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The paper argues that non-circulating tokens should be used as an alternative to money in a socialist economy. These tokens would be used to distribute consumer products out of socialised production to individual consumers. Like modern fiat money, these tokens are a kind of IOU. But unlike money, these tokens are not intended to facilitate the private exchange of commodities. Marx’s proposal to eventually abolish a token-based lower phase of communism in favour of a distinct higher phase is rejected because the ‘needs principle’ of the higher phase can be sufficiently realised within the token system. It is further shown that the prices of items should not be tied to the socially necessary labour time needed to produce them. Instead, prices should be regulated towards market clearing rates.

application/pdf, International negotiations regarding environmental goods and services were initiated at the Doha Development Round of the 2001 World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. Since then, the WTO has been advancing negotiations on environmental goods (the Environmental Goods Agreement) with respect to environmental services. This study examines the international development of the “environmental service trade” from the perspective of environment service providers engaging in cross-border transactions. A unique overview of the ongoing discussions held among various international organizations is presented. These discussions focus on “core environmental services,” such as wastewater treatment and waste management, proposed by the Organization for conomic Cooperation and Development. The study analyzes the categories of industries to which foreign-affiliated companies that provide waste treatment services in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member states belong. The findings reveal that many of the companies expanded from a wide range of industries into waste treatment services. Therefore, the findings suggest that given the policy implications of reducing or eliminating non-tariff barriers to environmental services under the Doha Ministerial Declaration, formulating definitions of feasible environmental services would considerably limit the list of environmental services. Thus, this study proposes a unique negative list approach that is limited to service providers who directly contribute toward the solution of environmental issues. The list defines environmental services for industries focusing on the end users of environmental goods. An empirical analysis of waste treatment services and wind power generation services in Thailand verifies the list’s applicability. This study has implications for global and domestic policy makers and global environmental service providers.

The contribution of this dissertation is to empirically analyze the link between income distribution, sectoral financial balances, and the current account. Firstly, it examines the relationship between the personal and the functional income distribution which may have rather different implications for aggregate demand and the current account. Secondly, it analyzes the importance of different sectors of the economy for current account balances and tests whether households are able to fully pierce the institutional veils of the corporate and the government sector. Thirdly, it investigates how changes in the personal and the functional income distribution affect the saving and investment decisions of the household and the corporate sector, and hence the current account. Finally, it shows how different growth regimes are linked to different patterns of personal and functional income distribution, and how differences in wage bargaining institutions contribute to explaining these different patterns of income distribution., Der Forschungsschwerpunkt der vorliegenden Dissertation ist die empirische Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen Einkommensverteilung, sektoralen Finanzierungssalden und der Leistungsbilanz. Erstens untersucht die Dissertation die Beziehung zwischen der personellen Einkommensverteilung und der funktionalen Einkommensverteilung, welche unterschiedliche Implikationen für die aggregierte Nachfrage und die Leistungsbilanz haben können. Zweitens wird die Rolle der unterschiedlichen Sektoren innerhalb einer Volkswirtschaft für die Entwicklung von Leistungsbilanzsalden analysiert. Es wird getestet, inwiefern die Ersparnisbildung der privaten Haushalte von der Ersparnis der anderen inländischen Sektoren (Unternehmen, Staat) abhängt. Drittens wird der Einfluss von Veränderungen in der personellen und funktionalen Einkommensverteilung auf das Spar- und Investitionsverhalten des privaten Haushaltssektors und des Unternehmenssektors sowie auf den Leistungsbilanzsaldo untersucht. Schließlich zeigt die Dissertation, wie unterschiedliche Ausprägungen in der Einkommensverteilung in einzelnen Ländern zur Entstehung von unterschiedlichen Wachstumsmodellen beitragen und wie sich Unterschiede in der Koordinierung von Lohnverhandlungen auf die Einkommensverteilung auswirken.

This thesis contributes to the understanding of the labor market effects of international trade, with a focus on the effects on wage and earnings inequality. The thesis draws on high-quality micro data and applies modern econometric techniques and theoretical concepts to improve our understanding of the distributional effects of international trade. The thesis focuses on the effects in Germany and the USA., Diese Arbeit trägt zum Verständnis der Arbeitsmarktwirkungen von internationalem Handel bei. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt hierbei auf den Effekten auf Lohn und Einkommensungleichheit. Die Arbeit nutzt qualitativ hochwertige Mikrodaten und wendet moderne ökonometrische Methoden und theoretische Konzepte an, um das Verständnis der Verteilungswirkungen von internationalem Handel zu verbessern. Die Arbeit fokussiert sich hierbei auf die Effekte in Deutschland und den USA.

