Finance & Development articles from March 2003

Finance & Development archives from March 2003

From the editor.(Editorial)
March 1, 2003... AS WE GO to press, the possibility of military conflict casts a shadow over the global economic outlook--and especially the economic outlook for the Middle East and North Africa. The March. issue of Finance & Development focuses on this region,...

Poverty debate. (Letters to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... Reading the articles on poverty reduction in your June 2002 issue, I was surprised and concerned to learn that my country, Peru, had not yet prepared a poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP). However, I welcomed the recommendation made in the...

IMF loans to autocratic regimes. (Letters to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... In "Prolonged Use of IMF Loans" (December 2002), the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) is correct in pointing out the negative repercussions of allowing frequent borrowing from the IMF. An additional unintended outcome is the implicit...

Measuring potential debt. (Letters to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... Christina Daseking's article, "Debt: How much is too much?" (December 2002), highlights some important issues regarding the monitoring of debt in IMF member countries, including the tracking of contingent liabilities. I was surprised, however,...

Odious debt. (Letters to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... Michael Kremer and Seema Jayachandran courageously address a politically sensitive issue in "Odious Debt" (June 2002). Clarification of what constitutes odious debt and consensus on a solution are needed. Borrowing money to buy...

Tracking capital flows. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The IMF is building a database to track the volatility of international capital flows. The Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) database will make it easier to estimate portfolio investment and associated income flows, promote...

Glass half full. (In Brief).(International Monetary Fund changes )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The IMF has changed the way it measures its liquidity to provide a clearer idea of its capacity to make new nonconcessional loans. The new measure, known as the one-year forward commitment capacity (FCC), gives policymakers and analysts for the...

How things have changed. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... "In the 1940s, it was common to think of women economists as researchers but not as operators negotiating with countries or as formulators of economic policy in responsible positions," says Margaret de Vries, the 2002 winner of the Carolyn Shaw...

Watchdog appraisal. (In Brief).(International Monetary Fund evaluation)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) will assess the IMF's role in Argentina as one of three evaluation projects planned for the 2003/04 financial year, IEO Director Montek Singh Ahluwalia announced. The IEO will also assess the IMF's...

Lost decade. (In Brief).(new book - Japan's Lost Decade: Policies for Economic Revival)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A new book from the IMF, Japan's Lost Decade: Policies for Economic Revival, tracks the story of Japan's prolonged slump and suggests strategies for revival. It can be ordered from IMF Publication Services.

Some things don't change. (30 Years Ago in F&D).
March 1, 2003... "What 'income' is, and how it should be measured, still causes a major schism within the accounting profession, and between accountants, on the one hand, and economists and statisticians on the other.... The unfortunate truth is that, at...

Safe to drink. (In Brief).(Water Resources)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The United Nations is putting the spotlight on water resources this year. It has designated 2003 as the International Year of Fresh Water and in March will present its World Water Development Report, the first in a series of reports to be...

Joblessness rising. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) found that two years of economic slowdown has pushed the number of people worldwide without jobs to a record 180 million, with little prospect of improvement in the global employment...

Jacks of all trades. (In Brief).(Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is launching the second phase of a program to help developing countries)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is launching the second phase of a program to help developing countries negotiate better in the new round of world trade talks. A series of technical seminars will enable countries to analyze the...

The lab man: how experimental economics emerged from the shadows. (People in Economics).(Vernon L. Smith)(Interview)
March 1, 2003... Jeremy Clift interviews Nobel Prize winner Vernon L. Smith VERNON SMITH ISN'T ONE TO STAND on ceremony. In fact, he had to practice bowing before receiving his Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden. "They were scared to death that I was going...

Unfulfilled promise: why the Middle East and North Africa region has lagged in growth and globalization.
March 1, 2003... THE MIDDLE EAST and North Africa (MENA), a region of almost 500 million people, benefited immensely from the wealth created by the sharp increase in oil prices in the 1970s. The explosion of investment and growth in the oil-exporting countries...

Living better: improving human development indicators in MENA will require different approaches to health, education, and social protection.(Middle East and North Africa)
March 1, 2003... SINCE the 1970s, the MENA region has made significant progress on the social front. Fueled by paternalistic state welfare policies and funded by the 1970s oil boom, most countries drastically expanded access to publicly provided social services...

Wanted: more jobs: high unemployment in the MENA region presents formidable challenges for policymakers.(Middle East and North Africa)
March 1, 2003... THE POPULATION of the MENA region is one of the fastest growing in the world. It has nearly quadrupled since 1950 and is expected to double over the next 50 years. However, jobs have not grown as fast as the region's workforce. Employment...

