YAMAZAWA'S OPEN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION: AN INDIAN OCEAN GROUPING FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION

With the landmark economic reforms in South Asia and political changes in South Africa, several issues concerning trade and investment have emerged within the Indian Ocean region and internationally. Following the concept of “open economic association” introduced by Yamazawa, the question examined in this paper is whether a market-driven economic integration is emerging involving the Indian Ocean Rim countries.     

Indian Ocean Rim: Assessing the prospects for cooperation and integration

This article assesses recent events leading to the establishment in 1997 of a regional organisation for the Indian Ocean Rim, subtitled an Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR‐ARC). This is a case of ‘open’ regionalism of the functionalist kind. New members may be admitted in 1999 and, as trade integration has not been ruled out, the openness of the design may lead to the changeover from regional cooperation to regional integration after 2004. By 2003 the members of the Association for South‐East Asian Nations (Asean) of the IOR‐ARC will have free‐trade arrangements in that region and by 2004 the SADC members of the IOR‐ARC will be similarly structured, making a free‐trade scenario within the IOR almost irresistible. This will create new problems, making it very difficult for the less competitive nations to endorse their continued membership of this bloc unless project cooperation now under way makes complementarity more meaningful, equipping states and market sectors to cope better with the more competitive nature of free trade that always applies in market integration. This will pose great challenges for South Africa.     

建设印度洋国际大通道发挥面向印度洋桥头堡作用

云南省是我国唯一能从陆路通过东南亚直接沟通印度洋沿岸国家的省份。具有独特的区位优势。云南省应积极推进印度洋国际大通道的建设,发挥面向印度洋桥头堡作用,这也是应对国际金融危机,实现经济社会平稳较快发展的重大举措。     

A review of trade trends: South Africa and the Indian Ocean Rim

Since 1990, intense diplomatic efforts have taken place to secure and negotiate trade treaties with South Africa's traditional trading partners (the European Union, in particular) and those countries in close geographic proximity. This article examines South Africa's trade links with some of its ‘non‐traditional’ trading partners, in particular the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR), in an attempt to ascertain the nature of the trade and its importance vis‐a‐vis the rest of the world. An examination of trade data for the years 1992‐5 indicates that trade with the IOR consists mainly of the mutual exchange of natural resource products and that this trade is growing much faster than South Africa ‘s trade in general. Given this trade dynamism, South Africa should pay increasing attention to international relations with these countries. South African trade with the Rim was also found to differ from trade with the rest of the world in that it comprises the mutual exchange of natural resource‐based products. This research shows that our imports and exports are positively related to the gross domestic product of our trading partners, and negatively related to their population size and distance from South Africa. Also, more open economies have absorbed more exports from South Africa. There is some ambiguity as to the role that distance plays in determining the level of imports into this country. The intensity indices computed in this article have to be viewed in the light of this research.     

English mercantilist influences on the foundation of the Portuguese School of Commerce in 1759

The Portuguese School of Commerce, founded in 1759, is promoted frequently as the world's first official, government-sponsored school to offer formal instruction in commerce. This paper contends that Sebastião Carvalho e Melo (1699–1782), the Marquis of Pombal, was responsible for the transfer, from England to Portugal, of the educational “know how” instrumental to the School's success. Pombal was influenced by the English mercantilism he observed as the Portuguese ambassador to England (1738–43), particularly proposals by a writer on mercantilism, Malachy Postlethwayt, for academy-based commercial education in England. Another influence on Pombal was former East India Company employee, John Cleland. Pombal's motives were to imitate the success of British mercantilism, develop trade and economic activity in Portugal, and improve and expand Portugal's merchant class.     

Contextual determinants of family dissolution in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

The question of family dissolution has been widely debated by demographers, economists and health experts in developed countries. However, there appears to be a dearth of research on the contextual determinants of family dissolution in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the variations that exist within regions. This article is stimulated by the recognition that family dissolution is associated with negative consequences both for adults and for children. Using pooled data from the recent Demographic and Health Surveys of 16 SSA countries with a weighted sample of 51 474 (Central Africa), 61 069 (East Africa), 42 247 (Southern Africa) and 83 187 (West Africa) women, the article examines the contextual determinants of family dissolution in SSA. Dissolution rates ranged from 12% in East Africa to 20% in Central Africa. Socio-economic variables were strong predictors of dissolution in all of the regions although direction of association differed. This article adds to the body of knowledge of family dissolution in SSA.     

