International Economics Commons^™

From Economic Crisis To Reform: Imf Programs In Latin America And Eastern Europe By Grigore Pop-Eleches (Book Review), Aleksandra Sznajder Lee

Political Science Faculty Publications

Grigore Pop-Eleches’s book on the interaction of international and domestic determinants of IMF-style reforms in developing countries makes a significant contribution to international and comparative political economy literature. His effort to capture the dynamics of the contentious and complex relationship between the IMF and developing countries/emerging markets inLatin AmericaandEastern Europerepresents mid-range theorizing at its best. The author combines insights from international and comparative political economy literatures to pursue complementary questions. From the international effect perspective: what role do economic crises play in the initiation and implementation of IMF-backed economic reform? Is the IMF impartial in its policy and financial support …

A Nation In Dilemma, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

following the Global financial Crisis there were economic collapses in all the world. Sudan officials claimed that the country was immune from that epidemic. Such declaration were truly weird as it has been deeply affected from the first instant. That article presented many questions about the economic and social conditions and the eminent southern Sudan, Darfur crises.

Some Remarks On The Effects Of Active Labour Market Policies In Post-Transition, Joanna Tyrowicz, Piotr Wojcik

Joanna Tyrowicz

Social cohesion is the principal goal behind active labour market policies (ALMPs), including those financed at supra-national level, like the European Social Fund. In this paper we use NUTS4 level data on the local labour market dynamics in an attempt to verify direct and indirect effects of ALMPs. We use data for 2000-2007 for Poland, while this period comprised both stark increases and reductions in the unemployment rates. Over this time also the financing of ALMPs has been increased considerably, transforming both to higher intensity of ALMPs (wider coverage) and higher extensiveness of these activities (increase in per treatment cost). …

Are Credit Unions In Ecuador Achieving Economies Of Scale?, Nick A. Marchio

Economics Honors Projects

This study tests the assertion that membership growth in credit unions is constrained by their unique structural features, such as their non-profit mission and member-based ownership. Although these features enhance inclusiveness, existing theory suggest that they work against efficiency when membership grows too diffuse. To address this issue, this study uses a model that takes into account existing theory on constrained-optimization in credit unions and theory on the adverse effects of diffuse ownership. Using data on 36 public credit unions in Ecuador, the empirical analysis finds evidence that credit unions can achieve economies of scale despite their problematic structural features. …

The Janjaweed And The Armed Movements Of Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The emergence of the Janjaweed as an armed force working with the government to suppress rebellions in Darfur region outraged the international community. They were marked by brutality, destruction, burning, killings and mass rapes. They were also described as Arabs. However, that was not the whole picture, no one observed the living conditions of the Arabs or how were they victims also as the other inhabitants of Darfur. No one also observed that they were used by the Ingaz government to execute the dirty work and bear the consequences. The Arab tribes however, also had other thoughts as they realized …

Regulatory Harmonisation And Its Impact On Trade In Services, Henk Lm Kox

Henk LM Kox

* Impact of domestic regulation on volume of bilateral services trade * Impact domestic regulation on choice between FDI and exports (GATS modes 3 and 1)

Why Economic Performance Has Differed Between Brazil And China? A Comparative Analysis Of Brazilian And Chinese Macroeconomic Policy, Fernando Ferrari-Filho, Anthony Petros Spanakos

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper addresses a specific question: why has China grown so rapidly and Brazil not? To answer this question, it (i) establishes the basis for comparison between China and Brazil by contextualizing these countries within the BRICs concept, and (ii) presents a comparative analysis of Brazilian and Chinese reforms focusing only on the issue of macroeconomic policy, especially the monetary and exchange rate regimes, and its effect on growth.

