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This study argues that a central factor in the determinants of citizen attitudes toward trade is the social psychology of the individual in question. Namely, we contend that the level of social trust an individual has will condition the degree to which an individual wants to open her country to imports from other countries. Those individuals with lower relative levels of social trust are less likely to support the notion of freer trade. We base this contention on the logic that those people who are distrustful of people in general are more likely to distrust that which comes from people who are unknown to them, such as goods coming into their country from abroad. This argument is a departure from previous studies of public attitudes toward trade, which have focused on various economic utilitarian considerations and xenophobia that shape citizen attitudes toward trade liberalization. To test our argument, we employ data from the 1995-1997 wave of the World Values Survey. Using a logit regression analysis, we find, as predicted, that the more social trust an individual has, the more likely that person is to support the idea of liberalized trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests systematically the effect of political structures on the credibility of sovereign debtors in advanced economies. It argues that power-sharing and party system polarization have important effects on long-term interest rates. Where collective responsibility is high and polarization is low, the market perceives a more credible commitment on the part of sovereign debtors. These arguments derived from the theory of credible commitments perform much better than alternative accounts of the politics of sovereign debt, namely a market preference for right-wing governments and more flexible polities. The principal data consist of a panel of 23 rich countries between 1970 and 2009. There are tests for robustness to a wider sample and a variety of different measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents theoretical considerations on the formation of knowledge-based economy, with particular emphasis on human capital in this process. One of the significant development factors in the contemporary economy is knowledge - when it is correctly used and managed, it may become a key to economic success. Knowledge becomes a factor influencing the development of societies, enterprises and whole economies. In majority of developed countries, the economies tend to become knowledge-based economies with such main development determinants as education and development of human capital, increase in expenditure on research and development, high level of innovation, and establishment of information society. At present, it is emphasised that human capital is a crucial factor in long-term social and economic growth as it governs e.g. the possibilities of economy in the scope of generating technological change (Welfe, 2007, p. 112). Therefore, it may have been observed in recent years that the interest in the development of human and intellectual capital is increasing as it directly determines the possibility of establishing knowledge society - creative, innovative, open to changes, able to create permanent social and economic relations. The importance of intellectual capital is emphasized also in creating information society and developing innovations which are the main determinants of today's economies (Dobija & Rosolińska, 2008, p. 63). The discussion on human capital no longer focuses on such issues as its significance for economic growth and for further social and economic development of each country. The thesis stating that human capital has a great role in the development has been already confirmed by numerous researchers. Continued considerations include other issues related to the improvement of human capital, new methods of measuring the quality of human capital, quality of life, relation with social capital, and definition of human capital as creative capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international diversification puzzle is the fact that country portfolios are on average biased toward domestic assets, while one-good international macro models with nondiversifiable labor income risk predict the opposite pattern of diversification. This paper embeds a portfolio choice decision in a two-good international business cycle model and provides a closed-form solution for equilibrium country portfolios. Equilibrium portfolios are biased toward domestic assets because endogenous international relative price fluctuations make domestic assets a good hedge against labor income risk. Evidence from developed economies in recent years is qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with the mechanisms highlighted by the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in real interest rates across developed economies are puzzlingly large and persistent. I propose a simple explanation: bonds issued in the currencies of larger economies are expensive because they insure against shocks that affect a larger fraction of the world economy. I show that, indeed, differences in the size of economies explain a large fraction of the cross-sectional variation in currency returns. The data also support additional implications of the model: the introduction of a currency union lowers interest rates in participating countries, and stocks in the nontraded sector of larger economies pay lower expected returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an evident global imbalance puzzle: debt levels in developed countries are continuing to expand despite their huge size whereas the size of foreign exchange reserves held by developing countries continues to grow. This paper argues that this pattern of global imbalances is a consequence of an asymmetric international system, the roots of which lie in the differences in labour structures between the developed and developing countries. It suggests that this global imbalance is likely to continue and is beneficial for both developed and developing countries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a conference on public finances in the developed world since the 1970s, held in Cologne, Germany, from June 13-15, 2013. Topics of discussion included tax policy in Great Britain, West Germany, and the United States, welfare state reforms, and the advent of neoliberalism as the primary economic theory through which the role of the state within the economy was viewed.

Copyright of Comparative Economic Research is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents an overview of the so-called "Varieties of Capitalism" (VoC) theory of comparative political economy. The author seeks to situate this school of thought within the broader context of the historiography of capitalism. Among other subjects, he considers the original concept of comparative studies of capitalism developed by economists Peter Hall and David Soskice in 2001, the critique of the model as too focused on the developed world, and the complementary concept of a hierarchical market economy proposed by economist Ben Ross Schneider with a view on Latin America.

My focus is on the degree to which increasing inequality in the high-income countries, particularly in the United States, is likely to limit economic mobility for the next generation of young adults. I discuss the underlying drivers of opportunity that generate the relationship between inequality and intergenerational mobility. The goal is to explain why America differs from other countries, how intergenerational mobility will change in an era of higher inequality, and how the process is different for the top 1 percent. I begin by presenting evidence that countries with more inequality at one point in time also experience less earnings mobility across the generations, a relationship that has been called 'The Great Gatsby Curve.' The interaction between families, labor markets, and public policies all structure a child's opportunities and determine the extent to which adult earnings are related to family background-but they do so in different ways across national contexts. Both cross-country comparisons and the underlying trends suggest that these drivers are all configured most likely to lower, or at least not raise, the degree of intergenerational earnings mobility for the next generation of Americans coming of age in a more polarized labor market. This trend will likely continue unless there are changes in public policy that promote the human capital of children in a way that offers relatively greater benefits to the relatively disadvantaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The top 1 percent income share has more than doubled in the United States over the last 30 years, drawing much public attention in recent years. While other English-speaking countries have also experienced sharp increases in the top 1 percent income share, many high-income countries such as Japan, France, or Germany have seen much less increase in top income shares. Hence, the explanation cannot rely solely on forces common to advanced countries, such as the impact of new technologies and globalization on the supply and demand for skills. Moreover, the explanations have to accommodate the falls in top income shares earlier in the twentieth century experienced in virtually all high-income countries. We highlight four main factors. The first is the impact of tax policy, which has varied over time and differs across countries. Top tax rates have moved in the opposite direction from top income shares. The effects of top rate cuts can operate in conjunction with other mechanisms. The second factor is a richer view of the labor market, where we contrast the standard supply-side model with one where pay is determined by bargaining and the reactions to top rate cuts may lead simply to a redistribution of surplus. Indeed, top rate cuts may lead managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their remuneration at the expense of enterprise growth and employment. The third factor is capital income. Overall, private wealth (relative to income) has followed a U-shaped path over time, particularly in Europe, where inherited wealth is, in Europe if not in the United States, making a return. The fourth, little investigated, element is the correlation between earned income and capital income, which has substantially increased in recent decades in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the linkages between the global business cycle and national cycles. We first analyse the evolution of the global business cycle and present its main properties during global recessions and recoveries. We then consider how the sensitivity of national cycles to the global cycle varies over different phases of the global cycle and depends on country-specific features. Our findings collectively portray an intricate liaison between the global business cycle and national cycles. National business cycles are tightly linked to the global cycle, but the sensitivity of national cycles to the global cycle is much higher during global recessions than expansions. There are significant differences across countries in how they respond to the global cycle as advanced economies appear to be more sensitive to global recessions than are developing economies. Moreover, countries tend to be more sensitive to the global cycle, the more integrated they are to the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of cultural intelligence in counterinsurgency operations. Topics discussed include the slow population and economic growth in developed countries which could result to conflict conditions, the importance of cultural intelligence in decision making in Afghanistan, and several cultural dimensions such as individualism, masculinity, and power distance.

Copyright of Ecos de Economía is the property of Universidad EAFIT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the emergence of intractable economic stagnation in most developed countries, spectacular failures in financial markets and the empirical refutation of hypotheses central to economic policy for the last three decades, the economics profession remains largely complacent. Some reasons for this complacency are discussed, along with some suggestions for future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Business Consultant / Poslovni Konsultant is the property of FINconsult Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The agricultural and food sector is an ideal case for investigating the political economy of public policies. Many of the policy developments in this sector since the 1950s have been sudden and transformational, while others have been gradual but persistent. This article reviews and synthesizes the literature on trends and fluctuations in market distortions and the political-economy explanations that have been advanced. Based on a rich global data set covering a half-century of evidence on commodities, countries, and policy instruments, we identify hypotheses that have been explored in the literature on the extent of market distortions and the conditions under which reform may be feasible. (JEL F13, Q11, Q17, Q18) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a Bayesian dynamic factor model to examine the relationship between fmancial development and economic growth from a new angle. We estimate the common, country, and idiosyncratic factors that drive the dynamics and co-movement of financial development and economic growth across 89 countries in three different income groups, namely industrial countries (INDs), emerging market economies (EMEs), and other developing countries (ODCs), over the period 1970 to 2009. The results indicate that the common factor plays a more significant role in explaining the variance of output growth in INDs and EMEs, but not in ODCs. In contrast, financial development variability is mainly driven by the country and idiosyncratic factors. We also analyze the relation between country characteristics and the relative importance of the factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis triggered in 2007 in the U.S. had reverberations around the world, with serious consequences in the field of economic exchanges and financial, which required a rethinking of economic policy at the global level. The economies of the developed countries and emerging markets were affected, the crisis deepening the gap between heavily industrialized nations and developing states as well as the least developed states, in particular African states. In this context the world expected a minimal state involvement in the financial sector through the provision of funds to be used to meet the need of liquidity of banks. A natural consequence is the increasing indebtedness of these countries with naturally impact on the trade deficits. The financial crisis has boosted the role of governments in national economies, making at the same time necessary the cooperation at international level in order to adopt concerted measures for economic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern business conditions have intensified competition in almost all areas of activities. Th e processes of globalization and internationalization, as well as the intensive development of technology, have made it much more difficult for a company to ensure its presence and survival on the market than in years past. In order to secure their existence and survive in such a dense, highly competitive market, companies have to adopt and use new - diff erent, sustainable ways of doing business, such as the concept of Lean Business Operations Management. Th is paper aims to focus on identifying the key features and principles of Lean Business Concept, whose full implementation and literal application undeniably lead to building a sustainable market positions and even obtaining competitive advantages exclusively inherent to the 'world-class' companies. In order to emphasize utility and feasibility of transition to Lean Business Philosophy in today's turbulent and uncertain business environment, the paper presents a number of advantages of companies based in developed countries as well as in certain regional countries that have successfully implemented Lean Operating Methods, and Lean Manufacturing Techniques. It also provides a general analysis of the possibilities of introducing this way of doing business into Bosnian-Herzegovinian enterprises, as an important condition for the inevitable adjustment requirements of global markets and underlines be nefits that emerge in the process, not only for domestic companies, but also for the entire domestic economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the last two decades, the world has seen many financial crises which have spread around the globe and affected both developing and developed countries. Although each had its own particularities, there are some similar patters that stand out, most being related to an over evaluated asset in a country or region and a sharp withdrawal of funds that led to the burst of the crisis. Looking into each of them, there are some common causes and addressing these may help prevent any future financial shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the impact of financial openness on the real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth of 34 developed countries from 2000-2010. Four sub-variables which measure various aspects of restricting capital accounts were used to examine the financial openness's impact. The literature review, methodology and results analysis, and conclusions are also discussed.

