the crisis of intellectual monopoly capitalism the last three decades have witnessed the emergence of a new species of capitalism in spite of marked differences between its national varieties a common characteristic of this species can be found in the global monopolisation of knowledge this monopolisation involves hierarchical relations among firms and between capital and labour because the capital of some firms includes the exclusive ownership of much of the knowledge used in production since the 1994 trade related aspects of intellectual property rights agreements the growing commoditisation of knowledge has extended the role of closed science and closed markets at the expense of open science and open markets the intrinsic long term dynamics of this species of capitalism is increasingly characterised by financialisation inequality and stagnation in order to exit from the current crisis we must change many features of intellectual monopoly capitalism and rely on an eclectic approach that draws insights from liberal keynesian and marxian traditions

institutions and growth in korea and taiwan the bureaucracy how do competent bureaucracies emerge in developing countries we examine bureaucratic reform in korea and taiwan and argue that in both cases political leaders had an interest in reforming the civil service to carry out their programmatic initiatives in addition both governments undertook organisational reforms that made certain parts of the bureaucracy more meritocratic while utilising centralised and insulated pilot agencies in overall policy coordination however we reject the approach to bureaucratic reform that focuses primarily on its efficiency enhancing effects if delegation bureaucratic and policy reform provided an easily available solution to the authoritarian s dilemma dictators would have more uniformly positive economic records rather we analyse the political and institutional constraints under which governing elites operate in doing so we underscore several important variations in the design of bureaucratic organisation which in turn mirror larger policy differences between th

responding to financial crisis the case of jamaica abstract the adverse economic and social effects of the financial crises that have afflicted many developing countries in recent years have highlighted the need to develop a policy response which addresses the vulnerability of financial systems to systemic instability and crisis the article examines the experience of jamaica a country which managed a financial sector crisis during the 1990s without the assistance or involvement of the international monetary fund lessons are drawn from the jamaica case study for the domestic management of banking sector failures in lower income countries

reducing bureaucratic corruption interdisciplinary perspectives on what works abstract this article offers the first comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary state of knowledge regarding anti corruption policies with a particular focus on reducing corruption among civil servants drawing on the work of economists political scientists sociologists and anthropologists we examine seven policy categories 1 rewards and penalties 2 monitoring 3 restructuring bureaucracies 4 screening and recruiting 5 anti corruption agencies 6 educational campaigns and 7 international agreements notably rigorous empirical evaluation is lacking for the majority of commonly prescribed anti corruption policies nevertheless we find growing evidence of the effectiveness of policies based on monitoring including anti corruption audits and e governance in addition adequate civil service wages seem to be a necessary but insufficient condition for control of corruption an emerging skepticism regarding the effectiveness of anti corruption agencies also is apparent in the literature we conclude with broader lessons drawn from our review such as the recognition that when corruption is a systemic problem it cannot be treated in the long term with individual level solutions

the crash of the knowledge economy this paper advances the hypothesis that some of the roots of the present crisis are to be found in the present institutions of the knowledge economy while protectionism is seen as a possible dangerous outcome of the crisis the extent of protectionism inherent to the strengthening and globalisation of intellectual property rights iprs associated in particular with the signing of the trade related aspects of intellectual property rights agreement is not generally perceived as one of its possible causes indeed iprs have acted as super tariffs they have particularly raised the cost of investments for countries that had neither abundant cheap labour nor high amounts of intellectual property resources moreover iprs may have later exerted negative effects even on ip rich firms as the proliferation of conflicting rights has led firms to increasingly inhibit each other s investments the resulting investment strike has manifested itself as a saving glut and has mainly affected the usa in a situation aggravated by inadequate regulations if intellectual monopolies are one of the causes of the crash the remedies should not only focus on monetary policy financial regulations or even on standard keynesian policies aggregate demand stimulus should be coupled with policies that decrease the level of intellectual monopolisation of the economy

state business relations and economic growth in sub saharan africa abstract this paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of economic growth in sub saharan africa by examining the effect of effective state business relations on economic growth for a panel of 19 sub saharan african countries for the period 1970 2004 we propose a measure that we argue captures the various dimensions of effective state business relations in sub saharan africa we then estimate standard growth regressions using dynamic panel data methods with this measure along with the more conventionally used measures of institutional quality such as degree of executive constraints the rule of law the degree of corruption and the quality of the bureaucracy our results show that effective state business relations contribute significantly to economic growth countries which have shown improvements in state business relations have witnessed higher economic growth controlling for other determinants of economic growth and independent of other measures of institutional quality

