Prospects for an international economy

Cover title"January, 1957.""619"--handwritten on cover"A review of Gunnar Myrdal, An International Economy; Problems and Prospects. Prepared for World Politics.""Economic Development. Indonesia Project."Includes bibliographical reference

Growth Convergence and the Middle Income Trap

Asian emerging market countries have followed growth convergence from a low-income, high-growth state to a middle-income, middle-growth state through industrialization. The economic development of Japan was first followed by the “four tigers” in the 1970s, by the ASEAN countries in the 1980s, and China in the 1990s to 2000s. Asian economies were severely affected by the Asian Currency Crisis of 1997-98, and again by the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09, but much more so by the former. The growth rates of Asian countries are slowing over time. The growth rate may fall to the advanced countries level, before the income level fully catches up to the advanced countries’ level, which is defined as the middle income trap in the paper. This paper proposes a hypothesis that there exist three convergence paths in Asia: low-income, middle-income, and high-income. Countries need to shift from one convergence path to a higher one by implementing economic and political reforms that would generate innovations. Without reform, countries may fall into a low-income trap or a middle-income trap. The findings in the paper have important implications for the literature about middle-income traps. Providing an interpretation of the middle-income trap in the growth convergence framework is novel. Empirical investigations using panel data are also new. Some Asian countries are successfully transforming to a high-income convergence path, but others have failed thus far to make that transition. However, these results are more in the form of suggestive evidence than a hypothesis testing due to the limited sample size

ARDS from miliary tuberculosis successfully treated with ECMO.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked DownloadTuberculosis is a rare cause of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and mortality rates are high in tuberculosis patients that need treatment with mechanical ventilation. Experience of the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in such circumstances is scarce. We report the case of an 18 year old man where prolonged therapy (50 days) with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) allowed extensive lung damage from miliary tuberculosis to heal. The case reflects how challenging the diagnosis of tuberculosis may be and how difficult it is to reach adequate blood levels of anti-tuberculosis drugs while on ECMO. It's also an example of how indications for ECMO have been expanding the last years and that long term ECMO therapy is possible without serious complications

Measurement in Economics and Social Science

The paper discusses measurement, primarily in economics, from both analytical and historical perspectives. The historical section traces the commitment to ordinalism on the part of economic theorists from the doctrinal disputes between classical economics and marginalism, through the struggle of orthodox economics against socialism down to the cold-war alliance between mathematical social science and anti-communist ideology. In economics the commitment to ordinalism led to the separation of theory from the quantitative measures that are computed in practice: price and quantity indexes, consumer surplus and real national product. The commitment to ordinality entered political science, via Arrow’s ‘impossibility theorem’, effectively merging it with economics, and ensuring its sterility. How can a field that has as its central result the impossibility of democracy contribute to the design of democratic institutions? The analytical part of the paper deals with the quantitative measures mentioned above. I begin with the conceptual clarification that what these measures try to achieve is a restoration of the money metric that is lost when prices are variable. I conclude that there is only one measure that can be embedded in a satisfactory economic theory, free from unreasonable restrictions. It is the Törnqvist index as an approximation to its theoretical counterpart the Divisia index. The statistical agencies have at various times produced different measures for real national product and its components, as well as related concepts. I argue that all of these are flawed and that a single deflator should be used for the aggregate and the components. Ideally this should be a chained Törnqvist price index defined on aggregate consumption. The social sciences are split. The economic approach is abstract, focused on the assumption of rational and informed behavior, and tends to the political right. The sociological approach is empirical, stresses the non-rational aspects of human behavior and tends to the political left. I argue that the split is due to the fact that the empirical and theoretical traditions were never joined in the social sciences as they were in the natural sciences. I also argue that measurement can potentially help in healing this split

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing

ECONOMIC INTEGRATION FOR DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA: ASSESSMENT AND PROSPECTS

Summary Eastern and Southern Africa has a long history of efforts to achieve operational economic integration and a complex set of overlapping institutional frames. The gains from successful cooperation are agreed ? the basic issues turn on how to attain them. In this context the experiences of the two key actors, PTA (Preferential Trade Area) and SADC (Southern African Development Community), offer insights into the strengths and weaknesses of a broad, secretariat?led trade barrier reducing organization and a narrower (geographically), key sector production coordination, country?led one (SADC). The divergences ? as well as history ? have hampered attempts to coordinate or to merge them and their responses to the opportunities and challenges posed by the re?entry of South Africa into Africa. The latter raises rather more complex issues (and ones less threatening ? or promising in some respects ? to its Eastern and Southern African region potential partners) than is sometimes supposed. Resumé efforts pour d'obtenir l'intégration économique et de rendre celle?ci opérationnelle dans le contexte d'une série complexe de cadres institutionnels parfois superposés. Les gains résultant des réussites dans la coopération ne sont pas contestés: les questions fondamentales tournent autour des moyens d'y parvenir. Dans ce contexte l'expérience de deux acteurs principaux (la PTA – Preferential Trade Area ou Zone commerciale privilégiée et la SADC – Southern African Development Community ou Communauté de développement de l'Afrique australe) offrent des aperçus quant aux avantages et désavantages de l'existence d'une organisation de grande envergure et fondée sur secrétariat, consacrée à la réduction des barrières douannières, et d'une autre organisation, cette fois limitée en termes de sa superficie géographique et menée par des pays, qui cherche à coordiner la production dans les secteurs clef: la SADC. Leurs divergences, et l'histoire même, ont servi d'entrave aux efforts de les coordiner ou de les faire fusionner, surtout en ce qui concerne les nouvelles possibilités et le challenge même de la réintégration de l'Afrique du Sud dans la grande Afrique. Cette réintégration soulève des questions un peu plus complexes (et moins menaçantes) et aussi, moins promettrices sous certains jours pour ses éventuels partenaires dans les régions orientales et australes de l'Afrique) qu'on ne le supposerait parfois. Resumen El Africa oriental y el Africa austral tienen un largo historial de esfuerzos para alcanzar la integración económica operacional y un complejo grupo de estructuras institucionales superpuestas. Los beneficios de una cooperación exitosa no están en discusión ? el punto básico es cómo obtenerlos. En este contexto las experiencias de dos actores clave, (la PTA?Preferential Trade Area o Zona de Comercio Privilegiado, y la SADC ? Southern Africa Development Community o Comunidad para el Desarrollo de Africa Austral), ofrecen interesantes revelaciones sobre los puntos fuertes y débiles de una amplia y burocrática barrera comercial que reduce la organización, y la coordinación de la producción en sectores clave de un área geográfica más reducida, de orientación nacional. Las divergenias ? así como la historia ? han estorbado intentos de combinar o coordinar estos dos aspectos y sus respuestas a las oportunidades o desafíos que presenta el reingreso de Sudafrica al Africa. Esto último plantea más asuntos complejos de los que a veces se suponen (y menos amenazantes ? más prometedores en alugunos aspectos) para sus socios comerciales en potencia en Africa oriental y Africa del sur

New Perspectives on Institutionalist Pattern Modeling: Systemism, Complexity, and Agent-Based Modeling

This paper focuses on the complementarity between original institutional economics, Mario Bunge’s framework of systemism, and the formal tools developed by complexity economists, especially in the context of agent-based modeling. Thereby, we assert that original institutional economics might profit from exploiting this complementarity