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10891. Does intangible capital affect economic growth?

Author:
Felix Roth and Anna-Elisabeth Thum
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Using new international comparable data on intangible capital investment by business within a panel analysis from 1995-2005 in an EU-15 country sample, we detect a positive and significant relationship between intangible capital investment by business and labour productivity growth. This relationship is cross-sectional in nature and proves to be robust to a range of alterations. Our empirical analysis confirms previous findings that the inclusion of business intangible capital investment into the asset boundary of the national accounting framework increases the rate of change of output per worker more rapidly. In addition, intangible capital is able to explain a significant portion of the unexplained international variance in labour productivity growth and when incorporating business intangibles, capital deepening becomes an even more significant source of growth. The relationship is slightly stronger in the time period 1995-2000 and seems to be driven by the coordinated countries within the EU-15.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

10892. Do the European Union's bilateral investment treaties matter?

Author:
Selen Sarisoy Guerin
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Several policy-relevant issues regarding the EU's bilateral investment treaties (BITS) are addressed in this paper. First and foremost, we explore the question of whether EU's BITs have a significantly positive impact on outflows or not. Second, we ask the question which member states and which BIT partners have had a significant experience after the implementation of the BIT. In our sample we find that both OECD BITs and EU BITs have a statistically significant and positive impact on FDI outflows. This result is robust to the inclusion of variables such as privatisation proceeds that control for the level of economic reform, the level of trade linkages, the level of democratic freedom and a measure of risk of expropriation among other standard controls. We control for endogeneity in our estimations by using the fixed-effects estimator as our preferred estimator on a large panel dataset. We also test the strict exogeneity of our results by using a method suggested by Baier and Bergstrand (2007) and we find no feedback effect in our sample.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

10893. The financial crisis and citizen trust in the European Central Bank

Author:
Daniel Gros and Felix Roth
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Trust in the ECB, as measured by the standard Eurobarometer (and other) surveys has fallen to an unprecedented low – especially in the larger euro area countries. The authors find that up to the start of the recession in 2008, trust in the ECB was little affected by business cycle variables such as growth and inflation. This changed radically with the recession, with trust in the ECB becoming correlated quite closely with growth. However, even the recovery of growth in 2009 was not sufficient to restore trust in the ECB to previous levels. This finding implies that European citizens seem to have placed a heavy share of the blame on the European Central Bank for the real economic downturn caused by the financial crisis.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

10894. Unwilling and Unable: The Failed Response to the Atrocities in Darfur

Author:
James Traub
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Starting in mid-2003, the government of Sudan responded to an armed rebellion in the western state of Darfur with a massive campaign of killing and expulsion carried out both by regular army troops and by a proxy force known as the Janjaweed. United Nations (UN) sources estimate that this orchestrated effort led to the death of at least 300,000 people, while over two million were forcibly displaced. Extensive documentation by the UN, human-rights organizations and the media leaves no doubt that the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and did so over a period of many years. Yet all attempts to stop the killing, whether by neighbors, regional organizations, Western states or the UN Security Council, proved ineffective. In 2005, states-including Sudan-unanimously agreed that they had a responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities; but this abstract commitment has had little effect on the Sudanese government or on other UN member states who had made this pledge.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, United Nations, Armed Struggle, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Africa

10895. Habeas Works: Federal Courts' Proven Capacity to Handle Guantánamo Cases

Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Habeas is working. The judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia have ably responded to the Supreme Court's call to review the detention of individuals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As former federal judges, many of us expressed our confidence as amici in Boumediene v. Bush that courts are competent to resolve these cases. We write now to affirm that our confidence has been vindicated. While we take no position on particular cases, a review of the District Court's treatment of the Guantánamo litigation convinces us that the court has effectively developed a consistent, coherent, and stable jurisprudence.
Topic:
Human Rights, Terrorism, War, and Law
Political Geography:
United States and Cuba

10896. How Can Donors Create Incentives for Results and Flexibility for Fragile States? A Proposal for IDA

Author:
Alan Gelb
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
International Development Association (IDA) donors and others operating a country performance-based allocation system face two difficult problems: how to strengthen incentives to produce and document development results and how to increase flexibility for fragile states. Fragile states have the greatest need for projects, but their projects tend to rate poorly in performance-based allocations systems, which provide little incentive to produce successful projects in fragile states or other countries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Foreign Aid

10897. The Legacy of the Jubilee Debt Relief Movement: Agreements, Lessons, and Remaining Challenges

Author:
Benjamin Leo
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Over the last 25 years, the international community has pursued a series of measures to address unsustainable debt burdens in low-income countries. Early actions focused on debt relief for official bilateral claims—initially by rescheduling—followed by increasing levels of debt stock reduction. During this period, the Paris Club repeatedly reduced or rescheduled the debts of a number of countries.
Topic:
Debt, Development, and Foreign Aid

10898. The Arc of the Jubilee

Author:
David Roodman
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Jubilee 2000 movement, which called for the cancellation of the foreign debts of the poorest nations, reached its zenith in the late 1990s and 2000-and then, by design, shut down. In the space of a few years, it became one of the most successful international, nongovernmental movements in history. As part of a larger, ongoing project to understand the consequences and lessons of the episode, David Roodman provides thumbnail assessments of Jubilee 2000 from several perspectives, deemphasizing anecdotes and statistics in favor of major themes.
Topic:
Debt, Development, Economics, and Non-Governmental Organization

10899. State Bipolarity, Kin Organizations and Violent Collective Action

Author:
Jens Chr.1 Andvig
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The paper seeks to explain state failures. To do so, we focus on non-market forms of interactions in the public sector that allow officials to move into high or low effort levels, a kind of state tendency to bipolarity or manic depression. The activity level actually 'chosen' will have important consequences for the overall non-state economy. The paper outlines reasons why low effort and high corruption levels are likely to go together and increase the risks for possible rise in violent conflicts. It further describes mechanisms that show how non-formal institutions may impact corruption, state activity levels and possible economic gains from joining violent rebellion.
Topic:
Corruption, Markets, and Fragile/Failed State

10900. Globalisation, Domestic Market Integration, and the Regional Disparities of India

Author:
Arne Melchior
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Using a world trade model with India subdivided into states, the paper examines how regional disparities are affected by domestic inter-state trade as well as international trade. According to the analysis, international liberalisation promotes decentralisation and convergence, not divergence, so trade is not to blame for India's growing regional disparities. High economic growth within India makes domestic markets more important and the geographical effect of this is opposite to that of globalisation. This may counterbalance the geographical impact of international liberalisation and explain why recent changes in geographical clustering in India are limited. The empirical results are consistent with this. They also indicate that Indian services expansion is largely driven by increases in domestic demand due to growth, and that domestic market integration is essential for India's manufacturing sector. We argue that for larger nations, the domestic inter-regional trade is important and India should have a trade policy that addresses domestic as well as international market integration.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia