Global dynamics,capabilities and the crisis

The financial crisis started in 2007–8, initially in the US, but its consequences have been felt throughout the global economy. However, its effects were far from uniform. While parts of Asia and Africa continued to grow fast, Europe experienced a large set back. This paper emphasizes three important factors: differences across countries in technological development; differences in capacities to exploit the opportunities offered by technology; and differences in the ability to compete in international market. A formal model, based on this approach, is developed and applied to data for 100 countries in the period 1997–2012. Empirical indicators reflecting the various factors are developed, a dataset constructed and econometric estimates of the model performed. The results are used to explore the factors behind the slowdown in economic growth, with a particular emphasis on the continuing stagnation in Europe. A major factor turns out to be the increased financialization of the economy. The negative effect of the growth of finance prior to the crisis is especially pronounced for the countries that suffered most during the crisis.     

On the Sources of Inflation in Kenya: A Model‐Based Approach

We develop a semi‐structural new‐Keynesian open‐economy model – with separate food and non‐food inflation dynamics to study the sources of inflation in Kenya in recent years. To do so, we filter international and Kenyan data (on output, inflation and its components, exchange rates and interest rates) through the model to recover a model‐based decomposition of most variables into trends (or potential values) and temporary movements (or gaps) – including for the international and domestic relative price of food. We use the filtration exercise to recover the sequence of domestic and foreign macroeconomic shocks that account for business cycle dynamics in Kenya over the last few years, with a special emphasis on the various factors (international food prices, monetary policy) driving inflation. We find that while imported food price shocks have been an important source of inflation, both in 2008 and more recently, accommodating monetary policy has also played a role, most notably through its effect on the nominal exchange rate. We also discuss the implications of this exercise for the use of model‐based monetary policy analysis in sub‐Saharan African countries.     

THE THOMBO TREASURE. COLONIAL POPULATION ADMINISTRATION AS SOURCE FOR THE HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY OF EARLY MODERN SRI LANKA

During their occupation of Sri Lanka (1640–1796) and following Sinhalese and Portuguese practices, the Dutch created an elaborate registration of people, estates, and labour services. The administrative records known as the thombos are incomparable in their level of detail, yet they have hardly been used for the purposes of demographic or economic history. This article describes the challenges involved in ‘decoding’ the thombos, that is, reconstructing the meaning of particular variables in the light of the prevailing legal pluralism in which Sinhalese common law and Roman-Dutch law co-existed uncomfortably. It also summarises research findings from a pilot study involving about two hundred small villages in Colombo province. Finally, it sketches research horizons, as the thombo ‘treasure’ holds great prospects for (comparative) studies into family systems and the impact of colonial rule on fertility and mortality.     

Unemployment and urban development in Gauteng

One aspect of the unemployment crisis which has not received much attention in South Africa is the spatial distribution of unemployment within cities. Concentrated unemployment within cities may be seen primarily as a product of market and non‐market housing allocation processes or of the spatial location of employment opportunities. This article examines the situation in Gauteng province using the 1991 population census and a 1995 survey of employers and using regression analysis to explain the unemployment rate in residential areas. It was found that there is no clear link between the location of employment opportunities and concentrated unemployment, suggesting that housing allocation factors play the decisive role. The findings raise some difficult questions about the appropriateness of urban development strategies which vigorously pursue the collocation of places of residence and work.     

The Case Against a U.S.-Arms Monopoly

The U.S. government is the dominant player in the global arms market. Existing literature emphasizes the many benefits of an international U.S. government arms monopoly including: regional and global balance, stability and security, the advancement of U.S. national interests, and domestic economic benefits from international sales. The purpose of this paper is to balance this largely one-sided treatment of the U.S. government’s dominant position in the international arms market. We discuss several negative consequences and costs associated with U.S. arms sales which call into question the net benefit of the U.S. government’s control over global arms.     

The Maddison Project: collaborative research on historical national accounts

The Maddison Project, initiated in March 2010 by a group of close colleagues of Angus Maddison, aims to develop an effective system of cooperation between scholars to continue Maddison's work on measuring economic performance in the world economy. This article is a first product of the project. Its goal is to explain the aims and approach of the project, and, as a first result of this ‘collaboratory’, to inventory recent research on historical national accounts. We also briefly discuss some of the problems related to these historical statistics and we extend and where necessary revise the estimates published by Maddison in his latest overviews. Most new work relates to the period before 1820; it leads to a reassessment of levels of GDP per capita in western Europe in the early modern period, and to a confirmation of Maddison's previous estimates of Asian levels of real income.     

Counting carbon: historic emissions from fossil fuels,long-run measures of sustainable development and carbon debt

This article examines how to account for the welfare effects of carbon dioxide emissions, using the historical experiences of Britain and the USA from the onset of the industrial revolution to the present. While a single country might isolate itself from the detrimental effects of global warming in the short run, in the long all countries are unable to free ride. Thus, we support the use of a single global price for carbon dioxide emissions. The calculated price should decrease as we move back in time to take into account that carbon dioxide is a stock pollutant, and that one unit added to the present large stock is likely to cause more damage than a unit emitted under the lower concentration levels in the past. We incorporate the annual costs of British and US carbon emissions into genuine savings, and calculate the accumulated costs of their carbon dioxide emissions. Enlarging the scope and calculating the cumulative cost of carbon dioxide from the four largest emitters gives new insights into the question of who is responsible for climate change.     

Why they moved — Emigration from the Swedish countryside to the United States, 1881–1910

Swedish emigration rates were among the highest in Europe in the late nineteenth century. The majority of the emigrants originated from the countryside. In the article the determinants of emigration from the Swedish countryside to the United States are explored using panel regression methods on a newly constructed dataset consisting of yearly observations for 20 counties over the period 1881–1910. Amidst sharp fluctuations the emigration rate declined over the long term, which is explained by a rise in the standard of living and improved employment opportunities at home. Persistent regional differences in the emigration rate are explained by regional differences in population density and emigration tradition.     

The Spillover Effect of Euro Area on Central and Southeastern European Economies: A Global VAR Approach

We use the global vector autoregression model to examine macroeconomic spillovers within the European Union over the period 2000-2014. We investigate how shocks originating in the euro area affect output and prices in the rest of Europe. We examine four different policy relevant shock scenarios: (i) increase in the euro area interest rate; (ii) increase in the euro area industrial production; (iii) decrease in the euro area consumer prices and (iv) decrease in global oil prices. In general, we find that these shocks have an effect of same (and expected) sign but of different size across the European Union. Our results suggest that the response of Central European countries to the euro area shocks is almost as strong as the response of the euro area countries itself. On the other hand, our results indicate that South East Europe is somewhat less sensitive to the euro area shocks and oil price shocks.