Suchergebnisse

This report is structured in three parts. Part one is a summary document, including: (i) an executive summary (ii) an introduction; (iii) a review of core concepts of reintegration that will be referred to in this study; (iv) a meta-analysis of reintegration process¬es in the Great Lakes Region (GLR) vis-à-vis the conceptual discussion; and (v) conclusions to the summary document. Part two (annex one) comprises an in-depth review and analysis of data on the reintegration process-es of ex-combatants across the GLR. Part three (annex two) is an in-depth analysis of community dynamics across the GLR. In brief, part one of the study is a meta-analytical and knowledge-focused piece that reflects more broadly on the detailed analysis of the datasets presented in annexes one and two, therefore, this part can be read as a freestanding report. However, it's worth noting that any reading will benefit significantly from exploring the detailed findings in annexes one and two.

Over the last few years the Standard Cost Model (SCM) has become the regulatory reform tool of choice in European Union (EU) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for identifying and reducing regulatory compliance costs. SCM provides a relatively simple methodology to measure and communicate businesses' paperwork obligations arising from compliance with governments' regulations. More recently the SCM has also been adapted and applied in a number of developing countries, including Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, and Rwanda. It is still too early days to conclude much on the SCM model's general applicability in developing countries. However as part of a broader reform package the SCM has proven capable of strengthening momentum by providing new insights into regulatory obligations, by quantifying the costs and time associated with information obligations both at aggregate and at a rule-specific level. It has hence proven useful both as a tool to target specific interventions and to monitor the impact of reform. This document provides a number of lessons from the first few years of using SCM in regulatory reforms, with a focus on business licensing, in developing countries. These lessons are not intended to provide a final account on how SCM is to be carried out in developing countries. Along with its dissemination across the globe, SCM has experienced a constant development. This document aims to point out a number of important issues that have been observed and tested during the initial measurements in World Bank client countries to prevent future practitioners from the need to re-invent the wheel.

As recent discussions have made clear, the apparent lack of poverty reduction in the face of historically high rates of economic growth-both in the world as a whole and in specific countries (most notably India)-provides fuel for the argument that economic growth does little to reduce poverty. How confident can we be that the data actually support these inferences? At the international level, the regular revision of purchasing power parity exchange rates plays havoc with the poverty estimates, changing them in ways that have little or nothing to do with the actual experience of the poor. At the domestic level, the problems in measuring poverty are important not only for the world count but also for tracking income poverty within individual countries. Yet, in many countries, there are large and growing discrepancies between the survey data-the source of poverty counts-and the national accounts-the source of the measure of economic growth. Thus economic growth, as measured, has at best a weak relationship with poverty, as measured.

Part I. Theoretical Foundations of Risk Management in Support of Sustainable Development -- SDGs Risks and Digital Approach to Managing Them -- Macroeconomic Risks of Sustainable Development: Features of Developed and Developing Countries -- The Contribution of Digital Technologies to Management of Sustainable Development Risks -- Innovative Development of Kazakhstan as an Experience for the Economic Development of Russia -- Reducing the Digital Divide as a Mechanism to Ensure Sustainable Economic and Social Development -- The Role of Blockchain in Public Administration in the Field of Economic Activity -- Trends in Dispute Resolution in E-Commerce: China's Experience -- Transformation of Settlement Relations in the Context of Industry 4.0: Conversion of Blockchain Club's Crypto-codes into Legitimate Analogues -- Possibilities and Threats of Digitalization for Society -- Integration into Global Value Chains as a Driver of High Technology Exports Development in China -- Regional Aspects of Ensuring Security and Development of Entrepreneurship in the Digital Economy -- Strategic Management of Innovation-Oriented Activities of Business Structures, Taking into Account Noospheric and Sustainable Development Approaches Transformed on an Advanced Methodological Basis -- The Methodology of "Smart City" in the Experience of Theoretical Organization of Knowledge of Contemporary Urban Epistemology -- Assessment of the Risks of Transition from a Global Pandemic Crisis to a Model of Long-Term Economic Growth -- Remote Justice Procedures during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Russian Federation -- National Health as a Condition and Factor of Economic Growth: Legal Aspects -- The COVID-19 Pandemic and Crisis as a Source of Global Risks to Sustainable Development -- The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the Development of Tour Operating in the Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts -- Methodological Approaches to Risk Assessment of the Implementation of State Programs and their State Financing in the Field of Healthcare in the Regions of Russia -- The Impact of COVID-19 on the Economies of Petroleum-Exporting Middle Eastern Countries -- The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Socio-economic Spheres and International Migration -- Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Current Trends and the Role of China -- Optimization Diagnosis of Spasm of Accommodation Among Students in the Osh State University -- Electronic Evidence in the Civil Proceedings: The Experience of the Republic of Korea -- Reshaping The Institution of Liability in International Space Law -- International Legal Challenges to Biotechnological Products -- Problems and Prospects for the Use of Electronic (Digital) Evidence in Arbitration Proceedings -- New Forms of Dispute Resolution in the Russian Federation as a Reflection of Innovation in Law Enforcement: Platform Justice -- Legal Assessment of Objective and Subjective Justifiable Defense Signs -- Specifics of Preventive Visit as a Type of Preventive Measures (Using the Example of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) -- Comparison of Legal Regulation of Expense Accounting in the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China -- Mechanisms of the Legal Management of Sustainable Development Risks at the Macro Level of Economic Systems -- Protecting Social Rights in an Era of Economic Change -- A Universal Human Rights Mechanism for the Protection or Revision of the Institution of Family in an Era of Economic Change -- Trends of the Russian Labor Legislation Development in the Era of Great Challenges -- Impact of Customs and Tariff Regulation on Economic Security -- Customs and Tariff Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Union in the Context of New Geo-economic Realities and Challenges to Industry -- On the Indicative Approach to Assessing International Trade Within the EAEU -- Russian-Azerbaijani Bilateral Trade Cooperation in Terms of Eurasian Integration -- A Feasibility Study of China-EAEU Free Trade Agreement -- Dollarization in Ecuador, Economic Growth, Trade Balance, Impact on Ecuadorian Foreign Trade -- Integration Processes and the Economy of Peru: Current Trends -- The Impact of Socio-economic Inequality on the Relations Between the European Union Countries and the Assessment of Strategic Areas for its Reduction -- Development of the Institute of Customs Representatives in the Republic of Kazakhstan -- The Impact and Role of Foreign Direct Investment in the Modernization of China's Automotive Industry -- Economic Cooperation of the Levant Countries: Main Directions and Opportunities -- EAEU and BRI: Current Prospects of Mutual Cooperation -- Assessing the Economic Positions of the European Union Countries in the Context of Transforming Foreign Economic Relations and Implementing a New Industrial Strategy for Europe -- Geo-economic Interests of the Republic of Turkey in the Republic of Uzbekistan -- Rethinking the Potential of the International Transport Corridor "North-South" in Sustaining Russia's Foreign Trade -- Prospects of the Khorgos Free Economic Zone -- Part II. Applied Aspects of Risk Management in Support of Sustainable Development -- Philosophy of System Sustainable Development of Economic Systems from the Position of the Noospheric Approach -- Philosophy of Sustainable Development Risks Through the Lens of the SDGs -- Sociology of Sustainable Development: the Role of Responsible Communities in the Achievement of the SDGs and the Advantages for the Quality of Life -- Social Aspects of the Sustainable Development Risks: Social Support for Responsible Innovations vs. "Human Factor" as a Barrier on the Path of Their Implementation -- Matrix of Risks for Sustainable Development and the Universal Mechanisms of Risk Management of Implementing the SDGs -- Risks of Region's Sustainable Development: a Systemic View from the Position of Society, Economy and Law -- The Risks of Implementing and Managing the SDGs in the Company's Activities: a Case Study by the Example of the Largest Companies of Russia -- The Importance of the International Policy of Globalisation and Open Economy to the Reduction of the Global Risks for Sustainable Development -- The Role of the State Management Institutions in the Reduction of the Macro-Economic Risks for Sustainable Development -- Innovations as the Basis for Managing the Region's Sustainable Development Risks -- Corporate Social Responsibility to Manage the Risks to the Achievement of the SDGs in the Entrepreneurial Activities -- Social Entrepreneurship as an Institute of Sustainable Development Risk Management -- Modern Issues in Sustainability Reporting -- Assessment of the Strain-stress Distribution in the Vicinity Conceding Mountainside's Scarp using Mathematical Modeling -- Marketing Mix of a Responsible Company to Manage the Risks to the Achievement of the SDGs -- The Role of Personnel Training in Higher Education and HRM to Reduce the Sustainable Development Risks -- Values of Modern Organizations and Social Responsibility of Scientific Institutions -- Regulatory and Legal Provision of Sustainable Development Risk Management in the Agro-Industrial Complex: an Overview of International Experience -- Theoretical Basis of Risk Management in Manufacturing Enterprises -- Problems of Increasing Investment Attractiveness of the Agro-Industrial Complex of the Kyrgyz Republic and Ways to Solve Them -- The Impact of Sharp Fluctuations in Global Crude Petroleum Prices on the World Economy -- International Production in the Russian Automotive Industry -- Regression Analysis of the Development Indicators of Light Industry in Kyrgyzstan -- Development of the Competitiveness of Integrated Sectors of the Economy in the Market of Goods and Services -- Research on the Behavior of Online Consumers in the Global Internet Space -- Creation of a SaaS-System for Image Analysis in Agriculture Using Artificial Intelligence Methods -- Development of the Recycling Sector and its Marketing Support as a Factor in the Sustainable Development of the Forestry Sector of the Economy -- The Influence of Macroeconomic Factors on the Art Market (on the Example of International Sales of the MacDougall's Auction House) -- Transformation of the Structure of the Cross-border Agri-food Value Chain -- Middle East Energy Policy Transformation: Saudi Case -- Reflections of Gender Inequality in Language and Culture -- Integral Assessment of Labor Potential of the Region in the Age of Digital Economy -- The Model for Assessing the Professional Competencies of Employees in Today's Labor Market -- Influence of Parents on Formation of National Consciousness of a Teenager -- On the Etymology of the Kyrgyz Names of Dwelling and Family from the Point of View of the Theory of Linguo-Regional Unity of the Altai and Chinese Peoples -- Labor Migrants in the Economy of GCC Countries: History, Modernity, Problems, and Perspectives -- Titulature in the Text of the Epic "Manas" and "Babur's Notes" as a Source of Information About the Social Institutions of the Central Asian Region -- Monohexamethylenetetramine Zinc Iodide Complex Compound for Cotton Growth and Development Stimulation: Advantages in the Labor Market -- Assessment of Social Security of the Population of Federal Districts -- On the Reflexes of the Ancient Root "But" [Foot] in Nostratic Languages -- Social Unemployment Insurance Systems in China and Russia: Comparative Characteristics -- Instrumental Competencies of Linguists in an Undergraduate Degree -- Ethnonyms as Concepts of Foreign Culture in the Text of a Fiction -- Challenges Affecting Listening Comprehension in Professionally-Oriented English and the Strategies for Improvement (Railway Engineering) -- Translation of Structures with Social and Grammatical Gender in the English Language (based on Feature Film Scripts) -- Humanistic Philosophical Foundations of Social Work -- Quantitative Tool.

