Country Coverage Research Articles

Trade intensity, country size and corruption

Abstract. Several authors claim to provide evidence that governmental corruption is less severe in countries where trade intensity is higher or populations are smaller. We argue that theory is highly ambiguous on these questions, and demonstrate that empirical links between corruption and trade intensity – or country size, strongly related to trade intensity – are sensitive to sample selection bias. Most available corruption indicators provide ratings only for those countries in which multinational investors have the greatest interest: these tend to include almost all large nations, but among small nations only those that are well-governed. We find that the relationship between corruption and trade intensity disappears, using newer corruption indicators with substantially increased country coverage. Similarly, the relationship between corruption and country size weakens or disappears using samples less subject to selection bias.

Developing Countries as Exporters of Services: What Trade Statistics Suggest

The paper departs from the perception that trade in services in general and developing countries` exports in services in particular are dynamic segments of world trade. Both total trade data as well as US import trade figures do not support this perception. Success episodes such as the recent increase in Indian computer and data processing services are found to be outliers. Instead, developing countries continue to rely on relatively slowly growing exports of relatively labourtabundant consumer services relating to movements of goods and persons. Thus, they have not yet benefited from innovations in the information technology sectors providing a growth momentum for producer services. Given the link between goods production and goods distribution, successful exporters of manufactures mostly overlap with successful exporters of services. The research argues that for the time being overproportionate growth of service exports from developing countries will remain limited to country episodes, but will not have the same wide country coverage as growth of manufactured exports.

Capital Account Liberalization and Economic Performance: Survey and Synthesis

This paper reviews the literature on the effects of capital account liberalization and stock market liberalization on economic growth. The various empirical measures used to gauge the presence of controls on capital account transactions as well as indicators of stock market liberalization are discussed. We compare detailed measures of capital account controls that attempt to capture the intensity of enforcement with others that simply capture whether or not controls are present. Our review of the literature shows the contrasting results that have been obtained. These differences may reflect differences in country coverage, sample periods and indicators of liberalization. In order to reconcile these differences, we present new estimates of the effects on growth of capital account liberalization and stock market liberalization. We find some support for a positive effect of capital account liberalization on growth, especially for developing countries.

The Kyoto Protocol: A Flawed Concept

The framework of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement for the world's rich countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, is deeply flawed. This paper explains why. The Protocol lacks essential country coverage, provides an inadequate basis for allocating emission rights, lacks provision for monitoring and enforcement, and implies politically unacceptable transfers among governments under a (necessary and desirable) arrangement for trading emission rights. In addition, it would by itself do little to limit climate change. An alternative approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions is suggested, focussing on international agreement on common actions to reduce emissions. And contingency plans for adaptation to climate change and for sequestration greenhouse gases are urged.

Using technical databases with minority patent coverage to enhance retrieval

This paper is a survey of some 66 online databases in science and technology which have a minority content of patents organised in a reasonably systematic fashion. The databases are listed and analysed under four broad headings: • country coverage and patent equivalents, • timeliness, • searchable fields, including cross-file searching, • relationships between patent and non-patent literature. The industry-specific files which have been identified with particularly significant patent content are drawn from the photographic, biotechnological, paper, petroleum, packaging, coating, textile, ceramic and food industries. The author concludes by suggesting that the database producers should review their procedures to ensure more reliable and consistent coverage of the major patent publishing organisations, in a timely and reproducible manner. For searchers, he points out the value of searching such databases as a way of improving and complementing the primary results from the essential core patent databases.

Developments in Patents Documentation in Europe during the Last Decade

The professional patent searcher needs to understand the legal procedures underlying patent publications, to obtain maximum benefit from available information sources. The political upheavals in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall have resulted in substantial changes to national patent laws and procedures, in parallel with trends toward more regional filing methods. The response of the commercial database producers to new country coverage is discussed, together with aspects of new document types such as supplementary protection certificates for pharmaceuticals and the increasing popularity of utility model patents.

IPLEX: Intellectual property laws and treaties on CD-ROM

IPLEX is a unique database in the field of intellectual property legislation with its constantly increasing coverage of countries and full-text multilingual hypertext features. It is an indispensable tool for patent attorneys, copyright specialists, private companies, university libraries, and for all those who are interested in legal information on intellectual property.

Survey of patent documentation from the Pacific Rim Countries

The patent documents issued by a number of the Pacific Rim Countries (Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam) and their coverage by the major secondary sources of patent information (INPADOC/EPIDOS, Derwent WPI, CAS, EDOC, JAPIO, CHINAPATS and PATOLIS) are reviewed; difficulties which searchers of these sources may experience are pointed out. ∗ ∗ After submission of this article, the following new information has been announced: 1. Singapore has deposited an instrument of accession to the Paris Convention, which will enter into force on 23 February 1995; 2. Derwent Information Ltd announced their intention to enhance the coverage of Pacific Rim countries in their World Patent Index file during 1995. Japanese coverage will be extended to include all subject matter for JP-A ( Kokai) documents. Coverage of the People's Republic of China (CN) will be extended to include examined documents. New coverage will be commenced for patents from Singapore (SG) and the Philippines (PH).

