Neoliberalism with a Feminist Face: Crafting a new Hegemony at the World Bank

Neoliberalism has been discredited as a result of proliferating crises (financial, ecological, care) and mounting inequality. This paper examines the growing research on gender at the World Bank as a site for the construction of a new hegemonic consensus around neoliberalism. Drawing on a computer-assisted inductive analysis of thirty-four Bank publications on gender since 2001, the paper documents Bank efforts to establish a positive relationship between gender equality and growth; shows the expansion of the Bank’s definition of equality as equal opportunity; illustrates how the focus on institutions has enabled engagement with core feminist concerns, such as equality in the family; and traces how incorporating notions of women’s empowerment and agency has made possible a focus on domestic violence. The paper concludes by emphasizing the ambiguous effects of the Bank’s new neoliberalism, which continues to use the market as the arbiter of social values while providing openings for feminist agendas.     

The World Bank and the persistence of poverty in poor countries

William Easterly has written a book about why extensive development assistance over the course of decades failed to alleviate poverty in poor countries. As an economist at the World Bank, Easterly observed how resources and advice provided by the Bank failed to improve the lives of the poor in poor countries. Easterly considers different explanations for the development failures. He places the blame for persistence of poverty in poor countries on governments and political elites, who use their poor as hostages to personally benefit from aid resources and debt relief.     

The World Bank and Emerging Powers: Beyond the Multipolarity–Multilateralism Conundrum

The discrepancy between the increasingly multipolar world economy of the recent decades and the stubbornly limited representativeness of the organisations mandated with its governance causes much strain in global politics. Some scholars suggest that this chronic mismatch will undermine existing multilateral bodies, while others expect the present architecture to persist. This article contends that the outcomes of this challenge are institution-specific. In settings where significant operational realignments are possible within existing mandates and governance structures, the multipolarity–multilateralism conundrum could be partly mitigated. The argument is based on a thematic analysis of all IBRD-IDA loan commitments between 2002 and 2015 in the World Bank’s seven all-time top borrowers: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey (collectively, the Big Seven). The key finding is that while these emerging countries remain the Bank’s biggest clients, the terms of their engagement have shifted precisely along the lines where they had already differed from the rest of the Bank’s clientele: away from politically onerous governance and institutional reforms, and towards developing physical and market infrastructure while attaining social sustainability. This implicit realignment is facilitated by the Bank’s diverse policy repertoire, which allows considerable inter-regional and intra-regional variation in lending patterns to accommodate member preferences.     

Economic beliefs and institutional politics: Human capital theory and the changing views of the World Bank about education (1950–1985)

One of the main characteristics of economic policy-making in the postwar period was the rise of international agencies and their influence in setting the agenda in various policy aspects. Education was one of the areas that became very important to the activity of international agencies. This article analyses the changing views about education of the World Bank, from the late forties to the mid-eighties, and the way its priorities and approach to education were moulded by the dissemination of human capital theory. The analysis will emphasise the difficulties faced to the diffusion of this approach in a context largely favourable and dominated by manpower planning and different policy views about education, providing an interesting example about the complexities of the dissemination of economic ideas within international organisations.     

我国与世界银行的合作:成就、问题与对策

我国与世界银行的合作在贷款立项、项目选择、国内配套资金及管理人员素质等方面存在一些问题。文章针对这些问题提出了若干政策建议，并对我国与世行的合作前景作了预测。     

生态扶贫与生态振兴有机衔接的实践基础及现实路径

当前我国正处于脱贫攻坚和乡村振兴两大战略实施的交汇期。生态环境保护是脱贫攻坚的重要手段,也是乡村振兴的长远举措,脱贫攻坚与乡村振兴具有内在的一致性,生态环境保护就是两者相互衔接的关键点。在生态扶贫过程中,通过设立公益性环境管护岗位、推进农村人居环境整治、大力发展农村生态产业以及推进适度规模的种养循环,为生态振兴积累了经验并打下了基础。但是在乡村振兴战略实施过程中,生态扶贫依然存在资金短缺、生态增收能力受限、扶贫开发缺乏生态考量等问题。因此,要明确政府、农村企业、农民、非政府组织在促进生态扶贫和生态振兴的衔接中的各自责任,提升多主体共同参与的合力。     

Challenges and Changes in Gendered Poverty: The Feminization,De-Feminization,and Re-Feminization of Poverty in Latin America

Despite reductions in poverty generally, recent trends in Latin American countries show processes of both de-feminization and re-feminization of poverty. A rise in the numbers of women to men living in income-poor households has occurred despite feminized anti-poverty programs, most notably conditional cash transfers (CCTs), which target resources to women. This paper shows that methodological differences in what, how, and who is the focus of measurement may influence patterns of poverty “feminization.” It also suggests that feminized policy interventions might in themselves be playing a role in the re-feminization of poverty, not least because of data and definitional limitations in the way female-headed households and, relatedly, women’s poverty are understood. The somewhat paradoxical interactions between the feminization of household headship, the feminization of poverty, and the feminization of anti-poverty programs present interesting challenges for redressing gender gaps in poverty within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.     

