World Economics Journal Archive
The contents of all previous issues of World Economics are listed below. Subscribers have access to the complete back issue archive: click on titles to view abstracts and full text of articles (PDF). If you are not a subscriber, sign-up online now.
Governments Manipulate Data
Bruno S. Frey, World Economics, December 2021
Governments widely manipulate official economic and social data—but the public tends to disregard this fact. There is extensive empirical evidence that governments extensively manipulate official data. National statistical offices should be independent of their governme ... More
Was the Impact of COVID on UK GDP Real or Statistical?
Colin Ellis, World Economics, December 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic, and measures to fight it such as lockdowns, took a significant toll on economic activity around the world. In many instances, declines in GDP were the steepest on record, with the UK standing out among advanced economies. However, the extent of th ... More
Rules of Origin as Trade Barriers: Towards a Welfare-oriented Economic Society
Olufunlola Rotimi, World Economics, December 2021
On 2 July 2021 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia clarified, and by so doing fundamentally changed, the rules determining when goods can be said to be a national product originating from within Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. In other words, it changed its rules of o ... More
The Belt and Road Initiative in an Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Adams Bodomo, World Economics, December 2021
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as launched by China since 2013, is the country’s massive signature infrastructure programme, also called One Belt One Road (OBOR) (in Chinese ????). Through the BRI, China has constructed or is constructing about 2,000 infrastructur ... More
De-Carbonising the World Economy
Julian Gough, World Economics, December 2021
Global temperatures for most of the first two decades of the twenty-first century remained on plateau, showing little response to the 13% rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. De-carbonising the world economy, by reducing the burning of fossil f ... More
Analysing the Dynamic Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment and Trade Balance
Taleb A. Warrad & Ade S. Nimri, World Economics, December 2021
The purpose of this article is to examine the dynamic relationship between FDI and the trade balance in Jordan, by using time series data over the period 1975–2020. In it we used two main variables – Jordan’s trade balance (TB) and foreign direct investment net inflows ... More
ESG: The Unsustainable Investment Opportunity…?
Simon Cole, World Economics, December 2021
Corporate prowess in environmental, social and governance (ESG) has little or no merit as an indicator of superior economic returns. The evidence is considerable, pursuit of performance creates cost to the firm and is a constraint to investment opportunity. ESG measurem ... More
Making the AfCFTA Work for ‘The Africa We Want’
Hippolyte Fofack, World Economics, December 2021
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has been touted as an economic and globalisation game changer because it has the potential to transform African economies and significantly raise Africa’s share of global trade to position the region as an increasing ... More
The Case of Andreas Georgiou: A Travesty of Justice
Miranda Xafa, World Economics, September 2021
After facing prosecution for a decade Andreas Georgiou, former President of Greece’s statistical agency (ELSTAT), is now liable to pay damages for defamation to those who produced the infamous ‘Greek statistics’! ... More
How Do Broad Money and the Stock Market Interact in Times of Crisis and of Calm?
David Cronin, World Economics, September 2021
The relationship between the components of the US M2 money stock and the US stock market, represented by the Wilshire Index, between 1980 and early 2021 is considered. Consistent with retail money funds (RMFs) acting as a ‘gateway’ for portfolio adjustment, the results ... More
GDP and GPI Concepts Are Complementary: Towards a Welfare-oriented Economic Society
Mitsuhiko Iyoda, World Economics, September 2021
This article explores the relationship between GDP and the genuine progress indicator (GPI) and examines the possibility of reconciling the two measures. GDP is not an indicator of well-being: to address the welfare perspective, the measure of economic welfare (MEW) was ... More
Would a Patent Waiver for COVID-19 Vaccines Help Achieving Vaccine Equity?
Giovanna Maria Dora Dore, World Economics, September 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic reignited a long-running debate about whether pharmaceutical companies should waive intellectual property (IP) rights for the greater good. Activists, and low- and middle-income countries contend that WTO rules on intellectual property limit develo ... More
Household Consumption and Income Inequality
Vighneswara Swamy, World Economics, September 2021
This article seeks to explore the extent to which household consumption causes income inequality and addresses the questions: (i) is there a linear relationship between household consumption expenditure and income inequality? (ii) what is the causal relationship between ... More
Japan: Investment and Growth
Andrew Smithers, World Economics, September 2021
The Japanese economy has been growing at less than 1% over the past 20 years. This is a marked fall from its previous trend. This decline cannot be explained by any weakness in business investment, which is little changed as a percentage of GDP. I show that the explanat ... More
USA–India FTA: Trade and Strategic Considerations
Siddhartha K. Rastogi, World Economics, September 2021
Free Trade Agreements have gained momentum in a world with a flailing multilateral system of negotiations. The increased might of China has also pushed the global North including the EU and the USA to fall back on increasing direct trade linkages with the global South t ... More
The Convergence of Business and Economics Principles
Michael Chibba & John M. Luiz, World Economics, September 2021
How did Starbucks grow from its origins as a purveyor of roasted coffee beans to its ubiquitous presence, in a few decades, as the leading global coffee chain? What are the business and economics principles of its phenomenal growth? The firm’s rise rests on the mantra a ... More
Corporation Tax
Andrew Smithers, World Economics, June 2021
