Rebalancing the Global Economy

The United States accuses China of subsidizing its entire export economy through artificially undervaluing its currency. China accuses the United States of fiscal profligacy while flooding the world with easy credit to keep its economy afloat. This dispute reflects the reality that the world's two largest economies are built on opposite dynamics of production and savings vs. consumerism and debt. In Europe, the wages of unsustainable debt that financed the welfare state have also come due. Rebalancing the global economy in this context is not only a matter of fixing exchange or interest rates and extending the retirement age. It must also involve a recalibration of democracy in both East and West. Two Nobel economists, the Greek prime minister, a ranking Chinese economist and the former chief economist of the IMF address these issues.     

美伊战争对全球经济的影响

自从美国确定不惜以武力解除伊拉克武装,改变萨达姆政权以来,对伊战争可能对美国及世界经济产生什么样的影响便成为世界关注的热点,而这个问题与美对伊动武能否速战速决有直接关系。 一、对伊战争若能迅速取胜,将有利于美国和世界经济的发展。首先,战争迅速取胜后,将消除一年来人们对伊战争后果的忧虑,扫除妨碍经济发展的心理阴影。一年多来,战争言论对美国经济发展造成了沉重压力,导致商家投资谨慎,人们消费下降,股市动荡。去年第四季度美国经济只增长了     

Dynamics of Unfree Labour in the Contemporary Global Economy

This short introduction to the symposium sets the context for the collection of articles, locating them in debates about labour conditions in the global economy. It outlines the two central questions which animate the symposium. First, what forms do unfree labour take in the contemporary global economy, and what are the implications for the most vulnerable workers in diverse contexts? Second, which processes, conditions and dynamics generate and facilitate unfree labour, and which theoretical and analytical perspectives do we need in order to understand them? It summarises some of responses to these questions which emerge in the collected articles, and highlights their contributions to the task of advancing fresh ways of thinking about unfree labour.     

The Invisibility of Wage Employment in Statistics on the Informal Economy in Africa: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

This article challenges the claim, along with the statistics that support it, that self-employment is by far the dominant employment status in the informal economy. The article begins by reviewing key insights from relevant literature on the informal economy to argue that conventional notions of ‘wage employment’ and ‘self-employment’, while unfit for capturing the nature and variety of employment relations in developing countries, remain central to the design of surveys on the workforce therein. After putting statistics on Tanzania’s informal economy and labour force into context, the analysis reviews the type of wage employment relationships that can be found in one instance of the informal economy in urban Tanzania. The categories and terms used by workers to describe their employment situation are then contrasted with those used by the latest labour force survey in Tanzania. The article scrutinises how key employment categories have been translated from English into Swahili, how the translation biases respondents’ answers towards the term ‘self-employment’, and how this, in turn, leads to the statistical invisibility of wage labour in the informal economy. The article also looks at the consequences of this ‘statistical tragedy’ and at the dangers of conflating varied forms of employment, including wage labour, that differ markedly in their modes of operation and growth potential. Attention is also paid to the trade-offs faced by policy-makers in designing better labour force surveys.     

Local Government Support for Women in the Informal Economy in Durban, South Africa

This paper examines the response of the city government of Durban to the growth of the informal economy. It argues that, unlike the national government of South Africa, Durban's government has been creative in designing policies that favor informal economy workers, particularly women. These progressive policies are the result of an innovative local government and, to some extent, an emerging self-employed women worker's union that has been able to exert influence on informal economy policies.     

促进G20在全球经济治理中的核心作用

“多伦多”在印第安语中指的是“会面之地”,不知是巧合还是有意为之,主办国加拿大将此次G20峰会安排在了这座位于安大略湖畔的美丽城市。在新世纪头十年已成过去的时间节点,各国领袖在此“会面”,讨论世界经济复苏、国际体系改革等关系人类生存发展的全球性问题。     

Will Information Technology Reshape the North-South Asymmetry of Power in the Global Political Economy?

Digital technologies are sufficiently disruptive to current ways of doing things to call into question assumptions about the “inevitability” or “natural state” of many economic processes and organizational principles. In particular, the impact of digital technologies on our conceptions of property rights has potentially dramatic implications for the North-South divide and the distribution of power in the global political economy. Drawing on recent experiences with open-source property rights regimes, we present two scenarios, the “imperialism of property rights” and the “shared global digital infrastructure,” to highlight how debates over property-rights could influence the development of the global digital infrastructure and, in turn, contribute to significantly different outcomes in global economic power. Steve Weber is director of, the Institute of International Studies and professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book,The Success of Open Source, was published in April 2004 by Harvard University Press. Jennifer Bussell is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is on the political determinants of information and communication technology access in developing countries.     

