Spatial welfare economics versus ecological footprint: modeling agglomeration,externalities and trade

A welfare framework for the analysis of the spatial dimensions of sustainability is developed. It covers agglomeration effects, interregional trade, negative environmental externalities, and various land use categories. The model is used to compare rankings of spatial configurations according to evaluations based on social welfare and ecological footprint indicators. Five spatial configurations are considered for this purpose. The exercise is operationalized with the help of a two-region model of the economy, that is, in line with the ‘new economic geography.’ By generating a number of numerical ‘counter-examples,’ it is shown that the footprint method is inconsistent with an approach aimed at maximum social welfare. Unless environmental externalities are such a large problem that they overwhelm all other components of economic well-being, a ‘spatial welfare economic’ approach delivers totally different rankings of alternative land use configurations than the ecological footprint.      

克林顿政府的对外经济政策调整过程分析

20世纪90年代,克林顿政府在美国对外经济战略转变过程中起到了决定性作用,为美国经济发展注入了新的生命力。本文试对克林顿在任美国总统期间美国的对外经济政策转变过程做出分析。     

LACK OF RIGOUR IN DEFENDING FAIRTRADE: A REJOINDER TO ALISTAIR SMITH

Smith (2010 ) does not deny that he made errors in economic theory, logic and fact, and that he had misused evidence. He says that I misrepresented a large body of theory, that I distorted what he said in four places and that I was wrong in one sentence. These statements are false.     

经济全球化背景下国家矿产资源安全研究——基于自由贸易理论及我国当前贸易结构和贸易形势的考量

矿产资源贸易出于需求,而表现为价格差异导致.伴随经济全球化过程,掩盖在自由贸易体制下世界各主要工业国对矿产资源的争夺,是矿产资源在世界范围内配置的实质.获得商品定价权是取得矿产资源贸易有利地位的关键,从而提高本国矿产资源的安全程度.本文基于自由贸易理论,结合我国当前的贸易结构和贸易形势,研究我国矿产资源安全的现状,进而对确保矿产资源安全提出相应的对策建议.     

Do liberal trade policies promote trade openness?

Although trade liberalization and trade openness are assumed to be strongly associated with each other and often used interchangeably, the empirical evidence has not been forthcoming. This article is an attempt to fill this gap. By investigating the link between trade openness and trade restrictions, it argues that while a negative link between various types of trade restrictions and trade openness is evident, the relationship is weak, statistically not always significant and there is no clear evidence that the removal of trade restrictions (trade‐liberalization) invariably leads to improved trade openness.     

How do trade openness,public expenditure and institutional performance affect unemployment in OIC countries? Evidence from the DCCE approach

This study explores the relationship between trade openness, public expenditure, institutional performance, and unemployment in member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference). The conventional panel data techniques overlook cross-sectional dependence and yield-biased results. A new methodology called dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE) is employed to deal with the issue of cross-sectional dependence. The long-run results demonstrate that trade openness is inversely and significantly associated with overall unemployment and youth unemployment in lower-income as well as all the OIC economies and positively correlated in the higher-income OIC group. Public expenditure has an inverse and significant correlation with unemployment in OIC countries overall and higher-income OIC countries. Moreover, institutional performance and foreign direct investment are negatively related to unemployment in all OIC economies. The research shows the need for the continuation of open trade policies, strong institutions, and higher public expenditure in the OIC countries in order to decrease overall unemployment—in particular, youth unemployment.     

Flexible work practices and human resource management: a comparison of South African and foreign owned companies

This study compares the use of flexible work practices in wholly owned South African (SA) companies with that in foreign-owned companies. Data were obtained from questionnaire results of a study conducted by Horwitz and Franklin (1996) of flexible work practices in SA organizations. The questionnaire was used as part of a collaborative research project involving three countries (Brosnan et al ., 1996). It was found that SA-owned companies use certain flexible work practices to a lesser extent than foreign-owned companies. This was found to be the case particularly in the use of numerical forms of flexibility, such as sub-contractors/consultants and the use of temporary employees. Use of subcontractors/consultants and temporary staff agencies was found to be the greatest in partially foreign-owned companies. A larger proportion of foreign-owned companies have lower labour costs than do SA-owned companies. This has, however, not been as a result of the greater use of flexible work practices. Foreign-owned companies make more joint decisions with unions than do SA-owned companies when changing work practices.     

The development of the Indonesian labour movement

The paper examines the development of the labour movement in Indonesia in the context of trade unionism elsewhere in the area of the Asia-Pacific region. The Indonesian labour movement is shown to exhibit a dual nature; consisting of an official sponsored and legal form of unionism, and an independent, quasi-illegal form of unionism. The two have a conflicting yet symbiotic relationship, where the state plays a very significant role in determining the parameters for behaviour in industrial relations. Although the form of state intervention in Indonesia may be different from state intervention in other comparable countries, its aims are broadly similar. In this context the Indonesian independent labour movement is shown to have had some measure of success in resisting the restrictions placed upon it in its attempt to advance its members' terms and conditions of employment.     

Direct and representative participation in Europe: recent survey evidence

Despite the wealth of literature on HRM and employee involvement, now there has been a remarkable lack of large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion employee involvement in work organizations in Europe. This gap in large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion of direct employee participation has now been filled representative sample of workplaces in ten major European Union countries which commissioned by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin (the EPOC project). It is by far the most comprehensive overview of the implementation and effects of direct employee participation of its kind. The paper shows that, on the basis of the EPOC survey results, there appears to considerable gap between the rhetoric and reality of direct participation. The paper shows that while the incidence of different forms of direct participation was widespread ten countries, the scope, in terms of number of issues involved and the number of given to employees, was relatively limited for most direct participation forms. The survey also showed that the introduction of direct participation posed little threat to trade representatives. Indeed, works councils and union representatives were in most 'agents of change' rather than barriers to the development of the more intensive practice of direct participation.     

The political economy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: a ‘21st Century’ trade agreement?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the first of the ‘Mega-FTAs’ to be signed. Had it been ratified, it would have created the world’s largest preferential trade area. The negotiators of the TPP aspired to create ‘a next-generation transformative agreement’ that would address a new trade agenda focused on regulatory coherence and business facilitation. The expectation was that this agenda would generate a 21st Century trade politics that would be less contentious, at least among business actors, than traditional negotiations on market access. Studies of another Mega-FTA under negotiation, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that has a similar agenda found unified business support for the agreement domestically and the emergence of transnational business coalitions in support of the agreement. Recent theorising on trade politics suggests, however, that global value chains (GVCs) that involve vertical intra-industry trade introduce ‘traditional’ distributional issues that will divide business interests domestically – and, in the case of GVCs organised on different geographical bases, internationally as well. This cleavage was evident in the TPP negotiations, unlike those for TTIP, as were other divisions among business – both domestically and across countries – over the sharing of existing rents and of new rents generated by regulatory harmonisation.