Sales forecasts are an essential determinant of operational planning in entrepreneurial organizations. However, in China, as in other emerging markets, monthly sales forecasts are particularly challenging for multinational automotive enterprises and suppliers. A chief reason for this is that conventional approaches to sales forecasting often fail to capture the underlying market dynamics. To that end, this dissertation investigates the application of Artificial Neural Networks with an implemented backpropagation algorithm as a more “unconventional” sales forecasting method. A key element of statistical modelling is the selection of superior leading indicators. These indicators were collected as part of the researcher’s expert interviews with multinational enterprises and state associations in China. The economic plausibility of all specified indicators is critically explored in qualitative-quantitative pre-selection procedures. The overall objective of the present study was to improve the accuracy of monthly sales forecasts in the Chinese automotive market. This objective was achieved by showing that the forecasting error could be lowered to a new benchmark of less than 10% in an out-of-sample forecasting application., Absatzprognosen sind ein zentraler Bestandteil der operativen Unternehmensplanung. In China, wie auch in anderen Schwellenländern, stellen vor allem monatliche Prognosen jedoch eine besondere Herausforderung für multinationale Automobilhersteller und deren Zulieferer dar. Ein Grund hierfür ist, dass konventionelle Prognoseverfahren der außergewöhnlich hohen Marktdynamik nicht ausreichend gerecht werden. In der vorliegenden Dissertationsschrift werden Künstliche Neuronale Netze mit integriertem Backpropagation-Algorithmus als alternatives Marktprognoseverfahren eingehend beleuchtet. Erprobt vor allem in hochvolatilen Finanzmarktanwendungen ist diese Form künstlicher Intelligenz imstande, hochkomplexe Zusammenhänge zu entschlüsseln und selbständig aus Prognosefehlern zu lernen. Ein Kernelement der statistischen Modellierung ist die Auswahl von geeigneten Frühwarnindikatoren, die unter anderem durch Experteninterviews in chinesischer Sprache bei Regierungsablegern erhoben wurden. Die ökonomische Plausibilität der genannten Indikatoren wird in qualitativ-quantitativen Vorauswahlverfahren kritisch reflektiert. Grundlegendes Ziel des Forschungsprojektes war es, die Güte der monatlichen Absatzprognosen im chinesischen Automobilmarkt zu verbessern. Dieses Ziel konnte mit Unterschreitung der entscheidenden 10%-Prognosefehlerschwelle im Validierungsdatensatz erreicht werden.

The welfare costs of inflation and inflation uncertainty are well documented in the literature and empirical evidence on the link between the two is sparse in the case of Egypt. This paper investigates the causal relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty in Egypt using monthly time series data during the period January 1974 - April 2015. To endogenously control for any potential structural breaks in the inflation time series, Zivot and Andrews (2002) and Clemente-Montanes-Reyes (1998) unit root tests are used. The inflation-inflation uncertainty relation is modeled by the standard two-step approach as well as simultaneously using various versions of the GARCH-M model to control for any potential feedback effects. The analyses explicitly control for the effect of the Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Program (ERSAP) undertaken by the Egyptian government in the early 1990s, which affected inflation rate and its associated volatility. Results show a high degree of inflation-volatility persistence in the response to inflationary shocks. Granger-causality test along with symmetric and asymmetric GARCH-M models indicate a statistically significant bi-directional positive relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, supporting both the Friedman-Ball and the Cukierman-Meltzer hypotheses. The findings are robust to the various estimation methods and model specifications. The findings of this paper support the view of adopting inflation-targeting policy in Egypt, after fulfilling its preconditions, to reduce the welfare cost of inflation and its related uncertainties. Monetary authorities in Egypt should enhance the credibility of monetary policy and attempt to reduce inflation uncertainty, which will help lower inflation rates.

In this paper, we study the cultural geography of the Veneto Region on the basis of a pseudo-diffusion approach to the analysis of the inherent semantic spatial data. We find somewhat surprising results, and, in particular, that Venice, indisputably the Region’s cultural hub in terms of concentration of activities and facilities, global visibility and attraction of resources, plays a marginal role in determining the momentum of cultural initiative at the regional level as of 2007 data. The areas with the greater momentum are relatively marginal ones but characterized by a strong presence of design-oriented companies that are actively engaging in culture-driven innovation in a context of gradually horizontally-integrated clusters. Our findings call for a revision of the traditional policy approaches that identify centralities in terms of concentration of activities and facilities based on past dynamics, and to design policies accordingly. We argue in favour of a more forward-looking, evidence-based approach.

Few studies on federalism analyze the role of courts as safeguards of the federal arrangement, and those that do tend to be too optimistic about what courts can do. This article analyzes the effect of judicial review on the interaction between the central and a regional government in a federation in order to understand the conditions under which courts may or may not enforce compliance with federalism. It argues that politicians of either level of government anticipate the likelihood of a judicial challenge and an eventual veto, and it finds distinct equilibria in the interaction between central and regional governments (imposition, auto-limitation, negotiation and litigation). Only under auto-limitation do courts effectively prevent transgressions to the federal arrangement. In all other scenarios, defection may take place despite the presence of courts. These findings show that as the court’s jurisprudence becomes more solid and defined, the chances for governments to successfully exceed their powers increase. Not only do transgressions take place despite the presence of the court, but because of it.

