AFTER MUGABE GOES – THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF ZIMBABWE

This Presidential address briefly outlines the developments in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 leading up to the current political and economic crisis. The Zimbabwean situation is assessed within the conceptual framework of patrimonialism and predatory states. The origins of the Zimbabwean crisis are then analysed in their economic and political context leading to an eventual “fragile” or “failed” state. Evaluation of the crisis suggests that institutional damage has proceeded to the point at which only large scale economic and political reconstruction offers sustainable long term solutions, irrespective of when President Mugabe leaves office. The address concludes with an examination of the regional implications for Southern African Development Community – as well as the role of the global community – and outlines some of the core components of any reconstruction process‐to‐be in Zimbabwe.     

European Union enlargement: An historic milestone in the process of European integration

Ten European countries with economies in transition and two market economies are negotiating full membership with the European Union. This paper considers the economic dimension of the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union, especially on the characteristics of the economies in transition and on the economic implications of the enlargement for European Union agriculture. The transition of the central and eastern European countries from a centrally planned to a market economy, although already in progress for a decade, is far from complete. Uneven macroeconomic developments in the various countries can be attributed to some extent to their individual situation at the start of the transformation. However, they also reflect the varying extent to which institutional reform programs have been implemented in these countries.Distinguished Address presented at the Fifty-First International Atlantic Economic Conference, March 13–20, 2001, Athens, Greece.     

超越紧缩——探索欧洲主权债务危机的终结之道

2009年希腊债务危机拉开了欧洲主权债务危机的帷幕,并将全球金融市场置于危险的境地,至今仍无见底迹象且呈现扩散的趋势。欧洲主权债务危机爆发的根源在于欧元区成员国之间的竞争力失衡,欧元区政策框架存在制度性缺陷使得问题进一步加剧。欧元区领导人推出一整套危机永久解决机制,然而此方案并未触及欧元区深层次的问题,距离债务危机的永久解决还有很长的路要走。危机的最终解决已经超越了纯粹的经济学范畴,它将取决于各国的政治决心和魄力以及欧洲精神的复兴,反思欧洲现有的经济与社会发展模式,寻求经济增长的新路径。     

关于次贷危机冲击下中国经济转型的思考

次贷危机对中国经济产生冲击已成事实,中国经济转型在所难免。本文所论述的经济转型不是以往学者所讨论的体制转型,而特指结构转型。中国经济以往过度依赖出口和投资拉动,危机后出口受挫,再过度依赖投资势必引发产能过剩和需求不足的矛盾。本文作者认为,当前中国经济的首要任务是拉动内需,而拉动内需必须和改善民生、发展社会福利事业结合起来。当前应采取积极的财政政策,财政支出的重点在于消除民众消费的瓶颈,大力发展民生工程和社会福利事业,积极促进就业。     

Identifying problem areas in the organization of companies’ activities as a result of a crisis

A company??s key subsystems, which are most exposed to the impact of an economic crisis, are analyzed in this paper. The features that are specific to the organization of a company??s activities and reinforce the impact of the crisis are outlined. Being aware of these features allows one to lay a basis for improving the institutional mechanism aimed at creating sustainable companies.     

基于新C-D生产函数的广东省经济增长实证研究

本文构建引入制度变量的新C—D生产函数。研究资本、劳动、科技和制度要素共同作用下的经济增长，运用广东省的时间序列数据进行了实证分析。发现改革开放25年来广东省经历了以“开放化、市场化、民营化”为主要内容的三次制度创新，平均制度变革速率达15．17％；资本、劳动、科技、制度的产出弹性分别为0．41、0．43、0．16、0．029，对经济增长的贡献率分别为58．4％、10．4％、27．5％、3．7％；经济增长的粗放特征较为明显，以转变经济增长方式为核心的新一轮制度创新势在必行。     

马克思经济周期的物质基础和原因分析

经济周期主要是关于经济危机的周期性,马克思认为对资本主义经济周期的物质基础是固定资本的更新,资本主义经济危机产生的原因包括制度性因素和技术性因素。利益关系的冲突是经济危机产生周期性的根本原因。     

Central Bank Credibility before and after the Crisis

A new measure of credibility is constructed as a function of the differential between observed inflation and some estimate of the inflation rate that the central bank targets. The target is assumed to be met flexibly. Credibility is calculated for a large group of both advanced and emerging countries from 1980 to 2014. Financial crises reduce central bank credibility and central banks with strong institutional feaures tend to do better when hit by a shock of the magnitude of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The VIX, adopting an inflation target and central bank transparency, are the most reliable determinants of credibility. Similarly, real economic growth has a significant influence on central bank credibility even in inflation targeting economies.     

