Resolving
the Food Crisis: Assesing global policy
reforms since 2007 |
| Timothy
A. Wise and Sophia Murphy |
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The spikes in global food
prices in 2007-8 served as a wake-up
call to the global community on the
inadequacies of our global food system.
Commodity prices doubled, the estimated
number of hungry people topped one billion,
and food riots spread through the developing
world. A second price spike in 2010-11,
which drove the global food import bill
for 2011 to an estimated $1.3 trillion,
only deepened the sense that the policies
and principles guiding agricultural
development and food security were deeply
flawed.
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A
Proposal for a Growth and Fiscal Compact |
| Mario
Tonveronachi |
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The
author investigates the present crisis
in Europe that is threatening to undo
the economic integration process started
under the European Union. The single market
and common currency concept is today under
threat because of national egoisms and
undemocratic manner in which the EU operates
currently. |
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Notes
on Land, Long Run Food Security and the
Agrarian Crisis in India |
| Sheila
Bhalla |
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These Notes are organised
in three main parts. Part I looks at
examples of three approaches to land
use and land acquisition issues. Two
are from international organisations
- the FAO and IFPRI - and concerned
primarily with the acquisition of large
tracts of farm land in developing countries
by foreign investors, including Indian
investors, and one is exemplified by
a recent Indian Supreme Court judgment.
Part II seeks to come to grips with
the specific features of India's agricultural
and agrarian crises, and to make a distinction
between the two. Part III deals with
long term trends in land use in India,
outcomes in terms of average area owned,
the size distribution of land holdings,
and declining land/man ratios. Part
IV looks at the corresponding long term
trends in agricultural worker productivity
and the impact of declining land/man
ratios on agricultural worker productivity.
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Social
Protection and Socioeconomic Security in
Nepal |
| Gabriele
Koehler |
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Nepal
is a 'least developed country' characterised
by significant socioeconomic insecurity
that is currently witnessing some interesting
socio-political policy innovations, triggered
by the end of a ten-year violent conflict.
The article explores the social protection
policies devised by the interim government
to address the various dimensions of insecurity,
discusses their novelty, limitations and
offers suggestions for improvements. |
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| Explaining
Global Financial Imbalances: A critique
of the saving glut and reserve currency
hypotheses |
| Thomas
I. Palley |
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This paper examines three
different explanations of the global
financial imbalances. It begins with
the neoliberal globalisation hypothesis
that explains the imbalances as the
product of the model of globalisation
implemented over the past thirty years.
It then examines the saving glut and
reserve currency hypotheses. The paper
concludes by arguing that both the saving
glut and reserve currency hypotheses
are inconsistent with the empirical
record and both provide a misleading
guide for policy.
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| Rethinking
Macroeconomic Policies for Development |
| Deepak
Nayyar |
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The
global economic crisis has created an
opportunity to rethink macroeconomics
for development. Rethinking macroeconomic
policies requires using fiscal and monetary
policies for the pursuit of development
objectives and not just for the management
of inflation and the elimination of macroeconomic
imbalances. In doing so, it is essential
to overcome the constraints embedded in
orthodox economic thinking and recognise
the constraints implicit in the politics
of ideology and interests. |
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| Debtors'
Crisis or Creditors' Crisis? Who Pays for
the European Sovereign and Subprime Mortgage
Losses? |
| Jan
Kregel |
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In the context of the
eurozone's sovereign debt crisis and
the US subprime mortgage crisis, this
article looks at the question of how
the losses ought to be distributed between
borrowers and lenders in cases of debt
resolution. The author points out that
it is unlikely that debtors can fully
bear the losses in a debt resolution.
It is argued that the behavior and policy
of creditors is just as important a
factor to consider in assessing the
situation.
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| Monetary
Policy and Central Banking after the Crisis:
The implications of rethinking macroeconomic
theory |
| Thomas
I. Palley |
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In
this paper, the author presents an outsider
reform program that focuses on: central
bank governance and independence; reshaping
the economic philosophy of central banks
to be more intellectually open-minded;
major monetary policy reform that includes
adoption of an inflation target equal
to the minimum unemployment rate of inflation
(MURI) and implementation of asset based
reserve requirements; and regulatory reform
that addresses problems of flawed incentives,
excessive leverage, and maturity mismatch. |
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| Economic
Growth, Employment and Poverty Reduction:
A comparative analysis of Chile and Mexico |
| Alicia
Puyana |
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This study attempts to
explain the evolution of poverty and
income concentration in Chile and Mexico.
