On Exports and Economic Growth: Revisiting Export-Led Growth Hypothesis Including North-South Divide

Objective: The purpose of the present study is to revisit the export-led growth hypothesis in the wake of globalization. This will help in trade policy decisions and make it possible to standpoint whether the export promotion is a good idea to accelerate economic growth. Design: The ELG hypothesis is examined for 107 countries through panel data analysis using cointegration and panel regression tests from 1990 to 2018. The study finds strong support for the long-run relationship between exports and gross domestic product and the export-led growth hypothesis in a two-variable regression framework. Findings: It is evident from the long-run coefficient of dynamic ordinary least squared that a 1.0 percent increase in real exports increases the real gross domestic product by 0.53 percent. The long-run coefficient of real exports for the Global South (0.55) is found higher than that of the Global North (0.51), which indicates that in the wave of globalization, the evidence of export-led growth hypothesis is stronger for comparatively poor Global South than the richer Global North. Practical Implications: The results indicate implications for export promotion policy in the Global South countries to accelerate economic growth and increase real gross domestic product. Originality: The study is the first to explore the ELG hypothesis using a big pool of 107 countries, including the global north-south divide.

Language politics in Nepal: a socio-historical overview

This paper aims to outline the language politics in Nepal by focusing on the influences and expansions shifted from Global North to the Global South. Based on a small-scale case study of interviews and various political movements and legislative documents, this paper discusses linguistic diversity and multilingualism, globalization, and their impacts on Nepal’s linguistic landscapes. It finds that the language politics in Nepal has been shifted and changed throughout history because of different governmental and political changes. Different ideas have been emerged because of globalization and neoliberal impacts which are responsible for language contact, shift, and change in Nepalese society. It concludes that the diversified politics and multilingualism in Nepal have been functioning as a double-edged sword which on the one hand promotes and preserves linguistic and cultural diversity, and on the other hand squeeze the size of diversity by vitalizing the Nepali and English languages through contact and globalization.

COVID-19 Response: The case for Phytomedicines in Africa with particular focus on Cameroon

Despite enormous efforts deployed and considerable positive results obtained in the global fight against the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) the scourge remains a major international public health hazard. The main control measures at the onset consisted in the application of barrier and hygiene measures to stop the spread of the virus and case identification and clinical management of symptoms in the absence of widely available anti-COVOD-19 drugs. Vaccination as a major control measure became widely available in the advanced countries of the global north, but not in Africa where less than 5-10% 0f the population are vaccinated against COVID-19. However, African countries, possibly excluding South Africa, have been less impacted by COVID-19 pandemic as they registered fewer cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Herein it is postulated that the wide use of African traditional Phytomedicines (herbal medicines) has contributed, at least in part, to the better control of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Abundant evidence in the literature suggests the availability of anti-viral, anti-oxidant and immune-stimulatory agents in the proposed COVID-19 herbal remedies., these activities being similar to those the standard drugs used in the standard treatment/ management of COVID-19. The review also examines a number of COVID-19 herbal medicines including COVID Organics CVO (Madagascar) ADSAR, ELISIR COVID, COROCUR (Cameroon) IHP Detox Tea (Nigeria) and COVIDEX (Uganda) and notes that though approved by the competent authorities in the respective African countries, these phytomedicines have not been approved by the WHO. It is proposed that additional studies be carried out to validate the Africa herbal remedies for possible use as stand-alone or complementary treatment of COVID-19 in addition to vaccination and barrier and hygiene control measures.

Social innovation in managing diversity: COVID-19 as a catalyst for change

PurposeCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had an adverse impact on workforce diversity internationally. While in the Global North, many countries have sophisticated laws and organizational mechanisms and discourses to deal with such adverse impacts on workforce diversity, such structures of diversity management are either ceremonial or poorly developed in the Global South. The global pandemic disproportionately impacted Global North and Global South increases the existing gap due to vaccine rollout inequality and divergence in recoveries. The authors explore social innovation as a possible option for responding to the challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on interviews in 26 distinctive organizations operating in various industries in Turkey. The authors have adopted a qualitative design to explore how social innovation helps to respond to diversity concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.FindingsThe authors demonstrate that social innovation presents a viable option for a country with a poorly regulated context of diversity management. Social innovation could help overcome the challenge of the absence of supportive legislation, discourses and practices of diversity in poorly regulated contexts.Originality/valueThe field study revealed several distinct forms of social innovation for diversity management, which emerged as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors demonstrate that in the absence of supportive diversity management structures and frameworks, social innovation in diversity management at the organizational level could provide a viable response to the emergent needs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Does Aid Drive Migration? Evidence from a Shift-Share Instrument∗

Foreign aid payments have been a key policy response by Global North countries to reduce increased migration flows from the Global South. In this article, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between aid and international migration flows and estimate the contemporaneous effect of bilateral aid payments on bilateral, international migration flows. The fundamental problem in analyzing this relationship is endogeneity, or reverse causality. To address this issue and achieve causal inference, we use a shift-share, or Bartik, instrument. Examining migration flows between 198 origin countries and 16 OECD destination countries over 36 years (1980−2015), we find a positive relationship between aid and migration. A ten-percent increase in aid payments will increase migration by roughly 2 percent. We further document non-linearity in the relationship between aid and migration and find an inverted U-shaped relationship between aid and migration flows. The findings presented here have implications for the design of bilateral and multilateral aid policies and for achieving various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by stressing the importance of a better coordination between aid and immigration policies.