An APEC or multilateral investment code?

This paper considers whether there should be an international investment code and, if so, whether it should be a regional code for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries or a multilateral code. The APEC Eminent Persons Group recommended to APEC in October 1993 that there should be an Asia—Pacific Investment Code to regulate direct foreign investment in the region. On the other hand, there is already substantial regulation of international investment at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels and other proposals for increased regulation are under consideration in the OECD and other fora. This paper argues that, in the long term, a Code under the World Trade Organisation would have the advantages of greater country coverage, links to other investment-related provisions of the WTO and greater enforceability. In the interim, APEC can develop and promote the principles of transparency and non-discrimination in the treatment of foreign direct investments.

The Globalization of our Mental Maps: Evaluating the Geographic Scope of JIBS Coverage

This article analyzes patterns of country coverage in the Journal of International Business Studies during the twenty-five years of its existence. The analysis shows a substantial expansion in the journal's geographic reach over the years, but also a somewhat narrow “mental map,” with many countries and areas receiving only minimal coverage. Explanations for country preferences among researchers are explored and implications for the future are discussed.

Improving inter-spatial and inter-temporal comparability of national accounts

The inter-spatial indices of prices and outputs generated by the UN International Comparison Program (ICP) are not always consistent with the inter-temporal indices compiled by national statistical offices. This paper discussed the issues involved and describes what the World Bank is doing about them. Although the inconsistencies are due to a combination of factors ranging from intractable index number problems, problems associated with compiling inter-temporal indices and those related to measurement of inter-spatial indices, the paper concentrates on concepts and practices of ICP. The paper documents the discrepancies in available data and argues that some of the discrepancies are unavoidable as time-to-time indices of outputs are obtained from series where prices are fixed and quantities vary while the place-to-place indices in ICP benchmark data involve changes both in prices and quantities over time; that others will be reduced as the methods, practices and country coverage of ICP become stable; and that the bulk of the discrepancy results from lack of coordination in the way data are collected for national accounts. Consumer Price Index (CPI) and ICP. The paper concludes that the inconsistencies would be reduced and the remaining discrepancies better understood if there is harmonization and improvement of statistical work related to national accounts. CPI and ICP, and outlines a number of steps in this direction.

Life expectancy of international cartels: An empirical analysis

This paper quantifies the importance of the various determinants of life expectancy for international cartels active throughout this century. I explain cartels' optimal duration as a function of market structure and demand growth and estimate the associated parameters recognizing that durability cannot be negative. According to the results, increases in either market shares or cartel concentration prolong life expectancy. Faster demand growth shortens cartel durability but this effect is not reliable. I also find that growth effects are sensitive to both the period of activity and the country coverage.

The directory of international sources of business information

European business information brokers and Euro-info centres country data sources - Austria, Belgium and Luxembourge, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA industry data sources - chemicals, computers, electronics, financial services, food and drink, metals, motor vehicles, pharmaceuticals, printing and publishing, telecommunications, textiles online databases - background - sources of further information and advice international packet switching service - prices and national contacts UK packet switching exchanges, summary matrix - major database hosts database host services chart online databases - descriptions - company finance and profile general management marketing economics news and current affairs overseas trade opportunities specialist industry databases science and technology industry wide databases securities accountancy and tax bibliographic EEC. Appendices: publishers of market research reports database hosts and producers database country coverage and subject area summary chart international telephone codes and time difference list.

Mass media coverage of developing countries: a functional approach

Abstract This article raises the question of whether Western media norms and expectations should form the basis for international media coverage of Third World countries, as well as countries such as South Africa with First and Third World components. In considering this question the point is made that no discussion of the media in society can be meaningful without considering the composition of the societal structure itself. The functional approach derived from communication theory, is used to indicate what role the media should play from a Western point of view. Consequently the influence of various societal structures on mass media functions is dealt with. The article concludes that First World media claims should be tempered by Third Worldneeds, and that the South African government needs to formulate a communication policy suited to its social and historical context.

