International and Area Studies Commons^™

No. 44: Migration, Remittances And Development In Southern Africa, Wade Pendleton, Jonathan Crush, Eugene Campbell, Thuso Green, Hamilton Simelane, Daniel Tevera, Fion De Vletter

Southern African Migration Programme

Remittances by migrants are now a focus of attention of governments and development agencies worldwide. Globally, cash remittances by international migrants now exceed $250 billion per annum, easily outweighing the value of development assistance. Over a third of remittances to developing countries originate in other developing countries. International cash remittances are only part of the story. Remittances in the form of goods and commodities are also extremely important, as are internal remittances from urban to rural areas within countries.

Debate rages on the development impacts of remittances and how these can be maximized. Advocates of migration as a positive force …

No. 17: International Migration And Good Governance In The Southern African Region, Jonathan Crush, Sally Peberdy, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

Southern Africa has a long history of intra-regional migration, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. Migration was probably the single most important factor tying together all of the various colonies and countries of the sub-continent into a single regional labour market during the twentieth century. However, entrenched patterns of migration have undergone major restructuring in the last two decades. Southern Africa is now a region on the move (McDonald 2000). Several broader changes underly this shift towards greater and greater intra-regional mobility.

First, the end of apartheid, a system designed to control movement and exclude outsiders, produced new opportunities for …

No. 20: Migration Of Skills In South Africa: Patterns, Trends And Challenges, Lyndith Waller

Southern African Migration Programme

It is a human inclination to want to position oneself where conditions are best for personal fulfilment, growth and success. People migrate because they perceive their environment as inadequate in terms of what they desire or deserve. The more deserving they consider themselves the more likely they will be to leave a suboptimal environment in search of one in which they will be appreciated – through recognition or pay – and where they can develop their potential, live securely, work towards their goals and enjoy standards with which they align themselves.

Skilled people recognise that they have something to offer; …

No. 18: The Draft Protocol On The Facilitation Of Movement Of Persons In Sadc: Implications For State Parties, Vincent Williams, Lizzie Carr

Southern African Migration Programme

The migration of persons across international boundaries in search of better opportunities or as a result of war, conflict and political instability has risen substantially over the years. The UN Population Division estimates that there are currently 175 million people living outside of their country of origin which is more than twice the number a generation ago (United Nations Population Division 2002). As communications and transport infrastructure become more sophisticated and cheaper, this trend is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.

This movement of persons from their own countries of nationality or citizenship, to another country where they take …

Effects Of Eu Accession On The Politics Of Privatization - The Steel Sector In Comparative Perspective, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee

Political Science Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the European Union (EU) accession process on the restructuring and privatization of the steel sector of the four largest steel producers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia. The outcome to date for these countries' steel mills has been relatively uniform in that they have been integrated into the global production networks of some of the largest multinational steel enterprises. The pressures which brought this outcome about, however, were far from uniform. The variability in the modes of convergence is highlighted by …

The Dynamics Of Income Diversification In Ethiopia: Evidence From Panel Data, Adugna Lemi

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Block and Webb (2001) in Food Policy address the issue of the dynamics of livelihood diversification in Ethiopia. Their study uses the ratio of per capita income derived from crops to the sum of all other incomes as an indicator of livelihood diversification for the years 1989 and 1994. Their study focuses only on drought-prone areas during the survey years. The aim of the present study is to explore further the demographic and economic determinants of the dynamics of income diversification using survey data. The data used in this study cover larger and more representative sample and was colleted from …

The Subtlety Of Political Risk With Foreign Direct Investment: The Case Of The Vietnamese Sugar Industry, Tom Arnold, Bonnie Buchanan, Janice Lo

Finance Faculty Publications

Political risk entails more than a host country taking advantage of investment from foreign sources. A more subtle form of political risk is attributable to the host government's mismanagement of policies that may be intended to attract foreign direct investment, but may have unintended consequences. A perfect example is the ''One Million Tonne Sugar Program " sponsored by the government of Vietnam during the mid-1990s. What appears to be a very lucrative investment for foreign investors becomes a financial disaster due to the inability of the government to allocate resources efficiently and police its borders from smugglers.

