what determines female autonomy evidence from bangladesh abstract this paper examines the determinants of female autonomy within households in a developing country in particular we investigate the relative contributions of earned versus unearned income in enhancing women s autonomy and the role of employment outside of their husband s farm in a simple theoretical model it is demonstrated that earned income could be more important than unearned income in empowering women using data from rural bangladesh empirical estimations confirm this prediction and also reveal the surprising fact that it is not employment per se but employment outside their husbands farms that contributes to women s autonomy the data also point to the importance of choosing the correct threat point in theoretical analyses of female autonomy

the role of multilateral institutions in international trade cooperation the world trade organization wfo lacks the power to directly enforce agreements it is therefore important to understand what role the wto can play to facilitate international cooperation and whether a multilateral institution can offer distinct advantages over a web of bilateral agreements this paper examines two potential benefits of a multilateral trade institution first verifying violations of the agreements and informing third parties thus facilitating multilateral reputation mechanisms second promoting multilateral trade negotiations rather than a web of bilateral negotiations the model suggests that a multilateral approach is particularly important when there are strong imbalances in bilateral trading relationships

strikes and political activism of trade unions theory and application to bangladesh the behavior of bangladeshi trade unions is characterized bypolitical activism and momentous strikes called hartalsthere have played a crucial part in most political changes inthis country we offer a theoretical framework for discussingthis fact and we test empirically its main prediction bybringing out the political cycle that characterizes theoccurrence of strikes in bangladesh

multilateralism bilateralism and exclusion in the nuclear proliferation regime i use the nuclear proliferation regime to show that dyadic diplomacy is not necessarily incompatible with the building of a multilateral regime bilateralism is not the opposite of multilateralism but an efficient component thereof although this point will not be new to most students of institutions no general rationale has so far been offered on the complementarity of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy start ing from a characterization of proliferation as the result of a large number of prisoner s dilemmas played out between states engaged in local dyadic rivalries i demonstrate that it is possible for the superpowers to design an optimal mix of threats and bribes in which states with low compliance costs join the regime on the terms of the multi lateral treaty alone states with intermediate compliance costs need additional cus tomized incentives delivered through bilateral agreements and states with high compliance costs are not only left out of the regime but also punished for nonpartici pation i draw a few comparative statics that i systematically test on nuclear prolif eration treaty npt membership data i discuss the applicability of the model to the currency trade and aid regimes

state misallocation and housing prices theory and evidence from china this paper examines the equilibrium price effects of the privatization of housing assets that were previously owned and allocated by the state i develop a theoretical framework that shows that privatization can have ambiguous effects on prices in the private market and that the degree of misallocation of the assets prior to privatization deter mines the subsequent price effects i test the predictions of the model using a large scale housing reform in china the results suggest that the removal of price distortions allowed households to increase their consumption of housing and led to an increase in equilibrium hous ing prices jel l33 018 p25 r31 r38 state participation in the housing market occurs in several forms in countries throughout the world the provision of subsidized housing as a welfare benefit to low income households is common throughout the western hemisphere in addition local governments in several cities in the united states have implemented regula tions that limit the increase of rents charged by landlords 1 this paper focuses on a form of state intervention in housing that occurs through the provision of subsidized homes to state employees the economic consequences of this area of research are potentially large as employer provided housing in the state sector is common throughout the developing world particularly in asia and sub saharan africa government regulation of the private market or the creation of a separate mar ket ensures that certain households have access to housing at prices that are below market value state interventions that aim to bring affordable housing to particu lar subsegments of the population can create economic inefficiencies they distort the decisions that individuals make regarding residential mobility joseph gyourko and peter linneman 1989 gordon a hughes and barry mccormick 1987 and employment michael svarer michael rosholm and jakob roland munch 2005 wang forthcoming and they lead to underinvestment in the construction and main

macroeconomic effects of anticipated devaluations with informal financial markets abstract the paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of devaluation in a general equilibrium model of a developing country in which controls on interest rates and foreign exchange restrictions lead to the emergence of informal financial markets the complexity of the model precludes an analytical treatment a simulation approach based on parameters derived from estimates in the existing literature is used to explore how the existence of informal financial markets causes the effects of an official devaluation to be felt before the devaluation itself occurs

