5,780 research outputs found

    The rise of independent administrative authorities in Turkey: A close look on sources, successes and challenges of this new institutional transformation

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    Turkey has experienced important institutional transformation during the last decades. In particular, it has started with liberal policies of early 1980s. Turkey has abandoned the import substitution policies after a serious balance of payment crisis. Foreign trade regime has been liberalized and export oriented development strategy has been adopted. The main goal has been to create a market based economy integrated with world markets. However, this first wave of institutional change is far from adequate. On the contrary, inadequate regulatory framework at financial sector and widespread corruption as well as bad macroeconomic management has led to crises between 1990 and 2001. Thus, the institutional change towards regulatory state is triggered with those economic crises. In response to these economic crises and the external pressure of global institutions like the IMF, significant legal changes such as liberalization in utilities sectors and restructuring of banking sector have been realized and some independent regulatory authorities have been set up. The Competition Authority was established in 1994 as part of the Custom Union agreement with the European Union (EU). The Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency was established in 1999 to improve the effectiveness of regulation and supervision and to establish an independent decision-making mechanism for the banking sector. The legal infrastructure for the Central Bank's independence was established by amending some articles of the Banking Law in 2001. Telecommunications Authority and Energy Market Regulatory Authority were set up in 2001 prior to liberalization of communications and electricity generation and distribution markets. The implicit logic of all this so-called structural reforms is to create and enhance the market based economy and the associated rationalization of public management in line with it. The Central Bank's independence from the political authorities that is perceived as a vital guarantee for prevention of irresponsible monetary policies, liberalization of electricity, gas, telecommunications and aviation sectors, privatization of large state monopolies at those utilities sector including Turk Telekom, building independent regulatory authorities, 
etc are among some of the important changes of this new institutional era. In this paper, I try to discuss the questions why these significant institutional changes have occurred and what the promises realized and shortfalls of these authorities during the last decade in Turkey by conducting a literature survey. I think that after the introduction of second wave of institutional change, macroeconomic stability has substantially improved by creating a new institutional environment based on market mechanism and state as a regulator. Institutional change has been seemed to be successful for avoiding crisis in spite of the global financial crisis. The robustness of banking sector due to the restructuring is crucial for avoiding crises. On the other hand, new institutional environment is far from perfect. There are some serious risks and deficits. First, legal ambiguities between regulatory agencies may create power struggles and inefficiency. Secondly, having independent regularity authorities and new laws alone does not mean a guarantee for expected effective results. Finally, political class in Turkey is a myopic behaviour and their understanding has very serious short comings. Especially, I argue that the political commitment to support those independent administrative authorities by political elites is limited. I believe that the role of independent administrative authorities and the reorganization of Turkish traditional state structure towards regulatory state will continue to be debated in near future. --

    Chinese Experience with Global G3 Standard-Setting

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    China’s growth strategy as set out in the 11th 5-year plan in 2005 called for upgrading of product quality, the development of an innovation society, and reduced reliance on foreign intellectual property with high license fees. Consistent with this policy, China has been involved in recent years with the development of a Chinese standard in third generation (3G) mobile phone technology, both in negotiating the standard and seeing it through to commercialization. This is the first case of a developing country both originating and successfully negotiating a telecommunications standard and this experience raises issues for China’s future development strategy based on product and process upgrading in manufacturing. We argue that while precedent setting from an international negotiating point of view, the experience has thus far is unproven commercially. But the lessons learned will benefit future related efforts in follow-on technologies if similar Chinese efforts are made.This paper documents Chinese standard-setting efforts from proposal submission to ITU to the current large-scale trial network deployment in China and overseas trial networks deployment. We discuss the underlying objectives for this initiative, evaluate its effectiveness, and assess its broader implications for Chinese development policy.

    Regionalizing telecommunications reform in West Africa

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    In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that significant welfare gains could be realized through deep forms of regional integration which entail harmonization of legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks. Reforms that reduce cross-border transaction costs and improve the performance of “backbone” infrastructure services are arguably even more important for the creation of an open, unified regional economic space than trade policy reforms narrowly defined. This paper assesses the potential gains from regionalized telecommunications policy in West Africa. To this end, the paper: (i) discusses how regional cooperation can overcome national limits in technical expertise, enhance the capacity of nations credibly to commit to stable regulatory policy, and ultimately facilitate infrastructure investment in the region; (ii) identifies trade-distorting regulations that inhibit opportunities for regional trade and economic development, and so are good candidates for regional trade negotiations to reduce indirect trade barriers; and (iii) describes substantive elements of a harmonized regional regulatory policy that can deliver immediate performance benefits.E-Business,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Emerging Markets

    The "Hidden" Side of the "Flying-Geese" Model of Catch-Up Growth: Japan's Dirigiste Institutional Setup and a Deepening Financial Morass

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    Japan is in the eleventh year of stagnation with a prolonged financial malaise. Just a little over a decade ago, Japan's Phenomenal growth was admired and even feared as a juggernaut. Japanese scholars and policymakers came to often describe Japan's industrial advance in terms of the so-called "flying-geese" model of catch-up growth, a sanguine expression that has also been played up in the media. Japan once did play the role of Asia's lead goose before the burst of the 1987-1990 asset bubble. The model is useful in capturing the essence of Japan's successful industrial upgrading and Asia's trade-led growth but fails to explain why such a success would ever lead to the present economic predicament. This is because it ignores the institutional, especially financial, underpinnings of Japan's catch-up strategy. What were the key enabling institutional features of Japan's once effective FG catch-up strategy? How did they function? Why did they come to cause the 1987-1990 bubble and the current financial imbroglio? How will Japan be "reformed"? All these developments and issues need to be examined as path-dependent evolutionary events within a reformulated "flying-geese" model, and "institutional" model of FG catch-up.

