Aid, Taxation and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

External aid donors have gradually shifted from a benign view of the African state to one that presumes a conflict of interest between the state and its own private sector. What are the implications of this diagnosis for the design of aid programs? We develop a model that locates slow growth in the overly narrow interests of a political elite. We study the impact of aid on policy choice and private investment and the role of conditionality in securing the gains from aid. The results capture key features of the current diagnosis while underscoring the need for more sophisticated treatments of domestic political institutions, institutional change, and donor motivations.     

Neoliberalism and the Political Economy of the 'New' South Africa

This article addresses a gap in the international political economy (IPE) literature on housing finance by highlighting the ways in which the deepening of mortgage debt is part of a broader attempt to individualise and (re)privatise relations of social reproduction under neoliberalism. While the extension and deepening of debt has been underpinned by policies and discourses that assume the formal equality of individuals, the attempt to erase the gendered subject in the context of ongoing inequalities in paid labour markets, in asset ownership and in the division of unpaid labour has served to reproduce various overlapping social divisions and inequalities. In linking social reproduction to financial markets, the promotion of homeownership in the US has also rendered the social reproduction of present and future generations increasingly insecure. This work contributes to feminist and other critical IPE debates by highlighting the ways in which accumulation in financial markets has been based on the perpetuation of divisions and inequalities between social classes, between men and women and along certain racial and ethnic lines. It also centralises the role of the state in conditioning these processes.     

Comparative Institutional Advantage and the Appropriate Development Model for Sub-Saharan Africa

The theory of comparative institutional advantage posits that certain types of firms locate production facilities in a particular location and avoid other locations due to unique institutional advantages and disadvantages. In sub-Saharan Africa, neoliberal policies, weak and corrupt states, and Transnational Corporations have created a particularly destructive variant of capitalism. African capitalism generates little in the way of economic growth, rewards mainly the TNC and the African elites, and undermines Africa’s economic future via activities that are utterly extractive in nature. African capitalism is facilitated directly by the WTO, the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and the World Bank, and the institutional structures of African economies. After outlining the problems with African capitalism as currently structured, the paper goes on to suggest an alternative to this model involving experimental, embedded, grass roots development efforts that build on domestic cultural institutions that would generate significantly more positive outcomes for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. By abandoning neoliberal policies, it might be possible to create a better economic model that would build on community-centered institutional strengths to benefit a greater proportion of the population.     

Comparative Institutional Advantage and the Appropriate Development Model for Sub-Saharan Africa

The theory of comparative institutional advantage posits that certain types of firms locate production facilities in a particular location and avoid other locations due to unique institutional advantages and disadvantages. In sub-Saharan Africa, neoliberal policies, weak and corrupt states, and Transnational Corporations have created a particularly destructive variant of capitalism. African capitalism generates little in the way of economic growth, rewards mainly the TNC and the African elites, and undermines Africa’s economic future via activities that are utterly extractive in nature. African capitalism is facilitated directly by the WTO, the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and the World Bank, and the institutional structures of African economies. After outlining the problems with African capitalism as currently structured, the paper goes on to suggest an alternative to this model involving experimental, embedded, grass roots development efforts that build on domestic cultural institutions that would generate significantly more positive outcomes for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. By abandoning neoliberal policies, it might be possible to create a better economic model that would build on community-centered institutional strengths to benefit a greater proportion of the population.

Assessing the Impacts of Capital Inflows on Domestic Economy across the Sub-Saharan Africa Countries

Using GMM models, this paper analyzes the impacts of capital inflows on domestic investment in 44 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2003–2012. It is found that foreign direct investment across the SSA remains to be the largest percentage share, accounting for 35% of the total capital inflows. FDI inflows have significant positive impacts on domestic investment across the SSA in both short term and long term. Other key macroeconomic factors such as age dependency ratio, domestic economic growth, terms of trade, real effective exchange rate and trade openness also play vital roles in determining domestic investment.     

政治腐败与经济发展:理论演进及其论争

政治腐败与经济发展的关系研究可分为道德主义时期、修正主义时期、功能主义时期、后功能主义时期和多元化时期,在研究方法上渐趋科学化,促进并加深了对于政治腐败与经济发展关系的认识,但在观点上却出现了回归的现象。     

Political Economy and the Idea of Development

This paper explores the questions: what are the main organizing concepts of the older political economy of Smith and Marx; and how do they differ from those typical of more recent work in political economy? Special emphasis is placed on the importance of an idea of development in the older political economy, and on how that idea has been replaced in the newer political economy by notions of power and interest. The paper considers how the absence of a concept of development in the newer versions of political economy limits the scope and depth of these versions. Recent criticism of the idea of development is also considered. In light of this criticism, the paper considers weaknesses in the concept of development in the older political economy. However, rather than fully accepting the critique of the idea of development, the paper suggests that weaknesses in the classical construction can be corrected by paying closer attention to how we understand the ends of the development process.     

