US Interest Research Articles

Is It Possible to Repeat the Experience of East Asia? The External Factors of East Asian ‘Miracle’

The paper focuses on the widespread presupposition about a possibility for the developing countries beyond the East Asian region to follow the development path of the newly industrialised countries (NICs) of East and Southeast Asia known as ‘tigers’. The author underlines that the ‘tigers’ success story was the effect of fortune combination of the external and internal factors of fast modernisation of the countries under scrutiny. The subject of the given paper is a set of the external factors of the East Asian ‘miracle’. In the author’s opinion, there were three main external factors of successful development in the East Asian NICs. Firstly, there was a strong influence of cold war in the region. Since the early‑1960s the rivalry between the USSR and USA was here ‘supplemented’ by pretensions of the Maoist China to the role of ‘torch’ for the poor and wretched peoples of Asia. Thus, there was the specific triangle of foreign forces that operated in the region. The US ruling circles conceived that the best way to ‘the containment of communism’ was to create a show case of ‘good capitalism’: to eradicate mass poverty, to build contemporary effective economy, to open the channels of vertical social mobility for youth, and, thereby, to erode the social soil for the Leftist ideas. Secondly, the business and political leaders of the considerable countries understood a necessity to modernise their economies. The local elites, being in vassal dependency on the American protection, were obliged to follow the path of development that corresponded mostly to the interests of US. This circumstance determined, to a big degree, a choice of the outward‑looking industrialisation. Thirdly, the export‑oriented industrialisation in East Asia coincided with profound structural changes in Western economies. The NICs could occupy niches at the internal markets of industrial countries, exporting their manufactured goods to the West. It provided the growth of incomes for further accumulation. The neoconservatism in politics and neoliberalism in economics in the West helped to the East Asian ‘tigers’ to carry out their modernisation. Since the called external factors of East Asian ‘miracle’ do not recently exist in other developing regions, the author comes to conclusion that none of these regions can repeat the success story of the Asian NICs.

Modelling opportunity cost effects in money demand due to openness

AbstractWe apply a novel model‐based approach to constructing composite international financial indices (CIFIs) as measures of opportunity cost effects that arise due to openness in money demand models. These indices are tested on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan Province of China (TPC), two economies which differ substantially in size and degree of financial openness. Results show that (a) stable money demand equations can be identified if accounting for foreign opportunity costs through CIFIs, (b) the monetary policy intervention in the PRC over the global financial crisis period temporarily mitigated disequilibrating foreign shocks to money demand, (c) CIFIs capture opportunity costs due to openness more adequately than commonly used US interest rates and (d) CIFI construction provides valuable insights into the channels through which foreign financial markets affect domestic money demand.

Seasonal variability in public searches of keratosis pilaris: How the internet can illuminate a pattern in public interest.

In this study, we examine keratosis pilaris search patterns using Google Trends to determine any seasonality. Monthly searches were collected from January 2004 to January 2020 using "keratosis pilaris" as the search term in the Google Trends database. The US search data were compared to monthly temperatures and tested for correlation. Worldwide search interest was also acquired and, along with the US data, a two-model analysis was performed to determine any seasonal patterns. Peaks in search interest closely overlapped with higher temperatures in the United States and showed correlation (.44; P < .0001). The US and worldwide search interest also exhibited seasonality, which was confirmed with a sinusoidal regression being the best-fit model (R2 = .867 and .895). These results show higher search volume during warmer months in the United States and a clear cyclical pattern in searches worldwide and in the United States. Examination of these trends could elucidate peaks that health care providers may not have been aware of yielding improved resource allocation and preparedness for larger volume periods. This information in conjunction with clinical data could also shed more light in the future on potential peak seasons of incidence and prevalence.

Determinants of South American bank credit: An approach to panel data

The objective of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the domestic banking credit in the South American countries, based on panel data, for the period 2000 to 2016. The results indicate that domestic deposits and liabilities to non-residents contribute positively to the growth of private credit, with domestic funding having a more representative impact than foreign funding. Economic growth leads to a greater demand for credit and an increase in credit, while higher domestic and US interest rates reduce credit growth. Rising inflation also negatively affect private sector credit. In addition, as regards credit composition, domestic deposits and economic growth are the main components of credit expansion, and, in turn, inflation and domestic interest rates contribute negatively.