欧元区债务危机背后的国际政治博弈

欧元从诞生起就是国际战略平衡的产物,欧元区债务危机的爆发也似乎是一种国际战略博弈的产物。随着欧洲债务危机的深化,人们似乎忘记了美国才是这场国际金融与债务危机的起源地。然而,美国的危机似乎并未结束。为了解除危机,美欧激烈竞争,吸引新鲜资本。欧洲要走出货币危机,似乎需要更进一步的财政一体化。方向虽然定出,但要具体落实还需时日。中国应支持欧洲统一财政,渡过危机。让欧盟在世界舞台上扮演重要一极的角色对中国来说非常重要。     

金融危机背景下我国政府经济职能定位的现实选择

鉴于目前金融危机的影响,准确定位我国政府的经济职能,是实现"善政"向"善治"转型的现实路径与方法论选择。文章对我国政府经济职能定位提出了若干政策建议。     

美欧经济动荡及其对中国的深远影响

美欧自金融危机爆发延续至今的经济动荡,并非源于偶然的政策失误,也不能归于周期性经济阵痛,实际属于经济模式遭遇的深刻危机,这意味着美国金融霸权主导的国际体系已处于超载状态,世界经济将长期陷于低迷,步入重大动荡期和调整期。为摆脱危机美国的政策调整可能在世界范围产生传导效应甚至危害,对国际战略总体形势以及中国的发展与安全产生重大而深远的影响。中美之间的战略竞争已进入深度互动的关键时期,这一时期将持续十年甚至更长时间。中美之间尤其在亚太地区的战略博弈,不仅具有前所未有的全面性和深刻性,也具有前所未有的复杂性和敏感性。对此中国应充分认识国际体系变迁以及由此带来的国家间关系的复杂化趋势,趋利避害,有效消解战略压力,坚决维护对外关系的总体平衡和稳定,本着冷静观察、充分准备、积极应对的原则,有针对性地投棋布子,积极运筹国际变局,尤其应重点强化经营周边的力度,拓展回旋空间。     

Development trajectories: Hong Kong vs. Shanghai

Over the past three decades, Shanghai and Hong Kong, leading cities in China's Yangzi River Delta and Pearl River Delta, respectively, have seen rapid economic development and institutional transformation. Shanghai has experienced a major breakthrough in its export‐driven economy and in industrial upgrading since the opening of the Pudong area in the 1990s. Shanghai has also ramped up its efforts to catch up with Hong Kong and has already become one of the world's foremost manufacturing and export hubs. At the same time, and particularly following the 1997 Asian economic crisis, Hong Kong has redoubled efforts to identify shortcomings in its economic architecture; and has explored plans to transcend its traditional role as a financial hub, to attract entrepreneurial hi‐tech talent, and to overcome inequitable income growth. This paper explores the development trajectories of these two cities and how they depart from the pre‐1978 development models. The paper also examines the extent to which the current trajectories are complementary or in competition.     

Governance and Growth: Lessons from the Asian Economic Crisis

The East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 has provoked yet another round of controversy on the institutional foundations of the region's growth. This article provides some flavour of this new work by examining three factors that impinge on economic policy and performance: the role of political regime type; the structure of business-government relations; and the design of government agencies. Institutional weaknesses contributed to the onset of the Asian financial crisis.     

Behavioral Economics and Institutional Innovation

Behavioral economics has played a fundamental role historically in innovation in economic institutions even long before behavioral economics was recognized as a discipline. Examples from history, notably that of the invention of workers' compensation, illustrate this point. Though scholarly discussion develops over decades, actual innovation tends to occur episodically, particularly at times of economic crisis. Fortunately, some of the major professional societies, the Verein für Sozialpolitik, the American Economic Association, and their successors, have managed to keep a broad discourse going involving a variety of research methods, including some that may be described today as behavioral economics, thereby maintaining an environment friendly to institutional innovation. Further, the broad expansion of behavioral economics that is going on today can be expected to yield even more such important institutional innovations.     

