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.
India’s Post-Liberalisation Blues
Deepak Lal, World Economics, December 2011
This article first explains why India’s recent form of rent seeking has not damaged its growth performance. Second, it argues that India’s recent embrace of Latin American style populism could lead to a ‘growth collapse’. Third, the entitlement economy being created fro ... More
Raising Consumption, Maintaining Growth and Reducing Emissions: The objectives and challenges of China’s radical change in strategy and its implications for the world economy
Nicholas Stern, World Economics, December 2011
China’s 12th five-year plan represents a radical change in strategy. China now sees its future growth within this strategy and accordingly as driven by: a rising share of consumption; moving to a low-carbon economy; and innovation. Two indicators are examined – capital ... More
Counting the Bottom Billion: Measuring the Wealth and Progress of African Economies
Morten Jerven, World Economics, December 2011
What do the statistics from the international databases tell us about income and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa? Less than we would like to think. The article takes a starting point in per capita GDP estimates in Africa. Recently, Ghana announced a revision of its GDP sta ... More
The Shadow Economy Labour Force: What do we (not) know?
Friedrich Schneider, World Economics, December 2011
In this paper, the main focus lies on the development and size of the shadow economy labour force in OECD, developing and transition countries. Besides informal employment in the rural and non-rural sector, other measures of informal employment like the share of employe ... More
Economic and Monetary Union Governance: A Post-Crisis Assessment
Irene Kyriakopoulos, World Economics, December 2011
The global financial crisis has exposed serious flaws in the economic governance of the Eurozone. The crisis has accelerated pre-existing divergence in the performance of member states in terms of economic growth, unemployment and inflation. Economic and Monetary Union ... More
Greece and Ireland: A comparison of their economic policies and economic prospects
Michael Mitsopoulos & Theodore Pelagidis, World Economics, December 2011
In this short paper, we deal with a comparison of the economic policies that Ireland and Greece have followed since the early 1990s on four fronts. We do that in four sections correspondingly. We begin with the general macroeconomic environment and policies’ comparison. ... More
Currency Wars: Rhetoric and Reality
Graham Bird & Thomas D. Willett, World Economics, December 2011
The concept of ‘currency wars’ has come into popular use in recent years. This article examines various meanings of the phrase and its historical antecedents. It goes on to discuss why currency wars have become the focus of attention and the economic policy weapons that ... More
Foreign Assistance and Economic Growth: Evidence from Pakistan 1972-2010
Muhammad Abdul Wahab & Vaqar Ahmed, World Economics, December 2011
This paper examines the relationship between foreign assistance and economic growth for the period 1972 to 2010. Past literature indicates that, due to low domestic resource mobilisation, Pakistan had to resort to various forms of foreign assistance on a regular basis. ... More
Does Government Spending Crowd Out Private Consumption and Investment?: Theory and some empirical evidence
Davide Furceri & Ricardo M. Sousa, World Economics, December 2011
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the existence of crowding-out versus crowding-in effects. It also provides some new empirical evidence on the effect of changes in government spending on private consumption and investment by using a panel o ... More
The Diseconomies of Terrorism
Peter J. Phillips, World Economics, December 2011
The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) contains many active and inactive terrorist groups. The defining characteristic of the terrorist groups contained in the GTD is smallness. Unlike the modern business enterprise, for example, there appears to be no trend towards ‘bigne ... More
Keith Boyfield on Stephen Ellis: Season of Rains: Africa in the World. Diane Flaherty and Bill Gibson on Sylvia Nasar: Grand Pursuit:: The Story of Economic Genius.
World Economics, December 2011
Currency Valuation and Purchasing Power Parity
Jamal Ibrahim Haidar, World Economics, September 2011
This paper aims to highlight key limitations of The Economist magazine’s Big Mac Index (BMI). The Economist markets the BMI as a tool to determine valuation of currencies. This paper shows that the BMI is a misleading measure of currency valuation for econ ... More
Should Argentina be Welcomed Back by Investors?
