Publications and reports by year

WESS WESP

This Working paper series is intended to make the results of research at the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs available in prelimilary form to encourage discussion and to elicit comments.

The views expressed in these Papers are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. These papers have not been formally edited and the designations and terminology used are those of the author.

1997

Promotion of exports in Central America: an analysis of second-best policies, Larry Willmore, (1997) Ten years ago, member countries of the Central American Common Market (CACM) began to turn away from a decades-old policy of 'inward development'. They are now encouraging nontraditional exports by lowering tariff barriers, unifying exchange rates, and granting exporters access to intermediate and capital goods at international prices. In addition, some governments have given direct subsidies to exporters in the form of tax credits. This paper reviews these policies and examines their effect on exports in each of the five countries. In particular, it examines the possibility that subsidies may have induced exporters to switch from regional to extra-regional markets.

1996

Evaluating the trade-off between military spending and investment in the United States, David Gold (1996). A substantial body of empirical evidence supports the existence of a trade-off between military spending and investment spending in the United States. Using tests of a single equation model and co-integration techniques, this paper finds no evidence of a long run trade-off, and some evidence of a short-run trade-off, between military spending and investment in post-World War II United States data. The short-run trade-off is confined to the 1949-71 period, and maybe the result of the sharp expansion and contraction of military outlays in connection with the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In addition, co-integration techniques are used to identify a possible long-run trade-off between military spending and consumption.

1995

Economic reform and the development of the private sector in Viet Nam, Ann Orr. In response to spiralling inflation and vacillating economic growth, Viet Nam instituted radical economic reform simultaneously with an austere economic stabilization programme in 1989, with the goal of stimulating economic growth by eliminating direct government intervention in the economy. The sources of accelerated growth have been expected to be the increase in private production and increased efficiency of state enterprises. However, after an initial surge in growth of the private industrial production and a short-lived decline in state industrial production, the share of private industrial production in total industrial production declined from 1989 to 1992.

This paper documents the development of the private industrial sector in this period of time and analyzes the major factors in this development, namely, macroeconomic conditions and policy, economic reform and financial institutions and policies. It concludes with a discussion of the implications for policies to further the development of the private sector in Viet Nam, drawing on the experiences of comparable Asian economies.

Distribution of official development assistance among countries, Ana L. Cortez. The basic rationale for the establishment of Official development assistance (ODA) was to accelerate development processes in developing countries. One might then expect aid flows to reach countries with the most severe development problems.

This paper examines the way donors distributed aid flows during the period 1981-1991. It aims to assess whether equity concerns--defined in terms of the needier countries receiving larger shares of development assistance--were the major factor underlying the allocation of aid. It shows that equity concerns are beginning to have an impact on the allocation of ODA as flows shifted somewhat towards low and low-middle income countries in 1991. Bilateral donors, however, still have a bias in favour of middle-income countries.

1994

Lifetime Employment in Japan: Facts, Economic Rationale and Future, Hiroshi Kawamura (1994). The current prolonged recession in Japan has focused attention on the so-called lifetime employment system. This paper examines some characteristics of the Japanese employment practice, their implications for human capital accumulation and age-wage profiles and the economic rationale for such a practice. It also explores a possible future development of the system based on changes in sectoral activity, demographic structure and wage flexibility.

Market-based mechanisms for controlling global emissions of greenhouse gases: Possible reference bases for international agreements, Frederico Neto (1994). Increasing worldwide concern about global warming has led to intensified international efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The most important outcome of these efforts is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which came into force in March 1994. Although its 159 signatories are required to draw up plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the Convention does not specify how these emissions should be controlled. Since market-based mechanisms for emissions control have been increasingly emphasized at both national and international levels, this paper discusses both their advantages over regulation and the main obstacles to their implementation. The ultimate aim of the paper is to propose possible baseline criteria for the formulation of a global tradeable permit system to control carbon dioxide emissions.