the return of the reciprocitarians us trade policy today we are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies president ronald reagan state of the union message washington 1987

control and ownership of assets within rural ethiopian households this article investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife theory predicts that bargaining power within marriage depends on the division of assets upon divorce and on control over assets during marriage using detailed household data from rural ethiopia we show that assets brought to marriage ownership of assets control within marriage and disposition upon death or divorce are only partly related productive resources are controlled by the household head disposition upon death or divorce only loosely depends on individual ownership during marriage but control is associated with larger claims upon divorce assets brought into marriage have little impact on disposition upon death but matter in case of divorce

income and bargaining effects on education and health in brazil abstract this study examines the impacts of the 1991 reform of brazil s rural pension system on schooling and health indicators we conclude that the reform had significant positive effects on schooling especially on literacy for girls co residing with a male pensioner we were unable to find similar results for children living with a female pensioner we further investigated whether these results were driven by bargaining power differences within households our findings suggest that this explanation is plausible

housing reform in urban china efficiency distribution and the implications for social security we investigate the distribution of a measure of housing consumption among public tenants in cities of two chinese provinces using household survey data we find the resulting distribution roughly consistent with the outcome of a market rental system for fixed supply and ces preferences there is surprisingly little evidence of allocative inefficiency in the present bureaucratic allocation system we estimate the possible effects of market oriented housing reform under alternative assumptions about the system of cash transfers used to compensate for a move to market rents we investigate the distributional impact of reform and the likely need for supplementary cash benefits for low income households

inflation and the financing of government expenditure an introductory analysis with an application to turkey this article presents a simple framework to assess the consistency of appropriately defined fiscal deficits with other macroeconomic targets such as inflation it also considers the relation of fiscal deficits to output growth real exchange rate developments and management of internal and external debt finally it considers the implications of relying on interest bearing government debt to postpone the adjustment necessary to restore consistency with inflation targets it demonstrates how the intertemporal budget constraint of the government creates a tradeoff between current and future adjustment real interest rates and output growth rates are shown to determine the terms at which this tradeoff takes place the usefulness of this framework is demonstrated through an analysis of fiscal policy options in turkey in 1985

haddad lawrence john hoddinott and harold alderman eds intrahousehold resource allocation in developing countries models methods and policy baltimore md johns hopkins university press 1997 384 pp 55 00 in this volume economists demographers sociologists and anthropologists collaborate in the study of how resources are allocated within households in developing countries and why it matters from a policy perspective surveying a broad range of theory and evidence the contributors examine the many social and cultural factors that influence decisions about the family and household level about the allocation of time income assets and other resources ths contributors show that a more complete understanding of intrahousehold behaviour can increase the likelihood that policies will reach the people they are intended to affect

property rights and intra household bargaining abstract this paper examines whether an individual level transfer of property rights increases the individual s bargaining power within the household the question is analyzed in the context of a housing reform that occurred in china that gave existing tenants the opportunity to purchase the homes that they had been renting from their state employers the rights to each housing unit were granted to a particular employee so property rights were defined at the individual level rather than the household level the results indicate that transferring ownership rights to men increased household consumption of some male favored goods and women s time spent on chores transferring ownership rights to women decreased household consumption of some male favored goods

devaluation stabilization policies and the developing countries a macroeconomic analysis abstract this paper analyzes the short run effects of traditional balance of payments policies for a small developing country the country is assumed to be running persistent payments deficits under a fixed exchange rate regime this paper illustrates how conventional results are affected by the presence of a imported intermediate inputs b partial wage indexation and c a large initial trade deficit stagflationary effects of a currency devaluation are particularly noteworthy a tariff subsidy policy that leaves the price of imported inputs unaffected is shown to be likely to achieve the payments objectives without creating significant adverse supply side effects