Bank Efficiency and Macro-economic Factors: The Case of Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of macro-economic factors on bank efficiency of commercial banks in Asia, Middle East/North Africa, and Africa. To achieve the objective, the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) was used to simultaneously estimate the parameters of the stochastic frontier and the inefficiency model. The results show that the effect of macro-economic factors on bank efficiency differs across region. Cost inefficiency of the commercial banks in the Asian region is negatively related to the real gross domestic product per capita, credit to the private sector, and market concentration but is positively related to trade openness. Banks cost inefficiency in the Middle East/North Africa is negatively related to trade openness but is positively related to market concentration suggesting that banking market in this region should be more open to competition.     

The political economy of the United States policy in Southern Africa

Conclusion Former Secretary of State Kissinger’s policies towards and maneuvers in southern Africa must be examined within the context of America’s global strategy and imperialist objectives. As in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, the United States aims at giving South Africa sufficient support so that she can play a policing role in southern Africa, if not in sub-Sahara Africa as a whole. This is what the Nixon-Kissinger Doctrine called for. It argued that the Western countries must now establish a decentralized, global system of defense. This article was originally published inRBPE, Spring 1977 (vol. 7, no. 3).     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
ALLY, R. Gold and Empire. The Bank Of England and South African Gold Producers 1880–1926 J.S. Jones SOHO, T. Japan and Africa .
SONO, T. From the East: Lessons from Taiwan for South Africa D J J. Botha.
ALLY, R. Gold and Empire . The Bank Of England and South African Gold Producers 1880–1926.     

Testing for Son Preference in South Africa

Evidence from many developing countries suggests that parentshave a preference for sons over daughters. This has been referredto as son preference. This paper uses individual level unitrecord data to test the son preference hypothesis in South Africa.We use an accelerated hazard model to estimate the durationbetween successive births and our results indicate that sonpreference exists only for the Indian community in South Africa.Indian households are observed to have a higher duration betweenchildren following the birth of a son, irrespective of the numberof children they already have. For the rest of the population,there is very little evidence of son preference. Preferencefor sons could be the result of a combination of factors includingreligious beliefs and social customs such as the dowry system,lineage and familial and kinship ties.     

Myopia or strategic behavior? Indian regimes and the East India Company in late eighteenth century India

The East India Company's conquest of India was facilitated by the behavior of its Indian rivals who not only did not ally against it, but often supported it militarily. Historians have typically attributed this to myopia, the failure to understand the long-term threat represented by the Company. We examine the negotiations leading up to a key conflict, the Third Mysore War, and find that the Company's allies were not myopic. The British parliament had, in 1784, passed Pitt's India Act, which limited the scope for unprovoked military aggression by the Company in India. This had changed the behavior of the Company, making its promises more credible. This enhanced credibility made it possible for the Company to secure as allies Indian regimes that were acting strategically in their self-interest. This is a new explanation for an old puzzle.     

印度扩展非洲石油市场份额的策略

经济快速发展导致的能源需求大增以及国内石油资源储产量有限无法满足需要的现实,加剧了印度对海外石油的依赖,石油外交成为新时期印度维护石油供给安全的主要路径选择。随着非洲石油资源储产量的持续上升,在世界石油供给市场上作用的凸现,非洲成为印度新时期石油外交的重点地区之一。探究印度在非洲石油外交的背景、路径、成效及挑战,对客观评价印度对非洲石油外交的态势以及印非关系现状定有裨益。     

Dutch-Asiatic trade in the 17th and 18th centuries

Abstract

Dr. Glamann's study of Dutch-Asiatic trade marks a new approach in the treatment of European-Asiatic relations during the centuries of European invasion and rule of the Indian peninsula and the Indian archipelago. About 1600 the Dutch and English East India Companies became the competitors and successors of the Portuguese in that area. These companies, however, have often been treated in historical writings primarily as the precursors of Holland and England as Empire-builders. Such a view is all too sweeping. It is true that the role of these two companies in the transition from medieval partnerships and regulated companies into modern joint-stock companies has not been overlooked by former historians. But this role is worthy of consideration as a major problem and Dr. Glamann has devoted attention to it, in addition to the trade proper of the Dutch company which was the central theme of his investigation.     

