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Kinds of Countries Terms modified by Countries Selected AbstractsWOMEN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND BENEFIT SHARINGDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 3 2006FATIMA ALVAREZ-CASTILLO ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to show that any process of benefit sharing that does not guarantee the representation and participation of women in the decision-making process, as well as in the distribution of benefits, contravenes a central demand of social justice. It is argued that women, particularly in developing countries, can be excluded from benefits derived from genetic research because of existing social structures that promote and maintain discrimination. The paper describes how the structural problem of gender-based inequity can impact on benefit sharing processes. At the same time, examples are given of poor women's ability to organise themselves and to achieve social benefits for entire communities. Relevant international guidelines (e.g. the Convention on Biodiversity) recognise the importance of women's contributions to the protection of biodiversity and thereby, implicitly, their right to a share of the benefits, but no mechanism is outlined on how to bring this about. The authors make a clear recommendation to ensure women's participation in benefit sharing negotiations by demanding seats at the negotiation table. [source] THE EFFECTS OF TRADE WITH DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ON THE REGIONAL DEMAND FOR SKILL IN THE U.S.: EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY DATA,JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2009Ivan T. Kandilov ABSTRACT Using county-level data from the 1980s and 1990s and a county-level trade measure that incorporates the county's industrial mix and patterns of international trade across industries, I provide new evidence that trade with developing countries raises the demand for skill and the skill premium in the U.S. Consistent with Heckscher,Ohlin, I find that trade driven by differences in factor endowments has an economically significant impact on local labor markets. The evidence suggests that when trade with developing countries rises, counties with higher skill endowment and greater employment in industries with larger trade shares experience greater relative demand for high-skilled labor. [source] THE GLOBAL BANK MERGER WAVE: IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIESTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 4 2002GARY A. DYMSKI This paper reconsiders causes and implications of the global bank merger wave, especially for developing economies. Previous studies of the global bank mergers,that is, mergers between banks from different nations,had assumed that these combinations are efficiency-driven, and that the U.S. case defines the paradigm for all other nations' banking systems. This paper argues that the U.S. experience is unique, not paradigmatic, and that bank mergers are not efficiency-driven; instead, this merger wave has arisen because of macrostructural circumstances and because of shifts over time in banks' strategic motives. This paper argues that large, offshore banks often engage in cross-border mergers because they want to provide financial services to households and firms that have reached minimal threshold wealth levels. For developing economies, this suggests that cross-border acquisitions of local banks by offshore banks will have mixed effects; and it cannot be assumed that the net social impact is positive. [source] OUTPUT ADJUSTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A STRUCTURAL VAR APPROACHTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 1 2002Steven MORLING First page of article [source] TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIESTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 1 2001Huala ADOLF First page of article [source] MEAN REVERSION OF THE FISCAL CONDUCT IN 24 DEVELOPING COUNTRIESTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 4 2010AHMAD ZUBAIDI BAHARUMSHAH In this paper, we examine the mean reverting behaviour of fiscal deficit by analysing the fiscal position of 24 developing countries. Using annual data over the period 1970,2003 and the series-specific panel unit root test developed by Breuer et al. (Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 64 (2002), pp. 527,546), we found the budget process for most developing countries fails to satisfy the strong-form sustainability condition. Further investigation shows the budget process for a majority of the countries is on a sustainable path (weak form) when a one-time, structural break is allowed in the model. Therefore, our empirical results suggest that the budget process in most of the sample countries is in accordance with the intertemporal budget constraint. [source] FOREIGN CAPITAL AND EFFICIENCY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIESBULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008Camilla Mastromarco O47; O57 ABSTRACT This paper uses stochastic frontier methodology to analyse foreign direct investment, imported capital goods and human capital as channels for increased efficiency in less-developed countries. Empirical investigation reveals that developing countries differ with respect to the efficiency with which they use frontier technology. Foreign direct investment and human capital play