World formation or world mode of production? Alternative approaches to world system analysis

Conclusion Bergesen has identified the right problem but the wrong analogy. If we can make the analogy from a social formation to a world perspective then what were are analyzing is the world formation and not a world market or a world production. The capitalist world formation is the ensemble of economic relations (both the determinant production relations and the dominant world system), political relations, and ideological relations which are manifested at the world level. A world formation, as opposed to a world mode of production approach, avoids the confusion between the capitalist mode of production and participation in the capitalist world system, which Laclau pointed to as a necessary step in clarifying theories which utilize a world perspective. Furthermore, it allows us to establish the determinant effects of production in the world formation and the structuring of production by class struggle which Brenner argues is essential for the theory. And in the process it avoids economic reductionism by including the relative autonomy of the state and ideological structures.Finally, a world formation approach does not reduce the efficacy of the world perspective. This is especially true since the capitalist world formation did not arise from dust, but was a result of transformation of the feudal world formation. In this sense, the world formation has an a priori relation to social formations, which is the key insight of the world perspective.     

Reviews

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Cole Blasier, The Giant's Rival: the USSR and Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983, xvi + 213 pp. $7.95 (paperback).     

Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Developing and Emerging Markets: A Survey of Conceptual,Methodological and Policy Issues,and Selected Empirical Findings

Abstract

Global integration has increased the international linkages of financial markets for emerging market countries. A key channel for the international transmission of inflation and economic cycles is from exchange rate movements to domestic prices, known as exchange rate pass-through (ERPT). This article reviews the conceptual, methodological and policy issues connected with ERPT in emerging market and developing countries, and critically surveys selected empirical studies. A key contribution is to categorise and compare the heterogeneous methodologies used to extract ERPT measures in the empirical literature. Single equation models and systems methods are contrasted; frequent misspecifications that produce unreliable ERPT estimates are highlighted. The discerning policy-maker needs to ascertain by which methods ERPT measures were calculated, the controls and restrictions applied, and the time frame and stability of the estimates.