Economic Policy in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg

The paper assesses the efforts of regional government officials in St. Petersburg, a city heavily dependent on the defense sector, to transform its economic base after the fall of communism. It describes how the strategy initially favored in the early 1990s (the development of St. Petersburg as an international business center based largely on foreign investment) fell well short of expectations. The author then examines the results thus far from an alternative strategy, following the election of a new mayor in 1996, that focuses on the revival of the city's industry and the promotion of trade. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F21, H71, L52, O20. 59 references.     

Imagining Rurality in the New Europe and Dilemmas for Spatial Policy

In the discourse on European integration from the mid 1960s until the beginning of the 1990s, rural space and rurality have been traditionally associated with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), while little attention has been devoted to the spatial development of the countryside. These approaches and policies were associated with a 'geographical imagination' of rural space and rurality as a place of production, where the emphasis was on sectoral policies. In Europe today the discourse has changed dramatically. The current dominant geographical imagination of rurality is shifted to consumption and leisure, following both specific structural trends internally to rural areas and the more general post-modern trend away from production per se . These trends are discussed in a highly influential European document, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) introduced in Leipzig in 1994 and formally adopted in 1999. In this document a new language and new policy guidelines are introduced, which openly support the consumption/leisure imagination, introducing at the same time spatial policies, which will deal more effectively with urban and rural spaces. Bearing this in mind, this article will try first to describe the two phases of imagining rurality in Europe (production versus consumption/leisure) and second their impact on southern European (SE) rural regions.     

Reassessing Fiscal Policy: Perspectives from Developing Countries

Over the last twenty‐five years an anti‐Keynesian orthodox approach has envisaged a prominent role for reductions in fiscal deficits in developing countries. Expansionary fiscal policies have been said to result in excessive expansion of aggregate demand leading to current account deficits and inflation, as well as displacing private investment, thereby inhibiting output stabilization and employment recovery. Moreover, chronic fiscal deficits are supposed to be associated with high and explosive debt/GDP ratios. The purpose of this article is to assess the theoretical adequacy of the orthodox approach in the context of developing countries. The author clarifies some common misunderstandings and finds that none of the conventional arguments against fiscal activism is wholly convincing. At the heart of the debate lies the question of assumptions, economic structure and causation mechanisms. The orthodox stories regarding the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy very often do not go beyond the simple monetarist assumptions or seek to verify the implications against the existing experiences and empirical data from developing countries.     

对众多不同国家的一个相同政策--浅析中国对发展中国家的政策

中国外交已走过了半个世纪的历程,其间有多次大的外交政策调整.与对美、苏主要国家政策的不断调整和变化不同,中国对发展中国家的政策更多地表现出连续性.在处理与这些国家的关系时,中国一直认为自己是这些国家群体中的一员,而且常常把这些国家当做一个整体看待.但实际上中国与这些国家内部都存在着很大的分歧.中国对这些国家的政策在很大程度上受中国与主要大国,特别是美、苏关系和中国战略的影响,在不同时期有着不同的内容,呈现不同的特点.     

Managing Policy Dilemmas in South Korea: The Case of the Emissions Trading Scheme

This paper analyses the policy dilemma of South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak government regarding the greenhouse gas Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the cornerstone of the government’s Low Carbon Green Growth (GG) policy. The paper analyses policy governance, with a focus on the deliberative nature of the policy process. The ETS was promoted as a way to overcome certain international, political and socioeconomic challenges facing the government, yet the process of its establishment featured severe confrontations between the stakeholders (industrialists and environmentalists), and a lack of effort on the part of the government to pursue deliberation with them, resulting in a significant policy dilemma. The government reacted passively at first, and later responded with a symbolic decision that failed to pursue deliberative processes and exacerbated the situation. This paper addresses the theoretical and policy implications of this policy process by identifying the mechanism that created the policy dilemma. The reliability and validity of the study are substantiated through a multi-strategy approach, including a review of the literature and an in-depth interview with a government economic official.     

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

This essay reviews the policy‐oriented literature on economic inequality in wealthy countries published from 2008 to 2018. We focus on this decade because it is a period bookended by both the beginnings of the Great Recession of 2008–2009 as well as the recovery. During this timeframe, attention to inequality by social policy scholars grew substantially, which we argue reflects an interest in both inequality trends as well as redistributive social policy. We observe in the literature sustained efforts to understand both the relationship between social policy and economic inequality, as well as determinants of changes to redistributive social policy. We also note substantial variation in research traditions, as well as opportunities to address substantive, methodological, and theoretical gaps. Our review summarizes the approaches and findings from the literature and discusses the implications of the findings for the study of economic inequality within the academic field of public policy.     

Norwegian and Soviet/Russian World War II Memory Policy During the Cold War and the Post-Soviet Years

Abstract

World War II has played a significant role in using “memory” in all kind of “memory politics” in Europe as well as in the USA. Using examples from Norway and the Soviet Union, later the Russian Republic, this article shows how successfully, but also how contradictorily, historical events can be used as memory politics. We will also see what “memory culture” and “memory policy” is predominant in circumpolar Norway and the Soviet Union/Russia after World War II. We are introduced to the concept of “memory agents”, the producers and directors of “memory politics”. The case is first and foremost the battle of Narvik in Norway in the spring of 1940. We also take a look at the circumpolar borderland between Norway and the Soviet Union during World War II, where the German “Gebirgsjäger” from the Narvik front regrouped and continued their assault on Soviet Union in Murmansk County from the summer of 1941. In what way were the war events useful in the post war era, and how could they directly affect Soviet–Norwegian relations during the Cold War? In addition we ask how memories contributed to the justification of different approaches to the foreign policy in both countries. Besides, the article demonstrates how the memory policy of World War II was affected after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union in Norway and Russia, respectively.     

