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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Economics
The Linkages Between Fdi And Domestic Investment: Unravelling The Developmental Impact Of Foreign Investment, Leonce Ndikumana, Sher Verick
The Linkages Between Fdi And Domestic Investment: Unravelling The Developmental Impact Of Foreign Investment, Leonce Ndikumana, Sher Verick
Economics Department Working Paper Series
Despite the recent increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) to African countries, these resources have not had a meaningful impact on economic development because of limited effects on domestic factor markets, especially domestic investment and employment. In this context, this study analyses the two-way linkages between FDI and domestic investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results suggest that firstly, FDI crowds in domestic investment, and secondly, countries will gain much from measures aimed at improving the domestic investment climate. Moreover, there are alternatives to resource endowments as a means of attracting foreign investment to nonresource rich countries.
Reserves Accumulation In African Countries: Sources, Motivations, And Effects, Adam Elhiraika, Léonce Ndikumana
Reserves Accumulation In African Countries: Sources, Motivations, And Effects, Adam Elhiraika, Léonce Ndikumana
Economics Department Working Paper Series
African countries have accumulated substantial foreign currency reserves in recent years, mostly from higher commodity exports as well as aid flows. In the context of macroeconomic stabilization, which remains at the forefront of national economic policymaking and aid conditionality, African countries are induced to hold reserves to allow monetary authorities to intervene in markets to control the exchange rate and inflation. Adequate reserves also allow the country to borrow from abroad and to hedge against instability and uncertainty of external capital flows. However, reserve accumulation can have high economic and social costs, including a high opportunity cost emanating from low …
Information And Communications Technologies, Coordination And Control, And The Distribution Of Income, Frederick Guy, Peter Skott
Information And Communications Technologies, Coordination And Control, And The Distribution Of Income, Frederick Guy, Peter Skott
Economics Department Working Paper Series
We consider the links between information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the distribution of income, as mediated by problems of coordination and control within organizations. In the large corporations of the mid-twentieth century, a highly developed division of labor was coordinated and controlled with the aid of relatively underdeveloped ICTs. This created a situation in which the options of top management were constrained while the individual and collective power of lower paid workers was enhanced. Only in the late twentieth century, when the microprocessor and related technologies transformed the information systems of organizations, did improvements in the tools of coordination …
Macroeconomic Implications Of Financialization, Peter Skott, Soon Ryoo
Macroeconomic Implications Of Financialization, Peter Skott, Soon Ryoo
Economics Department Working Paper Series
A growing literature suggests that ‘financialization’ may weaken the performance of non-financial corporations and constrain the growth of aggregate demand. This paper evaluates (some of) the claims that have been made using two alternative approaches (one derived from Skott (1981, 1988, 1989) and one from Lavoie and Godley (2001-2002)) and two different settings (a labor-constrained setting and a dual-economy setting). All models are in a structuralist / post Keynesian tradition and pay explicit attention to financial stock-flow relations. The results are insensitive to the precise specification of household saving behavior but depend critically on the labor market assumptions (labor-constrained vs. …
Public Finance, Aid, And Post-Conflict Recovery, James K. Boyce
Public Finance, Aid, And Post-Conflict Recovery, James K. Boyce
Economics Department Working Paper Series
In the wake of violent conflict, a key element of building a durable peace is building a state with the ability to collect and manage public resources. To implement peace accords and provide public services, the government must be able to collect revenue, allocate resources, and manage expenditure in a manner that is regarded by its citizens as effective and equitable. This paper addresses eight key issues related to this challenge. The first four pertain to resource mobilization: (i) How should distributional impacts enter into revenue policies? (ii) How can postwar external assistance do more to prime the pump of …
The Class Analysis Of Households Extended: Children, Fathers, And Family Budgets, Stephen Resnick, Richard Wolff
The Class Analysis Of Households Extended: Children, Fathers, And Family Budgets, Stephen Resnick, Richard Wolff
Economics Department Working Paper Series
No abstract provided.