a significant and quantitatively important role in explaining these differences. [source] INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN THE MILITARY: SECURING OUR COUNTRY, STARTING WITH THE HOME1FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Simeon StammArticle first published online: 13 MAR 200 This Note discusses domestic violence in the military. Currently, in cases of domestic violence in the military, the Case Review Committee uses the Incident Severity Index for Spouse Abuse to determine the severity of abuse. The Case Review Committee uses this index when determining treatment options for the perpetrator of domestic violence. However, this index is extremely inconsistent with the current views and emerging research of domestic violence. This Note identifies the problems with the current system and gives recommendations for ways to improve the system. The Note concludes that a new system would enhance the military's ability to combat domestic violence. [source] CONSIDERING THE SOURCE: DOES THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF FDI MATTER TO ECONOMIC GROWTH?,JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2008Timothy C. Ford ABSTRACT It has long been surmised that firms controlled by different countries may have unequal effects on the host economies in which they locate. By looking at the seven major source countries of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States, we provide empirical evidence that the state growth effects of FDI differ by source country. We attribute these differential growth effects to the relative differences in factor endowments between the source country and the state. The implication of this result is that technology transfer, believed to be the engine of economic growth, becomes more costly the more dissimilar the endowments. [source] Corporate Governance: And the Bargaining Power of Developing Countries to Attract Foreign InvestmentCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2000Enrique Rueda-Sabater Following the rapid growth of foreign investment flows in the 1980s and 1990s some countries that had been dependent on official aid are now (even after the recent financial crises) obtaining most of their external financing from private sources. But low-income countries still receive little private capital flows. Arguing that corporate governance, broadly defined to include many business practices, is an important determinant of inward foreign investment this paper explores links between corporate Governance: And the ability of developing countries to attract foreign investment. It raises policy questions for developing countries and points to the need for complementary actions by government, businesses associations and institutional investors to promote corporate governance improvements. [source] Social Inequality in Education: A Constraint on an American High-Skills FutureCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 4 2007THEODORE LEWIS ABSTRACT Countries everywhere are turning to education in the quest for competitive edge in the global economy. How to attain the high skills needed in new reformed workplaces is a preoccupation that can be observed across developed countries. In this widening discourse of high skills and competitiveness, the U.S. skills production model is being seen as undesirable because it is perceived to be premised upon educational inequality and skills polarization. This article agrees with such characterization of the U.S educational condition. It examines skill tendencies in new reformed workplaces and conceptions of how schools must respond, then interrogates assumptions underpinning college-bound/non-college,bound formulations that would have low socioeconomic status (SES) children pursuing watered-down academic fare, or vocational education, while high SES children are set on college pathways. I contend that curricula approaches that are premised on alternative post-school destinations leave the children of underclasses in the same unfavorable position as their parents, such curricula serving only to reproduce inequality. The article rejects curriculum tracking, and the notion of the non-college bound, and instead argues for the democratization of high status knowledge as the best response to the challenge of a high-skills future. [source] Twenty years of external quality assurance in clinical cell analysis , A tribute to Jean-Luc D'HautcourtCYTOMETRY, Issue 1 2007Bruno Brando Abstract External quality assurance (EQA) programs in clinical cell analysis are now a consolidated item of laboratory practice. All the flow cytometric testings with an impact on clinical decision making have been submitted to regular EQA programs during the last 20 years, and this has produced internationally homogeneous guidelines, with a remarkable improvement in result reproducibility. Jean-Luc D'Hautcourt was a pioneer in this field, and his valuable contributions to flow cytometric method standardization and to the dissemination of the educational aspects of EQA programs are recognized. The different methodological approaches undertaken in the United States and Europe are discussed. The educational role of SIHON in the Benelux Countries and of UKNEQAS for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping worldwide is emphasized. Accredited and accreditating EQA programs require an impressive degree of organization and technical knowledge, so that only