Long waves in Argentine economic development

Argentine economic development from 1864 to 1983 can be roughly devided into a period of economic progress (1864 - 1930) and into one of economic decline (1930 - 1983). Of the many issues that could potentially explain such an unprecedented development of a basically resource-rich country, this paper deals with distributional conflicts, inflation, exogenous shocks and political instability. The analysis shows that redistributive incomes policies in favour of labour and government accomodated by a very loose monetary policy seem to lie at the heart of an institutionalised distributional conflict over a stagnant national income. To the extent that political instability can be associated with the underlying distributional conflict the political cycle hypothesis adds some explanatory power to the above. With the only exception of World War I, which seems to have triggered inward-oriented industrialisation policies, exogenous shocks do not seem to have been of major importance for Argentine economic performance; at best such shocks should have reinforced the negative impact of incomes and monetary policies.

Clothing the world efficiently: The MFA and consumers

The sarcasm of Baetiat almost 150 years ago quite aptly and in all seriousness covers a fair share of the arguments raised whenever foreign industries are more competitive than domestic ones. Vested interests, ranging from employers and employees to unions and elected officials, arouse support around the well-known protectionist arguments, among which the employment issue plays a central role. Such is the case with the Multifibre Agreement (MFA), which came into being under the umbrella of GATT, itself (ironically enough) born out of the recognition of the need to ensure full employment and a steadily increasing volume of real income (see GATT Preamble). This paper first gives a brief overview of the scope of the problem; attention is then drawn to certain theoretical and policybased incongruences before moving on to some statistical underpinnings.

International arms trade: Revealed political preferences or cartel behaviour?

On the basis of a world matrix of international trade in majorconventional weapons for 1985, a comparison is made between the regional structure of arms trade and the regional structure of trade in civilian goods from a comparable technological background. It turns out that there are striking divergencies between both kinds of trade structures, even within military alliances. These divergencies are then captured by an indicator which is named revealed political preference (RPP). It is argued that introducing a free-trade regime within NATO and other industrialised western countries would make arms trade increase, and, in particular, make the shares of Japan and West Germany in arms exports rise manifold, thereby raising world economic welfare. It is suggested that different hypotheses for explaining world arms-trade structures are relevant according to the region analysed, like the trading-with-the-enemy hypothesis with respect to the arms trade between advanced and less-developed countries, or the military-industrial-complex hypothesis for arms trade within alliances.

Die gesamtwirtschaftlichen Kosten der Protektion

Die Handelshemmnisse der Bundesrepublik benachteiligen nicht nur ausländische Produzenten, sondern auch - über höhere Preise und schlechtere Versorgung - in hohem Maße die Konsumenten in der Bundesrepublik. Mehr noch als der Zollschutz mindern nicht-tarifäre Handelshemmnisse die Wohlfahrt der Bevölkerung. Dabei fallen quantitative Handelshemmnisse am stärksten ins Gewicht, insbesondere die Kontingente und Selbstbeschränkungsabkommen im Bereich der Textil- und Bekleidungsindustrie. Die Handelsschranken bewirken eine beträchtliche Einkommensumverteilung von den Konsumenten zu den Produzenten. Nur zwei Prozent der Industriebeschäftigten verdanken ihren Arbeitsplatz dem Zollschutz; innerhalb der Bereiche, die auch durch nicht-tarifäre Handelshemmnisse geschützt sind, wäre eine Liberalisierung freilich mit einem etwas höheren Beschäftigungsrückgang verbunden. Schrittweises Vorgehen und flankierende Anpassungshilfen könnten vermeiden helfen, daß durch die Liberalisierung Arbeitslosigkeit entsteht. Es gibt deshalb im Falle der Bundesrepublik kaum ein gesamtwirtschaftlich vertretbares Argument, das das Fortbestehen der außenwirtschaftlichen Schutzmaßnahmen rechtfertigen könnte

Growth, growth fluctuations, and the stages of technological advance

It is a well-established tradition to define the subject before embarking on an investigation. In our case, definition is to be concerned with economic development and scientific-technical progress. The former poses no problem in the economist's profession. According to Mirabeau, every moral or physical advance can be grasped by one indicator, which he called the net product. Today, Mirabeau would probably encounter objections as far as the measurement of moral progress by the net product is concerned, although some would argue that also today morals, as well as gods, are always with the winners. Anyhow, real changes in the availability of goods and services is, according to national and international standards, measured by changes in real net social product; conceptual problems - e.g., of how to treat the non-pecuniary costs (environmental pollution) and benefits (value added of housewives) - are, of course, part of every measurement. What matters here is that the approach as such is hardly controversial.

EC 1992: Strategic and policy issues for the 1990s:with special reference to developing countries and Yugoslavia

When we refer to the EC 1992 these days we think about the introduction of the single-internal market, i.e. a market with no discrimination on the grounds of<the nationality of buyers and sellers as far as the member countries of the EC are concerned. This tends to lead us into deep waters when it might be prudent to stay in shallower ones, by saying that the internal market is a market with no internal frontiers, and thus with free traffic of goods, people, services, moneys, capital, investments, ideas etc. Depth, on the other hand, cannot be avoided when contemplating on the non-discrimination issue, e.g. on what would become of the other kinds of discrimination, which are not due to the nationality of buyers or sellers. A perfectly discriminating monopolist, for instance, would be allowed to trade his goods and services under the conditions of a single-internal market just like before under the conditions of the non-single internal market; if it happens that elasticities of demand differ among member countries this monopolist would - by discriminating purely on the grounds of economic reasoning - discriminate on grounds of nationality when taken by its face value

Comparative invention performance of major industrial countries: Patterns and explanations

The paper firsjt presents an analysis of invention performance; as measured by patenting activities, of six countries (France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, USSR, West Germany) relative to the United States for 41 SIC industries over the past twenty years. It turns out that Non U.S. countries as a whole have increased their (relative) invention performance in all fields of technology, including high technology fields. In the second section hypotheses which can be supposed to explain the relative decline of the United States' patenting activities are discussed and tested. There is strong evidence that catching up processes as well as integration effects contributed most to the relative decrease of the United States; there also is evidence, that government interventions regarding technology production have had counter-productive effects in the United States.

Industrial adjustment in Western Europe: Retrospect and prospect

The purpose of this paper is to discuss major factors behind failures and successes in structural adjustment. The analysis includes the experience of four major European countries: France, Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. These countries are known for diverging performances. Germany has the highest real per capita income, the lowest inflation, and the strongest currency, while its unemployment rate, though depressing by her own historical standards (8 per cent in 1986 as compared to 1 per cent on average during the sixties), is distinctly below those of the other three countries. On the other side of the spectrum is Italy, but this nation is in fact composed of three economies - a highly developed and rapidly growing one in the north, a very backward one in the south and a dynamic economia somersa almost everywhere. The United Kingdom has become the only oil-rich country in the sample, but probably the one which has been struggling most with micro-economic inefficiencies and the power of interest groups (labour unions in particular) in the economic-political decision process for decades. France has become an industrial and technological leader in a shorter space of time (starting its economic transformation in the late fifties) than any of the other sample countries, but it also was struck by an unparalleled experimentation with socialism during the early eighties.