Broader Economic Development Research Articles

Ecological, Socioeconomic, and Economic Factors Shaping Vegetable Oil Production in the Batak People Community of North Sumatera

Abstract This research delves into the intricate interplay between ecological, socioeconomic, and economic factors in the production of vegetable oils, with a specific focus on the Batak People community in Tapanuli-Toba Samosir, North Sumatra. The research highlights the profound importance of considering these multifaceted aspects within the context of farmers’ labour rights and community empowerment, thereby illuminating the industry’s broader implications. The study is structured into three principal dimensions: ecological consideration, socioeconomic dimensions, and economic viability. The study assesses farmers’ working conditions and wages, their engagement with national and international labour standards, and the extent to which the vegetable oil industry influences the socioeconomic well-being of the Batak People community. It analyses market dynamics, value chain processes, and the influence of government policies and subsidies on the industry’s economic prospects. By doing so, the research aims to discern how the vegetable oil industry can contribute to the region’s broader economic development. To foster knowledge exchange and collaborative problem-solving, an international seminar is proposed. This seminar will bring together academics, government researchers, industry experts, and community representatives. The event’s objectives include sharing research findings, addressing industry challenges, expanding networks, and crafting a sustainable framework for the vegetable oil sector. This research, alongside the international seminar, seeks to enhance our comprehension of encouraging sustainable practices and formulating policies that can serve as models for similar regions.

Challenges and limits of teaching English as a foreign language for economic returns and employability in Algeria

This study is driven by the fact that English is welcomed everywhere for economic purposes. Algeria, like many countries, has taken several measures towards improving the English language as part of broad economic development programs. However, Algeria’s investment in English has little impact on the country's economy and individuals’ potential for employment. Research to explore the reasons behind such problems and thus provide myriad suggestions is scarce. Therefore, our primary goal in this work is to provide insights into the challenges and the existing gaps associated with the provision of English language skills as a drive for Algeria’s economic advantages. This study uses a content analysis method that relies on local academic library resources and reports from foreign consultancies and organizations, which have been conducted to identify some common features pertaining English teaching and learning situation in Algeria. The findings constructed from our analysis revealed several gaps that thwart the teaching of English as a driving force for Algeria's economic advantages due to various reasons, detailed in the research. Keywords: Economy; English; English as a foreign language; employability.

Relationship of Regional, Freight, and Intermodal Market Access to Industry Location and Productivity

Although a significant body of research has focused on employment agglomeration at an urban level, this paper presents a broader view that also includes new empirical research on wider regional and intermodal access and its economic implications. The analysis shows how business clustering (employment agglomeration) can occur at different scales and in different forms, reflecting a range of needs to access local and regional populations, suppliers, and customers, as well as intermodal gateways that provide access to national and global markets. These different types of access have broader economic development and productivity implications that are particularly important for transportation planners who evaluate proposals for freight and passenger modal investments connecting communities and intermodal facilities. To address these issues, the paper brings together three complementary perspectives: (a) transportation planning literature that distinguishes types of transportation investment and plans; (b) site location literature that defines business location decision processes and their spatial scale; and (c) economic research that provides a basis for defining scale economies and productivity effects. It presents results of a new U.S. study that develops statistical relationships between types of access and industries in relation to their relative concentration and productivity at a county level. The results show the importance for transportation planners to consider freight access as well as customer and worker access. They also indicate the potential for decision bias if project prioritization and cost–benefit analyses fail to consider the full range of spatial scales relevant for assessing market access. The article discusses implications of these findings in terms practical applications for transportation investment planning, and it highlights remaining needs for further research.

