The interplay between bureaucracy and globalization

This research focuses on a twofold issue: 1) the challenges that globalization creates to institutions, having to deal with a new international order; 2) the challenges that state governance creates for global actors, having to adapt themselves to the national and sub-national peculiarities. The globalization–bureaucracy interplay is a politically contested phenomenon, in which different models of interactions among states, firms, and citizens appear and transform both nationally and internationally. At the national level, the impact of globalization on quality of governance is examined empirically across countries. The analysis with fixed effects models is based on a panel dataset, covering over 100 countries in the period 1992–2010. The study examines an effect from both economic and social globalization factors on different governance features, including governance effectiveness, regulatory quality, control of corruption, accountability, political stability, and rule of law. The findings show that various governance features seem to diverge in how easily they respond to the new state of affairs that follows with more globalization. Moreover, in line with the theoretical predictions, globalization affects institutions differently depending on the country‘s level of development. The results thus suggest that the previous findings on positive effects of international economic flows on institutional quality are likely driven by changes in rich countries. The impact of institutional policies on globalization factors is analyzed at the sub-national level, using a panel dataset of 82 Russian regions in the period 1995–2010. The study takes an advantage of examining different types of fiscal incentives, introduced in some regions of Russia in 2003, treating them as a natural experiment and estimating the causal effect of tax concessions on foreign direct investment inflows with two causal inference techniques: difference in differences estimation and synthetic controls method. The findings confirm that tax concessions for investment lead to more foreign direct investment inflows. However, selective tax concessions for the government sanctioned important investment projects do not have the expected effect, or the effect is sporadic and weak at best. As governments seek to increase the national and sub-national attractiveness for foreign investors, these findings have important implications for the design of institutional policies

FDI and sanctions : An empirical analysis of short- and long-run effects

Although the relationship between trade and the success of international sanctions has been a topic of many debates in political economy over the past 30 years, the effect of sanctions on foreign direct investment (FDI) is still largely unexplored. Using the data for 184 countries from 1970 to 2010 and bias-corrected estimators, this study tests the effect of sanction imposition on foreign investment. I find that the effect of sanctions on foreign investment indeed changes over time, depending on sanction costs, primary sanction imposer, and decade. High-cost sanctions lead to a significant decrease in FDI in the short run, although they do not have a long-run effect. In many sanctions episodes in the 1990s, FDI has been negatively affected in the short run, although this effect has partially dissipated in the long run. Sanctions episodes from other decades, on average, did not have a significant effect on foreign investment

Economic challenges in trans-Europe

The chapter analyses the outcomes of recent economic agreements and unions that have affected the interests and attitudes of multiple actors in the Trans-European space. The author explores the effects of these unions on trade flows and investment, both in the EU and in ten countries of the EU neighborhood. The chapter contributes to the book's narrative by examining spill-over effects of financial crises and financial sanctions across the whole area. Using a comparative approach, Mirkina explains differences in the choices that the EU's neighbors must make. Examining the consequences of these choices helps in predicting the economic and political trajectories of each country, describing antagonistic forces that impair their economic integration and security and highlighting issues that should be resolved before steady development in this area could be achieved

The EU in a trans-European space : External relations across Europe, Asia and the middle east

This book examines political, social, and economic interactions in highly interconnected areas, stretching from Europe to Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, labelled as Trans-Europe. The first part of the book focuses on the interests of several leading actors in Trans-Europe. The second part deals with the actions of national actors trying to compete with the EU influence in their shared neighbourhood. The third part studies cross-border issues, such as economic dynamics, migration flows and energy markets in the Trans-European space

Economic Freedom of the Russian Federation

The role of economic freedom in national and sub-national development has been studied extensively in both cross-country and in cross-regional studies and used to explain dierences in a wide array of economic outcomes. These ndings motivated us to construct an index of economic freedom for the regions of the Russian Federation (EFRF). This paper presents the EFRF index and describes the methods and choices made during its construction. Additionally, to provide a glimpse into the possibilities of the newly constructed index of economic freedom, the nal section of the paper presents growth regressions on time-series cross-section data of the Russian regions. We rely on quantile regressions to allow for parameter heterogeneity and reduce the in uence of outlier observations. Results indicate that economic freedom influences growth in GRP per capita, income per capita, and monthly wages across the regions of Russia in different ways and that its effect also varies across the growth distribution. The results also suggest that greater economic freedom is benecial for regions with relatively low rates of economic growth but may be unfavorable to growth when or where growth rates are already relatively high

