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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Aizenman, Joshua (Asian Development Bank Institute); Lee, Minsoo (Asian Development Bank Institute); Park, Donghyun (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | Structural change has a far-reaching impact on inequality. Extensive structural change is both a cause and consequence of the exceptionally rapid economic growth, which enabled developing Asia to raise living standards and reduce poverty at a historically unprecedented rate. The region has already begun the difficult and complex task of addressing inequality arising from structural change. There is a growing recognition that more sustainable growth supported by broad-based political and social support requires a growth strategy, which provides equality of opportunity, especially in education and employment. The newly developing more inclusive growth philosophy envisions expanded social protection systems and social safety nets to protect the poor and the vulnerable. |
| Keywords: | inequality; structural change; developing asia |
| JEL: | O15 O53 P46 |
| Date: | 2012–11–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0396&r=cwa |
| By: | Elena Cottini (Dondena Center for Research on Social Dynamics, Bocconi University and Center for Corporate Performance, Aarhus University); Paolo Ghinetti (Dipartimento di Studi per l’Economia e l’Impresa, Università del Piemonte Orientale) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate whether employee health is affected by the environment in which the individual works - in terms of both physical and psychosocial working conditions - and by his or her lifestyle. Health measures are computed from Danish data, and refer to both self assessed general health and two more objective health measures: mental health specific to work-related problems, and physical health. We find that both bad working conditions and bad lifestyles reduce health, especially in its self-assessed component. The impact of lifetsyle indicators have a more modest health impact on both physical and mental health. |
| Keywords: | working conditions, lifestyle, health |
| JEL: | I1 C0 |
| Date: | 2012–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2012-28&r=cwa |
| By: | Laborde, David; Martin, Will |
| Abstract: | This survey concludes that including agriculture in the Doha Agenda negotiations was important both economically and politically, although the political resistance to reform is particularly strong in this sector. While agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of merchandise trade, high and variable agricultural distortions appear to cause the majority of the cost of distortions to global merchandise trade. Within agriculture, most of the costs appear to arise from trade barriers levied on imports since these barriers tend to be high, variable across time and over products, and are levied by a wide range of countries. The negotiations faced a need for balance between discipline in reducing tariffs and hence creating the market access gains that are central to the negotiations, and flexibility in managing political pressures. While the approach of providing flexibility on a certain percentage of tariff lines is seriously flawed, the proposed Modalities still appear to provide worthwhile market access. Better ways appear to be needed to deal with developing countries'concerns about food price volatility while reducing the collective-action problems resulting from price insulation. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness,Free Trade,Emerging Markets,Trade Policy,Economic Theory&Research |
| Date: | 2012–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6261&r=cwa |
| By: | Qin, Duo; He, Xinhua |
| Abstract: | Dynamic econometric models are carefully built to analyse counterfactually the globalisation effect on inflation for ten countries from G10 during the Great Moderation period. The main findings are (i) the effect is highly heterogeneous from country to country; (ii) increases in trade openness could be either inflationary or deflationary whereas increased imports from low-cost emerging-market economies are mostly deflationary; and (iii) there is almost no direct globalisation impact as far as inflation persistence is concerned while the impact on inflation variability can be positive as well as negative. Overall, globalisation is found to have contributed positively to lowering rather than stabilising inflation during the Great Moderation era. -- |
| Keywords: | inflation dynamics,globalisation |
| JEL: | C52 E31 E37 F41 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201256&r=cwa |
| By: | Cheptea, Angela |
| Abstract: | Recent trade evolutions credit China with a large and growing market potential, and explain the increasing attractiveness of the Chinese market to foreign producers. In 2007 one tenth of internationally traded products were shipped to China. The present paper aims to determine the countries that profit and suffer the most from the recent expansion of the Chinese market. We use an econometric shift-share methodology that permits to identify for each trade flow the share of growth arising from the capacity to target the products and markets with the highest increase in demand, and the share due exclusively to exporter's performance. Export dynamics specific to each country (exporter) are estimated for the Chinese market and compared to those of the global market, for all internationally traded products and agri-food products alone. We estimate the contribution of countries' geographical and sectoral structure, and their export performance to the evolution of their market shares, and differentiate between changes in export volumes and prices. |
