510 research outputs found
Diario de Campo: Boletín Interno de los investigadores del área de Antropología. 99 (2008) agosto. Diario de Campo
No full textPresentación por Rosa María Reyna, Samuel Villela y Juan José Atilano. - Wllllam Niven antes de Guerrero (1850- 1890) por Robert S Wicks. - La vida de la familia de William Niven y Nellie Pulcell por Roland H. Harrison. - Explorando vetas y placeres de oro en Guerrero por Brígida von Mentz. - De forasteros y minería en el estado de Guerrero. Siglos XIX y XX por Jaime Salazar Adame. – William: descubriendo el pasado arqueológico de Guerrero por Rosa maría Reyna Robles. – Pueblos, lugares y costumbres. El retrato de Guerrero desconocido por William Niven por Samuel Villela Flores. – William Niven: la paz porfiriana y la Revolución en Guerrero por Jaime Salazar Adame
Trading arrangements and industrial development
Get PDFHow 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
Are failproof banking systems feasible? Desirable?
Get PDFIn recent years, instability of the banking system has returned as a major problem in many countries, particularly in the developing world. In many cases, this instability has been so threatening to financial intermediation and the functioning of the payments system that governments have felt compelled to intervene and restructure banks, often at considerable cost to the public budget. One response to these problems has been a proposal to create failproof banking systems - to radically transform the structure, priorities, and operation of the banking and financial system. Banks would be limited to issuing deposits, holding essentially riskless portfolios, and operating the payments system. To minimize the resulting disruptions to the financial system, banks would be authorized (and encouraged) to set up holding companies and then transfer to holding company affiliates all the functions - including lending - that banks would no longer be permitted to perform. So while the failproof banking proposal would severely restrict the activity of banks, it would not restrict the activities of banking organizations that convert to a holding company form of organization. This proposal would produce major public benefits. It would assure a nation of a smoothly functioning banking and payments system, would substantially reduce the resources committed to banking supervision, would prevent bank-type regulation from expanding to the rest of the financial system, and would place banking and nonbanking organizations on a level playing field for the financial activities in which they compete. There are two major problems with the proposal. First, it might be difficult to implement because of too few riskless assets in a nation's financial system. (The author suggests several modifications that would alleviate this problem in some countries.) Second, the proposal might hurt the financial market by: (a) increasing interest rates for higher-risk borrowers, forcing them out of the market; and (b) transfering greater risk to the nonbank sector of the financial system, making it more susceptible to crisis. Although the proposal would benefit developing countries (more prone to banking instability) more than industrial countries, it would also be more difficult to implement in developing countries. And the adverse effects of the proposal would be felt more severely in the financial markets of developing countries than in industrial countries, which have deeper, more responsive financial markets.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banking Law,Settlement of Investment Disputes
Lessons of trade liberalization in Latin America for economies in transition
Get PDFAfter four decades as prime examples of inward-looking trade policies and import-substituting industrialization, several Latin American countries undertook comprehensive trade liberalization and macroeconomic adjustment in the 1980s. The authors contend that the experiences in those countries are relevant for the economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in transition from socialism to market economies. In all of these Latin American countries, the move toward an outward orientation occurred: when the economy was facing a large negative external shock because of falling terms of trade and rising debt payments; after several decades of protectionism; and under severe macroeconomic imbalances. The authors study the reform package of trade liberalization, stabilization, and supporting policies in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. They conclude that for the economies in transition: Rationalizing the foreign trade regime is crucial for the success of stabilization measures. Rapid, far-reaching reform is possible in sectors that were subject to prolonged periods of heavy protection. Sustained growth requires a comprehensive reform package, with supporting policies for labor, capital, and domestic product markets. Liberalization of the financial sector requires investigating the links between commercial banks and private sector firms. If trade liberalization is to succeed in the long run, it is important to study the evolution of the real exchange rate and measures to stabilize it. In the final section of the paper, the authors study the recent impetus toward trade liberalization through regional arrangements in Latin America. The issue is relevant to countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union because they belonged to the CMEA, a regional trading arrangement, and because such arrangements are evolving anew among countries in the former Soviet Union.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Stabilization,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Macroeconomic Management
Export quota allocations, export earnings and market diversifications
Get PDFNon-tariff barriers (NTBs) present a growing threat to a liberal world-trading system and slow the reallocation of production of mature industries from developed to developing countries. Among NTBs, voluntary export restraints (VERs) are proliferating and constitute a major element of the"new protectionism". It has been repeatedly observed that export markets which are not currently part of the VER agreement often follow suit and enter into a VER agreement. Exporting countries may then wish to prepare themselves for this eventuality by actively promoting export diversification towards non-restricted countries as a precautionary measure against future restrictions. Section II of this paper briefly describes how export diversification is typically achieved. In Section III, a simple model is set up that analyzes the implications of the two tier quota allocation rule. Section IV briefly examines alternative instruments and motivations for achieving export diversification. Implications are also drawn for policy actions by nonrestricted countries and the suggestion made that the recent increase in anti-dumping cases may be linked to this two-tier quota allocation practice.Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT
Industrial organization and trade liberalization : evidence from Korea
