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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Oguz Ozbek |
| Abstract: | The economic development in one region or locale can be associated with and explained by socio-cultural and socio-spatial factors. This premise is well-supported by an institutional and historical analysis. The increasing number of works on social embeddedness and formation of entrepreneurial culture highlight again a well-known phrase of institutional economics: history matters. Economic growth in one region can be closely associated with broad historical processes and initial advantages. The Turkish case offers a suitable context for this institutional analysis outlined above. The initial advantages that are most evident in the irreversible development trajectories of the commercial centres like Istanbul and Izmir are also expressive in the emerging regional and sub-regional growth centres like Anatolian Tigers. Anatolian Tigers refer a number of new growth centres that put up a good and consistent performance in manufacturing industry since the 1980s. Two Anatolian Tigers, Konya (well-known) and Karaman (less-known) locating in South-Central Anatolia constitute the geographical scope of this paper. The sub-region of Konya-Karaman is not only delineated by normative criteria but also defined historically and geographically. This makes the area a historical region of established commercial culture. Konya is an important regional centre of commercial, industrial, agricultural and service activities in Turkey especially with its nationally strategic industrial establishments and grain production. Since the 1980s, Konya has experienced an important development in the manufacturing industry. Karaman that is an important industrial and commercial centre of Central Anatolia at both provincial and urban levels is commonly not known or termed as an Anatolian Tiger but it displays a number of historical peculiarities (administrative, socio-economic and geographic) are crucial to comprehend the historical roots of recent commercial and industrial development of Tigers and other redeveloping centres in Anatolia. In the re-emergence of Konya and Karaman as regional growth centres, locational, social and political factors contributed positively to the perpetual socio-economic development in Anatolian Seljuk, Karamanogullari, Ottoman and Republican periods. In conclusion, from the perspective of institutional economics, this paper examines the role of historical-geographical factors in the formation of an entrepreneurial culture in the sub-region of Konya and Karaman. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1436&r=cwa |
| By: | Giuseppe Tattara (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari) |
| Abstract: | Italian firms have recently engaged in direct investment abroad through the establishment of production facilities in China and India. Using data gathered from interviews conducted in those countries in 2009 with 16 Italian predominantly small and medium-sized firms, this article explores: the motivations behind Italian parent companies’ decisions to create subsidiaries in Asia; relations between the newly established production facilities and their local suppliers and markets; any subsequent organizational adaptations; and the cultural and administrative difficulties the enterprises have encountered. The article provides a novel perspective on how predominantly small and medium-sized manufacturing firms achieve cost and differentiation advantages by leveraging their dynamic capabilities. |
| Keywords: | Strategic management of multinational firms, Value chains, Capability-based strategies. |
| JEL: | F23 F14 L25 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2012_06&r=cwa |
| By: | Andreas Hˆgberg |
| Abstract: | The current literature on firm ownership around the world shows that concentrated ownership with only one or a few controlling owners is common, especially in many European and Asian countries. The dispersed ownership has proven to be uncommon and even countries with supposed dispersed ownership has also shown signs of ownership concentration. Commonly, the controlling ownership is held by an individual, or a group of individuals, usually with family ties. Family ownership is the most common type of concentrated owner around the world, with pyramidal ownership structures of firms and state ownership are prevalent features of ownership concentration often observed also. The effects on the governance of the firm, the relation between shareholders and management and furthermore the level of investment performance of the firm is all ultimately affecting the economic development around the world. While most previous studies within the ownership literature has been done on publicly traded firms, this paper, however, studies the effect of ownership type and control on firm performance and governance in a large sample of both public and private European and Asian firms. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p940&r=cwa |
| By: | Harrison, Mark (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the range of national experiences of communist rule in terms of the aspiration to ‘overtake and outstrip the advanced countries economically’. It reviews the causal beliefs of the rulers, the rise and fall of their economies (or, in the case of China, its continued rise), the core institutions of communist rule and their evolution, and other outcomes. The process of overcoming a development lag so as to approach the global technological frontier has required continual institutional change and policy reform in the face of resistance from established interests. So far, China is the only country where communist rule has been able to meet this requirement, enabled by a new deal with political and economic stakeholders. The paper places the “China Deal” on a spectrum previously limited to the Soviet Big and Little Deals |
| Keywords: | Beliefs, China, communism, convergence, growth, institutions, modernization, policy reform, Russia |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:warwcg:91&r=cwa |
| By: | Olga Aleshina |
