Waiting for Pri vat iza tion in the Arab World: The Case of Jor dan

Abstract

This pa per looks at the pri vat iza tion pro cess in the, Hashemite King dom of Jor dan in par tic u lar and the Arab World in gen - eral. It notes the slow and lim ited pace of pri vat iza tion in the re gion. The pa per chal lenges the view that eco nomic fac tors are the main im - ped i ments to pri vat iza tion, and pro vides a fresh ev i dence for the the sis that po lit i cal fac tors are the pri mary fac tors in de ter min ing the out come of pri vat iza tion pol i cies. A better un der stand ing to the way in which po lit i cal fac tors af fect eco nomic re form, in clud ing di ves ti ture, is needed.     

Working in the Middle East: Western female expatriates' experiences in the United Arab Emirates

This study is about the experiences of Western female expatriates working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Muslim Arab country in the Middle East. We reveal these expatriates' own interpretations of their adjustment, cross-cultural training (CCT) and social ties and support experiences. On the basis of a survey of 86 female expatriates from Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA and subsequent interviews with 26 of them, we find that Western women successfully adjust to life and work in the UAE despite significant cultural differences between their home countries and the UAE. Surprisingly, Western female expatriates do not find lengthy rigorous CCT critical to their assignments in this country. They see such training as an unjustified cost due to the fact that they rarely interact with host nationals and are much more frequently exposed to other Westerners and representatives of other cultures while undertaking their assignments. The large Western expatriate community is highly appreciated as the primary source of social ties and support for our respondents, whereas interacting with host country nationals is rather an exception and does not provide essential ties and support. Our findings have implications for multinational companies (MNCs) operating via expatriation in the UAE and for Western female expatriates who consider this country as their assignment destination.     

Tracking world trade and GDP in real time

This paper proposes a simple procedure for obtaining monthly assessments of short-run perspectives for quarterly world GDP and trade. It combines high-frequency information from emerging and advanced countries so as to explain quarterly national accounts variables through bridge models. The union of all bridge equations leads to our world bridge model (WBM). The WBM approach of this paper is new for two reasons: its equations combine traditional short-run bridging with theoretical level-relationships, and it is the first time that forecasts of world GDP and trade have been computed for both advanced and emerging countries on the basis of a real-time database of approximately 7000 time series. Although the performances of the equations that are searched automatically should be taken as a lower bound, our results show that the forecasting ability of the WBM is superior to the benchmark. Finally, our results confirm that the use of revised data leads to models’ forecasting performances being overstated significantly.     

Features of Tradi tional Arab Management and Organization in the Jordan Business Environment

Abstract

Re search into Arab man age ment and or ga ni za tion is recent and en tails a con tra dic tory vi sion about what type of man age ment is found in Arab busi ness or ga ni za tions. This pa per sug gests that at this in-cip i ent stage of re search into Arab man age ment and or ga ni za tion, the pri mary ob jec tive of re search should be to ex plore the main fea tures of Arab man age ment in an at tempt to de velop Arab man age ment and ad -vance its or ga ni za tion. The pa per, based on the out come of a com par ative em pir i cal re search, takes into con sid er ation ma jor the o ret i cal and meth od olog i cal short com ings of re lated re search and at tempts to build a ‘bal anced’ pic ture of Arab man age ment and or ga ni za tion. Evidence in di cates that Arab man age ment and or ga ni za tion in Jor dan are, largely, tra di tional and man i fested in spe cific fea tures (lim ited future ori en ta tion and ex ces sive lack of del e ga tion of au thor ity) re flect ing on their sys tems and prac tices.     

Technologies of Translocality: Vegetables,Meat and Dresses in Arab Muslim Detroit

The diversification of US suburbs in terms of race, ethnicity and immigration has created invaluable opportunities for scholars to study technologies of translocality‐in‐the‐making. Translocal landscapes are described as spaces of ‘here' studded with ‘parts of elsewhere' (Allen and Cochrane, 2007 )—but which pieces of the landscape count as meaningfully ‘of elsewhere', how do those parts get there, and what range of meanings can they signify? This article is based on qualitative, in‐depth interviews and explores these questions in the context of an Arab Muslim ethnic enclave and retail district in an inner‐ring suburb of Detroit. The findings indicate that ‘parts of elsewhere' are more internally pluralized, multifunctional, multidirectional and aesthetically diverse than commonly recognized. The implications of these findings challenge scholars to develop more robust frameworks to explain how translocal geographies are produced, why they matter, and how they can be recognized.     

Firm financing and growth in the Arab region

This paper documents how firms in Arab countries use equity, corporate bond and syndicated loan markets to obtain financing and grow. Working with a new dataset on issuance activity in domestic and international markets and firm performance, the paper finds that capital raising through these markets has grown rapidly since the early 1990s and involved an increasing number of firms. Whereas the amounts raised in equity and loan markets (relative to gross domestic product) stand well relative to international standards, bond issuance activity lags behind. However, bond financing has gained importance over time. Equity issuances take place primarily in domestic markets, whereas bonds and loans are mostly issued internationally, display long maturities and entail low levels of credit risk. Issuing firms from the Arab region are very large compared to international standards. They also tend to be larger, faster growing and more leveraged than non-issuing firms in Arab countries.     

上海浦东建设世界级会展中心的差距诊断

本文以波特的“钻石模型”为主要分析框架,结合会展业的产业特点、发展规律以及世界级会展中心的发展实践,深入分析影响城市（区域）成为世界级会展中心的基础和重要因素,并在此基础上构建出世界级会展中心评价指标体系。借助该体系,诊断浦东新区目前会展业发展的差距,提出若干有针对性的发展建议,旨在促进浦东会展业持续健康发展,助力其加快迈向世界级会展中心的步伐。     

Explaining trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper examines the evolution of trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MNA) countries since the 1960s. It shows that contrary to the current popular perception, until the 1980s MNA countries were generally more open than the rest of the developing world. That situation changed in the 1980s and especially the 1990s as most MNA countries maintained their trade policies, while many other developing countries proceeded with liberalization. The paper develops and estimates a political economy model of trade policy to search for the factors behind the initial relative openness of the region and its reversal. The results show that the pattern is related to the rise and decline of the region's resource rents, which affected the political weight of domestic producers versus consumers. Other factors are also considered, but they all seem to have secondary effects.     

Estimating the effects of democratization in African countries: A simultaneous equations approach

This paper analyzes impacts of democratization in Africa, including effects of improved, property rights on economic growth and of greater political participation on civil violence. Democracy is endogenous to economic growth and other outcomes, which hampers most, empirical analysis. This paper uses a minimum distance simultaneous equations estimation to, account for all endogenous variables while including time and country fixed effects. The method yields a test of fit of the model, which is strong. Results indicate a positive significant effect of property rights institutions on economic growth in the presence of time and country fixed effects. Estimates also show a negative significant effect of political participation on civil violence and, strong effects of aid per capita on both economic growth and civil violence.     

网络民主兴起背景下我国电子政务发展的具体路径

随着网络民主的兴起和发展,电子政务建设和发展便有了一种价值指引和实践导向。网络民主兴起的背景下,我国电子政务发展的具体路径：期望能够凭借现代技术激发公众的主体意识,提供更多的人性化服务,与政府有序地进行互动,政府具备快速回应能力,以及政务进一步公开,实现公民监督公共权力的运作,促进政府科学行政和依法行政等。