Japan's post‐war protection policy: Some implications for less developed countries

This article examines some of the implications of Japan's postwar development for contemporary developing countries. Whilst acknowledging the qualitative differences in economic structure between Japan in 1945 and today's developing countries it argues that many of Japan's decisions on economic strategy throw light on current debates regarding the merits of free trade or protectionism as strategies for developing countries. It stresses however the key role played in Japan by the highly competitive nature of the internal market and stresses the need to consider policies to stimulate a more competitive internal structure within developing country markets.     

Does Decentralization Reform Always Increase Economic Growth?: A Cross Country Comparison of the Performance

This study aims to test the impact of decentralization on the economic growth of a country. Based on the longitudinal data set of 63 countries with a time series spanning 1960 to 2007, the test result reveals that there is a negative relationship both between fiscal decentralization and GDP growth and between political decentralization and GDP growth. In order to examine the different impacts of decentralization, the same analysis was applied to subsets of countries categorized into three groups according to the economic stage of the country. This further analysis found that there is a negative relationship between political decentralization and growth in developing countries, between fiscal decentralization and growth in semi-developed countries, but no relationship in developed countries. These results show that decentralization is not always instrumental in economic growth, which means that the time variable, or more precisely the stage of economic development of a country, is an important factor when introducing decentralization reforms.     

Namibia and nuclear proliferation

This article offers a discussion of the probable effects of a Worldwide Patent System for developing countries. It draws upon insights from the ongoing processes in the World Intellectual Property Organization and elsewhere relevant for the global patent system and discusses these features from a developing country perspective. For scientifically advanced developing countries the effect in their most advanced and most global enterprises is potentially positive as they will benefit as much as other multinational companies. In areas of research and development where these most advanced developing countries do not possess a high level of technological capacity, a Worldwide Patent System is unlikely to create any benefits for them. For countries with the ability to copy and produce inventions made by others a Worldwide Patent System will have a negative effect as inventors will have little opportunity to utilise the system, whereas they will be bound by a larger number of exclusive rights narrowing down their space for innovation. For the least developed countries an additional problem arises: it might become even more difficult to import essential goods because patents will be in force in these countries even though there is no production of that product in the country.     

The new face of developing country debt

Developing country debt has been a major preoccupation for development policy makers and practitioners since the debt crisis of 1982. It is a major obstacle to economic and social progress in developing countries. After the resolution of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the debt relief initiatives for low-income countries of 1997–2006 concerns about developing country debt seem to have receded. However, there are a growing number of problems that warrant concern, including the accumulation of domestic debt, short-term debt and private non-guaranteed debt, and increasing recourse by low-income countries to international capital markets. At the same time developing countries have strengthened their capacity to oversee and analyse their debt portfolios. Nonetheless, significant weaknesses remain in debt management capacity at the national level. Moreover, the activities of ‘vulture funds’ and the lack of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism reveal major shortcomings in the international institutional architecture that need to be addressed urgently.     

Revisiting the Meaning of Development: A Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Many have challenged the use of income per capita as the primary proxy for measuring development since Seers’s seminal works. This article continues this tradition with a more recent twist. We use cluster analysis to build a multidimensional taxonomy of developing countries using a set of indicators covering four conceptual frames on ‘development’. The value-added of the article is not to suggest that our classification is the end in itself, but – more modestly – to demonstrate that more work on taxonomies is required in light of the weakness of classifications based solely on income and the changing distribution of global poverty.     

Post-Accra: is there space for country ownership in global health?

Abstract

On 4 September 2008 the Accra Agenda for Action, which emphasised that country ownership over health must be strengthened, was agreed upon. While the Agenda for Action, which builds on the 2005 Paris Declaration, is a major step forward, there are still structural factors that impede developing country ownership in health. This paper outlines the key issues in the governance and resourcing of public health in low- and middle-income countries focusing on three major structural challenges for developing countries: the proliferation of initiatives, donor influence on priority setting and donors' lack of accountability, and the sustainability of current levels and types of external financing. How can these structural obstacles be overcome? Three avenues hold considerable promise: creating new mechanisms to hold donors to account, developing national plans and strengthening national leadership in health, and building South–South collaborative networks through bilateral, multilateral and plurilateral relations.     

Contextuality and data collection methods: A framework and application to health service utilisation

When establishing the value of imports for tariff assessment, most countries apply duties to a cost‐insurance‐freight (c.i.f.) value of the traded good. One effect of using a c.i.f. valuation base is to place a disproportionate burden on countries that have relatively higher freight and insurance costs. Using matched tariff and transport cost information for six Latin American countries this study examines the influence of alternative valuation procedures on the level and incidence of tariff protection. The results show that developing countries are generally at a major transport and insurance cost disadvantage (relative to developed countries) on inter‐regional trade and that the relatively high Latin American tariffs applied on c.i.f. prices further worsen their competitive position. A shift to free‐on‐board. (f.o.b.) valuation would remove the bias against developing country intra‐trade.     