major international providers can afford such a task nowadays. However, small local studies still provide the necessary stimulus to the continuous improvement of the scientifical aspects of EQA schemes. © 2006 Clinical Cytometry Society [source] Starter Packs: A Strategy to Fight Hunger in Developing Countries?DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 20082003 edited by Sarah Levy, Lessons from the Malawi Experience 199 No abstract is available for this article. [source] Stroke in Developing Countries: Epidemiology, Impact and Policy ImplicationsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 6 2010Peter Lloyd-Sherlock The burden of stroke and other non-communicable diseases has risen sharply in developing countries in recent years. This article provides a detailed review of this trend and its underlying causes, and discusses the social and economic effects of stroke and the scope for interventions to reduce incidence and mitigate impacts. It demonstrates that policy-makers have been slow to recognise the growing scale of the challenge, and argues for large-scale public health campaigns focused on primary and secondary prevention. [source] Not by Rent Alone: Analysing the Pro-Poor Functions of Small-Scale Fisheries in Developing CountriesDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Christophe Béné The dominant view in academic and policy arenas is increasingly one in which the major contribution of capture fisheries to development should be derived from the capacity of society to maximise the economic rent of fishery resources. Drawing upon empirical experience from the South, this article highlights the potentially disastrous consequences that a universal implementation of the rent-maximisation model would have in developing countries, and argues that a more gradual approach would be preferable. The welfare function of small-scale fisheries, namely, their capacities to provide labour and cash income to resource-poor households, should be preserved until the appropriate macroeconomic conditions for rent-maximisation and redistribution are fulfilled. [source] Debt-Relief Effectiveness and Institution-BuildingDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 5 2009Andrea F. Presbitero This article provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt-relief programmes on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). The relationship between debt relief and institutional change is also investigated to assess whether donors are moving towards ex-post governance conditionality. Results show that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance but is correlated with increasing domestic debt which undermines the positive achievements in reducing external debt service. There is also evidence that donors are moving towards a more sensible allocation of debt forgiveness, rewarding countries which have better policies and institutions. [source] Agro-Food Preferences in the EU's GSP Scheme: An Analysis of Changes Between 2004 and 2006DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 6 2008Federica DeMaria This article examines the extent to which the 2006 revisions to the EU's Generalised System of Preferences improved market-access opportunities for developing-country agro-food exports. It shows that they resulted in only a slight increase in the percentage preferential margin, but that there has been a significant increase in the value of preferential trade and of the preferential margin enjoyed by exporters. This was accompanied by changes in the ranking of beneficiaries. Countries such as China, Brazil, Argentina, India and South Africa maintained their significant shares of GSP agro-food exports, but other countries such as Thailand and Vietnam have now emerged as major GSP beneficiaries. [source] Privatisation in Developing Countries: Performance and Ownership EffectsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008Narjess Boubakri Over the last twenty years, privatisation, defined as the transfer of public assets (firms) from the government to private investors, has been on the reform agenda of more than 120 developing countries. The switch of ownership induces major changes in the corporate governance of firms, and in their incentives to restructure and improve efficiency and performance. This article evaluates this experience, focusing on its impact on corporate performance and governance, identifying several issues yet to be resolved. [source] The Prospects for Foreign Debt Sustainability in Post-Completion-Point Countries: Implications of the HIPC-MDRI FrameworkDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 2 2008Jacinta Nwachukwu The Enhanced HIPC Initiative was launched in 1999 to reduce the Net Present Value (NPV) of foreign debt of the world's poorest countries to a sustainable threshold of 150% of their exports. This article applies a simple growth-with-debt model to 16 post-completion-point HIPCs to assess whether this goal will be met by 2015. Its somewhat optimistic base-case projections suggest that participation in the current Enhanced HIPC-MDRI initiative will only reduce the NPV of their total external debt to 176% of exports by this date. Sensitivity tests which expose these countries to adverse exogenous shocks help draw attention to policies that could ensure that they do not again accumulate unsustainable debt levels. [source] African Countries and the WTO's Dispute Settlement MechanismDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2007Amin Alavi The WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism was designed, inter alia, to secure the ,rule of law' within international trade and provide all members with opportunities to exercise their rights under multilateral trade agreements. But, after ten years, no sub-Saharan African country has yet used the option to initiate a dispute. This article examines what prevents the WTO Africa Group from using the system and critically reviews the solutions they have proposed to remedy this. It concludes by discussing how this reflects broader problems concerning African participation in WTO, and puts forward some alternative proposals. [source] Scaling Up AIDS Treatment in Developing Countries: A Review of Current and Future ArgumentsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2005Jens Kovsted Until recently, antiretroviral treatment against AIDS was perceived to be beyond the reach of the majority of patients in developing countries. This situation has changed drastically as international funding for AIDS treatment has swelled to several billion dollars a year. What has brought about this change? Analysis of the merit of six arguments often put forward against scaling up AIDS treatment in developing countries makes it clear that the most significant (and perhaps only) real change has been the large reduction in the price of the drugs. Although affordability is obviously a central issue, it is noticeable that most of the remaining arguments continue to be unresolved. This underlines the dangers of proceeding too fast towards treatment goals. [source] Affordable Prices for Essential Medicines for Developing Countries: Some Economic IssuesDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Homi Katrak This article discusses some recent developments that may help bring about more affordable prices of essential medicines for developing countries. Governments of developing countries should support campaigns for such prices. Generic competition will also bring gains, though these may differ between different income groups. Enterprises could be persuaded to provide free, or subsidised, medicines for their employees, by the expenditures being allowed against liabilities for profits tax. The UN Global Fund could complement the efforts of public action groups, enhance a government's fiscal capabilities and also encourage other measures to reduce the costs of providing medicines. [source] World Income Distribution and Tax Reform: What Tax Systems Do Low-Income Countries Need?DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2003J. Ram Pillarisetti This article develops a new method for assessing relative direct tax burdens across all countries, treating the world as a single economic entity and assuming identical preferences across countries. Empirical results show that the new direct tax burden indices are significantly high in low-income countries in comparison with middle- and high-income countries. This article argues in favour of narrowing the base of income and capital gains tax in low-income countries and a long-term convergence of the tax burden levels across countries. Future research into tax reforms in low-income countries should focus simultaneously on economic growth, quality of life and the natural environment. [source] Investment and Competition Policy in the WTO: Issues for Developing CountriesDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2002Oliver Morrissey This article uses the case of trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) to examine the liberalisation of investment and its potential impact on developing countries. Very few developing countries actually use TRIMs to any appreciable degree, but, when taken in conjunction with the broader liberalisation of investment, the 1994 TRIMs Agreement has significant implications that will constrain governments' policy options and require issues of competition policy to be addressed. Multilateral competition policy would be difficult to agree and implement and the article considers alternative strategies that developing countries could adopt. [source] Prevalence of illicit drug use in Asia and the PacificDRUG AND ALCOHOL REVIEW, Issue 1 2007MADONNA L. DEVANEY Abstract This paper reports on the prevalence of drug use in Asia and the Pacific. It is based on the report "Situational analysis of illicit drug issues and responses in Asia and the Pacific", commissioned by the Australian National Council on Drugs Asia Pacific Drug Issues Committee. Review of existing estimates of the prevalence of people who use illicit drugs from published and unpublished literature and information from key informants and regional institutions was undertaken for the period 1998-2004. Estimates of the prevalence of people who use illicit drugs were conducted for 12 Asian and six Pacific Island countries. The estimated prevalence of those using illicit drugs ranges from less than 0.01% to 4.6%. Countries with estimated prevalence rates higher than 2% are Cambodia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia. China, Myanmar and Vietnam have estimated prevalence rates ranging between less than 0.01% and 2%. Data to estimate prevalence rates was not available for Pacific Island countries and Brunei. Estimates of the prevalence of drug use are critical to policy development, planning responses and measuring the coverage of