Economic Reform Program Research Articles

A Comparative Study of India’s Foreign Trade in Pre and Post Reform Period

Foreign trade has been playing a vital role in the economic progress and prosperity of every country. In modern days foreign trade has assumed an immense prominence and substance for economic development of a country because of interdependence of economies, increasing specialization and joining regional cooperation. In 1991, the major program of economic reform were introduced which emphasize on external sector wherein the protective tariffs were decreased, changes into foreign investment and the restrictive import licensing system was relaxed and simplified. After the New economic reforms, India’s foreign trade has undergone substantial changes, volume of trade rose up and composition of trade was also frequently changed. The main objective of the paper is to study the trends of India’s foreign trade pre and post new economic reforms in India. The entire data for the present study is collected from the secondary sources. The collected data has been analyzed by using Paired t-test from SPSS software package and graphs. The findings of this paper said that there is positive relationship between economic reforms and India’s foreign trade. A push has been given to the exports but analyzes says that the increasing rate of imports is higher in comparison to the increasing rate of exports.

Shared Streets: Choreographed Disorder in the Late Socialist City

This article examines the local self-governance of streets and sidewalks in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Streets and sidewalks are shared among diverse actors for various activities while being formally managed by the state. Since the passing of the <em>Đổi Mới</em> economic reform program in 1986, which paved the way for the development of a private sector economy, street trade has been flourishing in Hanoi. Private individuals, mostly women, temporarily occupy sidewalks and streets to sell their goods. This form of petty trade caters to urbanites’ everyday demand for fresh products and food. While many Hanoians are actually in favor of street trade, the municipality seeks to undermine and regulate street trade, as it contradicts some state administrators’ vision of a modern and civilized city. Drawing inspiration from Jacobs’ (1961) “sidewalk ballet,” this article particularly examines the social norms governing public space. As they constantly need to negotiate their right to the city, street traders develop tactics to circumvent the municipal sidewalk order. Following the rhythms of regular crackdowns on street trade, the emergence and vanishing of mediation spaces, and urbanites’ tactics, this contribution seeks to understand modes of urban governance over these shared spaces. This study draws on ethnographic data collected during one year of fieldwork, local newspaper analysis, and secondary literature.

‘An Atmosphere of Waffle and Woolliness’: British Developmental Aid and Economic Transformation in Czechoslovakia

Discussions of the Thatcherite foreign policy often centre exclusively on the Cold War and especially on the relationship with the USSR. Therefore, the British relationship with smaller communist states is often unexplored, even though it is where British influence was most prominent. The brand of political and economic thinking espoused by British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher found avid disciples in the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in the 1990s. A group of influential Czechoslovak politicians and officials led by Finance Minister, and later Czech Prime Minister, Václav Klaus sought to transform the Czechoslovak communist economy into a free market one that roughly followed Thatcherite lines. This was not only because they felt an ideological closeness to Thatcher but also because Britain was one of the few countries at the time that had experienced a large-scale privatisation of industries. Therefore, the reformers saw it as a model. The Prime Minister reciprocated these warm feelings. She authorised the sending of a team of British experts to Czechoslovakia, with the goal of aiding its economic reform programme. British advisers greatly contributed to privatisation and other schemes, especially on the practical side.

New Extractivism in Ghana’s Salt Sector

Since commercial production of oil and gas started in Ghana over a decade ago, the salt sector which has historically been dominated by artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) has seen renewed corporate interest. Aided by the state’s preference for large-scale mining (LSM) over ASM since the days of the Economic Reform Program, several tens of thousands of acres of areas previously operated by artisanal and small-scale miners for salt mining have been leased to large-scale salt mining companies. Situated in political settlement and infrapolitics theoretical frameworks, with a focus on two key salt producing sites (Songor and Keta lagoons) and using qualitative research methods through ethnographic engagement with affected regions, the study explores the consequences of this new extractivism in the salt sector to assess the long-term consequences of forced evictions, as well as role of civil society in the retention or otherwise of the now dominant LSM in the salt sector.

The Risk of Capital Flight on Economic Growth and National Solvency: An Empirical Evidence from Palestine

Capital flight is a serious concern and threat to any country's economy, regardless of its level of development, because it represents a squandered investment that lays the way for future problems. The capital flight occurred in Palestine as a result of economic mismanagement, which was worsened by bad policy decisions that robbed the government of much-needed financial resources. This research investigates the consequences of capital flight on Palestinian economic growth. To obtain these results, they used yearly time series data from (1981 to 2021). The Autoregressive Distributed Lag ARDL model is used to investigate the research variables and data gathered from various sources. The findings reveal that factors such as real GDP in Palestine, capital flight, foreign reserves, foreign debt, and domestic investment are all connected in the long and short term. Moreover, the outcomes of various transactions show that capital flight has a negative and significant impact. In contrast, foreign currency reserves, public debt, and direct investment positively influence long-term economic growth. To curb the growing flood of capital flight, the government must implement realistic economic reform programs. These economic improvements must concentrate on these three areas to achieve strong macroeconomic stability, openness and accountability in public finance management and a supportive environment for local production.