Using Green IoT as a Development Path of Green Trade Economy for Ecological Sustainable Development

The advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology and its incorporation into the trade economy has altered and improved our way of life and work. However, IoT technologies pose various issues in the green economy, including increased energy consumption, hazardous pollutants, and electronic waste. Therefore, green IoT contributes to a more environmentally friendly atmosphere that is more affordable for the green economy. As a result, it is critical to address tactics and strategies for decreasing pollution threats, traffic waste, resource utilization, energy usage, public safety, living standard, environmental sustainability, and cost management. Apart from these, the continual deepening of the trade economy has accelerated Shandong Province’s rapid economic development, and the province’s broad economic development mode had major negative consequences on the ecological environment. Based on the evolution of international commerce in Shandong Province and the present status of the ecological environment, this study first calculates the province’s carbon emissions using the Kaya identity and derives the regression findings using the Eviews software. It examines the data link between the province’s carbon emissions, energy consumption, and trade by determining the province’s export carbon emissions from various industrial sectors. According to the statistics, the export carbon emissions of Shandong Province’s ferrous metal rolling industry, chemical raw material production sector, and textile industry are relatively high, at 6.764 million tons, 5.502 million tons, and 3.918 million tons, respectively. The carbon emissions from the three industrial sectors mentioned above account for approximately 49% of total carbon emissions, which is a considerable reduction and in line with the concept of green IoT.

Motivations for Entrepreneurship: New Evidence from Tertiary-level Educated Sub-Saharan African Women

ABSTRACT Despite the evidence that women in Sub-Saharan Africa become entrepreneurs faster than any other group globally, more studies are needed to understand the motivation(s) for their decision to pursue entrepreneurship. This paper aims to contribute to research on what motivates Sub-Saharan African women to become entrepreneurs. A case study approach was utilized to understand the experiences of 20 women entrepreneurs from Sub-Saharan African countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. All the study participants had tertiary-level education and left their corporate careers to pursue entrepreneurship. Pull and opportunity factors were the main factors that motivated the women interviewed to become entrepreneurs. Push and necessity factors accounted for a few cases. The level of education did not dictate the pull and opportunity factors of motivation. These findings are important because previous studies have stereotyped Sub-Sahara African women entrepreneurs with the generalization that they are motivated to become entrepreneurs by push and necessity factors and are often uneducated and on the fringe of economic activity. The paper makes specific policy recommendations for harnessing motivations and linking them to broader economic development goals.

Southern Scoundrels: Grifters and Graft in the Nineteenth Century ed. by Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker

Reviewed by: Southern Scoundrels: Grifters and Graft in the Nineteenth Century ed. by Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker John Bardes Southern Scoundrels: Grifters and Graft in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. Pp. viii, 247. $40.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-7219-3.) This collection of original essays makes an important contribution to the literature on southern capitalism in the nineteenth century. These essays do not concern traditional captains of commerce—bankers, plantation owners, and industrialists—or how they operated within formal markets. Rather, the editors have compiled absorbing tales of marginal men—counterfeiters, fraudulent slave traders, corrupt judges, seedy speculators, itinerant preachers, hired guns, and purveyors of stolen goods—who thrived by bending the rules of the South's developing capitalistic system. More than colorful stories, these essays suggest that unlawful and unscrupulous market activities "were not outside the true nature of capitalism in the nineteenth-century South but, to the contrary, wholly integral to it" (p. 5). In their introduction, editors Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker observe that literature on southern capitalist development traces broad macroeconomic contours—for example, how commodities produced by enslaved people fueled transatlantic trade and economic growth—while neglecting "bottom-up social histories" of how capitalism advanced on the ground (p. 6). They propose that microeconomic studies of how grifters exploited cracks in the economy can reveal "ways that capitalism actually worked in real life and not just in theory" (p. 4). Ten engaging microhistories follow, loosely sortable into three themes: violence, the slave trade, and questions of self-presentation and identity. Compelling essays by Alexandra J. Finley, Maria R. Montalvo, and Forret explore slave traders: men depicted as disreputable outcasts but whose actions steered the South's broader economic development. Montalvo examines fraud in New Orleans's slave market. Complementary essays by Finley and Forret reveal how slave traders laid tracks for the growth of banks and the spread of specie. Essays by Jimmy L. Bryan Jr., John Lindbeck, Rodney J. Steward, and Jeff Strickland evaluate trust, fraud, and self-presentation in a society with few formal institutions for assessing identity and creditworthiness. Lindbeck [End Page 377] examines the itinerant preachers who facilitated financial transactions in the lower Mississippi River Valley. Bryan recounts the colorful life of William G. Cheeney, a sweet-talking huckster of dubious qualifications employed as a printer in Missouri, submarine builder in Virginia, and mineralogist in Texas. Strickland examines another fast-talker: William A. Britton, a cotton trader in occupied New Orleans who tried swindling the Union army. Steward studies Confederate judges who lined their pockets (and ruined the lives of ordinary folk) through military sequestration. Elaine S. Frantz and T. R. C. Hutton explore "violence workers" (p. 3). Frantz examines William Faucett, a marginal man in Civil War–era South Carolina who left a bloody trail of attacks on other poor whites, local elites, and freedpeople (often, it seems likely, on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan). Hutton examines Alfred W. Burnett, a bounty hunter of Gilded Age Appalachia, whose career straddled the boundary between policing and thuggery. Bruce E. Baker's essay on labor and theft along the New Orleans waterfront is distinctive, in terms of both its subject (which does not fit neatly into the book's three themes) and the breadth of its argument. Recognizing that criminality was vital to survival among the waterfront's underemployed day laborers, Baker challenges distinctions between "legitimate" and "underground" economies: legal and stolen commodities were inseparable facets of the same economic ecosystem (p. 5). Direct analysis of gender would have strengthened this collection: masculinity is an invisible constant in these tales of manly posturing and homo-social violence, omnipresent but never unpacked. Likewise, essays exploring the lives of grifting women would have brought the collection's questions of identity and self-presentation into sharper focus. What the reader will gain is a powerful atmospheric sense of a violently messy economy, brimming with innovative if unscrupulous entrepreneurs, where the on-the-ground realities of actual markets rarely mirrored the idealized structures of theoretical markets. John Bardes Louisiana State University Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

Critical Success Factors of Public-private Partnership (PPP) Projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

In a world where governments are looking at alternative ways of developing economies, infrastructure development remains a key aspect of these aspirations. For Middle East economies, which have relied on oil proceeds, the growth strategy is not as before as the oil prices have been fluctuating and resulting in low fiscal incomes. Saudi Arabia is one such economy. Thus, in the Kingdom's development strategy outlined in Vision 2030, there has been an emphasis on private players coming into partnering with the government in infrastructure and broader economic development projects. While the concept is easy on paper, running successful Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) projects is a complex endeavor given the conflicting interests of the partners themselves. This research investigated the critical success factors of PPP projects in Saudi Arabia based on the reflections of a quantitative study for infrastructure projects. For descriptive analysis, the entire population of participants (1200 respondents was used), and for the inferential statistics, a sample of 543 respondents was used in a Structured Equation Model tested on Smart PLS was used. The model tested critical success factors mediated by Openness and Communication and a multigroup analysis moderated by job level (representing the level of decision-making classified into strategic formulators - strategic level and above; and strategic implementers- operational managers). The models had an R2 of a stratified sample of 54.5% for the strategic level model and 45.9% for the strategic implementers model. Both models confirmed the importance of Procurement transparency, Risk sharing and allocation, Knowledge management. However, they had differences in the influence of governance, Openness and Communication and efficiency of the financial model. Governance had a significant influence on the success of PPPs only at the operational level while having a fully mediated relationship with Openness and Communication at the operational level. The study then produced two frameworks that are relevant for policymakers and potential private players to understand the relevant factors to be prioritised at each decision-making level to ensure the successful completion of PPPs in Saudi Arabia.

