Domestic Political Institutions and Exchange Rate Commitments in the Developing World

Policymakers use a fixed exchange rate regime to signal their commitment to low inflation and to exchange rate stability. Increasing economic integration and the rise of democratic institutions make it more difficult for policymakers to maintain the credibility of this commitment. We use binary probit (with a variety of corrections for autocorrelated and heteroscedastic disturbances) to test hypotheses relating democratic institutions to exchange rate regime choice on a sample of 76 developing countries over the period 1973–1994. The empirical analysis indicates that domestic political preferences—as measured by the structure of domestic political institutions and the fractionalization of the party system—influence exchange rate regime choice. We find that floating exchange rate regimes are more likely in democratic than in nondemocratic polities and that democratic politieswith majoritarian electoral systems are more likely to fix their exchange rates than those with systems of proportional representation.     

哥伦比亚资本项目开放与1993～1998年资本管制有效性研究

资本项目开放是20世纪90年代初哥伦比亚经济稳定计划的重要组成部分,其开放进程分两个阶段:第一阶段主要是针对外国直接投资的开放,第二阶段是放松对短期资本和外资信贷的管制.在资本项目开放初期,国际资本大量流入,使哥伦比亚经济面临真实汇率升值、金融体系对外脆弱性加重和通货膨胀压力加大等多重挑战.为应对这些挑战,哥伦比亚货币当局借鉴智利的成功经验,于1993一1998年实行了无息准备金制度和显性托宾税等一系列资本管制措施.这些措施在一定程度上实现了控制资本流入规模和短期资本长期化的政策目标,但同时也增加了国内企业的融资成本.     

20世纪90年代以来巴西资本项目开放与资本管制有效性研究

历史经验表明,与阿根廷和墨西哥相比,巴西经济改革从来都不是激进改革的典范,20世纪90年代卡多佐政府的改革也不例外,其实行的谨慎资本项目开放是巴西渐进经济改革的重要内容,具体体现为在改革的方向和目标确立后,在面临开放之初大规模资本流入导致的货币升值、金融脆弱性剧增等问题的情况下,货币当局实施了金融交易税、外资贷款期限和外资投资范围的直接管制等措施,来限制国际资本的过度流入.然而.由于巴西过高的国内外利差、发达的金融衍生市场形成的诸多规避资本管制渠道,这些管制措施并没有达到预期的目标.     

发达国家国内总需求变化

表4: (%)资料来源:IMF“world Economic Outlook”,April 2002.注:2002年和2003年为预测数。(李红霞)发达国家国内总需求变化@李红霞     

Demography and Instability in the Developing World

Demography provides a framework for analyzing the effect of population on national security and a tool to assess how demographic trends in the developing world will influence conflict over the next twenty years. Population is connected to national security as an indicator of challenge and opportunity, a multiplier of conflict and progress, and a resource for power and prosperity. This indicator-multiplier-resource framework is then applied to the three influential demographic issues of the developing world: (1) youthful populations; (2) transitional age structures; and (3) urbanization. These diverse demographic trends reveal a growing divergence among states in the developing world and the need to continue to plan for the spectrum of warfare, though there will be an increasing number of supportive and capable states.     

资本与货币在世界经济中的地位和作用

世界经济的不断发展促使资本规模日益扩大，甚至已远远超过了世界经济本身的规模，呈现出经济越发达资本市场规模越大，其货币在世界经济中所起的作用也越大的趋势，并牵动着各国货币之间的汇率变动。     

Determinants of Foreign Aid: Rivalry and Domestic Instability

Foreign aid is usually seen as a form of international cooperation. Thus, the expectation is that states engaged in international rivalry with one another should be unlikely to provide each other aid. However, they do provide their enemies aid. We consider how situations of uncertainty influence aid transfers between states. We argue that states may provide each other aid to limit uncertainty from potential regime changes that could lead to war. Such uncertainty is particularly bad for rivals who are prone to militarized conflict. We find that rivals may provide one another foreign aid when one of the countries is experiencing regime-threatening levels of domestic instability. We compare these results to the behavior of nonrivals and find that: Rivals are likely to provide their enemies aid in times of uncertainty; rivals are no less likely to give aid to each other than are nonrivals; and rivals provide more aid during times of instability than do nonrivals.     

The Rise of the Developing World

In the paper, the formation and causes of world economic system and order are deeply analyzed. Professor Su quotes some experts on international relations to prove his arguments. In the last part of his paper, Dr. Su spends a lot to expound the world economic system and the rise of the developing world in the new century.     

Political Science in China： the Domestic Scene and a World Vision

Since the reforms of 1979, the subjects of China＇s political science studies have seen remarkable development. The article attempts a qualitative analysis of the progress made in the main fields of China＇s political science studies during the last decade. It deals with theories of international relations, research into strategy and security, international political economics, theories of comparative politics, China＇s local governance etc. There is still a wide gap between the subjects of China＇s political science studies and those in the rest of the world. China＇s academic circles should do more to air domestic issues and questions in the international academic arena.     

Openness, Welfare Spending, and Inequality in the Developing World

How does government social spending affect inequality in this era of globalization? This article investigates the relationship between openness, government social expenditures (i.e., education, health, and social security and welfare), and income distribution through a time-series cross-sectional panel data set for 35 less developed countries (LDCs) from 1972 to 1996. I compare these findings to the redistributive effects of social spending in 11 advanced industrialized economies. The results show that while all categories of social spending help improve income distribution in richer countries, the effects of social spending are much less favorable in LDCs. Only spending on education in LDCs encourages a more favorable distribution of income in the face of globalization. I argue that the pressures of a more competitive global economy increase incentives for more redistributive education spending, whereas publicly sponsored health programs and, particularly, social security and welfare programs confront greater political lobbying and clientelism.     