Issues of improving the functioning of the pension system and social protection in Uzbekistan

Social Protection of the population in Uzbekistan is one of the continuous priorities in the program of economic reforms and is a priority at all stages of reforms. A strong social protection policy is being pursued by the state in building a socially oriented market economy in the country. A strong social policy is one of the leading principles of Uzbekistan's path to independence and development. One of the most important forms of social protection of the population is pension provision.

Investigation of factors involved in Moroccan economic development

Recently, Morocco has initiated an extensive program of economic, financial, and social reforms aimed at achieving sustainable development. These reforms are mostly structural changes that take years to yield results. The green plan proposed by Morocco integrates an approach that addresses issues related to water scarcity and offers a chance to make the agriculture sector an engine of the economy, thereby rebalancing the trade balance. The strategy aims to give the sector a dynamic of balanced evolution, exploit the potential for progress, preserve the balance of social and economic issues, and support the profound change that the global agri-food system is undergoing. This investigation reveals that demographic development has a tangible impact on economic and sustainable development, and we must manage the risks associated with changes in today’s world.

Sustainable environmental and economic relations of Turkiye and republic of South Africa — a focus study for the period 2000-2010

As one of the primary issues facing Turkiye, environmental degradation is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Therefore, a policy-level reorientation may be required to address this situation. Based on this perspective, during the increase of mutual economic developments between Turkiye and South Africa, the impact of renewable energy (RE) use, financial develoment, urbanization, and agriculture emissions of carbon dioxide should be analyzed separately using a dataset spanning a considerable period of time. South Africa develops its national environmental policy through a consultation process known as the National Consultative Environmental Policy Process (CONNEPP). The process is designed to provide an opportunity for all stakeholders in South Africa to contribute to the development of a new environmental policy. With the end of the apartheid period in 1994, the Republic of South Africa initiated a comprehensive program of economic reform and development going forward and made significant progress in many sectors after 2000. At this time, Turkiye, as situated on a strategic location regarding global trade, was expanding its operations worldwide. The purpose of the research is to analyze the Turkish RSA relations focusing on the first decade of 21st century. As a basis of our methodology, we have researched achieves and business records as tangible verifiable information about this time period. Although the global financial crisis of 2008 affected this country for some time; the development line and ongoing momentum in the automotive industry sector, as well as sectors such as construction, banking, investment regulations, energy, telecommunications, mining and agriculture, are worth mentioning. For this specific research article, we believe that it is imperative to focus the 2000-2010 period which is the basis of today's cooperation which will bring a specific value to the academia.

The Impact of Working Capital Management on Profitability of Egyptian SMEs in Egypt

Small and medium-sized businesses contribute significantly to the economic development of any nation and endeavor to enhance the business climate. One of the main areas that affects these small and medium enterprises and their profitability and sustainability in the market is working capital management. The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between working capital management and SMEs’ profitability in the Egyptian context. To achieve this goal, this article uses the annual reports of 576 SMEs for the time period 2018 to 2021 as this time period is a rich period that includes many events such as the pandemic of COVID-19 and the economic reform programs undertaken by the Egyptian government. The results of this paper show that there is a significant negative relationship between working capital management as measured by the cash conversion cycle and profitability as measured by ROA and ROE, the paper also select firm size and firm industry as control variables. Given the focus of the Egyptian government on SMEs and their sustainability, the results of this paper can be beneficial for decision makers, banks and investors on how working capital management can significantly affect the financial performance of SMEs in Egypt.

MENA Energy Trends, Global Energy Warming, and COVID-19 Crisis: An Investigation Analysis from Oil, Gas, Regional Economy, and Labor Productivity

With the complex presence of important natural reserves, energy is considered as the main key ingredient to facilitate economic development in the Middle East, GCC, and Maghreb regions. Expectations for a rapidly growing economy in the next decade will likely cause an increase in the fraction of energy consumed domestically, limiting what is available for export. Considered as the home of global oil and gas reserves, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the cornerstone of the global energy architecture, and the global low-carbon energy transition poses critical questions to MENA oil and gas producers. Unfortunately, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeps across the world, growth in the MENA region was projected to fall to 2.8% in 2020, lower than the growth rates during the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2015 oil price shock. Before the coronavirus (COVID-2019), the sharp drop in oil and gas prices that began in 2015 fostered MENA hydrocarbon producers to launch ambitious economic reform programs in all regions. The main goal of these programs was not only to increase the diversification of investment sectors to boost national and regional economies but also to encourage the development of the nonhydrocarbon sector. This article argues for a new challenge investigation and analysis to figure out with current MENA policy options and future prospects, as well as the present impact of COVID-19, in addition to the public policies that encourage diversification economy sector to avoid entire dependence on oil and gas in export are dressed. It also deals with the investigation of the pressing need to create job opportunities for a large and youthful population and the new definition of the possibility of the world moving more aggressively towards low-carbon integration.