煤炭资源型城市发展低碳经济的路径研究——以鄂尔多斯市的低碳发展为例

低碳经济这一新型的经济发展形式,已逐渐成为世界各国在全球气候变暖、资源濒临枯竭等环境问题背景下的共同选择,已成为未来经济发展的主要趋势。鄂尔多斯市作为中国西部重要的煤炭资源型城市,以煤为主的经济结构决定了鄂尔多斯市经济发展具有碳关联度高、能源生产和消费含碳高的高碳产业特征。文章以鄂尔多斯市的低碳发展为例,研究鄂尔多斯市在发展低碳经济方面存在的问题、所采取的措施以及面临的挑战,研究结果对我国煤炭资源型城市发展低碳经济具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Marx and the Development of Critical Political Economy

Abstract

Although relevant analytical developments were provided over time by the critique of economic theory, they did not succeed in inhibiting the occurrence of a full-fledged revival of the neoclassical interpretation of capitalism. The development of critical economics and its capability of checking the influence of the dominant economic culture have been especially prejudiced by the failed integration between the analyses of Marx and Keynes. Following Keynes, once the ‘inducement to invest’ had been singled out as the central question for the explanation of output levels, one should have promptly acknowledged that on this very question Marx's analysis was significantly richer and more relevant than Keynes's—the richness and relevance of the former ultimately resting on the great attention Marx dedicated to the complex question of the influence of income distribution on the capitalists’ incentive to invest. It is argued in the article that through the study of this influence Marx succeeded in putting together the essential elements of a critical theory of effective demand, based on the principles and mechanisms that govern the distribution of income between profits and wages.     

金融发展的政治经济学

本文运用125个国家和地区的数据首次系统地检验了金融发展的政治经济学理论.我们研究发现,金融利益集团的力量对金融发展有着显著稳定的负面作用,即使我们控制了一国经济发展水平、政治制度、法律制度、文化传统以及地理禀赋等因素,结果仍然是显著而稳定的.同时,我们研究还发现,金融发展的政治经济学理论能够很好地解释中国国有商业银行改革的逻辑.因此,我们需要重新检讨中国既有的国有商业银行改革的路径.本文的结论是:加大开放的力度,削弱金融利益集团的影响,构建竞争性的银行业结构将有利于中国金融的良性发展.     

The Political Economy of Energy Transitions: The Case of South Africa

This paper explores the political economy of energy transition in South Africa. An economic model based around a powerful ‘minerals-energy complex’ that has previously been able to provide domestic and foreign capital with cheap and plentiful coal-generated electricity is no longer economically or environmentally sustainable. The paper analyses the struggle over competing energy visions, infrastructures and political agendas in order to generate insights into the governance and financing of clean energy transitions in South Africa. It provides both a rich empirical account of key policy developments aimed at enabling such a transition and provides reflections on how best to theorise the contested politics of energy transitions.     

Addressing Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Institutions and Agency

African leaders have not used processes in constitutional reforms that would result in institutions that could, in turn, reduce ethnicity (ethnic consciousness and mobilization for effective ethnic group demands on the state). Popular methods used to manage ethnicity have serious costs and weaknesses. Proposed are constitutional reforms via stable equilibrium determination processes. Focal points embedded in the cultures of the groups, relating to political institutions, distributive justice, and societal civility should facilitate the tasks. Important as enabling factors are leadership activities within civil society, inter alia to promote mutual respect, generalized trust, and pluralistic solidarity. JEL Classification: D74, O55, Z13.     

论政治经济学的传承与发展——基于我国高校政治经济学教学的思考

马克思主义政治经济学是指导我国经济运行和经济发展的基本理论。政治经济学的传承和发展要后继有人离不开高校这块阵地。必须透过我国高校政治经济学教学中存在的各种现象寻求化解困境的对策,通过社会、教师和学生的共同努力,才能使马克思主义政治经济学的基础性和指导性地位得以巩固,才能用马克思主义经济学的立场、观点和方法去解决我们社会主义经济实践中不断出现的新问题,才能坚定地走中国特色社会主义道路。     

The Political Economy of Growth in Latin America and East Asia: Some Empirical Evidence

This article examines the historical records of poor economic performance of Latin America compared to East Asia's relative success in the 1970s and 1980s. Although both regions adopted similar postwar protective inward-oriented development strategies, their experiences and economic outcomes diverged significantly in subsequent years. Some have argued that East Asian countries outperformed Latin American ones because they implemented appropriate policies that were adaptive to changes in the global market scene. This study shows that the respective sociopolitical and institutional environment of the two regions was also an important factor contributing to their economic outcomes. A growth model augmented with policy-driven and sociopolitical variables is developed. Using data for selected countries in both regions, the results confirm the hypothesis of a negative direct (efficiency) effect of sociopolitical instability on growth, with an additional indirect (accumulation) effect through investment, irrespective of a country's location. Policies adopted by governments, particularly to control inflation and foreign indebtedness and to enhance economic freedom and human capital accumulation, appear crucial for stability. Such policies influenced economic performance through both the direct and the indirect channels. (JEL B25 , E13 , F43 , H19 , O57 )     

腐败影响的宏观经济分析

文章首先将腐败引入Arrow-Kurz-Barro新古典生产函数,在Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans模型框架下,建立宏观经济动态模型,求解最优条件、讨论稳态均衡值的存在性和稳定性,并进行稳态比较的动态分析和短期分析。研究结果表明,贿赂水平的永久增加将减少稳态的资本积累,但对稳态消费的影响则呈现多种可能;短期贿赂水平变动对资本存量与消费水平的影响也呈现出多种可能性。     

The Political Economy of Education and Development in an Open Economy

If the price effect of opening up a developing economy may be expected to act as a disincentive for investment in human capital, the opposite is likely to be true of the income effect, especially in the presence of credit market imperfections among the poor. It is shown in this paper that this may no longer be the case in a society initially dominated by an oligarchic capitalist elite that is afraid of losing its political control in favor of an educated middle class. Although it may sometimes be in its interest to democratize by subsidizing education when the economy is closed, incentives to do so disappear when the economy is open to trade or factor flows.     

地方政府和腐败：几个实际问题

我想简要论述两个问题:政府在转轨过程中的作用以及几个解决地方政府腐败问题的建议.