The problems of supplying water to third world cities: Bulawayo's water crisis

The current drought in central and southern Africa has focused attention on issues relating to the provision and supply of potable water. In the case of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, there is the very real prospect that water supplies may be exhausted before the onset of the next rainy season. This paper explores the background to this problem and shows how poor planning, financial constraints, and political intransigence have failed to keep pace with a policy aimed at the provision of water to the inhabitants in this expanding urban environment Alternative sources of supply. in particular a pipeline to the Zambezi River, are also investigated.     

Capital Flight Repatriation: Investigation of its Potential Gains for Sub‐Saharan African Countries*

Abstract: Despite the substantial recent increase in capital flows to sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), the sub‐continent remains largely marginalized in financial globalization and chronically dependent on official development aid. The current debate on resource mobilization for development financing in Africa has overlooked the problem of capital flight, which constitutes an important untapped source of funds. This paper argues that repatriation of flight capital deserves more attention on economic as well as moral grounds. On the moral side, the argument is that a large proportion of the capital flight legitimately belongs to the African people and therefore must be restituted to the legitimate claimants. The economic argument is that repatriation of flight capital will contribute to propelling the sub‐continent on a higher sustainable growth path while preserving its financial stability and independence and without mortgaging the welfare of its future generations through external borrowing. The anticipated gains from capital repatriation are large. In particular, this paper estimates that if only a quarter of the stock of capital flight was repatriated to SSA, the sub‐continent would go from trailing to leading other developing regions in terms of domestic investment. The paper proposes some strategies for inducing capital flight repatriation, but cautions that the success of this program is contingent on a strong political will on the part of African and Western governments and effective coordination and cooperation at the global level.     

A re-examination of the forward exchange rate unbiasedness hypothesis

A Re-Examination of the Forward Exchange Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis. — This paper applies the Phillips and Hansen estimation and inference procedures to re-examine the hypothesis that the forward exchange rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot exchange rate. The results indicate that the 90-day forward exchange rate is not an unbiased predictor. However, the 90-day forward and future spot exchange rates are cointegrated. Only for the U.K. pound/U.S. dollar exchange rate is there an error correction representation. Overall, however, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that risk-averse agents in the forward foreign exchange market form expectations rationally.     

Creating a Testable, Estimable Model to Inform Our Response to the Test-Score Gap Crisis

The test-score gap between black and white students should be seen as a crisis. We propose a testable model based on readily available data that will allow us to estimate the impact and interrelationships of a multitude of factors that may be partially responsible for the problem. The estimation of this model will require the joint efforts of experts in many areas of education as well as of experts in multilevel structural equation modeling.     

当前物价运行及其未来发展趋势

2011年8月以来,CPI同比涨幅持续回落,全年CPI上涨5．4％。从2012年物价走势看,受政策滞后效应和上年同期基数效应影响,上半年物价有望延续回落趋势,而随着政策微调和宏观经济回升,下半年物价重拾升势的可能性较大。预计2012年全年CPI涨幅为3．6％左右。综合考虑我国工业化发展阶段、刘易斯拐点与资源品价格市场化改革等因素来看,中长期内物价仍存在上涨压力。