It focuses on the impact that changes
in the rates and pattern of economic
growth have had on poverty. The author
concludes that since the rise in labour
productivity was not accompanied by
an increase in total production, there
was a sustained reduction of the GDP
elasticity of employment, which resulted
in poverty.
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| World
Development Report 2012: Gender equality
and development (an extended commentary) |
| Shahra
Razavi |
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That
the World Bank has devoted its 2012 flagship
publication to the topic of gender equality
is a welcome opportunity for widening
the intellectual space. However, it is
also a missed opportunity. By failing
to engage seriously with the gender biases
of macroeconomic policy agendas that define
contemporary globalisation, the report
is unable to provide a credible and even-handed
analysis of the challenges that confront
gender equality in the 21st century. |
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| India's
New High Growth Trajectory: Implications
for demand, technology and employment |
| C.P.
Chandrasekhar |
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Evidence on trends in
surplus generation and utilisation suggests
that India's recent transition to a
high-growth trajectory has been accompanied
by and partly based on tendencies towards
profit inflation and increased inequality.
This paper offers an explanation as
to why the net implications for employment
and conditions of work of this growth
trajectory have been adverse.
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| The
Challenge of Ensuring Full Employment in
the Twenty-first Century |
| Jayati
Ghosh |
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The
recent economic growth process in India
and other parts of the developing world
exhibits the inability of even high rates
of output growth to generate sufficient
opportunities for 'decent work' to meet
the needs of the growing labour force.
Therefore, there is a clear case for a
shift towards wage-led and domestic demand-led
growth, particularly in the economies
that are large enough to sustain this
shift. |
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| Potential
and Limits of the G-20 for Reforming the
World Economy towards Sustainable Development |
| Peter
Wahl |
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The paper argues that
the emergence of the G-20 is a result
of the financial crisis of 2008. Its
composition reflects a new balance of
power in the world. The role of emerging
markets, in particular China, Brazil
and India is increasing, whereas the
position of the West is relatively weakened.
In so far the G-20 is a historic progress
compared to the G-8. Nevertheless the
G-20 is still characterised by a democratic
deficit. The G-20 also aggravates the
marginalisation of the UN, thus weakening
democracy in the overall system of global
governance.
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| Peter
Kropotkin: Portrait of an anarchist prince |
| Andrew
Cornford |
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The
work of the Russian prince, Peter Kropotkin,
is interesting even when one sets aside
the historical and revolutionist context
in which it was originally developed and
even though the actual realisation of
anarchist societies along the lines that
he envisaged remains a dream. His work
can still illuminate owing to way in which
communitarian thinking is woven into a
programme covering a broad range of issues
such as institutional infrastructure,
labour and employment, cross-border economic
relations, etc. |
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| Austerity
Measures Threaten Children and Poor Households |
| Isabel
Ortiz, Jingqing Chai and Matthew Cummins |
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In the wake of the food,
fuel and financial shocks, a fourth
wave of the global economic crisis began
in 2010, viz., fiscal austerity. Updating
earlier research by UNICEF, this working
paper examines the latest IMF government
spending projections for 128 developing
countries, comparing the three periods
of 2005-07 (pre-crisis), 2008-09 (fiscal
expansion) and 2010-12 (fiscal contraction).
It discusses the possible risks of the
adjustment measures for social expenditures
and summarises a series of alternative
policy options.
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| Beware
the Fallacy of Productivity Reductionism |
| Andrew
M. Fischer |
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While
raising productivity in the Global South
is obviously an important component of
poverty alleviation and efforts to reduce
inequality, it is equally imperative to
recognise the underlying fallacy of productivity
reductionism. Otherwise, an obsession
with raising productivity risks being
turned into a powerful ethos for disciplining
an increasingly Southern global workforce
together with nationally based productive
capitalists.
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