Failed legacies: escaping the ghosts of central planning.(Middle East and North Africa)
March 1, 2003... MANY OF THE MENA countries are grappling with the failed legacies of central planning, including unviable state companies, bloated bureaucracies, a narrow tax base, and expensive subsidies. Public sector reform is one of the keys to...

Banking on development: further reform of financial sectors holds promise for the MENA countries.(Middle East and North Africa)
March 1, 2003... AS THE MENA countries look for A ways to jumpstart growth, further financial sector reform should be made a priority. A more developed financial system--with lower information and transaction costs--facilitates a more efficient allocation of...

Should MENA countries float or peg? As they open up their economies, MENA countries may need to rethink their exchange rate regimes.(Middle East and North Africa)
March 1, 2003... SINCE the currency crises of the 1990s, economists have devoted a great deal of effort to empirical and theoretical studies of exchange rate regimes in developing countries. The initial consensus that developing countries that are highly...

Middle east to dominate world oil for many years. (Picture This).
March 1, 2003... OIL HAS DOMINATED world energy consumption for many decades, although its share has declined from almost 50 percent in 1975 to about 40 percent at present. This decline is due to improvements in energy efficiency; consumers' switch to...

What goes up...why oil-producing states must husband their resources.
March 1, 2003... OIL-PRODUCING countries face special challenges in managing their economies, not just because oil prices and revenues are highly volatile and hard to predict but also because they must plan for the time when the oil runs out. The uncertainty of...

Managing oil wealth: The political economy of oil-exporting countries--why some of them have done so poorly.
March 1, 2003... THE ECONOMIC record of mineral-exporting countries has generally been disappointing. Oil exporters, in particular, have done far less well than resource-poor countries over the past few decades, especially when one considers the big revenue...

Commodity currencies: developing countries reliant on commodity exports see the fate of their exchange rates tied to fickle commodity markets.
March 1, 2003... FOR decades, economists have tried with little success to model long-run movements in real--that is, adjusted for inflation--exchange rates. Almost all of the studies have focused on industrial countries, trying to pinpoint whether fundamentals...

Dutch disease: too much wealth managed unwisely. (Back to Basics).
March 1, 2003... MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, the celebrated sixteenth-century Spanish author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, once said that "the gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application." This...

Who is accountable? (Book Reviews).(The Ills of Aid: An Analysis of Third-World Development Policies )(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Eberhard Reusse The Ills of Aid An Analysis of Third-World Development Policies University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 2002, 127 pp., $20.00/[pounds sterling]14.00 (cloth). THIS delightful little book should be...

Globalization's dark side. (Book Reviews).(Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Roger Porter, Pierre Sauve, Arvind Subramanian and Americo Beviglia Zampetti (editors) Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2001, xvi + 444...

Democratization would help. (Book Reviews).(Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Clement M. Henry and Robert Springborg Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East CLEMENT M. HENRY and Robert Springborg, academic scholars based, respectively, at the University of Texas and the American Research...

Less government is better. (Book Reviews).(Globalization and Firm Competitiveness in the Middle East and North Africa Region)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Samiha Fawzy (editor) Globalization and Firm Competitiveness in the Middle East and North Africa Region The Mediterranean Development Forum and the World Bank, 2002, 278 pp. $35.00 (paper). THERE is little question that the...

From fixed to flexible. (Book Reviews).(Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Regimes: Options for the Middle East )(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Elina Cardoso and Ahmed Galal (editors) Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Regimes Options for the Middle East Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, Cairo, 2002, xi + 338 pp. (paper). THESE papers offer comprensive coverage of...

The status quo versus reform. (Book Reviews).(State-Owned Enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa: Privatization, Performance and Reform Routledge)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Merih Celasun (editor) State-Owned Enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa Privatization, Performance and Reform Routledge, London and New York, 2001, xx + 300 pp., $95.00/[pounds sterling]68.00 (cloth). THE Middle East and...

A vote against grandiose schemes: trying to regiment coordination of dollar, yen, and euro monetary policy isn't worth the risks and costs. (Straight Talk).
March 1, 2003... AT THE END of the 2001 Academy-award winning film, A Beautiful Mind (based on Sylvia Nasar's biography of 1994 Nobel Prize winner John Nash), we are told that one of the major applications of Nash's theory of strategic interaction is to...