CONTESTED HEGEMONY: RUSSIA’S APPROACH TO THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC PREDOMINANCE OF THE US IN WORLD AFFAIRSHEGEMONIA CONTESTADA: A ABORDAGEM RUSSA QUANTO À PREDOMINÂNCIA MILITAR E ECONÔMICA GLOBAL DOS EUA

This paper discusses the Russian approach, from a rhetorical and practical viewpoint, regarding the military and economic predominance of the United States in the International System. The research method adopted was based on the compilation of statements by Russian authorities about the US position on the global stage, as well as on the presentation of the main initiatives and actions taken by the Kremlin, particularly from the 2000s onwards, in opposition to US interests both in the military and economic spheres. The first section initially deals with Russia’s intervention in Syria and Moscow's actions vis-a-vis the dismantling of bilateral nuclear-force treaties signed between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The second section brings the Russian articulation within the BRICS group as a criticism to American (and Western) privileges within institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, posteriorly pointing out to the steps taken by Moscow in its quest to make the Russian economy less dependent on the dollar. We conclude by observing that in both military and economic aspects Moscow has obtained moderate results in view of its aspirations regarding the role of counterweight to the American power in International Relations.

Determinants of Inflation in Egypt and Mexico: An Empirical Evidence

This paper empirically examines the influencing role of internal and external factors on the inflation rate for two emerging economies, Egypt and Mexico. The price level over the long run is affected by both internal and external factors in both countries. It was also found that both fiscal and monetary policies can be used to fight inflation over the long run . Furthermore, both the US interest rate and price affect the price level with the same sign in both countries over the long run . However, over the short run while as we expect the US price affects the price in Mexico it does not have any effect on Egypt’s price. https://doi.org/10.15458/ebr96

The Regional Implications of the Gulf Crisis

This article assesses how the decisions taken in and after 2011 in Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh strained and shattered the lingering consensus and common threat perception that had, since 1981, provided a baseline for regional cooperation within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It explores how the rifts after 2011 have hit on weak-points within the GCC in ways that complicate any potential recoherence or “coming-back-together” in anything close to the pre-2017 form. This occurred as the pragmatic flexibility within the GCC was eroded by a “zero-sum” mentality that has split GCC states along multiple lines rather than just a “clean” break over a specific issue. While the relationship between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi has become a new and exclusionary center of gravity in Arab Gulf politics, the article ends by examining the prospects for regional order against the backdrop of a fractured GCC and the prospects for greater balance as the disengagement of US interest accelerates the internationalization of the political economy and international relations of Persian Gulf states.

West Asia in the Post-Pandemic World Order: Shaping the RIC (Russia-India-China) as an Instrument for Regional Peace

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about the shape of the world order that will emerge from this crisis. The general view is that it will accelerate trends that were already apparent in world affairs. The pandemic has hit West Asia with a ‘double whammy’ – the health crisis coupled with the collapse in oil prices on which most regional economies depend to maintain their political, economic and social order. With the region already enmeshed in serious conflicts – in Syria, Yemen and Libya – and experiencing widespread destruction and instability, there are legitimate concerns that the pandemic could aggravate regional divisions and, by design or inadvertence, plunge West Asia into a region-wide conflagration. Given diminished US capacity, credibility and interest in global leadership and responsibility, this paper argues that the pandemic has opened up opportunities for the exploration of new engagements and alignments and shaping of new leadership roles. The paper proposes that the three RIC nations – Russia, India and China – work jointly in a ‘Greater Eurasian Partnership’ framework to address their internal, regional and global interests. This will strengthen mutual ties within the trilateral format, particularly through resetting Sino-Indian relations, so that the RIC could become an effective instrument to promote regional security and stability. This revitalised RIC would then be well-equipped to pursue initiatives to deal with West Asia’s immediate pandemic-related challenges and shape and lead a peace process in West Asia.

Zaangażowanie Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki w rozwiązanie kryzysu w Libii z 2011 roku

&lt;p&gt;Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie i ocena zaangażowania Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki w rozwiązanie kryzysu w Libii z 2011 roku. Problem ten rozpatrywano z uwzględnieniem okoliczności dwustronnych i wielostronnych. W poszczególnych częściach artykułu omówiono zagadnienia, takie jak relacje Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki i Libii przed kryzysem oraz działania USA w trakcie kryzysu i motywy je warunkujące. Dotyczy to między innymi aktywności politycznej Waszyngtonu na forum Rady Bezpieczeństwa ONZ oraz wkładu Sił Zbrojnych USA w operację zbrojną w Libii. Ukazano również ewolucję stanowiska Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki w kwestii wykorzystania czynnika militarnego do zmiany reżimu politycznego Libii. Problem badawczy zawiera się w pytaniach, czym motywowane były działania Waszyngtonu wobec Libii oraz czy obrana polityka była zasadna? Główną tezą artykułu jest stwierdzenie, że podstawowym powodem zaangażowania się Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki w kryzys w Libii były przesłanki natury humanitarnej, jednak liczyły się także interesy USA. Niestety akcja zbrojna nie doprowadziła do zakończenia konfliktu wewnętrznego w tym państwie. Podejście Waszyngtonu do kryzysu w Libii było ważnym elementem wpływającym na formułowanie doktryny prezydenta Baracka Obamy. Możemy w nim dostrzec cechy wpisujące się zarówno w liberalną, jak i realistyczną koncepcję stosunków międzynarodowych. W artykule wykorzystano metodę analizy źródeł tekstowych.&lt;/p&gt;

