In recent years, the field of comparative economics refocused on the comparison of capitalist economies. The theme of the new research is that institutions exert a profound influence on economic development. We argue that, to understand capitalist institutions, one needs to understand the basic tradeoff between the costs of disorder and those of dictatorship. We apply this logic to study the structure of efficient institutions, the consequences of colonial transplantation, the the politics of institutional choice.
The study has investigated the comparative importance of financial access in promoting gender inclusion in African countries. Gender inclusion is proxied by the female labour participation rate while financial channels include: financial system deposits and private domestic credit. The empirical evidence is based on non-contemporary Fixed Effects regressions. In order to provide more implications on comparative relevance, the dataset is categorised into income levels (middle income versus (vs.) low income); legal origins (French civil law vs. English common law); religious domination (Islam vs. Christianity); openness to sea (coastal vs. landlocked); resource-wealth (oil-poor vs. oil-rich) and political stability (stable vs. unstable). Six main hypotheses are tested, notably, that middle income, English common law, Christianity, coastal, oil-rich and stable countries enjoy better levels of "financial access"-induced gender inclusion compared to respectively, low income, French civil law, Islam, landlocked, oil-poor and unstable countries. All six tested hypothesis are validated. This is the first study on the comparative importance of financial access in gender economic participation.
This study examines how information and communication technology (ICT) could be employed to dampen the potentially damaging effects of environmental degradation in order to promote inclusive human development in a panel of 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. ICT is captured with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas environmental degradation is measured in terms of CO 2 emissions per capita and CO 2 intensity. The empirical evidence is based on Fixed Effects and Tobit regressions using data from 2000-2012. In order to increase the policy relevance of this study, the dataset is decomposed into fundamental characteristics of inclusive development and environmental degradation based on income levels (Low income versus (vs.) Middle income); legal origins (English Common law vs. French Civil law); religious domination (Christianity vs. Islam); openness to sea (Landlocked vs. Co astal); resource-wealth (Oil-rich vs. O il-poor) and political stability (Stable vs. Unstable). Baseline findings broadly show that improvement in both of measures of ICT would significantly diminish the possibly harmful effect of CO 2 emissions on inclusive human development. When the analysis is extended with the abovementioned fundamental characteristics, we observe that the moderating influence of both our ICT variables on CO 2 emissions is higher in the group of English Common law, Middle income and Oil-wealthy countries than in the French Civil law, Low income countries and Oil-poor countries respectively. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed.
This study assesses the comparative economics of governance in fighting terrorism in 53 African countries for period 1996-2012. Four terrorism variables are used, namely: domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics. Nine bundled and unbundled governance variables are employed, notably: political stability/no violence, voice & accountability, political governance, government effectiveness, regulation quality, economic governance, corruption-control, the rule of law and institutional governance. The empirical evidence is based on Fixed Effects regressions. In the analytical procedure, we first bundle governa nce indicators by means of principal component analysis before engaging the empirical exercise with the full sample. In the final step, specifications are based on a decomposed full sample in order to articulate the fundamental characteristics for comparative purposes. The following broad findings are established. First, good governance is an appealing tool in fighting terrorism. Second, the relevance of the good governance dynamics is as follows in order of increasing relevance: economic governance, institutional governance and political governance. The findings are presented in increasing order of magnitude to emphasise fundamental features in which governance dyna mic s have the highest effect in mitigating terrorism.
This dissertation examines how decentralized institutional structures and organizational forms evolve and affect economic development under different politico-economic and legal arrangements. Organized legal professions are typically viewed by economists as rent-seeking interest groups - even though they have been central in institutional development in countries with the highest quality institutions. Chapter 1 develops a model that identifies the link between the role of organized legal professions and the quality of reform. Delaying institutional reform through deliberation, the profession's participation discounts the expected benefit from welfare-inferior reform proposal for rent-seeking interest groups. Professional review serves as a screening mechanism ameliorating the self-interested government's adverse selection problem. The model's predictions cast new light on the Glorious and the French revolutions, post-communist transition, why and when civil law and common law systems .