"绝对的相对",抑或"相对的绝对"——汤森和森的贫困理论比较

英国经济学家彼得·汤森认为贫困是因为缺乏资源而被剥夺了享有常规社会生活水平和参与正常社会生活的权利,提出相对贫困测量方法.但是阿马蒂亚·森对此提出了质疑,认为贫困在能力的范围内是绝对的,相对贫困只是绝对贫困的补充而不能替代绝对贫困,是一种绝对的相对贫困观.本文对两人的贫困理论进行了比较和归纳.     

The Myth of Market Neutrality: A Comparative Study of the European Central Bank’s and the Swiss National Bank’s Corporate Security Purchases

ABSTRACT

Monetary policy operations in corporate security markets confront central banks with choices that are traditionally perceived to be the prerogative of governments. This article investigates how central bankers legitimise corporate security purchases through a comparative study of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). As we show, central bankers downplay the novelty of corporate security purchases by relying on familiar pre-crisis justifications of Central Bank Independence. Citing an ideal of ‘market neutrality’, central banks present corporate security purchases as pursuing a narrow objective of price stability and obfuscate their distributive consequences. In this way, central bankers depoliticise corporate security purchases: they reduce the potential for choice, collective agency, and deliberation concerning both the pursuit of corporate security purchases and the choices made in implementing these policies. We also describe the undesirable democratic, social and environmental dimensions of these practices, which we propose to address through enhanced democratic accountability.     

Disentangling the Poverty Effects of Sectoral Output,Prices, and Policies in India

This paper attempts to disentangle the poverty effects of key policy variables that directly affect the poor (namely the government‐led channel of development spending and financing) in both agricultural and non‐agricultural sectors after accounting for the effect of respective sectoral per capita income and prices, using data from India over five decades. The paper emphasizes the sectoral composition of income and prices as mechanisms influencing the level of poverty and establishes empirically that it is the rise in non‐agricultural per capita income that reduces rural poverty via the channel of internal migration, after having controlled for the variation in key components of fiscal spending and monetary/financial policy via the availability of credit. Uneven sectoral growth pattern explains why urban poverty becomes a spill‐over of persistent rural poverty when the agricultural sector shrinks. While checking for robustness, there is evidence that the rise in non‐agricultural income alone may not reduce rural poverty, when measured in terms of rural infant mortality rate as a non‐income indicator of well‐being.     

环京津生态抑制型贫困带的现状、成因及对策建议

环京津生态抑制型贫困带自然环境恶劣、生态脆弱、区域内贫困人口集中.但这些地区是京津地区重要的水源地和资源环境保障基地,在京津都市区的自然生态系统中具有重要屏障作用和战略地位,对区域内社会经济持续发展有重要影响.文章详细分析了环京津贫困带的现状和形成原因,并从建立生态经济发展特区、生态补偿机制构建、加强首都经济圈产业对接与合作、创新生态旅游扶贫等方面提出具体对策建议,以期改善环京津贫困带的贫困现状.     

Evolutions in Consumption Inequality and Poverty in Greece: The Impact of the Crisis and Austerity Policies

Greece is the country hit hardest by the crisis and subsequent fiscal consolidation strategies, suffering a cumulative output loss of about 30 percent since 2008. The present paper presents evidence that along with declining average living standards, consumption inequality has seriously grown, fueled primarily by a disproportionate drop in the consumption levels of what can be considered the middle class. Although poverty has not significantly risen in relative terms, it climbs to around 45 percent once the poverty threshold is anchored to pre‐crisis levels. Furthermore, significant indirect tax hikes have further increased inequality in consumption expenditure. The paper also shows that several reforms launched in the name of reducing labor costs, broadening the tax base or rationalizing the targeting of social benefits have had detrimental effects on one of the most vulnerable population groups, namely families with children, thus implying that the social consequences of the crisis will be long‐lasting.     

Defining national property rights to a common property resource: The case of the West Bank aquifers

This article introduces a methodology to define Israeli and Palestinian property rights to the three aquifers straddling the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank, i.e. the Yarqon-Tanninim, Northern, and Nablus-Jenin aquifers. A set of procedures for determining a fair division of waters is described for the hypothetical planning year 2000. Following this, the calculated allocation of water rights is evaluated in terms of the projected over-all water consumption and supply balance for Israel and a Palestinian sovereign authority (PSA) for the year 2000. Finally, the article concludes with some thoughts on the relative merits of this methodology.     

