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Begin New Search Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

18081. Japan-ROK Security Relations: An American Perspective

Author:
Michael J. Green
Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This monograph explores contemporary Japan-ROK security relations from the perspective of U.S. strategic interests in Asia. Japan and the Republic of Korea have been aligned but not allied since the beginning of the Cold War, and the United States has long been frustrated in its desire to strengthen the Japan-ROK leg of its network of bilateral alliances in Asia. The United States abandoned the goal of encouraging a formal U.S.-Japan-ROK alliance early on in the Cold War, and in the current strategic environment a trilateral alliance would probably be counterproductive. At the same time, however, the fluidity of East Asian security relations today has heightened the dangers of leaving the Japan-ROK security relationship in an ambiguous state. Closer Japan-ROK security cooperation will enhance U.S. efforts to maintain forward presence, manage diplomacy and potential crises on the Korean Peninsula, and integrate China as a cooperative partner in the region. In contrast, distant Japan-ROK relations would complicate all of these U.S. objectives. Hostile Japan-ROK relations, particularly in the context of Korean reunification, would have a spillover effect on Sino-U.S. relations and could return the region to the great-power rivalry of the last century.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Asia, and Korea

18082. The Korean-American Alliance and the "Rise of China": A Preliminary Assessment of Perceptual Changes and Strategic Choices

Author:
Jae Ho Chung
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Does history repeat itself? It appears so for Korea as an unfortunate geopolitical pawn of its stronger neighbors for the last century or so. History does not seem to repeat in quite the same way, however. As Chinese diplomat Huang Zunxian recommended in 1880 that Chosun (Korea's official designation during the Yi Dynasty) “side with the Qing” ( qinzhong ) while relegating the relative importance of Japan and the United States to the levels of “aligning and connecting” ( jieri and lianmei ), respectively, Korea remained for the most part the most loyal subsystem of the Sinic world order, thereby missing out on opportunities for self-strengthening and realignment and eventually becoming a Japanese colony. More than a hundred years later, the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) may now be about to confront a similar dilemma, but this time with a reversed order of preferences. That is to say, the rise of China, with which Korea has already accomplished diplomatic normalization, may gradually force the Seoul government to reconfigure its Cold War–based strategic thinking and reassess its half-century alliance relationship with the United States.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and Korea

18083. Asian Alliances and American Politics

Author:
Michael H. Armacost
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The domestic politics of our Asian alliances is like the story of the dog that didn't bark. Though our defense ties with Japan and Korea were forged in the Cold War, nearly ten years after the Berlin Wall came down, few voices are being raised to amend, let alone terminate, either the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan or the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty. Although large numbers of U.S. troops remain in both countries, congressional criticisms of allied “free riding” are rarely heard. Our alliances with Japan and Korea provoke little discernible opposition from the Congress, the press, or the general public. Polling data suggests that public support for the alliances and for forward deployments in both countries remains high. And no prominent leaders of the Congress are threatening to link security concerns to outstanding economic issues with the Japanese or South Koreans—a tactic frequently utilized a decade ago.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Asia, and Korea

18084. Show of Force: The PLA and the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis

Author:
Andrew Scobell
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
China conducted a series of military exercises and missile tests in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait between July 1995 and March 1996. On July 18, 1995, Beijing announced that missile tests would be conducted targeting an area some 90 miles off the coast of northern Taiwan. Then, on three consecutive days, July 21, 22, and 23, a total of six DF-15 missiles were launched from sites in Fujian province—two per day. The following month, after a five-day advance warning, PLA naval vessels and aircraft conducted ten days of live-fire tests off the coast of Fujian. Further military exercises were conducted in mid-November to the south of the Strait, including joint operations involving air, land, and naval arms of the PLA. On March 5, 1996, Beijing announced it would soon begin another round of missile tests. This time they were to be targeted at seas less than fifty miles from Taiwan's busiest ports. On March 8, three DF-15 missiles were fired from bases in Fujian. Five days later, another DF-15 missile was launched. Finally, also after advanced warning, live-fire tests and war games were conducted off the coast of Fujian to the north of the Strait and to the south of the Strait between March 12 and March 25. The maneuvers included amphibious landing exercises and aerial bombing. Some forty naval vessels, two hundred and sixty aircraft, and an estimated 150,000 troops participated.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, China, Taiwan, Beijing, and Asia

18085. The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination

Author:
Michael J. Kleeman
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The Internet is a driving force in global communications and commerce; as such, issues related to its governance and growth have broad implications that reach beyond those of traditional telecommunications services or networks. Unlike prior communications networks that carried primarily voice traffic, the Internet collects and distributes content and facilitates global and local/national commerce— which raises two types of questions: What purposes does the network serve for users? What barriers prevent or constrain such use?
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

18086. Toward Sustainable Competition in Global Telecommunications: From Principle to Practice

Author:
William J. Drake
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Many observers consider 1998 to be a watershed year in the evolution of the global telecommunications industry. This view is based on the fact that two major changes in the international policy landscape have begun to clear away many longstanding barriers to competition in global networks and services.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

18087. Media Madness: The Revolution So Far

Author:
David Bollier and Max Frankel
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Henry, for that generous introduction. I am proud to bear the title of Catto Fellow and if I were allowed to recite your biography as you have recited mine, you would know the source of my great pride. But like Harry Evans in a similar recent situation, (and now also his wife, Tina Brown), I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon showing a partygoer being introduced at a cocktail party while enduring the urgent plea of a spouse: “Tell them who you WERE, dear. Tell them who you WERE!” I have to emphasize who I once was not only because I have retired from executive duties but also because the Revolution that I have come to discuss often regards me as passé, out of date, an expiring person of print—you know, that dying industry. That may be so. But the revolutionary “new” media are exhausting themselves parading their newness while actually betraying highly familiar symptoms of a very old media disease. We are all mad: just not newly mad.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and New York

18088. The Global Wave of Entrepreneurialism: Harnessing the Synergies of Personal Initiative, Digital Technologies, and Global Commerce

Author:
David Bollier
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Future historians may call this period the entrepreneurial age. Rarely has such an explosion of new business ventures, technological innovation, and cultural experimentation swept across diverse cultures of the globe simultaneously. Government leaders in Beijing and Singapore, Warsaw and Caracas, Moscow and London are looking to business mavericks to energize their economies. Multinational companies are eager to instill entrepreneurial values within their workforces to boost their competitiveness. On the periphery of such power centers, meanwhile, entrepreneurs large and small are remaking entire sectors of the economy and creating high-tech boomtowns in San Jose, California; Bangalore, India; Cambridge, England; Austin, Texas; and many other places.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, India, London, California, Moscow, England, Singapore, Bangalore, Austin, and Texas

18089. Information Literacy: Advancing Opportunities for Learning in the Digital Age

Author:
Richard P. Adler
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The foregoing paraphrase of Dickens was how one participant in the Aspen Institute's 1998 Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS) summed up the current state and impact of the Internet. On one hand, the Internet has provided more people with more convenient access to more information in a shorter period of time than any other medium in history. It has given rise to an enormous burst of entrepreneurial activity that has led to the creation of an entire new industry in just a few years. Electronic commerce already is a multibillion dollar enterprise and will become even more important in the near future.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

18090. The American Economy: Sustaining Growth with Opportunity

Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
From the June 1999 American Assembly of the same name, the report focuses on the issues of productivity, income inequality, and the aging of the baby boom generation.

18091. Social Funds in Stabilization and Adjustment Programmes

Author:
Giovanni Cornia
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Well before the introduction of adjustment-related Social Funds (SFs), many developing countries had developed a variety of safety nets comprising food subsidies, nutrition interventions, employment-based schemes and targeted transfers. Middle-income and a few low-income countries had also achieved extensive coverage in the field of social insurance. In countries committed to fighting poverty, these programmes absorbed considerable resources (2-5 per cent of GDP, excluding social insurance) and had a large impact on job creation, income support and nutrition: for instance, in 1983, Chile's public works programme absorbed 13 per cent of the labour force. Their ability to expand quickly depended on a permanent structure of experienced staff, good portfolios of projects, clear management rules, adequate allocation of domestic resources, supply-driven execution and, with the exception of food subsidies, fairly good targeting.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, South Asia, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and Chile

18092. Regulation of Social Services in the Least Developed Countries: What are the Issues at Stake?

Author:
Cecilia Ugaz
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The privatization trend affecting the state involvement in productive sectors is also challenging the role of the state in the provision of social services. And, as private participation in social sectors increases, a regulatory framework is needed to ensure that the market reaches socially efficient outcomes. The regulation of social services carries the problem of conceptualization. What is the aim of regulatory intervention in social sectors? And what is the market structure to which this regulatory constraint will be applied to? These are the questions we discuss in this paper, is devoted to analysing the role of regulation of social services in low-income countries within the so-called mixed economy of care, characterized by multiple providers: the state, the private sector, non-profit organizations.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Government, and Third World

18093. IMF Model and Resource-Abundant Transition Economies: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Author:
Richard M. Auty
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The IMF model of the economic transition stresses the role of macro policy reform. It concludes that rapid reform to a market economy is preferable to slow reform because late reformers experience very steep transition recessions and severe contractions in government revenues. However, the predictive power of the IMF model has weakened through the late-1990s. This is because it under-estimates the role of initial conditions that include the natural resource endowment as well as institutional capital and the legacy of produced capital. This paper demonstrates how the predictive power of the IMF model can be improved by taking account of the impact of natural resource abundance for the transition. Resource abundance can feed corruption and diminish the urgency of reform, thereby intensifying the adverse effect of a retarded transition. It can also amplify the contraction of the non-booming tradeable sector due to Dutch disease effects. These adverse features are likely to be more severe where the resource endowment creates point source socio-economic linkages, as in mining, as opposed to the diffuse linkages associated with crop production by yeoman farmers. The detrimental effects of resource abundance are also likely to be more severe where institutional capital is deficient. Consistent with such a resource-constrained variant of the IMF model; resource-abundant Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both delayed their reforms and both exhibit high levels of corruption relative to the transition economies as a whole. Also, economic recovery in Kazakhstan is slower than the original IMF model predicts because investment in minerals strengthened the exchange rate and retarded economic diversification. In the case of Uzbekistan, a natural resource endowment that yielded especially buoyant crop revenues (that eased the foreign exchange constraint) helps to explain why the growth collapse is less than the unadjusted IMF model predicts for such a slow reformer. This explanation is still too simple, however. Uzbekistan also benefits from robust social capital and limited obsolete industry, both of which retard the decline in government revenue. Finally, the resource-constrained IMF model suggests that the Uzbek policy of gradual reform represses exports and intensifies economic distortions. This will lock the economy into a staple trap and lead to a growth collapse, as the experience of many resource-abundant developing market economies testifies
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Environment, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Kazakhstan, Asia, Uzbekistan, and Dutch

18094. Natural Resources and Economic Growth: A Nordic Perspective on the Dutch Disease

Author:
Thorvaldur Gylfason
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper begins by offering a quick glance of the Nordic economies and of some aspects of their economic growth performance and natural resource dependence since 1970. Thereafter, it reviews some of the main symptoms of the Dutch disease, and then considers whether these symptoms are observable in some of the Nordic countries in view of their abundant natural resources. The experience of Iceland and its fish seems an obvious point of departure. The paper then discusses the less obvious case of Norway and its oil (and fish!) and, at last, also reviews some possible linkages between forest resources and economic growth in Finland.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, Norway, and Dutch

