Will Technological Change Save the World? The Rebound Effect in International Transfers of Technology

Technological change and its transfer to developing countries is often portrayed by policy-makers as a critical part of the solution to a resource problem such as climate change, based on the assumption that the transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will result in reduced use of natural capital by those countries. We demonstrate here, in a capital conversion based model of development, that the free transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will increase the options available to those countries, but that the way that they expend these options need not be in the direction of conserving resources. This is another example of the potential for a rebound effect to determine ultimate outcomes, here in the context of international technology transfer policy. The transfer of technologies is as likely to simply move developing countries more rapidly down the same development path as it is to alter the choices they make along that path. For this reason, the transfer of resource-conserving technologies, without incentives provided to alter development priorities, may not result in any resource-conservation at all.     

The ‘Americanisation’ of West German economics after the Second World War: Success,failure, or something completely different?

Abstract

The paper examines the intellectual and structural change that German economics experienced after the Second World War. This development often was described as ‘Americanisation’, since it seemed to rest upon the influences of the American occupation regime. In contrast, the paper applies another meaning of ‘Americanisation’. It is considered a ‘discourse’ that serves to structure the disciplinary procedures to produce progress. As it can be shown by the adoption of Keynesianism and neoclassical microeconomics, the change of the discipline was not primarily driven by direct American influences. Rather, in some respect the German reception took a path of its own. That contradiction can be solved by a theoretical modification of the classical concept of ‘Americanisation’. ‘Americanisation’ there meant a change of the operational procedure of German economics to generate progress.     

Whatever Inconsistencies and Effects? Explaining the Resilience of the Policy Reforms Applied to Developing Countries

Why is ‘neoliberalism’ still a predominant framework within economics and policy-making? This paper considers the mix of theoretical assumptions, causalities and policies known as the ‘Washington consensus’, focusing on developing countries. First, it analyses their main elements, resilience and effects (the ‘lost decades in spite of policy reform’). Second, it examines the reasons of this resilience and argues that a reason is their adaptive capacity via constant exchanges between facts and conceptual assumptions, because this mix is constituted of heterogeneous elements (from neoclassical theory, ad hoc models or empirics-based policy-making): inconsistency is a core feature and as such its correction is irrelevant. These ‘adaptive inconsistencies’ are consolidated by the simultaneous theoretical/policy dimension of the mix. Its cognitive resilience is reinforced by the irrefutability of causations and the cause/effect time lag (‘after current costs, there will be gains’, e.g. growth), and is not challenged by the social costs of policies.     

Paying Our Way in the World? Visible and Invisible Dangers of Brexit

The UK economy has long been associated with a weak balance of payments, reflecting an underlying growth model reliant on private household consumption. A deficit in goods trade, chiefly with the EU, has been offset by surpluses in services trade and foreign investment earnings. The Single Market provided wider markets for the UK, but did not fundamentally alter Britain's structural weaknesses. The Brexit vote took place against the background of Britain running its largest peacetime current account deficit. Financing Britain's external position represents a key challenge post-Brexit. Post-Brexit models for Britain partially address this. Any emergent model will critically depend on the nature of the Brexit deal with the EU, not least in terms of the impact on financial services and on supply chains. This paper sets out the recent evolution of the UK's current account position, particularly in relation to the EU. It then highlights particular areas of potential disruption from Brexit and sketches out scenarios of possible evolution of the Britain's external position in response to this.     

Does the version of the Penn World Tables matter? An analysis of the relationship between growth and volatility

Abstract .  The Penn World Tables (PWT) are an important data source for cross-country comparisons in economics. The PWT have undergone several revisions over time. This paper documents how countries' output growth rates change across four publicly available versions of the PWT. We show that for some countries the magnitude of the differences is significant and/or the sign of the growth rates changes across versions. Using as an example Ramey and Ramey (1995) , who found growth volatility has a significant negative effect on growth, we demonstrate that conclusions based on one version of the PWT may not hold under another version.     

Trading Out of the Global Food Crisis? The World Trade Organization and the Geopolitics of Food Security

The geopolitics of the Global Food Crisis and international trade has received limited scholarly attention, a significant omission given the major roles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in structuring world food production and trade flows and as a principal inter-state governing mechanism of the global agro-food system. Analysing recent international policy actions framing the WTO as a ‘fix’ to the Global Food Crisis, this article points to the value of a critical geopolitics of agro-power sensitive to the spatial reconfiguration of production and power in the global agro-food system, problematising geospatial categories such as ‘North’ and ‘South’, and that takes seriously contests for control of geopolitical agents such as the WTO.     

