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Effects of globalization have amplified the magnitude and frequency of corporate abuses, particularly in developing economies where weak or absent rules undermine social norms and principles. Improving multinational enterprises' (MNEs) ethical conduct is a factor of both the ability of firms to change behaviors in the direction of the moral good, and their willingness to do so. Constraints and enablers of a firm's ability to act ethically emanate from the external environment, including the industry environment of which the firm is a resident, and the host country environment in which it operates. A firm's willingness to engage in ethical conduct is determined by the effective bundling of internal resources and the commitment of those resources to social ends. The interaction of external and internal conditions carves out categories of expected firm behaviors and suggests interventions that would push these behaviors in a more positive ethical direction. With reference to integrative social contracts theory (ISCT), these categories of firms are examined, and a conceptual model for analysis is developed to explain the drivers of corporate choices in the adoption and implementation of codes of conduct, and the relative power of relevant communities to the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging countries are using privatization as a key strategy in their drive to become free market economies. Although these ownership changes are rapidly gaining prominence, the academic literature has been equivocal about the performance benefits of private vs. state ownership. The lack of clarity in findings can be largely traced to the underspecification of the models that prior studies have examined. Specifically, prior studies have mostly ignored the central role of competitive rivalry. This paper proposes a model that centers around the interactive, inseparable effects of ownership and competitive rivalry on firm performance. Results of the empirical examination set in India show that competitive intensity moderates the relationship between ownership and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Countries' transition into non-traditional exports attracts policy attention. We unpack the channels behind this evolution. • We combine cross-country exports data (1990–2010) with measures of Marshallian linkages: technology, labor and input-output. • We find that countries tend to diversify towards technologically related products. • Developing countries also tend to diversify upstream of current exports, not through downstream processing. • This last finding is consistent with Albert Hirschman's claim in his classical work of 1958. Abstract The transition into non-traditional export activities attracts important policy and academic attention. Using international trade data, we explore how alternative linkages relate to the take-off and acceleration of export industries. Concretely, we run a horse-race among alternative Marshallian linkages across sectors: input-output relations, technology and labor. Technology has a predictive power depending on the specification used. We consistently find, however, that export take-offs are more likely to occur in sectors that are upstream to already competitive export industries. Our findings, which are mostly driven by developing economies, are consistent with Albert Hirschman's 60-year-old view that the forces behind upstream linkages fueled the growth of new competitive industries in the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Un aspecto fundamental de los países en desarrollo es la existencia de un gran sector informal. En el presente trabajo se analiza el efecto que este rasgo tiene sobre la relación entre las variaciones en el desempleo y el crecimiento de la producción en el caso de México, un país que se caracteriza por la existencia de un gran sector informal. Partiendo de estudios recientes sobre el coeficiente de Okun, en primer lugar, pondremos a prueba si la relación ente los componentes cíclicos de desempleo y producción es asimétrica. A continuación, exploraremos la posibilidad de que esta relación no lineal pueda verse afectada por variaciones en el sector informal. Nuestros resultados apuntan a la existencia de una relación asimétrica entre los componentes cíclicos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze if and how country- and sector-related contingency factors affect the implementation of TQM practices and various performance measures within a TQM-performance relationships model framework.Design/methodology/approach The authors used data from 156 firms in Turkey and 132 firms in North Cyprus (NC) to test the model relationships by utilizing multiple group structural equation modeling (SEM).Findings The study finds support for both the universal and the contingency argument within the context of country and sector analyses. Although our findings suggest no differences across the two countries, the authors find evidence for differences across sectors in terms of their TQM practices and performance outcomes. In the case of NC firms, the direct effects of TQM on human resource results and customer results constituted the missing linkages in the performance excellence framework.Research limitations/implications This study suffers from the same limitations common to all survey research. However, it contributes strongly to the limited TQM contingency research by providing new findings and insights. This study must be replicated in different countries and other types of contextual factors must be used to determine if and how they moderate the model relationships. Other theories are also needed to better explain some of the relationships.Practical implications There needs to be a more holistic approach to quality management and increased institutional support for quality initiatives in developing countries. Through proper alignment and integration of their different components, organizations can realize maximum improvement in their business results. Understanding the sector level contingencies before implementing a performance excellence model is also recommended.Social implications The study has several social, economic and policy implications, including the need to improve employees’ work environment to improve their lives and prevent brain