The relationship between the rate of inflation and its unpredictability in high inflation Latin American countries

Pourgerami and Maskus (PM) (1987) find three “difficulties” in our analysis of the relationship between the rate of inflation (P) and its unpredictability (Pf) in Latin American countries.’ The first of these is a point very well taken, namely that the positive relationship we hypothesized might well be offset by a negative one arising because higher rates of inflation could be expected to induce the relevant economic agents to invest more in generating the relevant information. in utilizing it efficiently and in developing the instruments capable of hedging against inflation. However, since any such adjustments would be institutional in nature and take time to be carried out. it is obvious that this consideratipn would not be relevant for short-run analysis involving year-to-year or especially quarter-to-quarter changes in inflation rates as in our analysis. The other “difficulties.” namely that quarterly observations are more relevant than annual ones in testing such relationships and that rational expectations (RE) models of the type employed by PM are preferable to adaptive expectations models of the type we used, are criticisms more relevant to the short-run relation between inflation and its predictability, but, as we shall presently demonstrate. are not persuasive. Nevertheless. since the results presented by PM (as they have noted) show the relationship between PI and P to be considerably weaker than was indicated in earlier results (including our own). the substantial difference in results deserves explanation. Since their time coverage. frequent!. of adjustment of expectations. model of esprct;ltions and to some extent countr! coverage were all different than ours, it is not possible to learn from their results the reason for the difference. By employing the same time and country coverage as in PM, and also an estimation procedure (Hildreth-Lu) which corrects for autocorrelation, and continuing to use a modified version of our adaptive expectations model (MAE): but varying the duration of the periods, the results presented in Table 1 shed light on the source of the difference. As can be seen, the use of quarterly instead of annual data does not have a large effect on the results, thereby suggesting that PM’s use of quarterly data is not the source of their weaker results. Indeed, note that in six of the seven high inflation countries the slope coefficient is larger and more significant when quarterly data are employed than when annual data are employed. The largest differences are between the results obtained from our own MAE model estimated with quarterly data and those obtained by PM with their RE model with the same data. In all seven cases the PM estimate of @, is significantly lower than our own corresponding estimate. Which estimate is more reliable? Even if one were to agree in principle with PM that RE models are superior to AE models of price expectations, the particular RE model employed by PM can hardly be considered acceptable, let alone superior to our MAE model. With their 20 right hand side variables, i.e.. four lags of each of five different explanatory variables. relative to our four right hand side variables, it is not surprising that PM havq been able to increase the explained variation of P. correspondingly reduc-

The international news about governability: A comparison of the New York Times and six news wires

This paper examines the international news coverage of governability offered by several news sources. Governability is defined as actual or potential challenges to the domestic political order or stability of a nation, manifested by oppositional violence, leadership crises or institutional change. The New York Times, AP, UPI, Reuters, Northern Reuters, Kyodo and Xinshua are examined for one week. We evaluate how well these sources cover governability issues with respect to four criteria: relative emphasis on the topic, volume of coverage, depth of coverage and extensiveness of country coverage (on both a global and a regional basis). Our results indicate that the global coverage of governability concentrates on certain regions and countries of the world, and that large gaps appear for Africa and for much of the Third World. The New York Times offers the most in‐depth coverage of governability issues, but UPI, AP, Reuters and Northern Reuters offer much wider country coverage. We also found that two non‐We...

The demand for gasoline: Further evidence

Sufficient time must be allowed to elapse to assess fully the response of gasoline demand to price changes. Hitherto, empirical work on the subject has generally not examined the period beyond 1975; moreover, the extant time-series studies concentrate almost exclusively on the USA. This study extends both the observation period and the country coverage. A vehicle stock-adjustment model is estimated via its reduced form without explicit consideration of the vehicle stock itself. However, the estimation procedure incorporates the structure by way of constraints on the parameters. Cross-section analysis offers additional evidence concerning the truly long-run price elasticity. The results suggest that there is no need to resort to elaborate models to explain adequately gasoline demand. Gasoline demand exhibits a long-run price elasticity near unity with time lags exceeding six years, while there is tentative evidence that the duration of these lags is not fixed.

Journalistik om flere af verdens mange virkeligheder

New Danish and British studies of media coverage of non-western countries and cultures documents the well-known negative picture, but a new trend is under way. The globalisation and journalism about civil society around the world demands new methods of journalism. This article focus on “global journalism” and describes various concepts and ways of thinking to be used for development of new journalism with a more cultural sensitive coverage of other countries in news and reportage.

Sectoral Output-Capital Ratios and Levels of Economic Development: A Cross-Sectional Comparison of Manufacturing Industry

T HE concept of the capital-output ratio has played an almost indispensable part in economic planning in underdeveloped countries, notwithstanding numerous theoretical objections. The range of areas in which the concept is brought into play stretches from judgement-free projections of capital requirements and of future growth rates to the wise man's role of setting an acceptable target rate of growth and of selecting investment criteria. However, progress has been seriously hampered partly because the available empirical evidence has been very limited in the coverage of various countries and also in the level of sectoral disaggregation.' In the present paper, we make use of certain new data whose analysis seems to suggest that the conventional notion of relative factor-endowments and choice of production techniques needs to be re-examined. The main objectives of this study are two: first, we present a comprehensive statistical analysis of detailed sectoral output-capital ratios for a large number of countries. Second, in doing so, this paper will point to a surprising characteristic of present-day economic underdevelopment. This evidence has a significant bearing on a number of related topics.