Guilherme Azevedo & H. Bertrand (PUC-Rio - Pontífica Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
E-mail: prof@guilhermeazevedo.com
Does "Remote Work" Pay Out? Discussing the Acculturation on the International Outsourcing Process
|
Repeated discussion has been conducted concerning the use of remote labor force on the international supply chain. Different models and taxonomies have been applied in order to differentiate types of remote workers (e.g. migrants, expatriates, "brains-abroad", remote service providers…) or types of international organization structures (e.g. Multinational, Global, Metanational…). However, the discussion focus usually involves the seeking of short-term efficiency and the economic consequences for both "parent" and "host" countries economies.
The authors intent to present a discussion based on a different point-of-view; the one of the acculturation on the international outsourcing process. Based on the Furnham and Bochner (1986) "concept of acculturation curve" the authors discuss how the existence or absence of a cultural environment may alter long-term value of an international outsourcing practice. The "organizational culture" concept is observed under the analogy of an individual acculturation process and specifically represented by the use of remote working.
Some results of the discussion are related to the changes on the organizational vision, the changes on the organizational learning processes and the persistence of a managerial ethnocentrism mind-set on the strategic level of most many international companies.
|
Jason Beckfield (Indiana University, USA)
E-mail: jbeckfie@indiana.edu
Income Convergence and Regional Integration in the European Union
|
|
The relationship between regional political and economic integration and differences in national per capita incomes among the countries of the European Union (EU) is not well understood, and the predictions of sociological and economic approaches are at odds. Existing studies have left this crucial question unresolved. This study uses data for 15 EU countries over the 1950-2000 period on dispersion in per capita GDP and novel measures of political and economic integration to assess the relationship between convergence and integration. Time-series analysis shows that regional political and economic integration are associated with economic convergence, and that the effect of political integration is larger than economic integration. These results hold for two measures of GDP (FX and PPP), three measures of dispersion (coefficient of variation, Gini coefficient, and standard deviation of logarithms), two time periods (post-1950 and post-1960), and two samples of countries (the six original members of the European Economic Community and the 15 members of the European Union). Results support both the orthodox economic approach and the political-institutional sociological approach, but not the world systems/dependency approach.
|
Susan Bloom (Bloom Consulting GmbH, Switzerland)
E-mail: Susan_Bloom@csi.com
Republicanism and Privatization: French Economic Nationalism and the Global Marketplace
|
|
French liberalization is best understood as a pragmatic practice rather than an ideological conversion. Although chronologically concomitant with the powerful Thatcher-Reagan condominium, French reform was - and is - predicated upon a debate that challenges the oversimplified dichotomy of economic nationalism versus economic hegemony. The key intervening factor is the continued relevance and legacy of Republican traditions. These traditions condition not only the inclinations and pressures to embrace market-orientated reform but also the countermovements to retain a nationally-specific construction of capitalism based on the State's duties to protect the national interest and maintain social solidarity. Examining the privatization of Credit Lyonnais and Air France illuminates the growing disconnect between French elites and those they manage both in the workplace and society-at-large. The trust that relied upon relationships and expertise situated with the Republican normative framework was breached, generating a new public discourse about State officials and their obligations. These internal pressures were exacerbated by a European Union increasingly willing to exercise its regulatory and oversight capacities. Nevertheless, the State has ultimately demonstrated its capacity to reconcile market imperatives with Republican values, underscoring the continued relevance of economic nationalism in the liberal international political economy.