nationalism development and integration the political economy of ernest gellner in this paper we show how in gellner we can find a stimulating analysis of the institutional equilibria that characterise agrarian and industrial society and the conditions that make possible institutional change from one equilibrium to another this allows a convincing account of the reasons why some countries industrialised before others and why nationalism had such an uneven impact on the development of market economies we consider the relation between gellner s analysis and other theories of organisation and point out how gellner can help to solve some paradoxes that arise in these theories we also argue that joining gellner s contribution to the analysis of the positional nature of status and power reinforces his conclusion about the necessary stagnation of agrarian societies and the necessary over accumulation of different forms of capitalism we conclude by examining the implications of his analysis for the process of globalisation and its challenge to national states

challenges and opportunities in el salvador s financial sector abstract the formal financial sector has expanded rapidly in postwar el salvador encouraged by premature financial liberalization and a remittance windfall exceeding commercial banks capacities to lend prudently the counterpart of this spurious financial deepening is a shallow financial market for smaller firms which reflects both difficult real conditions for small urban and agricultural enterprises and the unfortunate effects of the credit channeling model characterizing development banks and most nongovernment organization projects this model discourages the growth of small scale institutions that can fund themselves from local resources and limits the ability of small producers to accumulate financial savings

bureaucratic rationality and the developmental state there has been a resuscitation of the view that the state can play an important role in the industrialization process but for states to be successful in fostering development they need a considerable degree of internal cohesiveness which is generally supplied by the presence of a robust weberian bureaucratic corps this article argues that while internal cohesiveness is indeed critical bureaucratic rule following can produce results in the opposite direction depending on the interagency relations that obtain within the state the effect of interagency relations is demonstrated through an examination of india and korea both have worked to foster industrialization and both are endowed with relatively healthy bureaucracies however the indian state was paralyzed and fragmented while its korean counterpart did secure the requisite internal coherence not only did the culture of rule following fail to generate a cohesive state in india but it in fact worked against such an outcome

thinking about developmental states in africa during much of the 1980s and 90s a literature emerged suggesting that developmental states were impossible in africa the arguments given ranged from cultural ones about the pervasive nature of clientalism to structural ones on the dependence of african economies or the atypical levels of rent seeking in african economies this paper argues that africa has had states that were developmental in both their aspirations and economic performance it further argues that these experiences need to be examined critically for useful lessons an exercise that has been hindered by an excessive levelling of the african political and economic landscapes

stock markets corporate finance and economic growth during the past decade the capitalization of emerging markets increased twentyfold in 1994 trading on these markets accounted for about 17 percent of the 9 6 trillion of shares traded on the world s stock markets up from a mere 3 percent of the much smaller 1 6 trillion in 1985 this rapid growth in emerging stock market activity raises critical questions for developing country policymakers what effect do stock markets have on economic growth how does stock market development affect firms financing decision and if stock markets are good for growth what policies can governments adopt to foster their development this note summarizes answers to these questions drawn from a recent research project

working life well being and welfare reform motivation and institutions revisited summary this article revisits the relation between economic institutions and motives to work it proposes moving away from a dominant polemical focus on the impact of a single source of security income support towards a multi factorial analysis based on control over working life as a source of well being and motivation to work drawing on surveys of two urban constituencies in sao paulo brazil it is found that income security supports an aristotelian principle of work motivation as individual development however labour market institutions and opportunity levels affect this link implications include a need to consider the distribution of economic control as a key aspect of both human and economic development

labor markets as gendered institutions equality efficiency and empowerment issues abstract labor markets are gendered institutions operating at the intersection of the productive and reproductive economies participation in labor markets does not automatically empower women reduction in gender differentials in earnings may be the result of harmonizing down rather than up discrimination against women may persist because in the absence of institutional changes it is profitable it is important to distinguish between static and dynamic and micro and macro efficiency labor market regulation has an important role to play in the institutional transformation needed to reconcile goals of efficiency and equality

