The level of, and trends in, global inequality and global poverty are indicative assessments of who has benefited from economic growth. The revision of price data has led to a reassessment of those estimates. Through an extensive overview of the implications, we argue that the data can be read in different ways. Official estimates show global extreme poverty and global inequality are considerably lower than previously thought. We argue that these changes are much less significant than they at first appear, and we present a more nuanced alternative interpretation by exploring changes across the entire global distribution. 相似文献
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) seeks to deepen economic integration among its members through the SADC free trade area that came into effect in January 2008. The thrust for a progressive reduction of tariff and no-tariff barriers, which the market integration model emphasises, has serious implications for the impact of transport and communication systems on economic integration and development within SADC.
Transport and communications systems have an important bearing on economic integration and development because they can be significant non-tariff barriers. The SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology is the instrument through which transport and communications constraints are to be addressed. Through this protocol, some institutions have been established and others proposed to ensure that projects designed to deepen economic integration and development are implemented effectively.
The neo-functional integration approach is a relevant theoretical framework for analysing transport and communications issues and for implementing joint sectoral projects in areas that impact on overcoming development-related deficiencies in production and infrastructure. Transport and communications fall in this category of projects and the SADC region has benefited from functional co-operation in this sector.
As integration proceeds, polarisation of industries could occur, raising concerns about the distributional effects of economic integration as this affects development. However, polarisation is not inevitable: it depends on transport costs. This might seriously address transport and communications constraints because, if these are greatly reduced and eventually removed, weaker SADC countries need not lose industries to the core with the SADC Free Trade Area in place. 相似文献
This paper aims to provide a coherent analysis of the economic impact accession to the Eurasian Economic Union has had on the economies of current member states and what affect membership would have on the economy of Azerbaijan. By applying a Linear Regression Model we find that membership to this regional bloc has yielded minimal financial benefits for the existing members. However, for most states, accession has increased the trade deficit with Russia and that a membership would likely produce a similar negative outcome for Azerbaijan in addition to undermining national economic and energy policy making. 相似文献
Governments led by nonpartisan, ‘technocratic’ prime ministers are a rare phenomenon in parliamentary democracies, but have become more frequent since the late 1980s. This article focuses on the factors that lead to the formation of such cabinets. It posits that parliamentary parties with the chance to win the prime ministerial post will only relinquish it during political and economic crises that drastically increase the electoral costs of ruling and limit policy returns from governing. Statistical analyses of 469 government formations in 29 European democracies between 1977 and 2013 suggest that political scandals and economic recessions are major drivers of the occurrence of technocratic prime ministers. Meanwhile, neither presidential powers nor party system fragmentation and polarisation have any independent effect. The findings suggest that parties strategically choose technocrat‐led governments to shift blame and re‐establish their credibility and that of their policies in the face of crises that de‐legitimise their rule. 相似文献
What are the relative pros and cons of different pathways of agricultural commercialisation in Africa? This paper examines aspects of three commercial farming cases, each of which represents one of the three most dominant models of commercial agriculture – small-scale outgrowers, medium-size commercial farms and a large estate – in the high-potential area of Meru County in Kenya. The paper provides a comparative perspective across the cases, examining their outcomes in terms of land relations, labour, livelihoods and local economic linkages. The study used a mixed-methods approach, including a household survey and a range of qualitative methods including detailed life histories. We find diverse dynamics across our cases: increasing land consolidation spurred by the rising class of commercial coffee farmers, but also land fragmentation as a result of population pressure and prevalence of inheritance as a pathway to land acquisition in the case of horticultural outgrowers. The plantation generates relatively better paid employment for permanent skilled workers, while the commercial farms create employment for casualised, insecure and poorly paid seasonal labour. These labour regimes are highly gendered. The outgrowers combine family and hired labour. Across the three cases, farmers diversify income between on-farm and off-farm sources. The commercial and outgrower farms are dynamically integrated into the local economy, while the estate is less so. These features of the three models generate processes of social differentiation, which are reshaping the agrarian structure and rural economy in Meru County. 相似文献