The impact of economic openness on standard of living and income inequality in eight countries

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) have opened their doors for international capital flows, but sudden capital outflows caused economic recessions in these countries, leaving more people unemployed and raising poverty concerns. On the other hand, foreign capital financed more domestic investment, causing economic expansion and growth; with more job opportunities poverty could be reduced. This paper follows this theory and examines how standards of living and income inequality change across business cycle phases in eight EMEs.     

Relationship between tourism and economic growth

The main goal of this paper is to determine whether tourism activity stimulates economic growth. The study indicates the main variables affecting tourism activity and shows a feedback effect between income and tourism. Findings indicate that tourism not only supplies necessary funds to finance firms' activities, but also stimulates the local firms' productivity and creates new job opportunities that increase the country's welfare. Variables that have important effects on tourism activity, such as entrepreneurship and prices have also been considered.     

Trade Liberalisation and Poverty Reduction in Vietnam

This paper investigates the impacts of trade liberalisation on poverty reduction in Vietnam during the period of economic reform. Using a combined approach dealing with four transmitting channels from trade to poverty, the major findings are summarised as follows. First, Vietnam's trade liberalisation has fostered economic growth, which has helped to raise per capita GDP and reduce poverty. Second, trade liberalisation has directly benefited the poor through creating pro‐poor employment and raising wages. Third, another impact of trade liberalisation on poverty is income and substitution effects associated with reduced domestic prices of importables and increased domestic prices of exportables such as coffee and rice. Fourth, trade liberalisation has indirectly benefited the poor because it raises government revenue, which enhances the government's ability to subsidise the poor. Finally, although the poverty rate in Vietnam has been reduced impressively, there is an increasing disparity between urban and rural areas and, among the latter, concern does exist regarding ethnic minorities.     

Estimating the Poverty Impacts of a Prospective Doha Development Agenda

This paper summarises the findings from a major international research project on the poverty impacts of a potential Doha Development Agenda. It draws on an intensive analysis of the DDA Framework Agreement and associated scenarios. The implications for world markets are established using a global modelling framework, the outputs of which form the basis for a dozen country case studies of the national poverty impacts of the DDA scenarios. Liberalisation targets under the DDA have to be quite ambitious if the round is to have a measurable impact on poverty. We expect the near‐term poverty impacts to be mixed; some countries experience small poverty increases and others more substantial poverty declines. On balance, poverty is reduced under the core DDA scenario, and this reduction is more pronounced in the longer run. Deeper cuts in developing country tariffs are found to make the DDA more poverty friendly. It is also clear that, in order to generate significant poverty reductions in the near term, complementary domestic reforms are required to enable households to take advantage of the new market opportunities. Over the long run, sustained poverty reduction depends on stimulating economic growth, which suggests that trade reforms must go beyond tariffs and subsidies, also addressing barriers to services trade and investment.     

Trade Liberalisation and Poverty: What are the Links?

This paper asks whether a developing country's own trade liberalisation could translate into increased poverty, and what information would be required to identify whether it will do so. It plots the channels through which such effects might operate, identifying the static effects via four broad groups of institutions – households, distribution channels, factor markets and government – and the dynamic issues of volatility, long–term economic growth, and short–term adjustment stresses. An increase in the price of something a household sells (labour, good, service) increases its welfare. Thus, the paper first explores the likely effects of trade liberalisation on the prices of goods and services, taking into account the distribution sector. Also critical is whether trade reform creates or destroys markets. Trade reform is also likely to affects factor prices – of which the wages of the unskilled is the most important for poverty purposes. If reform boosts the demand for labour–intensive products, it boosts the demand for labour and wages and/or employment will increase. However, not all developing countries are relatively abundant in unskilled labour and trade can boost demand for semi–skilled rather than unskilled, labour. Hence poverty alleviation is not guaranteed. Trade reform can affect tariff revenue, but much less frequently and adversely than is popularly imagined. Even if it does, it is a political decision, not a law of nature, that the poor should suffer the resulting new taxes or cuts in government expenditure. Opening up the economy can reduce risk and variability because world markets are usually more stable than domestic ones. But sometimes it will increase them because stabilisation schemes are undermined or because residents switch to riskier activities. The non–poor can generally tide themselves over adjustment shocks from a liberalisation, so public policy should focus on whether the initially poor and near temporary, setbacks. The key to sustained poverty alleviation is economic growth. There is little reason to fear that growth will not boost the incomes of the poor. Similarly, while the argument that openness stimulates long–run growth has still not been completely proven, there is every presumption that it will.     

Integrating Global Poverty Into Mainstream Business Classrooms

Most of the products and services discussed in business curricula serve a small portion of humanity. But the great majority of economic growth over the next few decades is expected to occur in emerging and frontier markets. This emerging reality increases the urgency for including topics related to global poverty, unmet human needs, and emergence from poverty in conventional business curricula. This article describes several strategies the authors have employed to engage students' imaginations as well as their analytical capabilities to address the business challenges and opportunities inherent in addressing global poverty. It also offers possibilities for expanding students' concepts of themselves as business people and encouraging them to use their business skills to solve unmet human needs.     