Medical Brigades to El Salvador and Honduras: Travel imaginaries and volunteer tourist recruitment

In this paper, I explore travel imaginaries in the recruitment of participants to short-term medical brigades in El Salvador and Honduras. I look in particular at how trip leaders and organization web sites frame the volunteer tourist experience, drawing on familiar, shared imaginaries of poor, backward international settings, and related performative interventions that echo white colonial relationships. Recruitment messaging offers little specific or informed sense of place, ignoring the national histories and socio-economic circumstances of the receiving countries. As a consequence, the health profiles and capacities of El Salvador and Honduras are finally obscured in favor of the valorized performance of visitors and externally-driven protocols and care. The efforts of some brigade sponsors and related organizations to improve health-care delivery to local communities, in particular fundraising among brigade participants and other donors, would seem to separate the link between travel and volunteerism. They continue, however, to reinforce broadly-held imaginaries of international poverty and economic backwardness and related rescue by the Global North. A more realistic understanding of Honduran and Salvadoran economies and politics remains elusive and requires a reorientation of voluntary engagement.

Food Security and Climate Change: Differences in Impacts and Adaptation Strategies for Rural Communities in the Global South and North

This research highlights the mismatch between food security and climate adaptation literature and practice in the Global North and South by focusing on nested case studies in rural India and the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but also has one of the largest wealth gaps. Comparatively, India has one of the largest populations of food insecure people. To demonstrate how adaptive food security approaches to climate change will differ, we first review the unique climate, agricultural, demographic, and socio-economic features; and then compare challenges and solutions to food security posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While both countries rely on rural, low-income farmworkers to produce food, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how agricultural and food security policies differ in their influence on both food insecurity and global hunger alike. Emphasis on agricultural production in developing regions where a majority of individuals living in rural areas are smallholder subsistence farmers will benefit the majority of the population in terms of both poverty alleviation and food production. In the Global North, an emphasis on food access and availability is necessary because rural food insecure populations are often disconnected from food production.

Introduction: Infrastructural stigma and urban vulnerability

In this introduction to the Special Issue ‘Infrastructural Stigma and Urban Vulnerability’, we outline the need to join up debates on infrastructural exclusion on the one hand and urban stigma on the other. We argue that doing so will allow us to develop a better understanding of the co-constitutive relationship between the material and the symbolic structures of the city shaping urban exclusion and vulnerability. Positing that stigma is not merely a symbolic force but has significant material effects, we show how urban dwellers often experience it in deeply embodied ways, including through impacts on their physical health. Furthermore, stigma is not only imposed on the built environment through discourse, it also emanates from the materiality of the city; this agentic role of the city is often disregarded in sociologically-informed approaches to urban stigma. When infrastructures become sites of contestation about urban inclusion, stigma can be utilised by stigmatised residents to demand connection to public networks, and the wider symbolic inclusion this entails. Through examining the issue of infrastructural stigma in cities and urban territories across the Global North and Global South, as well as the places in between, the nine articles in this Special Issue pay attention to the global relationalities of infrastructural stigma. Ultimately, our focus on the infrastructural origins of stigma draws attention to the structural causes of urban inequality – a reality which is often occluded by both stigma itself and by prevalent academic approaches to understanding it.

“Let Them Make It Rain and Bling”: Unveiling Community Expectations towards Returned Migrants in Cameroon

In Africa, international migration to the Global North is often interpreted as a means to achieve upward social mobility. This article highlights the importance of considering the socio-economic and political transformations that form migration aspirations, especially among African youths. Simultaneously, increasing restrictive migration regimes impacts the extent to which migrants can meet the clauses in the moral economy of migration in their origin communities. We focus on (Anglophone) Cameroon, where international migration is referred to as “bushfalling”. A person who migrates to a Western society desires or is expected to return home to share the wealth he/she has accumulated. This interpretation of migration forms different perspectives regarding migrants and guides expectations towards returned migrants. However, little is known on how these expectations are defined and redefined in the society of return. Based on focus group discussions conducted among local community members, we show that the expectations were guided by the visa regimes of destination countries. Moreover, successful returnees were defined by their ability to be visible and create an impact after return. Thus, this article contributes more broadly to an African perspective on the meaning and impact of return migration.

When Pandemic Threat Does Not Stoke Xenophobia: Evidence from a Panel Survey around COVID-19 in Colombia

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected attitudes of host citizens towards refugees and migrants? A large literature, mostly in Global North contexts, links disease threat with increased xenophobia. Indeed, recent studies on the effects of COVID-19 have found an increase in hate crimes and anti-migrant attitudes, particularly when political elites exclude and blame migrants for the pandemic. We examine the case of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, in which elite rhetoric and immigration policies have been largely inclusive. Using a panel experimental survey of 374 Colombian respondents, supplemented by 550 new respondents at endline, we find no evidence that exposure to COVID-19 changes Colombians' attitudes towards Venezuelans, even if the respondents were directly affected by COVID. In fact, we find some evidence of empathy. Our research implies that xenophobia in reaction to pandemics is not a foregone conclusion, but likely a product of political scapegoating.