|
David Brady and Ryan Denniston (Duke University, USA)
E-mail: brady@soc.duke.edu
The Industrialization and Deindustrialization of Advanced Capitalist Democracies, 1960-2001
|
|
We analyze the sources of industrial employment in 18 advanced capitalist democracies from 1960 to 2001. We measure industrial employment as a percent of the labor force and utilize two different statistical techniques. We find that a general economic model explains much of the variation in industrial employment. Per capita GDP has a positive effect and its square term has a negative effect. Unemployment and agricultural employment have negative effects and inflation has a positive effect. Our study provides only limited evidence that industrial employment is shaped by political and labor market institutions. In contrast to past research, we find that globalization has important effects. Trade openness, net trade, exports, imports and total globalization all show an inverted U-curve relationship with industrial employment. After specifying these inverted U-curve globalization effects, the effects of per capita GDP and its square begin to attenuate. We find no evidence that foreign direct or portfolio investment affect industrial employment, but we find limited evidence that investment openness and external portfolio investment have positive effects. Ultimately, our study suggests that industrialization and deindustrialization have been driven by economic development and globalization.
|
Beat Burgenmeier (Universite de Genave, Switzerland)
E-mail: Beat.Burgenmeier@ses.unige.ch
Social Acceptability of Climate Change Policy
|
|
Natural science research tries to prove on objective grounds climate change in order to contribute to the consciousness of environmental problems. It is expected that an increased awareness contributes to realize climate change policies. However, the slow and controversial introduction of economic instruments for environmental protection, such as an ecological tax reform, in most OECD countries draws the attention of researchers towards problems of social acceptability. The Contribution presents survey results and discusses them in two steps. The first one describes the main objections made against those instruments. The second discusses the opposition between incentives and direct control and concludes on the strategies of the engaged pressure groups.
|
Agustin A. Casas (Ministerio de Defensa, Argentina)
E-mail: agucasas@universia.com.ar
Condicionalidad de las IFIs
|
|
El análisis de la condicionalidad de los IFIs hacia los países tomadores de crédito se ve influido fundamentalmente por su dependencia de los intereses de los países acreedores y por la débil capacidad de negociación de los países deudores (baja utilidad de reserva). De esta forma los organismos multilaterales de crédito enfrentan un trade-off entre eficiencia en la condicionalidad (asumiendo costos particulares debido a la existencia de información asimétrica) y crédito fácil (de parte de los deudores). Cuando la cantidad de países que necesitan el mismo tipo de políticas que las que benefician a los acreedores es alta, el IFI puede imponer reglas heterogéneas pero debido a los costos no necesariamente lo hace. Este enfoque permite relacionar el trabajo con el de la literatura de centralización/descentralización.
|
Francesco Paolo Cerase (University of Naples, Italy)
E-mail: franco.cerase@mclink.it
Local Development and Public Action: Prospects of Negotiated Planning
|
The paper addresses attention to the new role public actors can play in regulating and supporting local development policies in Southern Italy within the framework of so-called negotiated planning. In particular the focus is on local area pacts (or "territorial pacts" as they are called.)
The "pacts" are based on the mobilization of local resources and actors' both public and private. They envisage that the agreements reached among the actors involved find an explicit and mutual recognition within a new network of relationships. Moreover, most commentators argue that in order to be vital and enduring these relationships must be based on mutual trust. The more they succeed in doing so, the more they may turn into a great resource for future local development initiatives. Furthermore, at stake is the capacity to capitalize on the potentialities this strategy offers in terms of learning how to build new institutions for the development of local areas.
These questions are being researched by a field work consisting of a survey on local entrepreneurs and local political and administrative actors and of a number of in-depth interviews. The data collected are now being processed.
|
|
Evgeni Iliev Evgeniev (Central European University, Hungary)
E-mail: ppheve01@phd.ceu.hu
Sectoral Interest in Peripheral Countries. The Case of the Textile and Apparel Industry in Bulgaria and Turkey
|
|
The paper elaborates on the effects of globalization on economic development by observing the textile and apparel sector in Bulgaria and Turkey. Initially a commodity chains framework (GCC) is accommodated to emphasize the different firm links in the chain but we go beyond this approach. By using insights from sectoral analysis (SA) we focus on how the socio-economic environment of the chain is regulated to promote nationally controlled local production networks, which are beneficial for the host economy as they instigate firm upgrading. The author shares the belief that transnationalization is a precondition of modernization in peripheral countries. However, there are cases where instead of modernization, transnationalization results in a particular mode of insertion into global commodity chains which limits local companies from peripheral countries in catching up, pushing them into specialization in labor-intensive operations. Drawing on governmental reports, international institutions' analyses, interviews and secondary literature, this comparative study attempts to present a new causal model which explains the difference of the transnationalization impact by tracing the state-sector intersection and the change it produces for the development of local economies.
