455 research outputs found
FTAA: What's in It for the South?
Get PDFNot everyone in the Americas thinks that negotiating an FTAA is desirable. Some argue that the timing of the negotiations is being set by the agenda of the developed countries, particularly the US, and not that of the rest of the region. Others say that negotiating tariff reductions will do little to increase exports. The argument is that non-tariff barriers to trade must be part of the package, or the whole idea is a waste of time. These are just some of the opinions coming from the South. Interestingly, a number of these ideas are coming from Brazil, the hemisphere's most populous country after the US, and clearly a leader in the region. Presidential elections in Brazil took place in the fall of 2002 just prior to an FTAA Ministerial in Quito. In the lead up to the election, the FTAA positions of the opposition candidates, including the eventual winner, were much more protectionist than that of the outgoing government. If the protectionism carries through to official government policy, then the FTAA process will be much more difficult. However, this might just have been electoral talk. This paper will attempt to sort out truth from rhetoric.Brazil, non-tariff barriers, FTAA, South, International Relations/Trade,
The effects of fiscal consolidation in the OECD
Get PDFDespite the current recession in many parts of the OECD, fiscal consolidation is likely in many OECD economies in the 1990s. The author asks: is fiscal consolidation in the OECD in a period of low growth a recipe for global stagnation? In particular, what effects are likely in developing countries? The author starts with an overview of cuts in the U.S. fiscal deficit proposed by the Clinton administration and the extent to which European governments must cut fiscal deficits between now and 1997 to satisfy deficit targets in the Maastricht Treaty. How changes in fiscal policy are transmitted within an economy and between that economy and the rest of the world depends on whether those changes lead to permanent or temporary changes in government saving; whether they are implemented through government spending or taxes; and whether the taxes fall on households or firms. The main channels of transmission are through changes in: agents'expectations about future taxes, interest rates, exchange rates, and economic activity. The author uses the MSG2 multicountry models to quantify the ramifications of those changes. He concludes, among other things, that fiscal contraction in the OECD will probably lead to slower growth over the next several years. But the current and likely paths of fiscal policy are such that deficit reduction programs may have stimulating effect in the short run, as long as future fiscal contraction is credible. And fiscal deficit reduction will probably increase long-run output in the OECD through its effects on savings and investment. Finally, growth in the developing countries (at least total growth) may not be impaired at all by fiscal consolidationin the OECD. The negative effects of fiscal contraction will occur through lower net exports of non-OECD economies. For developing countries with open capital markets, the initial reduction in demand through lower exports can be offset by the reduction in interest rates following an inflow of capital from the countries with contracting fiscal policy. A significant decline in real global interest rates is likely to increase growth in developing countries that are debt-constrained, either directly (through private capital inflows) or indirectly (by relaxing the balance of payments constraint, allowing more resources to be channeled to domestic investment needs).Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Macroeconomic Management
The political economy of hedge fund regulation
Get PDFThe currency crises and episodes of market unrest of the 1990s sparked a series of regulatory initiatives to reform the Global Financial Architecture. One of these initiatives tackled the activities of hedge funds, a type of investment vehicle that was frequently cited as one of the causes of these crises. The key research question of this thesis is why efforts to regulate an apparently destabilising aspect of financial markets failed, despite the setting up of an ad hoc forum at the international level (the Financial Stability Forum) and various domestic initiatives in the US, the country where most hedge funds operate.
The thesis develops a theoretical framework that examines this regulatory inaction through three explanatory models. The first model draws upon mainstream economic accounts and argues that the empirical evidence did not justify more interventionist public regulation of hedge funds. The second model assumes that a form of relational power has been exercised at the regulatory table: those actors with an interest in leaving hedge funds unregulated prevailed over those that favoured a more mandatory approach. The third model argues that it was not just relational power that determined outcomes, but mainly the power of the structure of meaning within which discussions took place and problems were framed. This structure of meaning led to a particular formulation of the problem at stake, which excluded other concerns and actors from the regulatory agenda.