do husbands and wives pool their resources evidence from the united kingdom child benefit common preference models of family behavior imply income pooling a restriction on family demand functions such that only the sum of husband s income and wife s income affects the allocation of goods and time testing the pooling hypothesis is difficult because most family income sources are not exogenous to the allocations being analyzed in this paper we present an alternative test based on a natural experiment a policy change in the united kingdom that transferred a substantial child allowance to wives in the late 1970s using family expenditure survey data we find strong evidence that a shift toward greater expenditures on women s clothing and children s clothing relative to men s clothing coincided with this income redistribution

an analysis of import expansion policies an analysis of import expansion policies 1 introduction policy makers appear to display unlimited ingenuity in devising new and ever more complex measures to influence international trade no sooner did the profession come to understand the economics of trade restricting devices such as tariffs quotas and voluntary export restraints vers the discirminatory nature of vers has been recently noted and analyzed in dinopoulos and kreinin 1988 1989 then a new policy instrument was introduced christened by bhagwati 1987 as voluntary import expansion vie in several recent instances the united states insisted that japan voluntarily expand its import of certain products such as semiconductors or beef from the united states while the ver restricts the volume of trade below free market equilibrium the vie would expand the volume of trade beyond the equilibrium level but both policies depart from free trade equilibrium and both are discriminatory in nature a ver that limits japanese auto exports to the u s favors european suppliers who are excluded from the restriction their thems of trade improve and or their volume of export expands a vie that forces the japanese to import a minimum amount of semiconductors from the united states excludes european suppliers a similar vie on beef imports would discriminate against australian and argentinian suppliers it constitutes a form of export protectionism bhagwati and irwin 1987 how might a government administer a vie in the case of semiconductor imports by japan the possibilities are a subsidy by the japanese government on imports from the u s or an instruction to the large chip using companies in japan to purchase more american chips 1 alternatively the japanese government may buy u s chips for its own use or it may favor american suppliers in awarding contracts in the fall of 1987 certain japanese steel companies agreed under miti pressure to expand purchases of american coal even though it costs a7 per ton more than australian coal and in january 1988 1 an instance of a vie in the construction sector came to light japan had been under american pressure to permit u s construction companies to bid on large japanese public works projects like the kansai airport near osaka and the tokyo bay bridge such projects can amount to 70 billion in the next decade in response the japanese government proposed to permit joint foreign japanese companies to bid on these projects and give american companies preferential treatment in forming such partnership this paper analyzes the economic effects of a vie and whenever appropriate compares it to an export subsidy whereas the export subsidy is an instrument used by the exporting country the vie is a policy instrument employed by the importing country section ii presents a comparison between the two instruments within a two country general equilibrium framework when the offer curves are elastic section iii addresses the question of the optimum vie and compares it to the optimum tariff section iv analyzes the case when the offer curve of the vie administering country is enelastic another key distinction between a vie and an export subsidy is that the former is discriminatory between different trading partners while the latter is not section iv incorporates this feature by recasting the analysis in a three country general equilibrium framework section v states the conclusions of the paper ii view versus export subsidy a two country analysis with elastic offer curves in coventional trade geometry an export subsidy assumed as usual to be financed by a lump sum tax is shown by an outward shift namely an increase of the offer curve of the subsidizing country by contrast a graphical representation of a vie is more complex and is displayed in figure 1

effects of restraining steel exports from the republic of korea and other countries to the united states and the european economic community in this article a model is developed to evaluate the impact on an exporting country of a restraint imposed on its export by an importing economy in the context of a three region model of world trade in a single product the welfare changes in any of the three regions in the model and in the global economy can be evaluated the model is applied to the restraints imposed on steel exports from the republic of korea to the united states and the european economic community eec the united states and the eec are found to have incurred significant losses as a result of the restraints the largest part of these losses are quota rents transferred to korea and the rest of the world under reasonable parameter assumptions korea and the rest of the world obtain net gains from the quotas because the resource misallocation costs are smaller than the quota rents the model is modified to analyze a tariff barrier rather than a quantitative restraint it is found that an equivalent tariff on steel transforms korea and the rest of the world from net gainers to net losers as a result of a restraint