Currently, in most countries, but particularly in European and in the more developed world, heated discussions about reforming the current pension system. To address adequately the taxation of pension incomes in our country is very important to know and how this issue is regulated in different countries, but especially the European ones in the developed world. In terms of taxation of pensions, European countries are divided into three groups: 1. European countries where pension income is not taxed: Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania. 2. European countries where pension income is subject to progressive taxation: Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, United Kingdom, Norway (not EU member), the Netherlands and Spain. 3. European countries where pension income is taxed based flat: Austria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia and Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of innovation on growth has been analysed to some extent and has been relying mostly on research findings undertaken in developed countries. The aim of this paper is to analyse whether innovation has any role at regional level for potentially explaining the variations in growth among regions, particularly in developing countries. The paper draws upon previous work and to undertake the research, data available from the Enterprise Survey was used to test the potential impact of innovation on economic growth at regional level. The results showed that innovation affects growth using a sample for Romania. This study can constitute the basis for understanding the concept of innovation in relation to regional economic growth and further research in Romania and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing international mobility is more important to depict global migration patterns and its characteristics, not only in receiving countries, but also in origin ones. With the growth and diversification of migration flows to developed countries in the past 15 years, migration of labour force occupy now a prime place on the political agenda of many governments. Due to the current economic crisis, associated with deterioration in the employment situation in most countries, it seems very important to examine the factors that determine migration, relative importance of migration in different regions of the world, and understand more clearly its mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the main trends of international migration, which plays a significant role in our days, in helping to fill the shortfall in labor supply in many countries and of the fact that fewer young people are entering the labor markets. In addition, we try to answer by identifying the shortterm effects of economic crisis on labor migration, what are the recent changes, quantitatively and qualitatively in migration of labor force and how the immigrants could be integrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies panel-data techniques to examine the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis (BSH) for 33 countries. We introduce a new approach for classifying traded and non-traded industries which allows for country-specific heterogeneity over each industry and changes in classifications across periods. We find that in developed countries, productivity growth in traded goods leads to a real depreciation of the currency, inconsistent with the BSH; however, higher growth countries experience real appreciation. The results of developing countries support the BSH in that higher productivity growth in traded goods leads to real appreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses surveys of young workers in developed capitalist countries as of November 2012, with a focus on workers' attitudes toward collective organization. Topics include how social context plays a role in political attitudes and participation, individualism and social conformity, and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "cultural capital." Additional information is presented on workers' perceptions of the global financial crisis, identification of professional goals, and political activism.

The article discusses the growth rate of developed countries in response to global financial crisis. It says that an appropriate rate of savings, high rate of productive capital investment and the availability of important natural resources have a vital role in economic development of a country. It tells that economic downturn can be avoided though balancing the budget and by creating a climate for enterprise that allows entrepreneurship to wake the engines of economic growth and prosperity.

An interview with U.S. diplomat J. Brian Atwood is presented. He comments on the claim by critics such as economist Dambisa Moyo that the international development enterprise has failed. He offers insights on whether the modernization paradigm that has formed the basis for development remains relevant, given the value-based trouble from the Islamic world and the profound economic problems in developed countries. Moreover, he assesses the model of China for development assistance.

