Obsessive Planning in Transitional Vietnam

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Benedikter ◽  
Loan T. P. Nguyen

This essay offers reflections on Vietnam’s post-socialist state planning system and an upcoming government initiative to reform it. Thirty years after the departure from Soviet-style central planning, state-directed planning prevails as the dominant feature of Vietnam’s governance system, policy regime, and economic system. Our purpose is to examine why state-directed planning has been so resilient despite its many associated drawbacks in the past and present. We present a range of critical thoughts on the underlying causes and drivers that have preserved state-directed planning and that may jeopardize the nascent reform process.

1988 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 671-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Sicular

During the past decade China's leaders have called repeatedly for reductions in administrative interventions in the economy, for greater reliance on economic “levers,” for decentralization of economic decision-making, and for an increased role of markets. Although the need for liberalization is fairly widely accepted, debate over how far and how fast to proceed has continued. One view initially proposed by Chen Yun sees China moving towards a system where a “planned economy is primary, and markets are supplementary” (jihua jingji wei zhu, shichang tiaojie wei bu). Others advocate moving beyond Chen Yun's vision to a system where, in fact if not in name, allocation takes place primarily through markets. Li Peng's government work report to the first session of the Seventh National People's Congress suggests that the current consensus leans towards the latter, more progressive view:The focus of reform of the planning system is to transform the function of state planning organs, gradually reduce mandatory planning and expand guidance planning, … use economic instruments, and gradually establish a new economic mechanism where “the state regulates markets, and markets guide enterprises” (guojia tiaojie shichang, shichang yindao qiye).


2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard

The Chinese reform process of 1978-2008 has primarily taken place within the economic sphere, involving fundamental changes of the centrally planned economic system. As a result, a hybrid economic system has evolved based on a combination of resource mobilization and allocation by market forces and Party and state domination of the commanding heights of the economy. In the political sphere, reform has been much more limited. During the 1980s there were several periods of substantial political reform, but since the early 1990s reform has largely been synonymous with improvement of the governance system in terms of capacity of institutions and competencies of officials. Thus administrative reform and institutional changes have been placed high on the agenda, emphasizing administrative restructuring and downsizing of government organs as well as Party reform. Party reform and leadership renewal have created an institutionalized political order characterized by incremental change within the framework of authoritarian resilience. Currently, major reform discussion in China primarily takes place within the Party organization and focuses on perfecting the existing political system rather than on introducing Western models and experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3670
Author(s):  
Suraj Lamichhane ◽  
Komal Raj Aryal ◽  
Rocky Talchabhadel ◽  
Bhesh Raj Thapa ◽  
Rabindra Adhikari ◽  
...  

The impacts of multihazards have become more pronounced over the past few decades globally. Multiple hazards and their cascading impacts claim enormous losses of lives, livelihoods, and built environment. This paradigm prompts integrated and multidisciplinary perspectives to identify, characterize, and assess the occurrence of multihazards and subsequently design countermeasures considering impending multihazard scenarios at the local level. To this end, we considered one of the most egregious transboundary watersheds, which is regarded as a multihazard hotspot of Nepal, to analyze the underlying causes and cascade scenarios of multihazards, and their associated impacts. In this paper, geophysical, hydrometeorological, and socioeconomic perspectives are formulated to characterize the watershed from the dimension of susceptibility to multihazard occurrence. To characterize the complex dynamics of transboundary multihazard occurrence, insights have been presented from both the Nepali and the Chinese sides. Individual case studies and the interrelation matrix between various natural hazards are also presented so as to depict multihazard consequences in the transboundary region. The sum of the observations highlights that the watershed is highly vulnerable to a single as well as multiple natural hazards that often switch to disasters.


