Can the Japanese Economy Rebound?

The Japanese economy has begun to show signs of recovery from its deepest post WWII recession. Although it is generally acknowledged that the recovery is not based on solid foundations, there is elation within Japan regarding the prospects for renewed economic growth. Yet little or no attention seems to be paid to what is happening to Japanese technological innovation, the engine that drives growth. The article shows that the impressive technological excellence of the famed Japanese companies is simultaneously accompanied by a decline in overall Japanese technological innovation. This is attributed to the dual nature of the Japanese economy, where super‐strong exporting industries co‐exist with super‐weak domestic sectors, and to Japan's adherence to outdated perceptions and policies. However, the potential for recovery is within reach: galvanise the backward leg of the dual economy and healthy growth would ensue; restore confidence in the healthy leg and things would be better still; add to this a recipe for responsible macroeconomic management and the prospects would be rosier.     

The Growing Relationship Between China and Sub-Saharan Africa: Macroeconomic, Trade, Investment, and Aid Links

China's economic ascendance over the past two decades has generatedripple effects in the world economy. Its search for naturalresources to satisfy the demands of industrialization has ledit to Sub-Saharan Africa. Trade between China and Africa in2006 totaled more than $50 billion, with Chinese companies importingoil from Angola and Sudan, timber from Central Africa, and copperfrom Zambia. Demand from China has contributed to an upwardswing in prices, particularly for oil and metals from Africa,and has given a boost to real GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chineseaid and investment in infrastructure are bringing desperatelyneeded capital to the continent. At the same time, however,strong Chinese demand for oil is contributing to an increasein the import bill for many oil-importing Sub-Saharan Africancountries, and its exports of low-cost textiles, while benefitingAfrican consumers, is threatening to displace local production.China poses a challenge to good governance and macroeconomicmanagement in Africa because of the potential Dutch diseaseimplications of commodity booms. China presents both an opportunityfor Africa to reduce its marginalization from the global economyand a challenge for it to effectively harness the influx ofresources to promote poverty-reducing economic development athome. JEL codes: F01, F35, F41, N55, N57, Q33, Q43     

Mapping the consumer‐subject in advertising

Traditionally marketing communication‐or more specifically advertising‐has been framed in terms of products/ services, needs and wants of consumers as if these were real givens, existing independently of the forms and acts of marketing communication itself. From this perspective, advertising is merely seen as a purveyor of information about products/services/needs between producers and consumers but hardly as actively implicated in shaping, not only the relation between the processes of production and those of consumption, but also the conception of the consumer‐subject. This paper makes a brief diachronic account of advertising with a view to highlighting how the consumer‐subject is represented. Whereas early advertising conceives of the consumer‐subject as a “rational” decision‐maker, aware of its needs and desire, more recent advertising constitutes the consumer‐subject in a hyperreal, dream‐like world, which seduces and spellbinds it.