‘Wiped From the Map of the World’? Zanzibar,Critical Geopolitics and Language

This essay uses the case of Zanzibar in its complicated relationship with the United Republic of Tanzania (of which it is a part) as a lens on debates in political geography on empirical and conceptual approaches to critical geopolitics. We test the veracity of a multi-faceted critical geopolitics in the contemporary public contestation of Zanzibar's place in the United Republic from 2008–2012. We analyze Tanzanian media, the speech acts of Tanzanian leaders, and the key events and processes related to what is termed the ‘Zanzibar problem’ during the selected years, to make two points about a critical geopolitics approach: to strengthen critical geopolitics by broadening the analysis of language to engage political acts and languages beyond the Global North; and taking ‘subaltern geopolitics’ more seriously via engagement with critical geopolitical voices on discourses, events and processes from the Global South.     

Return of the State? The G20, the Financial Crisis and Power in the World Economy

The Group of Twenty and the new world order it is meant to signify have prompted a wave of triumphalism around the world from those who, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, bemoan the influences of ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ and from neo-Marxists, who view the economic crisis as a harbinger of the resurgence of states over markets. A little over a decade ago, however, the late doyenne of international political economists, Susan Strange, wrote eloquently about the reasons why the state was in retreat, its structural power draining away in favour of markets. Have the intervening dozen years, with their recurrent crises in markets and corporate governance, demonstrated the need for a return of the state? This analysis of the G20 London communiqué, using criteria that Strange advanced, suggests that far from asserting a return of the state, the G20 signifies its persistent weakness and concludes that the G20 leaders, at least, sense a more complex network of power relationships, and that structural power rests in the network.     

State-led or Capital-driven? The Fall of Bretton Woods and the German Currency Float Reconsidered

This article argues that the lead role of West Germany in the transition from fixed to floating exchange rates sits uneasily with accounts that conceptualise the breakdown of Bretton Woods in terms of hegemonic power politics, the influence of global economic interests or a neoliberal paradigm shift. Short of a convincing explanation, the German currency float seems to be a prime example of states surrendering to financial markets. The article offers an alternative interpretation that focuses on the nexus between state agency and capital accumulation. German authorities were indeed confronted with a destabilising influx of dollars that undermined their available policy options. But as they realised that these inflationary flows emanated from the same export-oriented forces in whose interest they had sought to hold on to an undervalued currency, they chose floating in order to regain command over liquidity and create an anti-inflationary programme that was at the heart of Germany's subsequent ability to better manage the 1970s crisis than its partners. Attention to the particular circumstances and consequences of these ‘structured choices’, I conclude, may offer a more compelling account of financial globalisation as a state-led project than those which generalise from the US context.     

A vote at the opera? The political economy of public theaters and orchestras in the German states

Policymakers generally have powerful incentives to attract votes by strategically manipulating public policies, for instance by increasing public spending during election periods or by implementing ideologically valued policies for their electoral base. At first sight, public theaters and orchestras appear an unlikely domain for such tactics. Highbrow culture is elitist and provides few jobs to artists as voters (patronage). However, we argue that policymakers indirectly target a larger highbrow culture-consuming voting public, as this public is more likely to go voting, to actively engage in politics, and to influence other voters' political behavior through political and sociological multiplier effects. We find evidence of such manipulation tactics in Germany, 1993–2010. Artist numbers increase during state-level, and even more during municipal-level, election years (electioneering). More tentatively, leftwing party power increases cultural subsidies and jobs in Eastern states.     

Need for speed? Exploring the relative importance of patents and utility models among German firms

Despite the wide use of two-tiered patent systems (patents and utility models (UMs)), there is little empirical evidence about how often UMs are actually used, what kind of firms use them to protect their intellectual property, and how firms rank them relative to patents. We offer such an analysis using data from Germany. We find that larger firms are more likely to use both protection methods. Moreover, a short life cycle of products and services is associated with an increased likelihood to use UMs. The features and functioning of the German UM system are of broader interest because it has been a benchmark for several second tier patent protection systems around the world.     

Technological Backwardness in Agriculture: Is it Due to Lack of R&D,Human Capital,and Openness to International Trade?

This paper investigates the relationship between the agricultural technological level and R&D expenditures, human capital, and openness to international trade using cross-country information for a sample of 104 countries and various subsamples over the period 1961–91. The unobservable technological level is modeled as a dynamic process in the context of a general translog production function. The results suggest that the technological gap between developed and less developed countries in agriculture increased considerably over this period of time. Overall, the technological levels are directly related to R&D expenditures, human capital, and openness, although this relationship is not robust across different groups of countries.     