The Political Economy of Speculative Attacks in the Developing World

This paper examines the relationship between politics and speculative attacks in developing countries. While a burgeoning literature focuses on the economic determinants of speculative behavior, little attention has been paid to the importance of political factors. I examine the response of international capital markets to electoral and partisan changes in a sample of 78 developing countries using monthly data from January 1975 to December 1998. All other things being equal, the empirical evidence indicates that speculative attacks are more likely (1) under left rather than under right governments and (2) during the period after an election as compared with all other periods. The results suggest that models developed for OECD economies can be used to understand political-economic phenomena in developing countries.     

亚太发展中地区外资的新格局

本文的亚太发展中地区包括了亚洲新兴工业化经济群体(韩国、台湾、香港、新加坡)、东盟四国(泰国、马来西亚、印度尼西亚、菲律宾)和中国等九个国家与地区。全文就2000—2003年期间亚太发展中地区外国直接投资的发展趋势进行论述与分析。     

Determinants of Domestic Terrorism: An Examination of Ethnic Polarization and Economic Development

ABSTRACT

Many scholars have sought to explain why countries with ethnically heterogeneous populations experience higher levels of political violence, but these studies have produced mixed findings. Unlike most studies that use ethno-linguistic fractionalization indices to examine this relationship, we argue that ethnic polarization is a more appropriate measure to assess the role of ethnicity as a causal factor of domestic terrorism. This paper hypothesizes that high ethnic polarization influences the incidence of domestic terrorism, particularly when intervening economic factors are present. To test three hypotheses, we use negative binomial regression to model data from the Global Terrorism Dataset, World Bank, and the Reynal-Querol (RQ) ethnic polarization index of 116 countries between 1970 and 2012. Our findings show that terrorism is more likely to emerge in societies with high ethnic polarization and economic malaise.     

20世纪中期以来发达国家高等教育发展趋势探究

20世纪中期以来,新的科学技术革命把人类带入了一个新的知识经济时代,经济全球化和知识经济快速发展。在世界经济和社会大发展的国际背景中,世界高等教育正在发生着深刻的变化,各发达国家的高等教育也呈现一些共同的发展趋势。这主要表现在高等教育职业化、高等教育多样化、高等教育国际化以及高等教育的质量保障体系逐步完善等四个方面。     

美国、日本欠发达地区开发的经验对我国西部开发的启示

美国田纳西流域、日本北海道分别为各国的欠发达地区,其在开发中注重法律在开发中的指导作用;建立双重管理机制;制定缜密计划,明确开发目标;对欠发达地区给予政策及资金倾斜;优先发展基础设施建设,这些经验可以在我国的西部大开发中借鉴。     

The Interdependence of U.S. Troop Deployments and Trade in the Developing World

The relationship between political conflict and trade has contributed to a riveting discussion in international relations about whether trade produces conflict, or whether conflict itself reduces trade. Most studies proxy "the flag" using militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). However, extensions of "the flag" might well obtain in environments short of MIDs. A more general way to proxy the flag is troop deployments. The deployment of military troops is an essential element of foreign policy. Using panel data for 126 developing countries from 1965 to 2002 and a two-stage least square approach, this essay investigates the relationship between trade and United States troop deployments. We find that trade and troops have a nonrecursive relationship: trade follows the flag and troops follow trade. Given the increased insecurity in the world today, the results are timely and reinforce previous research about the reciprocal relationship between the flag and trade.     

从实现发展的社会网络和社会资本看越南农村

从各种联结形式、各种社会网络和社会资本观察越南农村和农民是一种新的研究方式,从中可以发现和激发原本潜藏着的农村资源成为工业化、现代化时期的发展源泉.     

世界生产性服务业发展的新趋势及我国的战略对策

2006年,全球服务业占全球GDP的比重已达73%,而全球生产性服务业占到整个服务业比重的55%以上,其中美国达70%,欧盟55.6%,日本57%。生产性服务     

Interdependent and Domestic Foundations of Policy Change: The Diffusion of Pension Privatization Around the World

In the last two decades, striking correlations in the location and timing of structural pension reforms have raised important questions about the kind of information used by policy makers in their decisions to adopt such measures. This study tests the hypothesis that the adoption of pension privatization is shaped systematically by an interdependent logic, wherein the decision to privatize pensions in one country is systematically linked to corresponding decisions made by governments in relevant peer nations. Duration analysis with time-varying covariates of data from 59 countries between 1980 and 1999 reveals that the decision to adopt a private pension reform in one country increases systematically as the proportion of peer nations that have adopted corresponding measures rises. Importantly, the effect of this peer dynamic varies across groups of nations, with the most powerful impact of peer decisions being found among Eastern European and Central Asian nations. Peer dynamics likewise contribute powerfully to the adoption of private pension reforms in Latin America, but do not significantly shape the hazard of privatization among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations. Even controlling for diffusion mechanisms, the analysis shows that pension reform decisions remain subject to domestic political and economic considerations, including demographic pressures, financial costs and incentives to reform, and constraints delimited by the political institutions in each nation.