the role of intangible assets in explaining the investment profit puzzle starting around the early 2000s and especially after the 2008 crisis the rate of capital accumulation for us nonfinancial corporations has slowed down despite relatively high profitability indicating a weakening of the link between profitability and investment while the literature mostly focuses on financialisation and globalisation as the reasons behind this slowdown i suggest adding another layer to these explanations and argue that in conjunction with financialisation and globalisation we need to pay attention to the increased use of intangible assets by nonfinancial corporations in the last two decades intangibles such as brand names trademarks patents and copyrights play a role in the widening of the profit investment gap as the use of these assets enables firms to increase market power and profitability without necessarily generating a corresponding increase in fixed capital investment after discussing the ways nonfinancial corporations use intangible assets i look at large corporations in the usa and find the following i the ratio of intangible assets to the capital stock increased in general this increase is highest for firms in high technology healthcare nondurables and telecommunications ii industries with higher intangible asset ratios have lower investment to profit ratios iii industries with higher intangible asset ratios have higher markups and profitability iv the composition of the nonfinancial corporate sector has changed and the weight of high technology and healthcare firms has increased but this increase did not correspond to an equal increase in their investment share the decline in the investment share of durables nondurables and machinery is matched by an increase in the investment share of location specific industries with low intangible asset use most notably firms in energy extraction in general these firms have steadier markups and higher investment to profit ratios v yet intangible intensive industries profitability has increased faster than their share of investment or total assets all in all these findings are in line with the suggestion that the increased use of intangible assets enables firms to have high profitability without a corresponding increase in investment

entrepreneurship developing countries and development economics new approaches and insights this paper provides an introduction to this special issue of small business economics dealing with the long postponed integration of entrepreneurship into the discipline of development economics and casting a formal light on the role of entrepreneurship in developing countries the paper departs from the premise that with more than a billion people living in absolute poverty it is of great practical importance to understand if and when entrepreneurship is a binding constraint on economic development and catching up in developing countries this in turn requires at least a deeper theoretical modeling of the entrepreneur in development economics this special edition contains a number of contributions emanating from the unu wider project on promoting entrepreneurial capacity which integrates the disciplines of entrepreneurship and development economics these contributions model and explore the role of the entrepreneur in key areas of concern for development economics such as structural change and economic growth income and wealth inequalities welfare poverty traps and market failures this introduction discusses and contextualizes these various contributions and their implications for further theoretical and empirical work

financial development economic growth and banking sector controls evidence from india this paper uses newly collected data from the reserve bank of india to examine the effects of various types of banking sector controls on the process of financial deepening with the exception of a lending rate ceiling these controls are found to influence financial deepening negatively independently of the well known effect of the real interest rate exogeneity tests suggest that financial deepening and economic growth are jointly determined thus policies which affect financial deepening may also have an influence on economic growth the role of banking sector controls in the process of economic development has received considerable attention in the literature the traditional approach due to mckinnon i973 and shaw i973 postulates that government intervention in the pricing and allocation of loanable funds dubbed financial repression inhibits financial development by depressing real interest rates see

financing enterprise development in sub saharan africa this paper examines some critical gaps in the financial infrastructure in sub saharan africa which have contributed to the poor performance of productive investment by private agents it first analyses the performance of financial systems encompassing both formal and informal financial sectors in relation to the changing policy environment and key features of the financial market structure it then identifies those gaps in financial services that have been particularly detrimental to private investment enterprise growth and transformation finally the paper considers policy implications drawn from east asian experiences with respect to financial policies institutional arrangements and market integration measures for financing enterprise development copyright 2001 by oxford university press

transferable lessons re examining the institutional prerequisites of east asian economic policies competing theories of east asian economic policy share the assumption that a highly capable coherent economic bureaucracy closely connected to but still independent of the business community has been an essential institutional prerequisite for successful policy formation and implementation in east asia these institutional prerequisites were constructed in a variety of concrete forms with great difficulty and imperfect results as long as the idea of transferable lessons is understood as an invitation to indigenous innovation that takes advantage of the underlying analytical logic of east asian institutions other countries can reap important benefits from east asia s experience

conformity replication of design and business niches conformity affects the choice and design of organizations conformists replicate successful strategies play along with the rules of the game and display inert behavior conformity leads to the dominance of one mode the combined impact of conformity and inertia and the existence of employment costs switching costs and network externalities may exclude equally or superior efficient modes from replacing the incumbent mode the first mover unable to overcome these barriers to entry efficient maverick organizations are forced into niches this is illustrated with respect to niches formed by labor managed firms and ethnic businesses

distributional implications of macroeconomic policy theory and applications to el salvador abstract this article offers a theoretical framework for designing macroeconomic strategy for el salvador that will both respect stabilization and structural adjustment needs and enhance social equity after outlining the largely negative distributional implications of the orthodox policies followed by el salvador in recent years we argue that stabilization and efficiency could actually be improved by increased equity and sketch out the elements of an alternative approach that would be distributionally sensitive and thereby help consolidate the peace

