Can the industrial countries return to rapid growth?

This paper presents the discussions that took place at a seminar about the major global economic issues in the context of the long-term prospects for the industrial economies. Most participants agreed that growth rates are not likely to return to well over 2.5 percent in the medium run - unless some policy yet to be defined emerges - and that this slow down will particularly hurt developing countries. The meeting ended with a concensus that something must be done to stabilize exchange rates.Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,General Technology,Information Technology,Economic Growth

Measuring the incomes of economies of the former Soviet Union

There is as yet no fully satisfactory way to compare income per capita of the former Soviet Union with that of other economies. Even more problematic is compiling estimates for the separate economies that have emerged with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The main problem is the isolated non-market economy of the country, compounded by the chaotic state of information services. The results presented here, while subject to considerable uncertainty, are considered reliable enough for their primary purpose: to assign the new states of the Soviet Union to income categories for Bank analytical and operational purposes. The main difficulty was choosing a ruble-dollar conversion factor that accords reasonably well with the Bank's Atlas method. Official rates cannot be used because they are as artifical and misleading as any other planned price, meaning that they diverge by a large margin from the rate effectively applied to international transactions. This study investigated three alternative conversion methods, yielding GNP per capita estimates for the former Soviet Union for 1990 ranging from $2,440 to$3,720. The method judged most reliable (referred to as the synthetic Atlas-type conversion factor) gave an estimate of $2,870. The figure is somewhat at odds with Atlas estimates for the former Soviet Union and other members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), which may reflect the limited applicability of the Atlas methods for historically planned economies. Income per capita is calculated for each of the states of the former Soviet Union and for the other European members of CMEA. The method developed here relies on a purchasing power parity bridge from planned to market economies. Unlike conventional use of this measure, the study uses the relationship between purchasing power parity and exchange rates for comparator market economies to suggest an Atlas-type conversion factor. The estimations for the state of the former Soviet Union have a suggested margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent. Incomplete reports for 1991-92 show large declines in real GDP in all countries of the former Soviet Union - as much as 25 percent in some cases. It is unlikely that mechanically extending results to 1992 will yield meaningful results, so this study is just a beginning.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Settlement of Investment Disputes,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT

Globalisation: Recent traits and challenges

This special issue gathers together twelve papers that revisit a range of core topics in the field of international economics. These papers were presented at the XIX Conference on International Economics (CIE) held in Vila‐Real (Spain) on 28th–29th June 2018. The Conference was co‐organized by researchers from the Spanish Association of International Economics and Finance (AEEFI) and the Institute of International Economics (IEI). The selected papers are stimulating pieces that shed new light on recent trends in globalization as well as some of the main challenges that need to be faced in the presence of the multiple yield curves that emerged after the credit crunch. The CIE also included two keynote lectures by Laura Alfaro (Harvard Business School) and Gabriel Quirós (IMF) as well as 64 selected contributions

My Studies in International Economics

I first review some of the major influences that shaped my early years. I then relate the subsequent developments in my professional career, including my research orientation, chief publications, collaborative relationships, and longstanding involvement in undergraduate and graduate teaching and supervision.International Economics; Empirical Studies

FDI, Education, and Economic Growth: Quality Matters!

In this paper, we revisit the results from the influential study by Borensztein et al. (Journal of International Economics 45:115–135, 1998), which argues that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) promotes the economic growth in a less developed host country only when the host country obtains a threshold level of secondary schooling. Borensztein et al. (Journal of International Economics 45:115–135, 1998) only focus on the quantity of education. We take into consideration both the quantity and the quality of education. We adjust the original schooling data in Borensztein et al. (Journal of International Economics 45:115–135, 1998) by two quality of education indices and re-estimate their model. We find that the complementarity between inward FDI and schooling still exists, but the threshold level of schooling in our study is lower than the threshold calculated in Borensztein et al. (Journal of International Economics 45:115–135, 1998). Our results support the importance of education quality and suggest that with improved quality of education, it does not take as much quantity of schooling, as established in Borensztein et al. (Journal of International Economics 45:115–135, 1998), for inward FDI to have a positive impact on economic growth in the host country