Employment And Wage Effects Of Privatization: Evidence From Transition Economies, John S. Earle

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Westernization Of Business Organizations In Japan And China. Continuity And Change, Wai Keung Chung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Examination Of Ipo Underpricing In The Chinese A-Share Market, Ting Yu, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

Research in the literature shows that initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stocks are systematically priced at a discount to their subsequent initial trading price. The large underpricing magnitude in the Chinese IPO market has attracted much attention. We consider three hypotheses that may explain the IPO underpricing in China. These are the winner's curse hypothesis, the ex ante uncertainty hypothesis and the signaling hypothesis. Among these hypotheses, the winner's curse hypothesis has not been tested in the Chinese market. Using IPO data for online fixed-price offerings from November 1995 to December 1998, our results show that the winner's curse …

Commune-Level Estimation Of Poverty Measure And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Cambodia is still suffering from the legacy of civil conflict after more than a decade. With over one-third of the population living below the poverty line, poverty remains one of the most serious problems in Cambodia. A number of governmental bodies, local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations operating in Cambodia have made eradicating poverty a priority and have established many social programmes to this end. In designing such programmes, the efficient allocation of resources is essential for making poverty alleviation more cost-effective. Targeting is often helpful for this purpose because one can avoid wasting resources on the …

Does Governance Matter? Yes, No Or Maybe Some Evidence From Developing Asia, M. G. Quibria

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between economic growth and governance performance in Asian developing economies. This exploration yields some interesting conclusions. First, notwithstanding its tremendous economic achievements, the state of governance in Asia is not stellar by international comparison. Indeed, a majority of these countries seem to suffer from a governance deficit. Second, contrary to our expectation, data do not suggest any strong positive link between governance and growth: paradoxically, countries that exhibit surpluses in governance on average grew much slower than those with deficits. The paper ends with some conjecture about this apparent paradox.

China's Changing Economic Structures And Its Implications For Regional Patterns Of Trade Production And Integration, Kim Song Tan, Hoe Ee Khor

Research Collection School Of Economics

There is tremendous momentum for economic and financial integration in East Asia today. Partly inspired by the formation of the European Union and partly as a response to the 1997/98 Asia financial crisis, many East Asian countries are showing greater commitment to regional economic cooperation. A number of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have either been concluded or are being negotiated.1 At a less formal level, the ASEAN+3 grouping has brought the whole region together in regular consultations over trade, investment, as well as monetary and exchange rate policy matters.

The State, The Market, Economic Growth And Poverty In China, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The People’s Republic of China is often cited as an unprecedented success story as far as rural poverty is concerned. Despite recent reports of sometimes violent protests in rural areas over illicit land seizures and pollution, since implementing reforms in 1978, China has seen rural poverty rates fall from xxx to yyy, as economic growth increased zzz on average each year, according to World Bank estimates. Some have ascribed liberal policy prescriptions based on open markets and pro-market government policies as are largely responsible, even as they forwent expensive, large-scale mass welfare programs. Starting with their initial round of fundamental …

Micro-Level Estimation Of Child Malnutrition Indicators And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

One of the major limitations in addressing child malnutrition is lack of information that could be used to target resources. By combining demographic and health survey (DHS) and population census data, the author disaggregates the estimates of the prevalence of child malnutrition in Cambodia from currently available 17 DHS strata into 1,594 communes. The methodology is built on the small-area estimation technique developed by Elbers, Lanjouw, and Lanjouw. The author extends it to jointly estimate multiple indicators and to allow for a richer structure of error terms. Average standard errors for the commune-level estimates in this study were about 4 …

Democracy And Development: Lessons From Turkish Experience Applied To Ethiopia, Paul B. Henze

International Conference on African Development Archives

Ethiopia's development problems are not unique. Similar problems have been (and are being) encountered in many other countries. Turkey's successful transformation from a politically and economically backward, stagnant country into one of the most dynamic societies of our time offers an example of the kind of progress Ethiopia can hope for during the 21st century. How did Turkey transform itself in little over half a century? Turkey and Ethiopia have similarities. Both have complicated geography but lack major wealth in minerals and oil. Both have suffered strife and political turmoil. Both have unstable and aggressive neighbors. Both carry a heavy …

Are The Millennium Development Goals (Mdgs) Feasible? Can The Deadlines Be Met Particularly For Education And Gender? The Case Of Ethiopia, Meskerem Shiferaw