|
Manuel Ennes Ferreira and Luis Rainha (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao / Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa and ESGS, Portugal)
E-mail: mfereira@iseg.utl.pt
Political Openness and Economic Growth in Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe (1975 - 2000): Is There Any Empirical Evidence?
|
|
Changes in authoritarian regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa since the end of the 80's have been accompanied with changes in the economic system. In this paper, the authors intend to proceed to a comparative case study on the relationship between democracy and economic growth taking Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe as an example. Some degree of homogeneity explains the choice: the same historical background - two African lusophone countries -, both small islands, having achieved to their independence in the same year (1975), and kepting the same single-party system and an economic central planning system until the beginning of the 90's. From then on, in both countries, a multiparty system and a market-oriented economic system as well have been put in place. On the other hand, none of them have faced a civil war since their independence. Applying a specific methodology, the authors will look for testing the hypothesis that adopting a democratic system will improve economic growth. The results show two different situations, Cape Verde being the only beneficiary of political openness. The paper finalizes by trying to explain such different path.
|
Manuel Ennes Ferreira (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestafo/Universidade Tacnica de Lisboa, Portugal)
E-mail: mfereira@iseg.utl.pt
Rent-Seeking, Rent-Extraction and Structural Adjustment in Angola
|
|
One of the most common view concerning the poor Angolan economic performance focus on the rent-seeking behaviour of the Angolan leadership which has been much more interested in private accumulation, namely through the State, that taking care of the well being of their people. By acting as rent-seekers, the Angolan leadership should assume a passive role. In this paper, the author proposes a new highlight. It will be argued that rent-seeking practice has been developed together with a rent-extraction active role. More than exclusive they are complementary. Facing the need of promoting some economic and social improvement in the country, namely due to the end of the civil war and the prospective elections, the government is trying to sign an agreement with the IMF in order to put in force a structural adjustment. The implications of the measures on the rent-seeking and rent-extraction behaviour could abort the goal of reforming. This paper will demonstrate the limits of such option.
|
Lothar Funk (Cologne Institute for Business Research, Germany)
E-mail: Funk@iwkoeln.de
Current Structural Changes - Opportunities and Threats for German Trade Unions
|
|
German trade unions that are affiliated to the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) have, since unification, continually been losing members. The erosion of trade-union density is often attributed to 'mega-trends' in the economy. These mega-trends include globalization, the shift towards a service-sector economy, the increasing use of new information and communication technologies in the world of work, the 'individualization' of life styles, the increase in 'non-standard' forms of employment, and the ageing of population and workforce alike. An international comparison shows, however, that an ever decreasing membership is not an ineluctable fate that awaits unions. In order to get to grips with the mega-trends, an innovative strategy that mixes a more service-oriented approach for their members and a less confrontational course in politics could lead to new recruitment successes for unions.
|
Han Hu (Montgomery Blair High School, USA)
E-mail: han.hu@prodigy.net
Investigation of Developing Countries' Scarcity of Long-term Credit Using World Bank Data
|
One factor crucial to a country's economic growth is the amount of long-term loans, or long-term credit (LTC), it receives. Businesses depend on such credit to purchase equipment and carry out other large investments essential for long-term growth and competitiveness. Data directly measuring the amount of LTC each developing country receives is currently unavailable, and prior research uses firm data to measure countries' access to LTC. However, a lack of consistency in firm data reporting across countries prompted this study to devise a new method of measuring countries' access to LTC using routinely collected macroeconomic data.
The new measure is then used in analyzing data on 138 countries (1980-2000) from the World Bank's Global Development Finance database, resulting in the finding that a scarcity of LTC exists in developing countries. LTC is then classified into 12 categories for further analysis. This study finds that the level of development of countries' economies, financial and legal institutions, and governments all positively correlate with access to LTC, suggesting that countries seeking greater access to such credit should implement policies improving performance in these areas. This paper describes the study's results and policy implications for developing countries.
|
Shuwei Huang (Tunghai University, Taiwan)
E-mail: shuwei.huang@msa.hinet.net
Making a Financial Agglomeration: The New Developmental Strategy of Taipei.
|
|
Different from the exiting explanations about the learning capacity of East Asian countries that emphasizing the transformation of the manufacturing sector, this paper intends to argue that the developmental strategy of "industry cluster" in Taiwan is going to change. In the past, the industry cluster was based on the manufacturing sector. But the industry cluster of nowadays is the service sector, especially the financial industry. I will argue that because of the limitation of OEM system of Taiwanese IT companies and the challenges from China, Taiwan government tried to invest more on the infrastructure of the producer services in order to build Taipei as the Global City in East Asia. Unfortunately, because the financial system was so important for the developmental state to nature the manufacturing sector in the past. So it is hard to adjust the financial system to the global financial market. And the financial corporations have not agglomerated in the financial district yet. Finally, based on the Régulation Approach, this paper will build a new analytic framework to explore the dialectical relationship among developing strategy, accumulation regime, financial regime, and the form of urban space.
|
Arun Kumar Jain (Indian Institute of Management, India)
E-mail: arunjain@iiml.ac.in
Barriers to Performance of India's Cooperative Housing Sector
|
India's economy is presently on the high wave. Inflation and interest rates are declining, stock markets are booming, consumer spending is at an all-time high and dollar reserves are an all-time high crossing $ 1 billion. One of the main reasons for the rapid growth is the central government's heavy spending on creating a modern infrastructure, including 4-lane roads, ports, and liberalizing the power and the housing sectors.
It is believed that 'good' housing is one of the key drivers of the knowledge economy. We carried out an empirical and field-based research on the performance of the Indian cooperative housing sector and its contribution to building the nation's stock. To our surprise, the cooperative housing societies - working on no-profit basis - are on the deathbed in India despite the central and state governments promising all support to the sector. What has gone wrong? Interestingly, the lower-income groups have not benefited from the various government-sponsored cooperative housing schemes launched for them. This paper investigates the reasons further suggests how the barriers can be lowered so that the genuine cooperative housing societies can be nursed back to health.
|
Jessica Koehs (Georgetown University, USA)
E-mail: jrk39@georgetown.edu
The participation of cartoneros in the planning and implementation of law 992.
|
|
This research aims to determine how a marginalized and vulnerable groups come to participate in the public policymaking process and what kinds of roles they assume once involved. The specific case is that of cartoneros in Buenos Aires and their participation in the planning and implementation of Law 992, the law that legalized their activity in the city of Buenos Aires. Cartoneros (a.k.a. scavengers) make their living by collecting recyclable materials from city waste bins and dump sites. At the height of the Argentine crisis in 2001-2002, the number of people depending on this illegal activity as a means of survival reached an estimated 100,000 women, men, and children. This paper aims to explain process of empowerment the cartoneros went through to become involved in overturning the ordinance prohibiting their activities and how they are participating in the programs that regulate both their work and other recycling efforts in the city today.
|
Michal Kubicki (Poland)
E-mail: mkubicki@home.se
Making Venture Capitalists' Lives Easier -- in Poland and other European Countries
|
Venture capital is more and more important player in global and knowledge based economy, as a provider of critical financing for innovative products and services. Numerous countries are becoming interested in stimulating this sector, as there are numerous reasons: venture capital backed companies are expanding rapidly, they create export, lavishly invest in research and development, and create high quality jobs.