reciprocated unilateralism in trade policy abstract using the menu auction approach to endogenous determination of tariffs and allowing additionally for lobby formation itself to be endogenous this paper analyzes the impact of unilateral trade liberalization by one country on its partner s trade policies we find that such unilateral liberalization may induce reciprocal tariff reductions by the partner country intuitively unilateral liberalization by one country has the effect of increasing the incentives for the export lobby in the partner country to form and to lobby effectively against the import competing lobby there for lower protection

work rules featherbedding and pareto optimal union management bargaining this article examines a model of semiefficient bargaining in which the union and the firm bargain over wages and various types of work rules the results are compared to the outcomes that are associated with fully efficient bargaining i e over wages and the level of employment and bargaining solely over wages

the threats to the world trading system intend to consider here the prospects for the gatt focused multilateral trading system the perils it faces and the promise it nonetheless holds the threats faced at present by the ga it arise from a variety of factors including changes in the world economy these changes have produced fissiparous tendencies gnawing at many of the basic principles embodied in the gatt recalling the preamble to the gatt and mindful of its central articles the following may justifiably be cited as the main principles of the gatt a fix rule trading regime is to be preferred to a fix quantity one in other words managed trade or results oriented trade which seeks quantitative targets of outcomes in trade instead of settling on rules and lettingchips fall where they may is to be rejected multilateralism where these trade rules extend without discrimination to all members of the trading regime is generally to be preferred to discriminatory arrangements markets are to be opened through conventional reduction in trade barriers and new disciplines are to be established by resort to mutuality and balance of concessions ruling out aggressive unilaterally determined demands for unrequited concessions that could come from the strong against the weak and in the same spirit of the rule of law the adjudication of dispute must be impartial pitting the strong against the weak in equal contest both the balance

the profits of power land rights and agricultural investment in ghana we examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in akwapim ghana we show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output the intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given individual corresponds to that individual s security of tenure over those specific plots and in turn to the individual s position in the political hierarchy relevant to those specific plots

the bias due to omitting quality when estimating automobile demand the conclusions of policy oriented market studies often hinge upon the size of an estimated demand elasticity few of the researchers who have estimated such elasticities have utilized a variable designed to measure the subjective concept of quality if quality both significantly affects the demand for a heterogeneous good and is positively correlated with price omitting quality from a demand regression will lead to a downward bias in the estimated price elasticity using levinsohn s 1988 model of the automobile market as a framework this note shows that including quality variables can increase the model s estimated price elasticity by more than 80 percent copyright 1991 by mit press

new issues in the uruguay round and beyond the general agreement on tariffs and trade gatt is a treaty establishing a framework of rules and principles for policies affecting merchandise trade it also provides a forum in which sovereign states periodically engage in reciprocal trade liberalisation and rule making 2 as a result of substantial reductions in tariffs through periodic rounds of multilateral negotiations rule making has gradually become as if not more important than liberalisation per se starting with the kennedy round i964 7 but especially in the tokyo i973 9 and uruguay i986 rounds an increasing number of agenda items involved the negotiation of rules and disciplines for specific trade related domestic policies rather than further reductions in tariffs and other border measures rules pertaining to product standards subsidies and government procurement were prominent items on the agenda of the tokyo round the uruguay round further expanded the multilateral negotiating agenda by adding trade related investment measures trims trade related intellectual property rights trips and measures affecting the contestability of service markets the trend for multilateral trade negotiations to address domestic policies shows no sign of abating calls for a post uruguay round negotiation have identified issues such as competition policy foreign direct investment fdi regulations innovation policies and the interaction between trade and environmental policies as possible topics for discussion 3 in part the steady agenda expansion reflects changes in the structure of the global economy the managerial and technological innovations of the last decade such as just in time inventory management and the increased tradeability of services created pressures for greater specialisation and geographical splintering of production this in turn made regulations pertaining to services fdi transfer of technology and protection of intangible assets more important for both governments and firms flows associated with services fdi and intellectual property ip are smaller than merchandise trade but are quite substantial table i reveals that global merchandise trade in i990 was 3 5 trillion while world trade in commercial services was about 820 billion global receipts for ip were some 33 billion and income flows