Enterprise Systeme werden immer mehr von Bedeutung, was sie in die Mitte der Aufmerksamkeit und der Berücksichtigung durch Organisationen in verschiedensten Formen rückt – seien es Unternehmen oder Industrien von riesigen öffentlichen oder privaten Organisationen bis hin zu mittleren und kleinen Dienstleistungsunternehmen. Diese Systeme verbessern sich ständig, sowohl funktionell, als auch technologisch und sie sind unumgänglich für Unternehmen, um ihre Produktivität zu vergrößern und um in dem nationalen und globalen Wettbewerb mitzuhalten. Da lokale Softwarelösungen die Bedingungen, speziell von großen Betrieben, funktionell und technologisch nicht erfüllen konnten und da riesige globale Softwarehersteller, wie SAP, Oracle und Microsoft ihre Lösungen rapide verbessern und sie ihren Markt immer mehr über den Globus expandieren, nimmt die Nachfrage für diese globalen Marken und deren nahezu einwandfreien Softwarelösungen täglich zu. Die Zustimmung für internationale ERP Unternehmensberatungsanwendungen nimmt deswegen exponentiell zu, während die Forschung der beeinflussenden Faktoren und des Fachwissens wenig verbreitet ist. Deswegen ist es so dringlich, dieses Gebiet zu erforschen. Das schlussendliche fünf-in-fünf Framework dieser Studie sammelt zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte alle historisch erwähnten, kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren und Projektaktivitäten. Diese wurden in fünf Phasen unterteilt und nach den fünf Schwerpunkten der internationalen ERP Projektdurchführung kategorisiert. Dieses Framework bietet einen Überblick und bildet einen umfassenden Fahrplan für solche Projekte., The importance of enterprise systems is increasingly growing and they are in the center of attention and consideration by organizations in various types of business and industries from extra-large public or private organizations to small and medium-sized service sector business. These systems are continuously advancing functionally and technologically and are inevitable and ineluctable for the enterprises to maximize their productivity and integration in current competitive national and global business environments. Also, since local software solutions could not meet the requirements of especially large enterprises functionally and technically, and as giant global enterprise software producers like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft are improving their solutions rapidly and since they are expanding their market to more corners of the globe, demand for these globally branded low-defect software solutions is daily ascending. The agreements for international ERP implementation project consultancy are, therefore, exponentially increasing, while the research on the influencing factors and know-hows is scattered and rare, and thus, a timely urgency for this field of research is being felt. The final developed five-in-five framework of this study, for the first time, collects all mentioned-in-the-history critical success factors and project activities, while sequencing them in five phases and categorizing them in five focus areas for international ERP implementation projects. This framework provides a bird’s-eye view and draws a comprehensive roadmap or instruction for such projects.

This paper aims to better understand the relationship between HIV knowledge and media exposure in India. We use a two-stage hurdle model to estimate the effect of media sources such as newspapers, radios and television on AIDS-related knowledge among Indian men and women using demographic health survey data. Overall, access to newspapers, radio, or television increases the likelihood of better HIV knowledge in both males and females by an order between 2% and 12%. These findings, albeit quantitatively small, suggest, even if indirectly, possible problems faced by AIDS campaigns and government programs in combating the HIV epidemic in India.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a newly developed managerial tool, Quality Scheduling Index (QSI), which can be used at the improvement of quality and time consumption within not only manufacturing companies. The authors present this tool as a result of the actual market conditions of finding a way for managing and controlling the usage of time, quality of work and the costs associated with these two factors. The paper is focused on the area of Management of Production and Operations with the main goal of developing the area of scheduling research and main purpose of increasing the productivity of a manufacturing enterprise by using at maximum the available resources, without any additional costs or investments. A survey is realized regarding the market requirements and partial empirical results of the authors’ researches are presented, with conclusions being drawn for future studies. A scenario mainframe is also developed and a relation between QSI and scenarios is presented. The paper represents partial results of the grant projects GAČR P403/12/1950 and SGS13/191/OHK2/3T/12.

The effects of Internet education on economic growth are examined using a cross-section of 36 high-income countries. Internet usage rates are employed as a proxy for Internet education across countries. Regression results show that the frequent usage of the Internet has a positive and significant effect on economic growth. The estimated growth effect of Internet skills is also found to be greater than the growth effect of math and science skills. The results are, in general, robust across model specifications.

This study surveys and evaluates previous attempts to use game theory to explain the strategic dynamic of the Cuban missile crisis, including, but not limited to, explanations developed in the style of Thomas Schelling, Nigel Howard and Steven Brams. All of the explanations were judged to be either incomplete or deficient in some way. Schelling’s explanation is both empirically and theoretically inconsistent with the consensus interpretation of the crisis; Howard’s with the contemporary understanding of rational strategic behavior; and Brams’ with the full sweep of the events that define the crisis. The broad outlines of a more general explanation that addresses all of the foundational questions associated with the crisis within the confines of a single, integrated, game-theoretic model with incomplete information are laid out. Keywords: Cuban missile crisis; game theory; threat that leaves something to chance; metagame theory; theory of moves; analytic narrative

The Competition Policy is - by its two components: in a specific language known as "antitrust" and state aid - a barometer of market operation, a component of a functional market economy. Although this chapter makes no direct reference to macroeconomic indicators, the promoted policy is defined by discipline, the behavior of economic actors in the market. The success of the competition policy is reflected in the existence of a strong cultural competition expressed at the level of the economic operators by respecting the game rules set by the legislation.