The anti-Soviet and anti-communist hysteria that typified the Cold War period is to a certain extent alive and well today with the rise of China. This is particularly true regarding prevalent sentiment among the U.S. strategic class about Latin America.Take for example U.S. Southern Command head Laura Richardson's testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee in March, which invoked the word "malign" no less than 24 times: "malign actor," "malign influence," "malign effort," "malign activities," "malign intent," "malign narratives," "malign conduct," "malign action," and "malign agenda." Often, she was referring to suspected Chinese actors, and in some cases Russian ones. This echo of the Cold War brings to mind University of California San Diego scholar Peter Smith's argument about the core of the relations between the United States and Latin America: the crucial, historical factor of U.S.-Latin America politics has been the role and activity of extra-continental actors.According to a 2022 study by the RAND Corporation, "competition with China is qualitatively and quantitively different from competition with Russia and Iran in Latin America and the Caribbean." Moscow and Tehran may be opportunistic and provocative, but they lack the attributes to ensure an effective power projection in the area. China, however, has the resources, will, and opportunity to extend and sustain its influence. Hence, it is logical for Washington to be attentive to Beijing's messages, measures, and maneuvers.Still, the massive size of the U.S.'s own security presence in the region — and how small China's is in comparison — is often undiscussed in Washington. A look at the numbers suggests the idea of an imminent Chinese military threat is both exaggerated and misguided.We could start by examining what some have called the "iron river" of arms flowing into the region. According to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on arms transfers, the ranking of the largest arms suppliers to South America between 2019 and 2023 was: France (23%), the United States (14%), and the United Kingdom (12%). During those years, Russia did not supply arms to South America.An analysis of SIPRI data for 2000-2022 by Ryan Berg and Rubi Bledsoe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that the United States is the source of 94.9% of Argentina's arms acquisitions, 93.4% of those acquired by Colombia, 90.7% of those acquired by Mexico, and 82.7% of those acquired by Brazil. This means that the four largest economies in Latin America have the United States as their main arms supplier.During that same timeframe, Russia was by far the largest arms supplier to Venezuela: Caracas's purchases amounted to $4.5 billion. China was the largest supplier (66.2%) of the $77 million in arms purchased by Bolivia. Just last month, President Javier Milei confirmed Argentina's commitment to buy 24 F-16s from Denmark with authorization from Washington.When it comes to geographic presence, the United States maintains a large military footprint in the region through the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and the Soto Cano Base in Honduras. U.S. Southern Command is responsible for three "cooperative security locations" in El Salvador, Aruba, and Curacao. For decades, SOUTHCOM has regularly conducted various types of multi-nation (such as UNITAS, Tradewinds, PANAMAX, and Southern Cross) and bilateral military (for example, Southern Vanguard with Brazil and Relámpago with Colombia) exercises on land, sea, and air. Russia has occasionally conducted military exercises with Venezuela and Nicaragua. China participated in a sniper test in Venezuela in 2022, and Beijing has increased its offering of courses and educational programs for military officials from Latin America.The United States, for its part, maintains its Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which replaced the controversial School of the Americas that trained anti-communist military forces during the Cold War. According to a Congressional Research Service report, Security Force Assistance Brigades were established in 2018 and distributed across six commands, including the U.S. Southern Command: "the first SFAB maintains a persistent presence in Colombia, Honduras, and Panama, while also expanding episodically to Peru, Ecuador, and Uruguay." Also, the National Guards of 18 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. have agreements with 24 nations in Latin America. Meanwhile, Washington has designated Argentina (1998), Brazil (2019), and Colombia (2022) as non-NATO allies. Nothing similar occurs with China or Russia in Latin America.China agreed with Argentina during the center left government of Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) to establish a Deep Space Station in the province of Neuquén. The arrangement meant the construction of a facility for tracking, command, and data acquisition, facilitated by a deep space antenna. The next government of the center right Mauricio Macri completed its construction by 2017 and in 2018 it swung security relations back toward the United States, securing Southern Command financing for an Emergency Operations and Coordination Center in Neuquén. This is part of SOUTHCOM's humanitarian assistance programs and exercises. In fact, several radar stations throughout Latin America are operated by SOUTHCOM.Another data point is security ties through their total dollar flows. The latest Congressional Research Service report on U.S. aid to the region reveals the extent of Washington's support for anti-drug efforts in the area over the years. Between 2000 and 2022, U.S. assistance to Plan Colombia exceeded $13 billion, while for the 2008-2021 period, aid for Mexico's Mérida Initiative amounted to $3.5 billion. From 2010 to 2022, funding for the Caribbean initiative totaled $832 million, while from 2008-2020, the Central American initiative received $2.9 billion. While not all of that assistance has been military in nature, out of the total U.S. assistance to Latin America for 2024, security-related funding amounts to 26.6% or $658.3 million. In no way has China shown the willingness to provide such extensive assistance on security issues, nor get involved in aiding anti-narcotics initiatives in the region.We can also view the U.S. regional footprint through its influence on the high seas. In 2020, the U.S. Navy announced that the U.S. Fleet Forces Command would be renamed the Atlantic Fleet to focus on closer regional threats. And in 2008, the Navy re-established the 4th Fleet with a purview over the Caribbean and Central and South America. Moreover, three of the last six commanders of Southern Command have been from the Navy.Meanwhile, since 2020, the U.S. Coast Guard has expanded its activities in Central and South America. Washington has turbocharged its naval deployment as part of efforts to combat Chinese illegal fishing. While Beijing aims to be a naval power with global reach, its presence in Latin America is limited. The U.S. strategy of denial of space and anti-access in the maritime domain shows clear signs of strength. If understood as a design to limit (denial) or prevent (anti-access) an enemy force from advancing in its operational area, the United States has boosted its position.The total U.S. military footprint in the region is much broader and includes cooperation deals surrounding ports, aerospace, and inland rivers. No Chinese analogues to these agreements exist. What becomes clear, when looking at this portrait, is that it appears that China is highly cautious about extending its military reach in Latin America likely because it knows that could cause tensions with Washington. Instead, it has focused, to considerable success, on economic engagement in the area, with trade, investment, and finance.Beijing's regional economic engagement has not stopped Washington from sounding the alarm about supposed Chinese malefic military projection. It is no secret that doing so bolsters the justification for Washington's own military spending. Indeed, SOUTHCOM has requested a near 50% budget increase for 2025. In a Latin America awash with sky-high homicide rates and firearms among the leading causes of death, rightsizing the Chinese military presence leaves us with a provocative question: what good is U.S. arms racing with a nowhere-near-peer competitor doing for the region?In short, the military preeminence of the United States in Latin America is undeniable. In practice, in defense and security matters, Washington has been reaffirming and strengthening its presence in the area. China's pragmatic projection of economic power has made undeniable progress. But the preponderance of the United States in the military realm has not weakened nor is it close to being replaced. What is evident is that the notion of an imminent Chinese military threat is exaggerated and misguided, especially when the material projection of the United States in the region is less significant and more rhetorical. By now it is obvious that the U.S has militarily outcompeted China in Latin America and Beijing is very far from displacing Washington on regional defense and security matters.

Jack Solowey


Crypto startups and venture capitalists are not the only ones pivoting to artificial intelligence (AI). Recently, SEC Chair Gary Gensler delivered remarks to the National Press Club outlining his concerns about AI's role in the future of finance.
In those high‐​level remarks, Gensler shared his anxiety that AI could threaten macro‐​level financial stability, positing that "AI may heighten financial fragility as it could promote herding with individual actors making similar decisions because they are getting the same signal from a base model or data aggregator."
This fear largely rests on a pair of debatable assumptions: one, that the market for AI models will be highly concentrated, and two, that this will cause financial groupthink. There are important reasons to doubt both premises. Before the SEC, or any regulator, puts forward an AI policy agenda, the assumptions on which it rests must be closely scrutinized and validated.
Assumption 1: Foundation Model Market Concentration
Chair Gensler's assessment assumes that the market for AI foundation models will be highly concentrated. Foundation models, like OpenAI's GPT‑4 or Meta's Llama 2, are pre‐​trained on reams of data to establish predictive capabilities and can serve as bases for "downstream" applications that further refine the models to better perform specific tasks.
Because upstream foundation models are data‐​intensive and have the potential to leverage downstream data for their own benefit, Gensler is concerned that one or a few model providers will be able to corner the market. It's understandable that one might assume this, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt the assumption.
The best arguments for the market concentration assumption are that natural barriers to entry, economies of scale, and network effects will produce a small number of clear market leaders in foundation models. For instance, pre‐​training can require a lot of data, computing power, and money, potentially advantaging a small number of well‐​resourced players. In addition, network effects (i.e., platforms with more users are more valuable to those users) could further entrench incumbents, either because big‐​tech leaders already have access to more training data from their user networks, because the model providers attracting the most users will come to access more data to further improve their models or some combination of both.
But the assumption that the market for foundation models inevitably will be concentrated is readily vulnerable to counterarguments. For one, the recent AI surge has punctured theories about the perpetual dearth of tech platform competition. With the launch of ChatGPT, OpenAI—a company with fewer than 400 full‐​time employees earlier this year—became a household name and provoked typically best‐​in‐​class firms to scramble in response. And while it's true that OpenAI has made strategic partnerships with Microsoft, OpenAI's rise undermined the conventional wisdom that the same five technology incumbents would enjoy unalloyed dominance everywhere forever. The emergence of additional players, like Anthropic, Inflection, and Stability AI, to name just a few, provides further reason to question the idea of a competition‐​free future for AI models.
In addition, the availability of high‐​quality foundation models with open‐​source (or other relatively permissive) licenses runs counter to the assumed future of monopoly control. Open‐​source licenses typically grant others the right to use, copy, and modify software for their own purposes (commercial or otherwise) free of charge. The AI tool builder Hugging Face currently lists tens of thousands of open‐​source models. And other major players are providing their own models with open‐​source licenses (e.g., Stability AI's new language model) or relatively permissive "source available" licenses (e.g., Meta's latest Llama 2). Open‐​source model availability could have a material impact on competitive dynamics. A reportedly leaked document from Google put it starkly:
[T]he uncomfortable truth is, we aren't positioned to win this arms race and neither is OpenAI. While we've been squabbling, a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch. I'm talking, of course, about open source.

Lastly, Gensler's vision of a concentrated foundation model market itself rests in large part on the assumption that model providers will continuously improve their models with the data provided to them by downstream third‐​party applications. But this too should not be taken as a given. Such arrangements are a possible feature of a model provider's terms but not an unavoidable one. For example, OpenAI's current data usage policies for those accessing its models through an application programming interface (API), as opposed to OpenAI's own applications (like ChatGPT), limit (as of March 2023) OpenAI's use of downstream data to improve its models:
By default, OpenAI will not use API data to train OpenAI models or improve OpenAI's service offering. Data submitted by the user for fine‐​tuning will only be used to fine‐​tune the customer's model.

Indeed, providers of base models may not always benefit from downstream data, as finetuning a model for better performance in one domain could risk undermining performance in others (a dramatic form of this phenomenon is known as "catastrophic forgetting").
Again, this is not to say that foundation model market concentration is impossible. The point is simply that there also are plenty of reasons the concentrated market Gensler envisions may not come to pass. Indeed, a source Gensler cited put it well: "It is too early to tell if the supply of base AI models will be highly competitive or concentrated by only a few big players." Any SEC regulatory intervention premised on the idea of a non‐​competitive foundation model market would similarly be too early.
Assumption 2: Foundation Model Market Concentration Will Cause Risky Capital Market Participant Groupthink
The second assumption underpinning Gensler's financial fragility fear is that a limited number of model providers will lead to dangerous uniformity in the behavior of market participants using those models. As Gensler put it, "This could encourage monocultures."
Even if one accepts for argument's sake a future of foundation model market concentration, there are reasons to doubt the added assumption that this will encourage monocultures or herd behavior among financial market participants.
While foundation models can be used as generic tools out of the box, they also can be further customized to users' unique needs and expertise. Finetuning—further training a model on a smaller subset of domain‐​specific data to improve performance in that area—can allow users to tailor base models to firm‐​specific knowledge and maintain a degree of differentiation from their competitors. This complicates the groupthink assumption. Indeed, Morgan Stanley has leveraged OpenAI's GPT‑4 to synthesize the wealth manager's own institutional knowledge.
Taking a step back, is it more likely that financial firms with coveted caches of proprietary data and know‐​how will forfeit their competitive advantages, or that they will look to capitalize on them with new tools? Beyond training and finetuning models around firm‐​specific data, firms also can maintain their edge simply by prompting models in a manner consistent with their unique approaches. In addition, firms almost certainly will continue to interpret results based on their specific strategies, cultures, and philosophies. Lastly, because there are profits to be made from identifying mispriced assets, firms would be incentivized to spot others' inefficient herding behavior and diverge from the "monoculture"; they may even devise ways to leverage models for this purpose.
At the very least, as with model market concentration, more time and research are needed before the impact of the latest generation of AI on financial market participant herding behavior can be assessed with enough confidence to provide a sound basis for regulatory intervention.
Conclusion
Emerging technologies can, of course, be disruptive. But before regulators assume novel technologies present novel risks, they should test and validate their assumptions. Otherwise, one can reasonably doubt regulators when they proclaim themselves "technology neutral." As SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce noted last week regarding the SEC's proposed rules tackling a separate AI‐​related concern—conflict-of-interest risks from broker‐​dealers' and investment advisers' use of "predictive data analytics"—singling out a specific technology for "uniquely onerous review" is tantamount to "regulatory hazing."
Another word of caution is warranted: even where regulators do perceive bona fide evidence of enhanced risks, they should be wary of counterproductive interventions. To name just one example, heightened regulatory barriers to entry could worsen the very concentration in the market for AI models that Gensler fears.

