Suchergebnisse

This article provides an analysis of policy initiatives aimed at rebalancing China's political economy, especially those contained in the 12th Five Year Plan and other recent pronouncements. The objective is to generate a conceptual examination of these policy measures, thereby highlighting their basic intent and purpose. The analysis shows that the Chinese leadership intends to pursue policies that can centralize, standardize and regulate the political economy under continued state guidance. Due to the considerable political obstacles that Chinese policy-makers face in rebalancing the political economy, a more state-centric approach is seen as necessary. China is therefore pursuing a policy package of refurbishing state capitalism. While a degree of liberalization is likely to be undertaken, the major thrust is one of revamping, restructuring and, ultimately, strengthening state control and guidance over the political economy. (JCCA/GIGA)

We consider a two-stage contest in which players choose destructive efforts (sabotage) in stage 1 and productive efforts in stage 2. When the value of the prize is sufficiently high, we find that the productive effort of the contestants is independent of the value but their destructive effort is increasing in the value of the prize. The players only engage in destructive activities after productive effort reaches a threshold and do not increase their productive effort beyond this threshold. This result is consistent with contests in which participants increase effort in sabotage and dirty tricks more than on productive effort when the stakes are high (i.e., when the prize is high). After some point, destructive effort is more responsive than productive effort to increases in the value of the prize. Hence the ratio of destructive effort to productive effort increases with the value of the prize after the value exceeds a threshold. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

United Nations, Industry and Development 32, 1994. ; Refereed Journal Article ; The oil reserves of Qatar are small compared to those of some of its neighbouring States in the Persian Gulf. The country has estimated crude oil reserves of 3,200 million barrels, or less than 1 per cent of the world total. This is equivalent to about 30 years of output at current levels, and represents a fraction of reserves in the Persian Gulf region. On the other hand, the country does have significant gas reserves, estimated at 4,400 million cubic metres, or more than 4 per cent of the world total. Only the United Arab Emirates, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Islamic Republic of Iran and Abu Dhabi have larger gas reserves.

It is often asserted that pressures for North African migration to Europe would be reduced if the European Union encouraged economic development on the shores of the Mediterranean. This article argues that the European Union's efforts have ironically encouraged a form of economic development in its southern neighbours that abets, rather than discourages, migration. Deeper economic reform is necessary by the EU itself if genuine progress is to be made on North African migration pressures. (DSE/DÜI)