This paper examines the core policies used in stimulate venture capital sector in Poland and other European countries. Traditionally, united states, where venture capital originated are perceived as a model economy for other countries to follow. The most important issues to cover here are: capital formation easements, taxation easements, developed public stock market, concentration of public aid and mental entrepreneurship.
The paper claims that young market economies in transition, such as Polish, is not an attractive place for venture capital to flourish. Venture capital needs well-developed institutions of entrepreneur and capitalist. Social and economic process to establish these institutions take time, which has not been given to young market economies.
|
Mikko Kuisma (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom)
E-mail: m.h.kuisma@bham.ac.uk
Globalization, Rights-based Citizenship, and the State
|
|
A recent trend in the literature on citizenship has been the emergence of the notion of global citizenship. Contemporary concepts of democratic citizenship have traditionally been based on universal rights-based principles. In this paper my contention is to criticize the conceptions of global citizenship of departing from those principles and of being considerably interconnected with the global market. The existing claims of an emerging global citizenship are based on certain (elite) activities, such as those of the global ecological and human rights movement. The global market is, at present, a necessity for the existence and development of global citizenship, premised as it is on access to modern information technology and transportation systems. However, this represents the core of the problem. Market-dependency cannot build a healthy basis for citizenship. Citizenship ought not to be seen as a commodity or as a concept that depends on the market for its existence. Thus, it is my argument that the state ought to remain as the main domain of citizenship. Moreover, a notion of global citizenship dependent on the market ought to be discouraged in favor of promoting the values of democratic rights-based citizenship at a global level.
|
Anne T. Kuriakose (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
E-mail: akuriakose@runbox.com
Productive Ties: Governance, Labor Regimes and Upgrading in Handloom Textile Clusters in India
|
|
Past literature on industrial clusters and other local production systems has theorized the socially embedded nature of sector-specific production, learning and upgrading. Concepts such as the industrial district and the learning region place varying levels of emphasis on the respective roles of the state, associational and firm actors in maintaining competitiveness. This paper draws on field research in three handloom textile clusters in Andhra Pradesh, India to delineate the social organization of production in a traditional skill-intensive niche economy. The analysis emphasizes the scalar level of the cluster "belt" as a key organizer for participants in regional labor, production and market relations. The paper further examines interest group formation and labor identity, in relation to both private and public regulation of weavers' livelihoods. Evidence from the three clusters points to important roles in upgrading played by both private and public actors, and to the need for fine-grained socio-economic and spatial analysis in policy planning for the sector.
|
Liia Karsakova (Central European University, Hungary)
E-mail: pphkal01@phd.ceu.hu
A Case in Post-Socialist Development: Is Russia a Petro-State?
|
Comparing Russia with other post-socialist countries along the lines of degree of economic integration and the societal implications of the chosen (predestined?) path in terms of equitability, the peculiarity of the former is that, staying away from the whirlpool of integration processes and globalization processes, it continues to be an important player in the international economy as a supplier of energy resources. Since the beginning of transition, the share of oil and gas in GDP and in exports grew, mostly at the expense of the civilian processing. This sectoral shift had negative implications for employment (generating more 30% of total exports, oil and gas sectors alone employs 1-2% of labor force) and equity. Moreover, even though in the last years Russian economy has been exhibiting robust growth, it is driven mainly by high energy prices and remains highly volatile.
Inability of the Russian state to diversify its industrial structure seems to be partly the result of the exceptionally strong influence that resource sectors possess due to their economic might, and partly of the state's interest to preserve informal relations with economic actors. Paper aims to reveal the origins of this influence and instances where it undermined developmental efforts.
|
Sandrina Berthault Moreira (Instituto Politecnico de Setubal, Portugal)
E-mail: smoreira@esce.ips.pt
What Can we Learn from State-of-the-Art Aid-Growth Econometric Studies? Growth-enhancing Retarding Factors among Poor Countries
|
A large consensus between the IMF, the World Bank, and the U.S. Treasury about the "right" policies for developing countries can be traced back to the 1980s. The so-called Washington Consensus policies were originally market-oriented in nature and later complemented by "institutional reforms". This new generation of reforms is directly related to a change in development thinking from market supremacy to a more balanced perspective.