Arturo C. Porzecanski, World Economics, September 2011
The search for higher yields has prompted bond investors to venture into increasingly risky territory, such as single-B-rated credits – Argentina among them, the country involved in the largest sovereign default in history. In the author’s view, investors should approac ... More
The Argentine Productivity Slowdown: The challenges after global financial collapse
Ariel Coremberg, World Economics, September 2011
The purpose of this working paper is to analyse the main causes of economic growth in Argentina during the 1990–2006 period. This research proposes a methodology in order to identify Total Factor Productivity (TFP) gains in the strict sense of positive shifts in the pro ... More
House Price Indices: Does Measurement Matter?
Mick Silver, World Economics, September 2011
A key factor in understanding the global recession is movements in residential property price indexes (RPPIs). Of concern is that more than one national RPPI is often compiled and disseminated for a country, each differing in regard to their methodology, and thus result ... More
Indian Wholesale and Consumer Price Indices
Brian Sturgess, World Economics, September 2011
The Central Statistics Office of the Government of India launched a new Consumer Price Index (CPI) which will start producing consumer price inflation estimates from January 2012. The creation of the new index is a delayed response to the findings of the National Statis ... More
The Crisis in Latvia: Reasons and consequences
Igors Kasjanovs & Anna Kasjanova, World Economics, September 2011
Between 2008 and 2010 Latvia – a small country on the Baltic Sea coast and a member of the European Union (EU) – lost a huge 21.7% of its real gross domestic product (GDP). It is one of the largest recent GDP falls not only in the history of the EU, but also globally. B ... More
China Investment Corporation’s Post-Crisis Investment Strategy
Friedrich Wu, Christine Goh & Ruchi Hajela, World Economics, September 2011
China Investment Corporation (CIC) has transformed its initial investment strategy of focusing mainly on the US financial sector during 2007–08 into a new strategy of diversified investments across geography and sectors since 2009. Massive financial losses and domestic ... More
Adjustment in the Global Economy
José De Gregorio, World Economics, September 2011
This article discusses the global adjustment process and the current challenges for policymaking, with a special focus on the asymmetries and their implications for economic policy. It reviews the uneven recovery faced by developed and emerging economies. Emphasis is ma ... More
The Great Depression, the Great Recession and the Next Crisis
Professor Chong-Yah Lim & Hui-Ying Sng, World Economics, September 2011
The paper discusses and pinpoints three strategic factors that led to the global Great Depression of the early 1930s. After the Great Depression, the lessons learned were encapsulated in Keynesianism and Monetarism. The unanticipated and unprecedented global Great Reces ... More
Prospects for the Evolution of Global Reserves
Graham Bird, World Economics, September 2011
The global reserve system has returned to the top of the agenda in debates about international monetary reform. Much of the contemporary discussion draws on familiar issues but it has been given a new relevance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008/09. ... More
Shibley Rahman on Carol Graham: The Pursuit of Happiness: Toward an Economy of Well-Being
Shibley Rahman
World Economics, September 2011
Graham Bird on Fault Lines and Fractures Threatening the World Economy
Graham Bird
World Economics, September 2011
Boosting Infrastructure Investments in Africa
Donald Kaberuka, World Economics, June 2011
The absolute and relative lack of infrastructure in Africa suggests that the continent’s competitiveness could be boosted by scaling up investments in infrastructure. Such investments would facilitate domestic and international trade, enhance Africa’s integration into t ... More
Trade Out of Poverty
Peter Lilley, Clare Short, Sir Menzies Campbell & Michael Hastings, World Economics, June 2011
Integration into the world economy has proven a powerful means for countries to promote economic growth, development, and poverty reduction, and therefore governments need to have a renewed focus on trade policy towards developing countries to help improve the lives of ... More
Connecting the African Continent: Infrastructure, growth and poverty reduction
Peter Dearden, Nemat Shafik & Leonard Tedd, World Economics, June 2011
