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141. How External Intervention Made the Sovereign State

Author:
Ja Ian Chong
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security Studies
Institution:
Security Studies
Abstract:
From post-World War II decolonization to establishing order in war-torn polities today, external intervention can play an important role in fostering sovereign statehood in weak states. Much attention in this regard emphasizes local reactions to outside pressures. This article augments these perspectives by drawing attention to ways that foreign actors may affect the development of sovereignty through their efforts to work with various domestic groups. Structured comparisons of China and Indonesia during the early to mid-twentieth century suggest that active external intercession into domestic politics can collectively help to shape when and how sovereignty develops. As these are least likely cases for intervention to affect sovereign state making, the importance of foreign actors indicates a need to reconceptualize the effects of outside influences on sovereignty creation more broadly.
Topic:
Development and War
Political Geography:
China and Indonesia

142. The Leadership Secrets of Bismarck

Author:
Michael Bernhard
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
China is hardly the first great power to make authoritarian development look attractive. As Jonathan Steinberg's new biography of Bismarck shows, Wilhelmine Germany did it with ease. But can even successful nondemocratic political systems thrive and evolve peacefully over the long run? The answer depends on whether authoritarian elites can tolerate sharing power.
Topic:
Development and Politics
Political Geography:
China, Germany, and Peru

143. An Evaluation of Overseas Oil Investment Projects Under Uncertainty Using a Real Options Based Simulation Model

Author:
ZhongXiang Zhang, Lei Zhu, and Ying Fan
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
This paper applies real options theory to establish an overseas oil investment evaluation model that is based on Monte Carlo simulation and is solved by the Least Squares Monte-Carlo method. To better reflect the reality of overseas oil investment, the model has incorporated not only the uncertainties of oil price and investment cost but also the uncertainties of exchange rate and investment environment. These unique features have enabled the model to be best equipped to evaluate the value of oil overseas investment projects of three oil field sizes (large, medium, small) and under different resource tax systems (royalty tax and production sharing contracts). In the empirical setting, China was selected as an investor country and Indonesia as an investee country as a case study. The results show that the investment risks and project values of small sized oil fields are more sensitive to changes in the uncertainty factors than the large and medium sized oil fields. Furthermore, among the uncertainty factors considered in the model, the investment risk of overseas oil investment may be underestimated if no consideration is given of the impacts of exchange rate and investment environment. Finally, as there is an important tradeoff between oil resource investee country and overseas oil investor, in medium and small sized oil investment negotiation the oil company should try to increase the cost oil limit in production sharing contract and avoid the term of a windfall profits tax to reduce the investment risk of overseas oil fields.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Oil
Political Geography:
China, Indonesia, and Israel

144. Do Chinese Really Save Too Much? Aspects from Total Factor Productivity Growth in China since 1952

Author:
Qiong Zhang and Chong-En Bai
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
China's economic growth over the past three decades is unprecedented. Although this growth is commonly attributed to a high domestic savings rate among “thrifty” Chinese, savings alone cannot promote economic growth unless productivity has continuously grown for such a long period. This article uses a one-sector, neoclassical growth model to calibrate the economy to Chinese data since 1952 and finds that measuring changes in total factor productivity between 1952 and 2005 can well capture the secular movements in the Chinese savings rate. Far from supporting the widespread belief that China's savings rate is too high, this article argues that even thrifty Chinese “under-saved” for most of the years during this period; furthermore, the fiscal reforms of 1983 and 1985 further suppressed saving behavior, especially China's economic growth over the past three decades is unprecedented. Although this growth is commonly attributed to a high domestic savings rate among “thrifty” Chinese, savings alone cannot promote economic growth unless productivity has continuously grown for such a long period. This article uses a one-sector, neoclassical growth model to calibrate the economy to Chinese data since 1952 and finds that measuring changes in total factor productivity between 1952 and 2005 can well capture the secular movements in the Chinese savings rate. Far from supporting the widespread belief that China's savings rate is too high, this article argues that even thrifty Chinese “under-saved” for most of the years during this period; furthermore, the fiscal reforms of 1983 and 1985 further suppressed saving behavior, especially when initially implemented. In presenting such findings, this article at least partly solves the so-called “Chinese savings puzzle.”
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
China

145. China's Soft Power in the Information Age: Think Again

Author:
Shanthi Kalathil
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
In recent years, many have argued that China has been largely successful at using soft power to bolster its rise to great power status. This essay suggests that the Chinese government—and other authoritarian states—have fundamentally misread the nature of the relationship between soft power and the globally networked, information-rich environment, thus misunderstanding how soft power is accumulated. Because of this, their efforts at deploying soft power over the long term are not likely to be as effective as conventional wisdom would make them out to be.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Diplomacy, Globalization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Israel

146. West is Best?

Author:
Timur Kuran
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
A new book by Ian Morris tracks the development of the East and the West over the millennia. But methodological problems lead him to miss the crucial differences between modern and premodern life -- and understate what is really keeping the West ahead.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and History
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Middle East

147. Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change: Implications for Adaptation Assistance

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper attempts a comprehensive accounting of climate change vulnerability for 233 states, ranging in size from China to Tokelau. Using the most recent evidence, it develops risk indicators for three critical problems: increasing weather-related disasters, sea-level rise, and loss of agricultural productivity. The paper embeds these indicators in a methodology for cost-effective allocation of adaptation assistance. The methodology can be applied easily and consistently to all 233 states and all three problems, or to any subset that may be of interest to particular donors. Institutional perspectives and priorities differ; the paper develops resource allocation formulas for three cases: (1) potential climate impacts alone, as measured by the three indicators; (2) case 1 adjusted for differential country vulnerability, which is affected by economic development and governance; and (3) case 2 adjusted for donor concerns related to project economics: intercountry differences in project unit costs and probabilities of project success. The paper is accompanied by an Excel database with complete data for all 233 countries. It provides two illustrative applications of the database and methodology: assistance for adaptation to sea level rise by the 20 island states that are both small and poor and general assistance to all low-income countries for adaptation to extreme weather changes, sea-level rise, and agricultural productivity loss.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
China

148. The Post-Washington Consensus: Development after the Crisis

Author:
Francis Fukuyama and Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A clear shift in the development agenda is underway. Traditionally, an agenda generated in the developed world was implemented in—and, indeed, often imposed on—the developing world. The United States, Europe, and Japan will continue to be significant sources of economic resources and ideas, but the emerging markets will become significant players. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa will be both donors and recipients of resources for development and of best practices for how to use them. In fact, development has never been something that the rich bestowed on the poor but rather something the poor achieved for themselves. It appears that the Western powers are finally waking up to this truth in light of a financial crisis that, for them, is by no means over.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, India, South Africa, and Brazil

149. Functional Distribution of Income and Economic Growth in the Chinese Economy, 1978-2007

Author:
Ricardo Molero Simarro
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper seeks to analyse the relationship between functional distribution of income, aggregate demand and growth in Chinese reform economy. For this purpose the Bhaduri-Marglin Model is used, stating the theoretical possibility of both profit-led and wage- led growth regimes. Subsequently, the principal literature on the evolution of factor‟s shares in China is reviewed. The statistical series for the period 1978-2007 are reconstructed in order to carry out our analysis of the relations between capital‟s share and investment, on one hand; and labour‟s share and consumption, on the other. Supported by the Model‟s preliminary estimations, it is argued that Chinese growth has been largely profit-driven. Finally, the implications are presented vis-a-vis concerning Chinese economic prospects.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Reform, and Investment
Political Geography:
China and Asia

150. Technologies, Rules, and Progress: The Case for Charter Cities

Author:
Paul Romer
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Non-resident fellow Paul Romer argues that the principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies. Rather it will come from our limited capacity to discover and implement new rules—new ideas about how to structure interactions among people, such as land titles, patents, and social norms. The central task of reducing global poverty is to find ways for developing countries to adopt new rules that are known to work better than the ones they have. Economists who advise leaders on policy have often overlooked why some good rules get adopted and others do not. But a better understanding of rules-that-change-rules could lead to breakthrough thinking about development policy. The special rules of China's Special Economic Zones, where new cities like Shenzhen could grow up, created small laboratories through which rules from Hong Kong spread to the mainland, helping unleash the largest and fastest reduction of poverty on record. Romer concludes that a new type of development policy would be to voluntarily charter new cities for the purpose of changing rules, using a range of new legal and political structures analogous to the ones that made Hong Kong and Shenzhen possible. The essay is adapted from a talk presented in Mexico City on October 2009, at the conference, “Challenges and Strategies for Promoting Economic Growth,” organized by Banco de México.
Topic:
Development, Poverty, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen