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Following the Great Recession, many commentators are already forecasting a bleak economic future for developed economies over the next decade. Our research suggests, however, that there are ample opportunities for new growth and jobs in mature economies. Policymakers and business leaders can mine rich seams of growth through imaginative responses to oft-perceived challenges around aging populations, the transition to a low-carbon future, rising demands for public services, new information-based services, and growing demands in the emerging world for social and physical infrastructure. However, such growth will fail to materialize unless action is taken today to secure the necessary supply-side foundations for longer-term growth. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Global Commodity Chain (GCC) approach, the present study investigates the factors that influence the positions of developing nations within the governance structure of the international sex trafficking network. Previous research focuses on the influences of economic reforms or culture on countries' positions within the network, for both developing and developed nations. The present paper focuses on developing nations to avoid biasness, and to address contextual differences. We argue that in addition to economic reforms, other factors such as political conditions reflected in the level of corruption, and values pertaining to gender discrimination can influence a nation's position within the governance structure of the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the potential economic growth of the Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) nations by 2050. According to the projections of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, some of BRICs' economic indicators show the possibility of incredible growth in the future. However, it says that although the BRIC economies can dominate the developed world with gross domestic product (GDP) growth, their populations' expected purchasing power will not immediately hit those of developed countries.

Studies performed during the second half of the twentieth century on the relations between the patterns and growth rates of socio-economic development, the speed, shape and extent of deterioration phenomena of natural capital in developing and developed countries have shown that socio-economic development has always been accompanied by environmental damage. Analysis of these reports has stressed the need to develop strategies and action programs to reduce long-term socio-economic impact and to adapt these systems to the changes that occur in the structure, quality and functionality of natural capital components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report evidence of a time-varying link between returns on national stock market indexes and exchange rate returns (exchange rate exposure). We use this evidence to analyze the sources of changes over time in exchange rate exposure. Using monthly data for 14 industrialized countries for the period 1975-2006, we report evidence of a cointegration relation between exchange rate exposure and the industry composition of a country's imports, and weaker evidence of a cointegration relation between exchange rate exposure and openness to trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

large literature explores the importance of entrepreneurship as the catalyst of economic progress. In contrast, this paper argues that entrepreneurs are the driver of economic stagnation. We analyze the non-productive entrepreneurial process and discuss three channels through which non-productive activities have a multiplier effect culminating in economic decline and stagnation. Drawing on examples of non-productive entrepreneurship from both underdeveloped and developed countries, we provide insight into why economic stagnation persists in the former and why economic decline can occur in the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber-crime's footprints across the developing world are getting bigger. The aim of this article is to examine the structure of cyber-crimes in developing economies. Its central idea is that economic and institutional factors facing cyber-criminals and potential victims in the developing world are different from those in the developed world. In economies characterised by low internet penetration rates and few resources devoted to fighting cyber-crimes, formal institutions related to such crimes tend to be thin and dysfunctional. A cyber-criminal is less likely to be stigmatised in such economies. Moreover, organisations' and individuals' technological and behavioural defence mechanisms are likely to be weaker. Many people in developing economies are also attracted into cyber-crime because of high unemployment and low wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an empirical assessment of a number of aspects of the reduction of market income inequality as a result of government taxes and transfers, and of the distributive effect of wage-bargaining institutions and minimum wages, in thirteen developed countries over the last twenty five years. It considers five broad themes in the literature: the median voter approach, which argues that government redistribution is associated with inequality of pre-government income; the power resources approach, which emphasizes partisan political contestation and electoral participation; the institutional approach, which focuses on political institutions such as the electoral system; the labor organization approach, which argues that labor unions play a key role in government efforts to achieve a more egalitarian distribution of market income; and the economic globalization approach, which argues that integration into the global economy has undermined public social protection efforts. The article finds consistent positive relationships between direct government redistribution and four variables: the extent of pre-government inequality; the level of electoral turnout; the share of the labor force that is unionized; and the presence of proportional representation electoral systems. As to wage-bargaining institutions, the article confirms that there is a positive relationship between the degree of coordination of wage bargaining and a relatively egalitarian distribution of earnings across various income groups, and (more weakly) between the level of statutory minimum wages in a country and the earnings share of the lowest-income group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One reason for the relatively poor development performance of many countries around the world today may be the high levels of inequality during and after colonisation. Evidence from colonies in the Americas suggests that skewed initial factor endowments could create small elites that own a disproportionate share of wealth, human capital and political power. The Cape Colony, founded in 1652 at the southern tip of Africa, presents a case where a mercantilist company (the Dutch East India Company) settled on the land and established a unique set of institutions, within which inequality evolved. This paper provides a long-run quantitative analysis of trends in asset-based inequality (using principal components analysis on tax inventories) during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, allowing, for the first time, a dynamic rather than static analysis of inequality trends in a newly settled and pre-industrial society over this period. While theory testing in other societies has been severely