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.
Global Value Chains, International Trade Statistics and Policymaking in a Flattening World
Alejandro Jara & Hubert Escaith, World Economics, December 2012
The raise of global production networks since the 1980s changed the way we understand international trade and has profound repercussions on development policies and the conduct of global governance. New comparative advantages allow large developing countries to leap-fro ... More
The Value of Value Added: Measuring global engagement with gross and value-added trade
William Powers, World Economics, December 2012
As production has become more globally integrated, imported components account for a rising share of the value of exports. Many countries may contribute inputs to a good, and the final assembler may capture only a small share of the product’s value. Official trade stati ... More
Bias in the ‘Proportionality Assumption’ Used in the Measurement of Offshoring
Deborah Winkler & William Milberg, World Economics, December 2012
Most studies of offshoring rely on a ‘proportionality assumption’ where every sector is assumed to import each material and service input in the same proportion as its economy-wide use. We assess the bias resulting from this assumption. Since Germany collects imported i ... More
Global Production Sharing in the Australian Automotive Trade
Kishor Sharma, World Economics, December 2012
This paper contributes to the literature on global production sharing by investigating the experience of the Australian automotive industry, which has experienced significant structural change following trade liberalisation. Our analysis indicates that the globalisation ... More
Are National Accounts Revisions Harmful for Historical Comparisons?
Dieter Brümmerhoff & Michael Grömling, World Economics, December 2012
Revisions of national accounts affect economic analysis, calling into question theoretical findings based on earlier data. Revisions to German national accounts have resulted in a markedly higher GDP in absolute terms and a lower volatility in macroeconomic production. ... More
Measuring UK Inflation: Practical Differences and Issues
Colin Ellis, World Economics, December 2012
Inflation is a key economic indicator that affects all economic agents. But the mechanisms by which price data are captured and aggregated are less uniform than might be expected, and there are a number of practical issues that can affect measured inflation rates. Focus ... More
The Change in Corporate Behaviour
World Economics, December 2012
Corporate behaviour in both the UK and US has changed because of the change in management incentives. The result is that the savings’ surplus of business is no longer a cyclical problem that will end once the animal spirits of entrepreneurs have revived. It is now a str ... More
Things Fall Apart: Doha and the End of the Post-War Trade Consensus
Kent Jones, World Economics, December 2012
This paper focuses on the failure of the Doha Round, representing the end of the post-war multilateral consensus on comprehensive trade liberalisation established in the GATT. The need to achieve consensus, combined with the requirement of a single undertaking, created ... More
Discount Rate Set Too High: Slower economic growth highlights £2 trillion understatement of UK liabilities
Angus Hanton, World Economics, September 2012
The size of government liabilities is only now becoming apparent, but the choice of discount rate is crucial in estimating these. Historically this has been set using Green Book methods and FRS17 accounting standards, but now government is moving to using a rate based o ... More
Doing Business and Doing Development
Neil Gregory, World Economics, September 2012
benchmarking methodologies used by corporates to provide cross-country comparisons of the quality of business regulation. In doing so, it has demonstrated a radical new approach to catalyzing development, which has proven to have high impact in changing government regul ... More
When to Buy and When to Sell Equities?
Brian Sturgess, World Economics, September 2012
This paper reviews three investment models with a basis in economics which try to answer questions about the relative value of equity markets. Three basic approaches are critically analysed from the perspective of their broad conceptual underpinnings, the available evid ... More
The Impact of Reputation on Market Value
Simon Cole, World Economics, September 2012
Corporate reputations are one of the best known but least understood company assets. Few investment analysts would argue that they have no value but at the same time would struggle to put figures on how much. This paper dispels the myth that intangible means immeasurabl ... More
Too Loose for Comfort: Is current monetary policy doing more harm than good in the US and the UK?