financial repression the new structuralists and stabilization policy in semi industrialized economies abstract this paper examines the short and long run effects of a variety of macroeconomic policies in a simple model where the curb market plays a pivotal role as the marginal supplier of loanable funds it is found that financial liberalization may fail in the short run and contrary to the claims of the new structuralists that the financial market repercussions of devaluation may be favorable in evaluating any policy the time horizon is critical short and long run multipliers may differ in sign in all cases save that of a contraction in the stock of bank credit

gatt safeguards and voluntary export restraints what are the interests of developing countries introduction trade in services and the multilateral trade negotiations agriculture in the uruguay round interests of developing countries gatt law agricultural trade and developing countries lessons from two case studies textiles and clothing in a new round of trade negotiations differential and more favorable treatment of developing countries and the international trading system balance of payments and related issues in the uruguay round of trade negotiations gatt safeguards and voluntary exports restraints what are the interests of developing countries international control of subsidies and countervailing duties export promoting subsidies countervailing threats and the general agreement on tariffs and trade

economic reform and labor unions a general equilibrium analysis applied to bangladesh and indonesia noting the trend toward more independent trade unions in developing countries this article examines whether the presence of unions strengthens or weakens the benefits to be gained from economic policy reform we show that the presence of passive unions ones that choose their wage employment contract given the firm s cost minimizing strategy increases the welfare gains from trade liberalization because trade reform lowers the wage premium enjoyed by the unionized sector reducing a distortion in the labor market these gains are amplified when the unions are active namely when they negotiate a contract with the firm that is off its labor demand curve such a contract results in featherbedding paying workers more than their marginal product and trade reform reduces the amount of featherbedding the policy implication for bangladesh a country with strong trade unions and a protected unionized sector is that the benefits of further trade liberalization may be greater than otherwise predicted in indonesia where both unionization and import tariffs are low allowing greater independence to unions may preserve flexibility and reward workers better than the current minimum wage policy

a theory of trade policy leadership abstract this paper constructs a two country model of bilateral trade negotiations in the presence of political uncertainty to demonstrate that unilateral trade liberalization may be an optimal policy for a large country the political uncertainty is due to producer opposition to trade agreement ratification in the foreign country unilateral liberalization by the home country has a salutary effect on negotiations because it mitigates the pain of potential ratification failure on the foreign country it also promotes foreign ratification because it effectively punishes foreign import competing producers for lobbying against an agreement these benefits are shown to outweigh up to a point the terms of trade cost that the home country must suffer when it actually liberalizes unilaterally in equilibrium therefore we see a pattern in which the home country unilaterally liberalizes for several periods until ratification in the foreign country succeeds at which point foreign country finally reciprocates we also demonstrate that contrary to the standard optimal tariff result there may be an inverse relationship between the home country s monopoly power and its optimal unilateral tariff

the road to uruguay context and to show how its agenda and procedures as well as its problems and possible outcomes have arisen from the conjunction of developments in patterns of world trade and the evolution of the gatt itself the uruguay round has some novel features but it also strongly reflects the continuation of the trends of the last forty years the gatt has fostered the evolution of the world trading system from a highly restrictive form with two major players the us and the uk towards a more liberal and evenly balanced form the practices appropriate to the former circumstances achieved many of their objectives but they proved gradually less able to cope with the strains of the new circumstances and problems thus the gatt s traditional bilateral mode of tariff negotiations has given way first to a more multilateral form of tariff talks and then to a preoccupation with constitutional issues such as trading rules and the sectoral coverage of the gatt its procedures have become progressively more multilateral but especially when one considers trade policy implemented between gatt rounds its outcomes appear recently to have become less so it is paradoxical that whereas initially the gatt harnessed the crude power of bilateralism to achieve multilateral outcomes it has more recently adopted multilateral procedures but with more bi and pluri lateral results