Symbolic power in the US Government Counterinsurgency Guide: US security, (non-) combatant civilians, and the refugee-in-place

Framed by symbolic power as a theory of performance, this essay takes as its subject the state’s use of performance transience for oppressive ends. For Pierre Bourdieu, the symbolic field is about group misrecognition of existing power differentials as legitimate distinctions. Building from this theory, I examine the 2009 US Government Counterinsurgency Guide’s work in the symbolic field. At once a military, social, and performance theory, the Guide creates categorization schemas that differentially define states and people based off of performances of loyalty to US interests. Through the concept of the “non-combatant civilian,” these hierarchies position non-US populations as always already threatening, and acquire social authorization through the threat of further violence. By generating roles for groups of people and framing the means of enforcing those roles, the Guide uses performance transience to structure a symbolic order with deeply racializing consequences.

Time-Varying Housing Market Fluctuations: Evidence from the U.S. Housing Market

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to investigate how the housing market and credit market factors contribute to US business and interest rate cycles in a time-varying transition probability modeling framework. The Markov switching results appear to exhibit periods of low-growth regime and highgrowth regime for both house and credit markets. The study also shows that the transition probabilities reflecting the regime switching behavior of business and interest rate cycles vary over time as functions of the house and credit market. We find that both the housing market and credit market contribute to whether the economy remains in a high-growth regime or moves into lowgrowth regime, and whether the interest rates remain in a low or high-growth regime. The results show that the housing market plays a leading role in affecting the time-varying probabilities between regimes for the business and interest rate cycles.

Indo-US Convergence of Agenda in the new Indo-Pacific Regional Security Architecture

Strengthened Indo-US proximity has become a notable factor in the regional security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region, and also it raises ongoing concerns about its robustness. This article analyses the geostrategic, geoeconomic, security-related and defence-connected Indo-US relations in the region over the last two decades, highlighting the growing multidimensional convergence of US and Indian interests in the Indo-Pacific regional security architecture. In the final part, this article also sketches the future implications of Indo-US proximity and seeks to identify potential risks.

Nigeria's Post Covid-19 Economic Outlook

Nigeria's Post Covid-19 Economic Outlook

Kerentanan Perbankan di Indonesia

This research aims to measure the banking vulnerability index and test the factors that influence the banking crisis. The crisis and variable identification that triggered the banking crisis is still a debate. This study uses banks in Indonesia which listed in JKSE for the period 2009 to 2014 as samples. This study uses index calculations as identification of possibility individual banking crisis, and examines bank internal variable, macroeconomic variable, and global economic variables that are thought to trigger the banking crisis using logit regression. The result is that bank internal factors proxy by non-performing loans, labor cost ratios and loans to deposits ratios have a positive relationship with the banking crisis, while net interest margins and interest income have a negative relationship with the banking crisis. Macroeconomic and global economic variables proxy by domestic inflation and US interest rates have a positive effect on the banking crisis while M2 growth, and GDP growth in the USA have a negative effect on the possibility of a banking crisis in Indonesia.

Volatility spillovers and the global financial cycle across economies: Evidence from a global semi-structural model

The paper provides some evidence on the relevance of global uncertainty and risk aversion and the lesser importance of US interest rates for the global financial and business cycles. As framework, we use a global semi-structural model augmented with financial and trade interlinkages. Financial interlinkages are modelled with proposed global uncertainty, global risk aversion and global financial cycle channels. Trade interlinkages are modelled with proposed value-chain trade equations. We find that global uncertainty and global risk aversion are, by far, the main volatility factors in all economies. Other volatility factors such as US interest rates, foreign interest rates and trade-related factors rarely explain shares of forecast error variance above one percent.

Current US neurosurgical resident involvement, interest, and barriers in global neurosurgery.