What Is Special In Services Internationalisation?, Henk Lm Kox

Henk LM Kox

+ Complex services definition and services trade data + What is special in services internationalisation? + Complementarity versus substitution between supply modes + The puzzle of falling export costs and increasing preference for mode-3 supply + impact of market structure on extensive and intensive export margin + impact of bilateral policy differences on mode choice

Assessing The Viability Of Investment In Sudan (1979-2008), Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Most developing and underdeveloped countries beside Sudan suffer from low levels of income in addition to the low savings that are result from the lack of public savings channels. Hence, investments depend on the individuals' abilities on savings where they are major motivating vehicle for economic activity due to its direct correlation with capital accumulation process that increases the productive capacity for the national economy and help to create job opportunities and achieving economic development. Subsequently, the importance of the investment comes from the effective role that can be practiced on the national product. Currently, Sudan endures severe economic crisis …

Rogue Counrty And Potential Cooperation: The United States And Sudan And Feasible Economic Partnership, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The United States declared Sudan as a rogue country in 1995 due to many political considerations. It has imposed many economic and political sanctions against it since that time which represented hindrance to development and resulted in economic crises. Oil explorations started long time by Total Oil Company and resumed by Chevron that halted her activities in Sudan after the flaring of the civil war between the Northern and Southern parts of the country. That work was resumed in 1996 by Chinese companies and was crowned by success and commercial production in 1999. Although the economic situations of Sudan improved …

Who Cries For Sudan: من الذي يرثي السودان, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The institutional collapse in Sudan started long time ago. However, it has accelerator in the past years since Nivasha Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Darfur war.

How Much Es In Csr, Anna Sienicka, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the problem of CSR in the context of social economy development in New Member States at the example of Poland. We explore the opportunities for companies to engage into socially beneficial undertakings with direct rather than indirect economic advantages. Namely, we demonstrate to what extent currently existing legal regulations enable bridging the world of civil society institutions with corporate world.

We suggest that even without specialized instruments adopted and implemented by CEECs governments, innova- tive inclusion solutions developed by civil society organizations may actually provide suficient incentives for companies in new member states to develop CSR. We …

Exogenous Coalition Formation In The E-Marketplace Based On Geographical Proximity, Tomasz Michalak, Joanna Tyrowicz, Peter Mcburney, Michael Wooldridge

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper considers a model for exogenous coalition formation in e-marketplaces. Using its informational advantage, an e-retailer creates coalitions of customers based on geographical proximity. Most of the literature regards this process as endogenous: a coalition leader among the buyers bundles eventual purchases together in order to obtain a better bargaining position. In contrast – and in response to what is typically observed in business practice – we analyse a situation in which an existing e-retailer exogenously forms customers’ coalitions. Results of this study are highly encouraging. Namely, we demonstrate that even under highly imperfect warehouse management schemes leading to …

Unemployment Convergence In Transition, Joanna Tyrowicz, Piotr Wojcik

Joanna Tyrowicz

In this paper an attempt is made to inquire the dynamics of regional unemployment rates in transition economies. We use policy relevant NUTS4 unemployment rates for transition economies characterised by both relatively intense (Poland, Slovaka) and relatively mild labour market hardships (Czech Republic). We apply diverse analytical techniques to seek traces of convergence, including beta- and sigma-convergence as well as time-series approach.

Transition economies typically experienced rapid growth of the unemployment rates due to profound restructuring. Naturally, these processes affected local labour markets asymmetrically, since regions were diversified with respect to industry composition and economic outlooks. Results in each of …

Foreign Debt And Domestic Savings In Developing Countries, Luke Okafor, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the question of potential causality between foreign debt and domestic savings in the context of developing countries. Literature provides evidence in as far as foreign debt and development is concerned, but little attention was given so far to internal potential for capital formation. We provide a theoretical framework and test its relevance using 1975-2004 data for two groups of countries: sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America with the Caribbean. With the use of instrumental variables we find negative impact of foreign debt on domestic savings especially in the long run. The results are not susceptible to the choice …

Is The Impact Really That High? The Effect Of Fdi In Transition, Jan Hagemejer, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

Literature is not clear on the effect of FDI on the economic performance in hosting countries. The analysed eects include productivity, propensity to export, access to financial markets, etc. Although foreign subsidiaries usually perform better than the average of the hosting economies, sometimes the selection eect is found to be considerable. The analysed eects In this paper we use a unique dataset based on accounting annual reports to the statistical authorities by all medium and large Polish enterprises over a period 1997-2006. We apply a propensity score matching technique to disentangle the effect of self-selection and FDI entry (treatment). We …

When Eastern Labour Markets Enter Western Europe - Ceecs Labour Market Institutions Upon Euro Zone Accession, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper reviews the literature on the labour market institutions in European Union Member States in the context of monetary integration. Traditionally, labour markets are a key concept in the optimal currency area theory, playing the role of the only accommodation mechanism of asymmetric shocks after the monetary unification. There are several theoretical frameworks linking the institutional design of the labour market to the potential effectiveness of monetary policy in the context of currency areas. Many empirical studies addressed these issues too, yielding important policy implications for labour market reforms in the process of monetary unification. However, there seem to …