John C. Michaelson & Sébastien E.J. Walker, World Economics, September 2012
This paper argues that the benefits of the current US and UK monetary policy are limited and outweighed by significant costs. The policy of low or negative real interest rates, combined with quantitative easing, may be helpful to large companies and large banks. However ... More
Does Weak Intellectual Property Rights Protection Deter Investment in R&D?: Evidence from the tea industry in China
Neil Campbell, Kainan Huang & Shravan Luckraz, World Economics, September 2012
This article gives an example of an industry where process R&D is not deterred by a lack of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). We observe that the imitation driven by this lack of IPR acts as a source of competitive pressure on the technological leader who responds by ... More
How Patient are Institutional Investors from Emerging Economies?
Peter Cornelius & Edo Aalbers, World Economics, September 2012
The global economy faces huge investment needs in infrastructure and other areas requiring patient capital. The public sector is unlikely to meet such needs as unsustainable debt levels demand deep fiscal adjustment measures. At the same time, there is growing concern t ... More
Persian Gulf-based SWFs and Financial Hubs in Bahrain, Dubai and Qatar: A case of competitive branding
Asim Ali & Shatha Al-Aswad, World Economics, September 2012
Competitive branding between Bahrain, Qatar and UAE has occurred on different levels of investment through the medium of the Gulf State Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). This has happened across a number of sectors: oil and gas, finance, real estate, automotive and enterta ... More
Realising the Potential of Islamic Finance
Mahmoud Mohieldin, World Economics, September 2012
Islamic finance has expanded rapidly over the past three decades, and has continued to perform well through the years since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. This class of assets emphasizes risk sharing and has performed well compared to conventional cou ... More
Is the Doha Round Dead? What is the Way Forward?
Faizel Ismail, World Economics, September 2012
The WTO Doha Round of negotiations has been at an impasse since December 2008. Several academics and opinion makers have argued recently that the Doha Round is ‘dead’. This paper discusses the US narrative on the reasons for the impasse in the Doha Round and the way for ... More
Breaking Up is Hard to Do: The Eurozone and the political economy of monetary disintegration
Graham Bird, World Economics, September 2012
From a position some years ago where the euro was seen as set to challenge the dollar as the world’s leading currency, there are now serious concerns that the ongoing Eurozone crisis will lead to some countries eventually withdrawing from it, beginning a process of Euro ... More
Wealth and Population Data in Africa: National and UN/World Bank estimates of African GDP/capita are seriously flawed
Brian Sturgess, World Economics, June 2012
There are very good grounds for challenging much of the conventionally accepted UN and World Bank economic data relating to both the absolute and relative per capita income of many African countries and to their growth rates over time. A recent paper by Morton Jerven pu ... More
From Berlin to Brussels: Will Europe underdevelop Africa again?
Chukwuma Charles Soludo, World Economics, June 2012
The paper evaluates the economic partnership agreement (EPA) which the European Union is forging with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and concludes that it is a raw deal for these developing countries. Particularly for Africa, the author likens the EPA to ... More
Whatever Happened to Africa’s Rapid Urbanisation?
Dr Deborah Potts, World Economics, June 2012
It is widely believed that urbanisation is occurring faster in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world, as migrants move from rural to urban settlements. This is a fallacy. While the populations of numerous urban areas are growing rapidly, the urbanisation le ... More
The BRIC group – How Strong a Challenge to the West?
Jan Winiecki, World Economics, June 2012
This article looks at the BRIC countries with the understanding that countries not only grow, but also undergo structural change. Industrialisation first and the shift from industry to human capital intensive-services economy later. Moreover, it is stressed that the lat ... More
Demographic Change Across the Globe: Maintaining social security in ageing economies
Marga Peeters & Loek Groot, World Economics, June 2012
This paper investigates the fiscal pressure, or the level of public expenditure on old and young economically inactive people, arising from demographic change in relation to the labour market space, or the proportion of the working age population not in full-time employ ... More
The Limits of Monetary Treaty
Christopher E.S. Warburton, World Economics, June 2012
This paper examines the viability of monetary treaty. Using time series data, estimates of trade masses, trade trend ratios and the trade accumulation coefficient, it finds that the European monetary union is trade-creating. Descriptive statistics indicate that internal ... More
The Eurozone’s Next Domino: Why Portugal is not Greece
Shalendra D. Sharma & Sally Tam, World Economics, June 2012
With Greece’s problems taking a back seat with the approval of the second €130 bailout and bond-swap deal, attention has turned to Portugal – the other most troubled economy in the Eurozone. Will Portugal’s debts also prove unmanageable, requiring debt restructuring whe ... More
Global Financial Reform - Where Do Things Stand?
