Tariffs and economic development: Some theoretical issues 1

There is evidence to suggest that in Brazil import substituting industrialization has brought an increased dependence on the foreign sector. Further growth is highly dependent upon the ability to increase exports, and economic policy exercises an important function in such export expansion. In an attempt to analyse the behaviour of manufactured exports, a regression model, complemented with in‐depth interviews with individual firms, is posited and tested with Brazilian data. In analysing policy variables and other determining factors in terms of their effects on manufactured export performance, it is found that exchange rate policy, tax incentives, LAFTA, and a recession‐boom effect have all played important roles in shaping Brazilian industrial export growth.     

Foreign Direct Investment Spillovers and Productivity Growth in Indonesian Garment and Electronics Manufacturing

Inflows of foreign direct investment generate externalities that spill over to domestic firms and raise their productivity. This article examines the extent of spillover effects of foreign direct investment for firms in the highly disaggregated garment (ISIC 3221) and electronics industries (ISIC 3832) in Indonesia. Both are export-intensive industries, but differ greatly in technological sophistication and labour intensity. Changes in both the productivity level and rate of growth in each industry are decomposed into the effects of technological change, technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change and then the impacts of spillovers on each component and on total productivity are estimated. The findings suggest that foreign direct investment generates a positive effect on total productivity change, technical efficiency change, technological change, and scale efficiency change in the garment industry. In contrast, foreign direct investment contributes significantly negatively to total productivity, technological change and scale efficiency change, but has no significant effect on technical efficiency change in the electronics industry.     

Reorienting development administration

Development By People: Citizen Construction of a Just World. By Guy Gran. New York: Praeger, UK distributor Holt‐Saunders, 1983. Pp.xxiv + 480. £34.50 and £9.95.ISBN 0 03 063294 3 and 063296 X.

No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective. By Goran Hyden. London: Heinemann, 1983. Pp.xv + 223. £12.50 and £4.95. ISBN 0 435 96303 1 and 96302 3.

Development Projects as Policy Experiments: An Adaptive Approach to Development Administration. By Dennis A. Rondinelli, London: Methuen, 1983. £10.95 and £4.95. Pp.ix + 167. ISBN 0 416 73630 0 and 73640 8.

The Challenge of Integrated Rural Development in India: A Policy and Management Perspective. By Gerald E. Sussman. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, UK distributor Bowker, 1983. Pp.xvi + 178. £22. ISBN 0 86531 922 7.     

Feature reviews

China is now the world's second largest oil consuming nation. China's external quest for oil has thus generated much attention and is believed by many to destabilise the world order. This article attempts to provide an overview of China's external initiatives for satisfying domestic oil demands and to examine the implications of China's oil diplomacy on regional and global political stability. The article suggests that China has taken three steps to satisfy its growing domestic demand for oil—expanding overseas oil supplies from the Middle East, diversifying its importing sources by reaching out to Africa, Russia, Central Asia and the Americas, and securing oil transport routes. This article argues that China's oil diplomacy strengthens its ties with oil-producing nations and complicates those with oil-importing nations. Nevertheless, contrary to pessimistic predictions, China's oil diplomacy has neither upset the USA's fundamental policies towards Iraq and Iran, nor has it generated armed clashes in the South China Sea. China has largely accommodated the USA in these areas and has forged joint efforts in energy exploration with its Asian neighbours, except for Japan. China's benign oil diplomacy can be explained by the minor role of oil imports in its energy consumption and, more importantly, by China's peaceful-rise strategy.     

Reframing Democracy: Governance, Civic Agency, and Politics

Developments in public affairs that stress governance— not simply government—hold possibilities for reframing democracy. Governance intimates a paradigm shift in the meaning of democracy and civic agency—that is, who is to address public problems and promote the general welfare? The shift involves a move from citizens as simply voters, volunteers, and consumers to citizens as problem solvers and cocreators of public goods; from public leaders, such as public affairs professionals and politicians, as providers of services and solutions to partners, educators, and organizers of citizen action; and from democracy as elections to democratic society. Such a shift has the potential to address public problems that cannot be solved without governments, but that governments alone cannot solve, and to cultivate an appreciation for the commonwealth. Effecting this shift requires politicizing governance in nonpartisan, democratizing ways and deepening the civic, horizontal, pluralist, and productive dimensions of politics.     

Predators and the Public Interest — the 'Big Four' and Multi–Disciplinary Practices

This article explores the growing body of professional and academic support for Multi–disciplinary Practices (MDPs) which combine the provision of legal, accounting, financial, and other 'professional' services. In doing so, it traces the development of MDPs in the UK and assesses the leading claims which have been advanced in favour of these 'one stop' providers. It is suggested that support for MDPs is located within the emergence of a new professional paradigm which places a high premium on quality of service and the resolution of complex problems and is based on a narrow conception of the public interest which is closely if not solely associated with promoting consumer welfare. This, itself, is rooted in a deregulatory vision of the world – that is, the view that the breaking down of barriers (professional, legal, and cultural), which restrict competition and impede consumer choice, is in the 'public interest'. The article challenges these views, arguing that many of the alleged consumer benefits which are said to flow from the formation of MDPs are at best speculative and that, in any case, a proper conception of the public interest is one which extends beyond a narrow concern for consumer interests.