金融生态环境、银行结构与银企关系的贷款效应——基于中小企业的实证研究

以深交所中小企业板上市公司在上市前的数据作为研究样本,本文实证考察了中小企业与银行之间的银企关系对其信贷融资可获性的影响,并在此基础上分析了银行规模与金融生态环境对中小企业的银企关系贷款效应的影响。实证结果显示,银企关系的密切程度对中小企业的信贷融资具有＂正＂向效应;金融生态环境的改善对银企关系的正向贷款效应具有促进作用;但不同规模的银行对银企关系的贷款效应无显著影响。本文的研究结果表明,在我国转轨经济条件下,广泛开展建立在银企关系基础上的关系融资技术有助于缓解中小企业融资难的问题,而金融生态环境的改善有助于此技术的开展,但银行业的市场结构对中小企业信贷融资无显著的影响。本文的研究结论为缓解中小企业融资难的问题提供了经验证据的支持。     

当代世界科技发展的态势,特点与启迪

本文从宏观视角分析了当代世界科技发展的基本态势与科技竞争的特点，并指出从国外科技促进发展所得到的若干启迪。     

Governing Poverty in a Neoliberal Age: New Labour and the Case of Financial Exclusion

In the UK, from the 1990s, the concept of financial exclusion emerged as a focus of policymaking concern. In part, this reflects the growing scale and complexity of personal finance markets and how these are increasingly interwoven into the everyday lives of individuals. However, it is also argued that the development of the concept of financial exclusion reflects preeminent neoliberal discourses that emphasise the centrality of individual responsibility, autonomy and consumer participation within markets. In 2004 the then Labour government, in conjunction with academic experts, financial institutions and other organisations, established a project of financial inclusion in relation to three key domains: banking, affordable credit and financial capability. The consequence, it is suggested here, has not been so much to alleviate inequality as to nurture the poor to be precautionary, risk averse financial subjects. This stands in contrast with the virtues of enterprise and risk-taking called up in middle-class investor subjects.     

美元($)、人民币(￥)和世界贷币(W)——基于国际货币体系三十年周期演变的思考

国际货币体系是支配各国货币关系的一系列规则,以及国际间进行各种交易支付所依据的一整套安排和惯例.此次全球金融危机告诉人们,必须加快改革现有国际金融体系,其中主要有三大改革,除改革现有国际金融组织体系、改革现有国际金融监管体系外,再有一项就是加快推进多元化的国际货币体系建设.美国无监控的货币发行权、美元铸币税的独享权以及美元在国际货币体系中的垄断权,虽为历史形成,但已反映出当前国际货币体系中的种种弊端.本文简要回顾了国际货币体系的发展历程,探讨了世界货币的发展趋势,同时对人民币的发展前景做了预测,并提出实现人民币国际化的步骤和意义.     

世界经济周期演化特征及其对中国经济的非对称性影响:基于多国经济周期框架下的实证研究

本文采用带马尔科夫区制转换的VECM模型在多国经济框架下有效地识别和分析了从1991年至2008年世界经济周期的演化特征,进而研究了世界经济周期演化对中国经济的非对称影响。实证结果显示,世界经济在"经济增长"阶段的持续性要强于"经济衰退"阶段,世界经济由"经济衰退"转向"经济增长"的概率为0.34,而由"经济增长"向"经济衰退"转换的概率为0.16。世界经济周期的转换一般是在一个季度以后,对中国经济的影响程度最深,进而经过七个季度后影响逐渐消失;对此,当期中国经济增长率将做出不同程度的反应,如果世界经济是由"经济增长"向"经济衰退"阶段转换时,那么中国经济增长率将下降0.1个百分点。同时本文还发现,中国经济与世界经济的联系主要依靠贸易渠道,而且中国经济对各国经济冲击的反应普遍存在着非对称性。最后,本文提出了相应的政策启示。     

US Hegemony and the Origins of Japanese Nuclear Power: The Politics of Consent

This paper deploys the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and consent in order to explore the process whereby nuclear power was brought to Japan. The core argument is that nuclear power was brought to Japan as a consequence of US hegemony. Rather than a simple manifestation of one state exerting material ‘power over' another, bringing nuclear power to Japan involved a series of compromises worked out within and between state and civil society in both Japan and the USA. Ideologies of nationalism, imperialism and modernity underpinned the process, coalescing in post-war debates about the future trajectory of Japanese society, Japan's Cold War alliance with the USA and the role of nuclear power in both. Consent to nuclear power was secured through the generation of a psychological state in the public mind combining the fear of nuclear attack and the hope of unlimited consumption in a nuclear-fuelled post-modern world.