Anthony Elson, World Economics, June 2012
This article provides an assessment of the progress that has been made since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 in official efforts to strengthen the international financial architecture with a view to minimising the risks and severity of future crises. ... More
Government Accounting: Making Enron look good
Ian Ball & Gary Pflugrath, World Economics, March 2012
As the current sovereign debt crisis engulfing Europe broadens and threatens to bring down more governments and lead the world into another, potentially very serious, economic slowdown, minimal commentary and public debate has focused on a fundamental problem, and the n ... More
Avoiding Fiscal Crisis: Accounting for contingent liabilities to manage fiscal risk
Hana Polackova Brixi, World Economics, March 2012
Fiscal activities in the form of contingent liabilities are common in both developed and developing countries, in part because they allow governments to secure public services or economic and financial stability without immediately having to raise taxes or borrow. Yet t ... More
How to Have Your Cake and Eat It: Government accounting for PFI
James Cuthbert & Margaret Cuthbert, World Economics, March 2012
This article is about how the capital assets in private finance initiative (PFI) schemes are treated in government accounts. The article begins by describing how public sector obligations in relation to the capital assets of PFI schemes are accounted for in the national ... More
How Much Red Ink?: Comparing economic and accounting approaches to measuring government deficit and debt
James L. Chan & Yunxiao Xu, World Economics, March 2012
Under the influence of economics, fiscal policy and government budgets focus on projected cash deficits and bonds issued to finance them. While these numbers are certainly necessary, they overlook the delayed costs of policy decisions and actions. Therefore they should ... More
America’s Dangerously Opaque Public Accounting Systems
Avantika Chilkoti, World Economics, March 2012
The current global economic crisis has highlighted the problems that result from governments’ archaic and erroneous accounting practices. The Financial Report of the United States Government is scrutinised with the same pedantry that an auditor or long-term investor use ... More
Reforming Japan’s Foreign Exchange Policy
Masanaga Kumakura, World Economics, March 2012
Among major advanced countries Japan stands out with its large-scale, one-sided exchange market interventions and enormous foreign exchange reserves. While the country’s exchange market activism is often attributed to its obsession with export-led growth, there are inst ... More
The Indices of Transparency of Economic Information and the Latin American e-Government
César Daniel Vargas Diaz, Manuel Antonio López Hernandez & El Housin Helal Ouriachen, World Economics, March 2012
The aim of this paper is to create a ranking of the Ministries of Economy and Finance on transparency and disclosure of economic and financial information that Latin American countries have at an online level. Our methodological proposal is a questionnaire and indices o ... More
Sovereign Credit Risk in the Eurozone
Jamal Ibrahim Haidar, World Economics, March 2012
What is the current state of sovereign credit risk across the Eurozone? Does the recent fiscal crisis extend to other (non-Eurozone) countries? Is Greece the centre of the problem? How did the current fiscal crisis in the Euro area start? Who is behind it? How can it ev ... More
The New Dynamic Between US Stock Prices and Money Holdings
Frank Browne & David Cronin, World Economics, March 2012
The financial crisis has had the effect of focusing attention on the role of liquidity, but more specifically excess liquidity, in driving asset prices to unsustainable bubble levels. We think this focus is fully warranted. However, we consider that, in this critical re ... More
Can Global Payments for Ecosystem Services Work?
Edward B. Barbier, World Economics, March 2012
Recent efforts to establish a financial mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) have sparked hopes for the world’s first global payment system. REDD could help conserve forests in developing countries, lessen greenhouse gas emissio ... More
Managing Capital Surges
Graham Bird, World Economics, March 2012
Following the global financial and economic crisis, and beginning in mid-2009, there has been a surge of capital into Asian and Latin American emerging economies. While capital inflows have a good side, they also have a bad side. This will be particularly pertinent when ... More