Rapid Economic Recovery Research Articles

Historical and Contemporary Challenges to Occupational Safety and Health in Latvia

This paper addresses the historical and contemporary challenges created for occupational safety and health in the EU member state of Latvia, which joined the European Union in 20It examines the historical background for the determinants of workplace health and safety in Latvia as a former Soviet republic, and thereafter, following independence from the USSR in 1991, as an open-market neoliberal economy. These divergent contexts have set a problematic trajectory of reactive path dependency with respect to the regulation of occupational safety and health.With the onset of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 onwards, Latvia suffered a particularly sharp economic downturn. We suggest that previous limited advances made in the management of occupational safety and health at the workplace level since accession to the European Union may have been undermined. Ever since the crisis, business and policy actors have sought to promote rapid economic recovery as the overall priority, at the expense of protective occupational safety and health regulation. This approach was brought into sharp relief with the collapse of the Maxima supermarket roof in Riga in November 2013, resulting in 54 fatalities. The event has raised debates on the enforcement of safety regulation in the new era of neoliberal austerity to a greater level of public salience, although with, as yet, uncertain policy outcomes.

A miraculous revitalization of Japan? A comparative analysis of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, the failed 2016 host city bid and the successful 2020 bid

This article analyses the relationships between the revitalization of Japan and the hosting of the Olympic Games. It illustrates the great changes that the 1964 Games brought to Japan. It also describes the huge benefits that were expected from hosting the 2016 Games, although that bid ultimately failed. Finally, it assesses the major benefits that are expected from hosting the 2020 Games. The first part of the article introduces the main conditions of Japanese economy and society before the 1964 Games. The second part elaborates on the Games' crucial role in Japan's rapid economic and social recovery. The third part explains the main reasons for the failed 2016 bid and the economic vision that did not materialize. The final part discusses the inevitability of bidding for the 2020 Games and compares this with the 2016 bid to emphasize the significance of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games to ensuring a revitalization of Japan.

Geographic approaches to resolving environmental problems in search of the path to sustainability: The case of polluting plant relocation in China

This paper applies a spatial perspective to environmental problems in search for the paths to sustainability, using polluting plant relocation in China as a case study. It examines how environmental improvement in one place may lead to environmental degradation in another place, how geographic concepts such as location, distance, spread and backwash effects, and land use models can help understand such phenomenon, and what the implications are for the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and development policies. Field research was conducted from 2006 to 2012 in Chinese cities of Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, and Ningbo. It involved intensive site observations and in-depth interviews with government officials of environmental protection, economic development, and business recruitment, and grassroots environmentalists. The results indicate that environmental improvement in all these cities has led to environmental degradation in their suburbs and rural areas due to relocation of polluting plants. Environmental spread and backwash effects may help explain the severe intra-regional environmental and economic disparities and environmental injustice. The powerful and wealthy may achieve rapid economic growth and environmental recovery at the expenses of the powerless and poor, leading to environmental poverty and sustainability disparities.

Effects of the Uncertainty about Global Economic Recovery on Energy Transition and CO2 Price

This paper examines the impact that uncertainty over economic growth may have on global energy transition and CO2 prices. We use a general-equilibrium model derived from MERGE, and define several stochastic scenarios for economic growth. Each scenario is characterized by the likelihood of a rapid global economic recovery. More precisely, during each decade, global economy may - with a given probability - shift from the EIA's (2010) low-economic-growth path to the EIA's (2010) high-economic-growth path. The climate policy considered corresponds in the medium term to the commitments announced after the Copenhagen conference, and in the long term to a reduction of 25% in global energy-related CO2 emissions (with respect to 2005). For the prices of CO2 and electricity, as well as for the implementation of CCS, the branches of the resulting stochastic trajectories appear to be heavily influenced by agents’ initial expectations of future economic growth and by the economic growth actually realized. Thus, in 2040, the global price of CO2 may range from $21 (when an initially-anticipated economic recovery never occurs) to $128 (in case of non-anticipated rapid economic recovery). In addition, we show that within each region, the model internalizes the constraints limiting the expansion of each power-generation technology through the price paid by the power utility for the acquisition of new production capacity. As a result, in China, the curves of endogenous investment costs for onshore and offshore wind are all bubble-shaped centered on 2025, a date which corresponds to the establishment of a global CO2 cap-and-trade market in the model.

