|
on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Tonus, Özgür |
| Abstract: | The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union was the milestone to complete the process of trade liberalization, which had already started in the early 1980s. Global economic environment and Turkey’s Structural Adjustment Programs, which has been supervised by International Monetary Found, had created transformation stage of Turkish manufacturing industry in the trade liberalization period in the late 1990s. The sector’s relative size to GDP has not changed remarkably during the last decade, while the Turkish manufacturing sectors production and export capacity have been growing. In this paper, we try to analyse the causal relationship between trade with European Union and Turkish manufacturing sector indicators over the period of 1996-2006. |
| Keywords: | Customs Union; trade liberalization; industrialization; Turkish manufacturing industry |
| JEL: | F14 O24 F43 |
| Date: | 2007–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:5124&r=cwa |
| By: | Matthieu Chemin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the consequences of slow judiciaries on firms' contracting behaviour in India. After deriving testable implications from a game theoretical model, I examine how case pendency rates in India's state courts affect the contracting behaviour of 170,000 small non-agricultural informal firms from the 2000 National Sample Survey's 55th round. I find that a slow judiciary implies more breaches of contract, discourages firms from undertaking relationship-specific investments, impedes firms' access to formal financial institutions, and favours inefficient dynasties. Moving a firm from the highest to the lowest pendency state would result in a 10% improvement in firm performance. |
| Keywords: | Law and economics, Institutions, Courts, Contracts, Industrial Organisation, Economic Growth, Industrial Performance |
| JEL: | K10 K12 K40 K42 O12 O17 L14 D23 C72 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0724&r=cwa |
| By: | Alain Desdoigts (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Fernando Jaramillo (Universidad del Rosario) |
| Abstract: | Will the integration of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) into the global economy provide the biggest boost to the world economy since the industrial revolution ? In this paper, we investigate international demand spillovers brought about by an emerging global middle class and their impact on the international structure of production. We put forth a many-industry and two-country trade model featuring international competition, non-homothetic preferences and country-specific asymmetries in income distribution, productivity and population size. Its key characteristic is the introduction of demand complementarities propagating increasing returns across industries and national boundaries, which eventually translate into a global profit-multiplier. |
| Keywords: | Horizontal complementarities, hierarchic preferences, world middle class, deindustrialization, trade. |
| JEL: | F10 O11 O14 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:v06014a&r=cwa |
| By: | Matthieu Chemin |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of judiciaries on firms' contracting behaviour and economic performance. In 2002, the Code of Civil Procedure Amendment Act was enacted in India to facilitate speedy disposal of civil suits. Some State High Courts hal already enacted some of the amendments contained in this reform a long time ago. This spatial variation in the reform's implementation is used to identify the effect of judicial quality on firm's behavior. Using small informal firm data, I find that the reform led to fewer breaches of contract, encouraged investment, facilitated access to finance, and expanded rental markets. |
| Keywords: | Law and economics, Institutions, Courts, Contracts, Industrial Organisation, Economic Growth, Industrial Performance |
| JEL: | K10 K12 K40 K42 O12 O17 L14 D23 C72 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0725&r=cwa |
| By: | Rajashri Chakrabarti; Joydeep Roy |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect of a redrawing of political boundaries on voting patterns and investigates whether it leads to closer conformity of an electorate's voting patterns with its political preferences. We study these issues in the context of a reorganization of states in India. In 2000, Madhya Pradesh, the biggest state in India before the reorganization, was subdivided into Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the latter accounting for less than one-fourth of the electorate of undivided Madhya Pradesh. Using socioeconomic composition and traditional voting patterns, we argue that there are differences in political preferences between Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Next, in the context of a theoretical model that captures some of the basic features of the electoral scenario of the two regions, we predict that before reorganization, the smaller region would vote strategically to elect representatives with preferences more closely aligned to those of the bigger region. Once Chhattisgarh became a separate state, however, this motive would no longer operate, and the voting distributions of the two regions would differ. Using detailed data on state elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 1993, 1998, and 2003 as well as a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we find that voting patterns in the two regions were indeed very similar before reorganization but strikingly different afterwards, with a relative shift in Chhattisgarh toward its inherent political preferences. These findings are reasonably robust in that they continue to hold after controlling for other confounding factors and survive several sensitivity tests. |
| Keywords: | Political science ; Developing countries |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:301&r=cwa |
| By: | Xavier Giné; Robert Townsend; James Vickery |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the contract design and institutional features of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India and presents preliminary evidence on the determinants of insurance participation. Insurance take-up is found to be decreasing in basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, higher among wealthy households, and lower among households that are credit constrained. These results match predictions of a simple neoclassical model appended with borrowing constraints. Other patterns are less consistent with the benchmark model. Namely, participation in village networks and measures of familiarity with the insurance vendor are strongly correlated with insurance take-up decisions, and risk averse households are found to be less, not more, likely to purchase insurance. We present evidence suggesting that these results reflect uncertainty about the product itself, given households' limited experience with it. |
| Keywords: | Insurance, Casualty ; Insurance, Disaster ; Households ; Rural areas ; Human behavior |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:302&r=cwa |
| By: | Matthieu Chemin |
| Abstract: | A key element of government is to uphold law and order. This paper will evaluate the impact of slow judiciaries on entrepreneurship. In 2002 a judicial reform was implemented in 6 of Pakistan's 117 districts to facilitate rapid case disposal. Drawing on a panel dataset of 875 district judges' performance between 2001 and 2003, a difference-in-differences analysis shows that judges disposed of 25 percent more cases thanks to the reform. Three rounds of the Labour Force Surveys will be then used to show that the reform improved security of property rights, encouraged people to seek loans, fostered entrepreneurship and was associated with increased transition from unemployment and paid employment to entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Legal System, Entrepreneurship |
| JEL: | H11 H41 K42 O12 L26 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0727&r=cwa |
| By: | Mourao, Paulo |
| Abstract: | In this paper it is built an index of value for Fiscal Illusion in democratic countries. This approach uses a cautioned methodology recurring to a comprehensive database. The index measured the Fiscal Illusion dimensions in 68 countries since 1960. It evidenced that the situation varies greatly around the world. It was verified that the countries with the highest average values are Mali, Pakistan, Russia and Sri Lanka. Conversely, Austria, Luxembourg, Netherlands and New Zealand are some of the countries with the lowest average values. The periods of more significant decrease (roughly, periods of less recurrence to Fiscal Illusion practices) were those between 1980 and 1995. The existence of institutions in each country and in each group of countries that maintain unchangeable the fiscal and political practices leads to the stabilisation of Fiscal Illusion at certain slightly unaltered values. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Illusion; Indexes/Indicators; Governance |
| JEL: | H30 C82 H11 |
| Date: | 2007–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:5091&r=cwa |
| By: | Sonja Peterson; Gernot Klepper |
| Abstract: | The policy instruments for emissions reductions will be an integral part of a Post Kyoto Climate Regime. In this paper we compare a harmonized international carbon tax to a cap and trade system with different allocation rules for the emission caps. The caps are based either on the requirement for equal percentage reductions in all countries or the “contraction and convergence” proposal that leads to converging per capita emission rights. The quantitative analysis is based on simulations with the CGE model DART. The harmonized carbon tax tends to favor industrialized countries but is less favorable to developing countries. The welfare effects of a cap and trade system depend crucially on the allocation rule for emission rights. The “contraction and convergence” approach leads to welfare gains for countries like China, India and Subsaharan Africa whereas it imposes welfare losses upon industrialized countries which are larger than those under other cap and trade schemes or a tax scenario. Independent from the allocation rule that is used regions exporting fossil fuels experience strong welfare losses from the reduction in the demand for fossil fuels and the fall in prices that results from the imposition of the international climate policies. |
| Keywords: | Post Kyoto, emission targets, emission trading, taxes, distribution |
| JEL: | H22 H23 H87 D58 Q48 Q52 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1380&r=cwa |