| Abstract: | Northern territories in Asian Part of Russia hold significant mineral resource abundance. This region can also be viewed as an outstanding geopolitical and military potential of Russia. On the other hand, economic development here is embarrassed with severe climatic conditions, underpopulation and unavailability of infrastructure. Targeting to proportion costs and benefits of the rising economic activity on the territory we analyze its prospects and challenges. For the central point would be taken intricacies with transport component when running projects of the local deposits deployment. As non-ferrous metals are the most likely to form the essential branch of Northern industry, they will originate substantial material flow in the area. This leads us to the point local transportation lines should be improved by far. Sea carriage is almost exclusive mode of transportation available for the purposes of Arctic littoral regions and furthermore the list expensive. Therefore reinforcement of Northern Sea Route (NSR) plays the vital role in developing of in question regions’ economy. Multisectoral multi-regional model allows to link growth of non-ferrous metals complex and progress of sea transport corridor (NSR). Suppose the whole country is oriented for the maximization of public welfare and economic growth rate. In these terms our investigation led to a key-note conclusion: long-term goals of the whole country are attained superior when running active economical policy in the North. The crux is large non-ferrous metals sector companies are ready to enter the area if the government provides substantial financial support for infrastructure improvements. Simultaneously, in our case economic development should not implicate people to settle the territory. Rotation system is implied. All potential resource abundant zones are to be attached to the congruent NSR harbors, thereby regional centers. The system of aqua-territorial industrial complexes is suggested as an efficient form of economic life in Northern regions of Asian Russia. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p410&r=cwa |
| By: | Antonio Rodrigues; Rita Santos |
| Abstract: | The debate over Growth, regional disparities and social inequalities within the European Union (EU) has originated much attention amongst academics and policy makers. This is only so, as there is a clear causal relationship between these and quality of life in general. Public intervention, which can and have been directed both at the supply and the demand side of the economy, has proved necessary, although insuficient as market forces per se have proven inefficient in terms of resource allocation. The objective of the present paper is to analyse, at the regional level, trends in income levels per capita, human capital measured with an education proxy, material deprivation and general well-being. Markov transition matrices will first be used to compare cluster dynamics, using local indicators of spatial autocorrelation (following Rey, 2001). This analysis will be extended to include analysis of within-quadrant movements. A growth model including human capital and material deprivation allowing for spatial lags will be used to evaluate te impact of education and poverty on income levels. The dataset used is taken from the Cambridge Econometrics database, Eurostat and the European Social Survey, for a total of 192 NUTS2 EU regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1100&r=cwa |
| By: | Evgeniya Kolomak |
| Abstract: | Aims of the study are to estimate 1) contribution of infrastructure capital in productivity growth in Russia, and 2) level and spatial extension of the spillovers for different categories of infrastructure. We measure stock of the traditional infrastructure sectors: railways, highways, communication. We use data for 79 Russian regions, covered period is 1992 - 2007. The basic idea of econometric estimates is to expand a production function including infrastructure capital stock. We examine several different categories of public capital. The log-linear Cobb-Douglas form of the production function gives empirical model. We assume existence of spatial spillovers of the infrastructure elements and dependence of regional productivity on public capital of neighboring regions introducing into the model spatial weights matrix and a spatial lag component. There are several problems of econometric estimates relating to the model. The first one is correct specification of the spatial dependence, what includes construction of the spatial weights matrix. The proposed strategy is to run series of regressions using different spatial weighs matrixes. The second one is common trends of output and public capital. One of the proposed ways to resolve the problem is to use some forms of differences. The third problem involves missing variables; panel data and taking of the differences to some extent lessen this problem. Another problem is causality: does absence of progress in infrastructure capital reduce economic growth or does low growth of output decrease the demand for infrastructure? The endogeneity poses question of instrumental variables, the choice of a spatial lag of the predicted values of the dependent variable or of spatially lagged exogenous variables is considered. Infrastructure capital is a public good however its effects can be distributed uneven among different sectors of economic activity. To take this fact into account the proposed set of growth model estimations are done for two alternative production functions focusing on gross regional product and on manufacturing sector only. The results are as follows: - estimates of contribution of infrastructure capital in productivity growth in Russia; - evidence of infrastructure externalities; - estimates of infrastructure spatial spillovers for different categories. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p471&r=cwa |
| By: | John Eyers |
| Abstract: | Fragile states are those characterised by problems of weak governance or of conflict, internal or cross border. They are also described, less crisply but more carefully, as countries in fragile and conflict affected situations hence the acronym used in this paper, FCA countries. For about a decade the demands of providing international assistance to FCA countries have received explicit and increasing attention, both from aid organisations and from a range of others. These two kinds of literature, with their different perspectives, are what this paper describes. It also comments on how far Australia has a distinctive approach in its aid to FCA countries. |
| JEL: | O10 O19 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:devpol:1221&r=cwa |
| By: | Michel Dimou |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to study the impacts of wars and conflicts on city-size growth and city-size distributions. It follows recent empirical work from Davis and Weinstein (2002), Bosker and al (2008) and Dimou and Schaffar (2009) who tried to understand how wars affected the Japanese, the German and the Balkan cities-size distributions. The paper initially focuses on theoretical aspects by examining the main theories which consider the way exogenous shocks affect urban growth. Then, it uses non-parametrical methods and Markov chains in order to study city-size dynamics in the Balkan peninsula during then 1981-2005 period. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p260&r=cwa |
| By: | Aliye Ahu Gulumser; Tuzin Baycan-Levent; Peter Nijkamp |
