GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE NETWORK – A SWOT APPROACH

We live at a local level but act at a global one and each organization is a player in a global world. Each company has its own knowledge base and network and we can say that at the global level exists an unorganized global knowledge base without connections between local ones which limits the access to knowledge. The solution for this problem is represented by a global knowledge network based on an organized global knowledge base. This paper underlines the need to create a global knowledge network and a global knowledge base composed of connected local knowledge bases and presents a SWOT approach for this issue.network, knowledge network, knowledge base

New medical trends and policies throughout Central and Eastern Europe

This paper presents some of the main medical trends and some specific policies in the field of human medicine produced in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decades.family medicine reform, general practitioners’ list, capitation payment, gate-keeping principles, expectations of access, choice and convenience.

Management of Health System for Ethnic Minorities

The concept of ethnic minority refers to a different ethnic group, living in a residential country, with a different birth place and ethnic membership, different language, religion and citizenship, and different culture. This concept establishes as different a certain group, as well as in number and in socio-economic status; the members of this group are practicing cultural values and standards different from the majority’s culture and often they have a different native language. This paper presents some important ideas regarding the peculiarities of Romanian health systems for ethnic minorities.health services; ethnic minorities in Romania; patient’s level; supplier’s level; system’s level.

Career placement of skilled migrants in the U.S. labor market : a dynamic approach

The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the U.S. labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 U.S. Censuses, this study finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests full catch-up is unlikely. Country specific attributes are found to have less direct impact on the rate of assimilation than on the initial performance.Population Policies,International Migration,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement,

Is protectionism on the rise ? assessing national trade policies during the crisis of 2008

To understand the role of trade policies in the crisis of 2008, this paper constructs the overall trade restrictiveness indices for a wide range of countries using their tariff schedules in 2008 and 2009. The index summarizes the trade policy stance of a country, taking into account the share of each good in trade as well as its corresponding import demand elasticity. Results show that there is no widespread increase in protectionism via tariff policies since the global financial crisis has unfolded. While many countries have adjusted tariffs upward on selected products, only a handful of countries, such as Malawi, Russia, Argentina, Turkey and China focus on products that have significant impacts on trade flows. The United States and the European Union, by contrast, rely mainly on anti-dumping duties to shield domestic industries. Overall, while the rise in tariffs and anti-dumping duties in these countries may have jointly caused global trade to drop by as much as US$43 billion during the crisis period, it explains less than 2 percent of the collapse in world trade.Trade Law,Trade Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Free Trade,Trade and Services

Brain waste? Educated immigrants in the U.S. labor market

The authors investigate the occupational placement of immigrants in the U.S. labor market using census data. They find striking differences among highly educated immigrants from different countries, even after they control for individuals'age, experience, and level of education. With some exceptions, educated immigrants from Latin American and Eastern European countries are more likely to end up in unskilled jobs than immigrants from Asia and industrial countries. A large part of the variation can be explained by attributes of the country of origin that influence the quality of human capital, such as expenditure on tertiary education and the use of English as a medium of instruction. Performance is adversely affected by military conflict at home which may weaken institutions that create human capital and lower the threshold quality of immigrants. The selection effects of U.S. immigration policy also play an important role in explaining cross-country variation. The observed under-placement of educated migrants might be alleviated if home and host countries cooperate by sharing information on labor market conditions and work toward the recognition of qualifications.Curriculum&Instruction,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,International Migration,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement

Assessing the impact of communication costs on international trade

Recent research suggests that trade costs influence the pattern of specialization and trade, but there is limited empirical research on the determinants of trade costs. The existing literature identifies a range of barriers that separate nations, but then typically focuses only on transport costs. Although communication costs figure prominently in intuitive explanations and casual observations, they have played little role in the formal analysis of trade costs. The authors seek to examine whether this neglect matters, and whether the inclusion of the magnitude and variation of communication costs across partner countries can add value to existing explanations of the pattern of trade. The authors develop a simple multi-sector model of"impeded"trade that generates hypotheses in a gravity-type estimation framework. The main proxies for bilateral communication costs are the per-minute country-to-country calling prices charged in the importing and exporting countries. The use of bilateral variations in prices yields estimates that are superior to the ones obtained from country-specific measures of communication infrastructure used in previous studies. The authors find that international variations in communication costs have a significant influence on bilateral trade flows, at the aggregate level and for most individual sectors disaggregated according to the 2-digit SITC classification. Since information and communication needs are likely to be much greater for differentiated goods, the authors test whether trade in these products is more sensitive to variations in the costs of communication. Using the Rauch classification of product heterogeneity, the estimates suggest that the impact of communication costs on trade in differentiated products is as much as one-third larger than on trade in homogenous products. Finally, the authors verify, to the extent possible, that the significance of communication costs is not driven by their endogeneity or by omitted variables.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Common Carriers Industry,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,ICT Policy and Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies,Common Carriers Industry,ICT Policy and Strategies

Trade in international maritime services : how much does policy matter?

Maritime transport costs significantly impede international trade. The authors examine why these costs are so high in some countries, and, quantify the importance of two explanations: restrictive trade policies, and private anti-competitive practices. Both matter, they find, but private anti-competitive practices have the greater impact. Trade liberalization, and the breakup of private carrier agreements, would lead to a reduction in average liner transport prices of a third, and cost savings of up to $ 3 billion on goods carried to the United States alone. The policy implications are clear: not only should government policy be further liberalized, but there should be stronger international disciplines on restrictive business practices. The authors propose developing such disciplines in the current round of services negotiations at the World Trade Organization.Transport and Trade Logistics,Ports&Waterways,Common Carriers Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research

Migrant Networks and Foreign Direct Investment

While there exists a sizeable literature documenting the importance of ethnic networks for international trade, little attention has been devoted to studying the effects of networks on foreign direct investment (FDI). The existence of ethnic networks may positively affect FDI by promoting information flows across international borders and by serving as a contract enforcement mechanism. This paper investigates the link between the presence of migrants in the US and US FDI in the migrants’ countries of origin, taking into account the potential endogeneity concerns. The results suggest that US FDI abroad is positively correlated with the presence of migrants from the host country. The data further indicate that the relationship between FDI and migration is driven by the presence of migrants with college education.migration, foreign direct investment, ethnic networks