This study investigates the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in fighting terrorism in 53 African countries for the period 1998-2012. The empirical evidence is based on contemporary, non-contemporary and instrumental variable Fixed Effects regressions. Inclusive development is not a sufficient condition for the fight against terrorism whereas military expenditure can be effectively employed to mitigate the phenomenon. Significant negative effects are established only when endogeneity is accounted for by means of non-contemporary and instrumental-variables approaches. Hence, the policy effectiveness of employed tools is contingent on whether they are engaged proactively (i.e. non-contemporarily) or not. From the findings, the propensity of military expenditure to fight transnational terrorism is higher in: (i) middle income countries vis-à-vis their low income counterparts; (ii) oil-rich countries compared to oil-poor countries and (iii) Christian-dominated countries vis-à-vis their Islam-oriented counterparts. Furthermore military expenditure is also more effective at combating domestic and transnational terrorism in: (i) North African countries vis-à-vis their sub-Saharan Africa counterparts; (ii) landlocked countries compared to countries that are open to the sea and (iii) politically-stable countries vis-à-vis their politically-unstable counterparts. Contributions to the comparative economics are discussed. Practical and theoretical contributions are also provided.
Includes bibliographical references. ; published_or_final_version ; Introduction Bray, Mark Bray, Mark 7 ; Notes on the contributors 169 ; Preceptions of Hong Kong students' ex ante rates of return to higher education Wong, Andrew K.C. Wong, Andrew K.C. 9 ; Financing higher education: a comparison of government strategies in Hong Kong and Macau Bray, Mark Bray, Mark 32 ; School fees in Hong Kong secondary schools Wong, Martty Wong, Martty 51 ; Hong Kong's small schools: issues of cost and effectiveness Au Wong, Wai-yin Au Wong, Wai-yin 61 ; The direct subsidy scheme in Hong Kong and the independent schools scheme in Singapore: a comparison of two privatisation initiatives Tan, Jason Tan, Jason 79 ; The financing of Hong Kong kindergartens Ieong, Pedro Ieong, Pedro 96 ; Private schools in Hong Kong: historical patterns and contemporary issues Cheung, Chi-kim Cheung, Chi-kim 122 ; Unit costs in higher education: Hong Kong and United Kingdom comparisons Butler, Roy Butler, Roy 135 ; Can 'small government' survive? An international perspective on Hong Kong's education finance Cheng, Kai- ming Cheng, Kai-ming 154
This research reviews the enforcement of the Brazilian and the EU antitrust policies oriented to vertical agreements from an institutional perspective. It has considered both the evolution of the legal framework and the application of the existing policies in practice. The thesis highlighted the main challenges of the current approaches taken by the competition authorities in these jurisdictions and formulated specific proposals for improvements. Because Brazilian competition rules were originally inspired by the European legal framework, this PhD research also resumes discussions regarding comparative law and the efficiency of transplanting laws and good practices.
Artículo de publicación ISI ; We investigate whether the inclusion of educational rights in political constitutions affects the quality of education. We rely on data for 61 countries that participated in the 2012 PISA tests. Our results are strong and robust to the estimation technique (least squares or instrumental variables): there is no evidence that including the right to education in the constitution has been associated with higher test scores. The quality of education depends on socioeconomic, structural, and policy variables, such as expenditure per student, the teacher-pupil ratio, and families' background. These results are important for emerging countries that are discussing the adoption of new constitutions, such as Thailand and Chile. Journal of Comparative Economics 43 (4) (2015) 938-955. Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA & National Bureau of Economic Research, 110 Westwood Plaza, C502 Entrepreneurs Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481, USA; Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Economia y Negocios, Chile Diagonal Paraguay 257, Santiago, Chile.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the current phase of globalization is the increased importance of foreign direct investment (FDI). This is not only true at the global level but also at the regional level. It is clear that the process of economic integration in the European Union has boosted FDI for the EU countries. In the field of international economics, the modeling of FDI has been high on the research agenda in recent years and clear progress has been made in understanding the determinants and effects of FDI (see for instance Barba-Navaretti and Venables (2004) for an overview). The new theoretical insights are, however, not always in line with the facts. One important puzzle in this respect is precisely the fact that economic integration or, in modeling terms, a fall in trade costs has been accompanied by an increase in FDI. From the data we know that so-called horizontal FDI, that is FDI undertaken for market size considerations, is the dominant form of FDI, but theory tells us that a fall in trade costs should go along with a decrease in horizontal FDI. Lower trade costs, ceteris paribus, make it more profitable for firms to serve foreign markets via exports instead of setting up their own production in these markets.
