International Economics Commons^™

World Bank, Agriculture And Policy: A Case Study In Ghana And Ethiopia, Steven Margel

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis tests the effectiveness of the World Bank’s agricultural-aid policy by examining case studies in Ghana and Ethiopia in the period of 2000-2010. Each study examines the policy context, project/program success, overall human development results, and threats to sustainability, of agricultural aid. The primary hypothesis of the paper is that participatory processes and inclusive institutions will prove to be decisive factors. Each case is tested against this political view of aid in addition to three additional images (Destructive, Ineffective, Effective Technical), in order to ensure a comprehensive review.

The Ghana case showed a lack of participation in forming the …

Is China The Answer? The Effect Of Chinese Engagement On Economic And Human Development In Africa, Ralph Achacoso

Dissertations and Theses

Though the relationship between China and Africa dates back to the 1950s, China's ever-increasing demand for energy sources has garnered newfound attention from scholars, coinciding with the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy over the last fifteen years. In order to fuel its economic machine, China has turned to Africa, a resource-rich continent and holder of one-third of the world's oil deposits. Taking a unique approach that blurs the line between aid, trade, and investment, China‘s search for resource security has injected new life into Africa‘s developmental efforts. To Africa's benefit, the relationship has boosted African trade volumes, productivity, physical …

Examining Tanzania's Development Landscape, Jenna Hussein

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis will examine Tanzania’s development landscape through Amartya Sen’s perspective, as per his conception of development that is put forth in Development as Freedom. Applying Sen’s conception of development to the case of Tanzania reinforces his view that development is an intricate process that is dependent on the expansion of various freedoms. It also yields unique insights about the most pressing issues that are currently impeding progress in the country. I will first clarify Sen’s framework and provide an explanation of development that corresponds with his ideals. Next, I will assess Tanzania’s state of affairs in terms of …

From Trade Deficit In Goods To Trade Surplus In Services: An Eclectic And Extended Gravity Model Approach In Analyzing The Determinants Of Service Trade Of The United States, Tofayel Ahmmad

Masters Theses

This paper employs an eclectic and extended gravity model of trade to assess the most important determinants of real export and import of services of the United States by analyzing US service trade with its 33 partner countries for 15 years. Distance affects US real export of services negatively, but has no influence on US real import of services. A devaluation of the US dollar increases service export of the United States. We find a positive relationship between US goods trade and US service exports. US outward FDI has a positive impact on US real export of services, but has …

Asian Tiger Economies' Choices, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers the choices facing the Asian tiger economies regarding growth strategies that foster trans-Pacific rebalancing. A review of historical data spanning 2000 to 2008 reveals only a slight widening of the overall current account surplus but that there is considerable variation across the countries, with Hong Kong, China exhibiting the biggest increase in the saving and investment (S-I) balance. Meanwhile, cross-correlation coefficient estimates tentatively suggest that changes in the real effective exchange rate do not seem to exhibit a consistent negative lead over changes in the S-I gap in the short run over the past decade. Highimport leakage, …

Measuring Globalization: Better Trade Statistics For Better Policy, Susan N. Houseman Editor, Michael J. Mandel Editor

Upjohn Press

Understanding the impacts of globalization requires good data, and national statistical systems were not designed to measure many of the transactions occurring in today’s global economy. The chapters in this volume and its companion volume identify biases and gaps in national statistics, examine the magnitude of the problems they pose, and propose solutions to address significant biases and fill key data gaps.

Malaysian Equities: A Sector Analysis Of Risk And Normality, Robert J. Powell

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study uses Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) metrics to measure the relative riskiness of sectors for Malaysian equities. VaR is a widely used volatility measure, but only measures risk below a specified threshold, whereas CVaR looks at risk beyond that threshold. The study finds that the relative risk of sectors changes with changing economic circumstances as measured by VaR, but remains significantly the same as measured by CVaR. Parametric (normally distributed) measures of VaR are compared to nonparametric measures, and it is found, consistently across all sectors, that parametric measures are not suitable measures …

Sustainable Microfinancing: Improving Microenterprise's Traditional Measures Of Success, Stephen R. Watson

Graduate Research Papers

Microfinance has over three decades of experience serving the needs of the poor on earth. Unfortunately, academia and the secular world are divided on its effectiveness to lift the impoverished from the bottom of the economic pyramid. India is the focus of this paper, but measures of microfinace success are essentially universal. This paper examines the metrics used to evaluate programs and their benefit to India's poor. Current estimates find 2.8 billion people survive on less than $2 per day. Subsistence living impacts nutrition, shelter, sanitation, transportation and access to healthcare and education. India's caste system creates discrimination and overpopulation …

China-Based Industrial Espionage, Joel Savary

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

On Oct 8, 2014 China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)” (IMF). My paper explores one of the instances of unlawful business practices that have contributed to China’s new world position. China based espionage undercuts American businesses and U.S. foreign policy directly, causing catastrophic economic implications for America, its businesses, and its allies. The U.S. government is grappling with the means and methods China uses to disseminate information stolen from U.S. businesses to support China based industries. Due to the lack of transparency in China, it has been difficult …

The Marriage Market: The Mail-Order Bride Industry In The United States!, Penelope Burner

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The international bride market has generated more than 2 billion dollars in 2010 in the United States alone. The concept of a “mail-order bride” is one that dates back to the founding of the United States. Many people believe this practice to be antiquated, but with the addition of technology, this industry has become very prevalent in modern society. I will examine the effects the mail order bride industry has had on views regarding women in the United States, Asia and Europe and show how this industry still has relevance today. I will track the way this industry has shaped …

Two Essays On Governance At The National And Corporate Level, Laura Savory Miller

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

ESSAY 1
We examine the effect of governance environment on the composition of a country's external capital structure, specifically foreign equity investment. In addition to the absolute quality of the host country's governance environment, we consider the host country's governance quality relative to that of the source (investor) country. Unlike previous studies, which utilize country totals, we examine foreign investment positions between pairs of individual countries. Our sample includes 3,891 bilateral investment positions among 49 source countries and 69 host countries for years 2009 through 2011. We find that relative governance, rather than absolute governance, plays a role in foreign …

Techniques, Technologies And Politics Of Crisis And Post-Crisis Economics: Anglo-American Macroeconomics And Alternatives, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper attempts a critical appraisal of one core debate and theories in economics about the 2008 crisis and post-2008 economic growth and stagnation. In addition to examining formal publications, this essay also examines serious blogs by high-profile economists who are core participants in public discourse over economic policy. Drawing on the general logic of economic sociology and political economy — in particular, an appreciation for more complex microfoundations of economic practice (e.g. power and culture) and institutions—this paper addresses three issues about theoretical frameworks and claims about post-crisis growth or lack thereof: 1) Techniques: economists’ discourses focus primarily on …

Contribution Of Foreign Direct Investment To Economic Growth In Bangladesh, Mohammed Abu Rayhan

Masters Theses

Rapid industrialization is essential in Bangladesh to keep pace with its development needs. But the low rate of gross domestic savings and investment as well as low level of technology base hamper the expected industrialization process. Foreign aid and grant had been serving to bridge the gap earlier. As many developing countries are in the process of graduating from being aid-dependent economy into a trading economy, FDI has come to be viewed as a major stimulus to economic growth for these emerging economies. This paper examines the contribution of FDI to economic growth in Bangladesh over the period from 1975 …

Rethinking The Development Of The Automobile Industry In China, Chen Gu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Governmental industrial policies have significant influence on industrial performance. Many developing countries that lack capital and a good technology base use foreign direct investment (FDI)-dependent governmental policies to induce multinational corporations (MNCs) to invest in their indigenous immature industries. In this article, the Chinese automotive industry, which is regulated directly under the Chinese central government, is used to illustrate the interactions between the complex FDI-dependent governmental policies and the industrial development of developing countries. According to changes in Chinese automotive industry policy, the Chinese auto industry’s development process is divided into four phases: extremely passive FDI-dependent policy phase, partial strategic …

Allocative Efficiency, Mark-Ups, And The Welfare Gains From Trade, Thomas J. Holmes, Wen-Tai Hsu, Sanghoon Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops an index of allocative efficiency that depends upon the distribution of mark-ups across goods and is separable from an index of standard Ricardian gains from trade. It determines how changes in trade frictions affect allocative efficiency in an oligopoly model of international trade, decomposing the effect into the cost-change channel and the price-change channel. Formulas are derived shedding light on the signs and magnitudes of the two channels. In symmetric country models, trade tends to increase allocative efficiency through the cost-change channel, yielding a welfare benefit beyond productive efficiency gains. In contrast, the price-change channel has ambiguous …

Mexico Consensus Economic Forecast, Volume 17, Number 4, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Adam G. Walke

Departmental Papers (E & F)

No abstract provided.

