Immigration to Ghana

Abstract

The globalization of international labor migration is manifest in all countries now engaging in migration systems that are growing in size and complexity and producing an increasing diversity of flows. Furthermore, many of the processes that create and drive these systems operate on a worldwide basis, the consequence of economic globalization, capital mobility and widespread realization by governments that human resources can be traded for profit like any other resource.

This paper looks at Ghana's immigration policy in the light of its economic situation. It characterizes Ghana's immigration policy as geared towards using immigration to attract critical foreign investment, transfer of technology and human resource capital/skills for socio-economic development. Running concurrently is the policy to prevent illegal immigration, transnational crime, economic exploitation, social corruption and human trafficking.

The paper concludes that when the economic situation of Ghana was buoyant in the 1960s it attracted many immigrants especially from neighboring West African countries, however when the country's economy saw a down turn, immigrants were used as a convenient scapegoat and many were expelled. The irony though is that while the current poor economic situation of Ghana has made Ghanaians to immigrate to other countries, the political stability of the country does attract other West Africans and non-Africans and it is affording the country the opportunity to streamline its immigration and citizenship laws.     

Tariff liberalization and product standards: Regulatory chill and race to the bottom?

Does tariff liberalization cause regulatory chill by putting downward pressure on health, safety, and environmental standards? Or does it cause a race to the top as governments seek to use standards as nontariff barriers to trade? There remains remarkably little empirical evidence to answer these long-debated questions. We seek to address this lack by analyzing annual country-by-industry data on notifications of changes in sanitary and phytosanitary standards by world trade organization members. Our results suggest that the impact of increased trade pressure depends on whether domestic producers are likely to gain or lose from a change in standards. Regulatory chill is the dominant response in most countries, but countries in which producers can adapt to standards relatively cheaply appear to race to the top. Consequently, tariff liberalization encourages divergence in standards across countries.     

市场经济条件下国企人才管理模式的策略构想

在社会主义市场经济条件下,国有企业在改革中应坚持什么体制,如何经营管理,在人事制度改革中应采用怎样的人才管理模式,一直是经济学家、企业领导者十分关注的重要问题。本文在调查研究的基础上,提出了＂建立优秀的企业文化体系与社会认知系统＂等国有企业人才管理的宏观思路和策略构想,以此为研究国有企业人才资源管理模式的改革提供参。     

Transformation and Upgrading of Professional Market under the Background of Network Economy in Zhejiang

With the coming of internet economic era, the traditional professional market faces a huge shock from the new internet trading mode, which is mainly represented by e-commerce. And this new mode also provides strategic and historic opportunity to the transformation and upgrading of professional market. The utilization of new technology and new model of network to assist the realization of the innovation drive has become a crucial step to promote the transformation and upgrading of professional market. Based on the connotation, significance and the research of current situation of professional market transformation and upgrading in Zhejiang province, three models of transformation and upgrading of the professional market (e-commercialization, globalization and integration) are proposed in this paper from the perspective of innovation theory to make use of the technology, service and supply chain. The research helps to push the upgrading and transformation of professional market in Zhejiang province, lays theoretical foundation to solve the problems such as hard transformation and slow upgrading, and provides strategic reference to promote the implementation of the objective of making Zhejiang province “to go ahead and to seek new”.     

宏观经济相互依存与东亚货币合作可行性

东亚地区存在两个层面的宏观经济相互依存。第一个层面是东亚与美国经济的相互依存,第二个层面是东亚区域内部经济的相互依存。全球性金融危机充分体现了东亚和美国之间经济相互依存的不对称性,而这种不对称性是不能够长期持续的,全球性金融危机促使东亚加强区域、国际的经济协调,验证了相互依存理论的合理性。相互依存的东亚需要通过政策的协调解决宏观经济政策的外部性和溢出效应问题,因而东亚地区进行货币合作的可行性较高。     

Worker Influence on Capital Account Policy: Inflow Liberalization and Outflow Restrictions

How do workers impact openness to international investment flows? This article distinguishes between two types of openness: openness to inflows and openness to outflows of investment. Workers benefit from inflow openness due to increases in wages, productivity, and efficiency and due to reductions in borrowing costs, which are associated with investment inflows. Workers are hurt by outflow openness, as investors gain investment options, and therefore bargaining power, when outflows are permitted. Labor rights help workers overcome collective action problems, and democratic institutions increase policymakers’ responsiveness to labor organizations and make their commitment to labor rights credible. The theory thus predicts that, particularly under democratic institutions, labor rights are positively correlated with inflow openness and negatively correlated with outflow openness. Evidence from time-series, cross-sectional data is consistent with the theoretical expectations.     

Political transformation in Japan as a source of insight

Abstract

This article is based on the assumption that the Japanese political system is fully comparable with the systems of other major systems, and that its analysis may afford useful insights for the understanding of political systems more generally. Its focus is upon five successive transformations of the system since the late nineteenth century that, in sequence and taken together, have created the present system. These are: (1) the revolutionary changes of the Meiji period (1868–1912), leading to modernisation, militarism, and ultimate defeat in war; (2) occupation, democracy, economic resurgence and single-party dominance (1945–1990); (3) low growth, electoral reform and neo-liberalism (1991–2006); (4) Liberal Democratic Party decline and the opposition in power (2006–2012); and (5) authoritarian leadership with weak opposition (2012 onwards). The article concludes with a discussion of three issues: (1) ambiguous aspects of strong leadership; (2) the chronic weakness of Japanese political opposition and its implications for democracy; and (3) the significance of radical transformations for the understanding of a political system.     

2030年全球战略预测

未来20年世界发展演进中将不会出现过往20年间较为典型的剧变和震荡。美国将在创新、金融和军事领域保持全球领导者的地位。中国地位的加强将最大程度地影响到全球权力均衡。以市场经济和民主为基础的全球化意识形态将维持其世界主导思想体系的地位。意识形态将更频繁地与全球的政治、社会经济和文化发展趋势相关联。这将成为未来全球治理意识形态的基础。在2030年前,世界文化体系以及各种文化内核发生大规模变化的可能性极小,同时很难形成创新文化和生产文化占主导地位的全球文化。全球治理的机制和原则将继续形成。世界经济发展的主要动力为创新和全球化。全球化在未来20年将继续推动世界经济的增长。但在预测期的前半段,将始终可以感觉到世界金融经济危机的影响。限制增长的主要因素来自于新的世界经济金融危机以及保护主义的抬头。2011-2030年,世界经济年均增速将达到4.0%到4.5%。中国接近中等发达国家水平并拥有较高的社会经济发展速度是2030年前的主要变化。发达国家和发展中国家的传统划分将发生改变。增长质量和竞争力标准将决定一国在世界经济版图中的地位。中国在GDP规模上至少会接近美国的水平,但GDP中的创新成分及其他质量型的成分方面仍将落后于...     

发展县域文化产业的战略对策思考

县域文化产业是满足人民日益增长的美好生活需要的重要手段,在县域经济社会发展中有着十分重要的作用。发展县域文化产业,需处理好文化产业与文化事业、资源保护与资源开发、经济效益与社会效益的关系。实施项目带动集聚发展、品牌引领先导发展、产业融合联动发展、特色推动差异化发展战略重点。采取改革体制,增强活力;借鉴经验,创新机制;政府扶持,政策支持;集中力量,破解瓶颈等得力措施。