limited because of a scarcity of quantitative evidence, this study presents a history with evidence, enabling an evaluation of the Engerman--Sokoloff and other hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper introduces a new framework for projecting potential growth of the world economy, emphasizing the contribution of information technology. We first analyze the sources of economic growth for the world economy, seven regions, and fourteen major economies during four periods—1989–1995, 1995–2000, 2000–2004, and 2004–2008. The contribution of investment in information technology has increased in all regions, but especially in industrialized economies and Developing Asia. We then project the potential growth rates of labor productivity and GDP for 122 economies over the ten-year period 2009–2019. Relative to historical growth for 1989–2008, we project lower growth rates for productivity and GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's economy we are witnessing a phenomenon of integration in agriculture and food industry, which is an effect, but also a cause of the marketing and agrobusiness development. In well developed countries, and to a lesser extent in the less developed, such as Romania, we observe a serious intensification of interdependence relations between farms, food companies and distributors. Consequently, there is a phenomenon of growing distance between the place of production and consumption place, with impacts on the population's consumption habits. In these circumstances, marketing aims to ensure that food is brought in the place and form desired by the consumer, which requires that the producing companies must design strategies to adapt to specific conditions of different markets (local, regional, national, international). In this context, agricultural and food marketing becomes, for more and more companies, a kind of marketing whose target is aimed towards meeting society's best conditions and future needs. In fact, the agro-food sector is one of those sectors in which marketing companies are located in full force, agriculture (through interdependence with the natural environment) and food industry (through its impact on food safety and security of the population) occupying a place of great importance in ensuring sustainable economic and social development.. As a result of the adjustment process to continue to supply food products to consumers' growing demands, the tendency is to take over more and more agricultural products and process them into food products; the food industry is considerably reducing the time spent by the consumer cooking and it also ensures an assortment structure of agricultural products supply as close to consumers' tastes as it can be. In this paper, the authors have proposed to address some theoretical and practical aspects related to product strategy, which can be applied to Kosarom S.A. Pascani Group of Companies, Iasi County. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the discussions on the growing indebtedness of developed countries and the threat of insolvency that some countries of the euro area are currently facing, a number of related factors seem to be omitted, although they do deserve their share of attention as well. One of these related factors is the link between the indebtedness of national governments and that of families in their respective countries which calls for further examination. However, the most pressing of the topics in this respect, one that may send shivers down our spines, is this simple question: "As the developed countries have already seen a large number of defaults of businesses and banks, with us now therefore perceiving this phenomenon as a standard part of the economy undergoing recession or stagnation while we also get used to countries on the brink of bankruptcy being bought out by extensive aid provided by other countries under non-market conditions, are we to expect future financial collapses to affect families or entire social strata and their budgets on a mass scale?" As clear evidence exists that the key cause of defaults is the untamed debts, which get out of the control of businesses or governments, we should get alarmed by the fact that private loans, as opposed to business or government loans, have become the most dynamically growing debt type in developed countries over the recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development economics was the study of how to create the plumbing that would allow developing economies to become developed. The financial crisis leads us to question whether industrialized countries have the plumbing problem solved and thus leads us to question whether we need a development economics that is separate from macroeconomics. Indeed, it even leads us to question whether development economics should take as its goal the creation of the institutional plumbing that industrialized countries currently have. The consequence will be a blending of concerns that have been central in developing economies with the standard macro models. The blending can be seen as either the death of development economics or the hegemony of development economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Panel analysis of 21 industrial countries shows evidence for pro-cyclicality of capital gains on domestic stock markets over a medium term horizon. Thus, with cross-border ownership of portfolio equity investments, potential for hedging against domestic output fluctuations by means of the capital gains channel of foreign liabilities is found. Individual country analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity of cyclicality patterns. Evidence suggests that this cross-country variation can be explained by the level of economic development and the size of financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the effectiveness and feasibility of two FDI policies, fiscal incentives and deregulation, aimed at improving the attractiveness of a country in the short run. Using disaggregated data on sales by US MNEs’ foreign affiliates in 43 developed and developing countries over the 1982–94 period, results show that the provision of fiscal incentives or the deregulation of the labour market would exert a positive impact on total FDI. Given the drawbacks frequently associated with the use of incentive packages, economy-wide policies which ease firing procedures and reduce severance payments would certainly be the best policy option. This paper also highlights the different aggregation and omitted variable biases that have affected results of previous studies and provides some support to recent theoretical models of FDI by showing that third-country effects and spatial interdependence influence respectively the location of export-platform FDI and vertical FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to identify the extent of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide. A large number of countries were aggregated on a regional basis to examine their inward and outward stocks as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation for the period 1980-2006. Among the findings was that the annual increase for both inward and outward FDI was less than 1%. Also, countries grouped by the aggregates developed, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Oceania, and developing were found to differ significantly in their means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Adult Education & Learning / Andragoška Spoznanja is the property of Andragoska Spoznanja 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.)