Farmers’ perceptions and spatial statistical modeling of most systematic LULC transitions: Drivers and livelihood implications in Awash Basin, Ethiopia

LULC studies have produced many methodological approaches that quantify and describe LULC change patterns and drivers. This study was conducted to quantify the major LULC transition and its drivers through the combination of a spatial statistical model with surveying the local understanding of possible drivers of LULC changes driving forces in the Awash-Awash River Sub-Basin. Landsat data from 1986 to 2018 were analyzed to understand the various magnitudes of LULC transitions. The study revealed that the LULC in the sub-basin is under a considerable change in pattern, structure, and extent. The amount of LULC that experienced loss and gains over the period indicates that the gains throughout a sub-basin's bare land, cultivated land, and water bodies are related to the loss in shrub and bushland, forest, and woodland. The study revealed that about 52% of the area experienced different forms of LULC transition and the remaining 48% of the area was persistent. The transition from shrub and bushland to cultivated land was identified as one of the strong signals of LULC transition in the sub-basin. The spatial explicit regression model result indicated that drivers such as elevation, the cosine of aspect, and distance to major river were significantly and positively associated with the transition from shrub and bushland to cultivated land. While, variables like slope, sine of aspect, distance to town center, major road were negatively associated with this particular LULC transition. The socio-economic survey result showed that growth in population, cultivated land expansion, deforestation and overgrazing, urbanization, infrastructure expansion, and government laws and regulations were perceived as drivers of LULC change in the study area. Therefore, it would be vital to implement cohesive and viable land use planning, that can considerably contribute to the country's broad economic development.

Can environmental regulations break down domestic market segmentation? Evidence from China.

While local protectionism and market segmentation owing to fiscal decentralization are not conducive to broad economic development, they may be rational choices on a local scale. Based on a spatial Durbin model, we analyzed the relationship between environmental regulations and market segmentation in China using interprovincial panel data for 2004-2018. The results indicated that the "beggar-thy-neighbor" phenomenon persists in China; environmental regulations have a U-shaped impact on market segmentation, i.e., in most regions, environmental regulation can break down market segmentation. Regions with greater decentralization are better able to promote local market integration through environmental regulation, suggesting that local governments are better able to compensate for market failures when vested with greater power. Hence, we propose that the central government should improve performance evaluation indicators for local governments and grant them greater autonomy; additionally, local governments should increase the intensity of environmental regulations as appropriate, thereby promoting both environmental protection and the unification of domestic markets.

Recasting the Bureau of Customs as a Developmental Agency

This paper estimates that 40 centavos out of every 1 peso in potential revenues is lost to corruption in the Philippine Bureau of Customs. Ending the “corruption finance” propagated through tax leakages in the BOC could be good in and of itself for the country, but international evidence and experience suggest that our customs agency has the potential to become much more relevant to the broader economic development agenda. It could very well be the vanguard of trade facilitation for the country, by simplifying and harmonizing international trade procedures, and thus also lowering the costs and the “friction” of moving goods across our borders. This paper reviews some of the governance issues surrounding customs administration; and it also discusses the possible developmental role of this agency.

TO ASSESS THE POSITION OF SMALL MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN ETHOPIA

Development of micro and small enterprises holds the attraction of being the most important component of broader economic development and poverty alleviation. They are seen as a key and sustainable generator of employment and income for citizens and tax revenue for the state. They also serve as a bridge between informal economy and the formalized corporate sector in developing countries. Likewise, if they are able to meet the required export quality and standards, for some countries they are a source of foreign exchange earnings. It is also believed that a variant micro and small enterprise sector helps to encourage competition since they are favorable to bring about economic growth.

Does mineral development provide a basis for sustainable economic development?