The effectiveness of foreign aid in promoting economic growth has been the subject of extensive research conducted over many decades. In the last few years, the econometric studies on aid effectiveness have drawn on a flourishing empirical growth literature to employ more sophisticated models. Measures of economic policy and the institutional environment are included in growth regressions alongside traditional macroeconomic variables. Research carried out by McGillivray and presented in a summary paper in 2003 provides a number of recent aid-growth econometric studies.
The aim of the present paper is to carry out a careful analysis of the empirical results of state-of-the-art aid-growth econometric studies, in order to assess which control variables are more growth-enhancing: measures of "first-generation" Washington Consensus reforms; measures of "second-generation" Washington Consensus reforms; or both. I focus on the econometric studies offered by McGillivray (2003) and compare the sign, the magnitude and the statistical significance of a common set of control variables.
|
Yoshitaka Okada (Sophia University, Japan)
E-mail: y-okada@sophia.ac.jp
Market-Oriented Approach as A Tool for Reformulating Networks under Globalization: Case of Japanese Semiconductor Industry
|
|
Globalization brought intensive contest between market orientation and local path- dependent-institutional-orientation, the former pursued allocative efficiency, while the latter in the context of Japan non-allocative efficiency with a strong emphasis on network, human relations, cooperation and trust. The loss of competitiveness by Japanese semiconductor companies made them face the power of market orientation and reformulate corporate practices. A basic question is asked whether Japanese companies become more market oriented and less network oriented. Research findings suggest that the introduction of market-oriented practices, restructuring, lay-offs, and more achievement-oriented remuneration, rather functioned to disintegrate the old form of networks and helped to reformulate network relations with much more flexibility and competitiveness. Consequently, emphasis on non-allocative efficiency, cooperation and trust remains one of key elements to cultivate global competitiveness, develops new-types of high-tech cooperatives for even close-to-market technology innovation which was previously impossible to establish due to competition, and consolidates complementary resources on products and creates unprecedented types of networks among competitors. The market oriented practices greatly functioned to reformulate networks, rather than creating more market-oriented relations, suggesting still the strong influence of path-dependent institutions under globalization in Japan.
|
Sutti Ortiz (Boston University, USA)
E-mail: sortiz@bu.edu
How Laborers Fare in a Successful Non-Traditional Export Industry
|
Non-traditional exports are touted as potential engines for regional development. The lemon industry of northern Argentina qualifies as a success story since has created a large number of new jobs. It grew from small scale production for the national market. Developed as an export industry of oils, juice and peel during the 1970s and became a major exporter of off-season fresh lemons by the 1990s. Northern Argentina has now become the second most important European market supplier. This growth was possible because of government incentives, governamental research institutes and certifying agencies.
This growth was not reflected in the well being of laborers, as can be illustrated using a data base of harvesters' earnings. The limited bargaining power of laborers, due to institutional and market conditions, partly account for it. Protective entry regulations, like Eurep-Gap normative, have had an ambivalent impact on earnings. It has forced producers to introduce technical and mangerial innovations that have improved safety and working conditions. However, the regulations have increased the cost of the harvest and producers' reluctance to allow wages to rise. The paper explores the likely outcome of institutional efforts and changes in market conditions on future earnings of occasional workers.
