Fear,Loathing and the Everyday Geopolitics of Encounter in the Arizona Borderlands

This paper argues for the importance of attending to both affective and emotional experience in analysing the origins and effects of border and immigration efforts in the US/Mexico border region. We do so by engaging with theoretical understands of the politics of affect and emotion among cultural and feminist geographers and social scientists. We then examine Arizona's SB 1070 and its connection to a larger history of border and immigration enforcement in Arizona. Drawing from ethnographic work, interviews, and media and policy analysis, we engage with narratives provided by border area ranchers to unpack how these ranchers' encounters with unauthorised migrants have changed over time. We then examine how the everyday fear and anxiety associated with these encounters drive political activism and state intervention in the region. We conclude by discussing how this intervention, in turn, reproduces racial and gender hierarchies, hierarchies that are themselves affectively mediated.     

Competing to Outsource in the South

This paper analyzes foreign direct investment (FDI) competition in a three‐country framework: two Northern countries and one Southern country. We have in mind the competition of Airbus and Boeing in a developing country. The host‐country government endogenizes tariffs, while Airbus and Boeing choose domestic output and FDI. Wages and employment in the home countries are negotiated. We find that in the unique equilibrium, both Airbus and Boeing compete to undertake FDI in the developing country. This arises because the host country can play off the multinationals, which in turn stems from three factors: (a) oligopolistic rivalry; (b) quid pro quo FDI; (c) strategic outsourcing—FDI drives down the union wages at home if the host‐country wage is sufficiently low. However, if the host‐country wage is sufficiently high, the union wage increases under FDI. In such cases, FDI competition benefits the multinationals, the labor unions, as well as the host country.     

Mixed Legacies in Contested Borderlands: Skardu and the Kashmir Dispute

The article explores the sense of belonging of people from Skardu, a border town located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, a territory administered by Pakistan but which is disputed by India for its being part of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. Neither full Pakistani citizens, nor identifying themselves with Kashmiri nationalism, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan lack of a common sense of belonging. The uncertain future of the territorial entity contributes to this, despite transformations already at work there. By examining the social and material landscape of Skardu town, and therefore using a micro-level perspective, the article aims to address issues of identity and security connected with broader constructed narratives of intrastate or interstate conflict, such as the Kashmir dispute within the wider geopolitical imaginary of India–Pakistan rivalry.     

Competing cybermediaries

We examine a price competition game between two intermediaries offering to match two sides of a market on the Internet. Competition is characterized by asymmetric network externalities. We account for some specificities of cybermediation, in particular access versus usage pricing and the possibility of using the services of several intermediaries. When only registration fees are used and agents register with at most one cybermediary, there exists an equilibrium where one firm corners the market with positive profits. Introducing either fees contingent on successful matching or the possibility of registration with two cybermediaries make these profits vanish. Other types of equilibria are discussed.     

Competing mechanisms

The recent literature on competing mechanisms has devoted a lot of effort at understanding a very complex and abstract issue. In particular, an agent's type in a competitive environment is hard to conceptualize because it depends on information the agent has about what is going on in the rest of the market. This paper explains why this is such an important practical problem and illustrates how the literature has “solved” it.     

International Boundaries and Borderlands in the Middle East: Balancing Context,Exceptionalism and Representation

ABSTRACT

Renewed academic interest in the Middle Eastern border is inevitable with the marked increase in fortified territorial limits across the region and the appearance of new borderland spatialities in the sovereign margins of the war-torn Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni states. If the consequent spectacle of displaced populations confronting state power at the international boundary seems a defining image, this article concentrates on two other dominant, less publicised but still relevant border representations from the recent past: territorial definition and its deterministic association with conflict in the northern Gulf and the resource-driven finalisation of the peninsula’s territorial framework. This follows consideration of the significance of the borderland in the region. The author reflects back here on a long record of research into these issues and argues that all of these contexts must be acknowledged in any balanced appraisal of the Middle Eastern border. The article comments on the challenge of extending regional approaches to the study of borders and – on the centenary of the infamous 1916 Sykes-Picot treaty – acknowledges that the Middle East region’s experience of international boundaries continues to be depicted as exceptional. Unsurprisingly, it will conclude that there is no one typical Middle Eastern border.     

