Business Economics articles from July 1999

Business Economics archives from July 1999

Latin America: shifting to new paradigms.(political and economic transformations)
July 1, 1999... THE IMAGE OF LATIN AMERICA IS CHANGING, BOTH POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY. Latin America, from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego, is often considered a critical strategic and economic partner of the United States. It holds the United...

Mexico today: bouncing back from the peso crash.(prospects for growth)
July 1, 1999... RECOVERING FROM DEVALUATION AND RECESSION, MEXICO HAS THE BEST PROSPECTS FOR GROWTH IN LATIN AMERICA. Mexico made the headlines in December 1994 when the devaluation of its currency took the international financial community by surprise....

Central America today: recovering from natural disasters, Central America is attracting foreign investment.
July 1, 1999... Against the odds, the Central American economies have made substantial progress and are moving closer to achieving a common market. Buffeted by natural disasters, first El Nino, and then the devastation of Hurricane Mitch last October, these...

Country risk and a quick look at Latin America: how to analyze exchange risk, economic policy risk and institutional risk.
July 1, 1999... Management teams usually have well-established methods to assess the riskiness of a business transaction or project in their home country. Move the project into another country, however, and another dimension of uncertainty overlays the...

Whither hemispheric integration?
July 1, 1999... HEMISPHERIC ACCORD MAY TAKE A DECADE, BUT SUBREGIONAL AGREEMENTS MAY BE ENOUGH TO ATTRACT COMMERCE AND INVESTMENT Free trade has become a mantra for the Western Hemisphere. Partly out of conviction and partly in response to outside...

No saving crisis in the United States: measures other than the personal saving rate put the saving "crisis" in perspective.
July 1, 1999... The personal saving rate in the United States fell to virtually zero in the second half of 1998, and, in early 1999, it has been negative. The last time the saving rate was negative was in 1933. These results have evoked two sorts of concerns:...

Protecting against the next financial crisis: the need to reform global financial oversight, the IMF, and monetary policy goals.
July 1, 1999... For many years I have been speaking, writing, and testifying to Congress on the inadequacies of the present outmoded system for supervising and regulating financial institutions and markets on a global basis. I have long believed that those...

The business economist at work: Argus Research Corporation.
July 1, 1999... As with many professions, the practical functions performed daily by the financial markets economist have little to do with the theory taught in graduate school. And yet those daily functions, duties, and responsibilities can best be summed up...

Reality check, or the alchemy of long-range industrial forecasting.
July 1, 1999... Forecasting is such an irresistible endeavor: Who would not like to know the future? All private sector firms, government agencies, and nonprofit institutes like to predict demand or market size for their goods or services. The idea of planning...

Litigation and public policy: two more areas where consulting economists dare to tread.
July 1, 1999... The very nature of consulting means that no projects are routine - they each have different objectives, data, and processes associated with them. Consultants are adept at adapting. This is especially true with the fields of forensic economics...

A closer look at the Employment Cost Index.
July 1, 1999... Many economic analysts believe the employment cost index is the best available measure of U.S. labor costs. For example, Abate referred to the ECI as "the best measure of compensation costs," and Griggs and Santow, Inc., described the ECI as...

Changes in the US international transactions accounts.
July 1, 1999... Beginning with the release on June 17 of this year's annual revision of the U.S. international transactions (balance of payments accounts), the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will introduce several important changes in presentation in...

Windows on the Web.(economic data sources on the World Wide Web)(Column)
July 1, 1999... In our previous column, we started our tour of economic sites on the Web by looking at some of the resources available from the Federal Reserve. This time, we take a broader look at some of the economic data sources that can help you in your...

Rationality Gone Awry? Decision Making Inconsistent with Economic and Financial Theory.(Review)
July 1, 1999... By Hugh Schwartz, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998, 209 pp., hardcover, $65.00. In the past few years, it has become quite acceptable (some would even say "fashionable") in economics to challenge the heroic portrait of human...

Foundations of Organizational Strategy.(Review)
July 1, 1999... By Michael C. Jensen, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 414 pp., hardcover, $45.00. Foundations of Organizational Strategy, a collection of papers' and articles by Harvard Business School Professor Michael C. Jensen, has only...