206 research outputs found
Creation of a Common Artistic World through Going Beyond Oneself by the Artist A Comparative Study of the Works of Kamalodin Behzad and David Hockney
No full textIn order to remain dynamic and to make oneself distinguished, an artist may take different approaches; approaches which may, in turn, create new styles in art. If such an approach can be named going beyond oneself, then many artists may be nominated to have practiced it making novel styles. Going beyond oneself often follows two distinct ways: being inspired by other artists or adopting an anti-style action by the artist. Interestingly enough, it sometimes happens that certain artists, irrespective of their nationality or of their way of thinking, have become very close to each other in terms of artistic outlook and taste. Accordingly, a considerable amount of similarity can be seen among their works. Being inspired by one another has led to creation of novel artistic styles. Two of such artists are Kamalodin Behzad and David Hockney. Both went beyond themselves and beyond the common painting styles; the former by challenging his own style and the latter by being inspired by the oriental painting style. This research aimed to study certain works of Kamalodin Behzad and David Hockney comparatively in order to analyze and evaluate the similarities among their works and, hence, to examine the process of going beyond oneself by the artist. The data were mainly collected from library sources. The result of the study indicated that in the course of going beyond oneself, the styles are incorporated. It is, in fact, the very incorporation, in terms of form and content, that gives birth to new movements in art as well as to novel artistic styles
Does membership in a regional preferential trade arrangement make a country more or less protectionist?
No full textThe author explores whether a systematic relationship exists between a developing country's participation in a preferential regional trade agreement (RTA) and the restrictiveness of its trade regime. The motivation for her study is provided by the current debate about whether regional trading blocs are a stepping-stone toward a more liberal global trading system and whether these blocs have changed over time so that the"new"blocs differ meaningfully from the"old"ones in terms of openness to the rest of the world. She restricts analysis to reciprocal RTAs involving developing countries in partnership either with industrial countries (North-South RTAs) or with other developing countries (South-South RTAs). Nearly every developing country belongs to one or more RTAs, so the author develops criteria for distinguishing effective from noneffective regional blocs. She then taps into many sources of data to compare levels of restrictiveness. She finds no evidence that participation in a regional trade agreement necessarily leads to a more liberal important regime.Trade Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Rules of Origin,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Trade and Regional Integration,Trade Policy
Supporting safe motherhood : a review of financial trends : summary
No full textAn estimated 500,000 women, 99 percent of them from the developing world, die each year from pregnancy-related causes. About three quarters of these deaths are the direct result of obstetrical complications -- hemorrhage, infection, toxemia, obstructed labor, and abortion (under primitive and illegal conditions). An estimated equivalent number of infants do not survive their mother's death. For surviving mothers, the consequences of pregnancy have a severe impact on health and family economics. The strategy for safe motherhood is based on two approaches. First, the encouragement of activities that indirectly improve maternal health. These include education, policies to improve women's rights and working conditions, health care and nutrition, transportation and communication systems, water and sanitation facilities, and increases in family income and food production. The second approach targets activities to reduce maternal deaths. These activities include reducing unwanted pregnancies through the provision of family planning services, and through national policies that recognize the importance of this issue. A second objective is to reduce the risks of pregnancy through providing community-based family planning and prenatal services to identify high-risk cases'adequate referral services for the complications of pregnancy, and communication and transport systems to support patient referral procedures.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Gender and Health,Early Child and Children's Health,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems
Art in the (Un)Making of European Public Space:Islam in Controversy
No full textIn her recently translated book Europäischer Islam. Muslime im Alltag, (Wagenbach Verlag), Nilüfer Göle discusses the role of the public sphere in framing the Islamic presence in Europe. Based on four years of fieldwork in 21 European Cities, this survey gives voice to Muslims involved in public controversies around halal, the veil, the construction of mosques, circumcision, and sacred values. The author argues that the visibility of Islam has become a source of public dissent and debate through which identities have shifted, creative forms of sharing appear, indicating the emergence of a new public civic culture. The talk discusses the role of art in relation to representations of Islam and Muslim culture in Europe, and the place of art in public controversies. Nilüfer Göle traces the struggles concerning Muslim identity and representation in the sphere of art and the shifting meaning of art from Muslim perspectives. Nilüfer Göle is Professor of Sociology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has taught at the University of Michigan, MIT, the New School, and was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. She is the author of Interpénétrations: L’Islam et l’Europe (2005), Anverwandlungen. Der Islam in Europa zwischen Kopftuchverbot und Extremismus, (2008), and Islam and Secularity: The Future of Europe’s Public Sphere (2015). Naika Foroutan is Professor for Integration Studies and Social Policy at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and Assistant Director of the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM). Her research focuses on topics of migration and post-migrant societies, transformations of developing countries, and discourses of Islam and Muslim life in Germany. She is board member of the Council on Migration (Rat für Migration)
