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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | James Crotty; Kang-Kook Lee |
| Abstract: | In December 1997 the IMF offered Korea loans to help alleviate its financial crisis. These loans were accompanied by what the IMF called “extreme structural conditionality.” Korea was required to replace its traditional East Asian economic system with a neoliberal model. We review economic performance in the neoliberal era. Growth has slowed, poverty and inequality have risen, and investment spending has stagnated, while foreign ownership of Korean firms and banks has skyrocketed. We argue that foreign investment has not helped Korea. For example, by leading a shift from corporate to consumer lending, foreign control of Korea’s financial markets has constrained capital accumulation and helped create an excessively indebted household sector, while making it harder for the government to adopt progressive economic policies. We conclude that the eight year experiment with radical neoliberal restructuring has turned out well for foreign capital and wealthy Koreans, but has been a failure for the majority of Korea’s people. |
| JEL: | O19 F34 F36 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp111&r=pke |
| By: | Chowdhury, Shyamal; Negassa, Asfaw; Torero, Maximo |
| Abstract: | "This paper examines how market institutions can affect links between urban and rural areas with specific emphasis on goods market integration in the national context.Traditionally, development researchers and practitioners have focused either on rural market development or on urban market development without considering the interdependencies and synergies between the two. However, more than ever before, emerging local and global patterns such as the modern food value-chain led by supermarkets and food processors, rapid urbanization, changes in dietary composition, and enhanced information and communication technologies point to the need to pay close attention to the role of markets both in linking rural areas with intermediate cities and market towns and promotion of economic development and poverty reduction. This paper begins with a presentation of a conceptual framework of market integration and then identifies five major factors that increase the transfer costs that subsequently hinder market integration between rural and urban areas: information asymmetry, transaction costs, transport and communication costs, policy induced barriers, and social and noneconomic factors. Five specific cases in five developing countries are examined in this study to demonstrate the primary sources of transfer costs and the aspects of market institutions that are important to market integration and promotion of rural-urban linkages." from Authors' Abstract |
| Keywords: | Rural-urban linkages , |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcnddp:195&r=pke |
| By: | Kariuki, Gatarwa; Place, Frank |
| Abstract: | "Dimensions of the nature, scope, and complexity of collective action in Kenya have evolved over many years. In studying collective action, the aim is to understand why and how people participate in networks of trust. The purpose of this study was to investigate the different objectives that farmers pursue through collective action with the aim of understanding the patterns of people's participation in collective action, identify factors that influence people to join groups, and identify the costs and benefits of participating in activities of groups. The study was carried out in four sites spread across the highlands of central Kenya. Data was collected from a total of 442 households, focusing on whether members of those households belonged to groups and if so, what type of groups these were and their activities. In addition we looked at how these groups functioned and identified some of the contributions members make to these groups and the benefits from the same. The analysis shows that collective action is used to accomplish a range of activities for different socioeconomic categories and that the majority of households in central Kenya engage in some form of group activity.... The study suggests that where institutions and policies that promote individual or private sector growth are weak, collective action can help to overcome these weaknesses and connect individuals in these institutions and policies." from Author's Abstract |
| Keywords: | Collective action ,Trust ,Community participation ,cost benefit analysis ,Household surveys , |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:worpps:43&r=pke |
| By: | Esteban A. Nicolini |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that the interaction between economic and demographic variables in England before the onset of modern economic growth did not fit some crucial assumptions of the Malthusian model. I estimated a vector autoregression for data on fertility, nuptiality, mortality and real wages over the period 1541-1840 applying a well-known identification strategy broadly used in macroeconomics. The results show that endogenous adjustment of population to real wages functioned as Malthus assumed only until the 17th century: positive checks disappeared during the 17th century and preventive checks disappeared before 1740. This implies that the endogenous adjustment of population levels to changes in real wages -one of the cornerstones of the Malthusian model- did not work during an important part of the period usually considered within the “Malthusian regime”. |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wh060601&r=pke |