stock and credit market expansion and economic development in emerging markets further evidence utilizing cointegration analysis this paper empirically investigates the relationship between equity and credit market development and economic growth in a sample of five very important emerging markets in particular employing a multivariate time series methodology to test for long run trends and causality between variables that proxy for stock market development credit market development and economic development the results seem to suggest that equity markets have a role to play only in relatively liberalized economies like chile and mexico in financially repressed economies like india the equity market does not affect real sector growth furthermore the banking crises in the 1980s and 1990s in chile and mexico resulted in a negative relation between economic growth and the credit market in south korea equity and credit markets both affect economic growth but not vice versa in countries where the nature of the stock market has been speculative like taiwan a negative relationship is detected between equity market develo

neopatrimonialism and the political economy of economic performance in africa critical reflections during the past two decades neopatrimonialism has become the convenient all purpose and ubiquitous moniker for african governance the school of thought behind this research program which the author refers to as the neopatrimonialism school has produced an impressive literature on africa its analysis informs policymakers and its language permeates media reportage on african states while neopatrimonialism has long been a focus of development studies in recent times it has assumed politically and economically exigent status the school identifies causal links between neopatrimonialism and economic performance and makes predictions drawing from what is referred to as the logic of neopatrimonialism neopatrimonialism is said to account for trade policies hyperinflation economic stagnation low investment in infrastructure urban bias andultimately the lack of economic development in africa this article examines the empirical basis of predictions and policy prescriptions it argues that while descriptive of the social practices of the states and individuals that occupy different positions within african societies the concept of neopatrimonialism has little analytical content and no predictive value with respect to economic policy and performance

introduction global economic inclusion and african workers abstractthis introductory article explores the transformative potential of global connections for african workers it challenges recent claims that african workers have become functionally irrelevant to the global economy by examining the shift of global demand for african workers from formal to increasingly informalised labour arrangements mediated by social enterprises labour brokers and graduate entrepreneurs focusing on global employment connections initiated from above and from below we consider why global labour linkages have tended to increase rather than reduce problems of vulnerable and unstable working conditions within african countries and consider the economic and political conditions needed for african workers to capture the gains of inclusion in the global economy

gender awareness in modeling structural adjustment abstract the macroeconomic models underpinning the design of structural adjustment programs are gender blind this paper discusses strategies for introducing gender analysis into these models and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the models from a gender perspective it concludes that besides being blind to gender the models are also blind to the waste of resources and impoverishment that stems from deficient aggregate demand undemocratic decision making and directly unproductive expenditures that buttress male power this waste is however likely to be diminished by moves to more egalitarian systems of gender relations entailing changes in the structure of entitlements and the social matrix in which macroeconomic processes are embedded

defying the resource curse explaining successful state owned enterprises in rentier states the article explains how several gulf rentier monarchies have managed to create highly profitable and well managed state owned enterprises soe s confounding expectations of both general soe inefficiency and the particularly poor quality of rentier public sectors it argues that a combination of two factors explains the outcome the absence of a populist mobilizational history and substantive regime autonomy in economic policy making the author concludes that it is necessary to rethink the commonly accepted generalizations both about rentier states and arguably about public sectors in the developing world

a survey of recent developments in the literature of finance and growth this paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of financial development and economic growth the survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of financial development in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables although the positive role of finance on growth has become a stylized fact there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies several key issues unresolved in the literature are highlighted the paper also points to several directions for future research

mechanisms of the aid curse lessons from south korea and pakistan abstractrecently scholars have argued that far from contributing to development foreign aid hinders development but in the 1960s the east asian countries developed rapidly despite receiving large amounts of aid to examine why aid seems to undermine development in some cases but not in others we conduct a detailed comparison of the mechanisms of the aid curse in south korea and pakistan we show that south korea saw astonishing levels of corruption but this did not hinder its development and pakistan had a strong bureaucracy which did not help it to grow the key difference between the two countries was in the strength of their tax systems foreign aid in the context of underdeveloped tax administration leads to increasing cycles of debt that undermine development when foreign aid arrives in the context of commitment to strong taxation a country can avoid the aid curse

public private entanglement entrepreneurship in lebanon s hybrid political order while the literature is clear that political influence and clientelism characterises the investment decisions of entrepreneurs and the performance of their firms when governance is weak it is less understood how governance systems and entrepreneurs interact particularly when governance is of a hybrid nature we address this issue in this paper by studying how entrepreneurs obtain access to electricity in lebanon showing that the hybrid political order imposes a high cost on electricity we furthermore find that a hybrid political order channels entrepreneurial talent into lobbying and bribery the key constraint that emerges from the hybrid political order in this case is the corrupt organisation of governance of the electricity sector this results in higher prices because bribes for contracts have to be earned back in entrenchment of oligopolies because contracts often come with political protection