credit constraints job mobility and entrepreneurship evidence from a property reform in china this paper provides new evidence on the impact of private property rights on entrepreneurship i explore this issue in the context of a housing reform in urban china that allowed state employees renting state owned housing the opportunity to buy their homes at subsidized prices using the reform as an exogenous change in the capital constraints and mobility costs that inuence individuals entry

gender property rights and natural resources abstract attention to gender differences in property rights can improve the outcomes of natural resource management policies and projects in terms of efficiency environmental sustainability equity and empowerment of resource users although it is impossible to generalize across cultures and resources it is important to identify the nature of rights to land trees and water held by women and men and how they are acquired and transmitted from one user to another the paper particularly examines how the shift from customary tenure systems to private property in land trees and water has affected women the effect of gender differences in property on collective action and the implications for project design

retrospectives challenges to free trade the recent theoretical literature on strategic trade policy suggests that government intervention in international trade has the potential to be welfare improving government promotion of exports from imperfectly competitive industries for example may enable domestic firms to capture economic rents from foreign firms thereby increasing national welfare in addition active responses to foreign protection by a policy of reciprocity may be required to prevent a loss of domestic welfare although these findings may bring into question the traditional economic case for free trade many economists doubt that these theories provide sound guidance for trade policy economists in the nineteenth century also argued about whether theoretical justifications for tariffs compromised the case for free trade this paper discusses two older debates somewhat related to the current focus on strategic industries and reciprocity and concludes with an observation about how developments in economic theory affect economists view of policy

macro economic effects of changes in bank interest rates simulation results for south korea abstract we use an empirical macro econometric model of korea to simulate the impact of bank interest rate changes this model includes a very detailed sub model of the financial sector plus in addition to the usual demand side transmission channels of monetary policy a link between the financial sector and the supply side of the real part of the economy via the cost of financing working capital cavallo effect increases in time deposit rate are shown to be contractionary in the short run because the portfolio shifts they trigger tighten credit conditions and cause higher costs of financing working capital people shift out of the curbmarket rather than out of cash the higher cost of financing working capital also pushes up inflation in the first quarter after the change making the increase in td rates stagflationary this effect dies out quickly however the persistence of the loss in output is shown to depend on whether the commercial banks are allowed to play their intermediary role or not if credit limits prevent the passing through into bank loans of the influx of time deposits caused by the higher rates substantial and persistent real output losses and decreased private investment were shown to result

intra household resource allocation an inferential approach if household income is pooled and then allocated to maximize welfare then income under the control of mothers and fathers should have the same impact on demand with survey data on family health and nutrition in brazil the equality of parental income effects is rejected unearned income in the hands of a mother has a bigger effect on her family s health than income under the control of a father for child survival probabilities the effect is almost twenty times bigger the common preference or neoclassical model of the household is rejected if unearned income is measured with error and income is pooled then the ratio of maternal to paternal income effects should be the same equality of the ratios cannot be rejected there is also evidence for gender preference mothers prefer to devote resources to improving the nutritional status of their daughters fathers to sons

tariffs quotas and voluntary export restraints with and without internationally mobile capital this paper presents a general framework for comparing the effects of tariffs quotas and vers voluntary export restraints both with and without international capital mobility expressions for the shadow price of foreign exchange and the shadow price of capital under each type of trade restriction are derived and it is shown that although international capital mobility raises the welfare cost of tariff protection it lowers the welfare cost of quantitative restrictions in most cases the effects of exogenous shocks in the presence of quotas are intermediate between those in the presence of tariffs and those in the presence of vers tarifs douaniers contingentements et restrictions volontaires d l exportation quand le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur presente un cadre general d analyse qu il utilise pour comparer les effets de tarifs douaniers de contingentements et de restrictions volontaires a l exportation dans des contextes ofu le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur derive le prix fictif du change etranger et le prix fictif du capital sous l un et l autre types de restrictions au commerce et montre que meme si la mobilite internationale du capital augmente le cofut en terme de bien etre de la protection tarifaire elle reduit le cofut en terme de bien etre des restrictions sur les quantites echangees dans tous les cas les effets de chocs exogenes quand des contingentements existent sont toujours dans la fourchette entre ceux qu on observe quand des tarifs douaniers existent et ceux qui prevalent quand des restrictions volontaires i l exportation existent