The extraction of non-renewable resources is broadly viewed as an unsustainable activity. After 60+ years of examining the role of non-renewable resource development in broader economic development, and its implications for economic welfare, there is little consensus on its effects–or even its desirability. This paper examines the issue of sustainability in the context of non-renewable mineral resources which, we argue, is entwined with the mineral extraction industry‘s “boom-bust” and “resource curse” images. We present a standard Solow-style economic growth model that integrates mineral endowment and uses the model to examine the mineral blessing or curse question empirically with a cross-section of countries. The model is tested using several econometric techniques that generally support the mineral blessing hypothesis. On the question of sustainability, we contrast the applicability of the concept in the contexts of renewable and non-renewable resource development. In the former case, the concept of sustainable yield is relatively straightforward. In the latter, the concept is much more difficult to apply. Sustainable development of non-renewable resources depends on factors beyond physical rates of production, such as governance and investment in human and physical capital.

Challenges and Opportunities of Micro and Small Enterprises Strategy in Ethiopia Urban development, the case of Ambo Town, Oromia, Ethiopia#

In Ethiopia, Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) is prioritised as important means of economic diversification, job creation, income generation and equity distribution as indispensable poverty reduction sector since 2006. Despite the great attention given to micro and small enterprises, little research exists that examines challenges and opportunities of the Sector in the implementation trajectory. With the new initiative of National Development Programme to Accelerate Sustainable Development to Eradicate Poverty (PASDEP) in 2006-2010, the government has been commencing a new Micro and Small Enterprises Development Strategy. However, the blue prints strategy would be able to prove in the process to achieve the goals and target through timely evaluation of its implementations. It has been long time and common to listen and observe complains of MSEs on the overall sectoral performance and strategic incompatibility both among the unemployed societies and existing MSEs. Based on this rationale, the study was intended to assess the challenges and opportunities of the existing MSE strategy in Ambo town. In this descriptive research primary data were collected from 135 MSEs in Ambo using stratified and purposive sampling design.<br />MSEs in Ambo town are facing different challenges. These challenges are identified as marketing, financial, good governance, i.e., lack of market place; inadequacy credit facilities and inefficient service delivery. The study shows that the long and delayed procedure to establish MSEs is the most common challenges observed in both the old (2006) and new (2011) strategies. These are mainly as a result of inefficient human resource capacities of the sector and cumbersome procedures of credit and saving institution in the town. Moreover, a little understanding of unemployed society on the strategy is the main gap creating misunderstandings. Findings indicated that, the above challenges are a bottle-neck to the goal set by the strategy to create jobs for unemployment and being urban base of local economic and social development. In prospect wise, the study asserted that, the 2011 strategy has been improving MSEs to have a clear definition, typical set ups and structure arrangements as enterprise. Therefore, the strategy has identified as the means to change the societal structure by creating broad local economic and social development to the extent of medium investors. Finally, promoting awareness to active unemployed citizens by giving continues capacity building for both office staff and members of enterprises, local governance reforms and the rechecking of MSE establishment procedures are important in alleviating the problems at implementation stage.

Jumping Back and Forth between Domestic Courts and ISDS: Mixed Signals from the Asia-Pacific Region