The measurement of development effort—A suggestion

A notable shortcoming of development economics has been a failure to design an objective indicator allowing for an evaluation of the effort made in particular developing countries. Own‐country effort has been noted in the literature to be an important ingredient in the illusive recipe of development‐success; and so the above problem is of considerable interest, both theoretical and practical. This paper analyses the interrelationships between three groups of commonly used ‘effort‐indicators’ ; and in addition studies the relationships between each and growth of per capita income of a sample of developing countries. The findings suggest that at the present time, effective development efforts tend to lie less in the area of belt‐tightening and mobilisation of domestic savings, and more in the area of explicit export promotion.     

The Labour Market Impacts of Immigration to Developing Countries: Evidence from a Registration Campaign in Thailand

Little is known about the labour market impact of immigration to developing countries, because most immigration to developing countries is poorly measured. We use an unusual dataset from a campaign to register irregular migrants to study how immigration has affected wages, employment, and internal migration in Thailand. We allow for endogenous migration, whereby immigrants are disproportionately attracted to areas with higher wages. Our results suggest that immigration sufficient to increase Thailand's total labour force by one per cent would reduce Thai wages by approximately half a per cent. This effect is stronger than is generally found in developed countries. We find no evidence that immigration has reduced Thai employment rates or has affected internal migration by Thais.     

The world population situation

Population experts appear to be reaching a consensus that there has been a perceptible decline over the last decade in the growth of the world's population. The decline is accounted for by the "new demographic transition" in the less developed countries (LDCs). The decline in fertility rates began in the 1950s in some LDCs and became more widespread during the 1970s. The process has not yet begun in many of the LDCs. During the 1960s it was observed that the declines in birth rates (to levels of 30 of less per 1000) were occurring mostly in small countries. Many of these countries were islands with levels of social and economic development above the developing country average. The key question is whether the recent downward trend in fertility in LDCs will continue, stabilize at the current level, or rise again. A primary concern about the future is that the poorer and less developed countries will end up with an increasing share of the world's population, with the share of the developed countries declining from 34% to 22% over the 1950-2000 period. Considerable differential exists in demographic growth patterns among various regions. The 12 largest LDCs (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey) contain 55% of the current world population, and the fertility decline of these nations is expected to have the maximum impact. 7 of these countries have had fertility declines of 14-35%. The force of the "population momentum" must also be considered. Most developing country populations have a young age distribution with considerable potential for population growth even after the fertility level reaches a replacement level and the net reproduction rate equals 1.     

What Drives Japanese INGOs to Operate in Latin American Countries?

International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) provide essential aid and public services to less-developed countries. Although most literature focuses on Western INGOs, Asian INGOs have also become globally active. Little is known about what motivates INGOs to provide services in other regions, such as Latin America. In this study, we seek to identify the criteria Japanese INGOs use to select Latin American recipient countries. We propose that Japanese INGO operational location decisions are a function of Japanese foreign policy agenda, Japan-recipient country business relations, and recipient country’s need and liberalization. Using data from Japanese INGOs working in Latin America and 24 Latin American countries on contextual, macroeconomic, and demographic indicators, we find that the significant factors driving INGO decisions to operate in Latin American countries are need and the presence of Japanese businesses in the recipient country. Results have practical implications for foreign aid targeting and economic development.     

wto Agriculture negotiations: implications for the Global South

The Doha ‘Development’ Round of trade negotiations at the wto has featured agricultural trade liberalisation as one of its key aims. But developing countries were frustrated with both the process and the content of the agricultural agreement negotiations early on in the round. This prompted these countries, through a number of developing country groupings such as the G-20 and others, to call for changes in the talks to ensure that developing country voices and concerns were heard. Although developing countries were in many ways successful in registering their concerns in the latter half of the negotiations, and have maintained a fairly high degree of cohesion across the Global South, it remains unclear whether this cohesion will last as the uneven impacts of agricultural trade liberalisation become apparent.     

Outlook for the ‘developing country’ category: a paradox of demise and continuity

In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators (WDI), the World Bank introduced an important change in the way it categorises countries: it explicitly stated the intention to eliminate the distinction of countries as ‘developing’ and ‘developed’. This decision represents the first time one of the world’s most powerful and influential international organisation has overtly decided to move away from this fuzzy-yet-ubiquitous terminology for categorising countries (and not proposing to replace the division). This paper takes this shift to discuss country groupings based on development levels, particularly the ‘developed’/’developing’ dichotomy, focusing on the latter term. The paper argues for a paradoxical scenario, wherein the label ‘developing’ will increasingly become analytically useless while concurrently retaining – or even strengthening – its power in the context of foreign policy strategies. The analysis details the motives behind this paradox and provides a reasoning for when and why the term’s usage is likely to be weakened or strengthened. Simply put, the ‘developed’/’developing’ dichotomy is weakening in its analytical capacity, mostly due to the increasing heterogeneity among countries under the ‘developing’ label and concurrent porosity of ‘boundaries’ between the two categories, while showing little sign of being phased as a term for self-identification.     