More Open – Better Governed? Evidence from High- and Low-income Countries

Using World Bank data on institutional quality and the KOF Globalization Index, we examine over 100 countries from 1992 to 2010 to analyze the relationship between economic and social globalization and six measures of institutional quality. Theoretically, the incentives of elites to respond to globalization by improving institutions should differ between low-income and high-income countries. Empirically, increasing economic flows and social globalization are followed by improving institutions in rich countries, while the effect is the opposite for low-income countries. Previous findings of positive effects of trade on institutional quality are likely driven by rich countries

Economic freedom of the russian federation

The role of economic freedom in national and sub-national development has been studied extensively in both cross-country and in cross-regional studies and used to explain differences in a wide array of economic outcomes. These findings motivated us to construct an index of economic freedom for the regions of the Russian Federation (EFRF). This paper presents the EFRF index and describes the methods and choices made during its construction. Additionally, to provide a glimpse into the possibilities of the newly constructed index of economic freedom, the final section of the paper presents growth regressions on time-series cross-section data of the Russian regions. We rely on quantile regressions to allow for parameter heterogeneity and reduce the influence of outlier observations. Results indicate that economic freedom influences growth in GRP per capita, income per capita, and monthly wages across the regions of Russia in different ways and that its effect also varies across the growth distribution. The results also suggest that greater economic freedom is beneficial for regions with relatively low rates of economic growth but may be unfavorable to growth when or where growth rates are already relatively high

Inhibition of human cord blood-derived mast cell responses by anti-Fc epsilon RI mAb 15/1 versus anti-IgE Omalizumab.

Aggregation of the alpha-chain of the high affinity IgE receptor (Fc epsilon RI alpha) on mast cells or basophils after cross-linking of receptor-bound IgE by its antigen or an anti-IgE antibody results in cell activation and release of inflammatory mediators. Omalizumab (Xolair), Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Genentech Inc.) is a recombinant humanized anti-IgE mAb developed for the treatment of severe allergic asthma. It complexes with free serum IgE, which prevents its binding to Fc epsilon RI and thereby interrupts the allergic cascade. Administration of an inhibitory anti-Fc epsilon RI alpha mAb may represent an alternative strategy to neutralize IgE-mediated receptor activation. In the present report, for the first time, we have performed direct side of side comparison between the inhibitory anti-Fc epsilon RI alpha mAb designated 15/1 and Omalizumab for their effects on human cord blood-derived mast cells. We provide the first evidence that both 15/1 mAb and Omalizumab efficiently inhibit Fc epsilon RI-mediated human mast cell responses in vitro (degranulation, activation, release of IL-8 and IL-13, phosphorylation of Akt) and that mAb 15/1 is a non-anaphylactogenic antibody, which compared to Omalizumab, displays markedly higher inhibitory potency in the presence of high IgE levels

Globalization and institutional quality - A panel data analysis

Abstract in UndeterminedUsing data on institutional quality and the KOF Globalization Index, we examine over 100 countries from 1992 to 2010 to analyse the relationship between economic and social globalization and six measures of institutional quality, thereby testing Montesquieu's doux commerce thesis, that economic and social interaction lead to improved institutional quality. Results suggest that increasing economic flows and social globalization associate with improving institutions in rich countries, while correlations are negative in poor countries. Our findings also indicate that the negative relationship in poor countries relates to the abundance of natural resources, and should not be interpreted as a causal effect. In summary, results are consistent with the doux commerce thesis but also suggest that the previous findings of positive effects of trade on institutional quality are driven by the relationship in rich countries. We should not expect globalization alone to mitigate the adverse effects of the resource curse in developing countrie