This paper provides an overview of the contribution of economic infrastructure to growth and human development in Africa. Challenges for infrastructure provision including finance, recurrent costs and public-sector responsibilities are covered, together with assessment ... More
The European Union’s Trade Policies and Africa’s Exports
Olayinka Idowu Kareem, World Economics, June 2011
An important determinant of the sustainability of growth in Africa is the extent to which the continent can exploit the opportunities available from trade. Trade barriers exist to key African exports, which make it difficult for the continent to take advantage of the gr ... More
Malthus Postponed: The potential to promote palm oil production in Africa
Keith Boyfield & Inna Ali, World Economics, June 2011
The authors examine the potential to promote palm oil production in the tropical regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Given world population pressures and soaring food prices, the need to grow more food has never been more urgent. Palm oil cultivation offers one possible rout ... More
A New Challenge: The myriad new opportunities offered by East Africa’s oil and gas basin
Ziwase Ndhlovu, World Economics, June 2011
Over the last five years there has been a noticeable shift in focus among leading oil and gas companies active in the continent of Africa. Rather than focusing on West and North Africa for investment opportunities, there has been a move to explore new prospects in East ... More
Vibrant Africa Continues to Attract: The economic potential of Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa
Funmi Akinluyi, World Economics, June 2011
The global economic crisis of 2007–09 left Sub-Saharan countries relatively unscathed. There are a number of reasons for this, but one crucial factor has been the relative lack of integration of the economies of most Sub-Saharan countries with the world economy. This in ... More
Sub-Saharan Africa: Outlook and challenges
Veronica Kalema, World Economics, June 2011
Sub Saharan Africa’s (SSA’s) growth bounced back to 5% in 2010 following a slowdown to 2.8% in 2009 because of the GFC. Moreover, SSA’s 5-plus growth rate is sustainable. Improvements in domestic fundamentals due to better economic management and improved political stab ... More
Africa’s Water: Big issues with big consequences for a big continent
World Economics, June 2011
Water underpins the whole of Africa’s economy, be it municipal, agricultural, industrial or mining, and is, unfortunately, often a critical factor in limiting economic growth or peace and stability. Aside from the issues of poor health, inadequate water and sanitation i ... More
Global Financial Crisis, Protectionism and Current Account Deficit: South Africa on the brink?
Peter Draper, Andreas Freytag & Sebastian Voll, World Economics, June 2011
The recent financial and economic crisis, and the resurgence in the popularity of emerging markets has raised fears in these economies of a resumption in capital flight or a sudden stop of capital inflows. The latter, in particular, is intensively discussed in South Afr ... More
Further Fallout from the Global Financial Crisis: Credit crunch in the 'periphery'
Adolfo Barajas, Ralph Chami, Raphael Espinoza & Heiko Hesse, World Economics, June 2011
We examine the recent credit slowdown in emerging markets from three analytical angles. First, we find that, similar to past history, a credit boom preceded the current slowdown in many emerging markets, and argue that, going forward, a protracted period of sluggish gro ... More
Measuring African GDP: The next success story?
Joe Downie, World Economics, June 2011
There is much speculation about the growth potential of African economies. But in the light of unreliable official statistics and the highly selective information often presented by investment companies with an incentive to highlight the positive, this article aims to p ... More
The International Liquidity Crisis of 2008–2009
William A. Allen & Dr Richhild Moessner, World Economics, June 2011
The ‘credit crunch’ that began in August 2007 turned into a crisis when Lehman Brothers failed in September 2008. That event caused large international capital flows, including heavy repatriation of dollars to the United States. Central banks, led by the Federal Reserve ... More
Managing Today’s Global Economy: The world economy as a commons
F. Gerard Adams, World Economics, June 2011
Following the path-breaking work of Coase (1960), economists have recognised the complex issues of managing jointly owned and utilised properties, so-called commons. Increasingly we see this as a problem of externalities, as with public goods. We recognise the wide rang ... More
Why is the Chinese Saving Rate so High?
