Yangtze River Delta's system integration: institutional barriers and countermeasures

This paper addresses the issue of institutional barriers to the Yangtze River Delta integration and the resulting slow development. It analyzes the problems including the coordination of local interests and regional interests, market segmentation during the regional integration, competition for the local government‘s investment on the public goods, labor movement within the delta. The paper argues that to reduce the negative impacts of these barriers and to promote the further integration of the Yangtze Delta region, the central government should strengthen the coordination between local governments, regulate their disorderly competition and reform the official evaluation system.

Growth and public finance in Bihar

This paper explores the causal links between the role of public finance and Bihar's growth and development in the last decade; and argues that these links are tenuous. Bihar's growth acceleration precedes the ‘policy reforms' in public finance based on the ‘good governance' agenda initiated since 2005-06. However, the constraints on sustaining efforts to close Bihar's development gap with the rest of India stems from the nature of the growth process in its regional, sectoral and social dimensions and the contradictory means and ends of the ‘policy reforms' in public finance. Together, this has not only prevented the economic growth to add to public coiffeurs of the state but also occluded the role of tax institutions.

Spatial spillovers from FDI agglomeration : evidence from the Yangtze River Delta in China

Foreign firms have clustered together in the Yangtze River Delta, and their impact on domestic firms is an important policy issue. This paper studies the spatial effect of FDI agglomeration on the regional productivity of domestic firms, using Chinese firm-level data. To identify local FDI spillovers, we estimate the causal impact of foreign firms on domestic firms in the same county and similar industries. We then estimate a spatial-autoregressive model to examine spatial spillovers from FDI clusters to other domestic firms in distant counties. Our results show that FDI agglomeration generates positive spillovers for domestic firms, which are stronger in nearby areas than in distant areas.

Agriculture Plus Plus : growth strategy for Myanmar agriculture

The development of agriculture is a main pillar of Myanmar’s growth strategies. It is natural for the Myanmar government to prioritize agriculture as a source of economic growth, since it accounted for 36% of GDP, employs a majority of labor force, and generates nearly 30% of exports as of 2010. Although the agricultural share in GDP and employment usually declines as an economy grows, it is not a sunset industry in Myanmar. Methods exist for increasing agriculture’s value added other than the growth of labor and land inputs. The key is to enhance three productivity measures: labor, land, and total productivity. We call this strategy "Agriculture Plus Plus."

Five growth strategies for Myanmar : re-engagement with the global economy

After decades of isolation, Myanmar is now actively re-engaging with the global economy. For successful re-engagement, Myanmar needs to implement comprehensive economic reforms based on a shared vision for long-term economic development that is characterized by human-centered, high, sustainable, pro-poor, inclusive, and balanced economic growth. In this paper, we propose five growth strategies: "Agriculture Plus Plus," an export-oriented strategy, a foreign direct investment-driven strategy, a two-polar growth strategy, and a strategy to develop domestic economic corridors. These strategies are used as guides to translate these development agendas into a set of implementable policies, programs, and projects.

開発政策としての優遇アクセスの成果と課題 -- マダガスカルに対する経済制裁を例に

世界貿易機関（WTO）のドーハ開発ラウンドでは、後発開発途上国が無税無枠で他国に輸出できる措置を実施することが協議されているが、ラウンド自体が合意に至っていないため、各国はWTOの枠組みとは別に、二国間で優遇的なアクセスを提供している。本稿では、アメリカおよびEU 市場への優遇アクセスの下で衣料品の輸出を成長させてきたマダガスカルの縫製産業を例に、二国間の優遇アクセスの成果と課題を検討した。マダガスカルでは2009年に政変が発生し、アメリカ政府は同国に対して輸入関税を免除するアフリカ成長機会法（AGOA）の適用を停止した。AGOAの中止は、同国からアメリカ市場向けの輸出を64～78%減少させ、その影響は政変そのものよりも大きいと推定された。また、企業レベルでは、アメリカ向けに輸出していた工場の閉鎖と、それに伴って非熟練労働者を中心に雇用が減少したことが企業データから明らかになった。低所得国に対する優遇アクセスの中止は、輸出額の減少を通じて、教育水準が低い女性の雇用に大きな影響を与える可能性がある。貧困削減の点からは、制度の運用変更が容易な2国間よりも、多国間の枠組みの下で安定的な優遇アクセスが提供されることが望ましい。

Integral solution for Web conferencing event management

Nowadays video and web conferencing systems have become effective tools for communication and collaboration inside organizations. However, although these systems have evolved and now provide very nice features (e.g. sharing multimedia and documents), they are still too focused on the moment the meeting takes place. The existing systems provide very few facilities to organize the meeting and they do not take advantage of the possibilities the generated content offers once the meeting is finished. In this paper, we analyze the life cycle of a web conference and how existing systems monitor these conferences. Finally we present our solution, based on our know-how in videoconference management and our experience with these existing systems.

Do PGI integrated farms perform better? The case of the beef farms in Spain

European rural development policy is gaining in importance through one of its key instruments, the Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) system, which is designed to improve quality standards. Previous research has shown that PGI-certified beef farms tend to be more extensively managed operations that are better adapted to mountainous areas. This paper describes a comparative study of two production systems, one with PGI certification and one without, focusing on a number of economic variables. The results show a positive association between PGI production and profitability. In efficiency terms, non-certified farms show better pure technical efficiency scores, while PGI-certified holdings score higher on scale efficiency.