Trading arrangements and industrial development
No full textHow do different trading arrangements influence the industrialization process of developing countries? Can preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) be superior to multilateral liberalization, or at least an alternative when multilateral liberalization proceeds slowly? If so, what form should the PTAs take? Are developing countries better advised to seek PTAs with industrial countries or among themselves? Traditional analysis of these issues has been based on the idea of trade creation and trade diversion. The problem with this analysis is that it starts from assuming a pattern of comparative advantage of newly industrialized countries. The experience of these countries suggests the need for an analysis in which the pattern of comparative advantage is not set in stone but is potentially flexible, and in which less developed countries can develop and converge in both income and economic structure to industrial economies. The authors outline an alternative approach for analyzing the role of trade in promoting industrial development. There are few fundamental differences between countries that generate immutable patterns of comparative advantage. Instead the pattern of trade and development in the world economy is determined mainly by history. Cumulative causation has created concentrations of industrial activity in particular locations (industrial countries) and left other areas more dependent on primary activities. Economic development can be thought of as the spread of these concentrations from country to country. Different trading arrangements may have a major impact on this development process. By changing the attractiveness of countries as a base for manufacturing production they can potentially trigger or postpone industrial development. This approach explains why firms are reluctant to move to economies that have lower wages and labor costs, and shows how trade liberalization can change the incentives to become established in developing countries. It provides a mechanism through which import liberalization can have a powerful effect in promoting industrialization. And it suggests that import liberalization may create or amplify differences between liberalizing countries with the possible political tensions this may create. While these features are consistent with the world economy, they fall short of providing convincing empirical support for the approach. Using the approach, the authors derive number of conclusions about the effects of trade liberalization. First, that unilaterally liberalizing imports of manufactures can promote development of the local manufacturing industry. The mechanism is forward linkages from imported intermediates, but this may be interpreted as part of a wider package of linkages coming from these imports. Second, the gains from liberalization through PTA membership are likely to exceed those obtained from unilateral action. South-South PTAs will be sensitive to the market size of member states, and North-South PTAs seem to offer better prospects for participating Southern economies, if not for North and excluded countries. Third, the effects of particular schemes (such as the division of benefits between Southern economies) will depend on the characteristics of the countries and cross-country differences in these characteristics.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Trade and Regional Integration,Water and Industry
The distortionary effects of tariff exemptions in Argentina
No full textTariff exemptions for exporters are widely used by many countries as aninstrument for providing export incentives. This author argues that when tariff exemptions are granted as a means of industrial regional promotion to an industry independently of its export performance, the tariff exemptions lose their potential as an export promotion instrument. The case of Argentina is of interest because it exemplifies the practice of many developing countries. A simple model is used to show that the indiscriminate use of duty exemptions has several undesirable effects : 1) duty exemptions deprive the government of revenues; 2) the more widespread the exemption, the less effective they become as an instrument for export promotion; 3) exemptions widen the variability of effective protection rates of industries in relation to their capital intensity; and 4) exemptions increase the demand for imports more than an export subsidy does, because output in the competing input industry contracts.Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Consumption,Export Competitiveness
Willkomens- oder Auf-Wiedersehenskultur in Deutschland? Die deutsche Gesellschaft im Theater des Alltags: Naika Foroutan, Jana Hensel, Die Gesellschaft der Anderen, Aufbau Verlag (Digital), Berlin 2020
No full textIn the article, the author discusses the main issues raised by Naika Foroutan and Jana Hensel in their book, regarding the possibility of comparisons between the situation of the newest migrants and the East Germans after reunification in Germany. Both the processes related to the functioning of the two aforementioned groups in German society and the authors' attitude towards them were discussed. In the article, the author referred to several important issues related to the subject of the book, namely: the minority-majority situation and the resulting consequences, the fluidity of the category of "other", "stranger", the socio-political and historical context of the presented phenomena, the issue of the authors' positioning as representatives of minorities and the theoretical / research concepts and approaches proposed by the authors
Eastern Europe's experience with banking reform : is there a role for banks in the transition?