Author(s):  
Olga M. Khlytina ◽  

The article summarizes the results of an Internet survey of history teachers, in which 216 teachers from 31 regions of Russia took part. The author considers the development of the subject-oriented ability to work with historical sources in the context of the development of schoolchildren's functional literacy as a priority task of the modern Russian school. The aim of the study is to characterize the methodological ways of teaching schoolchildren the methods of analyzing historical sources dominant in teachers' work based on expert teachers' assessments of how well graduates of the 9th and 11th grades mastered the ability to critically analyze historical sources, identify their effectiveness, suggest options for improving mass teaching practice. The analysis of literature has shown that the ability to analyze historical sources is interpreted as the basis for the development of historical and critical thinking, a person's ability to independently cognize the past. Methodological science has substantiated various models of student analysis of historical sources based on the methodology of modern historical science and focused on the development of schoolchildren' subject and metasubject skills, functional literacy. At the same time, the results of the survey indicate that the vast majority of the teachers organize work with sources outside any system and sequence, and no more than once or twice during the term. Explaining the reasons for this, the teachers point to work overload, lack of high-quality didactic support of courses, and a low level of student learning. They also say they need advanced training in teaching schoolchildren to work with historical sources. The teachers note the low level of their students' mastery of the basic procedures for analyzing historical sources: according to the teachers' assessments, in 60-80% of classes in Russian schools, less than half of the students mastered the basic ability to “read” sources (extract explicit and implicit information). According to a third of the teachers, no more than 20% of their students are able to complete tasks on commenting on a historical source when a student, relying on knowledge of the context, begins to understand the past, think as historians think. Another quarter of the teachers indicated an interval of 30-40%. When working with sources, the dominant feature is the formation of historical knowledge, and the tasks of the students' learning the activity- and value-based components of educational historical knowledge are not solved effectively enough, which ultimately makes it difficult for students to achieve results in the subject and complicates the solution of the complex tasks of improving the quality of education that Russian education is faced with today.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-327
Author(s):  
Leonard W. Cronkite

Dr. Feldstein has produced an essay of extraordinary clarity for the lay reader. He bravely tackles the incredibly complex issue of hospital economics. He analyzes the course of hospital cost inflation during the past 20 years and attempts to define the underlying causes. Unlike many economists he does not fall into the trap of comparing hospitals with other industries nor does he try to apply the simplistic laws of supply and demand as they apply to the manufacturer of goods.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Shouying

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure and changes of China’s land system. To achieve this aim, the paper is divided into four parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to the structural characteristics of the Chinese land institutional arrangements; the second part analyzes the reform process of the land system in the past 40 years and its path of change; the third part engages the discussion about the historic contribution made by the land institutional change to rapid economic growth and structural changes; and the final part is conclusion and some policy implications. Design/methodology/approach After 40 years of reforms and opening up, China has not only created a growth miracle unparalleled for any major country in human history, but also transformed itself from a rural to an urban society. Behind this great transformation is a systemic reform in land institutions. Rural land institutions went from collectively owned to household responsibility system, thereby protecting farmers’ land rights. This process resulted in long-term sustainable growth in China’s agriculture, a massive rural-urban migration and a historical agricultural transformation. The conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses and the introduction of market mechanisms made land a policy tool in driving high economic growth, industrialization and urbanization. Findings Research shows that the role of land and its relationship with the economy will inevitably change as China’s economy enters a new stage of medium-to-high speed growth. With economic restructuring, low-cost industrial land will be less effective. Urbanization is also shifting from rapid expansion to endogenous growth so that returns on land capitalization will decrease and risks will increase. Therefore, China must abandon land-dependent growth model through deepening land reforms and adapt a new pattern of economic development. Originality/value This paper gives a brief introduction to the structural characteristics of the Chinese land institutional arrangements, analyzes the reform process of the land system in the past 40 years and its path of change, and evaluates the historic contribution made by the land institutional change to rapid economic growth and structural changes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Kambali