programs. However, reliable estimates of the numbers of people using illicit drugs are rare in Asia, particularly the Pacific. [source] Creative Class and Regional Growth: Empirical Evidence from Seven European CountriesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2009Ron A. Boschma abstract This article analyzes the regional distribution and economic effect of the "creative class" on the basis of a unique data set that covers more than 500 regions in 7 European countries. The creative class is unevenly geographically distributed across Europe; the analyses show that a regional climate of tolerance and openness has a strong and positive effect on a region's share of these people. Regional job opportunities also have a large effect on the size of a region's population of the creative class. The findings reveal some evidence of a positive relationship among creative class occupation, employment growth, and entrepreneurship at the regional level in a number of European countries. On the basis of the analysis, however, it is not clear whether human capital, measured by creative occupation, outperforms indicators that are based on formal education, or if formal education has the stronger effect. [source] Innovation and Peripherality: An Empirical Comparative Study of SMEs in Six European Union Member CountriesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2008Andrew Copus Abstract This article examines the rates of innovative activity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in central areas and equally developed but less accessible areas in six European Union member states. The probability of innovating is well predicted by the observable characteristics of firms, entrepreneurial characteristics, and business networks. More accessible areas consistently present higher rates of innovative activity than do their peripheral counterparts. The difference in the rates of peripheral and central areas is decomposed into observable and non-observable factors. The entire innovation gap is attributed to nonobservable factors that constitute a combination of behavior and environment. Innovation policy for SMEs should aim to meet businesses' specific needs (firm-specific factors) and to sustain and improve the innovative environment. [source] After the Black Death: labour legislation and attitudes towards labour in late-medieval western EuropeECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2007SAMUEL COHN The Black Death spurred monarchies and city-states across much of Western Europe to formulate new wage and price legislation. These legislative acts splintered in a multitude of directions that to date defy any obvious patterns of economic or political rationality. A comparison of labour laws in England, France, Provence, Aragon, Castile, the Low Countries, and the city-states of Italy shows that these laws did not flow logically from new post-plague demographics and economics,the realities of the supply and demand for labour. Instead, the new municipal and royal efforts to control labour and artisans' prices emerged from fears of the greed and supposed new powers of subaltern classes and are better understood in the contexts of anxiety that sprung forth from the Black Death's new horrors of mass mortality and destruction, resulting in social behaviour such as the flagellant movement and the persecution of Jews, Catalans, and beggars. [source] The rise of the Amsterdam market and information exchange: merchants, commercial expansion and change in the spatial economy of the Low Countries, c.1550,1630 , By Clé LesgerECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2007Wantje Fritschy No abstract is available for this article. [source] Spanish merino wools and the nouvelles draperies: an industrial transformation in the late medieval Low Countries1ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2005JOHN MUNRO From the seventeenth century, the world's finest wools have been those produced by descendants of the Spanish merino. During the middle ages, however, England produced Europe's finest wools. Not until the fourteenth century does a distinct merino breed appear in Spain; and, before then, 'Spanish' wools were amongst the very worst in Europe, used in the production of only the very cheapest fabrics. By the late fourteenth century, some merino wools were being used in some Italian draperies; but, in the north, long-held historic prejudices against 'Spanish' wools hindered their introduction, especially into the Low Countries' draperies, which, because of structural changes in international trade, had become re-oriented to manufacturing luxury woollens, most woven from the finest English wools. From the 1420s, however, disastrous changes in England's fiscal policies so increased the cost of these exported wools that many of the younger Flemish draperies, the so-called nouvelles draperies, producing imitations of the finer woollens from the older established draperies, decided to switch to Spanish merino wools (often mixed with English wools). By the mid-fifteenth century, the merinos had indeed improved enough in quality to rival at least the mid-range English wools. Most of the traditional draperies, however, did not adopt merino wools until much too late, and thus, by the early sixteenth century found themselves displaced by the nouvelle draperies as the leading cloth manufacturers in the Low Countries. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||