the design of successful rural financial intermediaries evidence from indonesia abstract the success outreach and sustainability of eight rural financial intermediation systems in indonesia in profitably reaching large numbers of small individual clients is explained in terms of organizational design networks of semiautonomous units use local information and contract enforcement mechanisms to lower transaction costs reflecting basic concerns with institutional and financial viability elements of mechanism design have included compatible incentives such as performance based compensations profit sharing collection fees efficiency wages equivalent to quasi equity and system monitoring managerial discretion over transactions conducted at market terms policies to protect portfolio value and no dependency creating subsidies are important interventions have been appropriate for the problem at hand

emerging stock markets portfolio capital flows and long term economie growth micro and macroeconomic perspectives abstract the paper examines two major components of financial liberalization stock market development and portfolio capital flows in the context of less developed countries the paper considers microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives on their implications for long term development and economic growth it concentrates on 1 a the role of stock markets in financing corporate growth 2 b the implications of stock market volatility for resource allocation and productive efficiency and 3 c the interactions between the foreign exchange and stock markets in the context of economic shocks its policy recommendations are that ldcs should promote bank based systems influence the scale and composition of capital inflows and prevent a market for corporate control from emerging

microenterprise credit programs deja vu abstract microenterprises in low income countries are the target of an increasing number of credit programs these efforts resemble earlier problematic attempts to assist operators of small farms with credit similarities discussed include target group definition assumptions policies and project justifications authors go on to list a dozen lessons from the experience with small farmer credit that might apply to microenterprise credit efforts authors then conclude that debt is not an effective tool for helping most poor people to enchance their economic conditions be they operators of small farms or microenterprises

moral hazard and optimal commodity taxation abstract this paper demonstrates that in an economy with moral hazard and more than one commodity competitive equilibrium is not constrained efficient to correct the market failure differential commodity taxation is necessary a general optimal tax formula is derived and special cases of is discussed

property rights asset specificity and the division of labour under alternative capitalist relations is the division of labor under capitalism because of transaction and technological efficiency or because of inefficient capitalist property rights the answer of this paper is that under classical capitalism there is an inefficient division of labor because of underinvestment in asset specific labor which can be improved by expanding workers rights in two different ways defining company workers and unionized capitalism an implication of the analysis is that markets far from being the selection mechanism where efficient institutions evolve may imply the reproduction of inefficient property rights and be shaped by them copyright 1991 by oxford university press

adjustment toward peace an introduction abstract the recent experience of el salvador offers valuable lessons for economic policy in post conflictual transitions in the wake of a negotiated settlement to a civil war economic policy must support the adjustment toward peace in the short run policy must promote not only macroeconomic stabilization but also political stabilization this requires the mobilization of resources and the maintenance of political will for implementation of immediate peace related needs such as the reintegration of excombatants into civil society and the strengthening of democratic institutions long run policy objectives must encompass not only the attainment of macroeconomic balances but also equity that is balance in the distribution of income and wealth balanced investment in human natural and physical capital and democratization in the broad sense of a more balanced distribution of power in the end policies which fail to build on the crucial complementarities between peace and development are unlikely to achieve either goal

coping with poor public capital abstract despite recent successes in stabilization and structural reforms in many developing countries the private investment response to date has been mixed even among the strongest reformers this disappointing result can be partly explained by the continued poor provision of public capital and services we test this hypothesis using unique firm level data on investment and provision of public infrastructure services the results suggest that poor complementary public capital significantly reduces private investment however firms can substitute for deficient public services by investing in complementary capital themselves but this comes at a cost less productive capital will be installed

the role of warehouse receipt systems in enhanced commodity marketing and rural livelihoods in africa most african countries have since the 1980s liberalised agriculture without experiencing food crisis as feared by sceptics but the outcome of reforms has been rather disappointing and agricultural markets remain underdeveloped and inefficient one means to improve agricultural marketing which is the focus of this paper is to develop regulated warehouse receipt wr systems the system will curtail cheating on weights and measures ease access to finance at all levels in the marketing chain moderate seasonal price variability and promote instruments to mitigate price risks it will also reduce the need for the government to intervene in agricultural markets and reduce the cost of such interventions if needed the major problem in establishing wr systems in africa is disabling elements in the policy environment drawing on experience from projects implemented in africa during the last decade 1 the authors outline how this challenge can be addressed the most crucial being to build strong stakeholder support behind the initiative 2002 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