Doutoramento em Economia ; A política orçamental, através da gestão das receitas e despesas públicas, é usualmente utilizada pelos decisores políticos para influenciar a atividade económica, nomeadamente através do controlo do rendimento disponível, de uma reafectação eficiente dos recursos existentes, do fornecimento de bens e serviços, bem como da correção de falhas de mercado. De acordo com o disposto na teoria Keynesiana, elaborada durante a Grande Recessão (década de 1930), os efeitos da política orçamental deverão variar de acordo com a fase do ciclo económico e dos instrumentos utilizados, sendo estes mais necessários e eficazes durante recessões. Contudo, em alguns episódios históricos, a evidência empírica parece contrariar as previsões teóricas efetuadas à luz da teoria Keynesiana, originando os comumente chamados efeitos não-Keynesianos da política orçamental. Por sua vez, a última Grande Recessão trouxe, uma vez mais, o debate relativo à eficácia da política orçamental para a literatura económica. Os elevados montantes de dívida pública acumulados na generalidade das economias europeias ocidentais comprometeram a sua sustentabilidade e restringiram decisões políticas, o que gerou repercussões tanto nos custos de financiamento soberano como no bem-estar social. Assim, diversos Estados Membros da Zona Euro foram forçados a implementar medidas mais restritivas de forma a conseguirem reduzir os seus desequilíbrios orçamentais, num cenário em que a política cambial se encontrava inacessível, e em que a taxa de inflação se apresentou especialmente baixa. Neste contexto, a presente tese debruça-se sobre o impacto macroeconómico da política orçamental nos Estados Membros da UEM, averiguando como este poderá variar de acordo com os instrumentos utilizados e com fatores intrínsecos de cada país, tendo em atenção tópicos relevantes que ainda não estão suficientemente explorados na literatura. É ainda analisado se, e como, a política orçamental poderá ser manipulada de acordo com motivações eleitoralistas, nomeadamente se as evidências empíricas dão suporte às previsões do modelo de "despesa visível" de Rogoff, ou ao modelo de despesa pública direcionada. Por outras palavras, se um hipotético aumento de despesa estará associado a mais despesas correntes, ou se existirão investimentos direcionados para satisfazer as pretensões de grupos ou regiões específicas. Num primeiro momento, foram calculados os valores dos multiplicadores orçamentais desde a criação da União Monetária. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, a despesa pública nos Estados Membros tem um impacto positivo sobre a atividade económica (multiplicador de 0,44), sendo o impacto maior perante menores níveis de endividamento soberano, recessões económicas e fases negativas do ciclo económico (hiato do produto negativo). Por sua vez, a receita fiscal apresenta valores negativos, compreendidos entre -0,11 e -0,55, podendo, no entanto, revelar um impacto expansionista em países com menores níveis de dívida pública. Porém, nem sempre as políticas resultam nos resultados expectáveis. Foram estimadas elasticidades do consumo privado, face aos instrumentos orçamentais, durante o período de 1960-2017, de forma a aferir como as elasticidades variam perante episódios orçamentais (claras ações políticas, como expansões ou consolidações orçamentais). As evidências indicam que as transferências sociais poderão estar na origem dos efeitos não-Keynesianos da política orçamental, uma vez o consumo privado apresenta elasticidades negativas face às suas variações, durante períodos de consolidação. Ainda, os episódios não-Keynesianos tornaram-se menos prováveis de serem observados após os países integrarem a Zona Euro, dado que os gastos em investimentos e as outras despesas deixaram de apresentar uma relação negativa com o consumo privado. Foi também observado que as transferências sociais aparentam ter um impacto mais recessivo durante consolidações, que aquele observado perante expansões ou na ausência de episódios orçamentais. Utilizando uma abordagem alternativa para identificar consolidações orçamentais (abordagem narrativa), foi constatado que o consumo privado continua a exibir uma resposta não-Keynesiana a choques fiscais. Por último, a política orçamental aparenta ainda ser sensível a fatores políticos. Durante anos eleitorais, os decisores políticos tendem a aumentar as despesas correntes e a diminuir o peso dos impostos diretos. Porém, a estratégia orçamental tem sofrido algumas alterações ao longo dos anos. Desde a Grande Recessão, os Estados Membros aparentam ter perdido a sua capacidade para manipular a despesa pública com objetivos eleitoralistas, e começaram a diminuir os impostos indiretos. Também, após os Estados Membros aderirem à UEM, os decisores políticos começaram a aumentar a carga fiscal dos seus países face a choques na taxa de juro, uma vez que perderam a capacidade de recorrer à política monetária. ; The fiscal policy, through the management of public revenue and expenditure, is usually used by policy makers to influence economic activity, namely through the control of available income, the reallocation of resources, the supply of goods and services or the correction of market failures. Following the Keynesian perspective, designed during the Great Depression (1930's), the effects of fiscal policy should vary over the stages of the business cycle and over fiscal instruments used, being more needed and effective during recessions. However, in some historical cases, the empirical evidence seems to contradict the theoretical predictions in the spirit of the Keynesian theory, giving rise to the so-called non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy. Therefore, the last Great Recession brought the effectiveness of fiscal policy back into debate in the economic literature. The high amounts of sovereign debt accumulated in the majority of the western European economies have been jeopardizing the sustainability of public debts, restricting political decisions, with repercussions on sovereign financing costs and on people's welfare. Thus, several Eurozone's Member States were forced to implement more restrictive policies in order to reduce their budgetary imbalances, in a scenario where the exchange rate policies are unavailable, and the inflation rate has been especially low. In this context, this thesis focuses on the macroeconomic impact of fiscal policy on the Member States, assessing how it may vary according to the fiscal instruments used, and to country specific characteristics, taking into account some relevant topics not very explored yet in the literature. It is also analysed whether, and how, the fiscal policy can be manipulated according to electoral motivations, namely if evidence supports the predictions of the Rogoff's "visibility expenditure" model or the Public expenditure targeting model, i.e., if the hypothetical expenditure increase will be associated with current expenditure, or if the capital expenditure will be used as a target to specific groups and locations. Firstly, it was computed the value of fiscal multipliers since the creation of the currency union. According to the results, public expenditure in Member States has a positive impact on economic growth (multiplier of 0.44), with a bigger impact on the less indebted countries, facing economic recessions and negative output gaps. In turn, tax revenue has negative values, between -0.11 and -0.55, but it can reveal an expansionary impact in countries with lower levels of public debt. However, policies do not always result in the expected results. Elasticities of private consumption to fiscal instruments were estimated during the period 1960-2017, to access how fiscal elasticities vary during fiscal episodes (clear policy actions, such as fiscal expansions or consolidations). Evidence indicates that social benefits may be a root of the non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy, since private consumption shows negative elasticities facing social benefits' shocks, during periods of fiscal consolidation. In addition, non-Keynesian episodes became less likely to be observed after countries joined the Eurozone, given that investment spending and other expenditures have lost their non-Keynesian role. It was also perceived that social transfers seem to be more contractionary in consolidations than in both expansions and in the absence of fiscal episodes. Using an alternative approach to identify fiscal consolidations (narrative approach), it is seen that private consumption continues to exhibit a non-Keynesian response to tax increases. Lastly, fiscal policy in the Eurozone countries appears to be sensitive to political factors. During election years, the incumbent Governments seem to increase current spending and to decrease the direct tax burden. However, the fiscal strategy has changed over the years. Since the Great Recession, Member States have lost their ability to manipulate the Government spending for electoral purposes and began to decrease the indirect tax burden. Furthermore, after countries joined the EMU, policy makers began to increase tax burden facing interest rate shocks, since they have lost the ability to use monetary policy. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Structures, actors and processes make up the unifying thread of the diversity of themes specific work on the articles that make up this issue of the magazine. Several texts point to federalism as a structuring dimension of the Argentine state in its three jurisdictional levels and the tensions that arise between the level national jurisdictional and sub-national levels. Niembro, Aristimuño and Del Bello subject to scrutiny the effective scope of the federalization objective in income to the career of scientific and technological researcher at CONICET; prove the uneven achievement of the same and the risks of a return to academicism that marked moments precedents of the organism. Fernando Rubino compares two experiences of associativism intermunicipal in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires and its effectiveness as management tool. Piana and Patiño Jaramillo focus on the organizational structures of the Public Administration of the province of Buenos Aires during the government of María Eugenia Vidal (2015-19), highlight the contrast between the official privatization discourse, anti-political, downsizing of the state and cutting expenses, the reality of growth of the resources and responsibilities of the agencies taken into account and the increase in political positions without specific functional involvement. The effective validity of the policy glacier protection in the provinces of Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego allows Ana Paula Lucero to identify and explain the tensions that arise between a federal political norm of universal application and the provincial interests derived from their specific endowment of resources and their own development strategies. The coupling between federal political institutions and processes and provincial regimes is explicit in the analysis of the electoral coalition building strategy of the UCR in the province of Santa Fe ahead of the 2019 elections, carried out by Ariadna Gallo and Carolina Pérez Roux. Since the 1980s, organizations of unemployed workers and residents of precarious communities have witnessed rapid growth in magnitude organizational, assertive effectiveness and formulation of public policy proposals; they relativized the formal quasi monopoly of the articulation of interests by political parties and the trade union movement, contributed to reformulate the conventional articulation between state and civil society. Julia Nesprias explores the evolution of the villero movement in the City of Buenos Aires in its articulation with the predominant institutional policies. The article by Maneiro and Núñez describes the process of struggle of the organizations of workers of the popular economy around the Social Emergency law of 2016, their strategies for building alliances with a wide range of society and the system political, in an institutional political environment of ruling neoliberalism. Finally Feldman and Girolimo analyze the promotion policies of Industry 4.0 in a context of accelerated technological change, taking as a reference the experiences recent developments in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil in digitization and automation of Productive processes; draw attention to the need for peripheral economies and the need to face these challenges so as not to deepen the existing gaps with respect to to the core countries. An analysis of political and administrative capacities is published in the Documents section of the state, from the perspective of the State and Public Administration Commission of the Homeland. This document is included as a contribution to the political-academic debate around the role of the public sector in promoting development with social equity. With this number the RPPP reaches its first decade of existence. In these ten years 150 articles and 42 reviews were accepted and published, of the more than 600 originals received. 69 articles published are by female authorship (46%), 68 by authorship masculine (45%) and 13 of authorship gender sharing; one sixth comes from authors affiliated with academic institutions abroad. The variety of your content, according to the breadth of its call and the wide field of analysis of the State and public policies, combines academic quality according to standards with the commitment to the substantive values that inspire and guide the National University of Lanús. ; Estructuras, actores y procesos conforman el hilo unificador de la diversidad de temas específicos trabajados por los artículos que integran el presente número de la revista. Varios textos apuntan al federalismo como dimensión estructurante del estado argentino en sus tres niveles jurisdiccionales y a las tensiones que se suscitan entre el nivel jurisdiccional nacional y los niveles subnacionales. Niembro, Aristimuño y Del Bello someten a escrutinio el efectivo alcance del objetivo de federalización en los ingresos a la carrera de investigador científico y tecnológico del CONICET; demuestran el desigual logro del mismo y los riesgos de un retorno al academicismo que signó momentos precedentes del organismo. Fernando Rubino compara dos experiencias de asociativismo intermunicipal en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires y su eficacia como herramienta de gestión. Piana y Patiño Jaramillo enfocan las estructuras organizativas de la Administración Pública de la provincia de Buenos Aires durante la gobernación de María Eugenia Vidal (2015-19), destacan el contraste entre el discurso oficial privatizador, antipolítico, de achicamiento del estado y recorte de gastos, la realidad de crecimiento de los recursos e incumbencias de los organismos tomados en cuenta y el incremento de los cargos políticos sin afectación funcional específica. La efectiva vigencia de la política nacional de protección de glaciares en las provincias de Santa Cruz y Tierra del Fuego permite a Ana Paula Lucero identificar y explicar las tensiones que se suscitan entre una norma política federal de aplicación universal y los intereses provinciales derivados de su dotación específica de recursos y sus propias estrategias de desarrollo. El complejo acople entre instituciones y procesos políticos federales y regímenes provinciales se explicita en el análisis de la estrategia de construcción de coaliciones electorales de la UCR en la provincia de Santa Fe de cara a los comicios de 2019, llevado a cabo por Ariadna Gallo y Carolina Pérez Roux. Desde la década de 1980, las organizaciones de trabajadores desocupados y habitantes de comunidades precarizadas han dado testimonio de un acelerado crecimiento en magnitud organizativa, eficacia reivindicativa y formulación de propuestas de política pública; relativizaron el cuasi monopolio formal de articulación de intereses por los partidos políticos y el movimiento sindical, contribuyeron a reformular la convencional articulación entre estado y sociedad civil. Julia Nesprias explora la evolución del movimiento villero en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires en su articulación con las políticas institucionales predominantes. El artículo de Maneiro y Núñez describe el proceso de lucha de las organizaciones de trabajadores de la economía popular en torno a la ley de Emergencia Social de 2016, sus estrategias de construcción de alianzas con un amplio arco de la sociedad y del sistema político, en un ambiente político institucional de neoliberalismo gobernante. Finalmente Feldman y Girolimo analizan las políticas de promoción de la industria 4.0 en un contexto de cambio tecnológico acelerado, tomando como referencia las experiencias recientes de México, Argentina y Brasil en digitalización y automatización de procesos productivos; llaman la atención sobre la necesidad de las economías periféricas y la necesidad de afrontar estos desafíos para no profundizar las brechas existentes respecto a los países centrales. En la sección Documentos se publica un análisis de las capacidades políticas y administrativas del estado, desde la perspectiva de la Comisión Estado y Administración Pública del Instituto Patria. Se incluye este documento como un aporte al debate político-académico en torno al rol del sector público en la promoción del desarrollo con equidad social. Con este número la RPPP alcanza su primera década de existencia. En estos diez años fueron aceptados y publicados 150 artículos y 42 reseñas, de los más de 600 originales recibidos. 69 artículos publicados son de autoría femenina (46%), 68 de autoría masculina (45%) y 13 de compartición autoral de género; una sexta parte proviene de autoras y autores afiliados a instituciones académicas del exterior. La variedad de su contenido, acorde a la amplitud de su convocatoria y al amplio campo de análisis del Estado y las políticas públicas, conjuga la calidad académica de acuerdo a los estándares convencionales con el compromiso a los valores sustantivos que inspiran y orientan a la Universidad Nacional de Lanús. Carlos Vilas.