|
Karsten Ronit (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
E-mail: KR@ifs.ku.dk or kronit@get2net.dk
Between Protest and Participation in the Making of a Global Consumer Policy
|
|
Consumers belong to the immediate environment of business. Given this prominent position in the economy, we may hypothesize that consumer groups are an important and integral part of the international machinery, building a regulatory framework in this policy field. Although consumers have not been the strong political players - they sometimes appear to be - they have used two “voice” options: Protest and participation. Whereas the former is fragmented, the latter is coordinated and is manifested in the participation in the work of various intergovernmental organizations. Together with a number of relevant business associations, consumer organizations have become officially recognized by many intergovernmental organizations. Examples of bipartite arrangements with business groups to influence business behavior are, however, less frequent. The more established consumer organizations, such as the Consumers International (CI), have used their participation in various international fora to influence policy, but they are confronted with serious problems of collective action. Consumer organizations represent billions of consumers, but these are difficult to organize and represent properly. Furthermore, consumer interests must be defended in an increasing number of policy fields, in a variety of institutional contexts and across a range of industries. These diverse challenges are examined in this paper.
|
Alice N. Sindzingre (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris; School of Oriental and African Studies, London University)
E-mail: sindzingre@wanadoo.fr
The Developmental State as a Universal Concept? Contrasting Development Trajectories in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia
|
|
The concept of the developmental state is one of the most fertile in development economics. It links the economic, political and institutional structures and has explained the remarkable performances of the Northeast Asian countries (Korea, Taiwan). The ingredients of developmental states are often presented as determining factors in the prospects of catching-up of developing countries and function as a paradigm of escaping underdevelopment. The economic stagnation of Sub-Saharan Africa is interpreted as a consequence of common characteristics and constraints of its states, in terms of history, economy, political economy (e.g. predatory states), and global integration. The paper analyses the dimensions of the developmental states, and shows their systematic contrast with a series of features of Africa: colonial economic history, international integration, determinants of growth, states' redistributive constraints, institutional capacity. Some features are shared by developmental and African states: external dependence, overlapping of private and public interests, rents, natural resources (Southeast Asia). However, the interaction between domestic politics, institutions, and economics has enabled certain states to engage in developmental trajectories. After two decades of economic crisis and ineffectiveness of the reforms recommended by the international financial institutions, Sub-Saharan Africa is confronted with the reconstruction (construction), of states.
|
Mario Volpe and Giancarlo Cor (University Ca' Foscari of Venice, Italy)
E-mail: mvolpe@unive.it
The Role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the International Fragmentation of Production: a New Opportunity for Cooperation Policies?
|
The paper focus on the process of production internationalisation by small and medium enterprises (SME). We argue that economic theory, empirical methodology and actual economic policy are biased in favour of large, multi-national firms, whereas in many developed regions in industrialized countries the presence in international markets is assured by local system of production, composed mainly by SME.
We propose to use the statistical source of foreign exchange, decomposed at a high level of detail by sector and by area, to measure the degree and the different patterns of "productive internationalisation" of clusters of SME's.
The process driven by SME's cluster, is resulting in a new international division of labour. At the same time a demand for new economic policy is emerging: a policy intended to match different national and local institution, to lower the degree of uncertainty for firms, and a policy to manage the effects on the local areas (labour substitution, innovation, training).
We conclude the paper suggesting that a governed form of productive internationalisation of production, not simply the so-called "delocalization," could benefit both the district and the targeted foreign areas, highlighting a form of reciprocity in the space of cooperation policies.
|
Geoffrey Wood (Middlesex University, United Kingdom)
E-mail: geoffreywood65@hotmail.com
The State as a Network Organization: The Case of Equatorial Guinea
|
This article provides an introduction to the political economy of Equatorial Guinea. It provides an overview of the complex and dynamic web of elite rent generation and explores the extent to which the development of an oil industry has contributed to a monoculture of accumulation.
The discovery of oil has opened up hitherto undreamed avenues of accumulation for the Equatoguinean state elite. However, this does not seem to have resulted in the abandonment of a number of other well-established forms of rent generation. The family council remains at the centre of a loose network bound together through a web of patronage, ownership and tithing. Nor is there any evidence that has the discovery of oil led to better governance; despite impressive growth rates, the bulk of the population remain locked in a subsistence mode of existence. Indeed, the oil windfall has greatly strengthened the coercive state apparatus, and is likely to further entrench the authority of the ruling Esangui clan.
|
|