The post-crisis recovery and its risks and opportunities

This article considers the prospects for the development of the Russian economy in the post-crisis period. Key factors are analyzed that may affect the rate of the economic recovery. Opportunities are studied for changing the qualitative characteristics of economic development. Key objectives are formulated for the mid-term development of the Russian economy.     

The price of improvements: agrarian contracts and agrarian development in nineteenth‐century eastern Spain1

Fixed‐rent contracts do not free landlords from the need to supervise the land if it is of high value and fragile fertility, nor do they free them from the costs of monitoring farmers if they are poor peasants prone to fall into arrears. In such cases, however, compensation for improvements will encourage tenants to farm with care and act as a bond against non‐payment of rent. This article studies the repercussions of these kinds of situations by analysing what happened in nineteenth‐century Valencia, where being the owners of the improvements led to tenants eventually becoming the owners of the land.     

Challenges and opportunities in El Salvador's financial sector

The formal financial sector has expanded rapidly in postwar El Salvador, encouraged by premature financial liberalization and a remittance windfall, exceeding commercial banks' capacities to lend prudently. The counterpart of this spurious financial deepening is a shallow financial market for smaller firms, which reflects both difficult real conditions for small urban and agricultural enterprises, and the unfortunate effects of the credit-channeling model characterizing development banks and most nongovernment organization projects. This model discourages the growth of small-scale institutions that can fund themselves from local resources, and limits the ability of small producers to accumulate financial savings.     

Tourism development in the SADC region: The opportunities and challenges

This article presents an assessment of recent tourism performance in the countries of the Southern African Development Community region, as well as an evaluation of future prospects. It examines growth rates and source markets in developing a profile of current tourism to the region. It identifies and assesses the current and probable future impact of a range of issues and problems, which are serving either to help or hinder tourism development. It suggests necessary actions for facilitating the accelerated development of tourism. The article also analyses the countries' tourism development policies and their competitive standing with other parts of Africa and other world regions from the market's viewpoint. It evaluates future growth prospects for the region by relating these various strands of analysis to the assessments made in the World Tourism Organization's Tourism 2020 vision study. The conclusion is one of qualified optimism: the natural and sociocultural resources of the region match the growing tastes of the international tourism market but, without concerted action to improve international access and tackle the major (real and imagined) threats to tourist safety prevailing in the region, growth rates will continue to be below their potential. The region's physical remoteness from the military theatre of action consequent to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States could well bring the countries of the SADC, and especially South Africa, some benefit from being perceived in tourist-generating markets as safe from these activities.     

Scientific and technological development: Limitations and opportunities

This paper considers the role of innovations and technologies in modern social and economic development. There is a discrepancy between the declarative goals contained in government documents on the role of science, technology, and the actual results achieved. It has been shown that in the tough external environment for Russia there is no alternative to the development and creation of domestic competitive technologies. In order to make full use of the scientific and technological potential that has been preserved in the country, it is first of all necessary to restore the full innovative cycle and stimulate the interest of Russian companies in national innovative solutions and competitive technologies. The responsible role of the state in reforming the domestic scientific sector, as well as in the harmonization of relations between the state, business, scientific community, and society as a whole has been emphasized.     

Social development and social protection: New opportunities and challenges

The growing interest in social protection in the interdisciplinary field of development studies presents new challenges and opportunities. However, to respond effectively, development scholars should be cognisant of the extensive research that has been undertaken over many years in the interdisciplinary field of social policy into what is known as ‘social security’. They have hitherto neglected this research, but it can make a significant contribution to their own work. At the same time, they have a rare opportunity to inform social policy research, which has historically relied on a Eurocentric ‘welfare state’ approach that is of limited relevance to the developing world. By forging closer links between these two fields, we can address the challenges facing social protection more effectively.     

Rural women and state policy: The Latin American agrarian reform experience

This review of 13 Latin American agrarian reforms shows that most have directly benefited only men. It is argued that this is largely because of the common designation of ‘households’ as the beneficiaries of an agrarian reform and the subsequent incorporation of only male household heads into the new agrarian reform structures. It is shown that a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for rural women to benefit on par with men is that they too be designated as beneficiaries. Women as well as men must be given access to land or the opportunity to participate within the agrarian cooperatives or state farms promoted by an agrarian reform. This comparative analysis of the Latin American agrarian reform demonstrates that this has happened only in countries where the incorporation of rural women to the reform is an explicit objective of state policy.     