Competing for Good Immigrants

I analyze the competition among different countries for ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ potential immigrants, using both an immigration quota and a level of (imperfect) ‘scrutiny’ that would‐be immigrants face. Scrutiny imposes costs on immigrants and therefore makes it less attractive to immigrate. The number of applying undesirable immigrants increases in immigration quota and decreases in the level of scrutiny. In contrast, the number of desirable applicants can go in either direction as scrutiny increases and is independent of the immigration quota, because an increase in the immigration quota is completely crowded out by more applications by undesirable immigrants.     

Competing Industrial Standards and the Impact of Trade Liberalization

The main purpose of this study is to illustrate, with simple trade theory, the relationship between competing industrial standards and trade liberalization. We assume that there are two competing industrial standards in an international context, each of which applies to a group of differentiated products. A product can be used only in combination with other products based on the same industrial standard. We examine the impact of trade liberalization (i.e., a decline in trade costs) on consumers’ choice of a standard. It will be shown that the degree of indirect network effects, captured with substitution between differentiated products, plays an important role as a determinant of the impact of trade liberalization.     

Competing auctions with endogenous quantities

Two sellers decide on their discrete supply of a homogenous good. There is a finite number of buyers with unit demand and privately known valuations. In the first model, there is a centralized market place where a uniform auction takes place. In the second, there are two distinct auction sites, each with one seller, and buyers decide where to bid. Using the theory of potential games, we show that in the one-site auction model there is always an equilibrium in pure-strategies. In contrast, if the distribution of buyers values has an increasing failure rate, and if the marginal cost of production is relatively low, there is no pure-strategy equilibrium where both sellers make positive profits in the competing sites model. We also identify conditions under which an equilibrium with a unique active site exists. We deal with the finite and discrete models by using several results about order statistics developed by Richard Barlow and Frank Proschan [R. Barlow, F. Proschan, Mathematical Theory of Reliability, Wiley, New York, 1965; R. Barlow, F. Proschan, Inequalities for linear combinations of order statistics from restricted families, Ann. Math. Statist. 37 (1966) 1593-1601; R. Barlow, F. Proschan, Statistical Theory of Reliability and Life Testing, McArdle Press, Silver Spring, 1975].     

Competing models of international lending activity

Four competing models of the World Bank's lending to developing countries are constructed and econometrically estimated by pooled time series and cross-section data. The analysis suggests that a model combining economic and political determinants performs best. Besides per capita income, inflation, balance of payment and budget deficit, external debt and past growth, political determinants such as the ‘capitalist’ climate or political instability are also important, as well as a recipient country's former status as a colony or dominion. This politico-economic-model is successfully used to forecast the distribution of IBRD loans and IDA credits among the developing countries.     

Competing macro-hypotheses in the United States: A Kalman filtering approach

The empirical validity of alternative views about the short-run determinants of real output growth in the United States is investigated. A nested framework is used to test the macro rational expectations (MRE) hypothesis directly against two competing hypotheses - the neo-Keynesian view that anticipated and unanticpated monetary policy both matter,and Friedman's (1977) proposition that increased inflation uncertainty reduces real output at least temporarily. The unobservable explanatory variables are obtained from time-varying-parameter models of inflation and money growth, which generate forecast errors and their conditional variances consistent with rational expectations under a continuously chaning policy regime. The empirical results strongly support Friedman's view. The MRE hypothesis must be rejected since both anticipated and unanticipated monetary changes matter. The results prove robust across different model specifications and estimation techniques.     

