The Global Trade Slowdown

The Global Trade Slowdown
Author: Cristina Constantinescu
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2015-01-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498399134

This paper focuses on the sluggish growth of world trade relative to income growth in recent years. The analysis uses an empirical strategy based on an error correction model to assess whether the global trade slowdown is structural or cyclical. An estimate of the relationship between trade and income in the past four decades reveals that the long-term trade elasticity rose sharply in the 1990s, but declined significantly in the 2000s even before the global financial crisis. These results suggest that trade is growing slowly not only because of slow growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but also because of a structural change in the trade-GDP relationship in recent years. The available evidence suggests that the explanation may lie in the slowing pace of international vertical specialization rather than increasing protection or the changing composition of trade and GDP.

Our Continent, Our Future

Our Continent, Our Future
Author: P. Thandika Mkandawire
Publisher: IDRC
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 155250204X

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade

The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade
Author: Lisa L. Martin
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199981752

The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade surveys the literature on the politics of international trade and highlights the most exciting recent scholarly developments. The Handbook is focused on work by political scientists that draws extensively on work in economics, but is distinctive in its applications and attention to political features; that is, it takes politics seriously. The Handbook's framework is organized in part along the traditional lines of domestic society-domestic institutions - international interaction, but elaborates this basic framework to showcase the most important new developments in our understanding of the political economy of trade. Within the field of international political economy, international trade has long been and continues to be one of the most vibrant areas of study. Drawing on models of economic interests and integrating them with political models of institutions and society, political scientists have made great strides in understanding the sources of trade policy preferences and outcomes. The 27 chapters in the Handbook include contributions from prominent scholars around the globe, and from multiple theoretical and methodological traditions. The Handbook considers the development of concepts and policies about international trade; the influence of individuals, firms, and societies; the role of domestic and international institutions; and the interaction of trade and other issues, such as monetary policy, environmental challenges, and human rights. Showcasing both established theories and findings and cutting-edge new research, the Handbook is a valuable reference for scholars of political economy.

Structural Adjustment, Global Trade, and the New Political Economy of Development

Structural Adjustment, Global Trade, and the New Political Economy of Development
Author: Biplab Dasgupta
Publisher:
Total Pages: 444
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The changes in the global economy are so profound, this book argues, that the world is now confronted with nothing less - in both institutional and policy terms - than a new political economy of development. The author provides an intellectually commanding survey of this new terrain. He subjects its economic and ideological assumptions to trenchant critique and shows how the rules of the game primarily reflect the interests of the rich and powerful countries of the North. He also surveys the economic performance of the various regions of the South and explores the real reasons for the success of certain Asian economies (reasons which run counter to so many of the policy prescriptions laid down by the West for the rest of the South).

The Politics of Economic Adjustment

The Politics of Economic Adjustment
Author: Stephan Haggard
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1992
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780691003948

This is a collection of essays offering comparative analysis of the divergent experiences of developing countries responding to economic crises by adopting macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment policies.

The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa

The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa
Author: Charles Chukwuma Soludo
Publisher: IDRC
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2004
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 1592211658

This book maps the process and political economy of policy making in Africa. It's focus on trade and industrial policy makes it unique and it will appeal to students and academics in economics, political economy, political science and African studies. Detailed case studies help the reader to understand how the process and motivation behind policy decisions can vary from country to country depending on the form of government, ethnicity and nationality and other social factors.

Multisector Growth Models

Multisector Growth Models
Author: Terry L. Roe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2009-10-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0387773584

The primary objective of this book is to advance the state of the art in specifying and ?tting to data structural multi-sector dynamic macroeconomic models, and empirically implementing them. The fundamental construct upon which we build is the Ramsey model. A most attractive feature of this model is the insights it provides into the dynamics of an economy in tr- sition to long-run equilibrium. With some exceptions, Ramsey models are highly aggregated – typically single sector models. However, interest often lies in understanding the forces of e- nomic growth across multiple sectors of an economy and on how policy impacts likely play out over time. Such analyses call for moredisaggregatedmodelsthatcanbe?ttocountryorregional data.Thisbookshowshowto:(i)extendthebasicmodeltom- tiple sectors, (ii) how to adapt the basic model to account for policy instruments, and (iii) ?t the model to data, and obtain equilibrium values both forward and backward in time from the data points to which the model is initially ?t.

IMF Conditionality

IMF Conditionality
Author: John Williamson
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Total Pages: 708
Release: 1983
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The twenty-one contributions in this book assess the controversy surrounding the Fund and provide judgments about the criteria for Fund lending which should help readers understand and analyze both its ongoing role in smoothing adjustment to international payments imbalances and its currently critical position in responding to the debt crisis.

The Washington Consensus Reconsidered

The Washington Consensus Reconsidered
Author: Narcís Serra
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2008-04-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191538604

This volume brings together many of the leading international figures in development studies, such as Jose Antonio Ocampo, Paul Krugman, Dani Rodrik, Joseph Stiglitz, Daniel Cohen, Olivier Blanchard, Deepak Nayyar and John Williamson to reconsider and propose alternative development policies to the Washington Consensus. Covering a wide range of issues from macro-stabilization to trade and the future of global governance, this important volume makes a real contribution to this important and ongoing debate. The volume begins by introducing the Washington Consensus, discussing how it was originally formulated, what it left out, and how it was later interpreted, and sets the stage for a formulation of a new development framework in the post-Washington Consensus era. It then goes on to analyze and offer differing perspectives and potential solutions to a number of key development issues, some which were addressed by the Washington Consensus and others which were not. The volume concludes by looking toward formulating new policy frameworks and offers possible reforms to the current system of global governance.