The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the appropriation of materials and energy in XUAR (PRC). To do this, I propose a critical contrastive analysis of official historiographical narratives: narratives about the official inclusion of the conquered territory of the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang (XUAR-PRC) at the borders of the Qing Empire in the 18th century; the Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference; the modernizing speeches imposed by the PRC on the territory of XUAR through the developmental narratives that accompany the BRI.The autochthonous socio-environmental systems have been subjected, since the inclusion of the territory into the Chinese borders, to mechanisms of colonialism implemented by external agents. This process has given rise to an interethnic conflict and a process of gentrification of the territories resulting from an extractivist and capitalist model of natural resource management (agriculture, gas, oil). The BRI, based on the development of transport and logistics infrastructures, reflects a strategy that aims to promote PRC's role in global relations: it enhances international investment flows and commercial outlets for Chinese products, through land and sea routes, trying to reestablish the ancient Silk Roads, and promotes the creation of new roads, in order to connect a wider number of territories and countries —around sixty—.In turn, this research aims to reveal the impact of the imposition of the PRC neo-colonialist economic and extractive model, as well as the future consequences, on indigenous populations and management models. In terms of methodology this requires reconstructing the poverty narrative of Uyghur peoples, including accounts of their exclusion, ejection from the original areas, and a special emphasis on autochthonous outlook on their environment and how Modernity invades their natural and human space.Local and regional sociopolitical tensions have, in the final third of the twentieth century, forced or encouraged Uyghur emigration from XUAR and from the PRC, leading to the creation of distant exile communities. Through the inclusion of Uyghur studies (Jacobs, 2016; Leibold, 2007; Millward, 2007, 2018; Sautman, 2000; Thum, 2012, among others), in a wider panorama of decolonial studies (Escobar, 2016; Restrepo, 2016; Santos y Meneses, 2014, Ortega Santos y Olivieri, 2020, etc.), academia still faces the need to continue researching the socio-environmental impact of the modernization policies imposed by the PRC and its impact on the forms of autochthonous management of human and natural resources of the territory of XUAR. This, under Chinese domination in its different historical stages, has become a scenario of socio-environmental conflicts: economic, political and identity consequences return the image of a colonized territory (Millward, 2007, 2018; Sautman, 2000; Olivieri, 2020; Roberts, 2020), subjected to continuous extraction and repression processes by the central government. This institutional constraint, in recent years, has been legitimized by the PRC central state within the international community by accusing Uyghurs —culturally Muslims by majority— of terrorism, and thus including the whole oppression policies in the global scenario of GWOT (Roberts, 2020). This strategy hides the extractive-colonial interests that China has on the indigenous land of Uyghurs and other turkic peoples —such as Kazakhs, which represent more than a million people living in the territory—.Post-coloniality and national independence in a global scenario have presented the overwhelming need to rethink Asia in all its political and cultural complexity, and to launch projects —such as the one proposed at the Bandung Conference (1955), in which China played a leading role— that promote a supra-national unity respectful of plurality (Peña, 1956; Yoon, 2018); however, it seems now necessary to analyze how Bandung narratives coexist with those of a sinocentric megaproject (Pérez, 2014), with modernizing and developmental neo-colonial purposes (Islam, 2019). The BRI proposes reestablishing connections between Europe, Asia and Africa —that is, reviving old geoschemes (Millward, 2018) from a neo-colonial perspective (Clarke, 2017). Those links allegedly propose an economic supra-national development plan on an intercontinental scale, with the aim of modelling a scenario of revived cultural and human contacts, as well as commercial exchanges—. Nevertheless, the PRC's BRI underlies the imposition of its economic and cultural model and the application of measures of natural resources extraction on the affected regions. The current conflict in XUAR may be seen as socio-environmental for: 1. The economic divide between Han/Uyghur-North/south in the region, is also a divide between agrarian and commercial-urban economies; 2. The PRC development strategy is focused on urbanization, but within XUAR, the Uyghur south has been largely left out of urban-based development, or controlled by the predominantly Han organization of the Bingtuan (Production Construction Corps) which is now developing colonies in southern XUAR that largely excluded local Uyghurs from the benefits of housing and commercial opportunity; 3. XUAR has a systemic water deficit, and dire prospects within decades as climate change melts the glaciers on whose melt water the region currently relies.Since the annexation of the territory of XUAR, the Government has been launching policies aimed at developing a greater control and power over the Uyghur historical region which represents a fundamental enclave both for natural resources extraction and for geopolitical strategies of Chinese politics and trade. The conquest and the subsequent mechanisms of coloniality have imposed in XUAR changes in the modes of management and those related to the natural environment, turning "particular ecosystems" into "modern forms of nature" (Escobar, 2016). Throughout this research, the term "coloniality" will be understood as a process that has certainly transformed the forms of domination deployed by Modernity, but not the structure of the center-periphery relations worldwide. In this particular case study, we are confronted with a scenario where decolonization has not happened; in fact, it is still denied, by the government itself, that there has been a colonization per se. Therefore, coloniality here is built from the creation of denialist and inclusionist discourses, which nullify the possibility of the subjects' —in broad terms: the land of XUAR and those who inhabit it— very existence. Since then, the ways of life of the subaltern groups, in all aspects, are subject to the Modern/Colonial model, it is necessary to re-dignify the community attempts of survival and resistance, as ones of subjects oppressed by the mechanisms of capitalist modernity.Through this article I aim to reveal the Uyghurs perspective on how the official narratives about "development" and "modernity" proclaimed by the BRI, besides the monetary growth, hide colonial and oppressive control politics, and whose consequences are exclusion, repression, and even elimination of autochthonous identities in order to impose control over their territories and resources. So, jointly with a deep bibliographical and theoretical reflection, the very voices of exiled Uyghurs are here anonymously presented, based on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). ; El objetivo de este trabajo es el de investigar el impacto de la Iniciativa Belt and Road (BRI) en la apropiación de materiales y energía en la Región Autónoma Uigur de Xinjiang (XUAR) de la República Popular de China (RPCh). Para ello, propongo un análisis contrastivo crítico de las narrativas historiográficas oficiales: narrativas sobre la inclusión oficial del territorio conquistado de la Región Autónoma Uigur de Xinjiang en las fronteras del Imperio Qing en el siglo XVIII; el Comunicado Final de la Conferencia de Bandung; los discursos modernizadores impuestos por la República Popular de China en el territorio de XUAR a través de las narrativas desarrollistas que acompañan la BRI. Los sistemas socioambientales autóctonos han sido sometidos, desde la inclusión del territorio en las fronteras chinas, a mecanismos de colonialismo implementados por agentes externos. Este proceso ha dado lugar a un conflicto interétnico y a un proceso de gentrificación de los territorios resultante de un modelo extractivista y capitalista de gestión de los recursos naturales (agricultura, gas, petróleo). La BRI, basada en el desarrollo de las infraestructuras de transporte y logísticas, refleja una estrategia que tiene como objetivo promover el papel de la República Popular de China en las relaciones globales: potencia los flujos de inversión internacional y las salidas comerciales para los productos chinos, a través de rutas terrestres y marítimas, tratando de restablecer las antiguas Rutas de la Seda, y promueve la creación de nuevas carreteras, con el fin de conectar un mayor número de territorios y países —alrededor de sesenta—. En cambio, esta investigación tiene como propósito el de revelar el impacto de la imposición del modelo económico y extractivo neocolonialista de la RPCh, así como sus consecuencias futuras sobre las poblaciones indígenas y los modelos autóctonos de gestión. En términos de metodología, esto requiere reconstruir las narrativas de pobreza del pueblo uigur, incluyendo relatos de su exclusión, expulsión de sus tierras originarias proponiendo un especial énfasis en la mirada autóctona sobre su entorno y cómo la Modernidad invade su espacio natural y humano.

Something interesting is happening in the United Kingdom. Some government officials there are pushing for the Bank of England to adopt an NGDP target. From the Independent:

Officials in the UK Treasury are "probably" considering whether to change the Bank of England's inflation-targeting mandate due to the massive economic shock imparted by the coronavirus crisis, according to a former minister.

 Lord Jim O'Neill, who was commercial secretary to the Treasury in 2015, wants the central bank to shift from its current target of keeping inflation at 2 per cent to targeting a steadily rising trend of nominal UK GDP growth instead.

