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on Central and Western Asia |
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Issue of 2022‒11‒21
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Demirguc-Kunt,Asli; Torre,Ivan |
| Abstract: | This paper outlines an extension of the Human Capital Index that addresses the specificchallenges in education and health faced by countries in Europe and Central Asia. Good basic education will not beenough, as job markets today demand higher levels of human capital than in the past. As the region’s population becomesolder, it is important that adults remain healthy to ensure productive aging. The Europe and Central Asia Human CapitalIndex (ECA-HCI) extends the Human Capital Index by adding a measure of quality-adjusted years of higher education to theoriginal education component, and it includes the prevalence of three adult health risk factors -- obesity, smoking, andheavy drinking -- as an additional proxy for latent health status. This extension of the Human Capital Index could alsobe useful for assessing the state of human capital in middle-income countries in general. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Health Care Services Industry,Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Disease Control & Prevention |
| Date: | 2020–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9458&r= |
| By: | Grigoryan, Karen; Arpanahi, Ali |
| Abstract: | Armenia-Iran North South Transport corridor is vital for Iran and Armenia and also for all parties involved. Recently, India increased its interest in Armenia and would like to see the INSTC passing through the Armenian territories, keeping in mind that Armenia is also the only country in the EAEU that has a land border with Iran. Taking into account Iran's desire to become a full member of the EAEU in the future, as well as India's interest in the EAEU structure and possible future membership, Armenia's chances of joining regional trade projects would be high. North South Transport Corridor route via India, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Russia. This route is 30% cheaper and 40% shorter than the current traditional route. A country with a small domestic market like Armenia, of course, needs to expand its economic and trade ties with other countries in the world. The "One Belt, One Road" initiative can provide such an opportunity. An opportunity will also be created for the development of the Armenian transport infrastructure. Armenia aimed to construct the "North-South" transport road, 550-km long, to facilitate communication with Iran and Georgia and beyond. |
| Keywords: | Belt and Road Initiative,Armenia,Iran,China,India,trade,transport infrastructure,Silk RoadRoute |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:opodis:20228&r= |
| By: | Akcay, Ümit; Jungmann, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we aim to contribute to the recently growing body of political economy literature on growth regimes. Theoretically, we apply the demand and growth regime approach developed within post-Keynesian macroeconomics. This is complemented by a critical comparative political economy perspective to analyse the socio-political underpinnings of a demand and growth regime by using the concept of dominant social blocs and their growth strategies. We posit that the concept of growth strategy is useful to uncover the intention of a dominant social bloc to consolidate or change the current demand and growth regime. Using this framework, we examine the demand and growth regimes of Poland and Turkey from 1999 to 2020. We identify a domestic demand-led regime in Poland between 1999 and 2008, which transitioned to a weakly export-led regime between 2009 and 2020. In Turkey, we identify a domestic demand-led regime before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) that became a private debt-led regime until the taper tantrum in 2013. Since then, a development towards a more export-led regime is observable, albeit at lower and unstable growth levels. We argue that in both countries the trend toward a more export-led regime after the GFC is associated to changes in the dominant social blocs. Both of the new dominant social blocs that established themselves during the 2010s - represented by the PiS-party in Poland and the AKP in Turkey - pursue a growth strategy toward "national capitalism". Politically, these strategies have come with a democratic backlash. Economically, they aim to gain more control over key sectors such as banking and finance while developing a more competitive export sector through domestic re-industrialisation initiatives. |
| Keywords: | Post-Keynesian macroeconomics,comparative political economy,growth regimes,growth strategies,Poland,Turkey |
| JEL: | B52 E65 E66 F43 O43 P16 P52 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:1902022&r= |
| By: | Barış Alpaslan; Brendan Burchell |
| Abstract: | Although sociologists have already recognised the gender aspect of social capital, to date it has not yet been systematically investigated in an endogenous growth model. In pursuing this objective theoretically, we draw on Agénor and Canuto (2015) that has offered a three-period (childhood, adulthood, and old age) gender-based Overlapping Generations (OLG) framework, but we explore a different mechanism through which social capital may explain gender equality and prospects for economic growth in Turkey. This paper contributes in several ways to understanding the pivotal role of social capital in the process of economic development. First, social capital gives individuals a great sense of community and feelings of pleasure, and therefore we consider social capital as a possible driving factor of labour productivity. Second, in our model setting, survival rate for adults is determined by the average social capital level of men and women because individuals who are less socially integrated are more likely to have high mortality rates than people with strong ties to their community. Third, we elucidate an important, but understudied, trade-off between time allocated by women to market work and social capital-enhancing activities, and show that these two components of time allocation have opposite effects on intra-household bargaining power. |
| Keywords: | social capital, three-period gender-based OLG model, Turkey |
| JEL: | J16 O41 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2022-57&r= |
| By: | Niftiyev, Ibrahim |
| Abstract: | There is a growing body of literature on the possible presence of the Natural Resources Curse (NRC) and Dutch Disease Syndrome (DD) in the Azerbaijani economy. Because of its abundant hydrocarbon resources, Azerbaijan has pursued an oil-oriented strategy for economic growth and development. Certainly, this path has helped overcome serious economic problems such as extreme poverty, lack of capital accumulation, and technology adoption, but it is also believed that a lopsided economic structure hinders overall sustainable growth. Indeed, it has been noted that the high-value-added manufacturing sector is an engine for stable economic growth and that specialization in the primary sector (including oil and related commodities) can pose many challenges to developing countries. Over time, non-oil production has been neglected and volatile commodity prices have been allowed to determine macroeconomic stability in Azerbaijan. This has been a risky path and now requires a comprehensive investigation using widely accepted theories such as NRC and DD. This working paper presents the first results of an econometric and empirical linear analysis of the main NRC- and DD-related variables to shed light on the above phenomena. The main regression approach was a stepwise algorithm to find variable-specific functional relationships. The results are far from perfect and are experimental in nature. Although all conclusions should be drawn with caution, interested parties such as academics, professional economists, decision makers, or policy makers could benefit from the proposed conceptualization of NRC and DD in the Azerbaijani economy for their future studies. |