The Spatial Aspects of Transformation of the Manufacturing Sector in the Russian Regions in the 2000s

The rapid economic recovery of Russia between the economic crises of 1998 and 2008-2009 in terms of GDP per capita and standards of living was accompanied by a loss of ca. 25 percent of manufacturing jobs in the whole economy. On the one hand, it was associated with adjustment of large and often overstaffed manufacturing plants created within the planned economy to the market economy with presumably more efficient allocation of labor. On the other hand, the transition to the market economy was accompanied by the dramatic decline in a number of manufacturing industries and relocation of labor to the services sector due to disruption of once well-established relations between enterprises-suppliers and enterprises-buyers in neighboring Soviet republics that became independent states. Finally, the changing patterns in the federal government policy towards different manufacturing industries also contributed to the transformation of the manufacturing sector in the 1990s and the 2000s. This paper seeks to find answers to the following questions, namely, (1) how employment changed in manufacturing industries over 2002-2009, (2) how regions performed in manufacturing industries in comparison to the national average, (3) whether the specialization of regions in manufacturing has changed or not, (4) whether manufacturing industries have become more concentrated or not, (5) what the degree of industrial concentration of manufacturing industries in Russia is, compared with such advanced market economies as the USA and France? We study redistribution of 97 manufacturing activities across 81 Russian regions over 2002-2009 using employment at both three-digit level of the Russian Classification of Economic Activities (OKVED) and enterprise level. To reveal spatial patterns of manufacturing transformation we apply the location quotient, the shift-share analysis, and several indices of spatial and industrial concentration such as the Isard index, the Theil index, and the Ellison-Glaeser index.

China since 1949 by Linda Benson (review)

Reviewed by: China since 1949by Linda Benson Xiaoping Sun (bio) Linda Benson. China since 1949. 2ndedition. Series of Seminar Studies in History. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2011. xliii + 190 pp. Paperback $29.20, isbn978-1-4082-3769-4. From a poor developing country in the mid-twentieth century to an economic powerhouse in the early twenty-first century, China has experienced dramatic changes over the past sixty years. What were the changes and how did they happen? What were their impacts on different sectors of the population? How does the understanding of China’s recent past enrich our appreciation of China’s position in the current world? In this astonishingly concise survey, Linda Benson [End Page 212]tackles these questions felicitously, weaving ordinary people’s lives, particularly of women and ethnic minorities, into major historical events to showcase the many faces, as well as many phases, of China’s political, economic, and social change. Benson centers the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on four major themes: the tension between traditional culture and revolutionary agendas, the disparity between rural and urban development, the uneasiness between regional/local power and central authority, and the tension between Communism and modernization. The unfolding of these tensions, oftentimes intersecting with one another, reveals the complexity of Chinese society undergoing these changes. The book contains three parts, with the first part offering an introduction (chapter 1) and a brief account of the geography and a historical overview focusing on the turbulent years from the late Qing to the 1949 revolution (chapter 2). The second section, chapters 3–10, chronicles major events that shaped recent Chinese society, ranging from political campaigns to economic reforms, from Maoist policies of leaping into a Communist paradise to Hu Jintao’s agenda of building a harmonious world. The last part, chapter 11, concludes the book with assessments of China’s achievements and challenges facing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In two brief chapters (chapters 3 and 4) covering the Mao years from 1949 to 1976, Benson clearly lays out the challenges of the new revolutionary state and attempts of the Communist regime in addressing these challenges. Chapter 3 does a particularly good job of explaining the power structure of the new administration and the relationship between the CCP and the military. The emphasis on land reform, the new marriage law, and the regional autonomous system sets the tone of the book, which gives particular attention to the agricultural sector, women, and minorities. If grouping the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in one chapter (chapter 4) does support Benson’s claim that “periodization for the book departs from standard treatment in most texts on modern China” (p. 4), the departure actually appears in a simplistic and superficial manner. It makes sense to use the two major political disasters to demonstrate the failures of the radical Maoist attempts, but such treatment overshadows the moderate and yet important changes that helped to salvage China from the turmoil. For example, the reform led by Liu Shaoqi immediately after the three years of famine allowed a rapid economic recovery, and Zhou Enlai, in the early 1970s, had already started to rebuild the CCP and rehabilitate CCP members purged in the Cultural Revolution. Benson’s periodization tends to reproduce the party-line story of a radical transition from political turmoil and economic disaster of Maoist extremes into Deng Xiaoping’s miraculous economic reforms. While Benson’s brevity is admirable, indeed, these two chapters unavoidably fall short by omitting some important aspects of the Mao era that could have better assisted readers to understand the challenges and importance of post-Mao [End Page 213]changes. For example, it is unclear how the rural-based Communist regime established urban order in its early years. Therefore, readers may find it hard to understand how the social and political marks left on the urban landscape by the earlier attempts contribute to the phenomenon of a floating population during the reform era, such as the household registration system instituted in the 1950s and still important today. The rest of the book, chapters 5–10, tells the story of economic reform and social change...

