Agriculture and the WTO: time to reconsider the basics?

Agriculture and the WTO: time to reconsider the basics? Late 19th century industrial developments generated oversupply in agricultural markets. Free market adjustment proved difficult and many European countries introduced protection. When agricultural prices fell again in the 1930s, all other western countries followed, making international regulation of agricultural trade an urgent matter. Under the New Deal, the USDA moved to a commodity agreements approach via the GATT. Both the US and the EU, however, failed to introduce the required production controls and engaged in increased dumping. When expanded output in the EU led to competitive dumping in grain markets, the US changed its strategy and got an agreement in the Uruguay Round that prescribed reductions in price supports but exempted certain direct payments. Thereupon both blocks substituted direct payments for price supports in ways that allowed them to maintain large exports at prices below their own production costs. In the Doha Round, they are negotiating a further shift in this direction. Developing countries call this disguised dumping. Besides, many least developed countries claim the right to protect their own farmers against cheap imports. They need an agricultural revolution to accommodate population growth and get non‐farm development moving, but low world market prices hamper investment in farming. Redressing this problem and securing long‐term global food security require a balanced system of managed trade rather than the pseudo‐liberalisation that the US and the EU pursue. Agriculture et OMC: et si on revenait aux sources ? A la fin du 19ème siècle, le développement industriel a engendré des surproductions sur les marchés agricoles. Les régulations par le marché se sont révélées difficiles et de nombreux pays européens en sont venus au protectionnisme. Dans les années 30, les prix agricoles se sont à nouveau effondrés, ce qui a conduit à considérer la régulation internationale du commerce comme une affaire importante. Le ‘New Deal’ conduisit I'USDA à s'engager dans un système ?accorcl par produits dans le cadre du GATT. Cependant, ni les Etats‐Unis ni ?Europe ne parvinrent à introduire les contrôles de la production qui auraient été nécessaires. Tous deux s'engagèrent dans des actions de dumping sans cesse plus importantes. Lorsque ?accroissement de la production en Europe conduisit à une concurrence sur les dumpings cérealiers, les Etats‐Unis changérent de stratégic et obtinrent, dans le cadre de ?Uruguay Round, un accord obligeant à réduire les soutiens de prix, tout en autorisant certains paiements directs. De ce fait, les deux blocs remplacèrent les soutiens de prix par des paiements directs, de manière à conserver la possibilityé?exporter de grandes quantités à des prix inférieurs aux coûts de production internes. Dans les négotiations du Doha Round, ils se sont engagés encore plus loin dans cette direction. Les pays en voie de développement appellent cela du dumping déguisé. Beaucoup des moins développés ?entre eux réclament le droit de protéger leurs propres agriculteurs contre les importations à prix de braderie. Ils ont besoin ?une révolution agricole pour faire face à la croissance démographique et déclencher le développement en dehors de ?agriculture, mais les faibles prix internationaux des produits agricoles les empêchent ?investir dans ?agriculture. Pour résoudre ce probléme et garantir à long terme la sécurité alimentaire mondiale, il faudrait trouver un système équilibré de commerce contrôlé, au lieu de la pseudo libéralisation recherchée par les Etats‐Unis et ?Europe. Landwirtschaft und WTO: Ist es an der Zeit, die Grundprinzipien zu überdenken? Die Industrialisierung im späten 19. Jahrhundert hat zu einer Überschussproduktion in der Landwirtschaft geführt. Die Anpassung an die Marktkräfte erwies sich als schwierig, und viele europäische Länder führten eine Agrarprotektion ein. Als die Agrarpreise in den dreiβiger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts wieder fielen, gingen alle westlichen Länder zur Agrarprotektion über und machten damit eine internationale Regelungen des Agrarhandels zu einer dringenden Angelegenheit. Das US Landwirtschaftsministerium führte unter der neuen Regelung des GATT Warenabkommen ein. Sowohl die USA als auch die EU versäumten es jedoch, Angebotsbeschränkungen einzuführen; stattdessen subventionierten sie die Ausfuhren. Als die gestiegenen Exporte der EU zu einem Subventionswettbewerb im Getreidehandel führten, anderten die USA ihre Strategic‐ Sie erreichten in der Uruguay‐Runde, dass Preisstützungsmaβnahmen reduziert werden mussten, dass aber einige Formen von Direktzahlungen weiterhin erlaubt wurden. Als Folge der Vereinbarung haben beide Parteien Preisstützung durch Direktzahlungen ersetzt und es dadurch ermöglicht, dass groβe Mengen zu Preisen exportiert werden konnten, die unter den Produktionskosten liegen. In der Doha‐Runde verhandeln die Parteien in der gleichen Richtung. Entwicklungsländer nennen dieses verstecktes Dumping. Auβerdem verlangen viele am wenigsten entwickelte Länder, ihre Landwirtschaft gegen Billigimporte auch stützen zu dürfen. Diese Länder benötigen eine landwirtschaftliche Revolution, um das Bevölkerungswachstum zu verkraften und die nicht landwirtschaftliche Entwicklung zu fördern. Niedrige Weltmarktpreise dämpfen landwirtschaftliche Investitionen. Eine Berücksichtigung dieses Problems und die Sicherung der globalen Nahrungsmittelversorgung erfordern ein ausgewogenes System von administriertem Handel und nicht den Pseudo‐Liberalismus den die USA und die EU verfolgen.     