Corporation tax is a tax on investment. Current plans to increase the rate in the UK and the USA will, if implemented, severely damage their economies. That such self-destructive folly has met little opposition and is seldom even debated results from the weakness of cu ... More
Neutral Interest Rate: A Statistical Estimation
Alfredo Coutiño, World Economics, June 2021
Monetary space is a measure of how close or far away current monetary policy is from the level of neutrality, the condition at which policy is neither restrictive nor expansive. The estimate of monetary space provides a useful metric for policymakers to calibrate monet ... More
The Euro as a Dysfunctional Marriage
Jan Libich, World Economics, June 2021
This article examines the functioning of the euro area with emphasis on the desirability of its further enlargement. This is based on theoretic research regarding optimal currency areas, empirical studies on the euro area in the past 20+ years, as well as historical ex ... More
The Emerging Dynamics of Informal Employment
Bino Paul & Krishna Muniyoor, World Economics, June 2021
Informal employment accounts for a significant proportion of the workforce in less-developed economies, particularly India, and has grown steadily in the past two decades. Using unit-level data from three consecutive employment and unemployment surveys conducted by the ... More
Impact of Lockdown on Informal Workers
Karuturi Preethi Niharika, World Economics, June 2021
The recent pandemic, COVID-19, is not merely a health crisis. It has had a devasting impact on the economy and society as a whole. Lockdowns imposed as a result have temporarily ceased economic activities. It has severely disrupted supply and demand chains in the econo ... More
The Empirics of Borrower Transaction Costs in Models of Financial Intermediation for the Poor
Vighneswara Swamy, World Economics, June 2021
This study explores the determinants of borrower transaction costs of the models of financial intermediation for the poor while they avail of finance from the institutional and informal sources in India. The loan size is an essential determinant of borrower transaction ... More
Is Industrial Structure Moving from Manufacturing towards the Service Sector?: Cross-country Evidence
Sarbapriya Ray & Abhijeet Bag, World Economics, June 2021
Research findings suggest that the service sector’s growth, exports and gross fixed capital formation are having statistically significant favourable impact on GDP growth in six selected economies—India, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the USA, the United Kingdom—a ... More
Robert Mundell, 1932–2021: Ahead of His Time
Miranda Xafa, World Economics, June 2021
Mundell pioneered the theory that serves as the basis for the design and implementation of economic policies in open economies. The launch of the euro was based on his work on “optimum currency areas”, and the late-twentieth century US economic boom was based on his the ... More
China’s State-Owned Enterprises and Competitive Neutrality
Alicia García Herrero & Gary Ng, World Economics, March 2021
The growing size of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and closer global linkages mean whether China can achieve competitive neutrality in creating a level-playing field is key for the world. Our results support the view that China’s competitive environment is poor ... More
Modern Monetary Theory and the Policy Response to COVID-19
Graham Bird, Eric Pentecost & Thomas D. Willett, World Economics, March 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about the design of fiscal and monetary policy to assist economic recovery. Modern monetary theory (MMT) strongly argues in favour of substantial and fairly persistent fiscal expansion, claiming that there is neither a near-ter ... More
Is Monetary Policy Aging?
Azhar Iqbal, World Economics, March 2021
This article proposes a framework to quantify the magnitude of monetary stimulus offered during a recession. We estimate that, over the past 30 years, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) offered larger incentives and for a longer duration during a recession than in ... More
Bitcoin, Tesla and GameStop Bubbles as a Flight to Focal Points
Jan Libich & Liam Lenten, World Economics, March 2021
This article discusses the current bull runs in many assets such as Bitcoin, Big Tech and the meme stocks, concluding that they are very likely bubbles (well above their fundamental value). We then highlight a unique set of circumstances due to which the duration, magni ... More
Estimating the Effects of some Uncommon Free Trade Agreements on India’s Exports, Imports and Trade Volume
Suadat Hussain Wani, World Economics, March 2021
This study endeavours to examine the impact of Free Trade Agreements on the trade volume of India with Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and ASEAN countries. These countries were selected given their level of development and importance in total trade of India. The study evaluat ... More
Bank Resolution and Crisis Preparedness in Unprecedented Times
Demet Çanakçı, World Economics, March 2021
This article looks into the challenges ahead for deposit insurers and underscores the urgency of testing contingency planning and crisis management frameworks at national and system-wide levels, and the importance of communication, cooperation and coordination at home a ... More
COVID-19 and Adoption of Digital Payments in India
Sandeep Kaur & Nidhi Walia, World Economics, March 2021
The objective of this research is to explore the impact of COVID-19 on digital transactions in India and related research issues. From results of a paired sample t test, it has been observed that COVID-19 had significant impact on use of digital payments. Challenges su ... More
Multidimensional Deprivation in Egypt
Heba Farida Ahmed Fathy El-laithy & Noha S. Omar , World Economics, March 2021
This paper aims at constructing an MPI for Egypt tailored to its deprivation aspects, and at monitoring simultaneous deprivations that adversely affect Egyptian people and poor. It adds the employment and social insurance dimension, which is generally the sole means of ... More
Democracy, Economy, and Politics in Latin America: Analysis, evidence, and lessons on Bolivia and Brazil
Michael Chibba, World Economics, March 2021
From economic and political perspectives, freedom is the central concept in democracy. The economic and political background, and evidence from Bolivia and Brazil, show that democracy was briefly tested in Bolivia, but in Brazil it continues to face profound challenges. ... More