agency problem institutions and technology policy explaining taiwan s semiconductor industry development abstract taiwan has made significant progress in the semiconductor industry with government agencies and bureaucrats as the driving forces over the past 30 years taiwan s impressive achievement in the semiconductor industry clearly indicates that the government failures and agency problem usually associated with deep government involvement did not occur in taiwan why is that the case this paper proposes a principal agent framework for technology policy and applies the framework to discuss the institutional arrangements through which bureaucrats were controlled effectively in executing the semiconductor industry policies in taiwan by analyzing the institutional and organizational arrangements taiwanese leaders made to mitigate the agency problem this paper brings bureaucrats into the popular developmental state theory and emphasizes that the success of state intervention should not be taken for granted and it also brings politics into technology policy analysis and stresses the importance and complexity of agency problem in technology policy

financial crisis in southeast asia dispelling illusion the minskyan way this paper extends minsky s financial instability hypothesis to the case of the open liberalised economy making it possible to put forward a specifically minskyan account of the road to the financial crisis in southeast asia 1997 1998 the analysis suggests that the threats to growth and employment emanating from the financial sector which minsky identified in the closed economy setting are much intensified in open liberalised developing economies financial liberalisation is an important key factor in this process rival explanations of the crisis are examined and rejected in favour of the extended minskyan explanation the policy implications are derived and discussed copyright 2002 oxford university press

cultural globalisation institutional diversity and the unequal accumulation of intellectual capital national economies used to be characterised by cultural standardisation and social protection globalisation pushes cultural standardisation beyond the boundaries of national states and induces a global dilution of the standards of social protection at the same time if national economies specialise according to their comparative institutional advantage global economic integration may help promote institutional diversity and variety in welfare policies however the institution of a global system of intellectual property rights may seriously limit the biodiversity of capitalism and imply a global revenge of a new international form of taylorism the overall result may be a very unequal accumulation of intellectual capital paradoxically the modern global economy may end up sharing some aspects of the agrarian societies that have been displaced by modern nation states

credit markets and the control of capital traditional discussions of the role of capital markets have identified a number of distinct functions which they perforrn they allocate scarce capital among competing users and uses l and they provide signals to guide managers in making their investment decisions 2 in this lecture i wish to focus on a rather different function of the capital market what i shall refer to as the control of capital 3 conventional theory treats the typical firrn in an anthropomorphic manner it acts as a single rational individual doing what it is supposed to be doing maximizing stock market value that may have been well and good in those nostalgic bygone days of small firrns each run tightly by their owners who were single mindedly pursuing their lust for wealth but today a majority of production occurs in large corporations in which no shareholder owns more than a small fraction of the shares in which the separation of ownership and control that frank knight was so concerned with in his writings some sixty five years ago has become a reality those

state ownership and the evolution of italian corporate governance state ownership pyramidal groups family trust and a minor role for banks and other financial institutions in the corporate governance of both large and small enterprises are the structural features of italian capitalism today this paper offers a critical analysis of state ownership by analysing the evolution of italian corporate governance since the second world war it concludes that full or majority state ownership of corporations can be effective in separating ownership and control during stages of powerfully accelerating growth and when shifts in the sectoral balance are needed that state owned enterprises must not be burdened with special social objectives and that the system is bound to degenerate without a functioning political market to guarantee democratic changes of parties and power and if the mission culture of public managers is eroded

is the state led industrial restructuring effective in transition china evidence from the steel sector during the reform era the chinese government has been carrying out strategic industrial policies modelled on those in post war japan and south korea in the hope of transforming its highly fragmented manufacturing sector into one that comprises a small number of internationally competitive big businesses using the evolution of the chinese steel industry structure from the late 1980s to the early 2000s as a case in point this paper finds that the chinese government s consolidation attempts have by and large not been very successful the disappointing policy outcome is interpreted by a detailed examination of the industry policy mechanism in china it is concluded that the institutional framework of the chinese state differs from its counterparts in korea and japan in some fundamental aspects among these the fragmented and uncoordinated chinese bureaucracy contributes significantly to the inefficacy of policy implementation

skills or networks success and fundraising determinants in a low performing venture capital market abstract this paper provides a novel interpretation of the factors leading to low performance in venture capital vc markets by using human and social capital perspectives we investigate the relationship between the professional experience and education of vc firm managers and i the success of their portfolio firms on one hand and ii their fundraising activity on the other our study focuses on the french vc market the french business environment is characterized by tight links between businesses and the state and by powerful elite networks while the vc industry has been dominated by government funding and incentives since the global financial crisis we evidence a positive relationship between task specific human capital variables and the exit success of vc backed firms however unlike the research from the us market we find no support for the claim that success determinants impact fundraising activity instead we substantiate the importance of higher social networks for raising larger funds in markets with strong networks