Since the U.K. Treasury determines the monetary policy target for the Bank of England, these rumblings are more than noise. The U.K. Treasury's increased interest in an NGDP target is driven, in part, by the efforts of Jim O'Neil. He has written articles, done interviews, and made a forceful case for this approach to monetary policy. Another prominent voice is Sajid Javid who was recently the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He also has called for NGDP targeting in a new study. They are not alone, as other members of Parliament also talking about an NGDP target and several UK think tanks are promoting it as well. There seems to be, in short, some real momentum for NGDP targeting in the Boris Johnson government.



If the Bank of England were to get an NGDP target, it would be the first central bank to explicitly do so. The Bank of England was an early adopter of inflation targeting, so it would be fitting for it also to be an early adopter of NGDP targeting. Moreover, moving to this monetary policy framework should not be too hard for the British central bank since it already does something that looks a lot like an NGDP target.



Still, this would be seen as a big change for the central bank and many observers are unsettled by its prospects. Again, from the Independent: 

Lord O'Neill conceded that the idea of moving to nominal GDP targeting would  "scare" many people in the Treasury and the Bank who regard the current inflation-targeting regime as a proven success.

To those observers who are worried, I would encourage you to check out my paper from late last year that summarizes the facts and fears of NGDP targeting. It was written with the Fed in mind, but its lessons are applicable to any central bank. Here, I want to make three points that are specifically directed toward the Bank of England adopting an NGDP target.   



Changes in Potential Real GDP: Much Ado About Nothing

My first point is that changes in potential real GDP should not be a practical concern if the Bank of England were to adopt an NGDP target. Changes to potential real GDP is a common objection to NGDP targeting and in principle a legitimate concern. In practice, however, the magnitudes involved make this a moot concern. 



To illustrate this point, imagine that the Bank of England had been credibly targeting NGDP at 4% a year since the mid-1960s. Also assume that the potential real GDP (y*) evolved as it actually did over this period. The difference between this imagined NGDP target and the actual growth rate of y*, would be the counterfactual trend inflation experienced during this time. The figure below shows the outcome. It reveals that trend inflation in the UK would have ranged from about 1% to 3%. The average inflation rate over the whole period would have been just under 2%. Not a lot to see here. Even if we tweaked the NGDP target up a bit, there would still no runaway inflation. Instead, we end up in a world with longrun inflation well-anchored and a stable growth path for nominal income. 







Now to the extent that changes in potential real GDP do matter, it actually favors NGDP targeting over flexible inflation targeting (FIT). Josh Hendrickson and I show this outcome in a JMCB paper (ungated version) last year. The punchline is that a central bank doing FIT needs to know both potential real GDP (y*) and real GDP (y) in realtime to avoid making mistakes. A central bank doing NGDP targeting does not need to know y* or y in realtime. In fact, it intentionally remains agnostic about them over the shortrun and simply aims to stabilize nominal income. As a result, it is less likely to accidentally make matters worse. This is not just a theoretical argument. Athanasios Orphanides, for example, shows that one reason for the Fed's tepid response to rising inflation in the in the 1970s was bad realtime data on the output gap. In more recent times, one see the Fed's talking up of rate hikes in the fist half of 2008 or the ECB's outright tightening of policy in 2008 and 2011 as manifestations of this problem. 



Concerns about changes in potential real GDP, then, are much ado about nothing under an NGDP target and only meaningfully matter for a FIT. 



NGDP Targeting Would Not Be a Radical Change 

My second point is that the Bank of England adopting an NGDP target would not be a radical change. For it is already producing outcomes that closely mimic an NGDP target. This can be seen in the figure below.



This chart shows that prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the Bank of England had grown NGDP about 4% a year along a stable path. This is exactly what an NGDP level target would look like. Interestingly, former Governor Mark Carney actually wanted the Bank of England to follow an NGDP target when he first arrived. The idea was quickly shot down, but nonetheless he got the outcome he was calling for back in 2012. It is almost as if the Bank of England had a stealth NGDP target under his stewardship. 





Prior to the Great Recession, NGDP was also on a relatively stable path, though during this time it was growing closer to 5%. This too looks similar to an NGDP level target. Both of these NGDP targeting-like experiences, however, end in a sustained trend path drop that is not made up. In other words, the Bank of England's implicit NGDP target is actually a version of a growth rate target rather than a level target. And that is where the recent calls for an NGDP level target are different from what the central bank has been doing.



The Real Change Would Be an Explicit Make-Up Policy

My final point is that the real change being called for is the adoption of a level target. That is, the goal is to move the Bank of England from an implicit NGDP growth rate target to an explicit NGDP level target. This would require the central bank to make up for past misses from its target. Put differently, an NGDP level target would empower the central bank to temporarily run the economy hot until NGDP got back up to its trend growth path. In the case of the United Kingdom, that means growing NGDP faster than the trend 4% growth rate. This faster-than-normal catch-up growth is sometimes called 'make-up' policy and is illustrated below: 







What an NGDP Level Target Might Look Like in the United Kingdom

If the UK Treasury were to announce an NGDP level target for the Bank of England, it could be as simple as restoring NGDP to its trend growth path that existed under Mark Carney. That is, temporarily run NGDP hot to make up for shortfalls below its trend path that occurred during the COVID-19 crisis. After that, simply grow NGDP at 4%. As seen in the first figure, a 4% level target would probably be fine given likely changes in potential real GDP in the United Kingdom. More complicated versions of an NGDP level target are possible, but I would start simple.



In closing, it is worth noting that NGDP targeting is not a new idea. It was highly talked about in the 1980s, but gave way to inflation targeting in the 1990s. The United Kingdom's adoption of an NGDP level target would simply put monetary policy in advanced economies back on its original journey. Bon voyage to the Bank of England!



Related Links

The Financial Stability Case for NGDP Targeting

NGDP Targeting in the United Kingdom - Scott Sumner

Una paradoja que se presenta a nivel mundial es la creciente demanda por efectivo, a pesar de los altos ritmos de adopción de los pagos electrónicos. En este artículo presentamos evidencia internacional de que la demanda creciente de efectivo se da aun con el efecto negativo que los pagos electrónicos ejercen sobre dicha demanda. En nuestras estimaciones, este efecto es más que compensado por el impacto que tienen el crecimiento en la actividad económica, la reducción en los costos de oportunidad, y, en menor grado, las actividades económicas informales y al margen de la ley sobre la demanda de efectivo. Dado que los sistemas de pago electrónicos reducen la dependencia del efectivo, nos preguntarnos por qué su uso es tan limitado en Colombia. Mostramos que, aunque el público ha alcanzado un amplio acceso a instrumentos de pago electrónicos, como las tarjetas débito, la aceptación por parte de los comercios es limitada. Este desbalance entre los dos lados del mercado impide que se materialicen los efectos de red que podrían propiciar un mayor uso de estos sistemas. Nuestros resultados sugieren que políticas de oferta que incentiven la competencia en los servicios de afiliación de los comercios y hagan más asequible el acceso de los usuarios finales a los sistemas de pago electrónicos; y políticas de demanda que promuevan la formalidad y la educación financiera podrían promover su uso y la aceptación con benéficos significativos para los colombianos. ; Cash balances are growing in developed and developing economies in spite of the strong adoption of electronic payments. In this paper we show that global advances in the use of electronic payment systems do curtail the demand for cash. Yet, the positive impact on the demand for cash of income growth, lower interest rates, and, to a lesser extent, of activities in the informal and illegal sectors tend to offset this effect. The fact that electronic payment systems reduce the dependence on cash begs the question of why countries like Colombia fall short in the use of these networks. We present evidence that, although the public has gained wide access to electronic payment instruments, such as debit cards, acceptance is low on the merchant side. We show that this imbalance between the two sides of the market deters the unleashing of network forces that could deepen the use of electronic payments. We argue that supply-side policies which make affiliation of merchants to electronic payment systems more competitive and affordable and demand-side policies that promote formality and financial education could rise use and acceptance, bringing about significant benefits to Colombians. ; La importancia de los Sistemas de Pago de Bajo Valor (SPBV) en las economías es indiscutible. SPBV seguros y eficientes favorecen la inclusión financiera, la formalización de la economía y reducen los costos transaccionales de los agentes. En este artículo, estudiamos el rol que juega el efectivo y los pagos electrónicos en los ecosistemas de pago de Colombia y el mundo y los factores que determinan su demanda. Para tales propósitos, abordamos las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿Cuáles son los determinantes de la demanda de efectivo y de los sistemas de pago electrónicos en el ámbito internacional? Para responder esta pregunta, modelamos la demanda de efectivo y de pagos electrónicos haciendo uso de datos de panel de 66 países: 20 desarrollados y 46 en desarrollo, para el período 1991-2015. Nuestros resultados indican que la demanda creciente de efectivo en el mundo se da aun con el efecto negativo que los pagos electrónicos ejercen sobre su demanda. En nuestras estimaciones, este efecto es contrarrestado por la mayor demanda derivada del crecimiento en la actividad económica, la reducción en los costos de oportunidad, y una tendencia creciente no explicada por factores tradicionales. Dado que los pagos electrónicos limitan la demanda de efectivo, nos preguntamos cuáles son los determinantes de su adopción. Estudiamos el comportamiento del volumen de pagos electrónicos per cápita en el mundo, asumiendo que su adopción sigue un proceso en forma de S, con una primera fase de crecimiento acelerado, seguida por una de desaceleración, hasta llegar a una fase de maduración del mercado. Mostramos que tanto el nivel de adopción de largo plazo como la velocidad de adopción están dominados por los niveles de ingreso per cápita de las economías. Además, encontramos que la velocidad de adopción es menor en países con regímenes fiscales y financieros más restrictivos. En suma, logramos identificar los factores que inciden en una mayor demanda de efectivo, a pesar de los efectos sustitución que se derivan del dinámico crecimiento en la adopción de los pagos electrónicos. ¿Cuáles son los determinantes de la demanda de efectivo y de los medios de pago sustitutos de este en el caso colombiano? (Como los depósitos en cuentas corrientes y de ahorro (cuasidineros) La razón del efectivo a PIB y los saldos en efectivo per cápita también presentan una tendencia creciente en Colombia, en especial a partir de comienzos del siglo XXI. Para entender esta dinámica, modelamos el efectivo real como función de las transacciones en efectivo, aproximadas por el PIB real, por la tasa de interés nominal de los depósitos a término (90 días) y por la inflación anual -como costos de oportunidad del efectivo- y un indicador de innovaciones en sistemas de pagos sustitutos del efectivo. A estos factores tradicionales añadimos indicadores de informalidad y de actividades al margen de la ley. Los resultados muestran que el comportamiento de largo plazo en el volumen de transacciones, los menores costos de oportunidad del dinero, y en menor medida, la dinámica de la economía informal e ilegal explican la demanda creciente por efectivo en Colombia, aun con el efecto sustitución que han tenido los avances en pagos electrónicos. Así mismo, destacamos una tendencia creciente en la demanda de efectivo no explicada por las variables consideradas. Con respecto al GMF, encontramos que su impacto se concentra en los inicios de su implementación. Para analizar el comportamiento del efectivo en un contexto de diferentes medios de pago sustitutos, modelamos la razón de efectivo a cuentas de depósito. Encontramos que dicha razón disminuye debido a mayores niveles de ingreso per cápita y menores costos de oportunidad. No obstante, la reducción en las tenencias de efectivo, en favor de medios de pago electrónicos, se ve inhibida por el uso del efectivo en actividades informales y al margen de la ley y por factores aun por identificar. ¿Cuáles son los determinantes de la adopción, uso y aceptación de tarjetas de pago en Colombia? Aunque el crecimiento en el uso de los SPBV electrónicos en Colombia ha sido significativo en lo que va del siglo XXI, aún estamos lejos de los estándares internacionales. En efecto, el 92,4% de los adultos colombianos reporta preferir el efectivo a otros instrumentos de pago, en términos de frecuencia, y el 90,0% en términos de valor de sus pagos. Así mismo, en los centros urbanos, se encuentra que los pagos electrónicos solo son aceptados en el 15% de las transacciones cotidianas de los consumidores. Para entender por qué es baja la utilización de los sistemas de pago electrónicos en Colombia, estudiamos empíricamente cuales son los factores beneficio-costo que determinan las decisiones de adopción de los consumidores y los comercios en el contexto de las tarjetas de pago. Por el lado de los consumidores encontramos lo siguiente: a medida que aumenten los ingresos, haya una mayor formalización laboral, se reduzcan los costos relativos de acceder y usar las tarjetas de pago y se logre una mayor cobertura en términos de la aceptación de tarjetas por los comercios (externalidades o efectos de red) se dará una transición más rápida hacia el mayor uso de los pagos electrónicos. Por el lado de los pequeños comercios, encontramos que estos identifican la aceptación de tarjetas de pago como un factor de competitividad y que las ventajas se hacen mayores en los comercios de mayor tamaño y donde el valor promedio de la transacción tiende a ser alto. No obstante, priman sus percepciones de altos costos, mayores cargas fiscales, desconfianza en el sistema financiero y complejidad en su adopción, en la decisión de no aceptarlas. Nuestros resultados sugieren que políticas de oferta que incentiven la competencia en los servicios de afiliación de los comercios y hagan más asequible el acceso de los usuarios finales a los sistemas de pago electrónicos, así como políticas de demanda que promuevan la formalidad y la educación financiera, llevarían a un mayor uso y aceptación de los pagos electrónicos con beneficios para todos los colombianos.

