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Full-Text Articles in International Economics

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla Oct 2015

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Sarosh Kuruvilla

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …


Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla Apr 2015

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Eli D Friedman

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …


Getting Through The Hard Times Together? Chinese Workers And Unions Respond To The Economic Crisis, Eli D. Friedman Apr 2015

Getting Through The Hard Times Together? Chinese Workers And Unions Respond To The Economic Crisis, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

How do post-socialist unions respond to market crisis? And what are the implications of this response for labor representation? Drawing on literature on post-socialist labor and union democracy, I argue that economic crisis affects not just labor – capital and labor – state relations, but also the relationship between union representatives and workers. Such a dynamic is highlighted by an empirical account of the divergent activities of workers and All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) unions in China following the economic crisis of 2008. While the union responded to mass unemployment with an administrative and policy-oriented strategy, workers took to …


Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman Apr 2015

Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Is there a labour movement in China? This contribution argues that China does not have a labour movement, but that contestation between workers, state and capital is best characterized as a form of ‘alienated politics’. Widespread worker resistance is highly effective at the level of the firm be-cause of its ability to inflict losses on capital and disrupt public order. But authoritarian politics in China prevent workers from formulating political demands. Despite the spectacular repressive capacity of the state, the central government has in fact responded to highly localized resistance by passing generally pro-labour legislation over the past decade. The …


Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman Apr 2015

Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi's theory of the countermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined "moments": the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus …


The Power Of The Brics In World Trade And Growth, Analysing The Macroeconomic Impacts Within And Across The Bloc, Ahmed Khalid Apr 2015

The Power Of The Brics In World Trade And Growth, Analysing The Macroeconomic Impacts Within And Across The Bloc, Ahmed Khalid

Ahmed Khalid

Extract: The BRICS is a composition of five emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The five countries together represent about 42 per cent of the world's population, over 24 per cent of all land, and about 20 per cent of the world's total GDP, contributing a combined nominal GDP of more than US$14.9 trillion. Over the past decade trade between the BRICS and other regions such as North America, the EU and Japan has surpassed the US$2 trillion mark. Trade within the BRICS countries is growing at an average of 28 per cent per annum, reaching more …


The Sino-Centric Fault-Lines Of Turkish Geopolitics, Oğuz Dilek Dr. Apr 2013

The Sino-Centric Fault-Lines Of Turkish Geopolitics, Oğuz Dilek Dr.

Oğuz Dilek Dr.

Turkey has recently started to situate its security into a new geographical expanse with borders inching closer to the emerging China-centered world, and away from the European Peninsula. China by forming voluminous trade links with energy-rich Middle Eastern and Caucasian states has made the economic geography around Turkey’s borders appealing more than ever. Two outcomes lying face-to-face transpired from this new neighborhood. First, Turkey now enjoys an economic shelter that provides additional export outlets and foreign financial resources at a time of great distress in the West. Second, now Turkey’s material wellbeing is contingent on countries, such as Russia and …


Intra-Provincial Inequalities And Economic Growth In China, Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna Tyrowicz, Jacek Kochanowicz Jan 2010

Intra-Provincial Inequalities And Economic Growth In China, Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna Tyrowicz, Jacek Kochanowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the problem of inequalities in China. It is specifically focused on analyzing the effects of intra-provincial disparities on the development of the 28 mainland provinces in China. Intra-provincial inequalities, as measured by Theil index, seem positively related to growth, albeit the results are only convincing for the coastal provinces. A case by case analysis, however, suggests highly diversified patterns, including linear or an inverted u-shape for fastest growing coastal provinces and virtually no relationship for the majority of regions. The results corroborate some earlier raised questions about actual policy-making standards in China.


The Effect Of A Collective Exchange Rate Adjustment On East Asian Exports, Mizanur Rahman, Kaliappa P. Kalirajan Nov 2009

The Effect Of A Collective Exchange Rate Adjustment On East Asian Exports, Mizanur Rahman, Kaliappa P. Kalirajan

Mizanur Rahman

This paper estimates long-run effects of a collective exchange rate adjustment on multilateral exports from China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The findings show that a 1 percent generalized appreciation of all East Asian exchange rates would reduce East Asian exports by about 3 per cent.


The Impact Of Real Exchange Rate Flexibility On East Asian Exports, Mizanur Rahman Jul 2009

The Impact Of Real Exchange Rate Flexibility On East Asian Exports, Mizanur Rahman

Mizanur Rahman

This paper estimates the impact of intra-regional real exchange rate flexibility on East Asian exports. The hypothesis is that the impact would be negative for East Asian countries regardless of their exchange rate regimes. The results validate the hypothesis. The findings show that for Chinese exports the long-run effect is as much as that of a real appreciation of renminbi. By contrast, for Japanese exports the effect is three times larger than that of a real appreciation of the yen. The findings imply that a regional currency basket mechanism would lessen the adverse effect of exchange rate flexibility and engineer …


The Outlook For U.S. – China Textile And Apparel Trade In 2009: From The Trade Policy Perspective, Sheng Lu Dec 2008

The Outlook For U.S. – China Textile And Apparel Trade In 2009: From The Trade Policy Perspective, Sheng Lu

Sheng Lu

Despite the low ebb in trade volume, the year 2009 could be a golden opportunity for the textile and apparel industry both in the United States and China to reform and change. The U.S. textile industry at present urgently needs to figure out some new business models and explore more overseas markets to meet the challenges of lessening domestic demand. On the other hand, the task for the Chinese is to further reduce reliance on exports while absorbing the production capacity of the industry by stimulating more domestic consumption. With the economic interests between the U.S. and Chinese textile and …