import competition from developed and developing countries separate demand equations for imports from less developed countries ldcs and imports from developed countries dcs were estimated for each of eleven representative product groups imports were found to compete quite readily with domestically produced goods with plausible own price and cross price elasticities whereas the quantity of each type of import was found to be quite responsive to changes in the price of us home goods each appears to be less sensitive to the price of the alternative import an explanation that is consistent with this observation and that finds support from detailed industry information is that dcs and ldcs supply goods that are at different stages in the product or technology cycle whereas us producers compete in all submarkets this suggests that trade creation rather than trade diversion provides the predominant inroad for ldcs into the us market 25 references 3 tables

multilateral trade negotiations european integration and farm policy reform trade negotiations and farm policy kym anderson why was it so hard to reach an agreement in the uruguay round to reduce agricultural protection after surveying the growth of agricultural protection in the 1980s i develop arguments based on political economy that imply a systematic tendency for governments to protect farmers increasingly at least up to some threshold as economic development proceeds agricultural protection growth in industrializing countries is therefore normal not exceptional liberalizing those policies before reaching that threshold is unattractive politically unless new influences e g from abroad upset the domestic political equilibrium the uruguay round provided such a force what made the early 1990s so significant a crossroads for farm policy reform was that coincidently there were other changes taking place in europe which lowered the domestic political cost of reforming the ec s common agricultural policy the paper argues that the reforms to farm policy during the rest of this decade as a result of the uruguay round agreement will at best be slow and messy but that is far preferable to the alternative of a failed uruguay round and continued growth of agricultural protection

voluntary export restraints and resource allocation in exporting countries this article analyzes the resource implications of voluntary export restraints vers for exporting countries a simple analytical method is used to demonstrate that by reducing the marginal revenue of its factors of production a ver causes an industry in the exporting country to contract and that the efficiency losses from a ver depend on the ease with which sales can be diverted from the restricted toward the unrestricted markets the method is applied to test the effects of the u s orderly marketing agreement oma for producers of leather footware in the republic of korea during the period 1977 81 the authors estimate that the marginal revenue product of factors employed in leather footwear declined by as much as 9 percent because of the oma an estimate that is corroborated by inspection of time series on output employment and wages of the korean footwear sector this implies that there was pressure on the korean footware industry to contract as a result of the oma

property rights and investment in urban slums this paper examines the effect of changes in tenure security on residential investment in urban squatter neighborhoods to address the endogeneity of property rights i make use of variation in ownership status induced by a nationwide titling program in peru in a difference in difference analysis i compare the change in housing investment before and after the program among participating households to the change in investment among two samples of nonparticipants my results indicate that strengthening property rights in urban slums has a significant effect on residential investment the rate of housing renovation rises by more than two thirds of the baseline level the bulk of the increase is financed without the use of credit indicating that changes over time reflect an increase in investment incentives related to lower threat of eviction jel o12 o18 p25 p26

women as agents of change female income and mobility in india economic globalization will give many women in developing countries access to steady and relatively remunerative employment for the first time potentially shifting bargaining power within their households and changing the choices that are made for their children this paper exploits a unique setting a group of tea plantations in south india where women are employed in permanent wage labor and where incomes do not vary by caste to anticipate the impact of globalization on mobility across social groups in the future the main result of the paper is that a relative increase in female income weakens the family s ties to the ancestral community and the traditional economy but these mobility enhancing effects are obtained for certain historically disadvantaged castes alone although the paper provides a context specific explanation for why the women from these castes emerge as agents of change the first general implication of the analysis is that the incentive and the ability of women to use their earnings to influence household decisions depends importantly on their social background the second implication is that historically disadvantaged groups may in fact be especially responsive to new opportunities precisely because they have fewer ties to the traditional economy to hold them back