The economic crisis that convolved the world economy a few years ago is the result of a series of government policies in the economic field. Starting from the Subprime Mortgage in America, the crisis eventually spreads across all sectors of the economy. As analysts say that the explosion of the current economic crisis is caused by the trend of low interest rates that are applied by the Fed. The trend of low interest rates will give rise to expectation of market to future economic situation. It is characterized by the overflow of capital expansion in all sectors, especially in property sector. Today, along with the growing mobility of capital from one country to another as part of unavoidable economic liberalization, mobility of capital, on the one hand, has spawned some of the imbalances in the life of a State. The powerlessness can not be separated from economic ideology and system on state role in the economy. Capitalism with its laissez faire brings the concept of state minimal role in the economy. In the empirical facts, it is broken by the crisis situation in 1930 and today's financial crisis. Socialism tends to carry the central role of the State in the economy through the centralistic planning system. The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s brought the world to a choice whether reconstructing capitalism or socialism as Fukuyama and Gidden said. On the other hand, as the new system, the economic system of Islam brings the concept of the role of the State in the economy on the basis of universal values of Islam, such as justice in the economy which is reflected in the mechanism of the prohibition of riba (usury), just income distribution and redistribution of income through zakat and social security. This article is an exposure of the State's role in the economy which is studied through the perspective of today’s economic system. The systems are capitalism, socialism, and Islam. The article not only explores conceptual framework, but also also contains an empirical framework mapping and how the conceptual framework is operated. At the end, from the two mapping (conceptual and empirical), author draws a reflection of how the State should play a role in the economic field. Keywords: Capitalism, Socialism, Islam, Economic Role of State


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Ayres ◽  
Dylan Kerrigan

Using Hauntology, this paper illustrates how the supposed demise of a socio-political and economic system – colonialism – still impacts on and has something to offer contemporary political analysis in Guyana’s gaols. Drawing on Fiddler’s spatio-hauntology alongside the work of Derrida and Gordon this paper shows how hauntology provides an alternative theoretical framework to look at the intergenerational transmission of trauma, which can be traced back to colonialism and slavery. It acknowledges the impact structural violence has on the collective imaginary and how this – consciously and unconsciously – shapes the psychosocial material underpinning contemporary Guyanese identities, desires, experiences, social action, and systems of punishment which includes prisons – its buildings, space, regimes, processes, sounds, laws and rationale. Guyana’s prisons contain phantoms of the past. Only by acknowledging Guyana’s ghosts and the phantasm of past trauma is it that we can begin to understand contemporary Guyana and Guyanese society, which includes their jails.


2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eckhard Knappe ◽  
Stefan Härter

AbstractThe German Statutory Health Insurance System (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung) has been in a continuous reform process for the past twenty years. This reform process was mostly dominated by the model of a cost-containment policy. Most health economists are not in favour of a global cost-containment policy, because it cannot solve the structural deficiencies within the system. As a result we recommend a further strategy of deregulation so that competitive processes will be enforced. This in turn will be more responsive to the preferences of the insured and patients and sets incentives for insurers and health-providers to follow efficiency goals in a static and dynamic way in order to mitigate the future burden of the demographic changes.


Author(s):  
John N. Drobak

Rethinking Market Regulation: Helping Labor by Overcoming Economic Myths tackles the plight of workers who lose their jobs from mergers and outsourcing by examining two economic “principles,” or narratives that have shaped the perception of the economic system in the United States today: (1) the notion that the U.S. economy is competitive, making government market regulation unnecessary, and (2) the claim that corporations exist for the benefit of their shareholders but not for other stakeholders. Contrary to popular belief, this book demonstrates that many markets are not competitive but rather are oligopolistic. This conclusion undercuts the common refrain that government market regulation is unnecessary because competition already provides sufficient constraints on business. Part of the lack of competition has resulted from the large mergers over the past few years, many of which have resulted in massive layoffs. The second narrative has justified the outsourcing of millions of jobs of U.S. workers this century, made possible by globalization. The book argues that this narrative is not an economic principle but rather a normative position. In effect, both narratives are myths, although they are accepted as truisms by many people. The book ties together a concern for the problems of using economic principles as a justification for the lack of government intervention with the harm that has been caused to workers. The book’s recommendations for a new regulatory regime are a prescription for helping labor by limiting job losses from mergers and outsourcing.


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