We analyse the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational enterprises (MNEs), in developed economies (DCs). We compare between EU and non-EU DCs, in the context of an estimated equation derived from economic theory, which compares the main demand and supply-side determinants of FDI. We contribute to the literature in three ways. First, by comparing between European and non-European DCs. Second, by employing different proxies for the determinants in question. Third, by testing for the relative importance of total factor productivity (TFP) as a determinant of FDI in the two sets of countries. Our results are in line with theoretical predictions, but point to the special importance of TFP as a determinant par excellence of FDI in DCs. They also highlight differences even within developed, European and non-European counties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article considers historical economic data spanning approximately 200 years for 44 countries to consider the effects of increased public or government debt on economic growth. The article compares and contrasts economic models for both rich countries and emerging markets, or developing countries. Some of the countries considered include the U.S., Ireland, Norway, Chile, and India. Other subjects discussed include GDP (Gross Domestic Product), inflation, and government sponsored economic stimulus efforts to reduce the effect of the global financial crisis of 2007-2009.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess the degree to which auctioning the right to provide universal service is a viable option in developed countries with high teledensity and near ubiquitous fixed line and mobile networks. The paper also aims to provide signposts on the types of issues regulators need to consider and resolve when designing auctioning mechanisms for the competitive provision of universal service. Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines the nature and scope of universal service, the approaches that have been used to identify the costs of universal service provision and the difficulties in using an auction process to allocate the right to provide universal service in countries with near ubiquitous network infrastructure. Australia is used as a case study on the difficulties of using auctions to encourage new entry in universal service areas served by a powerful incumbent. The paper also examines the types of issues regulators need to resolve when designing auction mechanisms for universal service provision. Findings - The paper concludes that for developed countries, it is unclear whether the use of auctions for the provision of universal service will have the desired effect of ensuring a market-based approach to service provision. This is because the risks associated with becoming an alternative universal service provider are likely to outweigh the benefits of doing so. Further, the risks faced by an alternative universal service provider are not borne by the incumbent operator thus further increasing the disincentive to bid for the right to provide universal service. The paper also concludes that the practical design of the universal service rights and obligations which will be attached to a winning bidder's license conditions is an extremely important mechanism by which some of the risks to potential universal service providers can be overcome. Originality/value - The paper stimulates thinking about whether universal service auctions are a viable means of providing universal service in developed countries. In presenting empirical evidence of the difficulties in using auctions to introduce competition in universal service provision, the paper may provide valuable input to the regulatory proceedings associated with introducing universal service contestability arrangements that are currently being conducted in various countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University 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.)

