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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Publication Year within 25 Years

1731. Unlocking Public Entrepreneurship and Public Economies

Author:
Elinor Ostrom
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Unlocking human potential requires a rich network of institutional arrangements in both private and public spheres. Opening the private sphere to entrepreneurship and complex market organization is well understood as a key to increasing the level and quality of private goods available to consumers. Opening the public sphere to entrepreneurship and innovation at local, regional, and international levels is also a key to increasing the level and quality of public goods – e.g., peace, safety, and health – available to citizens. This paper reviews studies of urban service delivery that have repeatedly found communities of individuals who have self-organized to provide and co-produce surprisingly good local services. In addition to unlocking individual freedom, we need to unlock the public sector from rigid, top-down, hierarchical organization.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance

1732. Reforming from the Top - A Leaders' 20 Summit

Author:
Andrew F. Cooper, Ramesh Thakur, and John English
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This document is based on a forthcoming book that examines the feasibility of creating an institution known as the “L20”, a summit of twenty world leaders whose objective would be to break the international deadlock over some of the most pressing problems facing the world. In a climate of despondency over the achievements of existing global institutions such as the G7/8, the United Nations, the World Bank and others in dealing with these major issues—which include terrorism, HIV/AIDS, globalization and the “global apartheid” between the developed North and the developing South —this document asks what is new and unique about the L20 that might enable it to make the breakthrough where others are deemed to have failed. Is the L20 destined to be the defining institution of the 21st century, or is it doomed to remain merely an idea?
Topic:
Development, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and United Nations

1733. Can America Rebuild the Crumbling State of U.S.-Asia Relations?

Author:
Kishore Mahbubani
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Ambassador Mahbubani's address looked at previous American actions that built "reservoirs of good will" that ultimately assisted America in its ideological victory in the Cold War, especially in Asia: its sharing of the "American dream" with the world; its openness to foreign students; the international order built by the United States after 1945; and, finally, the stabilizing effects of its military presence in East Asia. However, the end of the Cold War has brought changes, and the gulf between America's self-perception and the way it is seen in the Islamic world, and China in particular, demonstrate the dwindling of those good will reservoirs.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, China, America, and East Asia

1734. Making Trade Work: Straight Talk on Jobs, Trade, and Adjustment

Author:
Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Conference Board
Abstract:
This report examines the benefits and challenges of developing an effective adjustment policy for workers who lose their jobs because of outsourcing or any other adverse effects of trade. The statement, approved by CED's Research and Policy Committee states, "The most important next step is to recognize that adjustment policy is vital to achieving free trade - which, in turn, is vital to the nation's economic future." The statement concludes that America needs to develop the national will to devise and fund an adjustment policy that will get to "yes" on trade.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, and Unemployment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1735. Theorising European Strategic Culture: Between Convergence and the Persistence of National Diversity

Author:
Christoph O. Meyer
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This working document focuses on the dynamics and scope of strategic culture–building in the context of the European Union's aspirations to develop a European security and defence policy (ESDP). It argues that the notion of strategic culture can be useful in assessing the context in which the ESDP will develop further as well as its performance in matters of conflict prevention, management and resolution. Nevertheless, in order to be conceptually and empirically useful, strategic culture needs to be disaggregated into collective norms about the means and ends of security policy, as well as its different carriers such as political elites, societies and armed forces. The paper examines the convergence thesis and suggests three theories to explain convergence informed by realist, constructivist and regional theories of political change. Yet the paper also argues that these forces can affect national strategic cultures differently, depending on the countries' geopolitical positions, the institutional stickiness of domestic ideas, values and norms, and the degree to which such norms are subject to partisan or societal contention. On this basis, the paper advances some hypotheses about the actual extension of the convergence process, which will need to be validated by further empirical study.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

1736. Economic Prospects for Kaliningrad: Between EU Enlargement and Russia's Integration into the World Economy

Author:
Evgeny Vinokurov
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The Kaliningrad oblast of Russia is currently an important focal point of discussions between the European Union and Russia. Although small in terms of geography and population, Kaliningrad has grown in importance due to the EU enlargement process. Since the break–up of the Soviet Union, the oblast has become an exclave of Russia, and it is now set to also become an enclave within the EU. This paper examines the state of Kaliningrad's economy and trade. The economic crisis that took place in Russia in the 1990s had severe consequences for Kaliningrad, as old patterns of production and trade were disrupted. Since 1999, however, the regional economy has grown with impressive speed. Kaliningrad's Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status has played a crucial role in determining its new patterns of production and trade specialisation. The paper argues that the SEZ regime has made the region's economic growth faster but also vulnerable.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