Each model is analysed for its policy implications. The first model leads to regulatory solutions that rely upon private actors' due diligence and self-assessment of risk. The second model leads to policy options that favour a greater inclusion of developing countries and other stakeholder groups in decision-making processes in global finance. The third model leads to a rethinking of the very tenets of financial market regulation and of the financial theories used to explain and govern the market. The thesis argues that the third model is better able to grasp the complexity of power beyond the seemingly technical nature of financial regulation. For this reason, it is deemed more suitable to provide policy solutions that challenge the current neo-liberal framework of regulation
Correction to: Gene expression identifies patients who develop inflammatory arthritis in a clinically suspect arthralgia cohort (Arthritis Research & Therapy, (2020), 22, 1, (266), 10.1186/s13075-020-02361-2)
No full textFollowing publication of the original article [1], a typesetting error was reported. The equal contribution note for this article was incorrect. The corrected statement is given below. † Ellis Niemantsverdriet and Erik B. van den Akker contributed equally and are joint first authors. † Annemieke Geluk and Annette H. M. van der Helm-van Mil contributed equally and are joint last authors. The original article [1] has been corrected.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic
Dichloropropenes
Get PDFPrepared by Syracuse Research Corporation ; prepared for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry."Chemical manager(s)/author(s): Annette Ashizawa, Sharon Wilbur, Heraline Hicks, ATSDR, Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, Atlanta, GA; Julie M. Klotzbach, Daniel J. Plewak, Syracuse Research Corporation, North Syracuse, NY." - P. ix."A Toxicological Profile for 1,3-Dichloropropene, Draft for Public Comment, was released in 2006. This edition supersedes any previously released draft or final profile"--P. iii.Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-270) and index
Antitrust-based remedies and dumping in international trade
Get PDFThe authors explore the possibility of government's seeking to agree to apply competition policy based considerations and disciplines in addressing unfair-trade allegations before turning to"standard"antidumping remedies. The premise of proponents of antidumping actions is that the existence of market power in exporter's home markets, or potential market dominance in the importing (host) market, is an important source of perceived"unfairness."But antidumping authorities do not investigate the existence of such situations. The authors propose that allegations of dumping first be investigated by competition authorities to determine the contestability of the relevant markets. Their proposal does not involve harmonization of competition laws. All that would change from the status quo is that a necessary condition for an antidumping action is that competition authorities find that the exporting firm's home market is not contestable, and conclude that no remedial action is possible through the application of competition law. Ideally, agreement along these lines would be sought in the multilateral (GATT) context, but bilateral or regional trade agreements could also be concluded. For example, European Union cooperationor association agreements might be extended along the lines proposed.TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access
Quality change and other influences on measures of export prices of manufactured goods
Get PDFMeasures of long-term trends in world export prices for manufactured goods, and in the terms of trade between manufactured goods and primary products, are sensitive to many choices in methods for weighting indexes, base periods, and (most important) changes in quality. For example: 1) wieghting products by their importance in exports to developing countries, rather than by their importance in exports to all countries, reduces the estimated rate of increase in prices for manufactured goods by about 0.1 or 0.2 percentage points a year; 2) a shift in weights from those of an early year (1963) to those of a recent year (1986) reduces the rate of increase in prices by about a third of a percentage point a year; 3) export price indexes with weights of Japanese exports grow about 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points a year less than one weighted by the U.S. export composition, with the larger difference for indexes based on 1963 weights; 4) adjusting the price index for exports of machinery and transport equipment for quality changes not accounted for in the price indexes reduces the rate of increase for those products by about one percentage point a year, and that adjustment for only those products reduces the estimated rate of increase in prices for all manufactures by about half a percentage point a year. Conservative estimates of the bias in the most commonly used measure of export prices of manufactured products - the U.N. export unit value index for manufactures - suggest that this measure overstates the long-run rise in prices for manufactured goods by more than half a percentage point a year, probably one percentage point or more. If so, there has been no long-term trend toward the prices of manufactured goods rising faster that prices for primary products. However, no conceivable estimate of bias in measures of prices for manufactured goods would reverse the picture of declining relative prices for primary products in the 1980s.Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT
A Note on the Equivalence of Rationalizability Concepts in Generalized Nice Games
Get PDFMoulin (1984) describes the class of nice games for which the solution concept of point-rationalizability coincides with iterated elimination of strongly dominated strategies. As a consequence nice games have the desirable property that all rationalizability concepts determine the same strategic solution. However, nice games are characterized by rather strong assumptions. For example, only single-valued best responses are admitted and the individual strategy sets have to be convex and compact subsets of the real line R1. This note shows that equivalence of all rationalizability concepts can be extended to multi-valued best response correspondences. The surprising finding is that equivalence does not hold for individual strategy sets that are compact and convex subsets of Rn with n>1.
