International and Area Studies Commons^™

Land Grabbing In Africa, Khadija Sharife

South South Forum 南南論壇

At least 80 million hectares of land have been recently purchased in what are being termed ‘land grabs,’ around three quarter of which are in Africa. The deals, displacingAfrica’s small farmers, primarily women, are often facilitated by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, acting as a one-stop-lease-shop via Investment and Export Promotion Agency. These agencies remove obstacles allegedly blocking Foreign Direct Investment by constructing sovereign-backed toolkits, streamlining for investors issues ranging from land ownership, availability, titling, to legal obligations, taxes and duties. While the architecture of land grabbing is an extension of the neoliberal system, a new set of land-grabbers …

Contestation, Cooperation And The Transborder Commons, Carl Middleton

South South Forum 南南論壇

The Mekong River traces its 4,900 kilometer path southwards through the heart of mainland Southeast Asia from its source in the Himalayan Tibetan plateau through Yunnan Province of China, Myanmar/ Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Host to the world’s largest inland fishery and vital to agriculture, the Mekong River is a transboundary commons that is central to the livelihoods, local economies and culture of millions of people living within the basin.

Mainland Southeast Asia is rapidly industrializing, urbanizing, and undergoing a process of regional economic integration shaped predominantly by neoliberal economic policies. Economic growth is uneven, however, and large …

Mapping The Global Land Grab, Neide Vargas

South South Forum 南南論壇

2008年以后，在美联储、英格兰银行、欧洲央行宽松的货币政策的刺激下，国际金融资本在世界范围内的圈地运动愈演愈烈。目前，一些中心国家及边缘国家的农业公司、资本集团之间展开了圈地竞赛，目标主要集中在拉丁美洲、非洲，以及澳大利亚。在这一形势下，考虑到农产品的生产与需求的现状，农地，或者有潜力开发为农地的土地在未来会变得愈加稀缺。我们试图帮助理解这一趋势。

这一场圈地运动是由国际投资基金、主权财富基金、各国国有产业集团、农业企业等资本集团掀起的。各国政府在其中扮演了推动和刺激企业圈地的角色，为全球范围的圈地活动提供了平台。很多政府和多边机构为此提供了有利的政策。这里面的各种关联错综复杂，难以理清，投机交易与套利活动涉及很多国家和组织，编织成了一张全球性网络，并呈持续扩张态势。目前的土地交易，都是资本在追逐短期利润的投机动机下进行的，这将给上述相关地区带来很大的风险和不确定性，我们将用GRAIN的数据揭示当下这一圈地运动的特点。

转基因话语、利益结构与基因竞赛 = Transgenicdiscourse, Interest Structure And Gene Competition, Li Zhou

South South Forum 南南論壇

由于近些年生物技术的突飞猛进，世界各国已经展开了一场类似于核竞赛，又远比核竞赛更为隐秘和严重的基因竞赛，我们需要认识转基因竞赛甚至战争的性质，走出技术化的缺乏主体性的转基因话语讨论。转基因研发推广过程中，有七股力量已经联合，形成一个利益共同体，使得转基因大潮势不可挡：跨国粮商得利润、外国政府得战略、地方政府得政绩、中资公司得好处、科研院所得经费、国家部门得租金、种粮农民得闲暇。我们需要认识让生存逻辑和生命逻辑，服从于商业逻辑和政治逻辑的转基因利益结构，认识其可能导致人类生存危机等系统性风险，旗帜鲜明地反对转基因育种和产业化推广；退一步讲，即使进行转基因技术的研发，也要采用国家集中体制，以防止类似核扩散的基因技术不可控行为的发生，阻止一场在种子领域的殖民掠夺；同时重点发展和推广常规育种，强化农田水利建设，采用更为安全可行的措施，以阻止人类在转基因领域的自杀式竞争。

Since the rapid development of the biotechnology in recent years, the countries in the world have already started a new kind of competition—genetic competition, which is similar to nuclear arms race but far more secret and serious. We need to recognize the nature of the transgenic contest and genetic war, getting out from the subjectivity-absent technical discussion on transgenic technology. In the process of transgenic research and development(R&D), seven forces have already jointed and formed a “community of interests”, pushing the transgenic trends overwhelming: the international food dealers gain profits, foreign government wins strategy, local government achieves performance, Chinese-funded …

Structural Crisis, Speculative Attacks And Food Sovereignty, Pedro Paez

South South Forum 南南論壇

The present crisis is not only a financial one. It is a crisis of civilization. The convergence of long term contradictory processes in several levels (economic, demographic, ecological, etc.) has reduced capital’s margin of maneuvering with historical progressive projection, opening the room for very painful situations for large segments of Earth’s population.