GDP, a yardstick designed to measure the progress of the economies of the world's industrial nations after World War II has been instrumental in rebuilding the economies in the past, but now it is causing as many problems as it solves. Many questions have been raised about GDP: Increasing self-reliance means decreasing GDP; GDP doesn't correlate with quality of life measures; GDP doesn't account for the distribution of costs and benefits. It was against this backdrop of inadequate measure that GNH was proposed as an alternative measure of development. Therefore, the larger aim of this paper is to build a methodology to construct GNH domain-specific quantitative indicators (objective and/or subjective) and then develop a single GNH indicator from the domain-specific indicators. To achieve this, observable variables thought to belong to a specific domain according to prior theories or notions are grouped together. A latent variable has been identified and suitably renamed. Subsequently, implemented causal modeling amongst/between them--evaluated model fitness, validated the relationships and finally a decision is made about the prior notions or theories of the composition of GNH domains using the GNH survey data of the year 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La crisis financiera de los países desarrollados puede escalar a una recesión global llevando el desempleo a niveles inmanejables dentro de un marco de problemas adicionales, como la escasez y el aumento de los precios en los energéticos y los alimentos. Las políticas económicas para enfrentar el problema repiten los esquemas que están en el origen de la misma crisis, provocando el cuestionamiento de las sociedades de base, y con ello, una crisis socioinstitucional que proyecta la dificultad a una crisis multidimensional. Bajo estos términos, asistimos a una crisis del modelo neoliberal que precisa de nuevos acuerdos y compromisos entre la sociedad y el Estado para instalar nuevos esquemas de política económica y de política-política, amén de procesar un nuevo paradigma universal del desarrollo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how fluctuations in money growth correlate with fluctuations in real output growth and inflation. Using band-pass filters, we extract cycles from each time series that last 2-8 (business cycles) and 8-40 (longer-term cycles) years. We employ annual data, 1880-2001 without gaps, for 11 industrial countries. Fluctuations in money growth do not play a systematic role at business cycle frequencies. However, money growth leads or affects contemporaneously inflation, but not real output growth, in the longer run. Also, formal break tests indicate no structural changes for the longer-term money growth and inflation relationship, despite changes in policy regimes.( JEL E3) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Faculty of Economics / İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası is the property of Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, the authors start from the key argument that the level of national competitivness completely refl ects the level of a certain country to create a growing prosperity for its citizens. Th e starting hypothesis considers that competitivness of one national economy depends on various factors. Moreover, based on the experience of developed countries that are leaders, concerning the level of competitiveness, we may conclude that competitiveness depends mainly on knowledge and innovativeness, i.e., non-price factors of competitiveness. In this sense, the problem concerning the growth and development of transitional countries in conditions of global crisis is observed taking into account the danger from the process of globalization which suggest that the recovery could be reached through 'economy of knowledge`. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to conduct a concise critical analysis of the division of the world into highly developed countries (the rich North) and underdeveloped countries (the poor South) at the beginning of the 21st century. The criteria used at the end of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries to define the boundary between the highly developed and the underdeveloped world, while valid in the past, are no longer applicable. The new criterion for this boundary is quality of life, which combines the socioeconomic element (constituted by such factors as consumption, level of health care and education) and the political (which is reflected in the degree to which political rights and civil liberties are observed). Therefore, the dividing line between the rich North and the poor South at the beginning of the 21st century differs from the well-known Brandt line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how globalization, government ideology, and their interaction have shaped income distribution in 59 developing countries from 1975 to 2005. Using pooled time-series data analysis, the results show that globalization, measured by trade flows and foreign direct investment, has significantly expanded income inequality in developing countries. However, countries with leftist government parties and chief executives have experienced significantly smaller income gaps and even moderated the income inequality from increasing world market integration. The results in this article suggest that the traditional role of government ideology for income redistribution, drawn from the experiences of advanced countries, is applicable to the developing world as well. Rather than being diminished by the integration of international markets, the influence of government ideology will continue to play a key role in shaping the outcomes of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate change-related food issues are key problems affecting the world today and into the future. This paper investigates how climate change is harming and is expected to harm food sources on land and in the sea, and how food production itself, especially industrialized agriculture and meat production, contributes to climate change. This article uses human rights discourse to frame the unequal contributions to and harms from climate change among developed and developing nations, and how these affect and are affected by involuntary and voluntary food frugality and dietary choices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This publication presents economic forecasts for several industrialized nations and emerging markets for 2012. It covers discussions of the economic conditions of major industrialized countries including Japan, Spain and Germany, forecasts for financial markets in the U.S. and Great Britain, as well as charts demonstrating global growth prospects.