Comparative Environmental Policy: Market-type Instruments in Industrialized Capitalist Countries

This paper examines experiences of five industrialized capitalist countries in using effluent charges, tradable permits, and subsidies as tools of environmental regulation and compares their programs to economists'models of the market approach. Observed disparity between theory and practice suggests that advantages of the market approach are not as significant as proponents contend. Reasons are identified, and differences in national characteristics of public administration are considered toward explaining differences in how countries have applied market instruments.     

Delivering Microfinance in Developing Countries: Controversies and Policy Perspectives

The article reviews three major controversies in the microfinance field: vehicles, technologies, and performance assessments for financial service delivery. Then it proposes that these controversies be resolved by a perspective emphasizing institutional plurality and external and internal efficiencies for individual programs. Questions for further research are discussed in the conclusion.     

The Emergence of Ethno-Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Russia

A prominent UK-based political and historical geographer analyzes ethnogeopolitics, a new trend in Russian political discourse that is distinguished by the primary role it assigns to ethnicity (rather than the nation-state) as a geopolitical factor—i.e., recognizing formal (often poly-ethnic) ethno-national groupings on their respective ethnic spaces as important "geopolitical subjects" in their own right with a certain autonomy in world politics. After defining and otherwise setting out the differences between ethno-geopolitics and the more mainstream school of Russian geopolitics emerging after the disintegration of the USSR, the author proceeds to assess the extent to which ethno-geopolitics is shaping current Russian geopolitical thought in two critically important arenas: (1) Russia's relations with other great powers at the global level and (2) the dynamics of ethnicity (and inter-ethnic relations) within its own boundaries as well as in neighboring states. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: Y900, Z190. 71 references.     

Public and Private Policy Change: Pension Reform in Four Countries

This article offers a comparative, qualitative analysis of the changing nature of—and relationship between—public and private old age pensions in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan. Stressing the impact of institutional legacies on policy change, the article explains why these countries have taken contrasting paths toward the restructuring of public and private pension policies. The study finds that the four countries fall into two distinct clusters. On the one hand are Canada and the United States, which have essentially witnessed policy drift toward a greater reliance on private savings. On the other hand are Britain and Japan, which have reshaped their pension systems largely through legislative revision. The last section explains the differences between and within these two country clusters. The article concludes that institutional forces explain the distinctive policy patterns between the two country clusters but that it is necessary to bring in other factors (i.e., demographic aging, union density, and the role of ideas) to account for differences within each of these clusters.     

Economic Geographic Relations in the Post-Soviet Republics

A senior American economic geographer examines a broad array of geographical factors affecting economic relations among the Soviet successor states (particularly Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) and relations among their constituent regions. Special attention is devoted to legacies of unequal resource endowment and infrastructure development from the Soviet period (e.g., monopolization and spatial concentration of production capacity, “trunklining” of distribution nets) and other factors perpetuating dependency relationships in post-Soviet economic space. 3 tables, 66 references.     

Geopolitics and Mongolia's Search for Post-Soviet Identity

An official in Mongolia's Foreign Ministry examines the forces shaping that country's efforts to forge a new identity and relationship with neighboring and more distant states in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. The paper explores both geographical and cultural dimensions of Mongolian identity before examining the interplay between the evolving Mongolian identity and the reorientation of Mongolian foreign policy. Of particular interest is the discussion of arguments for Mongolia's closer alignment with Northeast Asia and Central Asia, and on the need for a powerful "Third Neighbor" to counterbalance Russian and Chinese influence. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O53, Z13. 1 figure, 1 table, 34 references.     

特许公司——西方推行“重商政策”的急先锋

本文从特许公司产生的历史背景、渊源和特征,特许公司在西方国家推行“重商政策”中的先锋作用以及它们与西方资本主义组织形式演变的关系等三个方面,揭示特许公司在15—18世纪西欧社会转型中的历史地位。在着重考察商业冒险家公司、莫斯科公司、利凡特公司和英国东印度公司的内在联系的基础上指出:英国向东印度的扩张是英国商业冒险家所做出的最持久也最系统的努力,集中反映了那个时代英国甚至整个西欧商业冒险家的商业精神和开拓精神。文章认为,英国人走向世界的过程,除了财富观念和财富积累方式的改变,并不断使自己的经营和经济组织形式适应变化着的经济活动之外,主要依靠的就是这种商业的和开拓的精神。     

Future Characteristics of the Elderly in Developing Countries and Their Implications for Policy

This paper explores barriers leading to continuing low levels of girls' schooling in Pakistan. More specifically, and for rural areas, the authors examine the barriers stemming from culturally associated gender in schooling, focusing, in particular, on school availability and constraints on female mobility. Logistic regressions of enrolment and attrition using secondary data from the National Adolescent and Youth Survey show that even after taking school availability into account, girls in households allowing unrestricted mobility to school had 1.5 times higher odds of ever being enrolled than those who required an escort. Once in school, the need for an escort implied 1.6 times higher odds of dropping out. The paper concludes that while investment in girls' schools, and to secondary level, is paramount for starting and continuing in school, the potential benefits will only be fully realised with accompanying measures which facilitate rural girls' mobility.