Analysis of Feminie Image --Shama in A House for Mr. Biswas

A House for Mr. Biswas is an account of an individual life and an allegory of the East Indian＇s situation in Trinidad. Actually, be they eastern or western, critics＂ studies mainly focused on the portrayal of the protagonist Mr. Biswas in the angle of marginality, exile, identity, etc. Seldom did critics involve in systematic discussion of female characters. Thus this essay analyses Shama fi＇om postcolonial feminist perspective, which is also called feminism in the Third World, trying to probe into the condition encountered by the Trinidadian Indian women. This essay first briefly introduces the background of this masterpiece＇s creation; and then it probes into the dilemma encountered by Shama with her Tulsis Family and her husband; finally, it safely draws a conclusion and also points out the loopholes in this essay and provides further research fields.     

Optimum Currency Areas in Emerging Market Regions: Evidence Based on the Symmetry of Economic Shocks

This paper examines which emerging market regions form optimum currency areas (OCAs) by assessing the symmetry of macroeconomic shocks. We extend the output-prices-VAR framework by adding net exports and the real effective exchange rate as endogenous variables. Based on theoretical considerations, we derive which shocks affect these variables in the long run: shocks to labor productivity, foreign trade, labor supply, and money supply. The considered economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, East and Southeast Asia, and South Asia, exhibit large enough shock symmetry to form a currency union; the economies of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East do not.     

LIQUIDITY AND VALUATION IN EAST AFRICAN SECURITIES MARKETS

This study estimates liquidity premiums using the recently developed Liu measure within a multifactor capital asset pricing model including size premiums and a time‐varying parameter model for the East African emerging markets of Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya together with London and South Africa. The evidence suggests that while size and liquidity effects are significant in the smaller emerging markets of Uganda and Kenya, they are less important in explaining returns in South Africa and London. Costs of equity are highest in Uganda followed by Kenya, with industrial and consumer non‐cyclical sectors being lowest, and then South Africa and London.     

Colonial taxation and government spending in British Africa, 1880–1940: Maximizing revenue or minimizing effort?

Colonial state institutions are widely cited as a root cause of sub-Saharan African underdevelopment, but the opinions differ on the channels of causation. Were African colonial states ruled by near absolutist governments who strived to maximize revenue extraction in order to strengthen their grip on native African societies? Or did European powers build ‘states without substance’, governed with minimal resources and effort, failing to invest in basic public goods? This paper develops an analytical framework for comparing colonial tax and spending patterns and applies it to eight British African colonies (1880–1940). We show that colonial fiscal systems did not adhere to a uniform logic, that minimalism prevailed in West Africa, extractive features were more pronounced in East Africa, and that Mauritius revealed characteristics of a developmental state already before 1940.     

Institutions for the taking: property rights and the settlement of the Cape Colony, 1652–1750

We examine the formation of property rights in land during the early settlement by the Dutch of the Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa. After its founding in 1652 as a provisioning outpost for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the colonial government promoted settlement initially by granting land with well-specified and enforced property rights in restricted zones near Cape Town. By 1714 it transitioned to accommodate rapidly expanding settlement by creating a weaker form of property rights, the loan farm, which was imprecisely defined and had limited government enforcement. We develop a profit-maximizing monopsony model to explain the VOC's choice to transition from the better-specified land grant to the less well-specified loan farm. We conclude that the decline in the population size and ability of the Khoikhoi, the Cape's original inhabitants, to organize effective resistance to the Dutch invasion was critical to the transition, as it lowered the costs of private enforcement of settlers’ territorial claims. The choice of property rights thus enabled and encouraged the rapid taking by European settlers of the western Cape of Africa for the expansion of the Dutch colony's pastoral economy.     

The Middle-Eastern marriage pattern? Malthusian dynamics in nineteenth-century Egypt

Malthus predicted that fertility rises with income and that people regulate fertility via regulating marriage. However, evidence on the Malthusian equilibrium has been mostly confined to Europe and East Asia. We employ Egypt's population censuses of 1848 and 1868 to provide the first evidence on the preindustrial Malthusian dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa. At the aggregate level, we document rural Egyptian women having a high fertility rate that is close to the Western European level, combined with low age at marriage and low celibacy rate, that are closer to the East Asian levels. This resulted in a uniquely high fertility regime that was probably offset by the high child mortality. Next, we provide individual-level evidence on the positive correlation between fertility and income (occupation). We find that the higher fertility of rural white-collar men is attributed to their marriage behaviour, and not to marital fertility. Specifically, white-collar men's higher polygyny explains 45 per cent of their fertility advantage, whereas their higher marriage rate and lower wife's age at marriage explains 55 per cent. Therefore, polygyny was an additional factor that led to a steeper income–fertility curve than in Western Europe by enabling the rural middle class to out-breed the poor.