It is estimated that nearly 47 million preventable deaths occur annually due the current worldwide deficit in surgical care; subsequently, the World Health Organization resolved unanimously to endorse a decree to address this deficit. Neurosurgeons from industrialized nations can help address the needs of underserved regions. Exposure during training is critical for young neurosurgeons to gain experience in international work and to cultivate career-long interest. Here, the authors explore the opinions of current residents and interest in global neurosurgery as well as the current state of international involvement, opportunities, and barriers in North American residency training. An internet-based questionnaire was developed using the authors' university's REDCap database and distributed to neurosurgical residents from US ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education)-approved programs. Questions focused on the resident's program's involvement and logistics regarding international rotations and the resident's interest level in pursuing these opportunities. A 15% response rate was obtained from a broad range of training locations. Twenty-nine percent of respondents reported that their residency program offered elective training opportunities in developing countries, and 7.6% reported having participated in these programs. This cohort unanimously felt that the international rotation was a beneficial experience and agreed that they would do it again. Of those who had not participated, 81.3% reported interest or strong interest in international rotations. The authors' results indicate that, despite a high level of desire for involvement in international rotations, there is limited opportunity for residents to become involved. Barriers such as funding and rotation approval were recognized. It is the authors' hope that governing organizations and residency programs will work to break down these barriers and help establish rotations for trainees to learn abroad and begin to join the cause of meeting global surgical needs. To meet overarching international neurosurgical needs, neurosurgeons of the future must be trained in global neurosurgery.

Is the Killing of Qasem Soleimani by the United States of America Legal Under International Law?

General Qasem Soleimani, the Commander of Iran’s Quds Force was killed on 3rd January 2020 near Baghdad airport by a US drone strike. In the wake of the killing which has escalated tensions in the ever-volatile Middle East, one of the predominant questions has been on the legality or otherwise of the US strike. As a justification of the strikes, Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and other senior officials of the Trump administration have maintained that shortly before his killing, General Soleimani was planning multiple attacks on US military bases and diplomats in the Middle East. They also argue that the planned attacks on US interests were imminent and the killing was to disrupt the planned attacks and to deter future attacks. Trump also stated that the attack was not to start a war with Iran but to avoid a war. The argument advanced by the US is that of self-defense which is a legitimate use of force in international law. While the US is yet to make the evidence of the imminence of the planned attacks public, the imminent attacks argument is advanced to confer legality on the killing. Assuming there was an imminent threat of attack on US interests as claimed by Trump and senior administration officials, the question is whether the imminence of the planned attacks confers on the US a right of preemptive self-defense which renders the killing legal under international. This article seeks to answer this question through an analysis of the current normative order on use of force and the doctrine of self defense under international law.

US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Logic of Hegemonic Retreat

AbstractThe Trump administration's foreign policy is often perceived as an isolationist ideology that has radically reversed American global leadership in a matter of years. In the Middle East, critics have harangued the Trump Doctrine as an even hastier surrender of the US hegemony that has defined regional order since the 1980s. In reality, American interest in this region has been declining for a decade as expressed by its rising reluctance to leverage its economic and military supremacy to constrain, regulate, and destroy perceived foes as it once did. This waning interventionism precedes the Trump Doctrine. It stems not from any ideological turn, or the financial and military exhaustion of a cresting superpower, but rather a structural dynamic: the Middle East no longer generates credible threats against the US. Whereas in the past alarmist fears of communism and energy insecurity propelled Washington's regional imperium, today the perceived enemies of US interests – radical Islamism and Iran – do not endanger the political institutions and economic prosperity of American society. Absent a catastrophic terrorist attack, the US will continue to relinquish its hegemonic mantle, turning away from overt interventionism as the logic of coercively dominating a region of diminishing importance runs its course.

Figuring it out the hard way: America, France, and the challenges of allied pursuit of nuclear weapons, 1958–63

ABSTRACT The US nuclear-policy community did not always accept today’s conventional wisdom that a state’s first nuclear test is a critical milestone; that even a small, rudimentary nuclear arsenal is a major concern; and that preventing states, even allies, from acquiring nuclear weapons should be a core US foreign-policy goal. Between 1958 and 1963, Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy experimented with three different responses to the French nuclear-weapons program: (1) offering to share US-owned nuclear weapons liberally; (2) leaving France to pursue nuclear weapons unaided; and (3) offering to sell France advanced submarines and missiles. Each of these approaches was the product of evolving beliefs about when a state “went nuclear,” the potency of small arsenals, and whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons among allies undermined or advanced US interests. Understanding how Washington shifted its stance during this period sheds important light on the origins and nature of US nonproliferation policy today.

The Rise in Foreign Currency Bonds: The Role of US Monetary Policy and Capital Controls

An unintended consequence of loose US monetary policy is the increase in currency risk exposure abroad. Using firm-level data on corporate bond issuances in 17 emerging market economies (EME) between 2003 and 2015, we find that EME companies are more likely to issue bonds in foreign currency when US interest rates are low. This increase occurs across the board, including for firms more vulnerable to foreign exchange exposure, and is particularly strong for bonds issued in local markets. Interestingly, capital controls on bond inflows significantly decrease the likelihood of issuing in foreign currency and can even eliminate the adverse impact of low US interest rates. In contrast, macroprudential foreign exchange regulations tend to increase foreign currency issuances of non-financial corporates, although this effect can be significantly reduced using capital controls.