drain; to pass legislation to improve lax consumer laws; to found quality institutes to promote the education, training, qualification and professional development of employees working in the various sectors of the economy; and for government and employers to realize the importance of valuing stakeholders and delivering value and results to them to ensure long-term success.Originality/value This is one of the few studies in TQM contingency research that tests various relationships among TQM and business results by using country and sector as contingency factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an investigation of factors that stimulate the decision-making process of exporting firms from a European Lesser Developed Country (LDC) to continue and sustain export activities. The paper explores the existence of dimensions underlying export motivation and identifies potentially significant differences in perceptions of export stimuli based on firm size, degree of export involvement, and exporting experience. The findings point to a more proactive (than reactive) motivation structure underlying the export activities of these manufacturers. While no relationship is found between perceptions of export motivation and firm size, a number of significant differences in ongoing export stimuli are identified between different groups of firms in terms of export involvement and, to a lesser extent, exporting experience. Managerial and public policy implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market researchers analyzing underdeveloped countries' markets have limited data sources at their disposal. There are many of these markets, but their total potential is relatively small. A need exists to describe and analyze these markets despite the data limitations. This article indicates techniques that may be useful in doing the job without the analyst incurring inordinate expense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are profitable markets in the less-developed countries (LDCs) of the world. To lump all of these markets together into something called international marketing is a mistake. Profits will be made by those marketers understanding the real differences In each of these markets. This article points out how marketers must adapt their policies and practices to meet the socioeconomic circumstances of national and regional markets overseas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the distribution system that is being developed in Tanganyika. This development should be of interest to people concerned with marketing systems as it may very well be the model upon which other developing nations base their domestic distribution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how combining global value chain and innovation system approaches can help to foster an understanding of the possible trajectories that learning and innovation may take in developing countries. Based on the wealth of empirical evidence collected in the special issue, we introduce the notion of the co-evolution of global value chains and innovation systems and outline a framework for investigating the interaction between the two in a dynamic perspective with multiple trajectories. We find that, in some cases, there is an improvement in local innovation capabilities with potentially positive effects on overall competitiveness, while in others there is little progress or even a loss of previous innovation capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains how successful innovation systems interact with trade and global value chains (GVC) participation to foster learning and technological upgrading. It conducts an empirical investigation of 74 developing countries for 3 years, 2000, 2005 and 2010, to show that, while some countries manage to trade and export across a large number of technological export categories, many remain embedded in the export of low technology goods with little movement technologically. The analysis looks at why this is the case and what factors account for how firms are able to leverage trade to learn and upgrade in some instances, but not all. The results show that the ability to technologically diversify across export categories is linked to stronger innovation systems, as measured by national capability indicators, such as public R&D investments, scientific publications, intellectual property payments and patents by residents. The results also confirm the rise of several outperforming countries, the emerging economies. We conclude that, in successful, outperforming countries, firms rely on several attributes of the innovation system to leverage knowledge flows within and outside of GVCs to build export capacity and diversify horizontally into new GVCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the relationship between participation in global value chains (GVCs) and countries’ innovation performance. We use the recently released world input-output database to build spillover variables by weighting the aggregate R&D stock of partners supplying inputs with two alternative measures of participation in GVCs: the share of foreign value added in a country’s gross exports and the offshoring index. We use these indicators to test empirically the relationship between a country’s innovation performance, proxied by patent per capita, and spillovers generated by GVCs. Our results show that the involvement in GVCs, in particular for developing countries importing inputs from advanced economies, is positively related with a country’s innovation outcome suggesting that international fragmentation of production can indeed be a channel allowing for international technology transfer from developed to developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the impact of export diversification in developing countries and particularly Least developed countries (LDCs) on the relative preferential margin that they enjoy in accessing preference-granters' market. The analysis is carried out in a gravity-type model comprising 19 developed countries and 54 beneficiaries of non-reciprocal trade preferences from these developed countries, over the period 2002-2007. The empirical analysis suggests a non-linear relationship between the degree of export diversification in developing countries and the relative preferential margin that they benefit from developed preference-granting countries. However, it appears that the latter encourage LDCs to diversify their export products by providing them with higher trade preference advantages compared to their competitors in their markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses whether the export performance of least developed countries (LDCs) has improved after the adoption of the 2005 multilateral Hong Kong Ministerial decision on duty free quota free (DFQF) market access for products originating from LDCs, as compared to the period before the adoption of this decision. The empirical analysis shows that this has indeed been the case. This decision has exerted a far higher positive effect on LDCs’ export performance of primary products than on their export performance of manufactured products. It would therefore be desirable that DFQF preference schemes be better utilized to diversify LDCs’ exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption research supports the arguments of an increase in the credibility of corporate financial information. We investigate the association between IFRS adoption and foreign direct investments (FDI) inflows. The aim is to analyse several characteristics of the adoption process specific to European emerging countries. Our results indicate that the countries adopting IFRS are more likely to benefit from a higher increase in FDI inflows than the non-adopters. Additional tests reveal that the impact is driven by the adoption level related both to listed and unlisted companies. IFRS adoption by unlisted companies has a lower impact on FDI inflows, as compared to IFRS adoption by listed companies. Furthermore, difference-in-difference analysis illustrates a higher increase of FDI inflows after adopting IFRS in the case of non-European Union (EU) countries as compared to EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the first “oil shock” of 1973 / 74 has been extensively researched by historians, the crisis' impact on oil-importing countries of the “Third World” has received relatively little attention. The article deals with this lacuna by considering the exemplary case of Zambia. It asks how this central African country perceived the oil crisis and dealt with its effects and how it was influenced by it in the medium term. Comparing the country with both Western industrial states and other “developing countries,” the essay argues that Zambia, having just experienced a decade of growth and profiting from record high copper revenues, only belatedly realized the dangers of the situation, but was particularly hard hit in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Wealth of Nations," by Adam Smith is presented. Topics discussed include how Smith acknowledged labor implications of the expansion of developing nations into manufacturing and commerce, factors associated with population structures such as fertility and mortality, and potential reasons behind the stagnation of agricultural societies.

Management has a large effect on the productivity of medium and large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? We develop 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and financial planning. These questions have been administered in surveys in Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. We show that variation in business practices explains as much of the variation in outcomes-sales, profits, and labor productivity and total factor productivity-in microenterprises as in larger enterprises. Panel data from three countries indicate that better business practices predict higher survival rates and faster sales growth. The association of business practices with firm outcomes is robust to including numerous measures of the owner's human capital. We find that owners with higher human capital, children of entrepreneurs, and firms with employees employ better business practices. Data, as supplemental material, are available at . This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While earlier studies focus on credit booms in advanced and emerging market countries, this paper examines the characteristics and determinants of credit booms in developing countries. The results find that credit booms in developing countries are less likely to be associated with systemic banking crises. Rather, they are more likely to be the result of financial deepening than of dangerous buildups of financial risks; the prevention of credit booms in developing countries may thus be associated with higher opportunity costs in terms of foregone growth opportunities. Random effect probit and tobit regressions find some evidence that credit booms are likely to start when the economy is expanding and if the financial sector is larger. Although monetary and fiscal policies do not help in preventing credit booms in developing countries, we find that prudential regulations and supervision can play a much more effective role in preventing 'bad' booms, while incurring substantially lower costs. Although 'bad' booms are hard to identify ahead of time, the duration and size of booms, as well as the level of credit aggregates, appear to be useful indicators in determining them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational crime brings substantial foreign capital into a number of fragile and developing states. Yet the economic and political impacts of such capital have rarely been studied, due to the challenges of obtaining accurate data on illicit activities. We overcome this challenge by compiling a dataset on the amount and disbursement dates of ransom payments made by ship owners and insurers to Somali pirates from 2005 to 2012, along with sub-national commodity prices and trade flows in Somalia. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that ransoms have effects similar to those associated with the Dutch Disease. These effects include appreciating the local currency, decreasing export competitiveness, and increasing import dependence. Our results illuminate a new and distinct channel through which illicit capital can undermine long-term economic development and foster an economic and political dependency on illicit sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro and small enterprises in developing countries rarely upgrade and grow. The reasons are disputed. Recently, the 'Doing Business' reports strongly influenced the policy agenda, attributing small enterprise stagnation mainly to excessive bureaucracy and over-regulation. They claim a strong causal relationship running from regulatory reform and formalisation to business performance and overall economic growth and advocate reforms to reduce the complexity and cost of regulation. Our findings from research in the Philippines, India and Egypt challenge this view. Bureaucratic hurdles are of secondary importance. Entrepreneurs who want to formalise are usually able to do so. Formalisation usually comes after a firm has upgraded, i.e. when the entrepreneur perceives that the advantages of formalisation outweigh its disadvantages. Success in upgrading is strongly related to entrepreneurial attitudes and skills: know-how, proactive search for market opportunities, risk-taking attitude and creativity in dealing with financial constraints and deficits in the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By modeling an international industry where developed and developing countries' firms reciprocally trade differentiated goods under global pollution and the incomplete internalization of the pollution externality, we examine the firms' dumping and anti-dumping duty (ADD). We assume that the product quality, pollution emissions, and consumer's pollution internalization are worse in the developing country. We find, among others, that the developing country's firm always conducts dumping, but the developed country's firm only does so under a certain condition and that if the two countries' internalization degrees of the pollution externality are the same, the firms' dumping disappears, regardless of product qualities and units of pollution emissions. We also show that a rise in the developed (developing) country's ADD decreases (increases) global pollution and that a rise in a country's ADD always decreases its rival country's welfare, but there is the possibility that it also reduces its own welfare in a certain case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization primarily tasked with the function of liberalising trade. It acts as a forum where Members meet to negotiate and take decisions on their trade-related issues. However, developing country Members, which comprise the majority of the WTO's membership, have become increasingly dissatisfied with the fact that their interests are continually not being met at the majority of the WTO negotiations and even in relation to already existing WTO Agreements. One of the many complaints of such Members of the WTO is the decisionmaking process, which, in their view, is exclusionary and inherently biased and produces asymmetrical agreements. This article analyses the decision-making process of the WTO from the perspective of developing countries to examine the validity of these complaints while also making a comparative analysis of the decision-making mechanisms of other international organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the potential association of investment treaties with the quantity and cost of capital flows to developing countries. Whereas previous research on the effect of bilateral investment treaties (BIT) on capital flows has focused almost exclusively on direct foreign investment (DFI), this article examines total flows of all types. It also asks a question ignored by previous studies: Do investment treaties affect the cost that a developing country must pay for the capital it receives? Instead of viewing investment treaties as just international legal instruments prescribing rights and duties, the article also examines their role as information to international capital markets. Relying on insights from the economics of information and signaling theory, it argues that investment treaties influence capital flows through the signals they send to international capital markets. Accordingly, it creates a model of a “Strong BIT Signal Country” and proceeds to identify twenty-six countries that fit the model, while identifying for comparative purposes fifteen countries deemed to be “Weak Signal BIT Countries.” An analysis of capital flows to both groups of countries finds that the Strong Signal BIT Countries experienced significant increased capital inflows following the completion of their BIT negotiation program and also reveals that they outperformed the Weak Signal BIT countries in this respect. Using data on sovereign credit ratings and World Bank governance indicators on the rule of law, the author also finds that several countries experienced an improvement in both indicators following the conclusion of their BIT programs, leading to the inference that such improvement might also be associated with a reduction in a country’s risk premium and therefore a decline in its cost of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of intellectual property rights ( IPRs) in contractual research and development (R&D) in developing countries. We find that strong IPRs provide incentives for firms, both multinational and local, to specialize in R&D activities in which they have competitive advantage (the specialization effect). They also facilitate the switching process from imitators to potential innovators for local firms (the switching effect). Moreover, we also demonstrate that a multinational firm's strategic IPRs enforcement behavior can be an effective instrument for subsidizing contractual R&D in developing countries (the subsidizing effect). We further illustrate how a policy mix of IPRs and a foreign direct investment subsidy in these countries affects R&D activities by adding an offshore R&D subsidiary as an additional organizational form. ( JEL L13, O31, O34) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To encourage new research on the role of institutions in the entrepreneurial process in less developed countries (LDCs), the authors propose a conceptual framework to investigate concurrent institutional constraints. The authors define these constraints as geopolitical contexts that encounter simultaneous challenges to well functioning formal and informal institutions. Systems of stronger institutions compensating for weaker institutions are hampered in these settings and such systems weigh heavier on local entrepreneurs and further challenge their ability to mobilize resources and access market opportunities. By investigating the extreme operating conditions of these settings, scholars gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs confront operational dilemmas and express agency through engaging with bricolage and cultural entrepreneurship. To animate these proposals, the authors consider a case illustration of a venture operating under such constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo discurre sobre la relación entre la mejora de la producción de bienes y el progreso de un país. Los autores comentan sobre los desafíos asociados con abriendo la economía de un país al exterior o protegiendo el sector de la competencia del exterior. También se considera el posible impacto en el desarrollo de un país emergente.

