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57332. Cato Institute's 15th Annual Monetary Conference
- Author:
- Anna J. Schwartz, Stanley Fischer, Jerry L. Jordan, Leland B. Yeager, Francisco Gil-Diaz, Roberto Salinas-Leon, A. James Meigs, Lawrence Kudlow, William A. Niskanen, Michael Prowse, and Bert Ely
- Publication Date:
- 10-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- On Tuesday, October 15, 1997 the Cato Institute continued its 15 year tradition of exploring pressing and timely issues in international fiscal policy with its meeting Money and Capital Flows in a Global Economy. Speakers including Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Stanley Fisher; and the Bank of Mexico's Vice Governor, Francisco Gil-Díaz, convened to sort through the pressing issues relevant to global capital flows that face the world economy.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, North America, Mexico, and Nagasaki
57333. Mixed Signals
- Author:
- Peter A. Hall and Robert J. Franzese Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 09-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- Plans for European Monetary Union are based on the conventional postulate that increasing the independence of the central bank can reduce inflation without any real economic effects. However, the theoretical and empirical bases for this claim rest on models of the economy that make unrealistic information assumptions and omit institutional variables other than the central bank. When the signaling problems between the central bank or other actors in the political economy are considered, we find that the character of wage bargaining conditions the impact of central bank independence by rendering the signals between the bank and the bargainers more or less effective. Greater independence can reduce inflation without major employment effects where bargaining is coordinated, but it brings higher levels of unemployment where bargaining is uncoordinated. Thus, currency unions like the EMU may require higher levels of unemployment to control inflation than their proponents envisage; they will have costs as well as benefits, costs which will be distributed unevenly among and within the member nations based on the changes induced in the status of the bank and of wage coordination.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
57334. The Academic-Industrial Symbiosis in German Chemical Research, 1905-1939
- Author:
- Jeffrey Johnson
- Publication Date:
- 05-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- This paper discusses academic-industrial relations in German chemical research from 1905 to the eve of World War II, considering four periods: the decade before World War I, the years of total war and postwar crisis (1916-1923), the renewed crisis (1929-1933), and finally the Nazi years. These periods saw, respectively, the creation of academic-style research laboratories with substantial industrial support; the emergence of industrially-funded organizations to subsidize chemical literature and educational institutions (as well as research); reductions in support for these organizations and in subsidies for contracted academic collaborators, but the expansion of postdoctoral fellowships funded by I.G. Farben; and finally the politicization and militarization of the academic-industrial symbiosis under National Socialism.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
57335. Capacity Losses, Reconstruction and Unfinished Modernization: The Chemical Industry in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ)/GDR 1945-1965
- Author:
- Rainer Karlsch
- Publication Date:
- 03-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- Between the two World Wars, central Germany (the later GDR) was a preferred region for the foundation of new chemical plants. But after World War II, Soviet occupying troops dismantled 116 chemical plants in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. After the division of Germany became apparent, the Soviet Zone began a policy of self-sufficiency, but the chemical industry of the GDR dropped behind the West German chemical industry in the first postwar decade. After the "Sputnik shock" in 1957 and Khruschev's proclamation of an "economic race," the chemical industry in the Eastern Bloc moved into the center of the economic policy. In November 1958, the GDR enacted, as did the Soviet Union, a special chemical program. The main points of the program were the doubling of the chemical production within seven years, and an even greater increase in production of synthetic fibers and plastic. But the program failed. Decisive for the backsliding of the GDR's chemical industry was the uncoupling from the international division of labor and the integration into the East European economic zone. The GDR's Chemical Industry could find no real equivalent partner in Eastern Europe, and cooperation with the West was restricted for political reasons. The "opting for oil" of the Ulbricht-era became in the Honecker-era a policy of moving "back to coal." The maintaining of carbide chemistry finally ended in an energy crisis and an ecological fiasco.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Industrial Policy, and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
57336. Dominance through Cooperation - The Japan Strategy of I.G. Farben
- Author:
- Akira Kudo
- Publication Date:
- 03-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- This paper analyzes the Japan strategy of I.G. Farben in the inter-war period. It deals with export strategy as well as the licensing of technologies. It concludes that I.G. Farben suffered from a variety of difficulties in its Japan business, especially in the area of direct investment, and that, in spite of this, it succeeded in developing active business operations in Japan, especially in its exports of dyestuffs and nitrogenous fertilizer and in its licensing of the Haber-Bosch process for synthetic ammonia.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Europe, Israel, and East Asia
57337. The Dynamics of Industry Structure: The Chemical Industry in the US, Western Europe, and Japan in the 1980s
- Author:
- Ashish Arora and Alfonso Gambardella
- Publication Date:
- 03-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- This paper analyzes the evolution of the structure of the chemical industry in the US, Europe, and Japan. Differences in institutions, historical conditions, and resource endowments across the three regions reinforce differences in initial conditions. However, technological innovation, the internationalization of the industry, and the development and operation of markets, especially markets for technology, capital, raw materials, and corporate control, are powerful forces encouraging convergence. Convergence is less marked at the level of the firm than at the level of the industry, and is more marked between the industries of Western Europe and the United States.