Money Laundering is a global phenomenon with social, political and economic consequences which impacts on the capacity of societies and businesses negatively. The existence of illicit flows generates economic distortions such as the erratic use of the resources, disinvestment on licit economy, the weakening of the banking sector, the loss of attractiveness for FDI or the promotion of criminal activities. In the private sphere, there are also several cases of businesses seriously harmed by Money Laundering operations. In this context, it is important to know the consequences of Money Laundering in both governmental and private fields, as well as understand what can be done to combat this phenomenon. This Dissertation is based on data collected for two different countries, Portugal and UK, where it is possible to observe some differences and, consequently, get some clues about what can really matters to prevent Money Laundering. As conclusions, this Dissertation desires to demonstrate that countries with efficient legal systems and economically more oriented tend to achieve better results combating Money Laundering, which consequently increases the capacity of these countries to attract FDI, reduce corruption or squeeze the volume of transactions in Shadow Economy. Not surprisingly, the private concerns are similar. Nowadays, Financial Institutions really care about compliance issues in order to prevent fees and other penalizations, but most important than that, they truly need to prevent reputational crisis. Hence, for the countries where investors are more sensible to these aspects, privates also seem to be more aware addressing compliance norms.
It is abundantly clear that the material benefits of modernization and Westernization are unfairly distributed to the people of the planet. Industrial capitalism has been built upon the violence of conquest, genocide, slavery, debt and bondage. Extermination continues today, especially that of indigenous and ethnic people. Inequality and exploitation lead to tension and conflict. Although many conflicts are expressed in ethnic terms, the underlying issues are often class based and rooted in the social structures of the global economic system. As social disparities and resistance increase, people have to be managed more and more through violent repression. Thus, we have a situation where the global economy is predominantly a military economy and the world's leading nations are producing the weapons perpetuating the situation. The common agenda of different social movements must be firmly placed on a non-violent and spiritual path. This is the only way they can overcome the violence and destructiveness of the dominant world order.
The main objective of present study is to compare the use of electronic journals by users in department of Economic and Political science in Delhi University . This investigation applied a standard survey method to analyse the use and utilization of e-journals. This study restricted only to the users of the Economic and political science department of Delhi University. Relevant literature on the e-journals use study has been reviewed. 150 users from both the department has been taken as sample for the study. The data was collected from the purposive sampling technique. The questionnaire was used as a tool of data collection. The data was analysed through percentage method. The main finding of the study is that the users of economics department use more E-journals in compare to Political Science department. Based on the results some suggestions have been made to the University to effective use of e-journals.
By highlighting the many ways that constitutions vary, comparative constitutional law raises interesting and important causal questions: What explains cross-national constitutional variation, and what are the real-world consequences of different constitutional arrangements? But comparative constitutional law scholarship so far has done relatively little to address these issues of constitutional causes and consequences in a rigorous manner. In this paper, I argue that scholars have much to gain from taking causality seriously in comparative constitutional law, and I suggest that scholarship on comparative politics and comparative political economy provides useful insights about how this might be done. First, I provide an overview of recent comparative constitutional law scholarship to highlight the pervasive issues of causality that it raises. Second, I introduce some of the interesting work that political scientists and economists have done on comparative constitutional law. They are asking questions about the origins and consequences of constitutions that are similar to those raised in comparative constitutional law scholarship - but they are framing them in explicitly causal terms, developing positive theories about cause-and-effect relationships, and testing them empirically using social science methods of inference. Third, I illustrate one such method that can be used to address causal claims and causal questions in comparative constitutional law. Using regression analysis of cross-national data on constitutions, government spending, and other institutional, demographic and economic factors in 80 democracies, I test a series of hypotheses about the effects of different constitutional arrangements on government spending. I also show how multiplicative interaction terms can be used to model and empirically test for conditional relationships between constitutions and various political, social or economic outcomes. I conclude with a proposed agenda for empirical comparative constitutional law, outlining its theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications.
Purpose: The main aim of this study is to analyze the condition and structure of housing resources and to compare the level of development in Poland with selected European countries. Design/Methodology/Approach: We use theoretical issues regarding the housing situation in Poland and other European countries by analyzing the question if residential property prices in Poland and Europe are different, as well as the ownership structure of residential properties. A major issue is also the analysis of the overcrowding rate and the number of premises per capita in Europe. Findings: The results showed that the housing situation and the condition of housing resources in Poland remain at a low level, Poland is one with the worst housing situations in Europe. Despite being one of the largest European countries, Poland is still characterized by a substantial housing deficit. Practical Implications: The conclusions of the study can be used by government officials to design a housing policy to enforce the sector to develop further. At the same time constructors and housing builders may use it to promote housing in Poland in an international level. Originality/Value: The study is unique in its structure using comparative approaches to reach the research results. ; peer-reviewed