Indonesia in the Time of Covid-19

The Covid-19 virus has spread across the world with alarming speed, infecting millions and causing economic disruption on an unprecedented scale. In this survey, we examine the impact of the outbreak on the Indonesian economy, as well as the government’s response to the public health crisis and its provisions for the emerging economic crisis. Indonesia’s delay in responding to the health crisis while Covid-19 spread in neighbouring countries in January–February 2020 has been costly for the health of the population. The government’s policy responses have so far been aimed at steadying the ship, addressing both the needs of the poor and the potentially poor (vulnerable) groups. At the time of writing, Covid-19 had not been tamed in Indonesia by any means. Hence, its implications for economic growth, jobs and welfare remained uncertain, as policy discussions were all about opening up the economy from virus-imposed restrictions across the country, under what has been termed the ‘new normal’.     

A competitive growth of a small midle-income country in the eurozone is far to be assured

The dichotomy of the increasing diversity of eurozone member countries and the institutional “one-size-fits-all” setting has exposed the deficiencies of the institutional economic architecture of the eurozone in the financial and economic crisis of 2008–2010. It has particularly exposed the weaknesses of middle-income countries within this framework. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal are experiencing outright financial crises. This article’s thesis is that small middle-income countries (MICs) in the eurozone face two general macroeconomic problems: (1) there is inherent macroeconomic instability; and (2) there is a problem of “competitiveness and convergence.” Small MICs’ ability to grow and catch up is demand-based and largely export-driven. Price competitiveness is an important factor of competitive growth within the eurozone. A national fiscal policy is crucial to countries’ ability to form and implement national policies for economic stability and competitive growth, which would enable a durable, above-average growth rate. Calls for a fiscal union along with the monetary union may therefore backfire.     

INDONESIA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS: CONTAGION AND FUNDAMENTALS

The severe and unanticipated economic downturn in Indonesia mirrored the regional economic fallout following the 1997 financial crisis. Although it is likely that the crisis in neighboring countries had an adverse impact on Indonesia, the issue has so far received little attention. This paper examines whether contagion from the economic crisis in Thailand triggered the crisis in Indonesia. Evidence of such a contagion is revealed, and the contagion was possibly exacerbated by increasing imbalances in the Indonesian economy. The paper also examines the channels through which the economic difficulties of Thailand might have been transmitted to Indonesia. Investors’behavior, rather than real links, is identified as one important channel for the contagion.     

State capacity and the socialist calculation debate

Despite its invaluable contribution to the field of comparative economics, the socialist calculation debate has focused on the narrow topic of the impossibility of the rational economic calculation under socialism. The literature on new institutional economics suggests that economic development is determined by economic and political institutions which are far more complex than the issue of economic calculation. To bridge the gap between the calculation debate and new institutional economics, this paper utilizes the historical case studies of Perestroika and Deng's China to demonstrate relationship between state capacity and economic calculation. We argue that rational economic calculation requires the state's institutional ability to make a credible commitment to constraints inhibiting public predation.     

我国加工贸易企业转型动因研究

由美国次贷危机引发的全球金融危机,影响波及世界,我国也未能幸免。虽然在这次金融危机中受到的直接冲击有限,但我国的加工贸易仍然受到严重影响,加上国内转型大潮的推动,加工贸易企业亟待转型。为了更好地实施转型,企业必须对引发自身转型的动因有着深刻的认识,这样才能更有针对性地实行变革。目前国内外对相关方面的研究还较少,本文认为有必要从动因的角度对加工贸易企业的转型进行深入分析。     

Business responses to crisis in Indonesia: the 1930s and the 1990s

This article looks at the responses of foreign business firms to crisis in a comparative historical perspective. The focus is on Indonesia in the 1930s and the late 1990s. The main approach is one of case studies in order to gain an insight into strategies of adjustment to deteriorating business conditions. For the late 1990s, such information is supplemented by macroeconomic evidence covering a wider range of firms. The article reaffirms a basic resilience of foreign direct investment in times of economic crisis even when there is an overall economic decline, as in Indonesia in the 1990s. The capacity of foreign firms in Indonesia to adjust successfully was considerable both in the 1930s and the late 1990s. Yet, prospects for a swift recovery are far better in the latter case than in the former period, reflecting the different nature of the two crises.