18095. Development Discontinuities: Leaders and Intermediaries in Producers' Associations

Author:
Tito Bianchi
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The development literature considers associations an important economic development tool that allows producers to pursue their economic welfare collectively and through participatory means. This paper comparatively analyses the experience of three associations of agricultural producers in the underdeveloped regions of Brazil and Italy that were successful in this economic development task. Their experience, however, challenges a commonly held view about the participatory nature of associations.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Brazil, South America, and Latin America

18096. On the Regulation of Telecommunications Markets

Author:
Manfred J. Holler
Publication Date:
08-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper discusses the theoretical concepts underlying recent developments in the regulation of telecommunications in Europe, the USA and developing countries with respect to efficiency and welfare. It focuses on analysing standardization problems, pricing rules and entry condition related to networks and network effects and derives preliminary policy recommendations for the telecommunications industry through a discussion of network models and related empirical evidence.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

18097. Resource-Led Growth — A Long-Term Perspective: The Relevance of the 1870-1914 Experience for Today's Developing Economies

Author:
Ronald Findlay and Mats Lundahl
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Resource-Led Growth – A Long-Term Perspective surveys the 1870-1914 experience of growth in resource-rich economies: the so-called regions of recent settlement, some tropical countries and some mineral-based export economies. First, three contrasting stylized views of resource-led development are presented. Thereafter the picture of international trade in primary products and the migration of production factors between 1870 and 1914 is sketched. The third section presents some models that may be used to analyse trade and factor movements in the context of resource-rich (staples) economies and provides some details of the experience of fifteen countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and Argentina among the regions of recent settlement, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ceylon, Malaya, Burma, Siam and the Gold Coast in the tropical group, and Bolivia, Chile and South Africa among the mineral exporters.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, South Africa, Burma, Chile, and Bolivia

18098. Group Behaviour and Development

Author:
Frances Stewart, Judith Heyer, and Rosemary Thorp
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
A very large amount of activity occurs within groups (that is within families, firms, co-operatives, communities or governments). Yet most economic analysis focuses on market transactions between these agents. The purpose of the study is to analyse within group behaviour. Evidence suggests some groups perform well from the perspective of efficiency, equity and well-being, while others perform poorly. The study aims to identify the main causes for these different outcomes, developing a preliminary analysis of modes of group behaviour, and influences on them.
Topic:
Economics, Education, and Emerging Markets

18099. Economic Theories of the Household: A Critical Review

Author:
Päivi Mattila-Wiro
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to review the principal assumptions and aspects of the unitary household model and collective models of household behaviour. Empirical studies are presented to assess whether the theories can offer adequate descriptions of household behaviour and to examine the types of policy implications that can be drawn from these. The paper concludes that the models reviewed lack the analytical tools to provide an understanding of the reality of households. Theories are unrealistic and therefore are of little use in the design of policies or projects which endeavour to help people
Topic:
Economics, Education, and Emerging Markets

18100. Inequality in Income and Access to Education: A Cross-Country Analysis

Author:
Daniele Checchi
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In the current debate on the relationship between inequality in income distribution and growth one of the possible link works through the access to education. After reviewing this debate, a formal model shows how the imperfection of financial markets makes educational choices dependent on the distribution of family incomes. This leads to two testable predictions in the analysis of aggregate data on school enrolments: a negative (linear) relation with the Gini coefficient on incomes distribution; and a positive dependence on public resources invested in education and/or on skill premium in the labour market. These predictions are then tested on a (unbalanced) panel of 102 countries for the period 1960-90. The main findings of this analysis are that, once we control for the degree of development with the (log of) per capita output, financial constraints seem mainly relevant in limiting the access to secondary education. However, when considering gender differences, there is evidence that female participation in education is more strongly conditioned by family wealth, starting from primary education. On the contrary there is no clear evidence of a relevant impact of invested resources, but at the tertiary level.
Topic:
Economics, Education, and Emerging Markets