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57941. Civil Society, the Public Sector, and Poor Communities

Author:
Kingsley G. Thomas and James Gibson
Publication Date:
08-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
The current devolution debate has focused on shifting responsibilities from the federal level to the states. A byproduct of this shift has been renewed attention to an often neglected element of the policy mix—the costs and benefits of different local institutionalarrangement—and to the potential roles of civil society and community-based initiatives in that mix. The local tableau has recently been rediscovered as a vital leg on which the performance of the public sector is dependent. Students of government are only beginning to understand this play between civil society and the public sector. Here we focus especially on the dynamics within poor communities, where simple assistance is no longer considered adequate to solve problems without the necessary institutional infrastructure that is sometimes included under the label “civil society.”
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Welfare, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

57942. The Internet Society and its Struggle for Recognition and Influence

Author:
Raymund Werle and Volker Leib
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
With the formation of a private non–profit corporation providing mainly technical coordination and guidance for the global Internet, a new, as yet uncertain, era of the network's governance began in November 1998. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) assumed the responsibility for functions which previously were guaranteed by the US government. Thus ICANN serves as an example of private governance with global significance, in an industry which can neither be completely left to the market nor exclusively be governed by national public authorities or international intergovernmental organizations.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

57943. The Viability of Advanced Welfare States in the International Economy: Vulnerabilities and Options

Author:
Fritz W. Scharpf
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The paper represents a preliminary and partial analysis of the information collected in a comparative 12-country study of the adjustment of national employment and social-welfare policies to the increasing internationalization of product and capital markets. After the postwar decades, when national governments were still able to control their economic boundaries, the first international challenge came in the form of the oil-price crisis of 1973/74, which confronted industrial economies with the double threat of cost-push inflation and demand-gap unemployment. It could be met if countries were able to achieve a form of “Keynesian concertation” in which expansionary monetary and fiscal policies would defend employment while union wage restraint could be relied on to fight inflation. For this solution, “corporatist” industrial-relations institutions were a necessary but not a sufficient condition.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy

57944. 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

57945. 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

57946. 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

57947. 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

57948. 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

57949. 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

57950. 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