Perspectives on Postwar Silence: Psychoanalysis, Political Philosophy, and Economic Theory

Hannah Arendt and Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich produced influential accounts of the postwar West-German population's silence or inarticuleteness. The Mitscherlichs claimed that this silence was symptomatic of a blocked process of mourning; Arendt saw it as a legacy of brutal totalitarian rule. However, both viewed the rapid economic recovery as evidence of the German inability to engage in discursively mediated therapeutic and political processes. Frantic busyness was a form of silence. This paper presents a critical reassessment of these approaches. By drawing on Albert Hirschman's theory of exit and voice, it argues that economic activity possesses a communicative dimension. The alleged retreat from politics is not a symptom of muteness but rather indicates people's preference for an alternative mode of communication. Arendt and the Mitscherlich may be right in assuming a correlation between the postwar economic recovery and ostensible political apathy, but lack the conceptual means to clarify the relationship.

Public Library Services in the Knowledge Economy: The Sierra Leone Experience

Sierra Leone's knowledge economy stresses the importance of information for national development, and libraries have a crucial role to play in this development. Libraries are catalysts for human progress because they help in the development and transmission of knowledge and culture; they foster civic awareness in support of economic productivity and innovation in society. Although many economic programs have been implemented by the Sierra Leone government, a vast amount of information is unused, either because national decision-makers do not realize its importance or because people who might want it do not know how to access it. The public library has to play an increasingly significant role if rapid economic recovery is to be made. This article examines Sierra Leone's economy in postwar reconstruction, the importance of information and knowledge in a knowledge economy, and the problems affecting library services and how the public library can overcome these problems and make meaningful contributions to the knowledge economy.

Critical adaptation to hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean: Development visions, governance structures, and coping strategies

The need to tackle climate hazards and development efforts simultaneously is widely acknowledged. However, the possibility of alternative visions of development is seldom contemplated. Instead, adaptation research usually assumes monolithic claims about development constructed from the status quo of global capitalism. This paper outlines a critical approach to adaptation and explores the interplay between visions of development, governance structures, and strategies to cope with hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean, a region at the ‘front line’ of both globalization and climatic extreme phenomena. Critical adaptation formulates the experiencing of hazards as essentially political and tied to contingent development paths, which may eventually become hegemonic. Over a hundred semi-structured and open interviews were held in Cancun, Mahahual, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum including academics, businesspeople, bureaucrats, journalists, non-governmental organizations and tourism workers in order to characterize development visions in the Mexican Caribbean. Findings show a prevalent hegemonic vision supporting mass tourism growth which encourages hurricane coping strategies based on effective evacuation and attracting investments for rapid economic recovery. The actual implementation of this vision increases social inequalities, degrades ecosystems, and amplifies overall exposure to extreme events. Mass tourism is enforced by undemocratic governance structures sustained by a coalition of government and tourism corporations (a government-capital bloc in Gramsci's sense). Some weak signs of counter-hegemony were identified in Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Mahahual. These isolated episodes of resistance might have triggered alternative coping strategies despite having little effect in altering the overall course of development. Further critical research is needed to unveil the socio-political foundations of development visions and their influence on capacities to cope with climatic extreme events.

<em>No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective</em>, Giovanni Carbone