Competing in taxes and investment under fiscal equalization

The paper considers a model of federation with two heterogeneous regions that try to attract the capital by competing in capital income taxes and public investment that enhance the productivity of capital. Regions' choices determine allocation of capital across the regions and their revenues under a tax sharing scheme. This framework allows for the examination of different approaches to fiscal equalization schemes [Boadway, R., Flatters, F., 1982. Efficiency and equalization payments in a federal system of government: a synthesis and extension of recent results, Canadian Journal of Economics 15, 613-633; Weingast, B.R., 2006. Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: Implication for Decentralized Democratic Governance and Economic Development, Working Paper, Hoover Institution, Stanford University]. We show that tax competition distorts (downwards) public investments and that the equalization grants discourage public investments with a little effect on equilibrium taxes. However, the equalization schemes remain beneficial not only for the federation and, under a low degree of regional asymmetry, also for each region.     

In the Space between Exception and Integration: The Kokang Borderlands on the Periphery of China and Myanmar

In 2015, the isolated border region of Kokang in Myanmar experienced armed conflict reported around the world. Most of the estimated 100,000 refugees from the conflict crossed the border to China, while hostilities continued for six months. Unlike other ethnic minorities fighting Myanmar’s government forces all along the extensive, mountainous border with China, the Kokang is largely of Han Chinese origin with a well established and nurtured relationship with China. Based on 458 questionnaires and interviews, media reports and official government releases, this article explores the varying imaginaries of territory, security and geopolitics of distant Kokang, from refugees now in China, Chinese from adjacent Yunnan and other provinces, as well as analysts viewing the conflict from afar. The study offers a lens for border studies to view the multi-scalar and extended geopolitics of nation states and their peripheral sub-national components. Specifically, the article addresses the changing role of the border under conditions of conflict and security enhancement and the malleable definition of borderlands territory. The study reveals how borders are utilised creatively by territorial inhabitants, their neighbours and their governments, how borders work in remote places, and how cross-border culture operates even in conflict situations to mediate borders. It enlarges our understanding of evolving borders in the space between exception and integration emerging in simultaneous globalisation and localisation.     

Competing eco-labels and product market competition

I examine the impact of competition between eco-labeling programs in a market where eco-labels that communicate information about product's environmental quality (a credence attribute) are also strategic variables for competing firms. Specifically, I consider a dynamic setting where an industry-sponsored eco-labeling program and a program sponsored by environmental NGOs compete strategically in setting the labeling standards, before price-setting firms make strategic choices of which eco-label (if any) to adopt; adopting firms not presently meeting the labeling standards undertake costly quality improvement to comply with them. I find that the competition between eco-labeling programs may lead to the same high environmental benefit as when there exists only the NGO program. I also find that the competition may yield higher social welfare.     

Competing back for foreign direct investment

This paper studies policy competition for foreign direct investment between host and home countries. Three results have been obtained. First, policy competition does not change the attractiveness of any country as a location for investment. Second, as a result, policy competition does not change regional welfare. Lastly, the equilibrium policy could be either a subsidy or a tax.     

Contested Continuity: Competing Explanations of the Evolution of the Corporate Form

The history of the electric utility industry provides the occasion for testing competing explanations of the emergence and persistence of the corporate form. This industry, characterized by capital intensity, intense competition, and attractive investment opportunities — along with rapid technological change as well as legal and regulatory changes — provides lessons for newer industries with network externalities. Drawing on the work of institutional economics and business history, I examine the evolution of the electric power industry in the US to test competing explanations of choices of finance and technology.     

Caste in 21st Century India: Competing Narratives

Recent debates regarding inclusion of caste in 2011 Census have raised questions about whether caste still matters in modern India. Ethnographic studies of the mid-20th century identified a variety of dimensions along which caste differentiation occurs. At the same time, whether this differentiation translates into hierarchy remains a contentious issue as does the persistence of caste, given the economic changes of the past two decades. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 41,554 households conducted in 2005, this paper examines the relationship between social background and different dimensions of well-being. The results suggest continued persistence of caste disparities in education, income and social networks.