Global Food Price Inflation: Implications for South Asia, Policy Reactions, and Future Challenges

The surge in global commodity prices of the past few years has presented a tremendous development challenge for South Asian countries. The large loss of income from the terms of trade shock has worsened macroeconomic balances, fueled rapid inflation, and hurt growth. Although commodity prices have come down recently, the benefits are being clouded by the emergence of a severe global financial crisis. The adverse consequences of the food price hike for the poor are large; the global financial crisis could further worsen the situation due to falling economic opportunities and government revenues. South Asian countries need to accelerate reforms to avoid facing a serious downturn in economic activity, investment, exports, and income. Governments in South Asia have responded by stabilizing domestic food prices through a number of short-term measures, tightened monetary policy to reduce inflation, and increased spending on a range of safety net programs for the poor. Some of the policies employed, such as export bans, are not consistent with the long-term welfare of the country or the region. Safety net interventions need to be made consistent with a longer-term poverty reduction strategy and fiscal sustainability. Most importantly, policy attention now needs to shift toward efforts to increase farm productivity, improve rural infrastructure, and lower the vulnerability of the poor.adverse consequences; adverse effect; Adverse Effects; Agricultural Productivity; Agriculture; average price; average prices; average productivity; basic needs; binding constraint; buffer stocks

Fiscal policyfor managing Indonesia's environment

The objective of this paper is to examine the role of fiscal policy in the management of Indonesia's environment. The aim is to develop a framework that will allow an examination of possible fiscal instruments and their relevance to Indonesia's context. It is important to note that fiscal policy is one possible area of policy intervention. Regulatory policies would also continue to play a major role. A comprehensive environmental management strategy will need to be based on a balanced combination of regulatory and fiscal policy instruments. Furthermore, a critical element underlying the successful implementation of this strategy will be the availability of an appropriate institutional mechanism. The paper provides an overview of Indonesia's key environmental issues followed by the framework for fiscal policy instruments. The Indonesian Government's progress on environmental management policies is examined briefly to provide background for the discussion of possible fiscal policy options. Finally, the paper provides a summary and conclusions.Water Conservation,Forestry,Water Resources Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry

Promoting growth in Sri Lanka : lessons from East Asia

Sri Lanka's weak economic performance, although compounded by the civil war and budgetary imbalance, largely reflects the following: 1) a stop-and-go pattern of policy reform, because of political constraints - even though the results of reform were generally positive; 2) weak economic management, resulting in high inflation and a high fiscal and balance of payments deficit; 3) poor management of public spending; 4) mixed performance in exchange-rate management, with periods of substantial overvaluation; 5) financial policies that (despite recent improvements) hamper efficient financial intermediation; 6) prolonged trade protection, followed by selective trade liberalization; 7) continued distortion in agricultural policies; 8) inflexible labor markets and, despite Sri Lanka's outstanding track record on human development, problems with the quality of the labor force. To address a substantially unfinished policy agenda, Sri Lanka needs to intensify efforts to peacefully resolve civil conflict. There is also a need to squarely address its macroeconomic imbalances, involving a sharp reduction in the fiscal deficit, a cutback on public spending and redefinition of spending priorities, improvement of cost recovery for public services, and continuing to improve the management of the exchange rate. In trade policy, eliminate most quanitative restrictions, further reduce tariff protection, simplify the tariff structure, and, possibly, reform customs (to reduce leakage and abuse). Rationalize employment, exit, and bankruptcy regulations and procedures. The authors recommend improvement in communications between government and the private sector. It is necessary for the financial sector to become more competitive by legislating banking reform, giving state-owned banks more autonomy and putting private commercial banks on an equal footing with the two state banks, with the ultimate goal of privatizing the state banks, and also strengthen the supervision of banking. Also in the financial sector the authors have identified a need for privatization in insurance and pension funds to strengthen the capital market. Several aspects of the agricultural sector need to be revamped. Primarily, privatization of the estate plantations, perhaps through long-term management contracts and the gradual sale of share in assets; reduced trade protection; implementation of land reform; strengthen agricultural support; and possibly support rural financing institutions. Lastly, the authors suggest an end to government controls on hiring, firing, and wage setting as well as rationalization in civil service employment decisions.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Inequality

How can Indonesia maintain creditworthiness and noninflationary growth ?

Despite external shocks, Indonesia has maintained creditworthiness through swift adjustment. Indonesia's flexible economic management and clear policy signals have lent stability to the economy, in contrast to the stop and go reforms, uncertainty, and constant debt renegotiations in many high debt countries. The authors use an econometrically estimated macroeconomic model to analyze open economy adjustment in Indonesia - particularly the interaction between the exchange rate, the interest rate, growth, and debt - and to analyze future policy changes in light of Indonesia's objectives for growth, external debt, and inflation.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Stabilization,Banks&Banking Reform

Making regional cooperation work for South Asia's poor

South Asia has attracted global attention because it has experienced rapid GDP growth over the last two decades. What is not so well known is that South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. South Asia has opened its door to the rest of the world but it remains closed to its neighbors. Poor market integration, weak connectivity, and a history of friction and conflict have resulted in two South Asias. The first South Asia is dynamic, growing rapidly, highly urbanized, and is benefiting from global integration. The second South Asia is rural, land locked, full of poverty, and lagging. The divergence between the two South Asias is on the rise. Policy makers in South Asia have realized that countries and regions can not grow in isolation. The unique geography of South Asia-distance and density--has the potential to raise growth through increased flow of labor, capital, ideas, technology, goods and services within the region and with the rest of the world. Most lagging regions, in terms of both per capita income and poverty incidence, in South Asia are either land-locked or located in the border areas. Regional cooperation and market integration will unlock the development of these lagging regions in South Asia.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Rural Poverty Reduction,Population Policies

How Indonesia's monetary policy affects key variables

The objective of this paper is to examine the determination of interest rates, inflation and nominal exchange rates in Indonesia, and investigate the role of monetary policy in affecting these variables. In the short term, monetary policy can be used to protect domestic interest rates from the destabilizing influence of speculative capital flight. In the long run, monetary policy can help lower domestic nominal interest rates by maintaining low inflation and dampening expectation about depreciation. The potential for reducing interest rates through monetary expansion is limited. Domestic inflation is partly a monetary phenomenon but structural factors also affect it. The effects of international inflation are immediate and strong; the effects of wage pushes are smaller and less immediate. Inflation can be reduced to some extent by slowing the growth of money - which strengthens the secondary influence of a slower crawling exchange rate. A managed float is appropriate for maintaining a competitive exchange rate, given the gap between world and domestic inflation caused by structural and monetary factors. Real depreciation of the exchange rate will be necessary to compensate for unanticipated decline in oil income (from lower than expected oil prices).Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Banks&Banking Reform

From villages 477 and 482 to suburbia : the suburbanisation of Glasgow's Pakistani community

Abstract available: p. [1

Explaining Pakistan's high growth performance over the past two decades : can it be sustained ?

Using standard statistical growth analysis, the author shows that Pakistan's growth is the result of: (a) rapid capital accumulation. Pakistan's investment rate was relatively low but its fixed investment rate grew steadily in the 1970s, stabilizing at about 17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the mid-1980s; (b) growth of the labor force, which offset a tendency toward capital intensity of production; (c) more competition from external trade; and, (d) a policy of economic liberalization since 1978. Pakistan was able to sustain high growth and avoid a financial crisis - despite large deficits - because real interest rates on debts were substantially negative in the 1970s, so debt-to-GDP ratios continued to decline. But real interest rates turned positive in the 1980s. If Pakistan continues to have fiscal deficits of the same magnitude as in the past, a financial crisis will quickly emerge. Pakistan cannot avoid a debt crisis by creating money. Higher inflation will hurt resource allocation and income distribution. To guard against reduced growth, weakened export performance, and higher real interest rates, Pakistan should reduce its fiscal deficit to below 4.5-5 percent of GDP and phase out quasi-fiscal deficits. Pakistan needs more balanced use of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies. Putting the burden of external adjustment fully on the real exchange rate, as Pakistan tried to do in the past, is inconsistent with improvements in external balance. Real exchange rate depreciation imposes capital losses on the stock of external debt. The real exchange rate should be set at an appropriate level, and monetary and fiscal policies should be used to adjust demand. A substantial adjustment effort will be needed to increase domestic savings and investment rates. National savings should increase from 14 percent of GDP to 20-22 percent of GDP. Raising public revenues and reducing public investment should focus on areas (such as physical infrastructure and human development) that promote private investment, economic growth, and equity. To contain the fiscal cost of domestic borrowing, Pakistan has pursued a policy of financial repression, which has repressed the private credit and investment needed for long-term growth. Also needed is more rapid progress in human capital development, especially investments in women's health and education. To complete internationally in manufacturing requires more skilled production and a better educated workforce than Pakistan has had.Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Growth,Banks&Banking Reform