Abstract: Among adults of industrial nations, growth stunting (<−2 SD height Z score) is associated with worse indicators of adult well-being (e.g., income). Does adult stunting also inflict private costs in traditional societies? Adult stunting penalties or height premiums might only emerge when traditional societies modernize. Here we estimate the association between adult stunting and indicators of adult well-being using data from a panel study in progress among the Tsimane’, a foraging–farming society of native Amazonians in Bolivia. Subjects included 248 women and 255 men ≥age 22 measured annually during 5 consecutive years (2002–2006). Nine outcomes (wealth, monetary income, illness, access to credit, mirth, schooling, math skills, plant knowledge, forest clearance) were regressed separately against a stunting dummy variable and a wide range of control variables. We found no significant association between any of the indicators of own well-being and adult stunting. Additional analysis showed that stunting bore an association only with poorer mid-arm muscle area. Height premiums and stunting penalties, though evident and marked in modern societies, might not be common in all traditional societies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The increase of financial crisis in 2008 helped to bring the recession in developed countries and the reduction of acceleration in the economies of emerging countries. Moreover, the degree of vulnerability in emerging countries has increased through their dependence of external financing. Mutual potentiation of negative developments in financial markets and the real economy determinates a volatile environment, stressing the difficulties of forecasting the magnitude of the impact on short and medium term of the global crisis on macroeconomic developments in our country. Romanian banking sector is very affected, there are made changes of interest rate of monetary policy, of interest rates charged on loans and deposits, while the banks' bad debts are increasing. The year 2009 brought with it the decrease in the financial performances of the credit institutions especially due to the constitution of provisions for the outstanding loans. The provisions exploded at the beginning of the year, conditions in which banks have recorded losses in January and February and, despite a slight recovery in March, first quarter results ware negative. On the other side the operational profits are still good so it depends on how each bank will be able to deal with the loans with problems in order to obtain a decrease in their provisions. The banking system from Romania should find rapid solutions in order to improve their financial results through to improving the banking indebtedness for the entities depending on credits and in this way it contributes to accelerate the process of businesses development through credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in international economic integration in the past decades, fueled by the amplified trade and financial flows around the world changed the size and scope of benefits that international investors may obtain from holding diversified portfolios. Our paper investigates the impact of increased capital market co-movements between emerging and developed markets from European Union, in the following directions: (1) analysis of cross-market correlations and identification of trends in cross-market correlations; (2) analysis of the risk-return performance of European portfolios formed of developed and emerging markets assets. Our approach attempts to investigate whether a diversified portfolio on a European basis, which includes developed and emerging EU markets, offers euro-based investors a better risk and/or return as compared to a purely developed EU markets portfolio. If this were true, then EU emerging markets represent diversification opportunities for eurobased investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the effort of Copenhagen, Denmark to address the ongoing concerns of climate change. It claims that climate change is the most important public policy challenge of every government as it virtually affects all production and consumption processes. Its consequences, from another point of view, are believed to likely put developing countries in danger.

Recently, we have witnessed a massive economic slow down with sever negative effects on the developing and developed economies. This development created a very inconvenient and impractical situation in accepting an adage of Neo-liberalism that the absence of state and the dominance of market would lead the human development in true sense, or civil society which is now connecting itself with the market thinking can provide remedial to the problem. Therefore, the hope of re-visit of state-led democratic governance with a hold on economic and human development gets fuel to sideline the neo-liberal posture. Paper presents a comparative analysis among all the paradigms of development i.e. state, market and civil society and discusses that which paradigm is best suitable for developing economies like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developed countries are currently in an unprecedented transition to a new era with ageing populations. Ageing will result in a smaller proportion of the population being employed in the decades after 2010/2020. Changing demography, fewer workers and more retirees give rise to much concern about the fiscal sustainability of public pension schemes, healthcare systems and other social services. As a result, pension reform is under discussion in all developed countries. Under the plausible assumption that 1.7 per cent yearly growth in per worker production can be realized in the coming two decades and 1 per cent in the years after 2025, it can be demonstrated that the per capita consumption of the working population increases from 2007 to 2025 by 27.4 per cent and that of the 65+-population by 41.6 per cent. Only with a zero growth rate of labour productivity average will welfare decrease by about 9 to 1 per cent, whereas a minor 0.5 per cent productivity growth with unchanged labour participation rate (0,735) suffices to maintain welfare at its present level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper explores how the choice of a country’s exchange rate regime may affect exchange rate misalignment for developing and developed countries. A measure of misalignment is obtained by using a panel cointegration vector estimator. This paper finds that for developing countries, an intermediate exchange rate regime (a regime falling somewhere between a pure float and a hard peg) is most effective in preventing exchange rate misalignment. Additionally, the choice of an exchange rate regime as a means to limit misalignment matters for developing countries, but does not seem to matter for developed countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The main goal of this article is to explain why the fixed workweek appeared. To this purpose we differentiate between “jobs” and “hours per job”. We consider an economy where hours and number of workers are substitutes in production but in which hiring a worker entails a fixed cost plus a variable cost per hour worked. As a consequence, firms would like workers to work as many hours as possible. In an unregulated economy, workers work more hours that they would like to at the on-going wage rate. This situation characterizes the economy of today’s industrialized countries in the 19th century. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article describes how major industrialized countries coped with the global financial crisis in 2009. The most affected countries as a result of the U.S. exposure to financial services, housing booms, and consumer debt and trade are Germany, Italy, Japan, and Eastern Europe. While major central banks made aggressive cuts in interest rates and other unconventional measures, governments have released large fiscal stimulus packages.