Numerous studies have tried to model the connection between aging and the financial markets, showing the possibility of a future meltdown in the financial markets, via lower savings and investments given the reaching of the baby-boom cohorts at the age of retirement. In general the research has focused on the case of more industrialized countries, were the aging phenomenon is more felt in the present. The case of Central and Eastern European countries was somehow left aside, although the issue of aging should be an important one, considering also the current state of development of the CEE capital markets. Our empirical work, based on the case of five CEE countries, suggests also that the demographic dynamics have had a detectable impact on the domestic stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that the history of slavery, culture, and politics of the southern states in the U.S. is not unique when compared and contrasted with the history of humankind. She asserts that much of the world has had to face questions of volatile issues such as slavery, the role of labor, and transitioning to societies and economies that are primarily agrarian to more modern and industrialized economies. In addition, the author argues that there are several nations that have not undergone the economic transformation from rural to urban and, thus, similar patterns of development and difficulties that characterized the American south will emerge in other parts of the world.

As the United States and the rest of the developed world lurch toward austerity economics-spending cuts-to deal with the latest financial crises of 2011 and surely 2012, Stephen Dunn says John Kenneth Galbraith offered us one of the most cogent warnings-that these events do repeat-always believing that financial markets were inherently unstable. His lessons went unheeded for the past few decades, but now, the same arguments these nations were given in the 1930s are being repeated. How can this be? We need a good history. Galbraith wrote one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the degree of stickiness in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky consumption growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978) and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model, though in a few countries, the sticky consumption growth and Campbell-Mankiw models work about equally well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the slowdown in the economic growth of industrial countries in 2011. It explores various regional factors that can contribute to global growth including the combined real gross domestic product (GDP) of the 18 members of the European Union as well as the global consumer demand among geographic areas. According to the author, the growth in output in the Pacific region is expected to reach an average of 0.5 per cent.

With its origins in the collapse of the US sub-prime market, the global financial crisis might more accurately be termed a global housing crisis. Over the last decade, most developed countries experienced house price inflation; however few matched the UK, whose boom started earlier and was more sustained. A taxpayer-led recovery stopped a UK price correction in its tracks; however it will be argued that these measures only delayed momentum towards a reduced housing market under the Con-Lib Dem coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Management / Vadyba (16487974) is the property of Lithuania Business University of Applied Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates the economic efficiency–oil consumption relationship in 42 countries during the period 1986–2006. In a first stage by using DEA window analysis countries' economic efficiencies are obtained. In a second stage an econometric analysis based on robust GMM estimators reveals an inverted ‘U’-shape relationship between oil consumption and economic efficiency. In order to capture heterogeneities among countries' development stages the analysis has been separated into two groups (advanced economies and developing/emerging economies). The results show that advanced economies have much higher turning points compared to emerging and developing economies. It appears that oil consumption increases countries' economic efficiency. In addition the consumption patterns of oil products and its derivatives have changed through years and among countries. The different turning points from the econometric analysis indicate the dependence of oil consumption in advanced economies (higher turning points) is driven mainly by household purchasing activities and their standards of living (transport, housing and water, food, etc.). Finally, it appears that oil consumption is the main driver behind the progress of industrialization and urbanization regardless of the country's development stage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data analysis to examine the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), financial development and economic growth in a group of 70 developed and developing countries from 1988 to 2002, it is found that the impact of FDI on economic growth is ambiguous. FDI may either increase or decrease the growth rate of the economy, depending on the financial market development indicators used in the study. The findings, however, support the notion that a certain level of financial sector development is a significant prerequisite for FDI to have a positive effect on economic growth. Policy implications are clear that since it has been stated that the economic performance depends to some extent on the development of domestic financial sector, effort should be made to reform and improve the development of domestic financial and banking sector in order to benefit more from the presence of FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the class struggles of in the world with a focus on immigrants in developed countries. Topics include theories about class conflict with the bourgeosie and the proletariat by philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, mass migration in countries such as the U.S. and Canada, and the importance of immigration in solving problems such as the wealth gap and economic inequality between developed and developing countries in the world.