Summary The Aid for Trade (AfT) Initiative was launched in 2005 at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference where high-income countries pledged to increase their AfT contributions to developing countries. AfT, comprised almost entirely of aid for trade-related infrastructure and building productive capacity, would promote growth by easing supply-side constraints and improving transportation, energy, and communication infrastructure. By lowering costs of operating in recipient countries, AfT may increase both trade and investment. Most research on the effects of AfT on international transactions focuses on trade. The sparse research on investment investigates aid and net foreign direct investment flows based on the international balance of payments. We contribute to the literature by assessing AfT effects on new greenfield investment. Using bilateral data for 25 donor and 120 recipient countries for the period 2003–13, we find that bilateral AfT promotes greenfield investment. Our preferred specification includes bilateral and country-time fixed effects and employs the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator. Robust effects emerge between the top five donors and more developed recipient countries, cases where aid flows are large. Thus, we see evidence that a critical level of aid is required to encourage greenfield investment. Both aid for infrastructure (particularly, transportation and energy) and building productive capacity are found to exert strong effects. To the extent that greenfield investment creates jobs and generates technology transfer, it appears that AfT is accomplishing its development objectives, at least with regard to the more advanced recipient countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the paper is to explore potential changes in trade induced by a liberalization scenario when taking into account persistence in trading partners. Our approach is based on the development of a gravity model that takes into account the dynamics at the extensive margin of trade as well as the persistence effect of the intensity of trade. Our empirical contribution is on the egg sector, where the persistence in trading partners is acute. Our results indicate that the use of static models underestimate imports of table eggs by more than 50% in Canada, when compared with the use of panel dynamic specification. The dynamic specification helps explain why trade liberalizations often increase trade creation between countries that had already been trading partners, while new trading partnerships remain scarce following trade liberalization. Our results also confirm the importance of sunk cost and their negative impact on the probability of export market participation for developing countries. Those results raise questions regarding the benefit of trade liberalization for developing countries, in terms of accessing new market, if they do not benefit from special treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of information and communications technology is transforming the entire industry landscape, heralding a new era of convergence services. As one of the developing countries in the financial sector, China is experiencing an unprecedented level of convergence between finance and technology. This study applies the lens of actor–network theory (ANT) to conduct a multi-level analysis of the historical development of China’s financial technology (fintech) industry. It attempts to elucidate the process of building and disrupting a variety of networks comprising heterogeneous actors involved in the newly emerging convergence industry. This research represents a stepping stone in exploring the interaction between fintech and its yet unfolding social and political context. It also discusses policy implications for China’s fintech industry, focusing on the changing role of the state in fostering the growth of national industry within and outside of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of firms from emerging and transition economies (ETES) is rising in the global economy. But what factors drive firms from ETES to internationalize? Prior frameworks do not allow us to fully answer this question. In this paper, we present a model that conceptually links the institutional environment, the firm's resource investment, and internationalization. We argue that the domestic institutional attributes (i.e., the degree of specificity, stability, predictability, and enforceability) of property rights and contracting institutions drive the firm's perceived risk and uncertainty, and therefore its resource investment and ability in pursuing international strategic behaviors. Focusing on private firms in ETES whose property rights and contracting institutions are still lacking, we name our model an incentive-based model of international entrepreneurship from emerging and transition economies (IEEE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance of business organizations in emerging economies like Pakistan is not encouraging due to various economic, political and technological factors. Pakistan need sustainable and modern industrial infrastructure to face the future potential challenges. Concepts of organizational development can play a leading role in productivity and systems improvement. Models of behavioral interventions of organization development can be utilized to enhance the organizational effectiveness and performance. The role of people management practices and compliant human resource management systems is vital and strategic to hire talented and professional employees to develop high performance organizational culture. The research