Money and planning for socialist transition: the Mozambican experience

This study develops an argument about the role of money in the process of planning for socialist transformation in the concrete case of the Mozambican experience in the period 1975-1983. The context was an economy were the peasantry through its production of cash crops as well as through its supply of labour power constituted the cornerstone of the social organization of production. Hence, the nationalisations of the major means of production created a state sector which was only part of a wider economy. This study argues that, within this context, the role of money can only be understood with respect to the dynamic, but not exclusive, role of the state sector in propelling the wider transformation of the economy. The actual experience in Mozambique was characterised by a process of state centered accumulation which implied that planning . boiled down to mobilising resources behind the accelerated development^ of the state sector. The result was the separation as between the official and parallel economies, and the dynamics of peasant agriculture became determined by the latter. Money acquired an active function in this process inasmuch as monetary imbalances originating in the state sector fuelled the development of speculative capital in the parallel economy, and hence enhanced the social differentiation of the peasantry. As a result, the control of the state over the economy was weakened and the process of socialisation of the countryside effectively blocked. Hence, the conclusion is that money matters in the context of socialist transition, because its role is not neutral with respect to the process of transforming production

The Agrarian Question in Mozambique's Transition and Reconstruction

Sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique, Conflict economic reform

A Case Study in Exploring Time Series: Inflation and the Growth of the Money Supply in Zaire, 1965-1982

To the economist, time series constitute key data sources for empirical analysis. This is especially true for macroeconomic analysis, which relies virtually exclusively on observations of macroeconomic aggregates as they evolve over time

Exploratory Data Analysis on Indebtness in the Third World

This paper deals with the methods used in exploring numerical data as a tool of socio-economic analysis. In applied research, analysis proceeds neither purely deductively nor merely inductively. Rather, it involves a continuous interaction between formulating hypotheses and testing these hypotheses against empirical evidence

Local Production of Pharmaceuticals in Africa and Access to Essential Medicines: 'Urban bias' in Access to Imported Medicines in Tanzania and its Policy Implications.

\ud International policy towards access to essential medicines in Africa has focused until recently on international procurement of large volumes of medicines, mainly from Indian manufacturers, and their import and distribution. This emphasis is now being challenged by renewed policy interest in the potential benefits of local pharmaceutical production and supply. However, there is a shortage of evidence on the role of locally produced medicines in African markets, and on potential benefits of local production for access to medicines. This article contributes to filling that gap. This article uses WHO/HAI data from Tanzania for 2006 and 2009 on prices and sources of a set of tracer essential medicines. It employs innovative graphical methods of analysis alongside conventional statistical testing. Medicines produced in Tanzania were equally likely to be found in rural and in urban areas. Imported medicines, especially those imported from countries other than Kenya (mainly from India) displayed 'urban bias': that is, they were significantly more likely to be available in urban than in rural areas. This finding holds across the range of sample medicines studied, and cannot be explained by price differences alone. While different private distribution networks for essential medicines may provide part of the explanation, this cannot explain why the urban bias in availability of imported medicines is also found in the public sector. The findings suggest that enhanced local production may improve rural access to medicines. The potential benefits of local production and scope for their improvement are an important field for further research, and indicate a key policy area in which economic development and health care objectives may reinforce each other.\u

Systemic Inflammation and Reperfusion Injury in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction

Despite early recanalization of an occluded infarct artery, tissue reperfusion remains impaired in more than one-third of the acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients owing to a process of reperfusion injury. The role of systemic inflammation in triggering this phenomenon is unknown. Proinflammatory factors (hs-CRP, TNF-α) and anti-inflammatory mediators (IL-1 receptor antagonist, IL-10) were measured in 65 patients during the acute phase of a myocardial infarction as well as in 11 healthy control subjects. Myocardial reperfusion injury was defined as the presence of persistent ST-segment elevation despite successful coronary intervention (≥ 50% of the initial value) and was observed in 28 patients. Systemic proinflammatory mediators (particularly hs-CRP and leukocytes) were higher in AMI patients compared to control subjects. Within the group of AMI patients, only serum TNF-α differed significantly between patients with versus without reperfusion injury: a median value of 25 versus 13 pg/mL was observed, respectively. Logistic regression analysis identified a high level of TNF-α as the most important independent determinant of reperfusion injury (P = .001), beyond total ischemic time (P = .01) and extent of jeopardized myocardium (P = .08). There was no correlation between the TNF-α level and the total ischemic time (P = .8) or the extent of jeopardized myocardium (P = .6). Systemic inflammation, in particular high levels of TNF-α, is strongly associated with the occurrence of reperfusion injury after successful recanalization. Our findings suggest that TNF-α is involved in the triggering and/or amplification of local inflammatory responses related to ischemia-reperfusion injury