INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION: A CASE AGAINST BUILDING EVER‐HIGHER FENCES

International migration, seen as a powerful force of truly global character that is shaping today's socio‐economic reality, is a highly controversial and politicised issue. This paper explores its ramifications in the context of a growing backlash against immigration across the rich world. Specifically, it argues that the free flow of people – like the free movement of goods and capital – is beneficial to developed and developing economies alike and, in doing so, shows how migration produces win–win outcomes. Thus the study, while admitting that inflows of foreign‐born workers pose challenges and entail trade‐offs, makes a case for the liberalisation of immigration policies. The paper deepens our understanding of the issues at hand and constitutes a voice in favour of liberal‐policy choices.     

Introduction: human resource management in Africa

This article introduces the special issue that seeks to spur the debate on the challenges of managing people in organizations in Africa. The debate on HRM in Africa has proceeded with tentative steps and now clearly needs to be located firmly within the international management context. It is not the purpose of this special issue to discover or develop an over-arching model of HRM. That has been attempted elsewhere. Our purpose is to bring together the various threads that characterize the on-going debate and hopefully move towards a more specific research agenda which captures the complexity of managing on the African continent. Some of these threads include the formulation of new perspectives on HR research, finding common ground with diverse disciplines and tackling enduring problems like ethnicity and discrimination.     

“十五”期间中部六省流通竞争力的比较分析——以湖南省的视角

采用因子分析法全面分析了"十五"期间中部地区流通产业竞争力的发展状况,指出流通产业竞争力指标主要可以分解为流通产业规模水平因子、流通基础设施因子和流通人力资本因子;分析了"十五"期间中部各省份的流通产业竞争力的变动状况,从湖南省的视角出发,深入分析了影响湖南省流通产业竞争力的各项因素,提出了一些有针对性的对策。     

International borrowing without commitment and informational lags: Choice under uncertainty

A series of recent studies in economic growth theory have considered a class of models of international borrowing where, in the absence of a perfect investment commitment, the borrowing constraint depends on the historical performances of the country. Thus, a better level of past economic activity gives a higher reputation, thereby increasing the possibility of accessing the international credit market. This note considers this problem in a stochastic setting based on the volatility of the internal net capital. We study how the optimal consumption level and the maximal expected welfare depend on the combined influence of the trajectory of past economic variables and the volatile environment. In particular, we show how the strength of the history effect and the relative weight of the historical performance depend on the degree of risk.     

对我国建立国际物流仲裁机构问题的研究

我国经济贸易和物流业的快速发展需要有良好的环境。文章提出为提升我国国际物流业的竞争力,在发展物流业基础设施和物流运作的基础上,还应该建设物流业发展的"软环境",其中包括物流仲裁环境。我国国际物流仲裁机构应该考虑设立在国际物流发达的口岸地区,还需要培育一支高水平的仲裁员队伍。     

环境保护的国际合作：以SARS为例

SARS危机反映了当前环境问题日渐国际化的趋势,其根源是资源紧缺和经济全球化之间的矛盾。面对这一问题,各国应通力合作、寻求对策,实现环境保护的国际合作。但环境责任在各国间的分配问题阻碍了国际环境合作的进展。本文指出,基于环境和国力的全球合作机制可合理分配各国的代际责任和代内责任,有利于促进环境保护的国际合作,是一种可行的环境保护国际合作模式。要实现这一目标,首先要各国在代际和代内责任的问题上达成共识,二是要增加国际机构、国际公约对合作各方的约束力。     

Catch-up strategies and the latecomer effect in industrial development

Since 2003, the West and Central African (WCA) cotton initiative in the World Trade Organization has stood as an ambitious case of Africa's desire to be integrated into the trading system and yet also receive reparations for past injuries. This article seeks to explore how and why the initiative debuted through close attention to the interdependence between power and language in diplomatic practice. It takes the concept of cognitive framing to explore the relationship between political legitimacy and mobilisation capacities. The genesis of cotton as ‘an issue’ is critically examined, focusing on how the WCA countries constructed a novel ‘competitive victim’ frame to define themselves and the problem. While this opening move was effective, it also featured tensions that were exploited by Northern actors who were threatened by the campaign. I argue that what followed was the introduction of a politically driven ‘counterframe’, which divided the problem into a ‘trade-related’ component and a ‘development-related’ component. It is important to understand why and how this distinction was constructed and monitored. By scrutinising the relationship between framing and institutional power, I suggest that the counterframe won over the original frame, leading to a re-positioning of the demanders and a re-calibration of their expectations.     

CAUSAL INFERENCE ON EDUCATION POLICIES: A SURVEY OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES USING PISA,TIMSS AND PIRLS

The identification of the causal effects of educational policies is the top priority in recent education economics literature. As a result, a shift can be observed in the strategies of empirical studies. They have moved from the use of standard multivariate statistical methods, which identify correlations or associations between variables only, to more complex econometric strategies, which can help to identify causal relationships. However, exogenous variations in databases have to be identified in order to apply causal inference techniques. This is a far from straightforward task. For this reason, this paper provides an extensive and comprehensive overview of the literature using quasi‐experimental techniques applied to three well‐known international large‐scale comparative assessments, such as PISA, PIRLS or TIMSS, over the period 2004–2016. In particular, we review empirical studies employing instrumental variables, regression discontinuity designs, difference in differences and propensity score matching to the above databases. Additionally, we provide a detailed summary of estimation strategies, issues treated and profitability in terms of the quality of publications to encourage further potential evaluations. The paper concludes with some operational recommendations for prospective researchers in the field.