The anti-fascist forces victory in the Second Word War triggered the constitution of a series of regimes of accumulation with significant endogenous dynamics of growth based upon re-distributive patterns at the domestic and the international levels that expressed the new balance of power. The pervasive destruction of local …

Feeding World’S Hungry-Food Security Or Food Sovereignty, Vinod Raina

South South Forum 南南論壇

The increased wealth creation by nations stands in contrast with the extent of hunger around the World. By hunger we simply mean the want or scarcity of food in a country. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that 925 million people in the World are hungry. Against a total World population of 6.8 billion, this means 1 out of every 7 in the World goes hungry. Most of them live in developing countries, and sixty-five percent of them live in only seven countries: China,India,Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo,Indonesia,PakistanandEthiopia(FAO, 2011). Furthermore, each year more people die due to hunger …

Economic Resilience : Including A Case Study Of The Global Transition Network, Julie Richardson

South South Forum 南南論壇

This paper explores the dynamic properties of organisms and ecosystems that make them so resilient and capable of adapting to changing circumstances, allowing them to maintain an overall condition of coherence, wholeness and health while living in balance within the resources of the planet. Key principles of resilient ecological systems are explored including: self-regulation; positive and negative feedback; diversity; scale and context; cooperation; emergence and novelty; and ecological tipping points. In contrast, market based economic systems can produce unstable growth with unintended destruction of cultural and species diversity and homogenisation of global life-styles. The paper re-examines fundamental economic principles using …

Alternatives In Times Of The Reinvention Of Capitalism, Pablo Solon

South South Forum 南南論壇

Crisis & reconfiguration

1. A new attack to the labor force
2. Privatization of public services and knowledge (the commons)
3. The expansion of financialisation
4. A new assault to Mother Earth: Natural capital
5. Intervention, criminalization and war

The Implosion Of The Contemporary Global Capitalist System = 当代资本主义体系的内爆, Samir Amin

South South Forum 南南論壇

Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. By this I mean that monopolies are now no longer islands (albeit important) in a sea of other still relatively autonomous companies, but are an integrated system. Therefore, these monopolies now tightly control all the systems of production. Small and medium enterprises, and even the large corporations that are not strictly speaking oligopolies are locked in a network of control put in place by the monopolies. Their degree of autonomy has shrunk to the point that they are nothing more than subcontractors of the monopolies. This system of generalized monopolies is the …

主权外部性与币缘战略 : 关于发展陷阱的案例研究 = Sovereignty Externalities And Currency-Strategy Development Trap Case Studies, Tiejun Wen

South South Forum 南南論壇

本报告以全球化危机向发展中国家转嫁为据，提出两个论点。其一，大多数发展中国家因“成本转嫁”而沉落于发展主义陷阱的根本教训，在于其在向殖民主义宗主国争取国家“合法”独立的交易中，已经形成了失去资源和经济主权的负外部性。其二，当前金融资本时代强权政治控制的币缘战略不同于传统的产业资本时代的地缘战略，并且在以国家为单位的全球竞争框架中，客观地形成了金融主导国家币权为核心的“币权三角”；由此衍生出国家竞争的微笑曲线，乃是制造业国家承担金融化制度成本的内在机制。

这些理论创新，可以解释包括中国在内的一般发展中国家的困境成因。

本文把通过非暴力形式的政治谈判这种“交易”来形成发展中国家独立主权进程中与生俱来的制度性缺陷，称为“主权外部性”；把金融资本阶段凭借政治强权维护世界储备货币地位、并据此向能源和食物市场释放过剩流动性，借以把巨额债务转化为他国通胀危机的“巧实力”运作，称为“币缘战略”。