Reviewed by: No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective Ishmael I. Munene Carbone, Giovanni. 2008. No-Party Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, Colo., Lynne Rienner. 259 pp. $58.50 A lot has been written about Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's mercurial transformation of Uganda, politically and economically. Giovanni Carbone's work is the first comprehensive empirical study of the Museveni's rise to power using his no-party democratic dispensation. Carbone, a political scientist, presents a refreshing account of Museveni's uncanny ability to reconfigure the country's sociopolitical institutions and overcome political resistance to create the longest-running stable presidency in East Africa. Chapters 1 and 2 of the book lay the framework for understanding no-party democracy. In the first chapter, Carbone shows the historical confluence between ethnicity and religion in creating and consolidating cleavages in Uganda's body politic, both before and after the achievement of independence. The attendant consequences, including political parochialism, exclusion from political power, demise of political parties, and weakening of political institutions, with the rise of a politicized military [End Page 91] and constitutional abrogation, are well delineated. Museveni's no-party democracy was aimed at mitigating these political weaknesses by infusing individual merit as the basis of political participation. Chapter 2 shows how Museveni crafted a no-party state amid two conflicting political tensions: those in favor of state reconciliations and those hostile to new institutions and organizations. To survive politically, Museveni embarked on an institution-building, institution-destroying strategy. He consolidated power through the military, reengineering the constitution to restrict political-party activities and enable his National Resistance Movement (NRM) to retain political power, and decentralizing local administration. How is it that a transitional experiment in no-party democracy lasted more than twenty years? Carbone interrogates, in Chapter 3, the political economy of regime support. Museveni has ensured local and international political legitimacy by manipulating the intersection between domestic politics and international forces, thereby ensuring regime survival. Rapid economic recovery, the emergence of a strong domestic constituency content with the status quo, a price paid by opposition-oriented northern and southeastern regions, and the benevolence of external multilateral and bilateral donors, provided Museveni with a broadly supported political apparatus to fortify his regime. The chapter's strength lies in demonstrating how markedly the Ugandan case differed from the situation in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which were under intense international and domestic pressure to institute multiparty political democracy. Chapter 4 is a study of Museveni's personality and how it meshed with the emerging politico-institutional development of a no-party state. His charisma, with his antipolitical rhetoric, won him appeal as a political outsider. Ironically, he has been part and parcel of the political apparatus in Uganda since the overthrow of the Idi Amin regime. Once in power, he used "ple-biscitarian appeals… to reject any institutional restraints on that power[,] thus contributing to a… deinstitutionalization of the state" (p. 77). Parliament, the judiciary, the civil service, the press, and the constitution—all of which could impose restraints—were attacked and emasculated. In chapter 5, subtitled "The Movement: A Partisan Organization in Disguise," Carbone delves into the murky waters of conceptualizing the NRM as a political system. As it turns out, contrary to the public proclamation of NRM as a mass movement open to all and sundry, constitutional vagueness allowed it to function as a full-fledged political organization, committed to the conquest and retention of political power. Its relationship with other political organizations has been anything but hegemonic—a role played by a political party in a multiparty democracy. The author offers contrasting cases from Tanzania, South Africa, Mexico, Malaysia, and Taiwan. As the NRM became a powerful political actor, older actors had to give way. The task of chapter 6 is to catalogue the political stratagems employed by Museveni to neutralize old parties, namely the Democratic Party (DP) and [End Page 92] the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). Political tools at the disposal of these parties were integration, boycott, or violence, each with its strengths and risks. Carbone demonstrates how contextual variables like resource scarcity, individual and community benefits, divisions within the...

Post-Crisis Fiscal Policy Priorities for the ASEAN-5

This paper focuses on post-crisis fiscal priorities in the ASEAN-5 economies - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Sound economic fundamentals and timely and forceful policy responses to the crisis, including fiscal stimulus, contributed to rapid economic recovery in the ASEAN-5. As growth rebounds, these economies are beginning to identify, communicate and implement their strategies for unwinding the fiscal stimulus while addressing long-term growth challenges. In this context, the paper highlights the need for fiscal policies to address infrastructure gaps, stimulate private consumption and expand social safety nets. Creating fiscal space to address these challenges will require raising revenues and reorienting public spending rather than increasing borrowing. Supporting structural reforms, aiming to stimulate private infrastructure investment, could help address long-term growth challenges, while easing the burden on fiscal policy.

The global crisis, social protection and jobs

Abstract.Policy responses to the global financial meltdown of 2008 and the collapse of aggregate demand have largely been driven by domestic interests. Resurgent protectionism, bank bail‐outs and national‐level stimulus packages are distorting competition and incentives to the detriment of developing countries, much‐needed spending on social protection and, ultimately, rapid global economic recovery. Warning against underestimation of the job‐destruction potential of the current crisis, the author argues for a truly global stimulus package, together with a rethink of economic paradigms and regulatory policies, financial assistance to developing countries, a less constraining IMF, and stronger social protection as an automatic stabilizer of economies.

Stocktaking Report and Policy Recommendations on Risk Awareness and Education on Natural Catastrophes

The growing cost and frequency of natural catastrophes and their implications for economic growth and development have led to a concern over the level of public awareness and education relative to large-scale catastrophes and disaster risk reduction measures. Public awareness and education of disaster risk reduction are, in particular, increasingly acknowledged as important components of effective risk management of natural catastrophes. The financial component of disaster risk management and mitigation strategies, involving risk transfer and compensation strategies, is also recognised as being important for reducing the financial impact of catastrophes on individuals, businesses, and governments, and permitting more rapid economic and social recovery. As such, systematic promotion of public awareness and education of risks and risk reduction measures, including financial loss-sharing and risk transfer tools, is an important aspect of national and international strategies to reduce vulnerability and losses from catastrophic events.

