Symposium on Revenue Transparency, Resource Development, and the Challenge of Corruption

Revenue transparency and corruption in the mining industry have long been topics of national and international conversation. Mining plays an important role in the Canadian economy, contributing billions to Canada’s GDP. It is also the only domestic industry in which Canada plays an undisputed leading international role, having major operations in countries around the world. Unfortunately, there is also a dark side to mining. Historically, both in Canada and worldwide, very few local communities, Indigenous peoples, or developing and underdeveloped nations have benefitted from mining development. To the contrary, these communities have typically borne heavy costs associated with mining activities and reaped few long-term benefits. Further, mining in underdeveloped countries with poorly enforced governance and transparency laws presents multiple opportunities for corruption and social unrest. In response, ethically responsible and sustainable mining have become fundamental objectives for leading Canadian mining companies, mining associations, and governments. This symposium aimed to spark an international dialogue on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, its implementation, its effectiveness, and areas for improvement in promoting revenue transparency and mitigating corruption. As part of its ongoing “Ethics and Mining” related research, CBERN used the workshop to convene a series of meetings and public lectures to assess progress to date on meeting the challenges posed by corruption for resource extraction and to map a ‘next steps’ research agenda. Invited speakers and participants came from Canada, Africa, and the United Kingdom.CBERN received generous financing from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Connections grant program which allowed this event to take place

Pétro-puissance et système mondial : le cas de l’Arabie saoudite

Despite Us increasing weight in the global System, the international repercussions of Saudi petro-power are very under-researched. This study starts with a critical evaluation of the literature on the underdeveloped study of underdeveloped countries. The author then elaborates his research framework, defines and operationalizes his main concepts, and explicits two main hypotheses concerning the international status and the political role of Saudi Arabia. The study proceeds then to empirical verification. Eight tables, data analysis of recent Saudi international initiatives, and some interviews with Saudi and U.S. policy makers support the author's thesis : Saudi political elite works actively to maintain the basic structures of the contemporary global System

Investigating Factors Influencing Telemedicine Usage in Developing Countries

Telemedicine has a strategic role in providing timely medical care and containing the spread of infectious diseases. Despite its importance, telemedicine is largely underdeveloped in developing countries. This paper attempts to explore the factors influencing telemedicine usage by conducting case studies in two Chinese hospitals. Based on a research model we proposed, factors are identified that are likely to affect the use of telemedicine

Impact Analysis of Changes in Human Resource Capital on Economic Development - from Gravely Underdeveloped to Highly Developed Societies

This research encompasses 177 countries around the world with the data on human resource variables for the year 2005. The countries have been put into four groups: gravely underdeveloped, developing, developed, and highly developed. The research has looked into the variables Human Development Index, population, population over 65 years of age, primary education enrolment, investment into secondary education, investment into tertiary education, investment into research and development, Gender–Related Development Index and productivity increase, and analyzed how they influence the economic growth rate. This means that the impact of changes in the observed variables is analyzed, i.e. how they influence the standard of living and level of development in countries of the world. The main hypothesis is that investing in people, i.e. in primary, secondary and tertiary education will bring long-term positive effects on social growth and development, thus contributing to the level of development and overall standard of living. Another hypothesis is that, depending on the development level, human capital and education will exert different influence on GDP per capita, which indicates that a number of economic variables play a major role on the effects of education.primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, human resource capital, economic development, development level

Local sources of financing for infrastructure in Africa : a cross-country analysis

With the exception of South Africa, local financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa remain underdeveloped and small, with a particular dearth of financing with maturity terms commensurate with the medium- to long-term horizons of infrastructure projects. But as financial market reforms gather momentum, there is growing awareness of the need to tap local and regional sources. Drawing on a comprehensive new database constructed for the purpose of this research, the paper assesses the actual and potential role of local financial systems for 24 African countries in financing infrastructure. The paper concludes that further development and more appropriate regulation of local institutional investors would help them realize their potential as financing sources, for which they are better suited than local banks because their liabilities would better match the longer terms of infrastructure projects. There are clear signs of positive change: private pension providers are emerging in Africa, there is a shift from defined benefit toward defined contribution plans, and African institutional investors have begun taking a more diversified portfolio approach in asset allocation. Although capital markets remain underdeveloped, new issuers in infrastructure sectors-particularly of corporate bonds-are coming to market in several countries, in some cases constituting the debut issue. More than half of the corporate bonds listed at end-2006 on these countries'markets were by companies in infrastructure sectors. More cross-border listings and investment within the region-in both corporate bonds and equity issues-including by local institutional investors, could help overcome local capital markets'impediments and may hold significant promise for financing cross-country infrastructure projects.Debt Markets,,Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets

Modelling CESEE Countries Export Dynamics: Global Vector Autoregressive Approach

One of the main aspects of the transition process in Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries was the trade liberalisation. As their financial systems are still underdeveloped and the trade channel is the dominant shock transmitter, this paper focuses on export dynamics for a selected set of CESEE countries. The employed methodology, Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) approach, allows modelling interactions and spillovers among countries. Furthermore, it enables joint modelling of exports and imports. This is of particular importance as the opening of new markets enabled astonishing export growth, but also opened the CESEE markets to foreign products. The empirical analysis reveals that a shock in German imports has a larger impact on CESEE countries’ exports than a shock in German output. Moreover, the results indicate that the role of the real exchange rate is less pronounced in comparison to previous similar research

Bank-based and market-based financial systems - cross-country comparisons

What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of bank-based financial systems (as in Germany and Japan) and market-based financial systems (as in England and the United States). Does financial structure matter? In bank-based systems banks play a leading role in mobilizing savings, allocating capital, overseeing the investment decisions of corporate managers, and providing risk management vehicles. In market-based systems securities markets share center stage with banks in getting society's savings to firms, exerting corporate control, and easing risk management. The unresolved debate about whether markets or bank-based intermediaries are more effectiveat providing financial services hampers the formation of sound policy advice. The authors use newly collected data on a cross-section of roughly 150 countries to illustrate how financial systems differ around the world. They a) analyze how the size, activity, and efficiency of financial systems differ across different per capita income groups; b) define different indicators of financial structure and identify different patterns as countries become richer, and c) investigate legal, regulatory, and policy determinants of financial structure after controlling for per capita GDP. A clear pattern emerges: 1) Banks, other financial intermediaries, and stock markets all grow and become more active and efficient as countries become richer. As income grows, the financial sector develops. 2) In higher income countries, stock markets become more active and efficient than banks. Thus, financial systems tend to be more market based. 3) Countries with a common law tradition, strong protection for shareholder rights, good accounting standards, low levels of corruption, and no explicit deposit insurance tend to be more market-based, even after controlling for income. 4) Countries with a French civil law tradition, poor accounting standards, heavily restricted banking systems, and high inflation generally tend to have underdeveloped financial systems, even after controlling for income.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Financial Intermediation,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Economics

Understanding how immigrant entrepreneurs view business opportunity formation through ethnicity

Given that international research is now consistently showing higher rates of entrepreneurial activity from immigrants above native people, research regarding our understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurs view business opportunity formation remains underdeveloped. Based upon a review of the literature, this chapter examines how ethnicity relates to business opportunity formation through constant interactions. It also introduces the Visual Mixed Embeddedness Framework as an empirical lens for understanding the differences in the business opportunity formation process models between immigrant and native entrepreneurs. By explaining how factors and traits from both home and host countries impact upon the immigrant entrepreneurial business activity process, the framework clearly identifies how the concept of ethnicity influences immigrant entrepreneurial opportunity formation activities in different ways. The framework contributes to existing knowledge by offering a novel method for examining the influence on business opportunity formation of ethnicity, the role of home and host countries and variations between immigrant and native entrepreneurs

Corporate philanthropic responses to emergent human needs:the role of organizational attention focus

Research on corporate philanthropy typically focuses on organization-external pressures and aggregated donation behavior. Hence, our understanding of the organization-internal structures that determine whether a given organization will respond philanthropically to a specific human need remains underdeveloped. We explicate an attention-based framework in which specific dimensions of organization-level attention focus interact to predict philanthropic responses to an emergent human need. Exploring the response of Fortune Global 500 firms to the 2004 South Asian tsunami, we find that management attention focused on people inside the organization (employees) interacts with both attention for places (countries in the tsunami-stricken region) and attention for practices (corporate philanthropy in general) to predict the likelihood of charitable donations. Our research thus extends beyond the prevailing institutional perspective by highlighting the role of attention focus in corporate responsiveness to emergent societal issues

The uprising of the marginalised: a socio-economic perspective of the Syrian uprising

More than three years after the outbreak of protests in a number of Arab countries, the role of socio-economic factors in these events is attracting more attention. One of the cases that needs more research is Syria. More than three years into the Syrian uprising, the socio-economic roots of the protest movement that became one of the bloodiest civil conflicts in the history of the Middle East need to be examined. While it has been observed that the Syrian uprising, contrary to some ‘Arab Spring’ countries, has been an uprising of more marginalised social groups with a strong role played by poorer segments in the society, particularly rural and rural-to-urban migrants, the socio-economic explanation for this is still underdeveloped. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of this issue by examining the political and socio-economic compromise that underlined the rule of the Ba’th party in Syria for four decades and unpacking how a combination of internal and external shifts that started in the 1990s and intensified in the 2000s led to the erosion of this compromise, providing the background to the events that began in 2011