Re-employment Rates of Older Unemployed Workers: Decomposing the Effect of Birth Cohorts and Policy Changes

In many European countries, re-employment probabilities of older unemployed workers are relatively low. While there is evidence that financial incentives and search obligations are effective to increase the job prospects of older workers, recent research also stresses the importance of birth cohort effects. These cohort effects may in turn stem from higher educational attainment levels and better health conditions of future generations of older workers. This paper empirically assesses the relative importance of both explanations, using a registered data set of unemployment insurance spells between 1999 and 2008 for the Netherlands. Using a Linear Probability Model, we decompose the effects of birth cohorts, age, calendar time and two policy measures that were targeted at older unemployed workers—i.e. increased job search obligations in 2004 and shorter potential benefit durations (PBD) in 2006. We find that policy effects predominantly explain the increased job return rates of unemployed of 55 years and older from 1999 to 2008. The introduction of search requirements has increased the one-year re-employment probability of eligible older men with about 5 % point, while the reduction in PBD has caused the one-year re-employment probability of eligible men to increase with 3 % point.     

Historicizing the ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship: The case of the ethnic Chinese in Bangkok

This paper aims to come to a better understanding of the meaning of ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship for second- and third-generation ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Bangkok, Thailand. Research on ethnic Chinese entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia typically investigates the dominance, attributed to specific ‘Chinese’ cultural values and strong intra-ethnic networks, of the ethnic Chinese in business and entrepreneurship. Our research among second- and third-generations shows an inclination of the interviewees to emphasize the irrelevance of their ‘ethnic’ Chinese background in entrepreneurship. To understand the meanings of the expressed irrelevance, we argue that it is constructive to incorporate a historical/generational approach of the ethnic group (migration history, nationalism) and of the business (social organization) into the study of ethnic entrepreneurship. The contribution to ethnic entrepreneurship research is threefold. Firstly, we show how a generational lens provides a more nuanced understanding of the ‘ethnic’ in ethnic entrepreneurship. Secondly, we show how incorporating the historical context helps to position business conduct in the social/societal experiences of entrepreneurs. Finally, our case study of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Thailand brings an Asian perspective to ethnic entrepreneurship debates that generally concern European and North American research studies and thus hopes to inspire future comparative research.     

Do we do the past differently now? An interview with David Lowenthal

The purpose of the interview was to talk to David Lowenthal about the imminent release of his updated version of The Past Is a Foreign Country, a seminal work on history, memory and nostalgia which profoundly influenced debates on heritage culture following its initial publication in 1985. David served in the US Army during World War Two and during his long and distinguished career as a cultural geographer taught at Vassar College and the University of the West Indies. He is now emeritus professor of geography at University College London. His books include West Indian Societies (1972), Landscape Meanings and Values (with Edmund Penning-Rowsell, 1986), The Politics of the Past (with Peter Gathercole, 1989) and The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (1997). The interview took place in London on 24 September 2012.     

The Lure of Ill-Fitting Unemployment Statistics: How South Africa’s Discouraged Work Seekers Disappeared From the Unemployment Rate

ABSTRACT

Unemployment refuses unambiguous definition. Its statistical representation is always open to contestation, especially where labour markets differ from the Western-industrial norm. Why do countries adopt international standards even if they may fit local conditions poorly? South Africa is an exemplary case to answer this question. When Apartheid ended in the early 1990s, South African statisticians embraced the new emancipatory spirit. Their broad unemployment indicator defied international conventions but did justice to the marginalised Black population, and to Black women in particular. Since then, however, South Africa has fallen in line with the much narrower definition of the International Labour Organization (ILO), in spite of widespread criticism. Why? We find that ILO standards were not forced upon South Africa. Instead, South African statisticians themselves embraced international standards to repel charges of arbitrary or politically motivated numbers. Counterintuitively, international standards become alluring precisely when doubts about statistics’ fit with local conditions are the greatest.     