ÖZET Ülkelerin de bireyler gibi farklılıkları vardır. Bu vaka da ise bunlar doğal kaynaklar, emek, sermaye, teknoloji gibi farklılıklardır. Ancak, bu ülkeler mal ve hizmet ticareti için bir anlaşmaya vararak farklılıklarından önemli ölçüde yararlanabilirler. Bu anlaşmalar yıllar boyunca dünya genelinde Uluslararası ticarette ve Yatırımda hızlı bir büyüme ile sonuçlanmıştır. Doğrudan yabancı yatırım (DYY), uzun vadeli bir ilişkiyi içeren ve bir ekonomideki yerleşik bir kuruluş tarafından uzun vadeli bir ilgiyi ve kontrolü, bir ekonomideki (yabancı doğrudan yatırımcı veya ana girişim) uzun süren bir ilgiyi ve kontrolü yansıtan doğrudan yabancı yatırımcı haricindeki bir yatırım olarak tanımlamaktadır. İlk olarak, Uluslararası ticari bankalar, bu ülkelere bir finans kaynağı olarak hizmet verdi ancak küresel kredi krizlerinin bir sonucu olarak 1990'lı yıllarda banka kredileri bozulduğunda, bölgedeki çok sayıda ülkenin, yabancı kaynakları elde etmek için yatırım stratejileri ve planlarını değiştirmesi gerekti ve bu şekilde kredilerle alakalı sıkıntılar hafifletildi. Son zamanlarda, Sahra Altı Afrika ekonomileri kademeli olarak büyümektedir, ancak tespit edilen en büyük zorluklardan biri, tasarruflarının yatırım projeleri yürütmek için nispeten düşük olmasıdır. Bu nedenle, büyük ölçüde, doğrudan yatırımlar şeklindeki yabancı sermayeye bağımlıdırlar. Küreselleşme ve uluslararası ticaret, yatırım kaynaklarının, dünyada bir takım ülkeler için dış sermayenin ana akışı haline gelen Çok Uluslu Ticari Kümeler tarafından dünyada akışına kapılar açtı. Belirgin bir şekilde, son zamanlarda gelişmekte olan ve gelişmiş uluslarda yabancı doğrudan yatırımın işlevi daha yoğun hale geldi. Birleşmiş Milletler Ticaret ve Kalkınma Konferansına (UNCTAD) göre, küresel anlamda hareket eden toplam Yabancı Doğrudan Yatırım (FDI) miktarı, 1980'de 51,464 Milyar Dolardan 2016'da 2,3 Trilyon Dolara çok büyük bir artış sergilemiştir. Genel olarak Sahra Altı Afrikası'nda, brüt gelen FDI stoku, 1980'de 251,67 Milyon Dolardan 2016'da 38,364 Milyar Dolara yükselmiştir, bu artış, dünyanın diğer bölgeleri ile kıyaslandığında daha düşük bir artıştır. Bunun anlamı, FDI çekimi ile alakalı olarak Sahra Altı Afrika'nın (SSA) dünyanın diğer bölgelerinden farklı olarak etkin olmadığıdır. 2001 yılında kıtanın önde gelen ülkelerinden oluşan bir grup tarafından oluşturulmuş bir ortaklık programı olan Afrika'nın Kalkınması için Yeni Ortaklık (NEPAD), "IDG'lere (Uluslar arası Kalkınma Hedefleri) ulaşmak için gerekli olan tahmini yıllık yüzde 7'lik büyümeyi elde etmek için – özellikle, 2020 yılına kadar fakirlik içinde yaşayan Afrikalıların oranının yarıya düşürülmesi hedefi – Afrika'nın GSYİH'sinin yüzde 12'si ya da 64 Milyar Dolar değerinde bir yıllık kaynak boşluğunu doldurması gerektiğini ifade etti. Ekonomik İşbirliği ve Kalkınma Örgütü (OECD), bölgedeki yıllık kaynak boşluğunun, GSYİH'in -15'i civarında olduğunu (60-65 Milyar Dolar), bölgedeki ülkelerin, ekonomik sorunları çözmek ve vatandaşlarının yaşam koşullarını iyileştirmek için önemli kaynaklara ihtiyaç duydukları için güçlerini artırmaları gerektiğini ifade etmiştir. Son yıllarda, SSA ülkeleri, vergi kesintileri, belirli ürünlerde ithalat vergisi muafiyeti ve yabancı şirketlere bağışların verilmesi gibi teşvikler vererek yabancı doğrudan yatırımı çekmek için yoğun çabalar harcamaktadır. Yabancı doğrudan yatırım adına SSA'ya hücum dikkate alındığında, FDI'nın bugüne kadar alandaki ticaret ve büyümeye gerçek etkisine daha derin bir bakışa sahip olması gerektiğinden bahsedilmelidir. Politika yapıcıların, FDI girişlerinin, geçmişte kalkınma ve büyümeye neden olmadığını, bu yüzden ani bir yükselişin dikkatli bir şekilde beklendiği gerçeği etrafında toplanmak hayati önem taşımaktadır. Diğer açılardan, doğrudan yabancı yatırımın büyüme üzerinde olumlu bir etkisi olduğunu varsayıldığında, politika yapıcıların sürdürülebilir ekonomik gelişme için bekledikleri gibi doğrudan yabancı yatırım çekmeye yönelik fikir arayışında olmaları gerekmektedir. Bu değerlendirme tam olarak bu tezin başarmayı hedeflediği şeydir. Bu tez için bir vaka çalışması olarak Sahra Altı Afrika'yı seçmek özellikle önemlidir çünkü bölgeden geliyorum ve ayrıca SSA'ya özel bir vurgu yapan FDI hakkında çok az makale var ya da hiç yok. Bölge ile ilgili mevcut makalelerin bir kısmından geçtikten sonra, pek çok kişi FDI'nin SSA'ya belirleyicilerini veya FDI'nin belirli ülkelerde ne kadar iyi çalıştığının referanslarını tartıştı. Bu konuyla ilgili araştırma makalelerinin bulunmaması, bölgedeki doğrudan yabancı yatırımın etkisine girme fırsatı vermektedir ve bu şekilde bölge hakkında halihazırda mevcut olan literatürü sağlamaktadır. --- Countries just like Individuals have differences, in this case, in terms of natural resources, labor, capital, technology etc. However, these countries can significantly benefit from their differences by reaching an agreement to trade goods and services. These agreements have resulted in a rapid growth in International trade and Investment across the world over the years. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is defined as an investment involving a long-term relationship and reflecting a lasting interest and control by a resident entity in one economy (foreign direct investor or parent enterprise) in an enterprise resident in an economy other than that of the foreign direct investor. Recently, Sub-Saharan African economies have been growing gradually, however, one of their biggest challenges that have been identified is that their savings are relatively low to undertake investment projects. Because of this reason, they, to a very large extent depend on foreign capital in the form of direct investments. At first, International commercial banks served as a source of finance to these countries, but as bank lending deteriorated in the 1990s, as a result of the global credit crises, which compelled a large number of countries in the region to modify their investment strategies and plans to obtain foreign funds, this in a way mitigated the burden associated with loans. Globalization and international trade have opened doors to the flow of investment funds across the global by Multinational business conglomerates that has become the main stream of outside capital for a number of countries all across the world. Apparently, in recent times the function of foreign direct investment in developing and developed nations have been immense. According to the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), sum total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows globally have grown on a large scale, from $51.464 billion in 1980 to $2.3 trillion in 2016. In Sub-Saharan Africa overall, gross inward FDI stock has increased from $251.67 million in 1980 to $38.364 billion in 2016, a relatively smaller increase as compared to other regions in the world. This simply means that with regards to FDI attraction Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) has not been effective unlike other regions in the globe. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which is a partnership program established by a group of heads-of-state from all over the continent in 2001, states that in order to "achieve the estimated 7 per cent annual growth rate needed to meet the IDGs (International Development Goals) - particularly, the goal of reducing by half the proportion of Africans living in poverty by the year 2020 – Africa needs to fill an annual resource gap of 12 per cent of its GDP, or US $64 billion". The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has stated that the yearly fund gap in the region, which is around 12-15% of Gross Domestic Product ($60-$65 billion), countries in the region have to step up as they require substantial funds to ameliorate the economic problems and improve living conditions for its citizens. In recent years, SSA countries have been making immense strides to attract foreign direct investment by providing incentives such as income tax breaks, import duty exclusion on certain products and the provision of handouts to foreign companies. Taking into consideration the rush into SSA in the name of foreign direct investment, it would be worthwhile if we took a deeper look at the real impact of FDI on business and growth in the area thus far. It is absolutely vital for policymakers to reckon that the fact that FDI inflows have not resulted to growth and development in the historic past, so a sudden upturn should be cautiously anticipated. In other respects, supposing that FDI has had a favorable impact on growth, that being so, policy makers have a case in seeking ideas to draw FDI as they anticipate for sustainable economic advancement. This assessment is exactly what this thesis aims to achieve. Choosing Sub-Saharan Africa as a case study for this thesis is particularly important because I hail from the region and furthermore there are little or no papers on FDI with an exclusive emphasis on SSA. After going through some of the available papers that deals with the region, a great number of them discussed the determinants of FDI to SSA or references of how well FDI is doing in specific countries. The lack of research papers on this topic gives me an opportunity to delve into the effect of foreign direct investment in the region, by this way provide to the already available literature on the region.

