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241. What Fundamentals Drive World Migration?

Author:
Jeffrey Williamson and Timothy Hatton
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Governments in the OECD note rising immigration with alarm and grapple with policies aimed at selecting certain migrants and keeping out others. Economists appear to be well armed to advise governments since they are responsible for an impressive literature that examines the characteristics of individual immigrants, their absorption and the consequences of their migration on both sending and receiving regions. Economists are, however, much less well armed to speak to the determinants of the world migrations that give rise to public alarm.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Migration, and Poverty

242. The Theoretical, Conceptual and Empirical Impact of the Service Economy: A Critical Review

Author:
Birgitte Andersen and Marva Corley
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper offers a critical review of the conventional economic classification, measurement and valuation of output, and related performance indicators, for the service sector. The paper also explores and contrasts long-standing views on the service knowledge base and service innovations, as well as the global aspects of many services. A problem arises when historical industrial classification schemes treat services as being 'immaterial' (i.e. everything that is not manufacturing and agriculture), while ignoring that the activities of services in the economy, as well as the corporate structures of firms, transcend such classification schemes at any level of aggregation. Other problems arise when associated traditional analytical methods measure services input and output and related performance indicators using the same conceptual framework and indicators as those that are applied for problem solving for agriculture and manufacturing. Such entanglements have other and wider consequences for understanding the impact of the new economy and for designing appropriate policy.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

243. Descriptive and Prescriptive Analyses of Aid Allocation: Approaches, Issues and Consequences

Author:
Mark McGillivray
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Studies of the inter-recipient allocation of aid may be categorized threefold. First, there are those which attempt to explain the observed allocation of aid. Second, there are those which seek to describe or evaluate the allocation of aid against normative criteria. Third, there are those which seek to prescribe the inter-recipient allocation of aid by calculating the amounts of aid each country should receive, also based on normative criteria. This paper looks at the second and third categories of studies. It commences by looking at the different approaches or descriptive measures used, and then repeats this exercise for the prescriptive literature. It then compares the prescribed allocations of the different approaches used in the literature. These allocations are compared to actual allocations and then evaluated against various normative criteria. This reveals significant differences, both between prescribed and actual allocations and the evaluations of the different prescriptive approaches.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Non-Governmental Organization, and Poverty

244. Social and Economic Decline as Factors in Conflict in the Caucasus

Author:
Svetlana Glinkina and Dorothy Rosenberg
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
We argue that the conflicts in the Caucasus are the result of the abrogation by the elite of the earlier, Soviet era, social contract. This process was accompanied by the collapse of the formal economy; evidenced by huge national income compression, falling public goods provision, and growing inequality and poverty. In the absence of state provision of basic amenities and governance, ordinary people are compelled to fall back on kinship ties. Declining standards of governance facilitate state-sponsored corruption and criminality in a setting where the shadow economic activity is increasingly important to individual survival strategies. Oil pipelines and the right to control the transit of goods both legal and illegal also underlie conflict in the region. Criminality has replaced ethnicity as the major motivation for conflict and conflict per se has become a lucrative source of income.
Topic:
Economics, Ethnic Conflict, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

245. Economic and Theological Approaches to Debt Cancellation

Author:
Robbie Mochrie
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Differences in economic and theological approaches to debt cancellation result from differences in disciplinary assumptions in respect of purpose, method, and argument. We argue that they provide alternative commentaries upon the need for debt cancellation, but that it is not possible to demonstrate the superiority of one over the other, so practitioners in one are likely to continue to find it difficult to respond meaningfully to arguments from the other.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Non-Governmental Organization, and Religion

246. Aid Disaggregation, Endogenous Aid and the Public Sector in Aid-Recipient Economies: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

Author:
George Mavrotas and Bazoumana Ouattara
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The present paper examines the impact of different aid types, namely project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid on the fiscal sector of the aid-recipient economy by using time-series data for Côte d'Ivoire over the period 1975–99. Empirical results obtained by estimating correctly the solution of the theoretical model show that when a single value (or aggregated) for aid is used, foreign aid is fully consumed in the case of Côte d'Ivoire. However, results obtained under the assumption of aid heterogeneity clearly suggest that the government responds differently according to the nature of the aid inflows. Our approach sheds plenty of light on how the aid-recipient government reacts to different categories of foreign aid inflows and the empirical findings clearly demonstrate the importance of the aid disaggregation approach for delving deeper into aid effectiveness issues.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and Non-Governmental Organization
Political Geography:
Africa

247. Financial Sector Development — Futile or Fruitful? An Examination of the Determinants of Savings in Sri Lanka

Author:
George Mavrotas and Roger Kelly
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper documents the financial and institutional developments of China during the past two decades, when China was successfully transformed from a rigid centralplanning economy to a dynamic market economy following its unique path. We empirically examine the relationship between financial development and economic growth in China by employing a panel sample covering 31 Chinese provinces during the important transition period 1986-2002. Our evidence suggests that the development of financial markets, institutions, and instruments have been robustly associated with economic growth in China.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
South Asia

248. Financial Sector Reforms and Savings Mobilization in Zambia

Author:
George Mavrotas and Samuel Manzele Maimbo
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper explores the relationship between financial sector reforms and savings mobilization in Zambia. Although there exists an extensive literature on financial sector development and savings levels in developing countries, there does not seem to exist satisfactory work on the above nexus for sub-Saharan African countries, particularly Zambia. Along these lines, the paper examines the linkages between the financial reforms of the early 1990s and savings mobilization. It considers the characteristics of banks and non-bank financial institutions, especially micro finance institutions, and savings levels and identifies problems associated with the relatively poor performance of savings in recent years and concludes with a set of policy guidelines for strengthening savings mobilization, highlighting the expected effect on povertyreducing growth.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa and Nordic Nations

249. Savings and Financial Sector Development: Panel Cointegration Evidence from Africa

Author:
George Mavrotas and Roger Kelly
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper uses different measures of financial sector development for a dynamic heterogeneous panel of 17 African countries to examine the impact of financial sector development on private savings. An innovative econometric methodology is also employed related to a series of cointegration tests within a panel. This is an important contribution since traditional panel data analysis adopted in previous studies suffers from serious heterogeneity bias problems. The empirical results obtained vary considerably among countries in the panel, thus highlighting the importance of using different measures of financial sector development rather than a single indicator. The evidence is rather inconclusive, although in most of the countries in the sample a positive relationship between financial sector development and private savings seems to hold. The empirical analysis also suggests that a change in government savings is offset by an opposite change in private savings in most of the countries in the panel, thus confirming the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis. Liquidity constraints do not seem to play a vital role in most of the African countries in the group, since the relevant coefficient is negative and significant in only a small group of countries
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

250. The Composition of Aid and the Fiscal Sector in an Aid-Recipient Economy: A Model

Author:
George Mavrotas and Bazoumana Ouattara
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Building on recent work in the fiscal response literature, the present paper develops a new fiscal response model, which, for the first time in the relevant literature, combines the ideas of both endogenous and disaggregated aid. We endogenized aid on the grounds that the recipient government has some influence over aid disbursements. Regarding aid disaggregation, it is argued that each of the main four categories of aid, namely project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid may exert different effects on the recipient economy. Furthermore, in case the preferences of the aid-recipient government are higher for some of these types of aid, neglecting aid disaggregation would lead to aggregation bias in the results and conclusions. The model adds an important new dimension to the vast aid effectiveness literature and calls for further modelling as well as empirical work in this promising research area so that significant policy implications can be derived.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Non-Governmental Organization, and Poverty