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This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the macroeconomic, distributional, and fiscal effects of three reform proposals for Germany: i) a reduction in the social security tax in the low-wage sector, ii) a publicly financed expansion of full-day child care and full-day schooling, and iii) the further deregulation of the professional services sector. The analysis is based on a macroeconomic model with physical capital, human capital, job search, and household heterogeneity. All three reforms have positive short-run and long-run effects on employment, wages, and output. The quantitative effects of the deregulation reform are relatively small due to the small size of professional services in Germany. Policy reforms i) and ii) have substantial macroeconomic effects and positive distributional consequences. Ten years after implementation, reforms i) and ii) taken together increase employment by 1.6 percent, potential output by 1.5 percent, real hourly pre-tax wages in the low-wage sector by 3 percent, and real hourly pre-tax wages of women with children by 2.7 percent. The two reforms create fiscal deficits in the short run, but they also generate substantial fiscal surpluses in the long-run. They are fiscally efficient in the sense that the present value of short-term fiscal deficits and long-term surpluses is positive for any interest (discount) rate less than 9 percent--Abstract

MacKinnon reviews 'Structural Adjustment Reconsidered: Economic policy and poverty in Africa' by David E. Sahn, Paul A. Dorosh and Stephen D. Younger.

Low growth and high unemployment have induced the European Union (EU) to outline an economic programme in which long-term effective growth and structural policy measures play a central role. Simultaneously, the German government adopted an "action programme aiming at more growth and employment", in which the efforts on the EU level play hardly any role. Is international coordination of growth and structural adjustment policy legitimated from an economic point of view or is competition between national policies more efficient?

Japan is today posting large current account surpluses, and there are signs of intensifying economic friction with other countries. This imbalance cannot be allowed to continue, either for the Japanese economy itself or for the harmonious development of the world economy. The situation having arisen in an interdependent world economy, Japanese policy responses alone cannot rectify this imbalance. International policy coordination is also needed, including reductions in the United States fiscal deficit. (DÜI-Sbt)

Detaillierte Analyse der Landwirtschaft in Tansania: Ausgehend von der hohen wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung für die Gesamtentwicklung werden eine Reihe von entwicklungshemmenden Faktoren aufgezeigt, deren Ursachen zum Teil in der staatlichen Plannung und im Management liegen. Kritisiert werden u.a. die Preispolitik der Regierung und die Zentralisierung des Vermarktungssystems. (DÜI-Fry)

General equilibrium models of three developing countries -- Indonesia, Bolivia, & Cameroon -- are studied to examine the effects of a major structural adjustment policy: currency devaluation. Frameworks traditionally used to analyze structural adjustment issues fail to incorporate an endogenous investment response, which is important because it can reverse standard results & can alter the long-term growth effects of adjustment policy. Both the structural & aggregate investment dimensions are included by incorporating two-period optimization into a multisectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model in which the composition of aggregate demand responds to factor prices through their effect on investment decisions. The structure of output & trade similarly respond to macroeconomic forces, as well as to relative prices. 3 Tables, 8 References. Adapted from the source document.

Recent international economic events have demonstrated the vulnerability of individual countries to external disturbances, or `shocks'. Such disturbances necessitate major adjustments to developing countries' trade behaviour, and therefore also to their domestic economies.This volume is an integrated theoretical and econometric study of the impact of global economic changes on the developing Turkish economy during the period 1970-1983. Structural adjustment is defined and presented in the context of a small open economy reacting to external shocks. The interaction of government and private sec

Analyse der sozialen Kosten der seit 1987 unter Federführung der Weltbank in Mosambik durchgeführten wirtschaftlichen Reformprogramme. Wirtschaftliche Erfolge waren bescheiden, soziale Gegensätze wuchsen. Profitiert haben Händler, Großbauern, korrupte Beamte und Privatunternehmer. Die Studie untersucht die entstandenen Mängel in den Bereichen Nahrungsmittelversorgung, Erziehung und Gesundheitswesen. Gefährlich ist auch der Verlust der nationalen Kontrolle über die Wirtschaftspolitik. (DÜI-Wsl)