Complementarity In Institutional Quality In Bilateral Fdi Flows, Pao Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a theory on the complementarity in institutional qualities between the home and host countries in bilateral FDI. Firms ‘born’ in countries with poorer institutions tend to invest more in informal institutions to mitigate political risk. The marginal advantage of higher informal institution endowment is bigger when the political risk at the FDI destination is higher. Thus, all else being equal, the ranking of the MNE’s home institutions predicts the ranking of the institutional qualities of their FDI destinations. I find robust empirical evidence for this theoretical prediction using bilateral FDI for 219 economies during year 2001-2010.

Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice: A Review Essay Of Cosmopolitan Regard By Richard Vernon, Tiana-Renée C. Silva

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

While geologists may not be able to find physical proof to suggest that the world is shrinking, social scientists are convinced that this is the case. The amount of information that is shared amongst the world's citizens has grown exponentially over the years, and evidence of an increasingly interconnected world can be seen in every facet of our everyday lives from the food we eat to what we watch on television. Thousands of miles that once divided us from one another are now eliminated by telephones, the Internet, and even the ability to make telephone calls over the Internet. In …

Globalization And Development In Latin America And The Caribbean: A Review, Diego José Romero

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

Globalization and Development: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective (2003) is a study of the process of globalization in the economic, political and cultural spheres, focusing mainly on the economic developments. Understanding the process as being multidimensional in nature, the authors, José Antonio Ocampo and Juan Martin, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Special Advisor to the Executive Secretary respectively[i], analyze globalization as a historic event realized in three well-differentiated phases, which prove, that it is not an irreversible process. The authors define globalization as "the growing influence exerted at …

Integration Of Central And Eastern European And The Euro-Area Financial Markets: Repercussions From The Global Financial Crisis, Lucjan T. Orlowski, Anna Tsibulina

WCBT Faculty Publications

We examine integration of financial markets and banking sectors in Central and Eastern Europe and the euro area. We study co-movements between government bond and equity markets of Germany and those of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, as well as Slovenia and Slovakia (the two recent euro members). We assume that financial integration is essential for subsequent monetary convergence, as it will enable the euro candidates to mitigate systemic risk and avert potentially destabilizing shocks. Government bond yields of the Czech Republic and Poland show high correlation with German yields, in contrast to those of the remaining countries. Equity returns of …

Exchange Rates And Export Structure, Wen-Tai Hsu, Yi Lu, Yingke Zhou

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies whether changes in the exchange rate affect a country’s export structure, using an arguably exogenous sudden appreciation of renminbi on July 21, 2005 as the main source of identification. Employing combined regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences approach, we show that China’s export structure became more similar to that of the developed countries after the currency appreciation. We also find that the majority of the appreciation effect comes from the inter-firm resource reallocation rather than the inter-region or intra-firm resource reallocation.

Perspectives On The Global Financial Crisis From Emerging Managers And Public Policy Makers [Full Version], James L. Grant

Financial Services Forum Publications

This manuscript attempts to capture the perspectives of emerging managers and public policy makers as evinced in the perspectives of graduate students and others who were enrolled in my newly developed course on the global financial crisis—first offered in the 2010 Harvard Summer Economics Program—at a time when students were engaged in the midst and aftermath of the most severe U.S. and worldwide recession since the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The many perspectives gathered on the causes, consequences, remedies, and perhaps more importantly, a glimpse at student thoughts, concerns, and worries at the time—have been collected from the …

The Gap Between Science And Policy: Assessing The Use Of Nonmarket Valuation In Estuarine Management, Judith T. Kildow Dr, Jing Guo

Working Papers

Estuaries, which are among the most productive natural systems on earth, provide an array of human welfare benefits if well managed. Non-market valuation (NMV) is considered a powerful tool, which can contribute to informed policies for estuarine management. More than 30 year of research valuing estuaries around the world does not appear to have had a major impact on estuarine management. Published examples of policy applications using estimates from these studies, are rare, leading to the question whether the effort and money spent on this research has been useful and worth the cost.