To What Extent Can Foreign Direct Investment Help Achieve International Development Goals?

For FDI to help alleviate absolute poverty and stimulate economic growth in developing countries, two conditions have to be met. First, developing countries need to be attractive to foreign investors. Second, the host‐country environment in which foreign investors operate must be conducive to favourable FDI effects with regard to overall investment, economic spillovers and income growth. This paper argues that it is more difficult to benefit from FDI than to attract FDI. The widely perceived concentration of FDI in few developing countries tends to obscure that, in relative terms, various small and poor countries are fairly attractive to FDI. Yet, the mobilisation of domestic resources remains by far, more important than attracting FDI for financing investment and stimulating economic growth. Furthermore, high inward FDI is no guarantee for poverty alleviation and positive growth effects. In particular, the empirical evidence suggests that host‐country conditions typically prevailing in poor countries, including weak institutions and an insufficient endowment of complementary factors of production, constrain the growth‐enhancing and poverty‐alleviating effects of FDI. The crux is that creating an environment in which FDI may deliver social returns will take considerable time exactly where development needs are most pressing.     

外国直接投资对我国城镇贫困的影响——基于1985-2005年家户调查数据的协整分析

外国直接投资(FDI)一般能够促进东道国的经济增长,但对于收入分配以致对于贫困的影响却是不确定的。本文运用协整理论和自向量回归模型实证研究了外国直接投资与我国城镇贫困之间的关系。结果表明,外国直接投资显著地提高了贫困人口在总人口中的收入份额,因此会产生有利于穷人的经济增长,具有积极的减贫效果。但是外国直接投资同时也加重了贫困人口内部收入的不平等。     

我国服务业就业变动比较分析

改革开放后我国经济得到迅速发展,但服务业发展相对滞后,虽然服务业吸纳就业人员正逐年增加,但就业增加速度比不上产值增加速度,服务业还有很大的就业空间。本文通过比较发现我国服务业就业相比于发达国家比重偏低,我国各地区服务业就业差别也非常大,各传统服务业吸纳劳动力较多,但由于其对经济增长拉动作用有限,不能从根本上解决我国的失业问题,今后应大力发展就业容量大的现代服务业来促进社会就业。     

全球化与城市贫困:基于中部六省的实证分析

在经济全球化背景下,我国经济获得了长足的发展,与此同时,城市贫困问题也日趋严重。本文以我国中部6省为研究对象,从收入和消费两个维度,估计了一个包含贸易和外国直接投资(FDI)变量的贫困决定函数,实证分析了贸易和FDI对城市贫困的影响,着重检验了其中的非线性关系和“门槛效应”。研究表明,贸易和FDI对于贫困人口有着不同的影响;FDI流入与贫困变化之间存在着非线性关系,表明全球化只有达到一定水平后才会使穷人受益。     

国际碳交易发展及我国碳市场构建

我国的碳排放交易市场,必须满足经济社会发展必要的碳排放基本需求,既在发展经济、消除贫困、改善民生的同时保护环境,又不能以牺牲经济增长为代价来减少温室气体的排放。第一,建立健全包括总量控制制度、配额分配与管理制度、市场交易管理制度和监督与评估制度在内的碳排放权交易制度的基本框架;第二,确定碳排放配额分配方式,短期内以免费分配为主,远期采取拍卖分配方式,过渡期采取混合的分配方式;第三,实施碳排放权分级管理,由中央负责排放总量控制,同时增加地方政府在排放配额管理方面的权利。     

我国有利于穷人的经济增长问题研究

本文以“贫困增长曲线”为理论基础,实证分析了1978-2006年来我国的经济增长是否是有利于穷人的经济增长。研充结果表明：1978-2006年间,无论对于城镇地区还是农村地区,经济增长都不是有利于穷人的经济增长;只有1978-1985年间对于城镇地区而言,经济增长才是有利于穷人的。之所以会出现这样的结果,主要原因是在经济增长的同时,我国收入分配不平等的程度不断加深,从而部分抵消了经济增长的减贫效果,使得穷人从经济增长中的获益少于非穷人。     

长期减贫的未雨绸缪——来自扶贫改革试验区的证据

巩固脱贫成果和解决相对贫困是2020年后中国长期减贫面临的主要挑战,为此东部地区率先进行了实践创新。本文以2003—2016年中国东部80个地级市的数据为样本,利用扶贫改革试验区的设立作为准自然实验,使用合成控制法识别了试验区政策的减贫效应、影响机制及作用渠道。结果显示:政策的实施显著实现了收入减贫与多维减贫,即农户收入得到提高和跌入多维贫困概率降低;丽水试验区的减贫效果最明显,阜新和清远的减贫效果一般;试验区内家庭的各类收入增加,贫困脆弱性和慢性贫困降低。进一步分析表明,减贫效果差异的宏观影响机制是包容性增长,政策主要通过保险覆盖、金融参与和社会网络等渠道对家户增收和减贫产生间接影响。本文的结论对于制定差别化扶贫政策、创新贫困监测机制、构建多元协同扶贫机制以及建立城乡统筹反贫困体系都有重要参考价值。     

Regional inequality and poverty in pre‐ and postreform China: Can entrepreneurship make a difference?