- Topic:
- Globalization and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Europe
57338. Electoral Institutions, Cabinet Negotiations, and Budget Deficits within the European Union
- Author:
- Mark Hallenberg and Jürgen. von Hagen
- Publication Date:
- 02-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- Large government budget deficits are a concern in most industrialized countries. Two literatures in political economy argue that differences in political institutions explain much of the variation in the success of counties in their efforts to run small deficits. One group of authors considers how differences among electoral systems affect the size of budget deficits, while the second group concentrates on the governmental institutions which structure the formation of the yearly budget. Among the "electoral institutionalists", a consensus is beginning to emerge which treats proportional representation systems as a cause of high levels of public debt. In contrast, "fiscal institutionalists" argue that the presence of certain institutions in the decision-making process at the cabinet level, such as a strong finance minister or negotiated spending targets, lead to smaller deficits than in cases where such institutions are missing. We indicate that these two literatures complement one another. Electoral institutions matter because they restrict the type of budgetary institution at the governmental phase which a state has at its disposal. A strong finance minister is feasible in states where one-party governments are the norm, and such states usually have plurality electoral systems, while negotiated targets provide an alternative in multi-party governments. In multi-party governments, which are common in states with proportional representation, the coalition members are not willing to delegate to one actor the ability to monitor and punish the others for "defections" on the budget. The empirical section of the paper indicates a strong relationship between one-party governments and strong finance minister solutions within the European Union states on the one hand and multi-party or minority governments and targets on the other. Pooled time series regression results also support our contention that it is the presence or absence of one of these budgetary institutions, rather than the plurality/proportional representation dishotomy, which has the greatest impact on debt levels.
- Topic:
- International Organization and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
57339. A Strategy for Launching the Euro
- Author:
- Maurice Obstfeld
- Publication Date:
- 02-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- This paper studies the constraints placed by the Maastricht Treaty on the rates at which member currencies will exchange against the Euro at the start of stage 3 of economic and monetary union (EMU). The paper shows that the stage 3 bilateral conversion factors for EMU member currencies must correspond to closing market exchange rates as of December 31, 1998; furthermore, currency conversion rates into the Euro cannot be determined until that date. Moreover, official announcements about intended conversion factors will carry no credibility with markets, as market rates must be chosen over any prennounced rates according to the Treaty. Unless there is heavy official intervention in the runup to stage 3, EMU members' bilateral market rates will exhibit excessive volatility and may induce beggar-thy-neighbor policy behavior. On the other, hand, exchange-rate targeting may open the door to speculative currency crises. The only feasible solution appears a widely-publicized institutional reform to subjugate national central banks' policies entirely to the goal of intra-EMU exchange stability in the final months of stage 2.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
57340. European Integration and the Question of National Sovereignty
- Author:
- Lars Tragardh
- Publication Date:
- 01-1997
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
- Abstract:
- According to Ole Wæver, a leading student of the travails of the "New Europe," Western Europe is probably the part of the world that currently exhibits "the most advanced case of border fluidity and transgression of sovereignty." So dramatic are the processes underway that they have led otherwise prudent political scientists to turn to the trendy idiom of "postmodernity," meaning in the context of IR theory first and foremost "post-sovereignty." Thus John Ruggie has argued that what he sees as "the unbundling of territoriality" - i.e. the incipient decoupling of sovereignty and (nation)state - constitutes "nothing less than the emergence of the first truly postmodern international form." Similarly, Saskia Sassen notes that in the process of globalization the notion of a "national economy" has come to be replaced with that of a "global economy." As a consequence, she argues that while sovereignty and territory very much "remain key features of the international system," they have been "reconstituted and partly displaced onto other institutional areas outside the state." Thus, she concludes, "sovereignty has been decentered and territory partly de-nationalized."
- Topic:
- International Cooperation and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Europe