Militarism,Realism, Just War,or Nonviolence? Critical Geopolitics and the Problem of Normativity

Despite illuminating multiple modalities by which armed conflict is discursively justified, critical geopolitics can be criticised for providing a weak normative engagement with the social institution and practices of warfare. This has limited the impact of this school of thought outside of geography and critical security studies at a time when the ethics of military intervention have been prominent in public debate. This article explores the moral discourse of critical geopolitics through an examination of Gerard Toal's writings on Iraq and Bosnia. This scholarship is reviewed in the light of Coates's typology of major traditions of moral reflection on war – militarism, realism, just war theory, and pacifism/nonviolence. This analysis interrogates Toal's narratives, in which American military intervention was advocated in the Former Yugoslavia and opposed in Iraq. This suggests that rather than a thoroughgoing commitment to pacifism/nonviolence, or a blanket cynicism about American foreign policy, Toal's thinking includes an underlying attachment to some form of just war reasoning. However, its implicit and partial appropriation leads to a certain incoherence and selectivity that calls for further reflection. This presents a challenge to critical geopolitics. If it chooses to engage more explicitly with just war theory, its insights into identity and militarism could in turn inform a reworking of aspects of the theory, thereby facilitating critical geopolitics' engagement with wider public anti-militaristic modes of discourse. However, as this risks blunting the political potential of the project and repeating the mistakes of twentieth-century geopolitical thought, the paper concludes with a call for a wholehearted commitment to nonviolence.     

Do Selection Criteria Make a Difference?: Visa Category and the Labour Market Status of Immigrants to Australia

This paper assesses the role of selection criteria in the immigrant settlement process. Do skill-based immigrants have higher participation and employment rates than family-based immigrants? Does this represent a head start or a persistent labour market advantage? The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia is used to address these questions. Generally, migrants selected for their skills have better labour market outcomes. Over time, the relative gap in participation rates increases, while the gap in employment rates decreases. Net of visa category, outcomes are better for native English speakers and for those who visited Australia prior to migration.     

International Trade and Manufacturing Employment: Is India following the Footsteps of Asia or Africa?

The Indian manufacturing sector has rapidly increased its integration with the world economy since the 1991 trade reforms. We examine whether trade integration created or destroyed jobs in the Indian manufacturing sector, and compare India's employment outcomes with four other countries—Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa, and Vietnam. We find that the impact of international trade on manufacturing employment seems to be similar to those found for the two African countries rather than the two Asian countries, a surprising result for a country with an apparent comparative advantage in labor-intensive manufacturing goods, and a large excess supply of unskilled labor.     

How Much do Technological Gap,Firm Size,and Regional Characteristics Matter for the Absorptive Capacity of Italian Enterprises?

The absorptive capacity—the ability of enterprises to efficiently absorb and internalise knowledge from outside sources—represents the link between firms’ capabilities to implement new products and the external stock of technological opportunities, such as those gleamed from Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). This paper explores whether the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the productivity of Italian domestically-owned firms (DOFs) is dependent on their absorptive capacity. In particular, given the peculiar characteristics of the Italian productive system, our analysis focuses on three different dimensions of the absorptive capacity: the size of the technological gap between foreign-owned firms (FOFs) and DOFs, firm size, and the regional distribution of firms. Our findings suggest that technological gap and firm size matter considerably for the spillover effect. Moreover, spillovers exhibit a sub-national dimension present only in the northeastern region of the peninsula.     

A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era

The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU's post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU's representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary-producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’.     

Laying the Tracks for Successful Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education: What Can We Learn from Comparisons of Immigrant–Native Achievement in the USA?

This paper examines the immigrant–native achievement gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in college in the USA. Using student survey data from the Beginning Postsecondary Longitudinal Studies 2004/09, I find that on average immigrant students have significantly higher rates entering and persisting in STEM fields compared to their native counterparts. There is, however, considerable variation across immigrant generations and race and ethnicity. The immigrant attainment advantage is particularly large among first‐generation Asian and white immigrant students who attended foreign K–12 schools. I explore the channels leading to the achievement gap, including socioeconomic status, individual preferences, and academic preparation in math and science. Results suggest that the immigrant STEM advantage is largely due to better academic preparation in math and science in high school. This indicates that improvements in students' college STEM attainment may depend crucially on policy efforts devoted to strengthening the quality of high school math and science education.