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.
Measuring Prosperity in Regions of the UK
Julian Gough, World Economics, September 2020
This article provides updated estimates of prosperity in regions of the United Kingdom using two measures - GDP per head and Gross Disposable Household Income per head in 2017. Official nominal data on these two measures is deflated by two approximate regional price ind ... More
Enterprise Size Classification in Africa: A Tale of Two Definitions
Eugene Bempong Nyantakyi, World Economics, September 2020
Comparing enterprise size across countries is a key challenge in international development—SME definitions used in international development are often criticised as ineffective and a source of mistargeting of international development resources in the private sector. T ... More
What Shipping Can Tell Us About Europe’s Efforts to Face the Risk of COVID-19-Induced ‘Japanification’
Theodore Pelagidis & Hercules Haralambides, World Economics, September 2020
Shipping leads the ‘dance’ on the way up and if this is indeed true, the post-COVID-19 economic recovery should not be long, if one is to judge from the relative prosperity of containerised shipping as of Q2, 2020. Most EU member states may face a new risk ahead: ‘Japan ... More
The Impact of the Bonus Culture on the UK Economy
Andrew Smithers, World Economics, September 2020
The decline in UK tangible investment since 2000 has led to a sharp decline in labour productivity and the trend growth rate of the UK economy. A similar decline in the USA was caused by the perverse incentives of the bonus culture, but due to poorer statistics the conn ... More
Modern Political Economy and Colonialism: The Case of Bolivia
Michael Chibba, World Economics, September 2020
The November 2019 coup d’état in Bolivia, orchestrated by the armed forces, brought an abrupt end to President Evo Morales’s modern approach to governance and development. The coup also brought a return to colonialism or neo-colonialism. However, the elections slated fo ... More
Evaluating Demographic Paths in the Long Run: Output per Capita and Intergenerational Income Distribution
Ross Guest, World Economics, September 2020
This article is motivated by potential changes to fertility and migration patterns that may result from major global economic and/or health crises such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. The focus is on the long-term effects of changes to fertility and migration on both ... More
Mitigating Economic Losses of Fraud: Data Analytics Perspective
Nitin Singh, World Economics, September 2020
Economic loss caused by fraud has become a subject of concern for countries globally. Digital world also provides data and these can be leveraged to detect and prevent fraud while also applying forensic analytics to recover the loss. Although gathering and collating dat ... More
Funding Economic Development and the Role of National Development Banks: The Case of Cyprus
Helen Kavvadia & Savvakis C. Savvides, World Economics, September 2020
Prior to its privatisation in 2008, the Cyprus Development Bank played an important role in the economic development of Cyprus, intermediating international finance from multilateral development banks. This function was subsequently undertaken by commercial banks, whic ... More
Structural Reform, IMF Conditionality and the ‘Goldilocks Problem’
Graham Bird, World Economics, September 2020
Recent empirical research suggests that structural reform has a significant positive effect on future economic growth. Following the proliferation of structural conditionality in IMF programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, the ‘streamlining’ initiative begun in the early 200 ... More
Monetary and Fiscal Policy Coordination During Fiscal Dominance Regimes
Vighneswara Swamy, World Economics, September 2020
This study empirically examines the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy by using vector auto regressions (VAR) and a vector error-correction model (VECM) and explores the need for coordination. • We also analyse a Stackelberg interaction model with government ... More
Will the Current Money Growth Acceleration Increase Inflation?: An Analysis of the US Situation
Tim Congdon, World Economics, June 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has not only come as a profound shock to the major economies, but also exposed tensions between leading schools of thought. Uncertainty has arisen about the medium- and long-term consequences of the policy responses to COVID-19. Will the pandemi ... More
Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy: A Global Database and the Interaction with the Official One
Leandro Medina & Friedrich Schneider, World Economics, June 2020
The shadow or informal economy covers all economic activities which are hidden from official authorities for monetary, regulatory and institutional reasons. Although widely used, multiple indicator-multiple cause (MIMIC) models have been criticised, and we develop a mod ... More
Measuring EU-Wide Inequality
Michael Dauderstädt, World Economics, June 2020
EU-wide inequality is higher than official figures by Eurostat suggest. With a Gini coefficient of 0.35 and a quintile ratio of 8.4 in 2018 (5.8 at purchasing power parity), it reaches the level of US inequality. This is a major driver of migration and relocation of pro ... More
Is the European Union Failing the Viability Tests?
