Suchergebnisse

The failure of the Somali state from 1993 to 2012 represents one of the world's most profound and prolonged cases of state collapse. Initially, education and other government services came to a standstill. With the halt of fighting in some areas, local communities with the support of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other agencies began to provide education and other critical services. Since then, slow progress has been made in providing educational services to increasing numbers of children, developing community capacity to manage schools in the absence of government support, and developing regional and national administrative systems to continue development of the education system. UNICEF played a central role in these developments. This case study looks at UNICEF's education programme in Somalia between 1991 and 2010. Highlighted are the contexts in which the programme operated, the challenges it faced, and the ways it adapted and learned. Of central importance was the agency's sensitivity to local context, its flexibility in programme responses, its willingness and ability to partner with available groups and agencies, its focus on helping the larger system get running, and its commitment to inclusion.

Governments perpetually align their policies to satisfy shifts in voters' relative demand for economic growth versus social equality. Following such shifts, increases (decreases) in government interventions lower (raise) both inequality and growth. This mechanism generates a positive co-movement between inequality and growth. The pattern is weaker in countries where a culturally determined belief that the rich are deserving renders equality a less important objective in the first place. I develop this analytical result in the theoretical framework of Alesina and Angeletos (2005), and I provide robust empirical support for it in a panel of 38 countries over the period 1964-2004.

The present paper describes the modelling of regional labour markets in the newly developed dynamic spatial general equilibrium model RHOMOLO, where the labour market equilibrium is determined by firms' labour demand, a wage-curve determining unemployment, and inter-regional labour migration. The RHOMOLO model is parameterised by estimating the key structural parameters econometrically. In order to illustrate the potential of the proposed dynamic spatial general equilibrium approach for analysing regionally integrated labour markets, we carry out simulations showing the effects of a reduction in transportation cost, and assess the impact on regional labour markets. Our results confirm that wages and unemployment are by far the most important channels of adjustment to macro-economic and policy shocks in the EU. In contrast, labour migration plays a secondary role in labour market adjustments in the EU. Our results also suggest that the relationship between market access, labour demand and labour supply is non-linear and spatially inter-dependent, which underlines the importance of the proposed dynamic spatial general equilibrium approach.

The main aim of this paper is to present the results of comparative analysis of higher education effectiveness in the European Union countries in the context of technology adoption and knowledge development. The first part of the paper describes the notion of national competitiveness, the determinants of its improving and methods of its measuring. Enhancing national competitiveness is in fact one of the objectives of higher education in the welfare economies, or should be in the countries that want to become such. That is why our attempt to verify the higher education effectiveness is taken from the perspective of performance, such as competitiveness. Furthermore, the welfare economy will be very difficult to achieve without a well-educated and trained workforce that is able to absorb new knowledge in order to introduce innovations to market. Today's educational systems should thus provide the so-called knowledge workers who endowed with the relevant knowledge resources can apply them in practice. These workers are a strong factor underpinning national competitiveness. The second part focuses on the comparison of higher education effectiveness in the 27 European Union countries on the basis of selected indicators presented in the World Economic Forum's annual Global Competitiveness Reports. Our study covers the five years period between 2008 and 2012 and is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of higher education in European Union countries using indirect measures, such as the opinion of entrepreneurs about the quality of higher education, the indicators of knowledge absorption capacity, and the extent of cooperation between universities and business. In this part of the paper our own synthetic index of higher education effectiveness is also presented, which takes into account, according to the main aim of the paper, the issue related to technology adoption and knowledge development.

The main aim of this paper is to present the results of comparative analysis of higher education effectiveness in the European Union countries in the context of technology adoption and knowledge development. The first part of the paper describes the notion of national competitiveness, the determinants of its improving and methods of its measuring. Enhancing national competitiveness is in fact one of the objectives of higher education in the welfare economies, or should be in the countries that want to become such. That is why our attempt to verify the higher education effectiveness is taken from the perspective of performance, such as competitiveness. Furthermore, the welfare economy will be very difficult to achieve without a well-educated and trained workforce that is able to absorb new knowledge in order to introduce innovations to market. Today's educational systems should thus provide the so-called knowledge workers who endowed with the relevant knowledge resources can apply them in practice. These workers are a strong factor underpinning national competitiveness. The second part focuses on the comparison of higher education effectiveness in the 27 European Union countries on the basis of selected indicators presented in the World Economic Forum's annual Global Competitiveness Reports. Our study covers the five years period between 2008 and 2012 and is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of higher education in European Union countries using indirect measures, such as the opinion of entrepreneurs about the quality of higher education, the indicators of knowledge absorption capacity, and the extent of cooperation between universities and business. In this part of the paper our own synthetic index of higher education effectiveness is also presented, which takes into account, according to the main aim of the paper, the issue related to technology adoption and knowledge development.

In a comparative framework this paper examines how ordinary citizens in Bulgaria view the developmental levels of European countries and certain states outside of Europe. It analyzes how Bulgarians scale countries on development and how that scale is related both to historical discourses about a civilizational slope from east to west in Europe, and to contemporary linear measurements of societal development and economic well-being. The paper also assesses what internal mechanisms this hierarchical understanding of development may have and how it may be related to national identities. We also consider how the views of the developmental hierarchy vary across subgroups of Bulgarian respondents. The empirical data for this paper come from a 2009 nationally representative survey of Bulgarian adults. Each respondent was asked to rate European countries and certain countries outside Europe on their levels of development. We analyze how ordinary Bulgarians rate countries on development and consider whether their assessments form a descending slope from west to east. We also link the assessments of ordinary Bulgarians to assessments of development made by outside agencies such as the United Nations and to GDP per Capita in order to see how the ratings of international organizations and the evaluation of ordinary Bulgarians are related.