1737. Business Cycle Synchronisation in the Enlarged EU: Co-Movements in the New and Old Members

Author:
Zsolt Darvas and Gyorgy Szapary
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
It is generally recognised that countries wanting to join a monetary union should display the optimal currency area properties. One such property is the similarity of business cycles. We therefore undertook to analyse the synchronisation of business cycles between the EMU-12 and the eight new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), for which the next step to be considered in the integration process is entry into the EMU. In contrast to the usually analysed GDP and industrial production data, we extend our analysis to the major expenditure and sectoral components of GDP and use several measures of synchronisation. The main findings of the paper are that Hungary, Poland and Slovenia have achieved a high degree of synchronisation with EMU for GDP, industrial production and exports, but not for consumption and services. The other CEECs have achieved less or no synchronisation. There has been a significant increase in the synchronisation of GDP and also its major components in the EMU members since the start of the run-up to EMU. While this lends support for the existence of OCA endogeneity, it cannot be unambiguously attributed to it because there is also evidence of a world business cycle. Another finding is that the consumption-correlation puzzle remains, but its magnitude has greatly diminished in the EMU members, which is good news for common monetary policy.
Topic:
Economics, International Cooperation, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

1738. Searching for the Determinants of IT Investment: Panel Data Evidence on European Countries

Author:
Paolo Guerrieri, Cecilia Jona-Lasinio, and Stefano Manzocchi
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to identify the degree of information technology (IT) adoption in individual European economies and to analyse the determinants of IT investment among a panel of EU countries. We first analyse the dynamics of IT investment expenditure in 15 European countries from 1992 until 2001 and, by means of a cluster analysis, we draw a picture of IT diffusion in Europe. By clustering the European countries according to their shares of IT spending over GDP, we identify three fairly stable groups of fast, medium and slow adopters. We then build an econometric equation of the determinants of IT investment to use with panel data in estimations for five European economies over the period of 1980 to 2001. We consider aggregate IT investment as well as separate investment in hardware or software. Financial conditions, income growth and comparative advantage turn out to affect IT investment, but we find that the determinants of hardware investment only partially overlap with those of software.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe

1739. Can Europe deliver growth? The Sapir Report and Beyond

Author:
Jean-Pierre Casey and Jacques Pelkmans
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The SAPIR report (Sapir et al., 2003) is important for Europe. The justification of and search for higher economic growth in the EU ought to be on the very top of the EU agenda everywhere. Offering a very rich and useful survey of many issues related to European growth, or indeed the lack of it, the report's analysis is insightful and should be compulsory reading for policy-makers and political leaders. Sapir et al.'s policy recommendations are numerous and rightly touch economic as well as institutional aspects at EU level.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

1740. Rentier Shifts, Legitimacy, and the Social Sources of International Financial Hegemonie

Author:
Leonard Seabrooke
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
This paper provides an analysis of the domestic legitimation of 'financial reform nexuses' during two periods of English and US international financial hegemony. Following Max Weber's work on the state and finance, I argue that positive state intervention is required to legitimise a 'financial reform nexus' (the interrelation of credit, property, and tax politics) for people on below median income. I hypothesise that sufficient legitimation of a financial reform nexus provides the means to generate and sustain international financial hegemony, including the capacity to tailor the structure of the international financial order to suit the hegemon's interests. Conversely, if the hegemon is unable to sustain the legitimation of its domestic financial reform nexus-a choice that correlates with negative state intervention that supports a 'rentier shift'-its capacity to maintain international financial hegemony wanes. I draw from examples of the legitimation of financial reform nexuses in England (1900-15) and the US (1985-2000), linking domestic legitimation to consequent changes in the structure of the international financial order. Through this analysis of the social sources of English and US international financial hegemonies, I differentiate the English 'international rentier economy' from the US 'international creditor economy'. Finally, I stress the importance of positive state intervention for the legitimation of the US financial reform nexus.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
England