后社会主义国家与世界经济:全球经济危机的影响

世界金融危机对欧洲后共产主义国家的影响可以从它们在世界经济中所处的地位来预测.本文第一部分介绍欧洲社会主义国家在世界体系中的地位变化.第二部分分析当前经济金融危机的影响.自1989年以来,后社会主义国家采取了不同的发展路径.欧盟新成员国采取了新自由主义的发展道路,作为欧盟成员国正式融入到世界经济中,但是这也带来了很高的对外经济依赖,使它们处于"卫星国"地位.独联体国家走的是一条混合的发展道路,包含了国家协调、国家资本主义和全球资本主义等要素.它们具有半边缘国家的特点.所有后共产主义国家通过贸易和金融向世界体系的开放使得它们的经济易受外部经济危机的影响.这可以从2007年世界经济危机引起的金融紧缩的影响中看出来.本文分析了各国对这场危机的反应和适应情况.欧盟后社会主义成员国受到的金融危机的影响要远大于独联体国家.新自由主义政策的合法性已受到质疑,国家管制得到了加强.处于半边缘地位的经济体不是世界经济中的过渡性经济体.这些经济体能够通过发展它们自己的内部市场和网络来确保作为世界经济一部分的更大独立性.从世界体系的视角看,必须把那些有能力独立自主和复兴的潜在半边缘大国如中国和俄罗斯与那些更加依赖资本主义核心国家的半边缘国家区分开来.     

The Political Economy of Institutions,Stability and Investment: A Simultaneous Equation Approach in an Emerging Economy. The Case of South Africa

The modern theory of investment identifies the importance of uncertainty to investment. A number of empirical studies have tested the theory on South African time series, employing political instability measures as proxies for uncertainty. This paper verifies that political instability measures are required in the formulation of the investment function for South Africa. It also establishes that there are distinct institutional factors that influence the uncertainty variable such as property rights and crime levels. We find that rising income and property rights lower political instability, and that rising crime levels are positively related to political instability. The inference is that political instability in South Africa may not represent uncertainty directly, since it is systematically related to a set of determinants. Instead, uncertainty would have to be understood as being related to a broader institutional nexus that in concert may generate uncertainty for investors. The paper highlights the significance of getting institutions right to ensure that uncertainty is kept to a minimum by providing a predictable long-term environment. Stability at a systemic level appears crucial if investment rates are to rise in South Africa and this paper demonstrates that stability in turn is driven by a sound institutional environment that has multiple dimensions.     

Rebalancing the Global Economy: China Must Allow Currency to Rise, US Must Boost Savings

Thanks to the draining effects of the Iraq war and the financial meltdown emanating from Wall Street, a powershift away from American dominance is taking place. Caught between a rising China and an America in relative decline, the new leadership in Japan is recalibrating its post-World War II relationships. The G-20 has usurped the role once played by the G-8 as the governing committee of globalization. And the symbiotic coupling of "Chimerica", born out of the credit bubble built up over the past two decades, is being put to the test.
In this section, the new prime minister of Japan, the president of the European Union, the president of Brazil and a leading economic historian assess these shifts.     

难忘的非洲之旅--中国国际交流协会代表团访非侧记

2003年2月中旬,我有幸作为中国国际交流协会代表团的一员,随前全国政协副主席、交流协会副会长万国权先后访问了非洲的毛里求斯、津巴布韦和过境南非,亲身感受到了非洲那炽热、古老、神秘的风韵,其印象深刻难忘。 带着中国人民对非洲人民的深情厚意与热切的关注,2月14日我们踏上了飞往非洲这一神奇之旅。     

关于全球金融经济危机的若干思考

由美国次贷危机引发的世界金融危机和经济危机表明了美国金融霸权的衰落。这是美国经济霸权的危机,也是美国大力推行的市场原教旨主义即新自由主义的危机。这场经济危机显示出当代资本主义的最新特点,即金融产业脱离实体经济片面畸形发展,全球经济过分金融化,因而被称作“全球金融市场资本主义”。目前经济危机还在持续,与此同时,世界政治也开始进入一个动荡不安的高风险的历史阶段。