Get PDFDrawing on evidence about industrial organization and market structure, the authors develop a computable general equilibrium model in selected industrial sectors with increasing returns to scale. They use this model to estimate the welfare gains Korea would realize from abolishing the import restraints prevailing in 1982. Under constant returns to scale, they estimate welfare gains to be 1 percent of GDP. With increasing returns to scale in three industrial sectors, they estimate welfare gains ranging from -0.5 percent to 10 percent of 1982 GDP, depending on assumptions about the pricing behavior (markup pricing or Cournot competition) and profit levels that existed under protection.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT
"Gracia. Gracias." The pronunciation of the /s/ in the speech of Jaime Bayly
Get PDFabstract: There have been various studies on the pronunciation of the /s/ in Latin American Spanish. Most studies have shown three variants of the /s/ in syllable-final context: [s] (sibilant), [h] (aspiration) and [ø] (deletion). Most studies focused on Caribbean Spanish, i.e. the Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela. In Caribbean Spanish, maintaining the /s/ is considered prestigious, aspiration is considered neutral, and deletion of the /s/ is stigmatized (Lafford 1982, 1989). Most people who maintain the /s/ are highly educated people, while people who received little to no education are more likely to delete the /s/ (Lafford 1982, 1989). Besides Caravedo (1990), there have been very few studies on the pronunciation of the /s/ in Peruvian Spanish. To find out more, I analyzed television interviews with Jaime Bayly, a well-known writer and journalist from Lima, Peru to determine when the /s/ is maintained and when it is aspirated or deleted. While watching eight interviews with people of different backgrounds, I recorded what Bayly said, focusing on how he pronounced final-syllable (s). After recording the occurrences of the /s/ and classifying and coding the variables, I used Goldvarb X to establish the probabilistic strength of the proposed factors. The results showed that the most significant linguistic factor was the position of the (s) and the most significant social factors were the gender and acquaintance of the interviewee.Dissertation/ThesisM.A. Spanish 201
Poverty and income distribution during adjustment : issues and evidence from the OECD project
Get PDFDrawing lessons from country studies, the authors examine the effects of adjustment policies on the distribution of income in Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Morocco. After analyzing the issues that must be confronted in designing adjustment programs with a focus on poverty, they synthesize the main conclusions of the different country studies. With simulation exercises they explore the effects of the design of the adjustment packages on poverty and on the sustainability of the measures undertaken in these countries. These exercises show considerable diversity in the evolution of income distribution during adjustment. They also expose the fatal flaws of narrowly designed adjustment programs. Adjustment programs - whether focused on efficiency or on welfare - will fail when they do not recognize the interdependence of the three criteria of efficiency, welfare, and political feasibility. Adjustment programs must be carefully packaged to fit country circumstances, taking into account both the political and economic environments.Economic Stabilization,Inequality,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance
Does corruption relieve foreign investors of the burden of taxes and capital controls?
Get PDFIn a sample of fourteen source countries making bilateral investments in forty five countries, the author finds that taxes, capital controls, and corruption, all have large, statistically significant negative effects on foreign investment. Moreover, there is no robust support in the data for the"efficient grease"hypothesis - that corruption helps attract foreign investment by reducing firms'tax burden and the irritant of capital controls.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Capital Markets and Capital Flows,Decentralization,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Governance Indicators,National Governance,Capital Flows
Strategic management of population programs
Get PDFFormal strategic planning and management appear to contribute to organizational effectiveness. The author surveys the literature on strategic management in private/for-profit organizations and applies lessons from that literature to population programs. Few would argue that population programs would not benefit from strategic planning and management, but it would be inadvisable to initiate the process when the organization is faced with a short-term crisis; during or immediately before a change in leadership; or when implementation is unlikely. Public sector programs seem to have the latitude to manage strategically. Models available for adoption include life-cycle models, strategic issues management, stakeholder analysis, and portfolio analysis. The model selected may be a function of: (1) who will use it (life-cycle/evolutionary models may be well-suited to the planning needs of donors); (2) the presence of challenges to the survival of the program or to key components of it (stakeholder analysis would find ready application in those circumstances); and (3) the relative success and stability of the program (portfolio analysis may help a program balance its activities in a stable environment whereas strategic issues management is useful in responding to a dynamic environment.) It is important to marshall top-level support, designatewho will do the leg work, analyze the organization's history and current situation, assess internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities, and summarize critical issues facing the program. Then a strategy may be developed. Among the available approaches are: (1) scenario developments (useful for a program that senses a need to change its approach to clients); (2) critical issues analysis (useful for refining successful programs); and (3) a goal approach (useful for programs with diffuse, ill-defined objectives). There are no short-cuts, it is argued. A strategic plan typically contains: (1) a mission statement that describes the social need to be addressed, what is unique about the organization, what its values are, and who the principal stakeholders are; (2) a statement of the population to be served and goals for service delivery and quality standards; (3) a service delivery strategy; (4) a financial strategy; (5) a marketing strategy; and (6) support strategies. Most organizations will find that there is no ideal structure - all require tradeoffs - and that attention should focus on eliminating patently dysfunctional aspects of the structure.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Educational Sciences,Enterprise Development&Reform
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