2004年福建外贸发展的机遇与挑战

面对2004年国际、国内政治经济形势，我省外贸发展环境是机遇与挑战并存。及时把握机遇，寻找对策，对福建经济持续稳定发展意义重大。     

Road crashes in Namibia: Challenges and opportunities for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

Within a broad framework for comprehensive advancement, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directly address the importance of safe transport to human development. We analysed some 29 000 crashes recorded in Namibia between 2012 and 2015 to identify connections between road safety and sustainable development there and, by extension, throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. The results indicate that the heavy reliance on transport services for basic mobility, especially in rural areas, contributes to negative development outcomes in terms of significant burden of injuries and death, many of which affect younger people of prime working age. The results also suggest that development pressures such as increased commercial traffic and more private vehicles increase the burden of roadway crashes. Many of the underlying factors contributing to these crashes are attributable to driving behaviours and safety cultures that must be addressed as part of programmatic socioeconomic development in order to mitigate the negative effects of transportation and more fully realise its potential to support sustainable development. We document additional ways in which the provision of safe transport is interrelated to successful attainment of the broader SDGs including those not explicitly addressing safe transport such as 4, 5, 8, 9, 16, and 17.     

Forced commerce and agrarian growth

The paper explains why contractually interlocked agrarian markets differ from price—and quantity—adjustments under pressures of excess demand/supply in neoclassical general equilibrium analysis. Such contractual interlocking, arising (say) from the indebtedness of the peasants, gives rise to a contrived system of “forced commerce”. This commercial mode of exploitation not only exhibits unequal relations of economic power, but more important, it is also a mechanism for maintaining such unequal power structure, often at the cost of retarding agrarian growth. The paper thus emphasizes the need to understand the very notion of “market exchange” and “commerce” in backward agriculture from an unconventional viewpoint.     

The relationship between financial sector development and savings mobilisation in South Africa: An empirical study

This article examines the link between financial sector development and savings mobilisation in South Africa for the period 1980–2012. Taking the life-cycle hypothesis as our theoretical background and using Johansen co-integration that allows for hypothesis testing, the empirical results revealed a long-run relationship between savings, interest rates and financial sector development. We find an inverse relationship between the interest rate and savings, implying that South Africans are net borrowers because the income effect overwhelms the substitution effect. This in part explains the low level of savings in recent time. Important policy lessons for boosting the national savings rate are discussed.     

产业发展 蕴藏无限商机

“十一五”期间，密云县计划构建以“生态农业”，“环境友好型工业”，“休闲旅游业”为特色的生态经济体系，提高经济增长质量和可持续性，优化完善城市功能，进一步向新城集聚人口和产业，初步形成“现代化新城”格局；全面发展社会事业，大幅提升公共服务能力，建成覆盖城乡的社会公共服务体系；稳步提高水源保护和生态涵养能力．进一步增强生态涵养区和首都饮用水源基地功能。实现经济发展水平、人民生活品质，可持续发展能力，公共服务能力、水源保护和生态涵养能力显著提升，预计地区生产总值年均增长13％，财政收入年均增长12％，城镇居民人均可支配收入和农民人均纯收入年均分别增长7％左右．到2010年城镇化率达到50％左右，全县林木覆盖率达到68％。为达到这些目标，密云县将采取一系列措施创造优良发展环境，增加投入以促进产业发展，改善基础设施条件和公共服务水平，加强生态建设．为相关领域投资者和各种相关要素供给商提供了广阔商机。     

The government sector,the export sector and growth

Summary A three-sector, two-input growth model is developed which potentially allows for the separate identification of government and export sector productivity differentials and externality effects. Using data from a limited sample of OECD countries (which are the only countries for which reliable capital stock data are readily available), we find that the export sector is more productive than the rest of the economy, but that neither an externality effect nor a productivity differential can be detected in the case of the government sector.The author wishes to acknowledge financial assistance from a Research Grant from the Division of Commerce of the University of Otago which funded the participation of William M. Jones as research asistant in this work. Thanks are due to Annette Godman for secretarial assistance. The referees of this journal made extensive comments on an earlier version of this paper, and the present version is substantially better thanks to them. Remaining errors are, of course, my responsibility.