Was Capital Fleeing Southeast Asia? Estimates from Indonesia,Malaysia, the Philippines,and Thailand

Capital flight is the movement of capital from a resource-scarce developing country to avoid social control. It is measured as the net unrecorded capital outflow, or the residual between officially recorded uses and sources of funds. For Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, we estimated total capital flight at US$ 658 billion (in 1995 prices) over the period 1970–2000. Including imputed interest earnings, we estimated the stock of capital flight at US$ 1 trillion as of 2002. The figures mean large amounts of lost resources that could have been utilized in the four countries to generate additional output and jobs.     

Effects Of Obsolescence On Tax Depreciation Practice

To paraphrase an old saying: Everybody complains about the way obsolescence is handled in tax depreciation practice, but nobody has as yet found a solution that satisfies both the taxpayer and the tax collector. It is obvious that this problem is much too big to treat in detail in this short article, but an attempt will be made to discuss several aspects of the problem which the writer believes either have not been fully understood by most persons, or else have not been explained sufficiently by those who advocate certain procedures. In order to develop the subject adequately, it will be necessary to investigate certain matters not directly concerned with tax practice     

KwaZulu‐Natal's rural institutional environment: Its impact on local service delivery

This article examines the rural institutional framework in KwaZulu‐Natal as it pertains to local service delivery, and claims that the key component of development is getting the institutional environments right. The article assesses relevant literature and introduces a dual framework linking institutionalist and organisational perspectives. The institutional framework of KwaZulu‐Natal is discussed in terms of its historical development, and a critical analysis of its present configuration is carried out. The article highlights the mismatch between rural development needs and the institutional framework of the province and generates a number of policy proposals in an attempt to correct this problem.     

ECONOMICS, ETHICS, AND THE PROBLEM OF BUILDING PEACE

To build peace it is necessary to convert what Hirshleifer (1976) has called "meta-constitutional" politics among nations into "constitutional" politics. To predict the eventual elimination of meta-constitutional politics and to suggest some steps that may hasten the process, Boulding's (1945) and North's (1981) explanations of the rise of civilization are combined with Coase's (1937) and Cheung's (1978) insights into organization theory and with Alchian's (1950) analysis of prediction that does not rely on rational behavior. The argument can be summarized in terms of game theory where technology, education, and population growth change the perceived payoff matrices.     

The Long-Lasting Momentum in Weekly Returns

Reversal is the current stylized fact of weekly returns. However, we find that an opposing and long‐lasting continuation in returns follows the well‐documented brief reversal. These subsequent momentum profits are strong enough to offset the initial reversal and to produce a significant momentum effect over the full year following portfolio formation. Thus, ex post, extreme weekly returns are not too extreme. Our findings extend to weekly price movements with and without public news. In addition, there is no relation between news uncertainty and the momentum in 1‐week returns.     

OPTIMAL CORPORATE LENIENCY PROGRAMS*

This study characterizes the corporate leniency policy that minimizes the frequency with which collusion occurs. Though it can be optimal to provide only partial leniency, plausible sufficient conditions are provided whereby the antitrust authority should waive all penalties for the first firm to come forward. It is also shown that restrictions should be placed on when amnesty is awarded, though it can be optimal to award amnesty even when the antitrust authority is very likely to win the case without insider testimony.     

Of shepherds, sheep, and the cross-autocorrelations in equity returns

We present an economic mechanism and supportive empirical evidencefor the transmission of information between equity securitiesfirst documented by Lo and MacKinlay (1990). It is argued thatthe past returns on stocks held by informed institutional traderswill be positively correlated with the contemporaneous returnson stocks held by noninstitutional uninformed traders. Evidenceconsistent with this hypothesis is then presented. We documentthat the returns on the portfolio of stocks with the highestlevel of institutional ownership lead the returns of portfoliosof stocks with lower levels of institutional ownership. Thiseffect persists even after firm size is controlled for and isapparent at longer lags than the size-related lag effect documentedin Lo and MacKinlay (1990).     

La Vía Campesina and its Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform

Vía Campesina's 'Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform' (GCAR) has made a significant impact (inter)nationally in reshaping the terms of the land reform debates. However, its impact on other land policy dynamics has been marginal. Meanwhile, the campaign inadvertently exposed latent class-based and ideological distinctions within the transnational network. This essay explains how the GCAR emerged, and has been able to influence the broader global land reform debates, but has not been able (so far) to significantly impact other major dimensions of the land policy debates. It argues that if GCAR is to retain relevance, it must deepen and broaden its current position on land to go beyond the parameters of conventional land reform. Moreover, it must also find ways to better integrate 'global issue framing from above' with 'local/national campaigns from below' if it is to strengthen its process of 'issue/campaign externalization/transnationalization'. Doing this may require the network to rethink some of its well-established organizational practices and ideological perspectives.