It is uncontroversial that cross-border investments engender the possibility of disputes arising between investors and host States. What is unclear is whether such disputes should be characterized as being unique or distinctive because they involve foreign investors. What is further in controversy is whether there should be a customized mechanism to resolve such disputes. The institution of investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS), which has for some time enjoyed popularity as a way of resolving investor–State disputes, has come under renewed scrutiny over the past few years as a result of dissatisfaction articulated by a number of countries. Many South American and Asian countries have expressed concerns over the nature of ISDS and the organizations that facilitate it. This includes Nicaragua and Venezuela signalling an intention to terminate existing bilateral investment treaties (BITs), and Ecuador denouncing the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) established by the World Bank, which is the primary source of investment arbitration. In 2007, the Philippines negotiated to exclude ISDS in its free trade agreement with Japan.4 In March 2014, Indonesia indicated that it would terminate its BIT with the Netherlands and likely implement a scheme of terminating all of its remaining BITs as they become due to expire. In 2011, the Commonwealth Government of Australia stated in a Trade Policy Statement (‘the Policy’) that Australia would no longer agree to the inclusion of ISDS in its future bilateral and regional trade agreements (BRTAs), choosing instead to rely on alternatives to ISDS. After a change in Australia’s Government in 2013, two years after the Policy was announced, the new Liberal–National Coalition Government has retreated from that Policy notably by including an ISDS regime in the Korea–Australia Free Trade Agreement (KAFTA) concluded on 5 December 2013, and the China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) concluded on 17 June 2015. References to the Policy have been removed from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s official website, which indicates instead that it will consider the inclusion of ISDS on a case-by-case basis.8 Further, the Government has categorically stated that Australia’s ability to pass public interest legislation, such as in the areas of national security, public health, and environmental protection, will not be compromised. Notably, the Japan–Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (JAEPA), concluded in April 2014, does not include an ISDS regime. Australia is currently in bilateral negotiations with Indonesia and India, as well as having a stake in the imminent Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). It is not clear what negotiation stance the Australian Government is likely to take with respect to these instruments. In formulating national investment policy, including with respect to ISDS, governments should seek to adopt measures that pursue broader economic development, encourage responsible investor behaviour, and are practical in ensuring policy effectiveness. These principles, addressing concerns about investment policy generally and ISDS in particular, are reflected in global debate over sustainable development, notably in the UNCTAD’s Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development (IPFSD). In light of a broader framework for sustainable development of investment policy, this chapter will consider the value of ISDS in resolving disputes between host States and foreign investors, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. It will argue that the oscillation between ISDS and domestic courts serves to destabilize international commerce as well as comity between states. It will recommend, in response, potential developments to the substantive and procedural execution of ISDS provisions. The chapter will focus on the policies articulated by Australia in its Policy Statement in 2011 and then in 2013. The chapter will also construe the positions adopted by a number of Asian countries as examples of developments taking place within the region and the potential future of ISDS regionally as well as internationally.

Micro-generation in conflict: The conditions necessary to power economic development in rural Afghanistan

Access to reliable electricity eludes many poor rural Afghan communities despite plentiful renewable resources. Micro-generation seems particularly well suited to Afghanistan’s mountainous, decentralised society but even with substantial investment since 2001 it has not lived up to expectations. Recognising the causes are likely to dwell in the human (rather than technical) domain, this study takes a qualitative, soft systems approach to deriving and validating the necessary conditions that might improve the success rate of micro-generation projects in enabling sustainable economic development. It acknowledges the governance limitations inherent in fragile states and the significance of the community as the most stable element of society, putting the latter at the centre of its thinking. Those conditions identified as critical are summarised as: a holistic approach that sees micro-generation as a component of broader economic development; an environment safe enough for project build and operation, and for the markets necessary for wealth creation; and external support to build community capacity to fund and maintain schemes through-life. These conditions are likely to have relevance for other fragile states; the next step is to develop them in the field before deployment as part of a comprehensive approach to poverty alleviation in Afghanistan and similar states.

THE IMPACTS OF RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION AND PROPERTY PRICES ON RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION OUTPUTS: AN INTER-MARKET EQUILIBRIUM APPROACH

Research into the links between construction output and broader economic development has provided valuable references for inducing theoretical, empirical and policy implications. However, the impact of the construction and property markets on the construction output have not been fully addressed yet. This research argues an inter-market equilibrium between residential construction output and the related markets in terms of construction and property prices. Implementing the panel error correction model, longitudinal data of Australian capital cities is used to identify the inter-market equilibrium and associated dynamic patterns across the observed cities. Subsequently, by comparing the simulated and actual residential construction outputs, the estimated findings are evaluated. The inter-market equilibriums in the Australian capital cities appeared in geographic-spatial clusters while the economy-scale-spatial clusters were observed in dynamic patterns.