International Conference on African Development Archives

This paper addresses the feasibility of the MDGs in Ethiopia, in general and in particular Education and Gender issues in relation with the deadline of 2015 a target set by the UN millennium declaration. The paper will assess the possibility of achieving universal primary education by 2015 in Ethiopia, for all school age children. The role required by parents and the community, private sector and what has been so far to achieve these goals will be reviewed as a follow-up to my previous paper (educating the community, Western Michigan’s Ethiopian American Foundation International conference, 2003). Both for education and gender …

Ethnicity, Economic Conditions, And Opposition Support: Evidence From Ethiopia's 2005 Elections, Leonardo R. Arriola

International Conference on African Development Archives

Under what conditions will voters support opposition parties in the dominant party systems of sub-Saharan Africa? Scholars generally agree that most of the region’s ruling parties manage to win re-election by relying on a set of by now familiar strategies – distributing patronage, exploiting ethnic cleavages, and employing violence (van de Walle 2003; Adejumobi 2000; Diamond and Plattner 1999; Joseph 1997). While the incumbent’s deliberate manipulation of the electoral arena is well established in the Africanist literature (Takougang 2003; Makumbe 2002; Crook 1997), we still lack a clear conception of the factors which enable opposition parties to build popular support …

Land Scarcity, Tenure Change And Public Policy In The African Case Of Ethiopia: Evidence On Efficacy And Unmet Demands For Land Rights, Tesfaye Teklu

International Conference on African Development Archives

Despite the apparent abundance of land, agricultural land with a dependable growing period represents a fraction of the total land area in Ethiopia. Moreover, land degradation is extensive and severe1, particularly in the highlands above 1500 meters above sea level, which account for about 40 percent of the total land area but home for 90 percent of the total population and 70 percent of livestock. Population continues to grow rapidly in these highlands and exert pressure on diminishing supplies of agricultural land, particularly arable land for cultivation and pasture. There are signs of declining farm size and fragmentation, and excess …

Heterogeneity In Returns To Schooling: Econometric Evidence From Ethiopia, Sourafel Girma, Abbi M. Kedir

International Conference on African Development Archives

The paper investigates whether returns to schooling in Ethiopia vary across the wages distribution of individuals. To do so it adopts an instrumental variables quantile regression framework that allows for both endogeneity of schooling resulting from unmeasured ability, and possible heterogeneity in the impact of schooling. The empirical estimates indicate that education contributes more to the earnings of the individuals at a lower end of the income distribution. Under the assumption that the wage and ability distributions are related, this result is consistent with the notion that education and ability are substitutes.

The Economics Of Rotating Savings And Credit Association: Evidence From Ethiopia, Abbi M. Kedir

International Conference on African Development Archives

Using a unique individual level data on the membership of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) collected in 1994 from seven major urban centres in Ethiopia, we provide one of the few econometric tests of the economic theory of ROSCAs. In recognition of the heterogeneity of rosca types across space, we provide basic information about the characteristics of roscas in urban areas of Ethiopia. In addition, we use individual and household level data to describe the characteristics of both rosca participants and non-participants. The findings from the descriptive part of the analysis indicate that most of the rosca members are …

Concepts And Perspectives From The Economics Of Sustainable Development: Views Of Economists And Their Policy Implications For Ethiopia And The Rest Africa, Sisay Asefa

International Conference on African Development Archives

Sustainable development is a concept about the relationship between economic growth and the environment. The term was first used in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland Commission for its Chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland). In the Commssion’s report, “our common Future”, it defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987. The aim of this paper is to explore the various dimensions of sustainability from an economic perspective by focusing …

Du Bateau Négrier À L’Avion Négrier : Haïti, Les Puissances Esclavagistes Et Le Monde Noir, Cilas Kemedjio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The main argument of this study may be outlined as follows: colonized communities in the world economy being integrated by means of “historical fatality” from slavery to colonialism and neo-colonialism. The counter-movement of decolonization, as exemplified in the Haitian revolution, was meant to propose a more humane outbreak of enslaved peoples on the world scene. The account of globalization reveals that Haiti was forced into the world economy through the modality of extortion, which denied the most vulnerable members of Haitian society their basic humanity. The failure of the Haitian revolution to reverse the course of historical fatality opened the …