globalization and the decline of the welfare state in less developed countries why have trends in government welfare spending in developing countries diverged from those in developed countries i address this question by investigating the effects of capital and trade flows on government welfare spending in fifty three developing countries using an original measure of labor power in developing countries i test the links between international markets labor s political strength and the welfare state i argue that labor s collective action problems caused by large populations of low skilled and surplus workers offset labor s potential political gains from globalization i show that when the proportion of low skilled workers in a nation is high globalization will lead to a decline in welfare spending most significantly the results suggest that in nations where labor market institutions are not yet well developed government social welfare spending is constrained by international market forces

do unions impede or accelerate structural adjustment industrial versus company unions in an industrialising labour market trades unions potentially have both beneficial and adverse effects for workers and for employing enterprises in recent supply side structural adjustment strategies particularly in developing countries it has been widely presumed that unions have adverse effects and constitute a major source of market distortion and labor market rigidity this paper based on a survey of nearly 3 000 industrial enterprises in malaysia examines this proposition empirically considering a wide range of possible effects it considers whether workers and or employers should prefer to avoid unions or to have independent industrial unions or company unions copyright 1992 by oxford university press

free trade old and new challenges the paper analyses the old and new challenges to the theory and policy of free trade the old challenges have sought to undermine the case for free trade by citing one or another type of market imperfection thus the postwar period has seen two such challenges factor market imperfections were analysed in the 1950s to 197os product market imperfections in the i980s the new challenges are twofold one comes from the demands for fair trade as a precondition for free trade the other from the concern that free trade while efficient immiserises the unskilled in the richer countries having given a harry johnson lecture four years ago in london i was startled to be invited to give yet another one today but then i recalled his unmatched productivity his articles continued to be published even after his death the pipelines in several journals being full of them it is only appropriate then that he be honoured many times over also in these days of preoccupation with increasing returns to scale such a proliferation of lectures in the memory of a great economist is doubly fitting since harry johnson was in the english tradition of taking his theory from the real world s problems and then taking it back to talk penetratingly about them i thought it appropriate to address the earlier johnson lecture to the threats posed currently to the multilateral trading system by increasing resort

separate spheres bargaining and the marriage market this paper introduces the separate spheres bargaining model a new model of distribution within marriage it differs from divorce threat bargaining models e g manser brown mcelroy horney in that the threat point is not divorce but a noncooperative equilibrium within marriage this noncooperative equilibrium reflects traditional gender roles the predictions of our model thus differ from those of divorce threat bargaining models in the separate spheres model cash transfer payments to the mother and payments to the father can but need not imply different equilibrium distributions in existing marriages in the long run the distributional effects of transfer policies may be substantially altered by changes in the marriage market equilibrium

income and outcomes a structural model of intrahousehold allocation there is evidence from several sources that one cannot treat many person households as a single decision maker if this is the case then factors such as the relative incomes of the household members may affect the final allocation decisions made by the household we develop a method of identifying how incomes affect outcomes given conventional family expenditure data the basic assumption we make is that household decision processes lead to efficient outcomes we apply our method to a sample of canadian couples with no children we find that the final allocations of expenditures on each partner depend significantly on their relative incomes and ages and on the level of lifetime wealth

stagflationary effects of monetary stabilization policies a quantitative analysis of south korea this paper presents a macro model of the korean economy that focuses on short run macro economic adjustment and more in particular on the transmission channels of monetary policy between the financial and the real sector of the economy in addition to the usual link between monetary policy and aggregate demand via investment the link between monetary policy and the supply side of the economy via the financing of working capital with borrowed funds is incorporated this link can potentially reverse the short run impact of tight money on inflation and aggregate the impact on output both export prices and domestic prices show a significant sensitivity to cost of financing working capital this credit supply side link gives a stagflationary bias to restrictive credit policies the empirical relevance of this phenomenon is strongly supported by the simulation results derived with the model structurally section 2 of the paper focuses on the real sector part of the model section 3 discusses the financial sector in section 4 different monetary stabilization packages are simulated using the model presented in sections 2 and 3 and alternative policy measures are discussed the simulation runs show strong short run stagflationary effects of tight money policies