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.
Savings for the Poor: Banking on mobile phones
Ignacio Mas, World Economics, December 2010
This paper reviews the relevance of formal financial services – in particular, savings – to poor people, the economic factors that have hindered the mass-scale delivery of such services in developing countries, and the technology-based opportunities that exist today to ... More
A Rising Consumer Class: A perspective on India
Manish Sonthalia, World Economics, December 2010
India has had two stages of growth, both related to consumption since 1947. The first was based on developing economic self sufficiency; the second on rising disposable income. It is now entering its third period of consumption growth which sees it entering the world st ... More
Trade and Growth in the Post-Crisis World
Ronald U. Mendoza, World Economics, December 2010
Countries that have most successfully used trade as part of a high growth strategy tend to exhibit a distinct trading pattern that maximises learning. The evidence points to three main strategies: first, trading itself matters, as firms learn from a larger market; secon ... More
The Unfolding Sovereign Debt Crisis
Bob McKee, World Economics, December 2010
After the excessive expansion of new forms of private sector credit over two decades of disinflation, a huge pyramid of global liquidity was accumulated. That sparked a boom in asset prices (stocks, bonds and real estate) way beyond anything experienced in the growth of ... More
The Euro Crisis: It isn’t just fiscal and it doesn’t just involve Greece
Clas Wihlborg, Thomas D. Willett & Nan Zhang, World Economics, December 2010
The crisis in Greece and other mainly southern Eurozone countries has been discussed primarily as a fiscal issue. Current account deficits of the same countries have received less attention in spite of the relatedness of current account and fiscal deficits. We argue tha ... More
Financial Crises and Social Spending: The impact of the 2008–2009 crisis
Maureen Lewis & Marijn Verhoeven, World Economics, December 2010
Financial crises in developing and transition countries have often proven disruptive to policies and programmes due to procyclical trends in government spending growth. Given the importance and significant proportion of public budgets devoted to education and health, cu ... More
Why Hasn’t the US Economic Stimulus Been More Effective?: The debate on tax and expenditure multipliers
F. Gerard Adams & Byron Gangnes, World Economics, December 2010
Recently questions have been raised about the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus policies, and about whether stimulus to a recessionary economy should be in the form of tax cuts or expenditure increases. This paper evaluates alternative empirical approaches to measuring t ... More
The IMF and the Challenges it Faces
Graham Bird & Dane Rowlands, World Economics, December 2010
From being widely seen in early 2008 as an institution in decline and irrelevant to many of the problems then facing the world economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has more recently been presented as an international financial institution that is of essential ... More
It’s Time to Retire the US Military’s Retirement System
Chris Springer, World Economics, December 2010
The author outlines a retirement system for the most expensive government organisation in the world – the US military. The plan incorporates positive aspects of both defined benefit and defined contribution plans that cost less and are more valuable to service members t ... More
José De Gregorio on Howard Davies and David Green: Banking on the Future. The Fall and Rise of Central Banking
World Economics, December 2010
![Luca Einaudi on Paolo Guerrieri and Domenico Lombardi (eds): L’architettura del mondo nuovo, governance economica e sistema multipolare [The Architecture of the New World, Economic Governance and Multipolar System]](https://www.worldeconomics.com/images/CMS/LoadedContent/ArticleIcons/450.jpg "Luca Einaudi on Paolo Guerrieri and Domenico Lombardi (eds): L’architettura del mondo nuovo, governance economica e sistema multipolare [The Architecture of the New World, Economic Governance and Multipolar System]")
Luca Einaudi on Paolo Guerrieri and Domenico Lombardi (eds): L’architettura del mondo nuovo, governance economica e sistema multipolare [The Architecture of the New World, Economic Governance and Multipolar System]
World Economics, December 2010
Scott A.J. MacDonald on Niall Ferguson: High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg
World Economics, December 2010
Paying the High Price of Active Management: A new look at mutual fund fees
Ross M. Miller, World Economics, September 2010
Financial economists have long known that actively managed mutual funds underperform comparable index funds and that investment management fees are a major contributor to this underperformance. This article shows that the impact of mutual fund fees is even greater when ... More
Faulting Internationally Coordinated Fiscal Stimulus
Anthony J. Makin, World Economics, September 2010
Fiscal policy has been actively deployed globally by G20 governments to counter the impact of the global financial crisis on the real sectors of their economies. This coordinated fiscal response has involved a mix of new public expenditure, including on infrastructure, ... More
The Eurozone: What Now?