No full textAre there lessons to be learned about how Eastern European countries have dealt with problems in their banking systems? What role have these countries assigned to banks during the transition? How have they used banks in dealing with the enterprise problem? The author addresses these questions by analyzing experience in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. Most of these countries have made substantial progress in restructuring their banking systems, but few have used their banking systems to improve the allocation of credit and hence stimulate the supply response. The author finds the following. The problem is not whether banks hold nonperforming loans but how banks can avoid accumulating more nonperforming loans. The underlying problem is how to close loss-making and nonviable enterprises. The countries that have encouraged the establishment of new private banks, that have introduced regulation and supervision, and that have tried to make banks more competitive have been more successful at improving the allocation of credit and achieving more control over loss-making enterprises. Banks must focus on assessing risk - and for this, capital, private ownership, and adequate regulation are crucial. How quickly banks achieve independence in credit decisions depends on how fast new governance structures can be introduced. In this, the five countries have been less successful. The objectives of bank recapitulation should be to prevent banks from accumulating more nonperforming loans (that is, dealing with the enterprise problem) and to give them the governance structure that would prevent them from incurring new nonperforming loans. This requires introducing a system of risk and reward - by making banks comply with capital adequacy requirements, by privatizing a critical number of banks, and by introducing strong regulation and supervision. Government should see that banks provide efficient payment systems, the basis for trust in banking systems. Introducing adequate regulation and supervision has been difficult as it requires knowing what the banks'role should be. Evidence strongly supports the need to recapitalize and privatize a critical number of banks. Authorities cannot rely on banks to exert control on enterprises early in the transition. In the early stages, control over state-owned enterprises should be exercised by a semipublic institution.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Municipal Financial Management,Banking Law
Principles of regulatory policy design
No full textThe author contrasts command-and-control regulation (tight control of water purification, for example) with more flexible forms, including incentive regulation (such as price cap regulation), potential regulation (providing for closer scrutiny if enough customers complain), and reactive rather than proactive policies (the firm proposing actions, the regulatory saying yes or no). He contrasts informing regulation (for example, requiring that consumers be informed about ingredients in a product) and enforcing regulation (for example, prohibiting the use of certain chemicals in foods). A country's institutional structure can limit the regulators'potential for commitment, he says -- especially if regulators are limited in their ability to deliver rewards or penalties. The scope and function of regulation may also be fairly limited when technological conditions allow competition to discipline producers. Sophisticated buyers with economic power may reduce the need for regulatory control, and rapid technological change can render comprehensive command-and-control regulation ineffective or debilitating. Many forces operate simultaneously, making regulatory design a complex undertaking. Inertia is one such influence. Regulatory policies that once served an important purpose sometimes persist even though they no longer serve that purpose -- sometimes because they favor a constituency that convinces the regulator to keep the control in place. Subsidies and tariff protection often continue long past the time needed to promote the development of an infant industry, for example. When there is limited public outcry against continuing the special treatment, and the affected firms strongly urge its continuance, the regulator may be convinced to continue special treatment that no longer serves the public interest. Regulation may also be affected by the regulators'personal ambition. When regulators are"captured"by regulated firms -- diverted from the goal of protecting consumers through the promise of personal rewards for favorable treatment of the firms -- regulation may not serve society's best interest. Even if regulators are not motivated by self-interest, their ideas of what is best for society may differ from those of other government officials or of society at large. When that happens, which goals are pursued depends largely on the autonomy regulators that are granted and on the balance of power among government bodies.Regulation should be viewed in this large context to be understood fully.Administrative&Regulatory Law,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation
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