ÖZETÜlkelerin de bireyler gibi farklılıkları vardır. Bu vaka da ise bunlar doğal kaynaklar, emek, sermaye, teknoloji gibi farklılıklardır. Ancak, bu ülkeler mal ve hizmet ticareti için bir anlaşmaya vararak farklılıklarından önemli ölçüde yararlanabilirler. Bu anlaşmalar yıllar boyunca dünya genelinde Uluslararası ticarette ve Yatırımda hızlı bir büyüme ile sonuçlanmıştır.Doğrudan yabancı yatırım (DYY), uzun vadeli bir ilişkiyi içeren ve bir ekonomideki yerleşik bir kuruluş tarafından uzun vadeli bir ilgiyi ve kontrolü, bir ekonomideki (yabancı doğrudan yatırımcı veya ana girişim) uzun süren bir ilgiyi ve kontrolü yansıtan doğrudan yabancı yatırımcı haricindeki bir yatırım olarak tanımlamaktadır. İlk olarak, Uluslararası ticari bankalar, bu ülkelere bir finans kaynağı olarak hizmet verdi ancak küresel kredi krizlerinin bir sonucu olarak 1990'lı yıllarda banka kredileri bozulduğunda, bölgedeki çok sayıda ülkenin, yabancı kaynakları elde etmek için yatırım stratejileri ve planlarını değiştirmesi gerekti ve bu şekilde kredilerle alakalı sıkıntılar hafifletildi. Son zamanlarda, Sahra Altı Afrika ekonomileri kademeli olarak büyümektedir, ancak tespit edilen en büyük zorluklardan biri, tasarruflarının yatırım projeleri yürütmek için nispeten düşük olmasıdır. Bu nedenle, büyük ölçüde, doğrudan yatırımlar şeklindeki yabancı sermayeye bağımlıdırlar.Küreselleşme ve uluslararası ticaret, yatırım kaynaklarının, dünyada bir takım ülkeler için dış sermayenin ana akışı haline gelen Çok Uluslu Ticari Kümeler tarafından dünyada akışına kapılar açtı. Belirgin bir şekilde, son zamanlarda gelişmekte olan ve gelişmiş uluslarda yabancı doğrudan yatırımın işlevi daha yoğun hale geldi. Birleşmiş Milletler Ticaret ve Kalkınma Konferansına (UNCTAD) göre, küresel anlamda hareket eden toplam Yabancı Doğrudan Yatırım (FDI) miktarı, 1980'de 51,464 Milyar Dolardan 2016'da 2,3 Trilyon Dolara çok büyük bir artış sergilemiştir.Genel olarak Sahra Altı Afrikası'nda, brüt gelen FDI stoku, 1980'de 251,67 Milyon Dolardan 2016'da 38,364 Milyar Dolara yükselmiştir, bu artış, dünyanın diğer bölgeleri ile kıyaslandığında daha düşük bir artıştır. Bunun anlamı, FDI çekimi ile alakalı olarak Sahra Altı Afrika'nın (SSA) dünyanın diğer bölgelerinden farklı olarak etkin olmadığıdır. 2001 yılında kıtanın önde gelen ülkelerinden oluşan bir grup tarafından oluşturulmuş bir ortaklık programı olan Afrika'nın Kalkınması için Yeni Ortaklık (NEPAD), "IDG'lere (Uluslar arası Kalkınma Hedefleri) ulaşmak için gerekli olan tahmini yıllık yüzde 7'lik büyümeyi elde etmek için – özellikle, 2020 yılına kadar fakirlik içinde yaşayan Afrikalıların oranının yarıya düşürülmesi hedefi – Afrika'nın GSYİH'sinin yüzde 12'si ya da 64 Milyar Dolar değerinde bir yıllık kaynak boşluğunu doldurması gerektiğini ifade etti.Ekonomik İşbirliği ve Kalkınma Örgütü (OECD), bölgedeki yıllık kaynak boşluğunun, GSYİH'in -15'i civarında olduğunu (60-65 Milyar Dolar), bölgedeki ülkelerin, ekonomik sorunları çözmek ve vatandaşlarının yaşam koşullarını iyileştirmek için önemli kaynaklara ihtiyaç duydukları için güçlerini artırmaları gerektiğini ifade etmiştir.Son yıllarda, SSA ülkeleri, vergi kesintileri, belirli ürünlerde ithalat vergisi muafiyeti ve yabancı şirketlere bağışların verilmesi gibi teşvikler vererek yabancı doğrudan yatırımı çekmek için yoğun çabalar harcamaktadır.Yabancı doğrudan yatırım adına SSA'ya hücum dikkate alındığında, FDI'nın bugüne kadar alandaki ticaret ve büyümeye gerçek etkisine daha derin bir bakışa sahip olması gerektiğinden bahsedilmelidir. Politika yapıcıların, FDI girişlerinin, geçmişte kalkınma ve büyümeye neden olmadığını, bu yüzden ani bir yükselişin dikkatli bir şekilde beklendiği gerçeği etrafında toplanmak hayati önem taşımaktadır. Diğer açılardan, doğrudan yabancı yatırımın büyüme üzerinde olumlu bir etkisi olduğunu varsayıldığında, politika yapıcıların sürdürülebilir ekonomik gelişme için bekledikleri gibi doğrudan yabancı yatırım çekmeye yönelik fikir arayışında olmaları gerekmektedir.Bu değerlendirme tam olarak bu tezin başarmayı hedeflediği şeydir. Bu tez için bir vaka çalışması olarak Sahra Altı Afrika'yı seçmek özellikle önemlidir çünkü bölgeden geliyorum ve ayrıca SSA'ya özel bir vurgu yapan FDI hakkında çok az makale var ya da hiç yok. Bölge ile ilgili mevcut makalelerin bir kısmından geçtikten sonra, pek çok kişi FDI'nin SSA'ya belirleyicilerini veya FDI'nin belirli ülkelerde ne kadar iyi çalıştığının referanslarını tartıştı. Bu konuyla ilgili araştırma makalelerinin bulunmaması, bölgedeki doğrudan yabancı yatırımın etkisine girme fırsatı vermektedir ve bu şekilde bölge hakkında halihazırda mevcut olan literatürü sağlamaktadır. --- Countries just like Individuals have differences, in this case, in terms of natural resources, labor, capital, technology etc. However, these countries can significantly benefit from their differences by reaching an agreement to trade goods and services. These agreements have resulted in a rapid growth in International trade and Investment across the world over the years. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is defined as an investment involving a long-term relationship and reflecting a lasting interest and control by a resident entity in one economy (foreign direct investor or parent enterprise) in an enterprise resident in an economy other than that of the foreign direct investor. Recently, Sub-Saharan African economies have been growing gradually, however, one of their biggest challenges that have been identified is that their savings are relatively low to undertake investment projects. Because of this reason, they, to a very large extent depend on foreign capital in the form of direct investments. At first, International commercial banks served as a source of finance to these countries, but as bank lending deteriorated in the 1990s, as a result of the global credit crises, which compelled a large number of countries in the region to modify their investment strategies and plans to obtain foreign funds, this in a way mitigated the burden associated with loans.Globalization and international trade have opened doors to the flow of investment funds across the global by Multinational business conglomerates that has become the main stream of outside capital for a number of countries all across the world.Apparently, in recent times the function of foreign direct investment in developing and developed nations have been immense. According to the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), sum total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows globally have grown on a large scale, from $51.464 billion in 1980 to $2.3 trillion in 2016.In Sub-Saharan Africa overall, gross inward FDI stock has increased from $251.67 million in 1980 to $38.364 billion in 2016, a relatively smaller increase as compared to other regions in the world. This simply means that with regards to FDI attraction Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) has not been effective unlike other regions in the globe.The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which is a partnership programestablished by a group of heads-of-state from all over the continent in 2001, states that in order to "achieve the estimated 7 per cent annual growth rate needed to meet the IDGs (International Development Goals) - particularly, the goal of reducing by half the proportion of Africans living in poverty by the year 2020 – Africa needs to fill an annual resource gap of 12 per cent of its GDP, or US $64 billion".The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has stated that the yearly fund gap in the region, which is around 12-15% of Gross Domestic Product ($60-$65 billion), countries in the region have to step up as they require substantial funds to ameliorate the economic problems and improve living conditions for its citizens.In recent years, SSA countries have been making immense strides to attract foreign direct investment by providing incentives such as income tax breaks, import duty exclusion on certain products and the provision of handouts to foreign companies.Taking into consideration the rush into SSA in the name of foreign direct investment, it would be worthwhile if we took a deeper look at the real impact of FDI on business and growth in the area thus far. It is absolutely vital for policymakers to reckon that the fact that FDI inflows have not resulted to growth and development in the historic past, so a sudden upturn should be cautiously anticipated. In other respects, supposing that FDI has had a favorable impact on growth, that being so, policy makers have a case in seeking ideas to draw FDI as they anticipate for sustainable economic advancement. This assessment is exactly what this thesis aims to achieve. Choosing Sub-Saharan Africa as a case study for this thesis is particularly important because I hail from the region and furthermore there are little or no papers on FDI with an exclusive emphasis on SSA. After going through some of the available papers that deals with the region, a great number of them discussed the determinants of FDI to SSA or references of how well FDI is doing in specific countries. The lack of research papers on this topic gives me an opportunity to delve into the effect of foreign direct investment in the region, by this way provide to the already available literature on the region.