Regeneration and retail in Liverpool: A new approach

This paper highlights the rapid economic recovery the City of Liverpool has experienced over the last six years, which is starting to impact not just on the economic performance of the rest of Merseyside but is also beginning to drive up the prosperity of the North West. The potent mix of culture and regeneration is playing a major part in redefining Liverpool in the 21st century. Buildings and areas of land, which had been untouched and derelict for years, are taking on new uses. Liverpool is moving forward at a pace. The paper focuses on the reasoning behind this recovery; the appointment of a new managerial and political structure within Liverpool City Council; the establishment of a clear vision for the city; and the catalyst to this recovery Liverpool 1 (the Paradise Street Development). When complete, this retail-led project will be one of Europe's biggest city centre mixed use developments and it is predicted it will once again establish Liverpool as a top five retail destination as the city was in the 1960s and 1970s.

Economic reform after the financial crisis: a critical assessment of institutional transition and transition costs in South Korea

This paper assesses the structural reform after the financial crisis in Korea by investigating its benefits and costs to the economy. It argues that Korea's rapid economic recovery in 1999–2000 was a Keynesian recovery, not a reform-led one. It also argues that, despite the fact that there has been a significant advancement in formal changes in institutions, economic costs arising from attempting a radical institutional transition have been unduly large. We attribute this disappointing performance mainly to the fact that the radical reform has created a vacuum in the risk-taking function in the economy and therefore resulted in a continued credit crunch in the corporate sector. The Korean case suggests the importance of diversity and incrementalism in designing institutional transition, rather than attempting to implement ‘global standard’ policies and institutions.

Short-term Perturbations and Tourism Effects: The Case of SARS in China

The 2003 SARS epidemic created a significant negative impact on tourism development in China. This paper reviews the effects on tourism of different short-term crises, analyses the effects of SARS and explores the possibility of tourism businesses being buffered from such short-term crisis and the possible new motivations derived from the crisis. Tourism’s lack of resistance but high resilience to short term crises provides tourism and regional planning challenges. These characteristics suggest diversification and partnerships can minimise community vulnerability to crises and rapid economic recovery is possible based on tourism’s resilient nature.

Korea's E-commerce: Present and Future

Despite the recent downturn in IT-related markets in some countries, there is no doubt that the "Third Revolution," as the innovation in IT has been dubbed, is here to stay. The growth of the Internet and e-commerce are elements of this IT revolution which are not only changing society in a fundamental way but may be providing an antidote for some ailing economies. In this article, Kim Sang-Bae, chief executive officer (CEO) of Cybertek Holdings, Inc, explains the reasons behind the surge of e-commerce in Korea and the impact it has had on Korean society. Kim argues that the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 may have hurtled Korea into an economic crisis but this may have been the very impetus that prompted the startling rise of e-commerce in Korea from 1998, which in turn contributed to Korea's rapid economic recovery. He argues that in order for this growth in e-commerce to be sustained it is imperative that the Korean Government pursue economic reforms of its domestic market with more vigor.

PAKISTAN IN 2000 Starting Anew or Stalemate?

Research Article| February 01 2001 PAKISTAN IN 2000 Starting Anew or Stalemate? Iftikhar H. Malik Iftikhar H. Malik Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (2001) 41 (1): 104–115. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2001.41.1.104 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Iftikhar H. Malik; PAKISTAN IN 2000 Starting Anew or Stalemate?. Asian Survey 1 February 2001; 41 (1): 104–115. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2001.41.1.104 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. © Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Anglo-American Contributions to Japanese and German Corporate Governance after World War Two

After over 50 years, it is pertinent at a time when corporate governance (CG) is a controversial subject, especially in ‘transition’ economies, to reflect on the immediate post-World War Two period as potentially a miniature ‘laboratory experiment’ in CG. In this period, occupying US and UK military governments were in a very strong position to reform CG in Japan and Germany respectively, in their own images. It turns out that many of their regulatory changes were subsequently modified or even reversed by domestic governments and market forces. In some subtle ways, however, the occupations laid a basis for rapid post-war economic recovery in Germany and Japan.

Gender Pay and Occupational‐Attainment Gaps in Costa Rica and El Salvador: A Relative Comparison of the Late 1980s

This study investigates gender occupational attainment and earnings differentials in El Salvador and Costa Rica at the end of the 1980s. During this decade, El Salvador experienced a civil war and an economic depression. Costa Rica was also mired in a recession in the early 1980s, but programs adopted in the mid‐1980s led to rapid economic recovery. It is found that the gender pay gap in El Salvador is 30.4% and 23.6% in Costa Rica. The intercountry difference in the gap disappears after accounting for high gender differences in occupational attainment and hours worked in El Salvador.