Differential Growth Performance of Indian States during 1980-2018: A Club Convergence within Overall Divergence of Per Capita Incomes

Breaking free from the long stagnating growth rate of the previous three decades, India in the 1980s shifted to a higher growth trajectory. After embarking upon the market-oriented economic reform program in 1991, the country sustained high growth for about 25 years. The present paper examined growth performances at the sub-national level and found that the performances were uneven across states. States attracting higher FDI flows and having enriched human resources grew faster than the others. On the whole, real per capita incomes across states tended to diverge. But states comprising the western-southern part of the country and a pocket of two other states in the north broke away from the rest of the states towards club convergence at higher per capita income levels. However, real per capita incomes in states forming the central and eastern parts of the country continued to lag behind the all- India average real per capita income.

Cameroon

Following two years of COVID-19 challenges, Cameroon, the largest economy in the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC), is facing a new policy environment. The nascent economic recovery from mid-2021, supported by higher oil prices and non-oil production, is now subject to greater uncertainties with spillovers from the war in Ukraine, high inflationary pressures, especially on food and fuel prices, and a tightening of global financial conditions. Low vaccination rates also leave the country vulnerable to further COVID-19 waves. In July 2021, the IMF’s Executive Board approved three-year arrangements under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for SDR 483 million (about US$689.5 million, or 175 percent of Cameroon’s quota) to support the country’s economic and financial reform program.

Gabon

On July 28, 2021, the IMF Executive Board approved a 36-month extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with a total access of SDR 388.8 million (180 percent of quota) to help Gabon respond to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and support the authorities’ economic and financial reform program. A nascent economic recovery is underway, and the outlook is broadly positive but remains subject to considerable uncertainty and a range of risks. The war in Ukraine will affect the economy through various channels, including higher food and fuel prices.

Labour, left and right: On party positioning and policy reasoning

Since the Second World War, the Labour Party has alternated between periods in which it has been positioned further to the left and others when it has been further to the right. The standard explanation for those oscillations is electoral–ideological. Labour moves to the right (towards the political centre) when it prioritises electoral considerations, usually after a period in opposition. It moves to the left when it prioritises ideology, usually after periods in government. Against this we propose a political economy–policy explanation. Labour moves to the right and a redistributive economic strategy when the economy is performing reasonably well. It moves to the left and adopts a structural economic reform programme when the economy is perceived to be in crisis. We argue that the political economy–policy explanation offers a more satisfactory account of when and why Labour has changed its spatial policy positioning in this period. By acknowledging the role of what we term ‘policy reasoning’ in the processes by which political parties (and the public) adopt and change spatial policy positions, our approach provides an alternative to the mechanistic models deriving from Downsian rational choice theory. It suggests that, contrary to general expectation, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer does not need to react to its 2019 election defeat by shifting significantly to the right.

Cameroon: 2021 Article IV Consultation and First Reviews Under the Extended Credit Facility and the Extended Fund Facility Arrangements and Requests for Waivers for Performance Criteria Applicability and Nonobservance and Modification Of Performance Criterion-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Cameroon

Cameroon, the largest economy in the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC), continues to face the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2021, the IMF’s Executive Board approved three-year arrangements under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for SDR 483 million (about US$ 689.5 million, or 175 percent of Cameroon’s quota) to support the country’s economic and financial reform program. This followed two disbursements in 2020 under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) totaling SDR 276 million, equivalent to about US$382 million or 100 percent of Cameroon’s quota.

Women and Economic Reform in Egypt: Impact of Production Changes on Female Waged Labor Force Participation

: The IMF discourse on women’s unemployment in Egypt mostly has focused on infrastructural issues as a key barrier to women’s access to the job market. The scarcity of public nurseries and the unavailability of safe transportation are especially challenging. Our interviews confirmed that these two issues are of utmost importance to women. Nevertheless, we argue that there has been no to little focus on the deeper structural issues concerning the productive side of the economy and its relation to women employment, especially the impact of production changes on women in the aftermath of the 2016 Economic Reform Program (ERP).