Southeast Asia mosaics of agriculture and tropical forest landscapes have been heavily shaped by the progression of industrial plantations, from colonial times to now. In Indonesia and in Malaysia, the history of corporations undertaking these activities is indissociably from the land cover change, when "clearing the forest and expanding the agricultural frontier" was a colonial policy. For example in most instances, forests where replaced by industrial gambier plantations, then rubber plantations, and finally oil palm plantations, but direct conversions of forests into industrial plantations continue to happen until today. Controversies about deforestation and oil palm sustainability emerged in this context. Most of the land use changes have been made by the biggest of these corporations, which became corporate giants and diversified their activities to almost all sectors of the economy, from automobile to banking and telecoms. In Indonesia like in Malaysia, most of the development of industrial palm oil plantations is under the control of a fistful of giant corporations.Most of today's proposed solutions to curb deforestation by oil palm are market tools such as palm oil trade bans or regulations and palm oil certifications, that are supposed to influence the economic decisions of private actors that are developing oil palm. However oil palm corporations are so diversified and embedded into the national economies, with many other stakes at play than deforestation, that many other factors could influence their corporate decision making, and outweigh the market tools that have been used up to day to try to influence their economic decisions. Works dating from Porter et all suggest that financial factors such as the shape of the network of ownership shares may play more on the corporate decisions than the market itself, while other works suggest that the nature of the financial ownership (government-owned versus privately-owned) is the essential driver of the corporate decision. This work is a pioneering attempt to understand the main structural drivers of corporate decision making of major oil palm plantation corporations. Using network analysis methods, it quantifyed and analysed the corporate structures of the main players among the oil palm plantation companies in Malaysia. The eight major Malaysian corporations were studied, consisting of 4,331 companies' shareholding data, covering ten levels of shareholding. The corporations are Sime Darby, Boustead, IJM Plantations, Kulim, IOI Corp, KLK, Genting Plantations, and Jaya Tiasa. Network metrics described the financial topologies of the corporations, and did confront their ownership nature such as government-linked companies (GLCs) and family-owned businesses (FOBs) with measurable patterns controlling decision making processes such as structural control and decisions load. Contrary to the expectation, we found that the measurable decision making was not influenced by the ownership nature (whether the corporations is government linked or is privately owned), but was extremely influenced by the financial structure of the corporations, that is their topology such as the number of the companies within the corporation, its more or less hierarchical structure, and the overall size of the financial "pyramid" of the corporation. We also found that the measurable decisions load and structural control seem to predict an intrinsic structural flexibility of the corporations.The implications of these findings could help to rethink the political governance of deforestation and also opens a brand-new field of research for the description and analysis of the deep financial structures that govern the behaviour of corporations. First, this tells us that maybe, understanding and addressing the financial forces that shape the actions of plantations corporations would be more efficient for oil palm and forest sustainability, than antagonising countries and regions through trade bans. Second, we have now a method that allows us to assess and to rank the companies according to their deep characteristics: we can identify the most resilient corporations and prioritize them in order to develop long term sustainable practices. ; Les mosaïques des paysages agricoles et forestiers tropicaux d'Asie du Sud-Est ont été fortement façonnées par l'essor des plantations industrielles, de l'époque coloniale à nos jours. En Indonésie et en Malaisie, l'histoire des grandes entreprises de plantation est indissociablement liée au changement de l'utilisation des sols, puisque «défricher la forêt et étendre la frontière agricole» était une politique coloniale. A l'origine et dans la plupart des cas, les forêts ont d'abord été remplacées par des plantations industrielles de gambier, puis se sont succédées des plantations d'hévéas et enfin des plantations de palmiers à huile, mais des conversions directes de forêts en plantations industrielles se poursuivent jusqu'à nos jours. Les controverses sur la déforestation et la durabilité du palmier à huile ont émergé dans ce contexte. La plupart des changements d'affectation des sols ont été effectués par les plus grandes de ces entreprises, qui sont très tôt devenues des conglomérats géants et ont diversifié leurs activités dans presque tous les secteurs de l'économie, de l'automobile à la finance et aux télécommunications, etc. En Indonésie comme en Malaisie, l'essentiel du développement des plantations industrielles d'huile de palme est sous le contrôle d'une poignée de ces conglomérats géants.La plupart des solutions proposées aujourd'hui pour freiner la déforestation par le palmier à huile sont des outils de marché tels que les interdictions et restrictions d'importation, ainsi que les certifications de l'huile de palme, qui sont censés influencer les décisions économiques des acteurs privés qui développent le palmier à huile. Cependant, les corporations de production d'huile de palme sont si diversifiées et si ancrées dans les économies nationales, avec de nombreux autres enjeux que la déforestation, que de nombreux autres facteurs pourraient influencer leurs décisions d'entreprise et l'emporter sur les outils du marché qui ont été utilisés jusqu'à présent pour tenter d'influencer leurs décisions économiques. Des travaux datant de Porter et al. suggèrent que des facteurs financiers tels que la forme du réseau des particippations financières peuvent jouer davantage sur les décisions de l'entreprise que le marché lui-même, tandis que d'autres travaux suggèrent que la nature de la propriété ultime des conglomérats (État / privé) - est le moteur essentiel de la décision d'entreprise.Ce travail est une tentative pionnière de comprendre les principaux moteurs structurels de la prise de décision des grandes sociétés de plantations de palmiers à huile. À l'aide de méthodes d'analyse de réseau, il a quantifié et analysé les structures d'entreprise des principaux acteurs parmi les conglomérats de plantations de palmiers à huile en Malaisie. Les huit principaux conglomérats malaisiens ont été étudiés, comprenant 4 331 sociétés listées, couvrant dix niveaux d'actionnariat. Les sociétés sont Sime Darby, Boustead, IJM Plantations, Kulim, IOI Corp, KLK, Genting Plantations et Jaya Tiasa. Les mesures du réseau décrivent les topologies financières des sociétés et confrontent leur nature de propriété, telles que les conglomérats liés au gouvernement (GLC) et les conglomérats familiaux (FOB), avec des formes mesurables du processus de prise de décision tels que le contrôle structurel et le poids structurel de la prise de decision.Contrairement à ce qui était attendu, nous avons constaté que la prise de décision mesurable n'était pas influencée par la nature de la propriété (que les conglomérats soient liés au gouvernement ou soient privés), mais était extrêmement influencée par la structure financière des conglomérats, c'est-à-dire des éléments topologiques, tels que le nombre d'entreprises au sein du conglomérat, sa structure plus ou moins hiérarchique et la taille globale de la «pyramide» financière du conglomérat. Nous avons également constaté que le poids structurel de la prise de décision et le contrôle structurel semblent prédire une flexibilité structurelle intrinsèque des sociétés.Les implications de ces résultats pourraient aider à repenser la gouvernance politique de la déforestation et ouvriront également un tout nouveau domaine de recherche pour la description et l'analyse des structures financières profondes qui régissent le comportement des entreprises. Premièrement, cela nous dit que, peut-être, comprendre et gérer les forces financières qui façonnent les actions des sociétés de plantations serait plus efficace pour la durabilité du palmier à huile et des forêts, que de se livrer à des bras de fer commerciaux avec les pays et les régions par le biais d'interdictions commerciales. Deuxièmement, nous avons maintenant une méthode qui nous permet d'évaluer et de classer les entreprises en fonction de leurs caractéristiques profondes: nous pouvons identifier les entreprises les plus résilientes et les hiérarchiser afin de développer des pratiques durables à long terme.

За останні роки активно дискусується питання про розвиток сільських територій, і в цьому покладають надії на кооперацію. Саме слово кооперація стало часто вживаним. Проте розвиток сільськогосподарської обслуговуючої кооперації, домінуючої в економіках у розвинутих країнах світу, в тому числі і в Європейському Союзі ще не став домінуючим в Україні. Зважаючи на те, що Україна є потужною аграрною країною, розвиток кооперації повинен сприяти як розвитку сільських територій, так і гарантувати продовольчу безпеку. Сьогодні сільська громада є основою побудови громадського суспільства і відродження національних традицій. Українське село і селянство було і залишається носієм моралі, національної культури і забезпечення здорового способу життя країни. У національному і державному вимірах актуальність дослідження цих проблем визначається викликами сучасного суспільства, орієнтованого на глобалізацію, що загрожує втратою національної ідентичності. Одним з виявів і наслідків цього процесу є посилення соціально-економічного занепаду і культурної деградації села, що стало гострою проблемою сучасного розвитку України та гальмує реалізацію всього державотворчого потенціалу. Одним із шляхів виходу з цієї кризової ситуації є виховання господарської культури через створення позитивного іміджу сільського господаря та реалізації декларованого державою курсу на збереження та сталий розвиток села, запровадження ефективних господарських механізмів, піднесення загального і культурного рівня населення, його добробуту. В цьому плані кооперативний сектор економіки повністю відповідає поставленим суспільством завданням високоефективної трансформації сільського способу життя українського селянства, вирішенню нагальних питань повномасштабної зайнятості, прискореного становлення середнього класу, забезпечення продовольчої безпеки країни. Вирішальним кроком до ринкового господарства є прискорене збільшення самостійних товаровиробників – власників, індивідуальних, колективних, кооперативних, інших, без яких ринкова економіка неможлива і саме це для наших реалій, є надзвичайно важливим в розумінні обов'язкової присутності в ній масової, всесторонньо розвинутої обслуговуючої кооперації. Головною сутністю обслуговуючої кооперації є її головний стратегічний принцип, пов'язаний з об'єднанням сільськогосподарських товаровиробників із споживачами виробленої ними продукції на умовах окупності й дохідності її виробництва в умовах розвинутого ринкового господарства. Кооперування (об'єднання) громадян (домогосподарств), інших невеликих товаровиробників, які виробляють не значну кількість різної товарної продукції сільськогосподарського призначення і яка на продовольчих ринках має великий регіональний споживчий попит в силу об'єктивних обставин неможуть її туди доставляти власними зусиллями у зв'язку з незначними об'ємами, віддаленістю від продовольчих ринків, відсутністю переробки і зберігання, а також в наявності постійних споживачів тощо, спонукає їх створювати обслуговуючі кооперативи, тобто за рахунок власних зусиль і коштів напрацьовувати інфраструктурну надбудову у вигляді кооперативних утворень різних типів, характерних для конкретних умов даних територій, які на правах приватної власності належатимуть їх засновникам. Особливо важливим для гарантування продовольчої безпеки українського суспільства в сьогоднішніх умовах є логічний розвиток і збереження громадського тваринництва, зокрема молочного скотарства, яке для сільського населення має стратегічне значення як ресурс для власного споживання дешевої і вкрай необхідної молочної продукції, а з іншого боку, ресурс постійних грошових надходжень для відтворення життєдіяльності домогосподарств, які утримують корів. Маркетингова стратегія підприємств молочної промисловості орієнтована виключно на кінцевий продукт, майже повністю виключила із ланцюга проходження молока і молокопродуктів до споживача первинного виробника. Значні зміни в структурі сукупних ресурсів домогосподарств (особливо в сільській місцевості) пов'язані зі скороченням грошових надходжень від реалізації сільськогосподарської продукції, ростом трудової міграції економічно активного населення, підвищенням рівня пенсійного забезпечення. Низькі закупівельні ціни на молоко, як сировину і високі ціни на молочну продукцію переробних підприємств та націнки у торговій мережі провокують стагнатації внутрішнього ринку із зростання цін на неорганізованих ринках, які майже зрівнялися з цінами у супермаркетах. Доходимо висновку, що при існуючій закупівельній спроможності населення збільшення виробництва молока і його заготівель втрачає свою економічну мотивацію. Необхідними для практичної діяльності кооперативних утворень будуть поглиблені дослідження взаємозв'язків між наявним поголів'ям корів в домогосподарствах населення, їх продуктивністю, а також товарністю реалізованого молока (реалізовано до виробленого), які мають безпосередній вплив на окупність утримання корів і ефективність господарської діяльності. Обслуговуюча кооперація на селі – реальна основа продовольчої безпеки. ; In recent years, the issue of the development of rural areas has been actively debated, and hopes for co-operation are in it. On the contrary, that exactly is the word co-operation has become used in our communication. However, the development of agricultural servicing cooperation, dominant in economies in developed countries, including the European Union, has not yet become dominant in Ukraine. Given the fact that Ukraine is a powerful agricultural country, the development of co-operation should promote the development of rural areas and guarantee food security. Today, the rural community is the foundation of building a civil society and reviving national traditions. Ukrainian village and peasantry was and remains the bearer of morality, national culture and ensuring a healthy lifestyle of the country. In the national and state dimensions, the relevance of the study of these problems is determined by the challenges of modern society, focused on globalization, which threatens the loss of national identity. One of the manifestations and consequences of this process is the increase of socio-economic decline and cultural degradation of the countryside, which has become an acute problem of the modern development of Ukraine and impedes the realization of all state-building potential. One way out of this crisis situation is to cultivate economic culture through the creation of a positive image of the rural owner and the implementation of the course declared by the state on the preservation and sustainable development of the countryside, introduction of effective economic mechanisms, raising the general and cultural level of the population and its welfare. In this regard, the cooperative sector of the economy fully meets the goals set by the society for highly effective transformation of the rural lifestyle of the Ukrainian peasantry, solving urgent issues of full employment, accelerating the formation of the middle class, and ensuring the country's food security. A decisive step towards a market economy is the accelerated growth of independent commodity producers – owners, individual, collective, cooperative, others, without which the market economy is impossible and this is precisely this, for our realities, is extremely important in the sense of the mandatory presence in it of a mass, fully developed service co-operation. The main essence of the service of cooperation is its main strategic principle connected with the association of agricultural producers with consumers of their products produced on the terms of payback and profitability of its production in a developed market economy. Co-operation (association) of citizens (households), other small commodity producers who produce a small amount of different commodity products for agricultural purposes and which in the food markets has a large regional consumer demand because of objective circumstances, it can not deliver it there by their own efforts in connection with insignificant volumes of remoteness from food markets, the lack of processing and storage, as well as the presence of regular consumers, etc., causes them to create service cooperatives, that is, for using its own efforts and means to develop an infrastructure superstructure in the form of cooperative formations of different types, specific for the specific conditions of these territories, which, on the rights of private property, will belong to their founders. Especially important for ensuring food security of Ukrainian society in today's conditions is the logical development and preservation of public livestock, in particular dairy cattle breeding, which for the rural population has a strategic importance as a resource for own consumption of cheap and extremely necessary dairy products, and, on the other hand, a resource of constant money revenues to restore the livelihoods of households that hold cows. The marketing strategy of dairy enterprises is focused solely on the final product, almost completely excluded from the chain of milk and milk products passing to the consumer of the primary producer. Significant changes in the structure of aggregate household resources, especially in rural areas, are associated with a reduction in cash receipts from agricultural sales, an increase in labor migration of the economically active population, and an increase in the level of pensions. Low purchasing prices for milk as raw materials and high prices for dairy products from processing enterprises and mark-ups in the trading network provoke stagnation of the domestic market with rising prices on unorganized markets, which almost equaled the prices in supermarkets. We conclude that, with the existing purchasing power of the population, an increase in milk production and its harvesting loses its economic motivation. Necessary for practical activity of cooperative formations will be deepened studies of the interrelations between the existing cow population in households, their productivity, and also the commodity of sold milk (sold to the produced), which directly have a direct impact on the payback of cows and the efficiency of economic activity. The cooperative operation in the countryside is a real basis of food security.