So, Just How Capitalist is China?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/30/2008 01:26:00 AM
I came across this interesting paper by MIT economist Yasheng Huang via Andy Mukherjee over at Bloomberg. In it, Huang tackles the question, "Just How Capitalist is China?" and comes up with a novel explanation about China's path to development. The paper summarizes the key points of his forthcoming book, "Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics." It is a fairly ambitious work that has the potential to upend some current thinking about the rise of China. Let us begin with a peek at the introduction and the main findings from the paper linked to above. Truly, it is beyond debate that the country has grown by leaps and bounds....
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Finance: Can Tokyo be London of the East?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/30/2008 01:02:00 AM
Bloomberg columnist Bill Pesek has two recent op-eds that should be of interest to many. Despite Japan spending much time and effort promoting Tokyo as an Asian financial hub, the city has largely fallen behind Hong Kong and Singapore as the preferred destination of haute financiers of all stripes. (Like me, you probably may be wondering why exactly Tokyo would want to reinvent itself as London-upon-Orient at this point in time as the subprime crisis wends its way around the globe. Send objections about how London isn't the place to be right now as financial services are currently being rocked by the fallout of the credit...
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The Wide World of Piracy: Special 301 for 2008

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/30/2008 12:16:00 AM
Intellectual property holds a special place in the hearts of IPE scholars. My more critical (read: Marxist) colleagues basically adopt the line of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon that (intellectual) property is theft. Being decidedly less socialist in outlook, I am still ambivalent over the extent to which IP violations are indeed theft. Certainly, a bit of imitation can be flattering, though I can't expound fully on my idea in this short space. American industry, however, displays none of this ambivalence. It has sought very strong IP protections in trade matters, especially with the incorporation of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual...
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China to Pump $1B Into Africa

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/29/2008 01:24:00 AM
There has been much discussion featured on this blog about China's involvement in Africa [1, 2, 3, 4]. In assumed contrast to meddlesome Westerns, the Chinese have wisely portrayed themselves as a fellow LDC that can share its experience in spurring economic growth. In line with its professed policy of non-intervention in other states’ domestic affairs, China makes for a desirable partner for these African states which are often bent on authoritarianism as well by making no demands for political transparency, economic reform, or human rights; providing markets for their raw materials; and supplying investment, trade, training,...
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Unknown: Inequality's Extent in Gulf Petrostates

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/29/2008 12:41:00 AM
One of the neat things about being the leader of one of the world's many authoritarian regimes is that you don't need to compile statistics that make you look bad if you don't want to. Today's case in point are the Gulf states with regard to indicators of equality. You can almost hear them say, "take your Gini coefficient and shove it." None of them disclose anything remotely resembling inequality data, whether based on income or expenditures. For all we know, these may be among the most unequal of states or the least unequal of states, though we cannot really be sure. Much ink has been spilled on the difficulties faced in...
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Russia's Troubles on the Road to WTO Accession

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 4/28/2008 11:57:00 PM
Russia is the largest state in terms of both population and economic output not in the WTO. Despite this fact, I am still surprised that, as far as I know, I am the only weirdo who has been following the country's path to WTO accession in the blogosphere [1, 2, 3, 4]. Why the neglect? I think this matter is beyond trivial pursuit considerations, and it also may be the most interesting country to accede to the WTO since China in 2001 in geopolitical terms. Nevertheless, this is the IPE Zone, and I will cover this topic no matter what as it is primo, A-No. 1 international political economy fodder. As noted earlier, the Republic of Georgia was always going to be the roadblock on Russia's path to WTO membership. In particular, Russia has long been cottoning up to Georgia's breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Moscow has held a dim view of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as a Western stooge, especially after the ouster of President Eduard Shevardnadze in the so-called...
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"Insourcing," the Revival of British Manufacturing

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/28/2008 01:43:00 AM
Listen up as you're likely to read more about this practice in the near future. Among the latest buzzwords to hit little ol' me is insourcing. In contrast to the phenomena of outsourcing where firms located in industrialised countries move their activities to LDCs to take advantage of lower costs abroad, insourcing concerns the opposite. Insourcing happens when firms that sought greener pastures elsewhere discover that, gee, the grass isn't really greener on the other side. The Guardian has an interesting story about this trend happening in Blighty. Yes, it's anecdotal evidence and all that, but it makes for an interesting...
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HIV/AIDS: World Bank Pays Tanzanians for Safe Sex

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 4/28/2008 12:57:00 AM
The fight against HIV/AIDS takes a novel turn in this latest effort by the World Bank in Tanzania: The Bank is performing a pilot study on whether economic incentives contingent upon not testing positive for various STDs can be a way to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. I am unsure of whether this sort of thing can become a commonly used technique for preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS for a number of reasons:First, there is a vast academic literature which demonstrates the harmful effects of using economic incentives on intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the notion that persons do an activity for its own sake and not for any other reward. In this case, that would be observing safe sex practices without being paid to do so. When these economic incentives are removed in the future, what will be the effect if intrinsic motivation has been eroded by the use of incentives? Instead of simply comparing before and after, it is important to see what happens when these...
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Crass Warfare: "Happy List" Takes on "Rich List"

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/28/2008 12:11:00 AM
British newspapers are engaged in mortal kombat over declining circulation. I, like many others, have gone digital in reading news online. Who needs newspapers when you've got the Internet? There are five (count 'em!) quality dailies here in the UK. If you want me to try arranging them on the left-right political spectrum, they are The Independent, The Guardian, The Times (of London), The Financial Times, and The Daily Telegraph. So much good stuff to read, yet they are all chasing a dwindling newspaper audience--and I haven't thrown in the topnotch online content of the BBC yet. Among the five respectable dailies, only the Financial Times increased its circulation in 2007--with nary a half-naked woman in sight in this age of lowest common denominator journalism.Anyway, I've taken a shine to the Sunday editions of two of these famous papers, the Sunday Times and the Independent on Sunday. The Times has just published another special issue dedicated to the "Rich List" of those...
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Japan's Beggar-Thy-Neighbour Food Policy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/25/2008 02:13:00 PM
Japan's approach to agriculture is schizophrenic, to say the least. While it would like to maintain some of the world's highest subsidies and tariffs to protect locally produced food, it is also keen on maintaining a steady supply of food imports from abroad as it is the world's biggest net food importer. It is beggar-thy-neighbour at its most undiluted: try and maintain as much domestic protectionism while making everyone else shoulder the burden of high subsidies and tariffs. With a lot of developing countries now restricting food to ensure that local supplies are kept at adequate levels--and, more importantly, to avoid...
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