    Innovation, diffusion and catching up in the fifth long wave

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    Does the new technological paradigm based on information and communication technologies (ICTs) create new windows of opportunity or further obstacles for catching up countries? The paper discusses this question by taking neo-Schumpeterian long wave theory as the basic framework of analysis. According to this approach, the current rapid diffusion of the ICT-based paradigm marks the initial phase of a fifth long wave period. The first part of the paper focuses on the major changes that characterize the techno-economic system in the fifth long wave, and points out that the new paradigm is leading to several new opportunities for developing economies. If public policies will actively foster the development process by rapidly investing in the new technologies and in the related infrastructures and skills, these new opportunities will indeed be successfully exploited. The second part of the paper shifts the focus to the socio-institutional system, and argues that institutional changes driven by some major actors in the industrialized world are creating a new international regime where the scope and the resources available for State interventions are significantly reduced. The paper concludes by suggesting the existence of a temporary mismatch between the techno-economic and the socio-institutional system, which makes the catching up process more difficult for large parts of the developing world.Innovation; ICTs; catching up; long waves; global governance

    Privatisation, Regulation, and Competition in South Asia

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    Privatisation has begun to accelerate in India and Pakistan. However, it is not clear that a change in ownership per se will contribute significantly to a more rapid, efficient, and equitable growth unless policies that ensure competition for these enterprises and remove distortions in factor markets also are undertaken at the same time or prior to privatisation. After a brief discussion of the transition from state-led development to more market-oriented policies and gradual opening to world markets, this paper reviews some of the analytical literature on privatisation and regulation. The translation of these theories into concrete policy suggestions is difficult for countries such as Pakistan and India, where many of the assumptions behind the theories do not hold. However, the results of empirical studies on past privatisations around the world do hold lessons for South Asia. Similarly, theories of regulation offer only broad recommendations, most notably (for South Asia) that regulation is not the best way to redistribute resources. The final section of the paper reviews India’s and Pakistan’s experience with privatisation thus far. Attempted privatisation of electricity in India serves as an example of the need for more attention to regulation, while the transfer of ownership has led to better service at lower cost in the telecommunications sector. Pakistan’s privatisation programme appears to have had similarly mixed results, though it is difficult to come to firm conclusions with the evidence at hand.

    THE NEW GLOBALIZATION ERA AND DIGITALIZATION DEBATE: AN ECONOMISTS PERSPECTIVE

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    During the post-world war 11 period, industrialization was an irresistable trend, made global by the dynamics of international markets.Today, the industrial siciety faces the risks created by its own success. Its growth has been accompanied by a voracious use of natural resources and by increasing inequalities(insecurites)between industrial countries and the rest of the world. Infact, Industrialization to date has been based on energy and it has been and continues to be based on the burning of fossil fuels and the attendant emission of carbon dioxide, which can cause climate change. Thus, a vision of a new society in which humans live in harmony with each other and with nature is very imperative. This transition is described as digitalization(or knowledge revolution) driven by knowledge and by the technologies for processing and communicating it). This therefore requires new institutions and policies to reach a sustainable outcome by 2050.globalization digitalization knowledge revolution inequalities industrialization information emmissions insecurities

    The IPTS Report No. 44, May 2000

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    Institutional Conditions for National Technology Capabilities: A Comparative Study of Technology Catch-up in Korea and Japan

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    What determines technology capabilities and catch-up of countries? Why do the patterns, speed and performance of innovation differ across countries? This thesis seeks to address these questions by linking institutional, organisational and sectoral features of innovation in Korea and Japan which are regarded as the most successful cases of technology catchup. Despite the widespread recognition that innovators are susceptible to institutional conditions and contextual influences, previous empirical studies have not used contextual factors as determinants of innovation. On the other hand, institutional analysis of innovation has addressed national diversity and historical patterns of change based on thick description and qualitative evidence. This thesis provides a new way of explaining the underlying of dynamics of innovation by empirically examining direct correlations between country-specific institutional characteristics and technology capabilities and by testing causal relationships between technology input and output. This thesis employs the national innovation system (NIS) and the late industrialiser perspectives to perform three sets of empirical analyses. The first indentifies key institutional and policy determinants of national technology capabilities based on five sets of cross-sectional data, consisting of 37 high-income countries and 32 middle-income countries. The second examines specific institutional conditions for causal relationships between technology input and output based on time-series data of Korea and Japan. The third investigates technological catchup occurrence, speed and performance to indentify productivity and technology gaps as well as delaying and contributing factors. The findings of the thesis have significant relevance to innovation strategy and policy of other catching-up countries in the process of building indigenous technology capabilities
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