Graham Bird, World Economics, September 2010
The financial and economic crisis in Greece in 2009/2010 has reawakened interest in the future of the euro and the eurozone. After briefly explaining its sources, this article focuses on the longer-term issues to which the crisis gives rise. It explores the underlying w ... More
The Temptation for Protectionism and American Trade Policy
Robert Carbaugh & Tyler Prante, World Economics, September 2010
The Great Recession of 2007–2009 originated in the United States and quickly spread throughout the economies of Canada and Europe. Soon these countries imported fewer goods produced by emerging countries and the crisis became global. International trade collapsed at a p ... More
Regionalising Infrastructure Reform in Developing Countries
Ioannis N. Kessides, Roger G. Noll & Nancy C. Benjamin, World Economics, September 2010
The principal conclusion of this essay is that regionalisation of infrastructure regulation (i.e. the creation of supranational regulatory authorities such as WATRA or ECTEL) is likely to yield significant benefits that go beyond exploiting economies of scale in both in ... More
Economic Growth in Venezuela: Policies vs oil wealth
Claudio Paiva, World Economics, September 2010
This paper presents an empirical analysis of Venezuela’s economic growth in
the last several decades, providing possible explanations for the country’s weak
performance relative to its peers. First, a growth accounting exercise uncovers
a long, negative trend in tota ... More
Global Financial Crisis: A mid-year review of progress to date
Priya Nandita Pooran, World Economics, September 2010
This article reviews the degree of progress in financial regulatory reform and proposes new areas for inclusion in the reform agenda. It assesses the changes and responses to the proposed structure in the European Union and further discusses current responses to the fin ... More
The Collapse of Global Trade: What a tangled web we weave
Ann Spehar, World Economics, September 2010
A unique feature of the financial crisis is the unprecedented collapse in global world trade. The objective of this paper is to explain some of that collapse as a move towards protectionism triggered not by nationalistic interests but by ‘competing’ objectives among tra ... More
The Work of Angus Maddison: Angus Maddison (1927–2010)
Sir Alan Peacock, World Economics, September 2010
The late Angus Maddison (1927-2010) made an outstanding contribution to economics and economic history. Following a career as a senior economist in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) he worked on a monumental statistical analysis of the hi ... More
Building on Angus Maddison’s Work
David Henderson, World Economics, September 2010
Angus Maddison died last April. As can be seen on his website, he left an impressive legacy of books, articles and tables of key figures. For many, his single most notable and distinctive contribution is the set of tables entitled Statistics on World Population, GDP ... More
Özlem Öz on World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography
World Economics, September 2010
Keith Boyfield on Paul Collier: The Plundered Planet
World Economics, September 2010
Brian Sturgess on Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner: Superfreakonomics
World Economics, September 2010
Debt and Deleveraging: The global credit bubble and its economic consequences
Susan Lund & Charles Roxburgh, World Economics, June 2010
In this article, McKinsey Global Institute researchers assess the increases in debt and leverage in ten mature economies and four emerging economies – breaking down that data by each country’s financial, household, non-financial business and government sectors. The auth ... More
Clearing the Fog: How useful are short-term economic indicators?
Simon Hayes & James Ashley, World Economics, June 2010
Official statistical agencies produce a number of data series that are more timely and of higher frequency than the published estimates of GDP growth. There are also numerous private-sector measures and surveys that provide a running commentary on economic developments. ... More
Greece and the State: Prometheus Bound?
Michael Massourakis, World Economics, June 2010
Pervasive state intervention in Greece has mired the economy with large-scale inefficiencies and an uneven playing field, protecting insiders and rent-seekers to the detriment of its underlying growth potential, with the political class at the same time failing miserabl ... More
Greek Economic Statistics: A Decade of Deceit: So how come the rating agencies missed it again?