Andreas V Georgiou, World Economics, June 2020
A union of states is there for various reasons but a fundamental one is to provide public goods that cannot be provided optimally by actions at the level of individual states. Such union-level public goods would be, for example, defence of the union against aggression b ... More
CPI in the Time of Coronavirus
Kam Yu, World Economics, June 2020
The spread of the COVID-19 around the world started in January 2020. Many countries implemented an activity lockdown after the World Health Organization announced pandemic status. Businesses have been ordered by governments to impose severe restrictions on their activit ... More
Hyperinflation in the General Government: German-Occupied Poland During World War II
Steve H. Hanke, Nicholas Krus & Joanna Gawlik, World Economics, June 2020
Newly discovered primary data reveals two previously undiscovered episodes of hyperinflation. They occurred in German-occupied Poland from late 1939 to early 1945. Nazi-occupied Poland, a territory then referred to as the General Government, experienced monthly inflatio ... More
Global Finance and Effectiveness of Macro-Policies
Biagio Bossone, World Economics, June 2020
The Portfolio Theory of Inflation (PTI) incorporates a global perspective on the analysis of macro policy effectiveness. According to the PTI, in open and internationally highly financially integrated economies: The intertemporal budget constraint (IBC) of governments i ... More
Can Money Turn Bad News into Good News?
Jan Libich, World Economics, June 2020
Over the past two decades, monetary policy has been used in unprecedented ways for macroeconomic and financial sector stabilization. This article argues that monetary policy, especially the unconventional measures (quantitative easing) implemented in the post-2008 perio ... More
Quant Bust 2020
Zura Kakushadze, World Economics, June 2020
We explain in a nontechnical fashion why dollar-neutral quant trading strategies (e.g. statistical arbitrage) suffered substantial losses (drawdowns) during the COVID-19 market sell-off. We discuss: (i) why such strategies work during “normal” times; (ii) the market reg ... More
Brazil at a Crossroads: Political Economy, the Coronavirus, and Democracy
Michael Chibba, World Economics, June 2020
The comprehensive impact of the coronavirus has prompted Brazil’s political economy to take shape in a manner which is exposing actions that are not founded on good governance but rather on shenanigans, political manoeuvring and the promotion of personal agendas. This i ... More
The Epidemiology of Economic and Financial Crises
Graham Bird & Eric Pentecost, World Economics, June 2020
The COVID-19 crisis dramatically illustrates how viruses can rapidly spread across the globe with devastating effects. Increasing trade integration during the ‘first wave’ of globalisation provided a conduit through which economic disturbances could be transmitted betwe ... More
Mimicking a Buffer Fund for the Eurozone
Paul van den Noord, World Economics, June 2020
Eurozone fiscal buffer fund could be set up to finance transfers to countries triggered by the cyclical movements in their unemployment rate. Countries would contribute a fixed share of their GDP to the fund in good times. The receipts from the fund are found to signifi ... More
Can Pandemic Bonds Deliver on Their Promise?
Giovanna Maria Dora Dore, World Economics, June 2020
Epidemics are an unpredictable, though, recurrent feature of human history. With seven major outbreaks over the past twenty years, epidemics and pandemics are on the rise, and happening more frequently and closer to one another than before. Lack of funding makes develop ... More
Measuring Happiness Among Egypt’s Youth
Heba Farida Ahmed Fathy El-laithy, Dina Magdy Armanious & Hadir Farag Abo Elazm, World Economics, June 2020
This article aims to assess happiness among young people aged 18–29 years in 2009 and 2014, using a multidimensional Happiness Index among Youth (HIY), based on the Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE). Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are applied to examine the r ... More
Macroeconomic Impact of Eurozone Debt Crisis on India: Sensitivity Analysis Using Measures of Dependency
Vighneswara Swamy, World Economics, June 2020
The eurozone represents a significant market for emerging markets like India; hence, any stagnation or a downturn in the eurozone leaves a dent in their export growth. Sensitivity analysis using measures of direct and indirect export dependency through international pro ... More
Indian Rupee on the Back-Foot Against the British Pound: A Critical Analysis
Suraj E. Sudhakar, Akshika Jain & K.P. Nitha, World Economics, June 2020
In foreign exchange (forex) markets the Indian rupee has fallen against the British pound over a long period, for various reasons. India is the fastest-growing large economy in the world, with a rising middle class that makes it increasingly attractive to British export ... More
Migrant Workers: Business and Employment Opportunities in Kashmir Valley
Aijaz Ahmad Turrey, World Economics, June 2020
This article covers immigrants to the Valley of Kashmir who coma from almost all Indian states despite conflict in the Valley. The Valley is entirely rural in character, having high unemployment but offering jobs and business opportunities to huge number of immigrants. ... More
Self-Help Groups and Women’s Empowerment
Santu Samanta, World Economics, June 2020