The Growth Effects Of Openness To Trade And The Role Of Institutions: New Evidence From African Countries, Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, Léonce Ndikumana
The Growth Effects Of Openness To Trade And The Role Of Institutions: New Evidence From African Countries, Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, Léonce Ndikumana
Economics Department Working Paper Series
In this paper, we explore the argument that one of the causes for the limited growth effects of trade openness in Africa may be the weakness of institutions. We also control for several major factors and, in particular, for export diversification, using a newly developed dataset on Africa. Results from Arellano- Bond GMM estimations on panel data from African countries show that institutions play an important role in enhancing the growth effects of trade. Moreover, we find that the joint effect of institutions and trade has a U-shape, suggesting that as openness to trade reaches high levels, institutions play a …
Integration, Informalization, And Income Inequality In Developing Countries: Some General Equilibrium Explorations In Light Of Accumulating Evidence, Arslan Razmi
Economics Department Working Paper Series
By focusing on structural features within developing economies, this paper attempts to reconcile developments observed in many post-liberalization countries with the help of modified versions of standard trade theory factor endowment models. The common thread generating most of our interesting results is the presence of sectors that are even more labor-intensive than those producing traded goods. Measures undertaken to enhance public sector efficiency and attract investment in an import-intensive export sector may increase rental-wage and skilled- unskilled wage gaps, contra the predictions of the simple Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model. Moreover, increasing income inequality can exist side-by-side with informalization of the economy. The …
Beyond Dualism: Multisegmented Labor Markets In Ghana, James Heintz, Fabian Slonimczyk
Beyond Dualism: Multisegmented Labor Markets In Ghana, James Heintz, Fabian Slonimczyk
Economics Department Working Paper Series
Using estimates of earnings functions in Ghana, this paper examines patterns of labor market segmentation with regard to formal and informal employment. Persistent earnings differentials are used as indicators of limited mobility across segments of the employed labor force. We find evidence of labor market segmentation between formal and informal employment and between different categories of informal employment which cannot be fully explained by human capital, physical asset, or credit market variables. We argue that dualist labor market models may not be appropriate for understanding employment dynamics in all circumstances and an approach that recognizes the multi-segmented character of labor …
Power, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis
Power, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis
Economics Department Working Paper Series
We consider the exercise of power in competitive markets for goods, labour and credit. We offer a definition of power and show that if contracts are incomplete it may be exercised either in Pareto-improving ways or to the disadvantage of those without power. Contrasting conceptions of power including bargaining power, market power, and consumer sovereignty are considered. Because the exercise of power may alter prices and other aspects of exchanges, abstracting from power may miss essential aspects of an economy. The political aspect of private exchanges challenges conventional ideas about the appropriate roles of market and political competition in ensuring …
Power, Productivity And Profits, Frederick Guy, Peter Skott
Power, Productivity And Profits, Frederick Guy, Peter Skott
Economics Department Working Paper Series
New information and communication technologies, we argue, have been .power- biased.: in many industries they have allowed firms to monitor workers more closely, thus reducing the power of these workers. An efficiency wage model shows that .power- biased technical change’ in this sense may generate rising inequality accompanied by an increase in both unemployment and work intensity.
A Multi-Agent Systems Approach To Microeconomic Foundations Of Macro, Bill Gibson
A Multi-Agent Systems Approach To Microeconomic Foundations Of Macro, Bill Gibson
Economics Department Working Paper Series
This paper is part of a broader project that attempts to generate microfoundations for macroeconomics as an emergent property of complex systems. The multi-agents systems approach is seen to produce realistic macro properties from a primitive set of agents that search for satisfactory activities, “jobs”, in an informationally constrained, computationally noisy environment. There is frictional and structural unemployment, inflation, excess capacity, financial instability along with the possibility of relatively smooth expansion. There is no Phillips curve but an inegalitarian distribution of income emerges as fundamental property of the system.