| Keywords: | Azerbaijan economy,de-industrialization,Dutch disease,natural resource curse theory,non-oil industry,oil-rich nation,regression analysis,Stepwise regression |
| JEL: | D04 E32 L6 O14 O52 O53 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:266036&r= |
| By: | Khachikyan, Sos; Hongzhen, Jiang |
| Abstract: | The architecture of public policy through spatial principles has important features in the age of globalization. In this context, the Belt and Road Initiative can be considered as a worldwide public policy project, where conceptual thinking and legal understanding should be discussed. Soft and hard lows - as political and legal aspects, have important feature on the BRI implementation. Flexibility, openness, and inclusiveness are the main soft tools for Belt and Road Initiative participating countries. Based on these, networking and spatial particularities may generate new administrative principles for the BRI project. In this sense, the spatial administration definition was formulated, through which is possible to integrate spatial components of countries that have different social, national, ethnic or religious dimensions, and various geo-economics dimensions. Important to note that Armenia has specific economic and political status in the South Caucasus because of two circumstances. We consider that Belt and Road project is possible to integrate with the Armenian North-South Road Corridor program and free economic zone in Meghri, in order to introduce structural reforms and diversification of economy. |
| Keywords: | Spatial administration,North-South Road Corridor,Belt and Road Initiative,BRI legalaspects,digitalization |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:opodis:20227&r= |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | Armenia is facing considerable fiscal risks from climate change due to increasing and highly variable temperatures. This report provides guidance on how to quantify those risks over the long term, using an empirical approach to identify the potential impact of a range of temperature scenarios on GDP and the public finances. It finds that an extreme unmitigated temperature scenario that incorporates higher year to year variability could reduce GDP by 18 percent relative to baseline, and lead to unsustainable public debt trajectory by 2070. It also finds particular exposures to climate change on the state’s balance sheet through its SOE, PPP and on lending portfolio in the energy, water and transport sectors. |
| Date: | 2022–10–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfscr:2022/329&r= |
| By: | Hollweg,Claire Honore; Ong Lopez,Anne Beline Chua |
| Abstract: | Using firm-level data for Georgia, the paper estimates the quasi-elasticity of employment and wages with respect to the share of exports in total sales, to explore whether changes in the structure of sales (exporting versus selling to the domestic market) matter for labor market outcomes. The methodology uses exogenous fluctuations in exchange rates combined with firms' initial exposure to various markets as instrumental variables to identify a causal effect. The results differentiate employment levels and average wages by gender and consider whether export destination or the competiveness of economies matters for the magnitude of this elasticity. The data are from the National Statistics Office of Georgia Statistics Survey of Enterprises merged with customs data for 2006-17. The instrumental variables regression results show that the act of exporting improves female employment but reduces overall average wages and female wages. Increasing exports to the European Union as well as high-income countries drives this positive result for female employment, whereas exporting to upper-middle-income countries is found to have a negative relationship with female employment. |
| Keywords: | Rural Labor Markets,International Trade and Trade Rules,Labor Markets,Plastics&Rubber Industry,Textiles, Apparel&Leather Industry,Pulp&Paper Industry,Food&Beverage Industry,Common Carriers Industry,Construction Industry,Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies,General Manufacturing |
| Date: | 2020–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9432&r= |
| By: | Ghafar, Safeen; Abdullah, Hariem; Haji Rasul, Van |
| Abstract: | The current study is an empirical attempt to measure the profitability of commercial banks in developing countries. It deals with aspects of understanding the impact of a number of firm-specific factors such as liquidity, debt leverage, retained earnings, bank size, growth rate and age of the bank on the profitability of commercial banks in Iraq for the period between 2009 and 2018. The sample study includes a number of commercial banks listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange. Data were collected from banks for the above period and analysed by using the multiple linear regression model and Brinson correlation coefficient using EVIEWS program. The results of the empirical analysis show that liquidity ratio, leverage ratio, retained earnings ratio, bank size and growth rate have a positive impact on the profitability of Iraqi commercial banks, with a negative impact from the age of the bank. The study recommends the necessity of conducting more in-depth studies in the field of profitability determinants, to include other non-financial sectors that have a distinctive position in the economic sectors in the Iraq Stock Exchange, to find out the extent of the variation in the determinants of profitability in the different sectors. |
| Keywords: | profitability measurement, profitability determinants, commercial banks, internal factors, Iraq. |
| JEL: | G21 G32 L25 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:114697&r= |
| By: | Andrew Shaver (University of California, Merced) |
| Abstract: | News reports of political violence are systematically compiled into large global conflict-event datasets used by academics, governments, and international organizations. These datasets present opportunities to examine the micro-dynamics of conflict but are often systematically skewed. We compare various news-report based datasets to high quality administrative records from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, South Africa, and Syria to identify sources of systematic missingness in the former. We identify under-reporting related to violence intensity, weaponry, target, perpetrator, and non-deadly violence. In a large replication exercise, we show that media-based data fail to uncover the results reported in leading economics/political science journal articles. |
| Keywords: | Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines, South Africa, Syria |
| JEL: | H56 D83 F51 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:esocpu:32&r= |