Search

The present study analyzes the offshoring network constructed from the information contained in the Panama Papers, characterizing worldwide regions and countries as well as their intra- and inter-relationships. The Panama Papers 2016 divulgence is the largest leak of offshoring and tax avoidance documentation. The document leak, with a volume content of approximately 2.6 terabytes, involves more than two hundred thousand enterprises in more than two hundred countries. From this information, the offshore connections of individuals and companies are constructed and aggregated using their countries of origin. The top offshore financial regions and countries of the network are identified, and their intra- and inter-relationship are mapped and described. We are able to identify the top countries in the offshoring network and characterize their connectivity structure, discovering the more prominent actors in the worldwide offshoring scenario and their range of influence., Panama Papers; Offshore societies; Tax havens; Geographical networks; Graph Theory; Network Analysis; International Relations; Money; Globalization; Business; Economics

The World Bank and IMF launched the Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative in the context of longstanding criticisms of their structural adjustment programmes. This article examines the process of formulating Ghana's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) from two perspectives. From the perspective of reforming the Bretton Woods institutions, it assesses the extent to which the PRSP approach alters the lending practices of these institutions in Ghana. From the perspective of understanding policymaking in highly indebted, aid-dependent African countries, it reveals the multiple interfaces of politics in such countries produced by relations among and within donors/creditors, the government and non-governmental actors. Its conclusions echo the growing body of literature critiquing PRSPs, and emphasise the constraints which the foreign aid regime places on democratic governance.

Included in this Atlantic Information Centre for Teachers report from a November 1969 seminar for secondary school teachers are the papers presented and brief summaries of the discussions which followed each lecture. Papers express the participant's views and identify some principles and techniques for utilization in secondary schools. It is important for social studies teachers to understand present-day transatlantic interdependence. Major emphasis is upon how the teacher can present to secondary students various historical and contemporary aspects of United States influence on Europe and how schools can provide these students with intellectual tools to understand the world as it changes. Titles under which ideas are presented include: The Socio-Cultural Impact of America on Europe; Problems of the Atlantic Economy; The American Involvement in European Security: The Impact of U. S. Foreign Policy on Europe; Symposium on the Teaching of American History; America in the Classroom: American Studies in British Schools; An American Point of View; and Comments on the Seminar. Lastly, there are several sections with source materials for the teacher and addresses for teaching aid and information. (Author/SJM)

The introductory statement to the plenary session of the Ninth World Congress of the International Political Science Association announces the first of two major themes, politics between economy and culture. This theme is described as investigating the culture-economy dialectic at all levels of politics -- global, territorial, national, community, and individual. The statement describes several models and analytical tools related to the disciplines at the two polar ends of the dialectic: economics and linguistics. The papers presented within this theme are on the following topics: Economic Models for Political Analysis: Markets, Elections, Public Goods; The Cultural Analysis of Political Action: Codes, Meanings, Styles; Models of Policy: Social, Economic, Cultural; Center vs. Periphery: Economic, Culture and Ideological Dimensions of Territorial Conflict; Economic Class and Cultural Identity; The Politics of Linguistic Conflict; Religion as a Factor in Identity-Building; Economy and Culture in the Politics of Nation-Building; The Politics of Regional Integration; Economic Interdependencies and Cultural Entrenchments; The Political Roles of Violence; and the Political Economy of Mass Communications. Instructions for ordering conference materials are included. (Author/KSM)

After decades of reliance upon NATO in security matters, the EU ought to develop security assets of its own in order to protect its interests and citizens. The Common Foreign and Security Policy as an expression of EU readiness and willingness to play a more significant role in security matters on the international stage led to the creation of the European Security and Defence Policy, thus putting at the EU’s disposal civilian and military capabilities for dealing with the crisis spots around the world. The EUBG concept originated with the first member states’ pledges in November 2004 which gave added value to the EU in the security and defence area, at least on paper, while so far no EUBG has been deployed in the theatre of operations.

A kötet azzal a céllal készült, hogy a Nemzetközi vállalatgazdaságtant tanulmányozók számára további támpontokat és ismeretbővítési lehetőségeket adjon magyar nyelven. A műhelytanulmány a nemzetközi üzleti gazdaságtan (international business) öt témaköréről ad áttekintést: az internalizációs elmélet, az intézményi megközelítés, a külpiacra lépés kisvállalati nézőpontból, a leányvállalatok lehetséges szerepei, és végül módszertani megfontolások. A korábbi kötetekhez hasonlóan, a műhelytanulmány fejezeteit a BCE Gazdálkodástani Doktori Iskola PhD hallgatói készítették. ----- The aim of the working paper is to provide insights on selected areas in international business. It is a supplement for the Hungarian language IB textbook. Five fields are covered in the working paper: internalization theory and its extensions, forming institutions in host countries, challenges of foreign market entry for small businesses, roles of subsidiaries in the multinational corporations, and methodological issues in IB. The chapters in the working paper were prepared by the PhD students of the Business and Management PhD School at Corvinus University of Budapest.

POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AND GLOBALIZATION Ambreena Manji, The Politics of Land Reform in Africa: From Communal Tenure to Free Markets. London and New York: Zed Books, 2006. vii + 149 pp. Notes. Index. £50.00. Cloth. £16.99. Paper. Ambreena Manji's book is an insightful analysis of the logic and agencies governing land reform in Africa in the age of neoliberal globalization. Building on World Bank reports and the new laws African governments are adopting to change land relations, the book examines the shift from a redistributive statist model, dominant until the 1970s, to one stressing the formalization of tenurial property, with the introduction of titling and registration, as the thrust of land reform on the continent. A legal scholar, Manji is interested in understanding why the law has come to play a central role in the definition of land reform. She argues that this innovation is consistent with a neoliberal project wherein the law acts as an instrument for the globalization of capitalist relations and the transfer of power from the local to the global, in this case removing the control over land policy from the nation-state and local communities to international "donors" and financial institutions, beginning with the World Bank. She also suggests that the formalization of land relations is an attempt to contain the struggles of rural people's movements which, faced with land grabbing by states, private companies, and local chiefs, and with the state's failure to address the historic injustices that are the legacy of colonialism, are demanding more secure access to land and opting for direct action through land occupations. In her view this pressure from below accounts for the populist language by which land reform is promoted, portraying it as a strategy for "poverty reduction." Manji points to the influence on the World Bank's land policy of Hernando De Soto's theory, according to which Third World rural populations are mired in poverty and economic stagnation because of the continuing existence of communal land tenure regimes which make for uncertain property relations, dampening incentives for investment and rural innovation. Hence the promise that titling and the expansion of land markets will open a new era of development and prosperity for African peasants, if only they could learn that land as such is a "dead asset" that becomes alive only when "brought to the bank" as collateral for the acquisition of rural credit and the financing of rural business. …

The gradual deterioration of the US–China relationship during the Trump era has inspired the development of diverse theoretical approaches to grasping the essence of the two countries’ recent great power rivalry. Although the Cold War analogy is a useful heuristic for making sense of the dynamics of the US–China strategic competition, it is based on the bygone US–Soviet relationship, and thus may lead to misunderstandings about the particular logic of the current US–China relationship. The pitfalls of relying on the Cold War analogy include motivated bias, cognitive bias resulting from framing effects, and potentially missing the real causal variable driving the rivalry. Historical analogies are necessary but not sufficient for grasping the nature of the US–China case. Instead, scholars should ascend the ladder of abstraction to escape the conceptual stretching problem that contributes to misunderstandings in studies of the dynamics of the US–China strategic competition.

In this short essay Professor Rahman attempts two things. One, he surveys the various facets of the regional disparity existing between East and West Pakistan and traces the genesis of some of them. In doing so, he improves upon the analysis of others writing on the issue, yet essentially the information and the treatment are not new. Two, he suggests "an approach to a policy for dealing with the problem of regional disparity in the country, one which would impose the least sacrifice to the national objective". Here he applies his model for "Regional Allocation of Investment" which was published in the February 1963 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. This review will mainly deal with this second part of the essay. The principal argument of Professor Rahman's model runs as follows: In a short-term plan, investment should be concentrated in the region where productivity of capital, as depicted by a lower marginal capital-output ratio (MCOR), is higher. But in a long-term plan, one should also consider the marginal reinvestment coefficient (MRC) which is the product of marginal rate of saving (MRS) and the reciprocal of MCOR. This is because a region with a higher MCOR may yet have a higher MRC due to a sufficiently higher MRS. In such a case, earlier investment allocation should be concentrated in the region with higher MRC, since the immediate loss of output will be more than offset by the future growth in output from higher reinvestment. But as the terminal date of the plan horizon draws nearer investment has to be shifted towards the region with higher productivity, i.e., lower MCOR, because, after a break-even point, there will not be enough time left for the higher MRC to recover the loss due to lower productivity. Other side conditions of the programming model, such as employment objectives, removal of regional disparity, may prevent full exploitation of the advantage of higher MRC of a region.

The European Union (EU) has faced not only the international financial crisis, but also the European banking and the sovereign debt crisis. A lack of efficient regulations and supervision were a serious cause of recent developments. As a reaction, the EU finally implemented a framework covering both micro- and macro-prudential policies. Measures such as the new capital requirements, the deposit guarantee schemes, the green paper on shadow banking and, most importantly, the new approach for a macro-prudential supervision are headed towards crisis prevention. However, the challenge is to define regulations enhancing financial stability, which, at the same time, do not prevent institutions from generating reasonable financial risks and do not reduce growth. In that regard, the presented measures still have deficits which have to be faced. Furthermore, coordination between various authorities and the European Commission remains another challenge.