savings investment and the corporation in the east asian miracle abstract the east asian countries have achieved a spectacular average rate of economic growth over the last 30 to 40 years with very substantial diversification and economic development korea for example managed to transform itself from being a largely agricultural society in 1960 to the point where it became the third country after the us and japan to export 256 k memory chips developed by its own firms it is no exaggeration to say that the post wwii development of east asia including japan is the most successful story of sustained economic growth in the history of mankind how does one account for this extraordinary economic success

nobody s business but my own self employment and small enterprise in economic development abstract in most poor countries small firms and self employment are the dominant forms of business enterprise even in the manufacturing sector for rich countries in contrast self employed people account for very small shares of manufacturing employment and output this paper builds on lucas 1978 on the size distribution of business firms bell journal of economics 9 2 508 523 to ask whether structural changes of this kind are driven by productivity differences a model calibrated to japanese time series data is shown to mimic key features of cross country and time series data the results support the idea that changes in aggregate productivity account for much of the cross country variation in establishment size and self employment rates

the financial crisis and bank client relationships foreign ownership transparency and portfolio selection abstract using a unique dataset that matches banks with their client firms we investigate the differences between foreign and domestic banks in a developing country in particular we are interested in examining how foreign banks solve the information asymmetries that characterize lending relationships and whether those relationships have changed since the financial crisis of 2008 foreign banks are likely to limit their lending activity to larger firms or more transparent firms because they are at an informational disadvantage relative to domestic banks we find that foreign banks focus on relationships with foreign listed and larger firms in addition their portfolio is more heavily weighted towards firms in less competitive industries and exporting firms comparing outcomes for 2006 and 2009 we find that banks are more concerned with leverage in 2009 and have reduced the number of firms in their portfolio post crisis

the role of the state in financial markets this paper reexamines the role of the state in financial markets and identifies seven major market failures that provide a potential rationale for government intervention in practice government interventions in capital markets even in industrial countries have been pervasive the paper provides a taxonomy of those interventions with respect to both the objectives they serve and the instruments they employ there is a role for the government in financial markets but the success of government interventions has been mixed it is important that interventions be well designed the paper sets out principles for government regulatory interventions and applies them to prudential regulation it then examines three other areas of intervention directed credit finanical repression and competition policy and identifies circumstances in which some amount of financial repression may actually be beneficial

policy uncertainty in hybrid regimes evidence from firm level surveys cross national surveys suggest that regulatory and policy uncertainty is an important constraint on investment in developing countries yet there has been little direct empirical investigation of the sources of this uncertainty this article presents evidence of an inverted u shaped relationship between firms perceptions of policy uncertainty and political regime type firms in hybrid regimes report higher levels of concern over policy uncertainty than those in either more authoritarian regimes or liberal established democracies the authors argue that the explanation lies with a combination of polarized political competition and limited access to credible information and test their theory using survey data of around 10 000 firms from the world bank european bank for reconstruction and development s business environment and enterprise performance survey from 27 postcommunist countries and five organisation for economic co operation and development countries methodologically the authors propose a means

a positive theory of the predatory state while the distinction between public and private goods is essential in developing a normative theory of non predatory states the focus of this article is on a positive theory of predatory states since the predatory relationship between the state and its subjects depends on the power of the state to grab or to appropriate coercively and the subject s ability to escape or hide the boundaries of the state are decided by the nature of the assets that can be taken more or less easily accordingly i will introduce a new distinction between captive and fugitive assets that positively captures the frontiers of a state space the us railroading in the nineteenth century provides an illustration regarding the explanatory power of an asset appropriating perspective of the state compared to a public goods approach

peer monitoring and credit markets a major problem for institutional lenders is ensuring that borrowers exercise prudence in the use of the funds so that the likelihood of repayment is enhanced one partial solution is peer monitoring having neighbors who are in a good position to monitor the borrower be required to pay a penalty if the borrower goes bankrupt peer monitoring is largely responsible for the successful financial performance of the grameen bank of bangladesh and of similar group lending programs elsewhere but peer monitoring has a cost it transfers risk from the bank which is in a better position to bear risk to the cosigner in a simple model of peer monitoring in a competitive credit market this article demonstrates that the transfer of risk leads to an improvement in borrowers welfare