Economic impact of Norfolk Island reform scenarios

Summary The Centre for International Economics has modelled the impact of the following reforms on the Norfolk Island economy: ■ Core Reform — at the core of the proposed reforms is inclusion of Norfolk Island in the mainland’s welfare and Medicare systems. This would also necessitate participation in the mainland income taxation system ■ Other tax related reforms — imposition of mainland Superannuation, Goods and Services Tax, import duty (tariffs) and Fuel Excise, plus a simulation where Norfolk Island’s GST, import duty and Fuel Excise are all removed (without extending comparable mainland taxes) ■ Other reforms — include applying the Australian minimum wage in Norfolk Island; and GBE reforms such as improved governance arrangements and the establishment of an independent pricing regulator for monopoly services (or the opening of sectors to competition)

The importance of advanced physical and mathematical sciences to the Australian economy

This report was commissioned by the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Australian Academy of Science and produced by the Centre for International Economics (CIE). The report combines the expertise of Australia’s scientific community with that of business and industry. The aim has been to produce an economic framework that can use the available statistics and economic modelling techniques to provide a timely reminder of how much of our national economic activity depends on the advanced physical and mathematical sciences (the APM sciences). The APM sciences comprise physics, chemistry, the earth sciences and the mathematical sciences, where ‘advanced’ means science undertaken and applied in the past 20 years. Biology and the life sciences were not covered in the report. The direct contribution of the APM sciences is estimated to be 11% (or about 145 billion per year of the Australian economy). The contribution in additional and flow-on benefits equals another 11%, bringing the total benefits to 22% or around 292 billion per year

Mundell's International Economics: Adaptations and Debates

Most of the chapters in Mundell's International Economics differ, owing to adaptation, from the original sources. The revisions yield valuable insights into the contributions made by the initial publications. In this paper we look only at the changes that take the form of elisions of material. These outtakes are amusing but demonstrate how Mundell was willing to either irritate or ignore his discussants. Issues raised by them are important enough to warrant our further consideration. In doing so we question both the validity and the interpretation of some of the conclusions in the Nobel-cited capital mobility paper. Copyright 2005, International Monetary Fund

Where are the poor in International Economics?

Despite the fact that a very significant proportion of the human population is living with financial difficulties and other constraints typical of poverty, scientific studies in the areas of Economics and especially in International Economics that address the issue of poverty and of poor countries are very few. Using bibliometric techniques, we measured the attention paid by authors from the field of International Economics to poverty and poor countries. To this end, we sorted and analyzed all articles published in the most important journal in the field, the Journal of International Economics (JIE) over the last forty years. Evidence shows that the authors who have published articles in the JIE have mostly developed studies focused on ‘Meso (industry, region) and microeconomic policies and issues of ‘International Trade’ and ‘International Finances’, and are usually of the ‘Formal’ and ‘Formal and Empirical’ types, where the topic ‘Poverty’ is very marginal (only 13 articles published in the JIE, less than 1% of the total, address this matter in any of its dimensions). Furthermore, in the more empirical articles, no country among those included in the group ‘Less Developed Countries’ deserved particular attention. The neglect of poverty and of the poor contrasts (and is related to) with the significant weight of articles that make use of formalization (more than 80%). Despite the trend for a decrease in exclusively ‘Formal’ articles, without any applied/empirical component, the (still) excessive focus on ‘mathematical’ accuracy (i.e., formalization), and the concomitant limited capacity to deal with the (social) problems of the real world, is an effective challenge to authors in the field of international economics and, in particular, to those who publish in the JIE, which must be overcome if we do not want international economics to become a “cyborg” science.International Economics; Poor Countries; Poverty; Bibliometrics