I perform a Schumpeterian analysis of a world economy in which heterogenous individuals and firms endogenously respond to stronger global competition by undertaking more education and by spending more in research and development (R&D). A more globalized economy is predicted to exacerbate wage inequality, but to spur human capital accumulation within each country. However, despite its positive level effects on consumption and output, globalization can reduce each country's per-capita output growth rate. R&D specialization allows each country to positively invest in manufacturing, variety proliferation R&D, and product quality upgrading R&D. The existence of such an R&D specialization – jointly with domestic size – allows us to explain some different economic performance about inequality and R&D effort of developed regions, such as the US and the EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the "Varieties of Capitalism" (VoC) approach to comparative studies of the economic institutions of developed countries, in terms of its usefulness in explaining variations in gender inequality. The limited amount of VoC literature that considers gender issues is examined for its attention to two issues: women's access to employment (their rate of participation in the labor force), and employment conditions for women in the labor market, including occupational sex segregation.

Son pocos los países en desarrollo que han logrado reducir sostenidamente la brecha de ingresos con los países más ricos del mundo, sin una acción proactiva del gobierno que les permita avanzar en la transformación productiva con una inserción internacional dinámica. Al respecto, se observan dos factores clave: la formulación e implementación de una estrategia a mediano y largo plazo orientada a impulsar una transformación productiva acelerada y la alianza público-privada que la sustenta, construida mediante un proceso social adaptado a las circunstancias locales. Se analizan las modalidades de operación de este tipo de alianzas en 10 países extrarregionales exitosos, considerados como tales porque alcanzaron la convergencia con los países desarrollados o porque evolucionaron mejor que los de América Latina y el Caribe, pese a tener una dotación de recursos similar. En la región, la colaboración público-privada es un elemento faltante o solo incipiente. Así, el análisis apunta a promover una reflexión en torno a la formación de alianzas propias con miras a apoyar la adopción de estrategias encaminadas a la construcción de "tigres latinoamericanos". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The saving rate for U.S. households has long been low relative to those in other wealthy countries and in recent decades this rate has plummeted. Most studies of household saving behavior are based on the life-cycle theory of saving, However, there is doubt as to whether these studies adequately explain the low and declining rate in the United States. This study explores two hypotheses that depart from the life-cycle explanatory framework. The first hypothesis examines the possibility that the low rate of household saving in the United States is related to Americans' strong belief that vertical mobility in the United States is readily possible and hence their relatively weak sense of class identity. A second corollary hypothesis is that in an economy in which a high degree of vertical mobility is thought possible, a high degree of inequality in the distribution of income and wealth may reinforce the tendency to save little. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some developed countries have sought to counteract what they see as unfair competition faced by their domestic industries arising from the employment of child labor in the production of consumer goods in developing countries by including a "social clause" in the World Trade Organization (WTO) charter, Many people and civil society organizations in developed countries are also genuinely concerned with child labor employment purely on humanitarian grounds. In this paper we have argued that a more appropriate approach to tackle the child labor problem would be to facilitate acceleration of growth in developing countries through greater, not less, integration of these countries into the world trading system. We have also argued that directing development assistance for improving institutions and social infrastructure would be more effective than trade sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In contrast to the relative stagnation of economic growth in industrialized countries with mature economies, the so-called BRIC countries have shown conspicuous economic growth in the early 21st century. Brazil, Russia, India, and China currently depend on their geographic advantages for economic development, as they possess abundant natural resources and collectively account for 28.9% of the world''s land area and 43.2% of its population. However, as the development trajectories for industrialized countries suggest, sustainable development in BRICs requires innovation for effective utilization of potential resources. Given that the co-evolutionary dynamism between innovation and institutional systems is paramount to innovation driven economies, sustainability of BRICs'' economic growth is subject to such co-evolution. Institutional systems are similar to soil in that they cultivate emerging innovation. Recent dramatic advances in information and communication technology (ICT) in BRICs have had a significant impact on the advancement of their institutional systems. Therefore, ICT is expected to trigger co-evolution that will lead to sustainable development in BRICs by means of effective utilization of potential resources. This paper attempts to demonstrate the foregoing hypothetical expectations by means of an empirical analysis comparing co-evolutionary structures in 40 countries and also ICT''s triggering role in the four BRIC countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the impact of trade with Japan, North America and the EU on technology diffusion and TFP growth in Jordan, Korea and Mexico. The measures of foreign R&D are constructed on the basis of industry-specific R&D in the North, North-South trade patterns, and input-output relations in the South. We show that technology diffusion and productivity gains tend to be regional: Jordan (Korea) (Mexico) benefits mainly from trade with the EU (Japan) (North America). In other words, the dynamic version of the "natural trading partners" hypothesis seems to hold for these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FDIs are very often the most glorified way of high and rapid economic development into transitional countries. Bosnia and Herzegovina has to catch up the significant higher level of real economic convergence before its entrance into European Union membership. So, in that way Bosnia and Herzegovina