these countries play an important part as well. Among the former are poorly designed policies to promote growth on the supply-side, macroeconomic mismanagement on the aggregate demand side and institutional failure. In the latter category protectionist tendencies in the North are the most important factor. Many of these appear in the guise of concerns for environmental and labour standards. Globalization does, however, offer new possibilities to developing countries; particularly because shifts in the international division of labour, as well as technological innovations, could favour the South.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Third World

13140. Information Technology and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis

Author:
Matti Pohjola
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper explores the impacts of information technology investment on economic growth in a cross-section of 39 countries in the period 1980-95 by applying an explicit model of economic growth, the augmented version of the neoclassical (Solow) growth model. The results based on the full sample of 39 countries indicate that physical capital is a key factor in economic growth in both developed and developing countries. Its influence is even bigger than what is implied by the income share of capital in national income accounts. But neither human capital nor information technology seems to have a significant impact on GDP growth. However, investment in information technology has a strong influence on economic growth in the smaller sample of 23 developed (OECD) countries. Its impact is almost as large as that of the rest of the capital stock. But since the share of IT investment in GDP, although growing, is still much lower than the share of non-IT investment, the net social return to IT capital is much larger than the return to non-IT capital: 60-80 per cent versus 4 per cent, respectively. The estimated return is very high; about twice the return to equipment investment and 10-12 times the return to R obtained in similar models as the one applied here.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Science and Technology