这两者都是发展中国家难以改出发展陷阱的主要原因，也是金融全球化阶段内在形成国家竞争的微笑曲线的前提条件。

Based on an understanding that the crises of core nations are being transferred to developing countries and thus globalized, two perspectives are highlighted here: first, the development trap most developing countries are caught in due to “cost transfer” by advanced countries can be attributed to the negative externalities of having lost part of their resources and economic sovereignty in the transaction with their former suzerains for gaining “legitimate” independence; second, the currency-strategy of political dominance by the super power in contemporary financial capitalism is different from traditional geo-strategy in the age of industrial capitalism. In the …

Modernization, Sexual Risk-Taking, And Gynecological Morbidity Among Bolivian Forager-Horticulturalists, Jonathan Stieglitz, Aaron D. Blackwell, Raúl Quispe Gutierrez, Edhitt Cortez Linares, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Sexual risk-taking and reproductive morbidity are common among rapidly modernizing populations with little material wealth, limited schooling, minimal access to modern contraception and healthcare, and gendered inequalities in resource access that limit female autonomy in cohabiting relationships. Few studies have examined how modernization influences sexual risk-taking and reproductive health early in demographic transition. Tsimane are a natural fertility population of Bolivian forager-farmers; they are not urbanized, reside in small-scale villages, and lack public health infrastructure. We test whether modernization is associated with greater sexual risk-taking, report prevalence of gynecological morbidity (GM), and test whether modernization, sexual risk-taking and parity are …

Singapore Inflation Expectations: Expecting The Unexpected, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The study of inflation expectations of Singapore house-holds is a multi-disciplinary industry-relevant research that comes out of a partnership between Singapore Management University (SMU) and MasterCard. The research team for this MasterCard-SKBI Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations (SInDEx) project applied rigorous methods using current internet-based marketing survey tools for data-collection and advanced econometric techniques to analyse the data. The updates from the quarterly waves are keenly followed by policymakers, market watchers and the media because of the enormous importance of cost of living to individuals and businesses alike.

The Continuing Saga Of Globalism: Comparing Ethiopia’S Developmental State Strategies To Those Of Malaysia, Asayehgn Desta

Collected Faculty Scholarship

Using the conceptual framework of a developmental state, forwarded by the Economic Commission for Africa, it was found that Ethiopia’s democratic developmental state is unique and operates differently from the Malaysian developmental state model. Economically, Ethiopia has recorded staggering economic growth since it adopted the developmental state. The Malaysian developmental state was developed to be market-oriented and as a result Malaysia’s GDP grew at 5.23 percent from 2005-2011. Malaysia’s incidence of poverty declined from 49% in 1970 to less than 5% in 2000. Ethiopia has focused on a planned developmental state, without speeding the direction of industrialization, and has achieved …

Can Us Economic Variables Predict Chinese Stock Market?, Jeremy Goh, Fuwei Jiang, Jun Tu, Yuchen Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the last few decades, we observed a significant increase in global economic activities and these activities may have an impact on both China's economy and stock market. Given the potential impact, we empirically examine whether US economic variables are leading indicators of the Chinese stock market. Prior to China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the end of 2001, we find no statistical relationship between US economic variables and the Chinese stock market returns. However, we find US economic variables have statistically significant predictive power for periods after China's admission into the WTO. In addition, we show that …

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time-reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth-redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose poverty change into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g. regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to have six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985-2009.