| Abstract: | Creative capacity in the field of regional sciences means the capability of any region to generate knowledge and thus to achieve innovation and the diffusion of the output of the innovative activity while obtaining the viability and sustainability of this process. Although creative capacity studies mainly focus on urban regions, the late rural studies and empirical evidences showed that rural region has a great potential capacity in terms of its five components viz. knowledge; innovation; entrepreneurship; creativity; and networks. But, these opportunities have shown by a rural specific approach rather than an urban approach. On this basis, by taking into consideration these discussions in the literature, we assume that the rural creative capacity can be evaluated by the recent changes in rural regions that show the capability of rural regions to exploit its knowledge as an output. On this purpose, in this study, we aim to evaluate which component is relatively important to identify the level of rural creative capacity. Therefore, the study focuses on 60 villages from Europe and 17 villages from Turkey by deploying the data obtained from the in-depth questionnaires. This study is a first attempt at settlement level with an optimistic approach to measure the opportunities lying at the heart of rural regions. The results of the study showed that creativity in terms of traditions is the most important component in both cases while European villages have more opportunities and do not have the latent rural problems while Turkish villages are still suffering from the well-known rural problems that their capacity exists but it is very limited. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p451&r=cwa |
| By: | Shams, Khadija |
| Abstract: | Drawing on unique survey data for rural Pakistan, we investigate the impact of socio-demographic factors on life satisfaction with particular emphasis on subjective well-being measurement to evaluate poverty and its different components. The data elicits information on overall well-being in terms of households’ satisfaction with the current socio-economic status as well as financial well-being regarding satisfaction with the current income or expenditure. We estimate a happiness model to explore to what extent a well-being perspective adds to our understanding of poverty. We find that the well-being approach closely depicts the idea of capability poverty in terms of the level education and health which both matter significantly. Our results moreover suggest that the proposed financial well-being approach is more promising in capturing both income and capability poverty on subjective grounds. This paper’s main contributions are as follows. First, we link the emerging field of happiness economics with development studies. We believe that this paper fills an important gap in the literature and may well inspire a new holistic look at poverty, beyond the conventional dimension of the lack of income. Second, we intend to challenge the view that poverty is best understood from a more macro-level without properly accounting for individuals’ own valuation of their well-being. Since poverty is often linked with human development, or the lack of it, this paper takes a special look at poverty and suggests that income poverty is only part of the picture. |
| Keywords: | Well-being measurement; poverty evaluation; life satisfaction; socioeconomic indicators; rural Pakistan |
| JEL: | O15 R20 I32 O12 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:40132&r=cwa |
| By: | Jinghua Sha; Nan Xiang; Lin Guo; Runbo Gu |
| Abstract: | Capital Economic Circle that is located in north of China belongs to water resources shortage regions. The per capita water of it is only 1/7 of the per capita water of the whole country, and 1/30 of the per capita water of the whole world. Thus water resources problems become one of the key factors that restrict regional development. According to the analysis of water resources situation in Capital Economic Circle, in this paper we find out some main problems existing in regional water resources utilization. These water problems contain a series of water resource problems, such as water environment, water ecology, and water disaster. Finally, based on the theory of circular economy, the proposals on developing recycling economy of water resources are put forward. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p400&r=cwa |
| By: | Malina, Robert; Albers, Sascha; Kroll, Nathalie |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate current pricing practices at the 200 biggest airports in the European Union. Our analysis shows that airport incentive programs are, in general, a common tool of airport pricing as they are used at one third of all airports. We also find evidence on the presence of bilateral agreements between airport operators or regional authorities on one side and airlines on the other side which serve as a substitute for published incentive programs. Geographically, usage of the different tools varies substantially between different EU countries. A detailed assessment of the incentive schemes offered at German airports within our broader European sample reveals that the average level of landing and take-off, parking and positioning and passenger charges is generally reduced by more than 10%, at smaller airports even by up to 44%. Given the usually low profit margin of airlines and that airport charges account for up to 10% of total operating costs, these incentives can have an important influence on the economic viability of a route. Moreover, in an airline's multi-criteria-based assessment of potential market entries or route expansions, such incentive schemes might compensate selected weaknesses of an airport's strategic posture. -- |
| Keywords: | Air Transport,Airports,Pricing,Management,Regulation |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ucdbpl:107&r=cwa |
| By: | Vernikov, Andrei |
| Abstract: | We assess the effects from the industrial policy of growing state-controlled national champions on the Russian banking system, its concentration and competitiveness. Some light is shed on comparative financial performance of state-controlled banks versus other market participants. We also show that direct stare ownership is being replaced by indirect ownership and control. The period of observations spreads from 2000 through 1Q 2012. We modify the method of calculating the indicators of market concentration to reflect public ownership of the core market players. As a result of this modification, most market segments cross the threshold of high concentration (HHI ≥ 0.25), whereas household deposits market becomes close to monopoly. Supremacy of public banks enhances their market power and enables collecting rent that boosts profitability. In terms of institutional dynamics, we find a growing similarity between the Russian case and the evolution of the Chinese banking industry. |
| Keywords: | Russia; state-owned banks; public sector; industrial policy; national champions; market structure; concentration; Herfindahl-Hirschman Index |
| JEL: | L13 G28 G21 |
| Date: | 2012–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:40236&r=cwa |