Writing and the rights of reality: usurpation and potentiality in Derrida, Plato, Nietzsche, and Beckett
Get PDFThe thesis critically evaluates Jacques Derrida's conferral of the rights of reality on writing, focussing on his theory of an arche-text in light of the speculative nature of this theory. The theory is initially considered in the context of Derrida's elucidation of the usurpatory status of writing within the Platonic and Nietzschean texts. This consideration reveals an admission of writing's usurpatory status by both writers while at the same time demonstrating their awareness of the intrinsically speculative nature of this view, the significance of writing lying in its ability to exteriorise the radically indeterminate status of consciousness m relation to reality rather than its ability to displace consciousness or reality The analyses, therefore, not only bring the Derridean hypothesis of a repressive or phonocentric metaphysical episteme into question but also exhibit the historical and philosophical role of potentiality in relation to writing, writing's ultimate significance lying in its capacity to exteriorise our existence as a mode of potentiality. Accordingly, in the second half of the thesis the Derridean theory of writing is countered with a specifically Aristotelian theory of the text as it is exhibited in the prose of Samuel Beckett, an author whose significance lies in his close alignment with Derridean theory within contemporary criticism. It is demonstrated that this identification has obviated an awareness of the significance of potentiality within the Beckettian text, his work consequently being appraised in the previously neglected context of Aristotelian metaphysics
Reading acts of narrative appropriation: four instances of fraudulent memoir
No full textPhDThis thesis examines acts of narrative appropriation, the telling of purportedly‘authentic’ life stories by those for whom the stories are not theirs to tell. This
misuse or subversion of genre - the discipline of historical writing and the category
of autobiography - becomes a means for cultural, social and political dissimulation,
and the analysis focuses both on the act: the event, trespass, or ‘theft’ of another’s
life story, and on the cultural meaning that this event reveals. These narrative acts
are approached theoretically through discussions of what it means to be an author, a
reader, and through the consideration of literary and social genre, category and form.
In exploring identities at particular risk of appropriation, this thesis shows how
fraudulent appropriated narratives affect our reading of the world, and in turn
influence our perception of already marginalized social groups. My primary
examples include prostitution ‘narratives’, Native North American ‘memoir,’ and
fraudulent Holocaust survivor ‘testimony,’ with each text providing decoded
evidence of ‘genre-bending’ exhibiting a social and political intent. These works
seek to be read as authentic personal narratives, as autobiography, and that is how
they have been presented to the reader. However, they are imposters – fictional tales
desiring the elevated status of historical authenticity and willing to bend the rules
and contracts of genre to achieve their end. Here the appearance of authenticity is
achieved through the use of cultural and social ‘myth,’ or perceptions of cultural
identity, and as such its fraudulent construction is first and foremost a social act,
with a social and economic motivation. As this thesis concludes, these texts are
most successful when their own political and social ideologies echo and confirm that
of the readership; when their subjects, the fraudulent ‘I’ at the center of the text is
also a performative elaboration of cultural belief
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