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Categories: International trade & investment
Islamic Economics and Finance
Rodney Wilson
Volume 9, Number 1, 2008, pages 177 - 195
This article provides an introduction to key concepts and methods involved in an Islamic approach to business, investment, risk taking and insurance. The prohibition of riba (interest or usury) profoundly influences the way business transactions and investments are made and financial contract ... Read more
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Growth Strategies and Dynamics
Insights from country experiences
Mohamed A. El-Erian & A. Michael Spence
Volume 9, Number 1, 2008, pages 57 - 96
The paper examines the challenges that developing countries face in accelerating and sustaining growth. The cases of China and India are examined to illustrate a more general phenomenon which might be called model uncertainty. As a developing economy grows, its market and regulatory institutions cha ... Read more
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Economic Drivers of Pharmaceutical Investment Location
David Lewis, Edward Bramley-Harker & Joshua Farahnik
Volume 8, Number 3, 2007, pages 171 - 182
The article examines the range of economic factors that underlie decision making about the location of investments by research-based pharmaceutical companies. Set in the context of the commercial challenges facing the industry, structured interviews with 34 senior executives in pharmaceutical compan ... Read more
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The Future of North Korea is South Korea
(Or hope springs eternal)
Marcus Noland
Volume 8, Number 3, 2007, pages 27 - 52
North Korea's famine was in significant part a product of state failure, and unleashed an unintended grassroots process of marketization. Reforms undertaken in 2002 are more usefully interpreted as a response to this development than as a pro-active attempt to improve efficiency, and the government’ ... Read more
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A Dynamic Theory of China–U.S. Trade
Making sense of the imbalances
Amar Bhidé & Edmund Phelps
Volume 8, Number 3, 2007, pages 7 - 25
China's trade surplus with the U.S. is now more than a quarter of the U.S. trade deficit and, with China growing faster than the U.S., raises questions about its future course. Some media commentators term the chronic trade surplus "mercantilist" but offer no persuasive motive for it. Academics taki ... Read more
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On Solving the World’s Economic Problems by Doing Something Unfashionable
Graham Bird
Volume 8, Number 2, 2007, pages 119 - 131
The world currently faces a number of economic problems. These include the large global economic imbalances that may prove to be unsustainable; international poverty, where projections suggest that it is unlikely that the Millennium Development Goals will be achieved; and stalled multilateral trade ... Read more
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Prospects for Commodity Exporters
Hunky Dory or Humpty Dumpty?
Paul Collier & Benedikt Goderis
Volume 8, Number 2, 2007, pages 1 - 15
Those low-income countries that export non-agricultural commodities are in the midst of a resource transfer. It is undoubtedly the biggest opportunity for transformative development that these societies have experienced, dwarfing both aid and previous commodity booms. To get it in proportion, in 200 ... Read more
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The EU, the Middle East, and Regional Integration
Bessma Momani
Volume 8, Number 1, 2007, pages 47 - 56
The European Union’s venture into enhancing trade linkages with the Middle East, as conceived by the 1995 Barcelona Process, had high hopes but failed in producing the intended political and economic deliverables. The Euro–Mediterranean Partnerships were flawed, as they created a hub and spoke tradi ... Read more
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Aid for Trade
An essential component of the multilateral trading system and WTO Doha development agenda
Faizel Ismail
Volume 8, Number 1, 2007, pages 15 - 45
The paper argues that increased Trade and Aid are both essential to enhance the development of many developing countries. It argues further that trade-related technical assistance and capacity building is not only an essential element of the concept of special and differential treatment but i ... Read more
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Challenges to the Multilateral Trading System
Peter Sutherland
Volume 8, Number 1, 2007, pages 1 - 14
Ever since the GATT was established in 1948, the growth in international trade and economic growth has been remarkable. The traditional mercantilism of trade relations is less and less appropriate for the global economy. Bilateral trade deals make the business environment more complex and unpredicta ... Read more
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Agricultural Reform and Trade Negotiations
Can the Doha Round deliver?
Kimberly Ann Elliott
Volume 7, Number 4, 2006, pages 125 - 144
In this essay, Kim Elliott examines the patterns of support for agriculture across countries and commodities in the industrialized world. She then summarizes the approach to reducing trade-distorting support that came out of the Uruguay Round, and concludes with a discussion of the implications for ... Read more
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The Emergence of a Regional Financial Architecture in Asia
Recent developments and prospects
Anthony Elson
Volume 7, Number 3, 2006, pages 167 - 184
This paper provides an assessment of monetary and financial cooperation in Asia since the regional financial crisis of 1997–98, with a view to determining whether the emerging Regional Financial Architecture in Asia is compatible with the global financial architecture and what are the prospects for ... Read more
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From The Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference to the Suspension of the Negotiations
Developing countries reclaim the development content of the WTO Doha Round
Faizel Ismail
Volume 7, Number 3, 2006, pages 133 - 166
This paper makes an assessment of the WTO Doha Negotiations from the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference until the suspension of the Doha Round at the end of July 2006. The paper analyses the events from a development perspective distinguishing between the perspectives of two broad groups of developing ... Read more
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Are We Heading for a Dollar Crisis?
Graham Bird
Volume 7, Number 1, 2006, pages 159 - 174
The US balance of payments current account deficit is in excess of 5 per cent of GDP. Is this sustainable? A loss of confidence in the dollar could lead to foreign investors selling dollars and to a sharp dollar devaluation. In principle, there could be a dollar crisis. But how likely is it? This pa ... Read more
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Trade Policy 2006
A tour d’horizon
Razeen Sally
Volume 7, Number 1, 2006, pages 45 - 71
The global momentum in favour of trade liberalisation has slowed down; and there is more liberalisation-scepticism post-Washington Consensus. Chances are that the Doha Round will either collapse or deliver a very modest result. Both outcomes will leave the WTO in very serious trouble. For the WTO to ... Read more
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Corporate China Goes Global
Friedrich Wu
Volume 6, Number 4, 2005, pages 171 - 181
Recent high-profile international acquisitions and take-over bids by Chinese companies have attracted much media limelight and raised intense interest in China’s rising outward foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper delineates the macro trends of China’s outward FDI based on the most currently ... Read more
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Reserve Accumulation in Asia
Lessons for holistic reform of the international monetary system
Graham Bird & Alex Mandilaras
Volume 6, Number 1, 2005, pages 85 - 99
In the aftermath of the 1997/1998 crisis, Asian economies have built up large holdings of international reserves. Although initially encouraged to do so by the IMF, more recently they have been criticised for maintaining undervalued currencies, running large current account balance of payments su ... Read more
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Keynes, Globalisation and the Bretton Woods Institutions in the Light of Changing Ideas about Markets
Robert Skidelsky
Volume 6, Number 1, 2005, pages 15 - 30
For most of the twentieth century, pessimism about, and hostility to, markets was prevalent and this pulled in an anti-globalist direction. Indeed, the global institutions set up in 1944 were constructed by two market pessimists, John Maynard Keynes, on whom this article concentrates, and Harry D ... Read more
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