How Vulnerable are Arab Countries to Global Food Price Shocks?

Abstract

We estimate pass-through effects of international food price movements into domestic food prices for 18 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, using threshold regressions. International price movements transmit to various degrees into domestic prices. Transmission is mostly asymmetric, pushing domestic price levels up as increases in international food prices are typically passed through, but declines are rarely transmitted. This situation is indicative of policy and market distortions, notably the presence of food subsidies in the context of fiscal constraints. Hence, both international prices and their volatility matter for domestic inflation, yet domestic factors also play a role.     

Ideology, Telos, and the “Communist Vanguard” from Mao Zedong to Hu Jintao

This work discusses why Marxist vanguard parties require ideology in their struggle to gain and maintain political power. Despite being considered theoretically inconsistent with classical Marxism and western vernacular, I chart etymologically how “ideology” came to China and proliferated during the Mao era as a positively framed term via, in all likelihood, Japanese renderings of Leninism. After discussing ideological challenges under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, I explore whether Hu Jintao’s scientific development and harmony concepts might be understood as ideological campaigns which—by synthesizing Maoist and Dengist approaches to ideology—effectively address what otherwise be referred to as the Party’s telos problem, and thus resolve in part the threat to the Party’s vanguard claim.

America's Anti-China Human Rights Hype

正As U.S. President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken attempt to rebrand post-Donald Trump America through new policies and narratives at home and abroad, the topic of "human rights" has become, once again, a focal point of Washington’s propaganda. China should welcome this discussion and join it robustly.     

Greeting A Brand-New Year

Six lessons for the international community to take As we move into the new year with cautious optimism while still facing lingering challenges from 2020, the annus horribilis, and prepare for other challenges, including global warming and those that have not yet emerged but surely will, here are six intersecting lessons to consider as we continue containment and recovery efforts.     

Good Leadership and Common Prosperity

正Beijing recently released a new white paper providing a comprehensive overview of a multitude of efforts to achieve a xiaokang, or moderately prosperous, society, on schedule in 2021, coinciding with the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China(CPC). First described in the modern era by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, subsequent generations of Chinese leadership made this concept central to national development goals.     

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Over the many years of accelerated economic growth in China,there has been a general tendency in m any corners to fetishize GDP growth rates as paramount indicators of economic developm ent The simple logic of "bigger is better" has always been an easy sell to citizens and investors alike,and particularly in the wake of China’s joining the WTO,it has been the story above all others,arguably,that has captivated international attention,along with the persistent concern that at some point,those rates would decline and then,perhaps,all bets would be off.     

The exchange rate and the balance of trade: The Turkish experience

In this article, we examine the responsiveness of Turkey's trade balance to devaluation accompanied by trade liberalisation. Our results show that the trade balance was responsive to changes in the exchange rate that were brought about by the economic reforms introduced in the 1980s, suggesting that exchange rate policy was able to create and maintain a satisfactory balance of trade position in the 1980s and early 1990s.     

Size and Local Democracy: the Case of Czech Municipal Representatives

The municipal structure of the Czech Republic experienced a wave of fragmentation after the fall of the communist regime. As a result, most Czech municipalities today have populations of only a few hundred inhabitants. This situation creates specific conditions for the democratic functioning of local representative bodies. In this paper we focus on two features of Czech local government. First, we deal with electoral competitiveness in Czech municipalities; second, we analyse councillors' accountability to voters, their readiness to stand for re-election and their electoral success in successive elections. Based on an analysis of data on individual candidates and elected councillors in four successive terms, we demonstrate that the willingness to stand for election and re-election does not decrease over time; however, the choice among different candidates is limited in the smallest municipalities. Thus, the data show a reduced willingness to stand for re-election and an extraordinarily high chance of re-election in smaller municipalities. This finding weakens the general assumption about higher accountability of elected officials in small municipalities. On a more general level, we conclude that Czech local government has some features of small political systems with infrequent occurrence of major election conflicts.     

Evaluating the Xi-Biden Summit

The virtual summit has come and gone and what has it changed? Virtually nothing. We had good reason to believe that more would be accomplished. Admittedly, the original meeting read-outs were relatively sparse, and new details emerged in the days that followed, indicating that more was said and done than either side initially conveyed. But the key questions facing us now are: Why did we expect more; why didn't we get it; and what does all of this mean for China-U.S. relations going forward?     

DANGERS OF DECOUPLING AMID THE VIRUS

While the current novel coronavirus outbreak continues to affect many in China,loom ing questions remain regarding global im pacts related to health,econom ics and geopolitics.Given current scie n tific understandings of the disease,including its transm ission rates and associated morbidity and mortality(and despite multiple studies indicating a relatively low fatality rate),the costs for China and in particular,Wuhan,the outbreaks epicenter,continue to be substantial.