How Do Latino Groups Fare In A Changing Economy? Occupation In Latino Groups In The Greater New York City Area, 1980-2009, Stephen Ruszczyk

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1980 and 2009 – particularly the Latino population.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Trends from 1990 continued in 2000, with numbers of Puerto Ricans in production dropping to only 14% of that group. More than a fifth of Puerto Ricans worked in management and professional …

Government Documents On Rare Earth Minerals, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Rare earth minerals contain unique chemical and physical properties such as lanthanum, are found in small concentrations, need extensive precise processes to separate, and are critical components of modern technologies such as laser guidance systems, personal electronics such as Blackberries, and satellites. The U.S. has some rare earth resources, but is heavily dependent on access to them from from Afghanistan, Bolivia, and China. Losing access to these resources would have significant economic, military, and political implications. This presentation will highlight government information resources on rare earth minerals from agencies such as the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), …

Setting The Agenda: Asia And Latin America In The 21st Century, Ariel C. Armony

Center for Latin American Studies Publications

Latin America and Asia are among the world’s fastest growing regions. Trade between Asia and Latin American and Caribbean countries has risen dramatically in recent years. It is undeniable that Asia now plays a formidable role in the economic development of the region. This publication emerges out of the University of Miami’s 2012 “Asia and Latin America in the 21^st Century” conference, where leaders from academic, policy, business, and media communities from around the world convened to address the macroeconomic trends, trade relations, and sociopolitical trends that have emerged as the links between Asia and Latin America strengthen. Organized …

East Versus West: Chinese And American Development Efforts And Perceptions In Cameroon, Grace Perkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Every year, donor countries pour billions of dollars of foreign aid into developing recipient countries. Humanitarian and “win-win” rhetoric generally accompanies the grant, hospital, school, or sports stadium. To a realist international relations scholar, it is highly unlikely that powerful nations like the United States and China donate anything without political or economic strategic interests in mind. How do American and Chinese strategic interests affect the quality of development aid? This paper seeks to answer this question in the context of Cameroon, a Central African state rich in resources and young minds but whose growth is hampered by its colonial …

Why Do Women Have More Children Than They Want? Understanding Differences In Women's Ideal And Actual Family Size In A Natural Fertility Population, Lisa Mcallister, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz

ESI Publications

Objectives—We develop and test a conceptual model of factors influencing women’s ideal family size (IFS) in a natural fertility population, the Tsimane of Bolivia. The model posits affects of socioecology, reproductive history, maternal condition, and men’s IFS. We test three hypotheses for why women may exceed their IFS despite experiencing socioeconomic development: (H1) limited autonomy; (H2) improved maternal condition; and (H3) low returns on investments in embodied capital.

Methods—Women’s reproductive histories and prospective fertility data were collected from 2002 to 2008 (n = 305 women). Semistructured interviews were conducted with Tsimane women to study the perceived value of …

Detecting Bubbles In Hong Kong Residential Property Market, Matthew S. Yiu, Jun Yu, Lu Jin

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study uses a newly developed bubble detection method (Phillips, Shi and Yu, 2011) to identify real estate bubbles in the Hong Kong residential property market. Our empirical results reveal several positive bubbles in the Hong Kong residential property market, including one in 1995, a stronger one in 1997, another one in 2004, and a more recent one in 2008. In addition, the method identifies two negative bubbles in the data, one in 2000 and the other one in 2001. These empirical results continue to be valid for the mass segment and the luxury segment. However, the method finds a …

Why Smes Should Aim At Becoming Exporters, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

In the fortnightly series entitled 'Engage SMU profs', Professor Hoon Hian Teck, Associate Dean of the School of Economics, answers the questions: Should SMEs aim to become exporters rather than serve only the domestic market? What are the benefits to SMEs in doing so? Does the smallness in size limit their productivity growth? Are there any channels for SMEs to get assistance from the authorities, and what are these? He commented that if more of our local SMEs look towards the international marketplace and sell to foreign markets, not only will Singapore's GDP be boosted, local businessmen will also get …

Growth And Inequality In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

While the strategy of openness had earned Singapore rapid economic growth, upward social mobility, and possibly decreasing inequality in the early years of development, the more recent years saw increasing inequality and with it an underlying possibly diminished upward intergenerational mobility due to skill-biased growth processes, skill-biased parental influence, liberalization in the education industry, and structural changes in the society which hurt the human capital accumulation of children in families under economic and intra-household stresses. In particular, the paternal influence on educational aspiration and attainment is more pronounced than the mother’s. Non-Chinese and youths from disrupted families are worse off …

Are Us Economic Variables Useful For Chinese Stock Market Forecasts?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

How does the US economy affect China’s? While much had been written about the decoupling between developed and the emerging economies, one scholar has put forward a contrarian view.