Politics at play: locating human rights,refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle

Abstract

This article examines the political footprint of a new wave of grassroots humanitarian organisations in the informal refugee camp, popularly dubbed ‘The Jungle’, in Calais, northern France. Set against the formal humanitarian void created by the French state barring of international aid agencies, and the abject conditions of camp life, we trace the shifting socio-spatial remit and progressive politicisation of these ‘apolitical’ organisations as they encounter a crisis of human rights in the Jungle, prior to its violent demolition by state decree in October 2016. In foregrounding the organisational perspectives of Play4Calais and the Refugee Youth Service, and their unorthodox deployment of play, sport, cinema and art, we reveal a grassroots humanitarian praxis which offers an alternative to the large-scale ‘professionalised’ registers of aid delivery. By virtue of their relative informality, spatial proximity and volunteer activism, these grassroots organisations not only stand in tension with the violent border sovereignties of neoliberal states, but open up the inchoate possibility for political struggle and refugee-centred claims-making over the right to inhabit the ‘exceptional’ space of the camp.     

The Effect of Competition on Process and Outcome Quality of Hospital Care in the Netherlands

We examine the impact of competition on outcome and process indicators of hospital quality. While earlier literature on the relationship between competition and hospital quality mainly focused on outcome indicators, we argue that the inclusion of process indicators in the analysis can provide supplementary information about the effect of competitive pressure on hospitals’ incentives. In particular, these indicators are less noisy than outcome indicators and are important as a management tool. Our panel dataset covers all Dutch general and academic hospitals in the period 2004–2008, during which the transparency of hospital quality information increased substantially due to the disclosure of hospitals’ quality indicators. We find that competition among hospitals located within the hospital catchment area explains differences in several process indicators, but fails to explain differences in outcome indicators. The results suggest that hospitals facing more competition organize diagnostic processes more efficiently; however, they have more operation cancellations at short notice and more delays of hip fracture injury operations for elderly patients. This suggests that competition affects the allocation of hospital personnel efforts even when outcomes have not been affected.     

Weeds,Pheasants and Wild Dogs: Resituating the Ecological Paradigm in Postindustrial Detroit

The Chicago School of urban sociology has been criticized for its over‐reliance on organic and ecological metaphors. We propose that a useful updated integration of urban sociology and ecology could be achieved with the aid of complementary concepts, such as patch dynamics and assemblage, from both fields. In this exploratory article, we draw on more than 50 qualitative interviews conducted with residents of three different Detroit neighborhoods, together with field observations, photographs and documentary evidence, to examine both actual and metaphorical references to the natural world. We consider allusions to ‘drug infestation’ as well as other references to territorialization processes and associations with plants and animals that emerged out of our interviews and interactions with neighborhood residents. In conclusion, we maintain that social science may have much to learn from contemporary ecological research, and that a resituated ecological paradigm would challenge and benefit contemporary urban research.     

Is transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) a cost-effective treatment in patients who are ineligible for surgical aortic valve replacement? A systematic review of economic evaluations

Objectives:

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies often undertake a review of economic evaluations of an intervention during an appraisal in order to identify published estimates of cost-effectiveness, to elicit comparisons with the results of their own model, and to support local reimbursement decision-making. The aim of this research is to determine whether Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) compared to medical management (MM) is cost-effective in patients ineligible for surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR), across different jurisdictions and country-specific evaluations.

Methods:

A systematic review of the literature from 2007–2012 was performed in the MEDLINE, MEDLINE in-process, EMBASE, and UK NHS EED databases according to standard methods, supplemented by a search of published HTA models. All identified publications were reviewed independently by two health economists. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) 35-point checklist for economic evaluations was used to assess study reporting. To compare results, incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were converted to 2012 dollars using purchasing power parity (PPP) techniques.

Results:

Six studies were identified representing five reimbursement jurisdictions (England/Wales, Scotland, the US, Canada, and Belgium) and different modeling techniques. The identified economic evaluations represent different willingness-to-pay thresholds, discount rates, medical costs, and healthcare systems. In addition, the model structures, time horizons, and cycle lengths varied. When adjusting for differences in currencies, the ICERs ranged from $27K–$65K per QALY gained.

Conclusions:

Despite notable differences in modeling approach, under the thresholds defined by using either the local threshold value or that recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) threshold value, each study showed that TAVI was likely to be a cost-effective intervention for patients ineligible for SAVR.