A Comparative Study of Indias Foreign Trade in Pre and Post Reform Era

Abstract: Foreign trade has been playing a vital role in the economic progress and prosperity of every country.In modern days foreign trade has assumed an immense prominence and substance for economic development of a country because of interdependence of economies, increasing specialization and joining regional cooperation. In 1991, the major program of economic reform were introduced which emphasize on external sector wherein the protective tariffs were decreased, changes into foreigninvestment and the restrictive import licensing system was relaxed and simplified. After the New economic reforms, India’s foreign trade has undergone substantial changes, volume of trade rose up and composition of trade was also frequently changed. The main objective of the paper is to study the trends of India’s foreign trade pre and post new economic reforms in India. The entire data for the present study is collected from the secondary sources. The collected data has been analyzed by using Paired t-test from SPSS software package and graphs. The findings of this paper said that there is positive relationship between economic reforms and India’s foreign trade. A push has been given to theexports but analyzes says that the increasing rate of imports is higher in comparison to the increasing rate of exports. Keywords: Foreign Trade, New Economic Reforms, Exports, Imports, Growth Rate.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Family Policy Challenges in Meeting the European Union’s Standards and Recommendations

Family policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entities (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic Srpska) is incoherent, with its different elements being scattered across different ministries and levels of government. The system is found to be inapt to respond to the needs of families, thus enhancing gender inequalities in the labour market and within families. As a country aspiring to join the European Union, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with other countries of the Western Balkans region, participates in regular policy dialogue with the European Union institutions. The latest European Commission assessment of the country’s Economic Reform Programme identifies low employment of women as one of the key challenges and implicitly calls for the country to develop an employment-oriented family policy. By analysing the system of family policy and its recent policy developments, the article assesses the country’s capacity to respond to the recommendation and create conditions for greater participation of women in the labour market. The question is whether the European Union’s conditionality and recommendations have the potential to transform the current family policy arrangements in the entities. Key words: work-family policy, female employment, gender inequalities, maternity leave, parental leave, early childhood education and care services, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

كلية الادارة والاقتصاد / جامعة صلاح الدين / اربيل

The research aims to diagnose the obstacles that hinder the implementation of the economic reform program in the Kurdistan Region - Iraq, with reference to the reasons for the failure of previous economic reform programs in the region, and to indicate the extent of citizens’ confidence in implementing the economic reform in the region, as well as evaluating the economic reform law of the new government for the year 2020. The research reached a set of results, including: 1- There is no time limit for implementing the economic reform process. 2- Efficient and specialized cadres in the field of economic reform were not relied upon when forming committees to implement economic reform decisions. 3- The absence of a monitoring committee to implement economic reform decisions. 4- The project did not extend to the national domain, and receded within the partisan domain. 5- Weak desire for real economic reforms on the part of the ruling parties. 6- The previous economic reforms project did not include all governorates in the Kurdistan Region, but was reduced to the governorates of Erbil and Dohuk. The research concluded by presenting a number of proposals, including: 1- It is the responsibility of the regional government to deposit all revenues, whether oil or non-oil revenues, in the banks affiliated with the Ministry of Finance and Economy. 2- Distributing a share (petro dollars) of the revenues of the Ministry of Natural Resources to the oil and gas producing areas, with the aim of enhancing services provided to citizens and raising the standard of living for the residents of these areas. 3- Activating the role of the Financial Supervision Bureau and the Integrity Commission in the Kurdistan Region. 4- Develop comprehensive planning for the development of all oil fields in a fair manner, without giving preference to the region over other regions

When the Going Gets Tough … the Effect of Economic Reform Programmes on National Well-Being

Well-being is an essential human need and has social, psychological and economic benefits. Consequently, social scientists and economists, in particular, want to know whether economic reform can lead to increased (and sustainable) happiness. To answer this question, we applied a new approach—investigating the effect of economic reform programmes on national well-being for 154 countries between 2005 and 2018. As the dependent variable, we employed national subjective well-being scores based on people’s evaluation of their satisfaction with life. International Monetary Fund economic reform programmes provided a sufficiently long time–series and global presence for the main independent variable. We used a treatment effect model and fixed-effects instrumental variable panel with the novel approach of synthetic instruments, to address selection bias generated by the non-random selection of countries into International Monetary Fund programme participation, also controlling for unobservable characteristics influencing both International Monetary Fund participation and national well-being. Irrespective of the approach used, empirical findings show that economic reform programmes lead to increased national well-being globally, both in the short-term and the long-term. The results do not imply that International Monetary Fund arrangements should be used as policy tools to increase national well-being. They empirically confirm our argument that improvements in national economies sustaining increased well-being require intentional effort and engagement.