North Korea's economic catastrophe will only worsen

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Supreme Leader ◽  
Face Saving ◽  
Second Wave

Significance Pyongyang does not publish figures, but data and estimates produced in Seoul show that North Korea’s GDP shrank by 4.5% last year, its worst fall for 23 years, and trade hit a 30-year low. In June, supreme leader Kim Jong-un called the food situation “tense” and in August he dispatched troops to help deal with flooding. Impacts Small signs of fence-mending and lack of weapons tests may imply sufficient desperation for Kim to start, or feign, denuclearisation talks. Kim's choice to halt to all foreign trade is an overreaction to COVID-19; a second wave in China will fuel this paranoia. Kim's explicit rejection of foreign aid will be hard to reverse, but not impossible if he is desperate and a face-saving mechanism is found.

Foreign aid’s impact on domestic business climates

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabamita Dutta ◽  
Russell S. Sobel ◽  
Sanjukta Roy
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North American ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Business Climate ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Existing literature has expressed significant pessimism about the outcomes of foreign aid received by developing nations. Foreign aid can lead to negative outcomes by generating greater rent-seeking opportunities and creating aid dependence. While aid’s negative impact has been explored in the context of growth, political institutions, and economic institutions, the literature has not investigated the effect of aid on business climate of recipient nations. The purpose of this paper is to explore foreign aid’s impact on government regulations on the business climate in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and Middle East and North American countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors consider a panel of 64 countries over six years. Since foreign aid is most likely to be endogenous, as identified in most studies, the identification strategy follows two methodologies – system GMM estimator, that creates its own instruments via moment generating conditions and instrumental variable approach that relies on an external instrument. Findings The authors find that aid worsens the business climate by increasing government restrictions. Foreign aid provides the recipient governments and the political elite resources to strengthen their power and reinforce predatory policies that are harmful for the business climate. The results further show that in the presence of long-lasting and sustainable democratic regimes, the negative impact of foreign aid on business climate mitigates to a certain extent. Originality/value While aid’s negative impact has been explored in the context of growth, political institutions, and economic institutions, the literature has not investigated the effect of aid on business climate of recipient nations. The authors explore the impact of foreign aid on government regulations on the business climate in SSA and Middle East and North American countries.

Does the second wave of COVID-19 undermine corporate immunity? International evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huy Viet Hoang ◽  
Cuong Nguyen ◽  
Khanh Hoang
Keyword(s):  
Stock Returns ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThis study compares the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on stock returns in the first two waves of infection across selected markets, given built-in corporate immunity before the global outbreak.Design/methodology/approachThe data are collected from listed firms in five markets that have experienced the second wave of COVID-19 contagion, namely the United States (US), Australia, China, Hong Kong and South Korea. The period of investigation in this study ranges from January 24 to August 28, 2020 to cover the first two COVID-19 waves in selected markets. The study estimates the research model by employing the ordinary least square method with fixed effects to control for the heterogeneity that may confound the empirical outcomes.FindingsThe analysis reveals that firms with larger size and more cash reserves before the COVID-19 outbreak have better stock performance under the first wave; however, these advantages impede stock resilience during the second wave. Corporate governance practices significantly influence stock returns only in the first wave as their effects fade when the second wave emerges. The results also suggest that in economies with greater power distance, although stock price depreciation was milder in the first wave, it is more intense when new cases again surge after the first wave was contained.Practical implicationsThis paper provides practical implications for corporate managers, policymakers and governments concerning crisis management strategies for COVID-19 and future pandemics.Originality/valueThis study is the first to evaluate built-in corporate immunity before the COVID-19 shock under successive contagious waves. Besides, this study accentuates the importance of cultural understanding in weathering the ongoing pandemic across different markets.

Even if politicians deal, Lebanon faces a bleak future

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Food Shortages

Significance The audit and wider structural economic reforms are preconditions for urgently needed foreign aid. Economic conditions in Lebanon are still worsening, with power cuts, food shortages and rising poverty. Impacts A new government would allow reform planning to resume and temporarily stall the decline of the currency. The easing of the global pandemic will somewhat reduce the financial strain, as Lebanon reopens its economy. Soaring poverty rates could provoke large-scale ‘bread riots’ in the coming months. Further devaluation of the currency will make poor Lebanese more dependent on sectarian protection and strengthen patronage. If the situation worsens, sectarian rural areas could revert to warlordism in the medium term.

Iran’s hopes of swift economic recovery will be dashed

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Vaccination Campaign ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Islamic Revolution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Supreme Leader

Significance His government is in an impasse with the conservative parliament over the draft budget for the new fiscal year beginning on March 21. Rouhani needs the US sanctions to be lifted fast and a COVID-19 vaccination campaign to allow for an exit from the pandemic in order to meet his economic promises. Impacts The supreme leader will become even more closely involved in shaping economic policy, with the autarkic ‘resistance’ narrative dominant. Khamenei may seek a new ‘jihadi manager’ president, linked to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), who follows his economic vision. Progress with vaccinations, which began on February 8, will likely be slow, as supplies have become highly politicised.

