Capital Account Liberalisation by China and the Effects on Global FDI and Trade

We model the partial liberalisation of the capital account by China using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy. Our results indicate that a reduced capital controls on foreign direct investment (FDI) would lead to a significant increase in FDI capital in China and a significant reduction in the cost of capital in China relative to the rest of the world. Furthermore, we observe an increase in capital stocks in most regions, which benefits most regions in terms of GDP and GNP. The Chinese economy grows by 3.3% driven by a significant fall in the rental price of capital that, in turn, lowers domestic costs, causes a real depreciation of the exchange rate and thus increased exports relative to other regions. We also observe an across-the-board increase in the saving rate driven by the rise in the price of consumption relative to investment (saving) in all regions.     

Comparing family changes in two rural areas of Kenya: Past legacies and present realities

ABSTRACT

Fertility in Kenya declined from total fertility rate (TFR) 6.7 to 4.6 between 1989 and 2008/09. Initially, Western and Coast Provinces returned figures above and below the national average with TFR 8.1 and 5.4 respectively. Then fertility in Western Province declined substantially to TFR 5.6 while in Coast Province the decline was modest to TFR 4.8, above the national average in both provinces. I shall scrutinise this development by examining two rounds of qualitative case studies in rural villages in the two provinces, first in 1988–90 with a follow up in 2011. The analysis revealed that over time fewer children were born in the Western villages, but more in the Coast villages. The hypothesis is that differences in cultural (patriarchy and a mix of matriarchy and patriarchy) and religious (Christian and Muslim) legacies are crucial to understanding such disparities in childbearing. Attention is given to marriage, gender relations and female education.     

THE MOMENTOUS GOLD RUSHES

Gold discoveries in Australia in 1851 and New Zealand in 1861 galvanised the economic development of Australasia and had spillover effects in Britain, in ship technology, and even in the trans-Atlantic trade. The gold rushes quickly transformed economic, social, and political life. Moving around the continent in an anti-clockwise direction, they were to help found the northern port cities that grew to service the gold seekers. While the major strike in Western Australia in the 1890s out-produced the earlier period, Australia saw a third gold peak in the 1990s. The article surveys the contribution of the rushes to the development of Australasia.     

THE IMPACT OF GREEN REVOLUTION ON RICE PRODUCTION IN VIETNAM

The current paper reviewed the development of the Green Revolution in Vietnam, using long‐term regional yield and modern variety adoption statistics, as well as household data collected in 1996 and 2003. The present study indicates that the Green Revolution began in irrigated favorable areas and spread to the less favorable areas in Vietnam such as in other Asian countries. What is unique in Vietnam is that although the Green Revolution ended in the mid‐1980s in the Philippines and Indonesia, it has still been sustained as of 2003. Our analyses revealed that such growth had been supported by continuous improvements of modern varieties by regional research institutes. The varieties imported from China have contributed to the Green Revolution in northern Vietnam and those developed by the International Rice Research Institute in southern Vietnam. The national agricultural research systems have also played a critically important role in developing location‐specific and appropriate technologies.     

Manufacturing productivity in China and India: The role of institutional changes

In this paper we undertake a comparative study of productivity in the manufacturing sector for China and India using data from survey of manufacturing industries for the two countries. We find that productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India improved substantially over the 1998–2003 period. Specifically, the average total factor productivity (TFP) growth for the manufacturing sector over this period was about 11% higher in China than in India. We document two substantial changes in government policies in China that were not witnessed in India. First, the late 1990s saw an enormous wave of ownership restructuring due to the formal endorsement of private property rights by the Chinese central government. Second, in 1997 a large scale labour retrenchment program was launched to address the long standing problem of labour redundancy in the public sector. Using data from the Chinese survey of manufacturing industries, we quantify the impact of these large scale institutional changes on TFP of Chinese manufacturing industries. We find that these policy changes can explain about 30% of the growth in TFP of manufacturing industries. Hence we conclude that these institutional changes in China can account for a significant part of the gains in productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India over the 1998–2003 period.     

Measuring Barriers to International Division of Labor in East Asia*

International fragmentation has developed dramatically in East Asia since the 1990s. The purpose of the present paper is to measure border barriers in transactions of intermediate goods in East Asian countries. We find that the barriers in each country have steadily declined since 1985. The barriers in China and Taiwan have declined remarkably since the 1980s, whereas those in Indonesia experienced a slight increase in the 1980s. These results are qualitatively unchanged even if we control the effect of agglomeration on intra‐national inputs.     

公共服务、政府透明度与公众对政府的信任：影响机理与经验证据

公众对政府的信任关系到政府合法性、社会稳定性和法制有效性。近年来,很多国家面临公众信任政府程度日益下降的窘境。为了改变这种局面,一些国家意图通过建设电子政务来改善公共服务、提高政府透明度,进而增强公众对政府的信任。然而,这种举措可以提高公众对政府的信任吗?本文首先剖析公共服务、政府透明度影响公众信任政府程度的机理,然后根据中国2010年300个地级市电子政务评估数据,采取结构方程模型进行检验。结果发现,公众对政府的信任与公共服务正相关,公共服务越好,公众越信任政府;公众对政府的信任与政府透明度正相关,政府透明度越高,公众越信任政府。研究还发现,公共服务还通过影响政府透明度而间接影响公众对政府的信任。本研究对公共管理改革具有一定的应用参考价值。     

QUANTIFYING THE OUTSOURCING OF JOBS FROM MANUFACTURING TO SERVICES

There has been debate internationally and in South Africa about the extent to which a relative decline in manufacturing employment and rise in services employment can be accounted for by intersectoral outsourcing of jobs in the domestic economy. This article develops a new methodology for testing for and quantifying outsourcing at an economy-wide level. This methodology is used to analyse intersectoral shifts in employment in South Africa between 1997 and 2005. Trends in employment in the business services subsector of services are also examined for what they suggest about the extent of outsourcing. Overall, the results suggest that intersectoral outsourcing accounts for some but by no means all of the apparent shift in employment between the manufacturing and services sectors in South Africa.     

Managing Food Price Instability in Asia: A Macro Food Security Perspective*

The present paper describes the benefits and costs, in qualitative terms, of managing food price instability in Asia in the context of promoting economic growth and poverty reduction to improve food security. The experience of Asian governments in actual practice with price stabilization is discussed in the context of managing an efficient transition to market‐mediated food security. Recent experience in Indonesia, where a sharp increase in rice prices (caused by a ban on rice imports) pushed 4 million people into poverty, provides continued motivation for the analytical story in this paper.     

Inequality and living standards under early communism: Anthropometric evidence from Czechoslovakia, 1946–1966

A sample of adolescent heights and weights from the Czechoslovak city of Liberec is analyzed to shed light on the changes in biological standard of living between 1946 and 1966, the early years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The long-term trend in average height was upwards for all social groups but differences in stature between social groups were about as large as in Communist Czechoslovakia as in market economies, such as the UK. Sons of blue-collar fathers and of parents employed in agriculture were generally shorter than sons of clerks and professional employees (teachers, doctors, lawyers). The anthropometric record also suggests that in the immediately post-war years inequality was greater than in the late 1950s and early 1960s.