a quantitative reassessment of the finance growth nexus evidence from a multivariate var abstract the long run relationship between financial development and economic growth is examined in a multivariate vector autoregression var framework using 10 sample countries difficulties surrounding the cross country regressions and bivariate time series studies are outlined the long run financial development and output relationships are identified in a cointegrating framework through tests of over identifying restrictions we find bi directional causality between financial development and economic growth in all the sample countries conclusions that stand distinct from those in the existing empirical literature we attribute our findings to i analysis of a higher dimensional system ii a new method of identifying the long run economic relationships and iii a new approach to long run causality testing

political parties in business rent seekers developmentalists or both ruling party owned conglomerates parbus are emerging in some post conflict african economies following state capture by ethnic parties we offer an analytical framework buttressed by four country case studies of developmental ethnocracies in africa and asia to identify when parbus dominance can be redistributive wealth seeking and when wealth creating four regime characteristics underpin the prospects for wealth creation over rent seeking legitimation angst organisational capacity ideology and degree of state centralisation three evolutionary paths perhaps stages suggest themselves paragonist that is inclusive and growth friendly parasitic engendering a poverty tyranny trap and mutualist exemplified by a destabilising contest among party state and private interests

the economics of the arab spring summary a singular failure of the arab world is the absence of a private sector that is independent competitive and integrated with global markets this paper argues that private sector development is both a political and regional challenge in so far as the private sector generates incomes that are independent of the rent streams controlled by the state it can pose a direct political challenge it is also a regional challenge since fragmented markets deny scale economies to firms and entrench the power of insiders we argue that overcoming regional economic barriers constitutes the single most important collective action problem facing the region since the fall of ottoman empire

competence and contract in the theory of the firm abstract the coase williamson response to the question why do firms exist is based on the idea that transaction costs in viable firms are lower than they would be if production was coordinated through the market the explanatory focus of this argument is on the diminution of costs related to transactions between given individuals however this ignores the possibility of activities which are in principle non contractible including aspects of the process of production further the reliance on comparative statics in transaction cost theory downplays the distinctive kind and rate of human learning that takes place within firms this paper argues that work on organizational learning and cultural transmission reinforces a competence based explanation of the existence and relative efficiencies of firms and this approach can also provide answers to the original question posed by coase accordingly the development of a research program involving a conjoint evaluation of both competence based and transaction cost approaches is proposed

financial liberalization financial sector development and growth evidence from malaysia abstract the objective of this paper is to examine whether financial development leads to economic growth or vice versa in the small open economy of malaysia using time series data from 1960 to 2001 we conduct cointegration and causality tests to assess the finance growth link by taking the real interest rate and financial repression into account the empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization through removing the repressionist policies has a favorable effect in stimulating financial sector development financial depth and economic development are positively related but contrary to the conventional findings our results support robinson s view that output growth leads to higher financial depth in the long run

the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in lebanon this paper investigates the dynamic causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in lebanon over the period 1980 2009 within a bivariate framework imposed on us due to data limitations and in an effort to increase the robustness of our results we employ a variety of causality tests namely hsiao toda yamamoto and vector error correction based granger causality tests we find strong evidence of a bidirectional relationship both in the short run and in the long run indicating that energy is a limiting factor to economic growth in lebanon from a policy perspective the confirmation of the feedback hypothesis warns against the use of policy instruments geared towards restricting energy consumption as these may lead to adverse effects on economic growth consequently there is a pressing need to revise the current national energy policy that calls for a 5 energy conservation target also to shield the country from external supply shocks given its substantial dependence on energy imports policymakers should emphasize the development of domestic energy resources further the most pertinent implication is that relaxing the present electric capacity shortages should be made a national priority in view of its potential positive effect on the economy

firms operating under electricity constraints in developing countries many developing countries are unable to provide their industrial sectors with reliable electric power with the result that many enterprises must contend with an insufficient and unreliable supply of electricity because of these constraints enterprises often opt for self generation of electricity even though it is widely considered a second best solution this paper develops a theoretical model of investment behavior in remedial infrastructure in the presence of physical constraints it then illustrates the model s predictions using a large cross country sample of enterprises from the world bank enterprise survey database electricity intensive sectors in high outage countries are characterized by a significantly lower share of small firms

financial sector reforms in developing countries the indian experience this study is based on the premise that the success failure of financial sector reforms depends heavily on country specific factors and makes an attempt to examine these factors in the indian context the financial sector reforms analysed in this paper include the deregulation of interest rates increasing competition and foreign ownership and the introduction of financial supervision we argue that an economic rationale for a gradualist approach to financial reform is that it is stability enhancing furthermore we suggest that india s complex political economy has resulted in a gradual approach to reform and this approach has been successful along the dimension of banking stability