Can foreign aid motivate institutional reform? An evaluation of the HIPC Initiative

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh Tam Schlosky ◽  
Andrew Young
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Institutional Quality ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hipc Initiative

Purpose A number of political economy concerns are associated with the provision of foreign aid to developing economies. These concerns suggest that foreign aid is likely to have harmful effects on a recipient’s institutional quality, and that attempts to give aid conditional on policy and institutional reforms are unlikely to succeed. Established in 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative is a comprehensive, structured attempt to provide multilateral foreign aid conditional on reforms in recipient countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate its effectiveness at affecting institutional reform in participating countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors document how participating countries fared in terms of the quality of their policies and institutions. The authors employ the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index as a measure of economic institutions, and the Freedom House political rights (PR) and civil liberties indices as measures of PR and protections. Based on these measures, the authors report unconditional statistics (e.g. average changes) and also regressions of changes in the measures on HIPC Initiative aid allocations and other controls. Findings The authors find that most participating countries experienced either meager increases or outright decreases in institutional quality. The regression results provide no evidence that the Initiative affects meaningful reforms. Originality/value The potential for foreign aid to have deleterious effects on the institutional quality of recipient countries has been of increasing concern to students of economic development. Such effects can have important implications for entrepreneurial activity in these countries. The HIPC Initiative is specifically designed to acknowledge and, indeed, overcome these concerns, leading to actual increases in institutional quality of recipient countries. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to assess whether the promise of the HIPC Initiative is being fulfilled.

scholarly journals Imported feminism: problematizing the Westernized image of the feminist in Arab social media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramy Magdy ◽  
Maries Mikhael ◽  
Yassmine G. Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Arab Women ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
Women Experiences ◽  
Facebook Pages ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second Wave

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the discourse of Arab feminism social media pages as a form of real-time new media. This is to be conducted culturally to understand the Westernized character these pages tend to propagate and the politico-cultural significations of such a propagation. Design/methodology/approach Using visual and content analysis the paper analyzes both the written and visual contents of two popular Arab feminist Facebook pages, “Thory” and “Feminist doodles” to explore its culture relevance/Westernization via the categories of “re-employing the binary second wave feminism, the historical relevance and the Westernized tone of both pages. Findings The pages showed a tendency toward second wave, Westernized, anti-orient feminism. Such importation of feminism made the pages’ message not only a bit irrelevant but also conceptually violent to a large extent. Starting from alien contexts, the two pages dislocate the Arab women experiences of their situation for the sake of comprehending and adapting to heavily Westernized images. Originality/value The paper contributes to the ongoing debate over the gender issue in the Arab context after 2011, what it originally offers is discussing the cultural relevance of popular feminist Facebook pages claiming to represent the everyday struggles of the Arab women. In addition, it shows the impact of real-time media on identity formulation.

BRICS-United Nations regional groups’ trade patterns: a panel-gravity approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farkhondeh Jabalameli ◽  
Ehsan Rasoulinezhad
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Transportation Cost ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
The Other ◽  
Trade Pattern ◽  
Trade Patterns ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the similarities in the foreign trade patterns of China and the other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) members. Design/methodology/approach Three panel data estimations, namely, fixed effect, random effect and fully modified ordinary least squares, have been conducted in this paper based on the gravitational model of international trade for bilateral trade of each BRICS member with five United Nations (UN) regional groups from 2001 to 2015. Findings The results revealed that Russia has a dissimilar trade pattern, based on the Heckscher–Ohlin (H-O) framework, with these five regional groups, while the other BRICS members follow the Linder hypothesis. Furthermore, it was found that China has a faster pace of globalization, while the rest of the BRICS members have experienced regionalization rather than globalization. In addition, geographical distance, as a proxy for transportation cost, has a weaker negative effect on the trade patterns of China and India, which makes the trade patterns of BRICS members dissimilar. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to examine and compare the BRICS member countries’ foreign trade pattern through a gravity trade approach.

Trudeau begins his third term with continuity

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
French Language ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
Liberal Government ◽  
Online Streaming ◽  
Canadian Content

Significance The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is beginning its third term with an emphasis on post-pandemic issues. While there was little new in the speech, which mostly signalled a continuation of existing policies, more action is likely on environmental and Indigenous reconciliation issues. Impacts New legislation will underpin the equality of the French language with English in federally regulated workplaces. Reform of the Broadcasting Act to cover online streaming services will require them to generate more Canadian content. Substantial increases in the foreign aid budget are likely, as are new diplomatic efforts in the Indo-Pacific region. Promises of renewed investment in defence are likely to be downgraded given the emphasis on social spending.

Iran’s ‘resistance economy’ faces new tests in 2021

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Domestic Production ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Supreme Leader ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

Significance At the same time, the June 18 presidential election campaign is beginning, with top judge Ibrahim Raisi registering as a favoured candidate. Heading a high-profile anti-corruption campaign, Raisi has been a strong advocate of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s ‘resistance economy’ policy to undermine sanctions by supporting domestic production. Impacts Effective legislation to manage conflicts of interest, including of officials’ family members, will likely remain blocked. Local business interests that would benefit from more global links may have a strong voice even under a conservative government. The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps will keep a firm grip on the infrastructure sector.

Brazil policy shortfalls will see new COVID outbreaks

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Variant ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The City ◽  
Second Wave

Significance The discovery of a new variant of the virus (P1) in Manaus has prompted renewed concerns as the city is suffering a severe second wave, months after a first wave that reportedly affected most of its population. The spread is set to continue, not least because of the difficulty of maintaining restrictions on movement. Impacts Problems with vaccine roll-outs are likely to lead to renewed outbreaks across Brazil. Fragmentation of policies at the state and local level will hamper an effective response. Obstacles to research programmes will hinder efforts to map the evolution of the virus.

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