This paper investigates the effects of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) also known as bilateral or multilateral trade agreements on the U.S. current account balance. In contrast to the common belief that RTAs provide export opportunities for U.S. companies, hence improve the U.S. trade balances that are part of the U.S. current account balance, this paper shows that trade agreements adversely impact both of these accounts.

Firstly this research paper aims at discussing how the economic scenario post 1990s forced the Indian economy to open up with the three triggers of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation. This further discusses the opening of economy for the foreign investors under the given scenario. It narrates the positives and negatives of FIIs in India in terms of their impact on the Indian economy. Secondly it also studies the movement of Indian stock market i.e. BSE Index vs. FIIs investment. Thirdly and more importantly this paper has also made a herculean efforts for studying the impact of FIIs investment on the volatility of Indian stock market on the basis of daily as well as monthly data ( from 2000 to 2012). For daily data 3000 observations have been used and for monthly data 156 observations have been used. GARCH and ARCH techniques have been applied for the same. The time period from 2000 to 2012 has been divided into two phases i.e. pre crisis period from 2000 to 2008 and post crisis period from 2009 to 2012. It has been found in the study that FIIs flows have had an impact on the volatility of the Indian stock market in the pre crisis as well as post crisis period.

Recent debate on the effectiveness of tax rebates has concentrated on the degree to which they can affect economic activity, which depends on the methodology, the state of the economy, and the underlying assumptions. A better approach to assess the effectiveness of these monetary transfers is by comparing this method to alternative policies—like the traditional monetary injections through the financial intermediaries. A limited participation model calibrated to the U.S. economy is used to show that the higher the proportion of the monetary injection channeled through the consumers—instead of banks—leads to a less vigorous recovery of output but softens the detrimental effect on the utility of the representative household from the inherent inflationary pressure. This result is robust to the relative importance of the injection (utilization of resources) and alternative utility functions.

The focus of this paper is to examine potential impacts of fiscal and monetary policies on stock market performance in Poland. Applying the GARCH model and based on a sample during 1999.Q2 to 2012.Q4, this paper finds that Poland's stock market index is not affected by the ratio of government deficits or debt to GDP and is negatively influenced by the money market rate. The stock index and the ratio of M3 to GDP show a quadratic relationship with a critical value of 46.03%, suggesting that they have a positive relationship if the M3/GDP ratio is less than 46.03% and a negative relationship if the M3/GDP ratio is greater than 46.03%. Furthermore, Poland's stock index is positively associated with industrial production and stock market performance in Germany and the U.S. and negatively affected by the nominal effective exchange rate and the inflation rate.

World economy is living a time of change, and the complexity of change has implied a new research agenda on the role of economic policy in society. The role, types and effects of economic policy have been major issues in economic science since its origins. Jean Tinbergen (1956) [1] established the basis for the traditional theory of economic policy in economics and he tried to show how economic knowledge could be organized to regulate and guide economic systems. Nevertheless, this traditional approach has been improved through several contributions, for example when Eggertsson (1997) [2] incorporated the existence of incomplete knowledge, endogenous politics and institutional change in the theory of economic policy. [...]

Currently, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) faces a series of challenges involving the need for strategic decisions for the long term future of European agriculture and rural areas in the European Union. To be effective in addressing these challenges, the CAP must work within a framework of connected economic policies and sustainable public finances that contribute to accomplish the EU. In this context, it should be noted that the Europe 2020 Strategy revealed a new perspective for the CAP reform, the main development directions being focused on finding the most appropriate solutions to the new economic, social and environmental issues brought on by the international economic crisis, also contributing to the sustainable development of EU agriculture. In what follows, we will briefly review the existing proposals at EU level for future development directions of the CAP.

The nature and indicators of financial stability of the state are presented. An issue of innovative development of the state is considered, its main difficulties and contradictions are defined. Trends and economic conditions for financial stability of the state in supporting innovation are substantiated. Special attention was paid to the factors to accelerate economic dynamics based on innovative mechanism, with appropriate set of direct financial, fiscal, legal, infrastructural, economic and political measures. It is proved that all the above measures are effective in their balanced unity under conditions of government providing with single framework for further innovative development.

We study whether forecasts of the rate of change of the price of oil are rational. To this end, we consider a model that allows the shape of forecasters’ loss function to be studied. The shape of forecasters’ loss function may be consistent with a symmetric or an asymmetric loss function. We find that an asymmetric loss function often (but not always) makes forecasts look rational, and we also report that forecast rationality may have changed over time.

Direct foreign investments play a major role in the process of economic restructuring of the host country both directly through the introduction of new technologies or the modernization of the existing ones, the development of new activities, the encouragement of the local suppliers for their vertical integration in the corporatist system and indirectly through the intensification of the competition between the autochthon and foreign companies. The restructuring cannot be exclusively supported by the foreign companies; it requires substantial efforts from the part of the local companies which rely upon government support in order to develop their capabilities, to compete on the foreign markets and to develop their own marketing and distribution channels. Direct foreign investments can have significant effects at the microeconomic level reflected in the productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of the activities benefiting from a higher input of foreign capital.

Is aid dead? Dead Aid was the provocative title of a book that appeared on the 2009 New York Times bestseller list in which Dambisa Moyo outlined the shortcomings of traditional aid to Africa and proposed some even more contentious solutions for her continent. But has development assistance really run its course? Does all aid follow old colonial patterns and actors, as Moyo maintains?. We argue that aid is alive and kicking with some exciting turns that have been gathering momentum in recent years both among traditional donors and new and still emerging South-South Cooperation (SSC) actors. Developed country aid alone still channeled US$134 billion in 2011, a 154 percent increase from a decade earlier; preliminary figures for 2012 show to little surprise a slight decline to US$126 billion. Despite its shortcomings, aid provided by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members is rapidly changing to be more effective, inclusive, and recipient-owned; principles that were reflected in the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness (2005) and that were later reinforced in the Accra Action Plan and the Busan outcome document (2011) ...

Es la ayuda el problema? 'Cuando la ayuda es el problema' es el provocador título de un libro que figuró en la lista de best sellers del New York Times del año 2009. En él, su autora, Dambisa Moyo, reseña las deficiencias de la cooperación que tradicionalmente se realiza con Africa y propone algunas soluciones aún más polémicas para su continente. Pero ¿realmente la cooperación para el desarrollo ya ha cumplido su ciclo? ¿Y acaso toda la cooperación sigue las antiguas pautas coloniales y continúa en manos de los actores de siempre, tal como sostiene Moyo? En nuestra opinión, la cooperación sigue 'viva y coleando', con algunos cambios interesantes que han venido ganando impulso en los últimos años, tanto entre los donantes tradicionales como entre los nuevos actores de la Cooperación Sur-Sur (CSS), que siguen sumándose. La ayuda de los países desarrollados canalizó US$134.000 millones en 2011, lo que equivale a un aumento del 154 por ciento respecto de la cifra movilizada en la década anterior; los cálculos preliminares correspondientes a 2012 muestran, para sorpresa de pocos, una ligera caída (US$126.000 millones). A pesar de sus posibles carencias, la cooperación que otorgan los países miembros del Comité de Ayuda al Desarrollo (CAD) de la OCDE está pasando rápidamente a ser más eficaz e inclusiva y a fortalecer la apropiación por parte de sus beneficiarios, principios que quedaron reflejados en la Declaración de París sobre la Eficacia de la Ayuda para el Desarrollo (2005) y que luego se consolidaron en el Programa de Acción de Accra y en el documento de resultados de Busan (2011) ...

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, many countries are hoping that massive increases in their money supplies will revive their economies. Evaluating the effectiveness of this strategy using traditional statistical methods would require the construction of an extremely complex economic model of the world that showed how each country’s situation affected all other countries. No matter how complex that model was, it would always be subject to the criticism that it had omitted important variables. Omitting important variables from traditional statistical methods ruins all estimates and statistics. This paper uses a relatively new statistical method that solves the omitted variables problem. This technique produces a separate slope estimate for each observation which makes it possible to see how the estimated relationship has changed over time due to omitted variables. I find that the effectiveness of monetary policy has fallen between the first quarter of 2003 and the fourth quarter of 2012 by 14%, 36%, 38%, 32%, 29% and 69% for Japan, the UK, the USA, the Euro area, Brazil, and the Russian Federation respectively. I hypothesize that monetary policy is suffering from diminishing returns because it cannot address the fundamental problem with the world’s economy today, that problem is a global glut of savings that is either sitting idle or funding speculative bubbles.

Es sabido que, a pesar de las mejoras que tuvieron lugar en los últimos años, las exportaciones de varios países de América Latina y el Caribe aún se encuentran por debajo de su potencial y de lo que cabría esperar en función de sus niveles de desarrollo. Lo mismo sucede con el grado de diversificación de sus exportaciones (Blyde et al., 2014). Asimismo, su participación en las cadenas globales de valor también parece ser relativamente limitada (Blyde y Volpe Martincus, 2011). Esto es importante, y potencialmente en gran medida, a los efectos de las perspectivas económicas de los países. Bajos niveles de apertura y diversificación pueden ser costosos en términos de crecimiento económico. Una participación limitada en las cadenas globales de valor puede tener consecuencias similares, en virtud de que restringe el acceso a los flujos internacionales de conocimiento y tecnología, lo cual reduce el potencial de aprendizaje y de aumento de la productividad de las empresas locales (véanse, por ejemplo, Brainard y Cooper, 1968; Frankel y Romer, 1999).1. Asimismo, la mayor disponibilidad de datos de exportaciones a nivel de empresa en los últimos años ha permitido saber que el comercio de América Latina y el Caribe, al igual que el de muchos otros países del mundo, está impulsado primordialmente por grandes exportadores que comercializan múltiples productos en múltiples destinos y que representan un porcentaje muy pequeño del número total de exportadores directos. De acuerdo con datos recientes, las exportaciones de muchas economías de América Latina y el Caribe se concentran en apenas el percentil superior de sus exportadores (Volpe Martincus y Graziano, 2013) ...

Is aid dead? Dead Aid was the provocative title of a book that appeared on the 2009 New York Times bestseller list in which Dambisa Moyo outlined the shortcomings of traditional aid to Africa and proposed some even more contentious solutions for her continent. But has development assistance really run its course? Does all aid follow old colonial patterns and actors, as Moyo maintains?. We argue that aid is alive and kicking with some exciting turns that have been gathering momentum in recent years both among traditional donors and new and still emerging South-South Cooperation (SSC) actors. Developed country aid alone still channeled US$134 billion in 2011, a 154 percent increase from a decade earlier; preliminary figures for 2012 show to little surprise a slight decline to US$126 billion. Despite its shortcomings, aid provided by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members is rapidly changing to be more effective, inclusive, and recipient-owned; principles that were reflected in the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness (2005) and that were later reinforced in the Accra Action Plan and the Busan outcome document (2011) ...

This paper uses a survey of 300 North Korean refugees to examine the experience of women in North Korea's fitful economic transition. Like other socialist states, North Korea has maintained a de jure commitment to women's rights. However, we find that women have been disproportionately shed from state-affiliated employment and thrust into a market environment characterized by weak institutions and corruption. As a result, the state and its affiliated institutions are increasingly populated by males, and the market, particularly in its retail aspects, is dominated by women. Among the most recent cohort of refugees to leave North Korea, more than one-third of male respondents indicate that criminality and corruption is the best way to make money, and 95 percent of female traders report paying bribes to avoid the penal system. In short, the increasingly male-dominated state preys on the increasingly female-dominated market. These results paint a picture of a vulnerable group that has been disadvantaged in North Korea's transition. Energies are directed toward survival, mass civil disobedience is reactive, and as a group, this population appears to lack the tools or social capital to act collectively to improve their status.

“One basic formula for understanding the Community is this: Take five broken empires, add the sixth one later, and make one big neo-colonial empire out of it all.”[Professor Johan Galtung, Norwegian sociologist] The EU represents a unique economic and political partnership, formally recognised on 1 November 1993 through the Maastricht Treaty, uniting 27 States around common political, economic, cultural and social values – a Community which evolves towards the Economic and Monetary Union, based on internal and external policy cooperation between States. Based on these priorities, but being aware of the numerous differences between Member States/regions regarding the level of development, the EU assumes the task of reducing the existing gaps through a common regional policy, aiming to reinforce economic and social cohesion. This paper intends to examine the effects of the economic crisis on the cohesion policy 2007-2013 and the measures adopted by the EU in order to reduce them.

The article reviews intellectual and innovative factors of education development. These factors influence on wage system and increase it competitive.

The financial crisis that has broken out in 2007, and spread throughout Europe since 2008, has been reflecting on the economic activity and employment, generating economic downturn. Gradually, the European crisis has turned into a social one, by transferring the financial problems into the social field. The objective of this article is to highlight some important effects arising from the financial crisis developments and have social and political implications across European countries. The view that the solution to the European crisis would be the application of the austerity policies has proved to be unsustainable, given that such measures have strained the relations between countries and also within countries. In the future, it remains the risk that the imbalances accumulation in the euro area, and more extended, in the European Union, would generate a polarization phenomenon in Europe by increasing the political dissensions between countries, and thereby would affect the default implementation of the European project

The methodical recommendations for estimation of development potential of trade enterprises are developed. The scientific tool for determination of components of potential of trade enterprises and estimation of level of enterprise development potential is formed. The scale of estimation of enterprises rating with the measures for effective activity of trade enterprise of the consumer cooperation system (CCS) is offered.

The multitude of difficult national problems, of economic, financial, social, cultural nature etc. deepened and intensified in the Member States of the euro area, in the current context of the global financial and economic crisis, have generated, in many states, the emergence and the exacerbation of discussions concerning the opportunity to exit from the euro zone and even from the European Union, given that some states have been forced to seek financial aid from the European Union and from international financial institutions, in burdensome terms. At the same time, constrained by the effects of the global financial and economic crisis, the European leaders rethink the whole project of the European Union. In these conditions, we consider of great and present interest our paper, where we have highlighted some aspects and causes of the problems being faced by some euro zone countries.

This research paper is based on the analysis of the sustainability aspects in cross-border cooperation programmes. The importance of this research topic consists in presenting if the implementation of the activities of the projects submitted under cross-border cooperation programmes is based on the sustainability aspects. In this matter, the article will present theoretical aspects of sustainable development, territorial cohesion and cross-border development and focuses on practical questions related to sustainability aspects in the case of the Romania – Republic of Serbia IPA Cross-border Cooperation Programme. One of the main challenges of the cross-border area is also environmental challenges. Sustainable development is represents the fundamental objective of the European Union and refers to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development. Countries cannot develop without existing cooperation between them, therefore EU policy is based on economic, social and territorial cohesion. Methodologically, the research is based on identifying of appropriate theoretical concepts corresponding to the chosen theme, collecting and processing data. The paper concludes with answers to key questions related to the integration of sustainable development aspects in cross-border cooperation programmes and projects. The results of the research have implications that could contribute to the current problem of absorption rate of EU funds, offering information about IPA cross-border cooperation programmes and increasing the capacity of potential applicants to elaborate and implement projects for obtaining and using financial EU funds. The added value of the paper results from the fact that EU financing is a topical issue of great interest to European and national level. To the best of our knowledge, this topic has not yet been researched within the national literature. The author contributed by performing methodology of qualitative research, a study case regarding the Romania-Republic of Serbia IPA CBC Programme, which can be very useful for a better understanding of the European Union financial allocations through cross-border cooperation programmes.

We analyze the impact of trade in a differentiated good on environmental policy when there is local and transboundary pollution. In autarky, the (equivalent) pollution tax is set equal to the marginal damage from own emissions. If the strategic policy instrument is a tax, leakage occurs under trade and tends to lower the tax. The net terms of trade effect, due to the exportable and importable varieties of the differentiated good, tends to increase the tax. We derive conditions under which pollution taxes under trade are higher than the marginal damage from own emissions, i.e., higher than the Pigouvian tax and than that under autarky. Then, pollution falls under trade relative to autarky. When countries use quotas/permits to regulate pollution, there is no leakage, while the net terms of trade effect tends to make pollution policy stricter. The equivalent tax is always higher than the marginal damage from own emissions, i.e., always higher than the Pigouvian tax and than that under autarky; hence, pollution always falls under trade. Our analysis provides some insight into the findings in the empirical literature that trade might be good for the environment.

China’s opportunities to build innovative capabilities in the IT industry differ from those faced earlier by Japan and East Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs). China has a unique combination of advantages in a booming market for electronics products and services, the world’s largest pool of low-cost and easily trainable knowledge workers, the emergence of sophisticated lead users and test-bed markets, and policy efforts to strengthen China’s innovation system. As a later latecomer, China can learn from the achievements and mistakes of earlier latecomers.The international environment is also dramatically different. Most important is the expansion of global knowledge networks, which have extended beyond markets for goods and finance into markets for technology and knowledge workers. Taking into account these important differences, this chapter addresses two questions: Does integration into global knowledge networks facilitate the efforts of Chinese IT firms to develop innovative capabilities? If yes, precisely what type of capabilities are they developing?The findings of this chapter can be summarized as follows:• Integration into global knowledge networks exposes Chinese IT firms to leading-edge technology, “best-practice” management, and sources of knowledge. • Knowledge about its own markets and production sites helps Chinese IT firms to exploit these opportunities.• Successful Chinese firms have not attempted to compete head-on with global leaders through radical innovations. Instead, they have focused on incremental and architectural innovations that support technology diversification strategies.• Integration into global networks needs to be supported by a strong domestic innovation system.These findings contradict a pessimistic literature that appraises China’s innovative capabilities as weak. They also contradict fears, sometimes played up for political purposes, that Chinese firms could make radical innovations that would challenge U.S. technology leadership. A central proposition here is that Chinese IT firms make the most progress in areas that escape the attention of both pessimists and proponents of an emerging technology threat.

We conduct a meta-analysis to statistically explain the variations found in estimated trade effects of technical measures broadly defined (TBT, SPS measures and other standard-like policies), using available estimates from the empirical international trade literature, and accounting for both data sampling and methodology differences. Agriculture and food industries tend to be more impeded by these barriers than other sectors. Controlling for "multilateral resistance" significantly lowers the propensity to find that these policies impede trade. Models that correct endogeneity by using panel data and time fixed effect tend to find more negative (or less positive) trade effects of technical measures. In addition, studies based on a count variable proxy are less likely to find a negative trade effect and more likely to find a positive effect than studies relying on other proxies. SPS regulations on agricultural trade flows from developing exporters to high-income importers tend to impede trade, a systematic finding.

The present paper brings forward the psychological effects of the financial and economic crisis upon individuals. Following the empirical research as well as the specific literature, we discovered that the greatest psychological effect of the financial crisis upon individuals is created by the financial stress. Moreover, the study shows that the financial stress, as a psychological effect of the financial crisis, is associated with the fear of not being able to accomplish the financial needs, the impossibility to have a high standard of living, a lower self-respect and the withdrawal form former social groups.

The some solutions to mitigate this crisis and especially its negative impact on the population have been successfully applied in several EU member states, old and new, as well as other states. There is not much to invent - the principal is not to make mistakes elementary experiences to end amateurish, to restore genuine professionalism. What interests us, rather, is what to do afterwards. The absence of a coherent and realistic vision of the future that we want and that we are able to build it stood at the head of many of the troubles we have faced in the last year from which we all suffer further .

To rely or not on the state actions is in European Union an even greater challenge than before, because the national authority itself is a part of a larger evolving economic system, clearly regulated but unpredictable when put to work. We all wish more, cheaper and better merchandise to purchase, a cleaner and safer environment, leaving the safeguarding of the macroeconomic stability, as a fundamental condition for all these, to the state. Trust should be that situation when the citizens’ expectations regarding the macroeconomic decisions were fulfilled. Remains an issue how to make trust function when the authorities were assumed to take into account the interest of all voters, but they fail to raise employment, to increase incomes, and GINI index grows.

The global crisis has different effects on the activities of companies. In different areas, the crisis is different, which means that it can be searched and found generally valid solution to address the negative effects of the crisis. Different forms of the crisis involves deep analysis of the causes of the crisis and based on these analyzes must seek solutions to overcome them. Shipping is directly affected by the financial crisis, the crisis of production and the sale. But these are general issues for a major shipping company which is in direct relationships with customers, relationships with brokers, those who are cargo transport. Analysis of corporate customers must be made separately by type of vessels, goods and services. This paper presents the general and particular aspects related to the maritime shipping companies’ customers, some solutions for business problems

Devaluation is the instrument of monetary policy which has been used very often during the 20th century. In recent time of globalization, the many limited factors (openness of the economy, capital movements, currency substitution, money illusion) significantly reduce or completely make impossible the devaluation implementation as the measure for foreign trade deficit or recession overcoming in many countries. This paper discusses on positive and negative effects of devaluation in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina economy.&nbsp

The strategies for economic growth on a medium and long term meet the future economic crises to the extent in which they are built on an economic reality that is more than evident in the current period. Despite the problems facing the European Union, Europe 2020 is meant to cause a large change in the economy due to its targets. The analysis of the figures recorded in the previous period as well as the economic perspectives may show whether the targets established for our country are realistic.

This paper investigates how the trade-off between organization costs, transaction costs and economies of specialization may affect the way public goods are provided. In doing so, it considers two ways of providing a public good. One is collective provision where users organize themselves to jointly finance the public good which is produced by a specialized firm. The other is market provision with bundling where a firm produces the public good and a private good and sells them as a bundle. Both methods of public goods provision deal with the problem of non-excludability. The first method involves organization costs, but can take advantage of specialization economies; the second method avoids organization costs, but may incur some transaction costs and forgoes the benefit of specialization economies. Which method is superior depends on the relative magnitudes of organization costs, transaction costs, specialization economies as well as other features of the economy such as population size.

Globalization has brought new challenges and changes, in terms of both new risk and new opportunities. It is one of the key drivers of economic and environmental change. The impact can be both positive and negative. This paper explains the impact of globalization and the fundamental issues and current controversies related to globalization (trade, investment, the IMF and the World Bank, technology, media, culture, education, development, migration, health, the role of women, human rights). Introduces the impact on economics, culture, communication, work productivity, ect. This paper explains also the role of multinational enterprises, because they are key vectors of globalization and they have become key actors in the globalization process. Globalization contributes to accelerated economic growth, particularly through increased trade and investment activity and stimulates economic development by integrating emerging economies into the global economy. Advances in communication and transportation technology, combined with free-market ideology, have given goods, services, and capital unprecedented mobility and it is one of the reason globalization. This paper analyzes economic issues globalization, and examines how it might be resisted or regulated in order to promote sustainable development.

Having put their two cents in highlighting the economical interdependency process on a global level, the great multinationals are characterized by some as economical invaders and as the main development promoters in developing countries, by others. Multinational companies have sequentially followed the liberalization of commercial trades and of the capital flow movements, proclaiming to be interested in a least regulated international economical environment. Multinationals aim at maintaining a turbulence free international climate, which allows them to streamline their economical activity.

In the existing literature of infra-marginal analysis, there are many models describing how infrastructure investment can promote division of labour, trade interdependency, and income growth. However, detrimental effects from destructive network activities have not been formally studied. Destructive network activities can slow down both production and transaction activities. This paper develops a general equilibrium model to illustrate how destructive network activities can push a developed market economy to a lower level of division of labour, thereby causing losses in both productivity and real per capita income.

Currently, many enterprises have massively expanded marketing operations, supply and production in the global market, managing to create global structure which allows them to quickly convey information and ideas in a corner of the world in the other. Businesses face a competitive environment than larger and more complex than in the past. Since most trade with investment activity are related, if not undertaken by transnational companies, no country can develop as part of the world economy without help from a substantial presence within the borders of the STN them. The new trend in the STN sites emphasize efforts to promote corporate social responsibility that contributes to change the attitude of many corporations and individuals working for them. Company efforts are visible in contributions to community development and environmental impact. Corporations want to impose their own standards of development which reflects some positive attitude towards regulations that support behavioral codes which they argue.

During this period marked by the effects of the current economic crisis, the structural funds play most important role in regional development. Each country of the Union, especially those in development they wish to reach the level of the developed world, so you must access the funds in order to reduce economic disparities between them.