Despite raising public awareness of the importance …

The Role Of The International Monetary Funds (Imf) In The East Asian Debt Crisis Of 1997, Yaro Sadek Tahirou

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

During the East Asian Financial crisis in particular, the IMF has been criticized of promoting international cooperation because of the supervised enforcement of its rules. The purpose of this research is to find out how the IMF responded to the East Asian debt crisis and whether or not its responses were the best possible responses to this crisis. Through my research, I talked about the causes of the East Asian financial crisis, the role of the IMF in the international monetary system, and if the IMF responses to Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia were the best responses or not. After …

Source-Destination Cultural Differences, Immigrants’ Skill Levels, And Immigrant Stocks: Evidence From Six Oecd Member Host Countries, Roger White, Nicole Yamasaki

Economics

Examining data for 79 immigrant source countries and six OECD member destination countries during the years 1975–2000, we find that source-destination cultural differences inhibit international migration. We also report that existing immigrant stocks act to offset, at least in part, the migration-inhibiting effects of cultural differences. Employing educational attainment as a proxy for skill, we find variation across low-, medium-, and high-skilled immigrant cohorts both with respect to the cultural distance-migration relationship and in terms of the extent to which existing immigrant stocks offset the influence of cultural differences. Our results appear robust to econometric techniques, sample composition, and endogeneity …

Labor Force Participation And Wages In Palestine For The Period 2000 To 2011, Issam Abu-Ghallous

Dissertations

This study investigates the interaction between wages and labor force participation in Palestine for the period of 2000 to 2011. This period has witnessed series of severe economic and political shocks and moderate recoveries. There are three areas of interest this dissertation considers. The first area is the effect of adult employment and income on child labor supply. The second area is the effect of husbands’ income and employment status on wives’ labor force participation. The third area is return to education and wage inequality. The results show that parents’ income has a negative but weak effect on child labor; …

The Role Government Should Play In The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act 2009, Jungmi Bang

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to determine the most effective way to administer an economic stimulation act and what role the government should play. More specifically, the paper will discuss administrative problems and limitations, such as the government’s possible disengagement from the real market stake holders’ assessment in the ARRA and will provide possible solutions to eliminate or minimize those defects. Ultimately, the research seeks to satisfy the real market stake holders’ expectation by analyzing the pros and cons of the ARRA, and by comparing Korea’s administrative approach to adopting an economic stimulation plan in the real market with …

El Mal De Chagas Y Su Potencial De Eliminación, Eileen Stillwaggon

Economics Faculty Publications

La Asamblea Mundial de la Salud ha elegido algunas enfermedades como blancos para la eliminación. Hay mucha esperanza y una alta probabilidad de que varias enfermedades, recientemente llamadas desatendidas, sean eliminadas en las próximas décadas. Vamos a presenciar el fin de la transmisión de la dracunculiasis, la filariosis linfática, la poliomielitis, y en las Américas por lo menos, la oncocercosis. Ya se ven éxitos significativos como la cuasi erradicación de la dracunculiasis y paso importantes en contra de otras aflicciones. [Original Spanish version]

The World Health Assembly has chosen some diseases as targets for elimination. There is much …

Unrecognized States: A Theory Of Self-Determination And Foreign Influence, Kristina Buzard, Benjamin A.T. Graham, Ben Horne

Economics - All Scholarship

Unrecognized states are characterized by stagnant or crumbling economies and political instability, often serve as havens for illicit trade, and challenge the territorial sovereignty of recognized states. Their persistence is both intellectually puzzling and normatively problematic, but unrecognized statehood can be a remarkably stable outcome, persisting for decades. Our four-player model reveals that unrecognized statehood emerges as an equilibrium outcome when a patron state is willing and able to persistently invest resources to sustain it. We assess options available to actors in the international community who seek to impose their preferred outcomes in these disputes and find that, although sanctions …

Conditional Cash Transfers, Community, And Empowerment Of Women In Colombia, Harlan Downs-Tepper

21st Century Social Justice

In 2001, the Colombian government initiated an experiment in poverty alleviation called Familias en Acción. This conditional cash transfer (CCT) program takes a novel approach to poverty reduction by addressing short- and long-term factors contributing to poverty. Though Colombia’s CCT program is just one of a wave of similar initiatives, its unique context and unexpected social effects, beyond the primary intentions of program designers, differentiate it from other such programs. Drawing on 200 interviews and focus group discussions which he conducted with academic experts, program beneficiaries and program administrators in three Colombian cities, the author finds that an unexpected …