Towards a Theory of Free Economic Zones

This paper presents a theory capable of analysing the welfare effects of a wide variety of institutional innovations which have in common that they involve the deregulation of, or the lowering of tariffs and taxes on, a range of economic activities that can be effectively separated from the regulated, taxed and protected industries of which they are a part. The partial deregulation of economic activities in this manner will be shown to lead to the expansion of trade, but also to involve potential costs of locational diversion of trade and negative externalities. In the context of the debate over deregulation the development of free economic zones can be seen as a practical compromise that generates powerful local interest groups pushing partial deregulation against the well-known in­ terest groups opposing general deregulation

Canadian Economists' Citation and Publication Records

This paper uses the Social Science Citation Index to count the number of citations received and publications made by all economists teaching at Canadian universities in 1975. It is shown that the top decile of individuals received 72 percent of all citations and 50 percent received none. The University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser Univer- sity departments of economics have the highest and second-highest average citation counts of all Canadian universities, respectively. The age-profile of citations, self-citation propensities and the journals of publication are analysed from a sub-sample of data.Cet article utilise le Social Science Citation Index pour relever le nombre de citations reçues et de publications au crédit de tous les économistes qui enseignaient dans les universités canadiennes durant l'année 1975. Il est démontré que le décile supérieur d'individus a reçu 72 pour cent de toutes les citations et que 50 pour cent en ont reçu aucune. Les départments d'économique des universités de la Colombie-Britanique et Simon Fraser ont respectivement le plus grand et le deuxième plus grand nombres moyens de citations de toutes les universités canadiennes. L'aspect temporel des citations, les propensions à l'auto-citation et les revues de publication sont analisés à l'aide d'un sous-échantillon de données

The Making of Canadian Economists - Results of a Survey of Graduate Students

The responses to questions by 155 students revealed the following, most important facts. The students predominantly came from families with high incomes. They have leftist political leanings, though through their training, more have turned right than left. The students share most strongly the views on fundamental propositions in economics held by U.S. graduate students and less those held by Canadian and U.S. professionals. Students from different Canadian universities hold very similar views on price-theoretic propositions but rather widely differing views on some important issues of macro-economics and income distribution. The most important finding is that, like their U.S. colleagues, Canadian graduate students believe that for professional success it is more important to learn technical skills rather than about institutions, history and policy. As a result they end up poorly prepared for work on economic policy issues and their research tends to lack real world relevance, even though real world and policy problems attracted them to the graduate programs.Les réponses de 155 étudiants révèlent les faits suivants. Les étudiants viennent en majorité de familles de niveau socioéconomique élevé. Leurs idées de base sur la politique sont de gauche, quoiaque, suite a leur entrainement, la majorité pench vers la droite. Les étudiants partagent leurs idées sur les théories économiques fondamentales le plus fortement avec les étudiants post-gradués américains et moins avec les professionnels canadiens ou américains. Les étudiants des différentes universités canadiennes ont des opinions très semblables sur la théorie des prix et ses hypothèses, mais ne s'accordent pas en ce que concerne certains sujets importants en macro-économie et la distribution des revenus. La fait saillant qui ressort de cette étude est que, corne leurs pairs américains, les étudiants post-gradués canadiens croient que pour réussir dans la profession il est plus important d'apprendre certaines techiques plustôt que do connaître les institutions, l'histoire et la politique économique. En conséquence ils sont mal préparés a travailler sur les questions de politique économique. Leurs travaux de recherche ont peu ou pas de portée sur la réalité courante malgré le fait que c'est cette réalité et les problèmes de politique économique qui les ont attirés vers les programmes post-gradués

A Note on the Effects on Unemployment Insurance, Minimum Wage Legislation and Trade Union Growth on Reported Unemployment Rates in Canada, 1950-1975

The paper analyzes the effects of the factors noted in the title on reported unemployment rates, both theoretically and empirically. The implications of the results for the natural rate debate and macroeconomic stabilization policies are briefly discussed

Foreign direct investment and investment environment in Dongguan Municipality of southern China

Based on 26 case studies, this paper investigates the socio-economic causes of the inflow of FDI and its policy implications in Dongguan. The favourable factors for foreign investors in Dongguan can be categorised under the Dunning's OLI (ownership, locational and internalisation advantages) framework. This paper argues that factors other than policy incentive, such as sub-contractual and pseudo integration, are playing more important roles in attracting the inflow of FDI and maintaining the high level of economic growth in Dongguan. This finding questions the effectiveness of policy incentives, such as tax-breaks, implemented by the Government as a means to attract FDI in Dongguan. The existence of 'Chinese crony capitalism' calls for further improvement in the implementation of laws and regulations in Dongguan and the reduction of bureaucratic red-tape by the central and local governments