Brian Sturgess, World Economics, June 2010
This paper looks at the recent problems in official Greek economic data on public finances, whose reliability has been impaired by inappropriate accounting methods, the application of poor statistical methods and deliberate misreporting. Data on deficits and debt have b ... More
The Economic Crisis and the Commonwealth: A review with analysis and solutions
Michael Chibba, World Economics, June 2010
This paper reviews the nature of the economic crisis and discusses its impact on the Commonwealth. Further, it offers an analysis and suggestions on how Commonwealth nations can move forward to both tackle the impact of the crisis and prepare for the post-crisis period, ... More
The International Financial Architecture: Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds, World Economics, June 2010
The global financial crisis requires a global solution. A deep-seated overhaul of the international financial system is needed, but could be frustrated by political wrangling, particularly in the United States, but also in the European Union. Moreover, international coo ... More
A Tale of Two Crises
Harold Lind, World Economics, June 2010
The paper argues that many erroneous conclusions derived from modelling are due to mistakes in logic rather than scientific methodology. The widely accepted models predicting the catastrophic consequences of carbon emissions, and suggesting how cuts by the developed wor ... More
Green Stimulus, Green Recovery and Global Imbalances
Edward B. Barbier, World Economics, June 2010
This paper assesses the extent to which G20 green stimulus initiatives enacted during the 2008–9 recession have instigated a global ‘green recovery’, and how further green recovery policy initiatives by the G20 relate to concerns about chronic fiscal deficits and global ... More
Vietnam: From Transitional State to Asian Tiger?: Issues of the Vietnamese economic transformation experience
F. Gerard Adams & Anh Le Tran, World Economics, June 2010
Putting aside the legacy of its unique history, Vietnam has achieved an excellent growth record. But it is still far behind the leading East Asian economies. We consider the Vietnamese growth strategy in light of the controversies about ‘accumulation vs assimilation’ an ... More
To the editors of World Economics
Tim Congdon
World Economics, June 2010
Keith Boyfield on Dambisa Moyo: Dead Aid
Keith Boyfield
World Economics, June 2010
John Williamson on Carol Graham: Happiness Around the World
John Williamson
World Economics, June 2010
George Soros’ Reflexivity and the Global Financial Crisis
Thomas D. Willett
World Economics, June 2010
Narrow Banking
John Kay, World Economics, March 2010
The credit crunch of 2007–8 was the direct and indirect result of losses incurred by major financial services companies in speculative trading in wholesale financial markets. The largest source of systemic risk was within individual financial institutions themselves. Th ... More
Monetary Policy at the Zero Bound: A discussion of the effectiveness of monetary policy, with comments on contributions from Keynes, Krugman and Bernanke
Tim Congdon, World Economics, March 2010
The main conclusion of the paper is that – even if bank lending to the private sector is falling (and destroying money balances) at a zero short-term interest rate – the monetary authorities can always increase the quantity of money (broadly defined to include all bank ... More
The Failures of Economics and the Emerging New Economics
Michael Chibba, World Economics, March 2010
The current economic and financial crisis has exposed several weaknesses in economics that emanate from oversimplification of reality, the role of ideology, and the failure to consider culture and governance matters. In addition, tackling poverty and inequality in econo ... More
Global Imbalances, the Financial Crisis and the International Monetary System
Ignazio Visco, World Economics, March 2010
Even though the proximate causes of the crisis lie in previous financial excesses, the extent to which these have developed owes much to fundamental sources of vulnerability present in the global macroeconomic environment. However, imbalances and asset price misalignmen ... More
Special Drawing Rights: How Fashions Change
Graham Bird, World Economics, March 2010
From a situation as late as 2008, when they were largely unfashionable, special drawing rights (SDR s) have become the centre of attention in discussions about a reformed international monetary system. The G20 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have backed a sign ... More
The Return of the 1970s?: Trade, globalisation and emerging protectionism since the crisis
Fredrik Erixon & Razeen Sally, World Economics, March 2010
The global economic crisis, and governments’ responses to the crisis, did not precipitate a descent into 1930s-style protectionism. That is a relief. But it provides no refuge from policy measures that will slow down globalisation and growth in the next decade. ‘Creepin ... More
Finance, Technology and Multinationals from the Periphery: An analysis of the Latin American experience
Edmund Amann & Werner Baer, World Economics, March 2010
This article analyses the emergence of Latin American multinational corporations (MNCs), with a particular emphasis on the roles of finance and technology. It is established that the need to acquire foreign technology and finance has played a key role in the emergence o ... More
The Chinese Renminbi (Yuan): A new global currency in the making?
Friedrich Wu, Pan Rongfang & Wang Di, World Economics, March 2010
This paper is a tentative endeavour to delineate the potential of the renminbi to become a global currency. It first analyses the critical economic, financial and policy attributes that are required to support a currency to gain an international role. It then examines w ... More
Carbon Commitments Must Translate into Real Action
Andrew Raingold, World Economics, March 2010
The efforts of political leaders to negotiate a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions highlights the importance of consistent action at the domestic level. To gauge the efficacy of any international agreement and subsequent reductions, a clear, consistent and comp ... More
Maddison and Wu: ‘Measuring China’s Economic Performance’
Yuri Dikhanov & Eric V. Swanson, World Economics, March 2010
Angus Maddison and Harry Wu (2008) claim that, in 2003, China’s GDP was 73% of that of the United States on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis. Rejecting the results of the 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP), they construct their own PPP using a 1986 GDP est ... More
F. Gerard Adams on David Wessel: In Fed We Trust
World Economics, March 2010