This paper relates the changes in the structure of the Portuguese economy to changes in wage inequality, during 1944-1974, when Portugal had its golden age of growth under a dictatorial regime. We present a new wage data set based on surveys conducted by the Portuguese Statistics Office (INE). Our data set covers the whole economy, including 16 sectors, and data on skilled and unskilled labor for manufacturing, and on male and female labor force for agriculture. To measure the evolution of wage inequality we estimate a Theil index. The results reveal an inverted-U curve with a peak in 1959. We proceed by estimating econometrically the relationship between wage inequality and per capita income growth, controlling for the influence of additional variables that capture the effects of industrialization, investment in human and physical capital, emigration, foreign trade and the size of the government. We find a significant relationship between wage inequality, real GDP per capita, human capital and the share of government spending.

En los países andinos, la gobernabilidad democrática de los dos últimos decenios contrasta agudamente con los bajos niveles de crecimiento económico y el aumento del desempleo y la pobreza. Este artículo plantea que el nudo gordiano de esa paradoja es la gran desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso. Causa y consecuencia del mal funcionamiento del sistema político y de la economía, porque las élites económicas controlan el poder político, y crean instituciones y políticas que reflejan el interés de los dueños de la riqueza y no el interés común. Así se crea un círculo vicioso en el que la democracia "controlada" reproduce y amplía las desigualdades que la engendraron.

Artists, musicians and writers have always been great travellers. Today, their talent circulates in new ways, and takes new forms, as the creative industries expand globally in a marriage of media technology and the traditional arts. The growing international market for cultural talent can do much to help countries diversify their economies, and improve the quality of life more broadly. The creative industries are subject to strong clustering effects, with talent moving swiftly to the most vibrant clusters, not always to the advantage of the poorer countries which can lose talent to the richer world. Countries that protect intellectual property rights, educate and train their talent, and maintain politically open and liberal societies will have a head start in the global creative economy. – migration ; culture ; intellectual property

This paper examines the causes of conflict in Burundi and discusses strategies for building peace. The analysis of the complex relationships between distribution and group dynamics reveals that these relationships are reciprocal, implying that distribution and group dynamics are endogenous. The nature of endogenously generated group dynamics determines the type of preferences (altruistic or exclusionist), which in turn determines the type of allocative institutions and policies that prevail in the political and economic system. While unequal distribution of resources may be socially inefficient, it nonetheless can be rational from the perspective of the ruling elite, especially because inequality perpetuates dominance. However, as the unequal distribution of resources generates conflict, maintaining a system based on inequality is difficult because it requires ever increasing investments in repression. It is therefore clear that if the new Burundian leadership is serious about building peace, it must engineer institutions that uproot the legacy of discrimination and promote equal opportunity for social mobility for all members of ethnic groups and regions. – Burundi ; conflict ; inequality ; education

Governments in the OECD note rising immigration with alarm and grapple with policies aimed at selecting certain migrants and keeping out others. Economists appear to be well armed to advise governments since they are responsible for an impressive literature that examines the characteristics of individual immigrants, their absorption and the consequences of their migration on both sending and receiving regions. Economists are, however, much less well armed to speak to the determinants of the world migrations that give rise to public alarm. This paper offers a quantitative assessment of the economic and demographic fundamentals that have driven and are driving world migration, across different historical epochs and around the world. The paper is organized around three questions: How do the standard theories of migration perform when confronted with evidence drawn from more than a century of world migration experience? How do inequality and poverty influence world migration? Is it useful to distinguish between migration pressure and migration ex post, or between the potential demand for visas and the actual use of them? – migration ; poverty ; demographic economics ; emigration ; immigration

Abstract
Mobile workers involve flows of labor and human capital and contribute to a moreefficient allocation of resources. However, migration also changes relative wages,alters the distribution of skills and affects equality in the receiving society. Thepaper suggests that skilled immigration promotes economic equality in advancedeconomies under standard conditions. This is discussed and theoretically derived in acore model, and empirically supported using unique data from the WIID database andOECD.

JEL codes

D33; E25; F22; J15; J61; O15

We study whether the effects on registered manufacturing output of dismantling the License Raj—a system of central controls regulating entry and production activity in this sector—vary across Indian states with different labor market regulations. The effects are found to be unequal across Indian states with different labor market regulations. In particular, following delicensing, industries located in states with pro-employer labor market institutions grew more quickly than those in pro-worker environments. (JEL J50, L52,L60, O14, O15, O25)

This article reviews the magnitude of remittance flows into Mexican households and examines the consumption patterns of remittance‐receiving households. A thorough understanding of the dynamics of remittances and consumption in migrant households in Mexico should inform policy makers of the best ways to channel these resources into productive uses. The Mexican Income and Expenditure Survey for 1989 is used to compare and test patterns of consumption and uses of remittances in urban and rural Mexico. (JEL F2–F22, O1–O15)

This paper examines the effects of a government regularization program offered to half a million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. For this purpose, 2,232 surveys of refugee families were collected and used to compare refugees who arrived in Colombia around a specified eligibility date in 2018. We find that program beneficiaries experienced improvements in consumption (60 percent), income (31 percent), physical and mental health (1.8 sd), registration rates in the system that assesses vulnerability and awards public transfers (40 pp), and financial services (64.3 pp), relative to other refugees. The program also induced a change in labor formalization of 10 pp.