Fatty Acid Composition In The Mature Milk Of Bolivian Forager-Horticulturalists: Controlled Comparisons With A Us Sample, Melanie A. Martin, William D. Lassek, Steven J. C. Gaulin, Rhobert W. Evans, Sheela S. Geraghty, Barbara S. Davidson, Ardythe L. Morrow, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Breast milk fatty acid (FA) composition varies greatly among individual women, including in percentages of the long-chain polyunsaturated FAs (LCPUFA) 20:4n-6 (arachidonic acid, AA) and 22:6n-3 (docosahexaenoic acid, DHA), which are important for infant neurological development. It has been suggested that owing to wide variation in milk LCPUFA and low DHA in Western diets, standards of milk FA composition should be derived from populations consuming traditional diets. We collected breast milk samples from Tsimane women at varying lactational stages (6–82 weeks). The Tsimane are an indigenous, natural fertility, subsistence-level population living in Amazonia Bolivia. Tsimane samples were matched by lactational …

From The Womb To The Tomb: The Role Of Transfers In Shaping The Evolved Human Life History, Michael Gurven, Jonathan Stieglitz, Paul L. Hooper, Cristina Gomes, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Humans are the longest living and slowest growing of all primates. Although most primates are social, humans are highly cooperative and social in ways that likely co-evolved with the slow human life history. In this paper we highlight the role of resource transfers and non-material assistance within and across generations in shaping low human mortality rates. The use of complex cooperative strategies to minimize risk is a necessary precursor for selecting further reductions in mortality rate in late adulthood. In conjunction with changes in the age-profile of production, the impacts of resource transfers and other forms of cooperation on reducing …

Securing South Africa's Future Grandmothers Against Poverty And Aids As A Model For Social Development Change, Savannah Lynn Eck

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Focusing on the role of elder women in South Africa as a lens to understand the central connections among HIV/ AIDS, poverty and Human Security provides a distinct approach to analyze women's contributions to community development and social change. Drawing from the theories of Gender and Development and Human Security, this research aims to highlight HIV/ AIDS as a social and political security issue, while underscoring the vitality of the inclusion of women in the processes of peace building, reconciliation, education and social development. Furthermore, the influential role of elder women in South Africa will serve as a model in …

Examining The Challenges To The Anti-Human-Trafficking Movement In Russia, Stephen Alexander Barton

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper examines the success of the anti-human trafficking movement in curbing the enslavement and trade of Russians to other parts of the country and world. This paper outlines how and why human trafficking is a major human rights and security issue for Russia and the “destination” countries to which traffickers send their victims. The anti-trafficking movement in Russia, which gained strength in the late 1990s through grassroots organization and international backing, successfully lobbied the Russian government to pass the country’s first anti-trafficking legislation in 2003. This paper analyzes the many challenges this law has faced, while also focusing particularly …

Changing Unchanged Inequality: Higher Education, Youth Population, And The Japanese Seniority Wage System, Ken Yamada, Daiji Kawaguchi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Wage inequality declined in the 1990s and rose after 2000 among full-time male workers in Japan. Narrowing wage inequality in the 1990s can be accounted for by a decline in between-group inequality resulting from a stable return to education and decreased returns to experience and tenure. Widening wage inequality after 2000 can be accounted for by a rise in within-group inequality resulting from a relative increase in educated and experienced workers, as well as changes in heterogeneous returns to human capital.

Love And Money By Parental Match-Making: Evidence From Urban Couples In China, Fali Huang, Ginger Jin, Lixin Collin Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Parental involvement in marriage matchmaking may distort the optimal spouse choice because parents are willing to substitute love for money. The rationale is that the joint income of married children can be shared among extended family members more easily than mutual attraction felt by the couple themselves, and as a result, the best spouse candidate in the parents' eyes can differ from what is optimal to the individual, even though parents are altruistic and care dearly about their children's welfare. We find supporting evidence for this prediction using a unique sample of urban couples in China in the early 1990s.