| Keywords: | International trade, Export performance, Market shares, Shift-Share, China, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2012–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa131:135788&r=cwa |
| By: | Sauer, Johannes; Davidova, Sophia; Gorton, Matthew |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically measures the prevalence of heterogeneous technologies in a sample of small-scale agricultural producers as an answer to structural conditions and market risks. Such risks are closely linked to the effects of land fragmentation and the degree of market integration. We use the empirical case of Kosovo as a transition country to investigate the efficiency effects of land fragmentation by simultaneously considering the effects of market integration. Different to previous studies, we assume that land fragmentation and market integration lead to the prevalence of heterogeneous technologies allowing farm households to respond more efficiently to exogenous price and policy shocks given their fragmentation and subsistence situation. The empirical work links the latent class frontier method to the estimation of a directional output distance function. We estimate beside primal technology measures also dual Morishima type elasticities of substitution investigating changes in production decisions based on relative shadow price changes. |
| Keywords: | Land fragmentation, market integration, farm households, Landfragmentierung, Marktintegration, Farmhaushalte, Kosovo, Land Economics/Use, O13, Q12, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi12:137385&r=cwa |
| By: | O.A. Carboni; P. Russu |
| Abstract: | This article develops a dynamic optimising macro model of a open economy specialised in tourism based on natural resources. Environmental externalities are explicitly introduced in the production function. Global dynamic analysis shows that, under some conditions on the parameters, if the initial values of the state variables are close enough to the coordinates of Pa, then there exists a continuum of equilibrium trajectories approaching Pa and one trajectory approaching Pb. Therefore, the model exhibits global indeterminacy, since either Pa or Pb can be selected according to agent expectations. |
| Keywords: | global and local indeterminacy; environmental externalities; history versus expectations; Hopf bifurcation |
| JEL: | O13 O41 Q22 C62 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201230&r=cwa |
| By: | Rahman, Shaikh M.; Larson, Donald F.; Dinar, Ariel |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the cost of producing emission reduction credits under the Clean Development Mechanism. Using project-specific data, cost functions are estimated using alternative functional forms. The results show that, in general, the distribution of projects in the pipeline does not correspond exclusively to the cost of generating anticipated credits. Rather, investment choices appear to be influenced by location and project type considerations in a way that is consistent with variable transaction costs and investor preferences among hosts and classes of projects. This implies that comparative advantage based on the marginal cost of abatement is only one of several factors driving Clean Development Mechanism investments. This is significant since much of the conceptual and applied numerical literature concerning greenhouse gas mitigation policies relies on presumptions about relative abatement costs. The authors also find that Clean Development Mechanism projects generally exhibit constant or increasing returns to scale. In contrast, they find variations among classes of projects concerning economies of time. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Economics,Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Energy Production and Transportation,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Energy and Environment |
| Date: | 2012–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6262&r=cwa |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Books have undergone a massive transformation from a physical object to something entirely different: the electronic book, or “e-book”. This report provides background on e-book markets and examines various policy issues related to e-books. These include differing tax rates in countries between physical books and e-books, consumer lock-in to specific platforms, limitations on how users can read and share their purchased content, and a lack of transparency about how data on their reading habits is being used. |
| Date: | 2012–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaab:208-en&r=cwa |
| By: | Nicole Schneeweis; Vegard Skirbekk (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria); Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and cognitive functioning at older ages by exploiting compulsory schooling reforms, implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s. Using data of individuals aged 50+ from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we assess the causal effect of education on old-age memory, uency, numeracy, orientation and dementia. We find a positive impact of schooling on memory. One year of education increases the delayed memory score by about 0.3, which amounts to 16% of the standard deviation. Furthermore, for women, we find that more education reduces the risk of dementia. |
| Keywords: | Compulsory schooling, Instrumental Variables, Education, Cognitive functioning, Memory, Aging, Dementia |
| JEL: | I21 J14 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2012_11&r=cwa |