Expanding the Oxidative Addition Route for the Rational Design of Multi-Metallic Dithiolene Complexes

This thesis describes studies on oxidative addition reactions of 1,2,5,6-tetrathiocins to low valent transition metals, yielding an array of multinuclear metal dithiolene complexes. Chapter 1 provides a literature review of metal dithiolene complexes, including their synthesis and applications. Chapter 2 investigates the reaction of Pd2dba3 with tetramethoxydibenzotetrathiocin (1) and a range of monodentate phosphines with different Tolman cone angles. The isostructural series of homo-dimetallic complexes [(dmobdt)Pd(P)]2 [P = PPh2iPr, P(NMe2)3, P(iPr)3, P(m-tol)3, PCy3 and PBn3] (3 – 8) were isolated as the major phosphine-containing metal complex. These were characterized by multinuclear 1H and 31P NMR spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The related reaction of Pt(PPh3)4 with tetrathiocin afforded a mixture of monometallic (dmobdt)Pt(PPh3)2 (11) and dimetallic [(dmobdt)Pt(PPh3)]2 (10). Experimental studies revealed that conversion of 11 to 10 appears to require the presence of oxygen and is characterized by formation of free phosphine oxide. Reaction of Pt1.9dba3 with 1 in the presence of the sterically demanding PtBu3 ligand led to the isolation of the homo bimetallic [(dmobdt)Pt(PHtBu2)]2 (13) in which dealkylation of the phosphine occurs as well as characterization of the first hexanuclear homoleptic platinum complex, [Pt(dmobdt)]6 (12). Chapter 3 extends the oxidative addition of tetrathiocins to low valent metals by examining the reactivity of tetrathiocins to CpCo(CO)2. Reaction of tetrathiocin 1 and its benzo-crown-5 analogue 16 with CpCo(CO)2 under microwave conditions afforded the 16e- CoIII organometallic complexes CpCo(dmobdt) (17) and CpCo(b-15-c-5-dt) (18). In the solid state 17 exists as the 18e- dimer [CpCo(dmobdt)]2 whereas 18 can exist in monomeric or dimeric forms depending upon crystallization conditions. Reactivity of 18 towards alkali metal cations afforded a series of 2:1 complexes in which the s-block metal is sandwiched between two benzo crowns. The structures of [M{CpCo(b15c5dt)}2][BPh4] (M = Na, K, Rb, Cs) were determined by X-ray diffraction and ESI mass spectrometry. Reaction with Cu(CF3SO3)2 led to a redox reaction and the isolation of a unique bimetallic complex exhibiting a disulfide S-S bond

LESSONS FROM PSYCHIATRY IN THE ARAB WORLD A Lebanese Trainee Psychiatrist’s Qualitative Views on the Provision of Mental Healthcare Services for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon and an Interview with a Consultant Psychiatrist on the Effects of the Arab Spring on the Mental Health of Libyans

In this manuscript, a Lebanese trainee psychiatrist qualitatively analyses and discusses the provision of mental healthcare services for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. There are more than 250,000 Palestinian people sporadically dispersed in the refugee camps in Sidon, Beirut and other major cities in the Levant. Displacement, conflict, trauma, unemployment and poverty are but some of the myriad factors that influence Palestinian refugee mental health. This article traces the historical, political and socioeconomic determinants of health for Palestinians exiled in Lebanon and describes the pivotal role that the non-Govenmental Organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians is playing in helping to alleviate the psychiatric distress of Palestinian sufferers of mental illness. The latter half of the manuscript contains an interview with a consultant psychiatrist about his experiences volunteering in the war-torn lands of Libya post Arab Spring. He expounds on how he feels mental healthcare services in Libya are woefully inadequate and broaches on his perception of how the resilience and the ‘family-centric’ model of the Libyan people has conferred a certain degree of protection towards developing severe psychiatric illness