A note on the effects of graduation under the US GSP on Africa

The Trade and Tariff Act of 1984 includes a new measure, country graduation, designed to shift a greater share of the benefits of the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) from the more advanced developing countries to poorer beneficiary countries. This note presents estimates of the effects of graduating Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan on the poorest countries of Africa. Our results show that the removal of these four countries will do little to increase the GSP benefits of the African beneficiary countries.     

How representative are brics?

The five countries known as brics, while not homogeneous in interests, values, and policy preferences, do have a common interest in checking US/Western power and influence through collaboration with non-Western powers. They vary considerably but all are ahead of other developing countries on population, military power, economic weight, geopolitical clout, and global reach and engagement. They are unrepresentative of the typical developing country in terms of interest, capacity, and resources, but they can represent the interests and goals of developing countries as a group on those issues for which the North–South division is salient. The diversity within brics, their differences from other developing countries, and their potential to reflect and represent the global South are explored with respect to climate change, finance, trade, aid, human rights and intervention, and development. It remains unclear whether brics can morph from a countervailing economic grouping to a powerful political alternative.     

The geopolitical economy of social policy in the Philippines: securitisation,emerging powers and multilateral policies

Recent geopolitical and economic changes have altered global social policy formation. The Bretton Woods multilateral development agencies (MDAs) have selectively incorporated ideas emerging from developing country states and decision makers, with a recent increased acceptance of social transfers as part of renewed efforts at poverty alleviation based on social risk management. There has been an instance in the use and promotion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) policies by MDAs. CCTs were a product of the emergence of a neo-structuralist welfare regime (understood as an ideal type) in Latin America – an attempt to reconcile neoliberal strategies of development with aspirations for guaranteed minimum incomes. The Bretton Woods and regional development bank MDAs have facilitated the adoption of CCTs in other developing countries, including the Phillipines. Here, a combination of actions by national political actors and MDAs has resulted in the implementation of a securitised and compliance-focused version of CCTs derived from the Colombian security state. Although poor Philippine households welcome income assistance, CCTs have acted to enforce further state monitoring without altering the national-based political and economic processes that replicate poverty.     

Workers’ Compensation and Moral Hazard in Tunisia

Moral hazard is a problem of asymmetric information that plays a central role in numerous contractual relationships and may lead to suboptimal resource allocation. Both ex ante and ex post moral hazard problems in workers’ compensation (WC) have been extensively analysed in developed countries. The main objective of this paper is to test the presence of ex post moral hazard in the Tunisian context. To our knowledge, this is the first analysis on this topic in a developing country, Tunisia. It is particularly important to study moral hazard problems in developing countries, since the negative impacts of such problems could be exacerbated in the developing world. Dionne and St-Michel (1991) have developed a methodology for testing for the presence of ex post moral hazard in the context of a more generous WC regime in Quebec. The Tunisian institutional context that we study is similar to that prevailing in Quebec; that is, in 1995, there was a significant increase in the generosity of the WC regime. Applying a more general econometric technique than that used by Dionne and St-Michel, we find that this increase in the generosity of WC led to longer periods out of work for recovery. This increase is more pronounced in the case of difficult-to-diagnose injuries.     

The impact of MFA phasing out on world clothing and textile markets

Simulations using a world clothing and textile trade model and a new set of estimates of tariff equivalents suggest that the global welfare cost of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) amounted to US$7.3 billion a year in the mid‐1980s. Most of this cost seems to have been inflicted on the established developing country exporters and on major industrial MFA markets. Emerging developing country exporters have also suffered considerably from the MFA but, unlike the established exporters, their losses may have largely occurred in the non‐MFA restricted markets, where export prices have been depressed. Thus, it is in the interest of both industrial and developing countries to eliminate the MFA. The proposed phasing out of the MFA should go ahead as quickly as possible.     

Marketing barriers facing developing country manufactured exporters: A comment

In a recent interesting article, Lall [1991] has noted that conventional export theories tend to neglect the role of marketing barriers to new entrants. In this comment I try to further develop two main ideas. The first is that firms from developing countries may not have the incentive to maintain quality standards. The second is that consumers in developed countries may have a country of origin bias towards new products from developing countries.     

The aid orphan myth

The term ‘aid orphan’ refers to a developing country forgotten or abandoned by the development community. This metaphor has featured prominently in the development assistance policy and research literature over the past decade. Development practitioners, policy makers and researchers have defined aid orphans in manifold ways and often expressed concern over the potential fate or impact of such countries. In this paper we first examine the many definitions of aid orphans and then review the main concerns raised about them. Next we empirically examine more than 40 years of bilateral aid data to identify aid orphan countries and their common characteristics. Our findings suggest that very few countries meet the definition of aid orphan and fewer still raise the concerns collectively expressed about the orphan phenomenon. We conclude by suggesting researchers and practitioners abandon the orphan metaphor and instead focus on issues of equitable aid allocation.