China's reforms have been associated with significant increases in the country's income and output. Yet, income inequality and poverty are still posing significant challenges to the country's economic landscape. One possible way of meeting these challenges is through the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture. The analysis is conducted using selected periods of regional economic development as its background. As a reasonable approximation, these periods are: the pre‐1978 period, the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s. Income inequalities and poverty trends are then examined for China's regions. In addition, the extent of the regional gap is measured and regional poverty levels and inequalities across counties are examined. The role of entrepreneurship in alleviating poverty in China is explored. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

结构转变与中国全要素生产率增长

本文基于对我国经济高速增长的源泉以及经济增长是否可持续的争论,通过构建TFP增长的分解方程,强调了结构转变通过资源在不同部门间的再配置对生产率的影响,重新测算了我国改革开放以来的TFP增长率。研究结果表明,我国的TFP增长率较高,资源从低生产率向高生产率部门,尤其是从传统农业向现代工业和服务业部门的再配置对TFP增长有显著作用,其贡献高达28%。因此,对于处于工业化中期的中国来说,经济增长仍具有巨大的潜力和可持续性。     

文化断裂视角下农民工贫困原因透析

目前人们主要从经济、能力和权利三方面定义和衡量贫困。在人们对贫困成因的阐释中,个人、社会和自然的因素各有侧重,但文化因素同样是农民工贫困的深层原因。逐步培养和加强农民工的团结组织能力,大力发展相关教育事业,改变文化观念,提高农民工对政策或制度制定的参与和影响能力,以此来培育农民工的可行能力和“造血”功能,有利于其获得资源和机会,从而走出贫困。     

The Rehabilitation of Adam Smith for Catholic Social Teaching

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) takes a rather cautious view toward the value of the ideas of Adam Smith, due to his emphasis on negative political and economic liberty. Detractors of Smith within CST point to what they consider to be deficiencies within his works: an impoverished moral anthropology, a lack of concern for the common good, and markets untethered to human needs. Defenders of Smith within CST tend to emphasize the material benefits that derive from Smithian institutions, such as economic growth, improvements in standards of living, and the new opportunities that arise from cultures focused on innovation. This paper argues that Smith’s ideas have real value for CST. However, this value primarily lies in his moral psychology. While not denying the dangers of business activity for our moral lives, Smith also helps us to understand the possibility of the moral corruption of those who wield political power, thus providing an indirect defense of political and economic liberty that coheres with important Christian ethical notions found in CST. This is the case even though CST does not consistently recognize concerns surrounding the dangers of wielding political power—and thus Smith’s arguments offer real challenges to CST as well. This paper further suggests that these basic insights are relevant regardless of one’s favored institutional arrangements.     

FDI与区域就业转移:一个新的分析框架

改革开放以来,特别是进入九十年代以后,随着经济全球化影响的加深和FDI的大量进入,我国的劳动就业在总量增长缓慢的情况下呈现出明显的区域分布不均和替代特征。这种区域就业差异与FDI的区域偏向和选择有很大的关联性。其作用机理在于FDI的直接效应和间接效应带来了区域间就业机会特别是非农就业机会的转移。FDI→就业转移→区域就业差异是解释我国转型时期外资与区域就业关系的一个新的分析框架。     

劳动生产率与经济增长关系的实证分析——以广东省为例

本文认为,广东省劳动生产率与经济增长互为因果,相互促进,相互影响,且劳动生产率变动往往先于GDP的变动,提高劳动生产率既可推动经济总量增长,又能促进经济增长质量的有效提高:经济增长虽不能由三次产业劳动生产率决定性地解释,但三次产业劳动生产率对广东省经济增长有一定程度的影响.且第一产业劳动生产率的推动作用已逐步减弱,第二、三产业特别是第三产业劳动生产率的带动作用已明显增强:广东省应加快第三产业发展以促进就业.实现经济与就业同步增长.     

Regional Diversity and Sources of Economic Growth in China

Regional diversity in the process of economic growth is the major concern in this paper. We will try to identify its sources for growth and to specify production functions in each province by estimating translog production function. This paper clarifies the following four facts: First, capital accumulation was a major source for growth in the earlier stage of the Chinese economy, especially in the eastern coastal region. Unexpectedly, capital accumulation is losing its ground over the years. Second, the employment structure of the economy in the eastern region has changed significantly and the shares of workers in the secondary and tertiary industries increased until 1992. Since 1992, these figures have not changed significantly despite China's continuous economic high growth. Third, four distinguishable regional growth patterns have contributed to China's economic growth. Finally, production technologies in each province vary both in the direction of factor intensity and in the elasticity of substitution between inputs.