study uses interpretive qualitative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach to explore the role of compliant hiring system in organization development and how it improves the organizational performance. Semi-structured data was collected by conducting in-depth interviews of Human Resource Management (HRM) & Organizational Development (OD) professionals, selected through purposive sampling method. Findings show that efficient and compliant hiring systems are important to change the behaviors and attitudes of employees toward work for a strategic growth. Organizations should establish and align selection process with corporate objectives. Management of people requires efficient HRM systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of product space has encountered broad interest within the development community, as an analytical tool against which to assess countries' potential to diversify their production and export structures. It has received far less attention in the economics literature, and its assumptions and building blocks have not been put under scrutiny. This paper assesses whether exclusive reliance on export data in product space analysis may limit its value as a tool assessing country capabilities. Reliance on net trade flows-to account for horizontal intra-industry trade-and on unit values-to capture within-product differentiation-changes the features of the product space. Based on a highly detailed data set of both trade value and volume and spanning over 144 countries, the amended product space put forth in this paper shows that China has indeed expanded its trade profile to now occupy also product areas that are typically associated with higher-income countries. However, China's remarkable success in expanding horizontally within the product space is strongly qualified by the introduction of the vertical dimension, which shows the country to be occupying mostly the low-unit value segment of product categories, more akin to the typical trade profile of a developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article views the history of the Group of 77 through the lens of its relations with unctad's establishment in 1964, its unsuccessful struggle for the nieo in the 1970s, and the subsequent loosening of ties. The debt crisis of the 1980s, the Uruguay Round negotiations, and the arrival of the wto are seen as crucial forces unravelling the previously close links. Growing differentiation among developing countries and the changing leadership of the G77 are also cited as important influences on its current relationship with unctad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new empirical evidence on the determinants of corruption, focussing on the role of globalisation and inequality. The estimates for a panel of 102 countries over the period 1995-2005 point to three main results: (i) Detection technologies, reflected in a high level of development, human capital and political rights reduce corruption, whereas natural resource rents increase corruption; (ii) Globalisation (in terms of both trade and financial openness) has a negative effect on corruption, which is more pronounced in developing countries; (iii) Inequality increases corruption, and once the role of inequality is accounted for, the impact of globalisation on corruption is halved. In line with recent theory, this suggests that globalisation - besides reducing corruption through enhanced competition - affects corruption also by reducing inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article further investigates the relationship between returns to education and trade openness in developed and developing countries. It contests Babones’ interpretation of the divergent experiences in terms of the greater credentialism associated with education in poorer countries. It identifies an alternative explanation based on classical trade theory which is at least as convincing. However, it further argues that the heterogeneity of labour markets is greater than either model suggests and that the characteristics of specific national and regional economies, rather than globalization, might be primarily responsible for the interesting statistical differences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After over a decade of languishing in stalemate, the Doha Development Agenda – the first round of trade negotiations launched under the auspices of the World Trade Organization – finally achieved a breakthrough at the Bali ministerial in 2013. Given that the Doha mandate places development – and particularly the concerns of the Least Developed Countries (ldcs) – at the heart of its agenda, our paper focuses on what the Bali outcome means for the world’s poorest countries. As a first step we provide a brief background against which the Bali negotiations took place. In the second section we assess the achievements and limitations of the Bali outcome, focusing on theldc-specific package and also commenting on other issues that affect theldcs. In the third section we explain the reasons for some of the achievements at Bali, which include negotiating strategies used by theldcs themselves. In the fourth and final section we identify a plan of action for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Development aid is a financial aid given by governments, NGOs, global and regional unions, or private entities to support the development of developing countries, as a consequence also of Albania as one of them. Its main reason is decreasing poverty and encouraging development. Many literatures reveal evidences of the impact these financial aids have on the economic growth of a country. This paper creates a link between the research done and the practice by making a detailed description of the phenomena and making clear how the effects are derived. It further analyzes the economic development of Albania in terms of net income during the last 30 years, and the corresponding financial aid allocation for each year. Starting with the interpretation of the financial aid amount allocated each year; this research paper also extends the information regarding the fields of economy where this aid is invested. The descriptive statistics shows that financial aid has noticeably increased from year to year and its impact on the economy as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]