Terms Of Economic Activity Research Articles

Leveled Mountains and Broken Fences: Measuring and Analysing De Facto Decentralisation in Vietnam

AbstractThe article seeks to measure and explain provincial autonomy in Vietnam during the reform era, arguing that the absence of an effective measure of autonomy to date has limited the scope for developing an overarching theory capable of explaining autonomy across a range of settings. The article pioneers a method for measuring autonomy involving a content analysis of Vietnamese newspapers over a ten-year period, noting whenever provinces are reported for engaging in a series of carefully defined autonomous acts. Having developed the measure of autonomy, the article seeks to test four hypotheses for explaining it, namely geographical location, relations with central government, initial conditions on the eve of reform, and the dominant source of economic activity in terms of ownership. The article finds that no single factor accounts for autonomy on its own but also that there is only a weak relationship between autonomy and a province's geographical location and that provinces heavily represented in central government tend to be among the least autonomous.

European exports and outward foreign direct investment: A dynamic panel data approach

European Exports and Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach. — This paper implements a panel data approach for studying the determinants of and relationships between bilateral economic activities in terms of both trade and foreign direct investment between the EU member states. The familiar equation for testing the determinants of bilateral exports is reformulated to reflect recent theoretical work. It is specified as a dynamic panel data model designed to answer questions about their relationship according to changes in different exogenous determinants. Exports and stocks of outward FDI are found to be substitutes with respect to changes in transport costs and complements with respect to most of the other determinants.

Greenhouse gas emissions and the allocation of responsibility

Greenhouse gas emissions and the allocation of responsibility compares the relative contributions of different nations to emissions of the three greenhouse gases which contribute most to global warming. It suggests some "measures" of emissions and efficiency on a comparative basis, relating them to each country's per capita income, and considers the extent to which each country been has efficient in its economic activities in terms of such emissions.

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE: ASSESSING APPROPRIATE MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES

ABSTRACTThis note considers the impact of recent generalizations of trade theory upon indices of‘revealed’comparative advantage. In particular, defining economic activities in terms of net output meets some of the theoretical objections to such measures. For two types of measure — trade/production and net export indices — such a basis for calculation has only slight consequences and, therefore, suggests such objections to not be significant in practice. For a third type of measure — export share based indices — these theoretical objections have more force in practice.

Resource accounting: An application to development planning

Abstract Economic projections, because they are based on assupmtions about future values, become increasingly unreliable as they move into the long-term future. In a search for a more robust way of assessing a country's long-term development prospects in the light of feasible or seemingly desirable policies with respect to population, resources, agriculture and development, a concept called resource accounting has been explored. Here one measures the physical effort required to carry through an economic activity rather than its cost. The concept rests on the observation that if any economic activity is analyzed retrospectively in physical terms, ultimately all output is found to rest on present and past labor and present and past energy use. Since labor, in terms of quantity if not quality, is generally in surplus in any economy enjoying technological progress, one can quantity economic activities in terms of present and past energy use to establish the future feasible level of material welfare of an economy and its approach to sustainability in the context of its present status and known resources. This concept has been put to work as a simulation model iniatially development for UNESCO'S Population Division in order to assess the potential for enhancing the sustainable carrying capacity of nation-states.

Energy-GDP relationship and capital intensity in LDCs

This study provides an updated estimate of the GDP elasticity of energy consumption for LDCs. It uses a production function approach in determining this elasticity. Energy consumption is explained in terms of economic activity, capital intensity and structure of economy. The elasticity is found to be less than unitary. This suggests that the earlier estimates for LDCs were biased.

The Presence in Southern Asia of Outside Powers

In considering the presence of outside powers in South and Southeast Asia, this discussion covers a spectrum of phenomena included in the often-used but highly ambiguous concept of "presence." It examines the major different forms of outside "presence" in Pakistan, India, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It then notes the shifting preponderant foreign presence in Pakistan, the diminishing American presence in both Pakistan and India, the rising Soviet military assistance presence in India, and the lack of foreign presence in Burma. There is an expectation that the American presence in Thailand will decline and growing anxiety there about likely Vietnam presence in the future, particularly among ethnic minorities on Thailand's frontiers. A Japanese presence, in the form of commercial activity, at the very least, is growing rapidly—in Thailand and Indonesia, particularly—and will grow further. The Chinese presence is more a problem for the eighties than for the seventies, except in countries with Chinese minorities, where anxieties persist and may increase. The Soviet presence is also widely expected to grow, both militarily and in terms of economic activity over the decade.

A Case Study in Industrial Location

are the largest employers, engaging 25 and 30 percent respectively of the employed labor force. Since San Antonio harbors one of the largest concentrations of military activity in the United States, the government sector influences nearly every aspect of the economy. In 1960, military payrolls (to both civilian and non-civilians) totaled approximately 46 percent of local wage and salary income,4 and aggregate military expenditures comprised over 20 percent of total area personal income.5 Supporting economic activities in terms of percentage employment distribution include: services (14 percent); manufacturing (11.2 percent); construction (7.3 percent); transportation, communications, and public utilities (6.5 percent); finance, insurance, and real estate (5.5 percent); and mining (0.6 percent).6 Consequently, the public sector's impact is hegemonic due to its essentially basic income7 and, in contrast, the role