will be able to meet with a foreign competition on a huge common market of EU. The neoclassical concept of economic growth (famous as "Washington Consensus") which has been applying into Bosnia and Herzegovina emphasizes the FDIs entrance as the main actuator of B&H economic development. That concept supposes that FDIs entrance and comparative advantages could bring the optimal economic growth and development for all countries in the conditions of foreign trade and capital movement's liberalization, monetary stability (without inflation and with stable exchange rate) and fiscal stability (balance of budget). The subject 1 of this paper is the analysis of theoretical vindication of such macroeconomic policy and real role of FDIs in economic development concerning existing economic and political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and historical experiences of today developed economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research encompasses 177 countries around the world with the data on human resource variables for the year 2005. The countries have been put into four groups: gravely underdeveloped, developing, developed, and highly developed. The research has looked into the variables Human Development Index, population, population over 65 years of age, primary education enrolment, investment into secondary education, investment into tertiary education, investment into research and development, Gender-Related Development Index and productivity increase, and analyzed how they influence the economic growth rate. This means that the impact of changes in the observed variables is analyzed, i.e. how they influence the standard of living and level of development in countries of the world. The main hypothesis is that investing in people, i.e. in primary, secondary and tertiary education will bring long-term positive effects on social growth and development, thus contributing to the level of development and overall standard of living. Another hypothesis is that, depending on the development level, human capital and education will exert different influence on GDP per capita, which indicates that a number of economic variables play a major role on the effects of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2007, a serious financial crisis became evident in the developed countries, due to serious mistakes in economic policy. Even against their own ideology, governments have not spared measures to reduce its effects, have failed to contain it, and it advances towards a global recession of uncertain depth and duration. The crisis has already changed the theoretical and practical paradigms that have dominated the academic and policy worlds in the last three decades. It will also cause serious effects in the fragile economic, social and political equilibriums of the developing countries, especially in Latin America because of its dependence on raw materials production, remittances and external capitals flows that are diminishing rapidly. The crisis will lead to a new state-market relation and to new paradigms with large Keynesian influence, and from this, will grow a new opportunity for Latin America, if it consolidates a new way of managing its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If sovereign wealth funds act similarly to private investors and thus allocate foreign assets according to market capitalisation rather than liquidity considerations, official portfolios reduce their “bias” towards the major reserve currencies — the US dollar and the euro. As a result, more capital flows “downhill“ from rich to less wealthy economies. In this scenario, the euro area and the United States would be subject to net capital outflows while Japan and the emerging markets would attract net capital inflows. The potential implications of a rebalancing of international capital flows for stock prices, interest rates and exchange rates remain uncertain, however. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing legalization of international institutions has divergent effects on member countries. Whereas legalization decreases uncertainty and increases convergence of countries’ expectations on international outcomes, it imposes costs on countries by increasing the complexity and difficulty of procedures for them to utilize. Countries with the administrative capacity to follow elaborate procedures reap the benefits of increased legalization. For countries without such capacity—primarily developing countries—the potential benefits are offset by their difficulty in following the procedures. I examine this argument against the institutional changes in dispute settlement procedures that occurred in the transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Compared to the GATT era, developed countries—ones with greater capacity—are much more likely to utilize dispute settlement in the WTO than developing countries. Gains from the institutional changes in dispute settlement procedures have accrued to benefit mostly developed member countries in the WTO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced industrial societies are facing pressures to spend more on pensions and services for the elderly, at the same time as they need to invest more in the raising participation of younger population in the labour force and the integration of immigrants needed to replenish the ageing labour force. This sets the stage for distributive conflicts between groups favouring different types of welfare spending. The paper argues that the strength and the nature of distributive conflicts depend to a large extent on the spending focus of the welfare system, the type of the pension system and the importance of the family within the welfare system. While in countries with occupation-based pension systems and welfare systems with spending tilted toward the elderly we can expect to observe the strong presence of age based divisions, in countries with universalist pension systems and welfare systems with more balanced spending patterns we can expect age to have much smaller effects. The paper tests these propositions using the Eurobarometer data. The findings support the proposition concerning the importance of age based distributive divisions and their variation across national contexts. This variation seems to be linked with the spending focus of the welfare state, but in a way that is not in accordance with our expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the integration of Central Asian republics into the global economy. It states that the countries which will be integrated into the world economy will definitely have a stable economic development because of open economies and liberal national regimes of trade and flow of capital. However, the author mentions that such advantages are not effective to all countries due to the uneven distribution of said benefits among regions and countries.