This article considers the working and growth of Self-Help Groups and their impact in empowering women in India. We study the activities of Self-Help Groups and identify the employment and livelihood skills of women in these groups. The study covers the operating system ... More
Major Problems Persist with UK Price Inflation Data
World Economics, March 2020
The Economics Affairs Committee of the House of Lords has published a damning report on the measurement of inflation statistics in the UK. The House of Lords Report number 246 Measuring Inflation accuses the UK Statistics Authority of being at risk of a “breach of its ... More
Global Population Data Quality Ratings
World Economics, March 2020
The accuracy of population data varies widely across countries. The most comprehensive data on the number of people living in a territory and their demographic profile, a vital component for public sector economic and social planning and also for private sector needs, i ... More
The Alarming Problems Caused By Misleading Trade Data
World Economics, March 2020
The fact that world exports do not match world imports indicates that there are serious problems with official trade statistics. Far too few economists and politicians will try to understand the murky reality behind these increasingly unreliable data. ... More
The Debate Over the Depreciation of Intangible Capital
Andrew Smithers, World Economics, March 2020
Spending on intellectual property (IP) is classed in national income accounts (NIA) as investment and represents a proportion of total investment as measured. It is, however, rapidly depreciated so that it has only a minor impact on gross domestic product (GDP). Some e ... More
Measuring Modern Business Investment: A Case Study for Germany
Michael Grömling, World Economics, March 2020
An extended concept for intangible investment does not lead to additional investment momentum in the case of Germany. This corresponds to experiences with former extension of investments in national accounts. Also, growth in real GDP and the related labour productivity ... More
Climate Change and Economic Policy
Julian Gough, World Economics, March 2020
Analysis of data for the last two decades showed global temperatures on a plateau and little correlation of global temperatures with the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The so-called ‘consensus’ theory of climate change is currently failing to predict ... More
Tackling the Double Injustice: How Citizens Evaluate Climate and Welfare Policies
Max Koch & Martin Fritz, World Economics, March 2020
Ambitious climate policies have distributional consequences. These require countervailing social policies to keep climate targets acceptable for the electorate. This article analyses data from the European Social Survey as to whether attitudes in relation to climate an ... More
Cryptocurrency Challenges Sovereign Currency
George C. Georgiou, World Economics, March 2020
All national and international monetary structures have evolved to assist in the creation and management of sovereign fiat currencies. This sovereign currency status quo was suddenly upended with the arrival of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in 2008 which introduce ... More
New Theory of the Business Environment: Comprehensive and multidimensional with political economy at its core
Michael Chibba, World Economics, March 2020
Political economy is a core factor in the business environment, where either convergence or divergence are essential characteristics. This paper outlines, with a formula, illustrations and five country ratings, a new theory of the business environment that is comprehens ... More
Fiscal Federalism: Data Analytics Perspective
Nitin Singh, World Economics, March 2020
Goods and service tax (GST) is a value-added tax which is levied on goods and services sold and consumed domestically within a country. Although GST is paid by customers it is remitted to the government by the businesses selling the goods and services. The implementatio ... More
Greek Economy: Between Optimism and Substandard Growth
Theodore Pelagidis, World Economics, March 2020
Is Greece’s economy back to normal after the victory of liberal-conservatives in last summer’s elections? The Greek economy is certainly out of the doldrums but structural problems are still in place. The economy desperately needs foreign capital inflows, the most chall ... More
Coronavirus: The Case for Digital Money?
Zura Kakushadze & Jim Kyung-Soo Liew , World Economics, March 2020
We discuss the advantages of adopting government-issued digital currencies and a supranational digital iCurrency. This will get rid of paper money, a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy re ... More
The Impact of Income and Unemployment on Suicide in Scandinavian Countries
Balash Babayeva, World Economics, March 2020
This article experimentally investigates how economic factors in Scandinavian countries affected the suicide rates between 1991 and 2010. Notwithstanding factors affecting suicide in Scandinavian countries have been studied, there are no studies on the relationship betw ... More
The Socioeconomic Plight of Carpet Weavers of Kashmir
Tariq Ahmad Lone, Tariq Ahmad Bhat & Parveez Ahmad Lone, World Economics, March 2020
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Kashmir handicraft products have earned worldwide fame for their attractive designs, functional utility and high-quality cr ... More