Fiscal Federalism And Its Discontents: Theory And Policy, Abu Girma Moges

International Conference on African Development Archives

A number of countries have pursued fiscal decentralization within a broad context of political and economic reforms to improve the performance of their public sector. Fiscal decentralization can potentially improve the allocation efficiency of the public sector and increase the capacity of a nation to address its pressing economic, social and political problems. The sustainability of such an approach is conditioned by the existence of effective democratic institutions and implementation capabilities. When political imperatives dictate the adoption of fiscal decentralization, however, the process would confront problems of the commons, capacity constraints and externalities that would limit the potential efficiency gains …

The Need For Standardization Of Aggregates For Concrete Production In Ethiopian Construction Industry, Abebe Dinku

International Conference on African Development Archives

Concrete is one of the versatile and widely used building material in the world construction industry. Fine and coarse aggregates make about 70% by volume of concrete production. It goes without saying that the quality of concrete is thus strongly influenced by aggregate’s physical and mechanical properties as well as chemical composition of the parent aggregate making material. This calls for a critical identification and classification of aggregates so that they are used to meet the intended purpose.

In this article, the physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of aggregates are reviewed. The sources and modes of production of coarse and …

Ethiopia In The World Economy: Trade, Private Capital Flows, And Migration, Kenneth A. Reinert

International Conference on African Development Archives

Economic globalization can be evaluated with reference to at least three dimensions: trade, private capital flows, and migration. For each of these dimensions, pathways can be identified through which economic globalization can alleviate or contribute to poverty. This paper makes a preliminary examination of the pathways between globalization and poverty for the case of Ethiopia. As one of the world’s poorest countries, Ethiopia’s integration with the world economy takes on specific features. It is highly dependent on the exports of a few goods, has imported a large amount of arms, is largely excluded from global FDI flows, benefits from relatively …

Socioeconomic Impact Of Export Oriented Agricultural Production On Farmers, In Eastern Ethiopia, Adem Kedir

International Conference on African Development Archives

This study was undertaken to assess the socio-economic impact of producing export oriented agricultural crops on the livelihoods of the farmers, in eastern Ethiopia. A random sample of 305 farmers was studied. Comparisons were made between producers and non-producers using the Z- test and regression analysis. It was found that producers of export oriented crops are better off than the non-producers in terms of sending children to elementary school, housing conditions and ability to finance their families’ food requirements. The impact of father’s education, number of children and livestock ownership on the improvements in the livelihoods of the farmers and …

The 3rd Eaf-Earo & Wmu-Cadpr International Symposium On Ethiopian Development Studies, June 18-19, 2005, The Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sisay Asefa

International Conference on African Development Archives

Introductory remarks for Third International Conference on Development Studies in Ethiopia, June 18-19, 2005, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Electoral Systems, Ethnic Fragmentation And Party Systems Volatility In 31 Sub Saharan African Countries, John Ishiyama

International Conference on African Development Archives

This paper thus addresses two primary issues. What is the relationship between the types of electoral systems that have been used to govern initial elections in the democratizing states of Africa and the degree to which party systems volatility has emerged? What other factors impact on the levels of volatility? I examine the above questions using data from 31 African countries. I find that most of the factors often cited as impacting on party systems development do not account for the level of legislative volatility. However, the dominance of the ruling party in the first election following democratic transition does …

Integrated Agricultural Development Strategies In The Anrs: Lessons From The Amarew Project, Brhane Gebrekidan, Yitayew Abebe, Fekadu Yohannes, Elias Zerfu, Habtemariam Kassa

International Conference on African Development Archives

The Amhara Micro-enterprise development, Agricultural Research, Extension and Watershed management (AMAREW) Project is a USAID/Ethiopia Mission funded initiative established in July 2002 to provide technical assistance in integrated agricultural development in the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS). The Project works to strengthen agricultural research, extension, watershed management, capacity building, and micro-enterprise development in the ANRS by collaborating with its ANRS partners in strategically selected two pilot watershed sites and five pilot food-insecure woredas.

The Project is being implemented by a Virginia Tech led Consortium (Virginia Tech, Cornell University, Virginia State University and ACDI/VOCA) in collaboration with its ANRS Primary Partners …