Analysis of the Environmental Management System based on ISO 14001 on the American continent

The American continent is in broad economic and industrial development. Consequently, a more detailed discussion of the impacts generated by such development is needed. Moreover, there is an increase in the number of ISO 14001 certificates issued to this continent. Given the above, no studies were found that bridge the gap to identify the influence of different factors on ISO 14001 in the Americas. Thus, this article has as its main aim to check which economic, environmental and cultural factors have influence on ISO 14001 Certification in the American Continent. The data were collected in the ISO Survey, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and International Energy Agency. Among the countries of that continent, thirteen were analyzed and only two did not show the economic factors as the influence factor in the multiple regression models fitted with Brazil and the United State. In these models, all presented environmental factors as influencing factors. Only in Brazil the index HDI presented as cultural factor in multiple regression model fitted. The economic factors: Gross Domestic Product and exports of goods and services and environmental: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and fossil fuel consumption were the most influential in ISO 14001 certification. Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia and the United States were countries that had factors dependent on each other, featuring the environmental marketing. Briefly, this study brings up several implications: to the academy, with the proposal of new concepts and guidance on the factors that assist in ISO 14001 certification in the American Continent. Additionally, taking into account the industry, the factors serve as efficiency parameters for the implementation of ISO 14001 standard, and for the Government to improve through factors that do not fit in multiple regression models.

Islamic Wealth Management and the Pursuit of Positive-Sum Solutions

How is Islamic wealth management (IWM) distinguished from conventional wealth management? In this paper it is argued that the level of concentration of wealth at both national and international level is related to the conventional wealth management, where the latter can be viewed having a zero-sum bias and IWM, in its current practices, is more of an appendage to its conventional counterpart. The focus of this paper is to articulate, explain and advocate approaching IWM from positive-sum perspective, meaning that genuine wealth management does not have to be broadly at the expense of others. Rather, sustainable and fair wealth management is not only compatible with, but also is facilitated by broad economic development where the standard of living of an increasingly larger proportion of the society improves. More importantly, Islam upholds a fundamental principle against ever-increasing concentration of wealth that causes wealth to circulate among a few privileged wealthy and places a specific burden on the rich to avoid such undesirable level of concentration, for which God warns of stern consequences in the life hereafter. This paper identifies a number of areas that those wealthy parties who care about Islamic principles and accountability before God should appreciate and help foster.

The economy of Vietnam in 2013 - 2014 from the viewpoint of macroeconomic targets

Economic growth is the premise to implement social, environmental, ecological and welfare duties. Vietnam’s economic growth in 2013 is pretty optimistic with 5.42%, the growth quality has also been improved. This growth has contributed to the stabilization of macroeconomy, inflation control and trade surplus.The 2013’ CPI increased less than those of previous years which indicates the inflation control in 2013 is a success. The trade balance has reversed with a trade surplus of 750 and 860 million USD in 2012 and 2013 respectively. The number of employed people in 2013 also increased compared to in 2012 (increased by 1.35%) The 2014’s economic target is to keep the macroeconomic stability and control inflation. The economic targets in 2014 are: economic growth is 5.8%; inflation is controlled below 6%; employment for about 1.6 million of workers is created and export growth to the direction of balance of export and import in the manner of stability and sustainability. In order to achieve 2014’s economic targets, it is necessary to have a new driving force and significant breakthrough, which are regime reform and renovation in the way of thinking. Continue to boost the economic reform with focuces on public investment, banking system and state-owned enterprises to switch from broad economic development to in-depth economic development through capacity of synchronized factors, ensuring the stable development for the economy.

Implementing e-government in hard times: When the past is wildly at variance with the future

The article aims to contribute to the debate on the role of e-government in spurring the reorganisation of the public sector and broader economic development in a period when financial austerity reduces the public resources available to drive change. The overarching argument here is that the past constrains what can be done in the future. In other words, the administrative patterns and attitudes of old determine the speed and breadth of the new practices championed by the stimulus packages. The paper analyses the Digital Agenda launched in 2012 by Italy's bipartisan government and discusses the consequences of this path dependency 'on the ground'. Our findings indicate that the potential of e-government as an engine of growth and a driver of large-scale change is thwarted by the policy makers overplaying of cost-cutting targets rather than transformational targets.