NEA Presidential Address: Gender Inequality and Human Development in Sub- Saharan Africa

This Presidential Address considers the effects of gender inequality on human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Parameter estimates from quantile and ordinal categorical latent variable specifications of the relationship between components of the Human Development Index and measures of gender inequality suggests that human development in Sub-Saharan Africa increases with respect to improvements in several measures of gender inequality. The results suggest that inegalitarian laws, norms, traditions and codes of conduct toward women constrain both human and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

NEA Presidential Address: Black Economists of the World You Cite!!

Economists who publish research in the economics and political economy of race seem averse to citing similar research by black economists. As citations are an important determinant of success as a research economist, black economists can possibly offset the aversion of non-black economists in citing black economists, by citing black economists themselves. This NEA Presidential address considers the relevance of black economist citations, and evaluates the extent to which black economists cite other black economists.

四川长虹：昔日老大幸福不再

四川长虹的彩电业务虽有所转机,但毛利率偏低。手机、白电等其他副业却弥补了公司的盈利不足。被公司寄予厚望的等离子项目,因不被市场看好,未来的发展还具不确定性.     

The South African social safety net: past,present and future

Discriminatory social provision in South Africa originated soon after Union. This differentiation continued in the period before Nationalist rule, but there were also attempts at liberalisation, particularly during the Second World War. Nationalist rule brought with it a reversal of what little gains may have been made. From the early 1970s there was a gradual shift away from apartheid dogma. Future policies will need to eliminate gaps in the social safety net and ensure that adequate entitlements are delivered prudently and cost‐effectively.     

From past to present: The historical context of environmental and coastal management in Tanzania

This article explores how the history of environmental management in Tanzania has created barriers to and bridges for sustainable environmental management at present. It contributes to an understanding of historical events that have shaped decision-making structures, management practices and social capital as they relate to the objectives of environmental management. What environmental management means for Tanzania has evolved significantly, but it is argued that certain key features, such as the combination of a strong deliberative tradition among peers, and a highly hierarchical decision-making structure between central and local governments, have been sustained over time. These findings were generated from interviews with Tanzanian environmental managers, as well as a survey of contextual barriers to and bridges for environmental management completed by coastal resource managers in early 2000.     

The past,present and future of euro area monetary-fiscal interactions

International Economics and Economic Policy - The EU’s Treaties were designed to limit the interaction between fiscal and monetary policies. However, over the last decade, the introduction of...     

Socioeconomic inequalities in death from past to present: An introduction

In the early postwar period, improvements in life expectancy in many Western countries made health authorities, health scientists and politicians believe that social differences in mortality converged. The assumption was that inequality, when measured as death rates, was on steady decline, possibly even on the brink of disappearing. The question is then, how far back in time can social differences in mortality be traced? Can they be traced back to the agricultural society or are they a result of industrialization? Whether or not these differences are the result of the industrial revolution became a lively debated issue at the time and has continued to be discussed to date. While many scholars have taken a Malthusian view, that mortality in the past was largely determined by economic factors, others argue that mortality was determined by non-economic factors, leaving little room for a social gradient in mortality. Due to lack of coherent data covering long time periods, our knowledge has been based on bits and pieces of evidence from various locations and time periods. The evidence used is not only fragmentary but furthermore only partly comparable as different definitions of social class and mortality have been used.Here we present results from seven new studies of locations in Western and Southern Europe, the US and Canada for which individual-level longitudinal data exists during the industrialization period. Most of these studies cover also the first part of the twentieth century, a period for which such microdata hitherto has largely been lacking. Taken together, they have a wide geographic coverage and a very long time horizon. Based on these studies, we argue that social differences appeared both long before and long after the industrial breakthrough, in both cases implying that these differences are not directly related to industrialization. We also argue that the association between income and mortality observed today most likely is a recent phenomenon. Overall, a causal link between income and mortality is put into question.     

The role of credibility in the cyclical properties of macroeconomic policies in emerging economies

Optimal stabilization policy is countercyclical, aiming at keeping output close to its potential. However it has been traditionally argued that emerging countries are unable to adopt countercyclical monetary and fiscal policies. Here we argue that the cyclical properties of macroeconomic policies depend critically on policy credibility. We test this proposition by making use of recent panel data for eleven emerging market economies and time series data for Chile. The evidence supports that countries with higher credibility, as reflected by lower country risk levels, are able to conduct countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies. Conversely, countries with less credible policies (and, therefore, with higher country risk spreads) contribute to larger cyclical fluctuations by applying procyclical policies. For Chile we find that both monetary and fiscal policies have been largely countercyclical after 1993. JEL no. E43, E52, E62     

近30年来我国高等教育的政策演变及未来发展趋势

文章通过梳理我国1980年以来的高等教育政策演变的文献,推测出中国高等教育政策未来的发展趋势:即逐渐形成和完善高等教育质量体系,建立按需就读的终身教育体系,职业教育朝着精细化和尖端化方向发展。     

Stabilization policies and stagflation: The cases of Brazil and Chile

This paper is a comparative study of the economic stabilization policies in Brazil 1964–1968 and Chile 1973–1978. The periods chosen correspond to the first phase of authoritarian regimes whose avowed aim was to re-establish economic equilibrium and ‘put order’ in society in general, after severe disruptions caused by populist or socialist experiences.The economic policies of these regimes have been characterized as a radical attempt to apply orthodox tools in the context of semi-industrialized economies. Conventional wisdom has it that Brazil was the precursor in the orthodox experiments and one imitated by southern-cone countries in Latin America in the 1970s. Our study reveals deep differences between the cases of Brazil and Chile.The study discusses initial conditions, macroeconomic results, the use of monetarist tools, deviations from orthodoxy, the connection between stabilization policies and the long-term development model, and the effects of the policies on income distribution.     

NEA presidential address, 1992: Policy issues in the postsecondary education of African Americans

Few goods and services are as important to socioeconomic outcomes as education. Participation rates of African Americans in postsecondary education are much lower than those for whites. The disparities in college attendance and graduation rates have potentially grave consequences for African Americans and for the larger society. This article addresses some of the policy influences that determine educational outcomes for this population subgroup and raises some of the issues that should be addressed if proportionate participation rates are to be generated.     

The theory of bank redlining and discrimination: An exploration

This article addresses a gap in the economic literature on race and credit markets: the theoretical basis of lending discrimination and redlining. It provides a unified model for exploring why discrimination and redlining exist in credit markets. This model is first used to examine three explanations offered by other authors—bigotry, differential risk, and market segmentation. The article then suggests several new explanations of race effects. These emphasize the interlinkage between labor and credit markets; market spillovers due to housing liquidity, refurbishment, and branch location effects; and strategic interaction among lenders.