Guonan Ma & Wang Yi, World Economics, March 2011
China’s saving rate is high from many perspectives – historical experience, international standards and model predictions. Furthermore, the average saving rate has been rising over time, with much of the increase taking place in the 2000s. What sets China apart from the ... More
On Economic Growth and Domestic Saving in India
Tarlok Singh, World Economics, March 2011
This study examines the economic growth and domestic saving in India. The onset of gradual economic reforms since the 1980s provided some fillip to growth, and the momentum was carried forward through the adoption of a wide-ranging structural adjustment program since th ... More
Recent Developments on the Rare Earth Front: Evidence of a new technocratic mercantilism emerging in China?
Robert Looney, World Economics, March 2011
Chinese actions in the rare earths market have raised a number of concerns about the country’s motives in restricting exports. One theory is that the country simply wants to ensure that it has adequate supplies for its future expansion into a number of energyefficient, ... More
Communist China’s Capitalism: The highest stage of capitalist imperialism
Kenneth Austin, World Economics, March 2011
This article explains the contemporary Chinese–American economic relationship as an ironic variant of the classical theory of capitalist imperialism. Communist China is the modern world’s great imperial power (exporter of surplus savings). China exports its savings by u ... More
The Power of Price Indexes: And how to use them to steal a hundred billion dollars, seriously underestimate Japanese growth for 20 years and escape easily from debt
Raymond Cheung and Mike Waterson
World Economics, March 2011
Price indexes are the most important of all economic indicators simply because they are the tool used to calculate the real size, speed and direction of all forms of economic activity. Price indexes are compiled almost everywhere, but with major differences in method an ... More
Defence R&D Spending: A critical review of the economic data
Keith Hartley, World Economics, March 2011
A nation’s defence R&D determines the international competitiveness of its defence industries and the technical superiority of its military forces. Whilst there is much secrecy, there are published data on defence R&D for many nations. Exceptions include China, Iran, Is ... More
Towards New Thinking in Economics: Terry Barker on structural macroeconomics, climate change mitigation, the relevance of empirical evidence and the need for a revised economics discipline
Şerban Scrieciu, World Economics, March 2011
Terry Barker is a leading British economist in macroeconomics, climate economics and empirical analysis. For over 45 years, he has been involved in research at Cambridge on economic theory and applied economics, in areas such as: trade theory and space and time economic ... More
Low-Carbon Development for the Least Developed Countries
Alex Bowen & Sam Fankhauser, World Economics, March 2011
The global community has to act collectively to halt climate change. But such collective action must take into account the development needs of the least developed countries (LDCs), which are likely to be hit earliest and hardest by climate change. The priority of such ... More
Punishing European Cartels
Cento Veljanovski, World Economics, March 2011
Antitrust authorities across the world are waging war against domestic and international cartels. The European Commission in particular has intensified its prosecution activities and increased dramatically the fines it imposes on cartelists. This article undertakes a st ... More
Understanding the Greek Crisis: Unlocking the puzzle of Greek banks’ deteriorating performance
Michael Mitsopoulos & Theodore Pelagidis, World Economics, March 2011
This paper focuses on the distortions that the Greek public debt has imposed on the Greek banking system, and suggests how these can be unwound. The low level of competitiveness of the Greek economy, which is well below the competitiveness of the developed countries, po ... More
The G20 After the Seoul Summit: G-force or G-string?
Graham Bird, World Economics, March 2011
To some, the G20 offers a representative, legitimate and effective forum for dealing with global economic issues, and represents a distinct improvement on the G8. To others it is seen as still lacking full legitimacy and as being an unlikely institutional vehicle for or ... More
Christopher Adam on James M. Broughton and Domenico Lombardi (eds) Finance, Development, and the IMF.
World Economics, March 2011