Nonlinear Stochastic Convergence Analysis Of Regional Unemployment Rates In Poland, Joanna Tyrowicz, Piotr Wojcik

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper analyzes convergence of unemployment rates in Poland at NUTS4 level by testing nonlinear convergence, applying the modified KSS-CHLL for each pair of territorial units. The results suggest that actually the convergence is a rare phenomenon and occurs only in 1916 cases out of potential over 70 000 combinations. This paper inquires what systematic reasons contribute to this phenomenon.

There are some circumstances under which unemployment convergence should be more awaited than in the others. These include sharing a higher level territorial authority, experiencing similar labour market hardship or sharing the same structural characteristics. For each of these three …

Blame No One? Investment Decisions Of The Polish Stock-Listed Companies, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

It is often raised that enterprises in transition countries are cursed with credit constraints and insufficient capital. Regardless of whether this belief holds for the whole of the economy, the Agency Theory provides a useful both theoretical and empirical framework helping to verify the efficiency of investment decisions in case of companies for which 'objective' future cash-flow valuation is available. The assertion of managerial discretion has been verified empirically for many different countries with the analytical background provided by user cost of capital and Tobin's Q theories. This paper’s contribution is the analysis of the Polish stock-listed companies behavior with …

Labour Market Racial Discrimination In South Africa Revisited, Joanna Tyrowicz, Maciej Szelewicki

Joanna Tyrowicz

Discrimination is a significant issue in labour market economics across developed as well as developing countries. In this paper we inquire the actual size of wage discrimination in the Republic of Soutn Africa, accounting for large differences in endowments. We apply the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition as well as propensity score matching to adequately determine the size of the pay gap. Although the size of the absolute racial pay gap is enormous, amounting for more than 500%, the actual estimated effect non-attributable to other factors ranges between 45%-55%. This estimator however assumes homogenous discrimination across the wage distribution, while data suggest that …

(In)Efficiency Of Matching - The Case Of A Post-Transition Economy, Joanna Tyrowicz, Tomasz Jeruzalski

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the question of efficiency in job placement using regional data for Polish regions (policy relevant NUTS 4 level) over the time span of 2000-2008. Using a unique data set we estimate the matching function using stochastic frontier as well as difference-in-difference estimators. We use also managed to combine this unique data set with another unique source of data on the ALMPs

coverage, unemployment structure across time and regions as well as the individual capacity of local labour offices. We use these data to explain the exceptional variation in estimated efficiency scores.

Our findings suggest that matching abilities …

Competition For Fdi With Vintage Investment And Agglomeration Advantages, Kai A. Konrad, Dan Kovenock

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Countries compete for new FDI investment, whereas stocks of FDI generate agglomeration benefits and are potentially subject to extortionary taxation. We study the interaction between these aspects in a simple vintage capital framework with discrete time and an infinite horizon, focussing on Markov perfect equilibrium. We show that the equilibrium taxation destabilizes agglomeration advantages. The agglomeration advantage is valuable, but is exploited in the short run. The tax revenue in the equilibrium is substantial, and higher on “old” FDI than on “new” FDI, even though countries are not allowed to use discriminatory taxation. If countries can provide fiscal incentives for …

Financial Liberalization And International Capital Flows, Nancy Neiman Auerbach, Yoonmin Kim, Thana Sompornserm

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

It is interesting that domestic and international financial liberalization are among the most often cited causes of the 1997–98 crisis. Liberalization in the Asian crisis countries took place prior to the crisis as did large capital inflows, many of which reversed during the crisis in the classic pattern of capital flow bonanzas ending in sudden stops (Calvo, Izquierdo, and Mejía 2008; Reinhart and Reinhart 2008; Sula and Willett 2009). Furthermore, China and India, with much less general financial liberalization and a continuing array of capital controls, were little hit by the crisis. Malaysia’s experiment with increasing capital controls during the …

Flying Passports Of Convenience, Karl T. Muth

Karl T Muth

This paper proposes an economic alternative to the legal construct of citizenship that currently dominates international law.