This article is about the potential and limits of community control and development (community-building) in the developed world, but most of the references are to the USA. There is a paradox in the contemporary political economy. As the level of the social, political and economic relationships at which communities and cities are embedded has become increasingly globalised – and thereby remote from people in cities and communities – there has been a substantial turn towards the community level as the domain and level at which social, political and economic problems should be solved. The article explores this paradox, beginning with a detailed explanation of contemporary political economy – the increasing economic globalisation existing side by side with political devolution at the community level. This is followed by a discussion of the growth of community-based organisations in the USA, their activities and their histories. From there, the article shifts gears to critique the theories of community that guide most mainstream practices. The article ends with a discussion of alternative forms of community organising and development that lead towards greater community control in the context of capital mobility and economic globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research which assesses the international efforts in fighting corruption and their implications for developing countries. It discusses the globalized character of corruption in the modern world together with methods applicable to combat the problem. It notes that the investigations focuses on the policies at the organizational level and by sector highlighting the money laundering and bribery, and two economic crimes that are widespread in the developing world. It identifies major trends in the international instruments to fight corruption and assess their efficiency.

This study presents a characterization of the unfolding socio-economic processes sustained by the hypothesis of the existence of circularities or accumulative causality processes that drive forward the hyper-developed countries and trap the hypo-developed countries, condemning the latter to situations of relative backwardness. At the same time, within the framework of this circular vision of development, we discuss the meaning of democratic governance in development processes at two levels: from the internal perspective of the hypo-developed countries themselves affected by situations of political instability or subjected to authoritarian regimes, and from the point of view of governance at a global scale in the current scenario of globalization dominated by market forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries have used sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as instruments through which to buy assets with their surplus foreign exchange since the 1950s when Norway and Singapore, and soon after Kuwait, sought new strategies to insulate themselves from exchange rate fluctuation. Central banks employed SWFs only as buffers for currency stabilization when countries had little or no international debt and large current account surpluses. Today, SWFs have become quite common. As of March 2007, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia had, respectively, the first and third largest SWFs internationally, and Kuwait ranked sixth.[1] Because of burgeoning oil prices, Persian Gulf sovereign wealth funds have become the preferred investment vehicles of Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. As SWFs blur the line between public and private investment, however, Western nations worry about the security implications of foreign countries, including Persian Gulf states, acquiring important positions in key industries and companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Energy arguably plays a vital role in economic development. Hence many studies have attempted to test for causality between energy and economic growth; however, no consensus has emerged. This paper, therefore, tests for causality between energy and GDP using a consistent data set and methodology for over 100 countries. Causality from energy to GDP is found to be more prevalent in the developed OECD countries compared to the developing non-OECD countries; implying that a policy to reduce energy consumption aimed at reducing emissions is likely to have greater impact on the GDP of the developed rather than the developing world. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study investigates some of the macro-determinants of commercial gambling in 21 industrialized nations. Of the possible economic determinants, two seem particularly important: the per capita income of the country since gambling represents a larger share of the income of low-income people than high-income people; and the general uncertainty of the economic environment, as measured by annual fluctuations in the GDP. Of the possible cultural determines, two also seem particularly important: the values held by the population, as measured by a factor analysis of a number of questions from the World Value Study; and the degree to which the society insures against risk through social welfare expenditures. For the OECD nations in the early part of the 21st century, all four variables prove to be significantly related to the ratio of gambling expenditures to disposable income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]