Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Using the BEEPS survey of about 4000 firms in transition economies developed by the World Bank and the EBRD, this paper tests hypotheses concerning the causes of the political behavior of firms in transition economies. The evidence supports the hypothesis that clientelist relations between firms and the state, which have been shown to have detrimental effects on economic growth and income equality elsewhere in the world, exist in many transition economies. The results suggest that the corruption and crony capitalism observed in many transition countries is generated by firms and state officials who find themselves involved in an interdependent political and economic relationship. In a system of political clientelism, firms provide political support to politicians, and in exchange politicians distribute economic benefits to client firms. High-level corruption in transition economies is generated by personalistic, hierarchical, asymmetrical, clientelist links between firms and government officials rather than the lobbying activity of pressure groups acting on a weak state. Ordered logit analysis of the determinants of firm overdue payments, or payment arrears, shows that large, privatized firms hold higher payment arrears in clientelist countries, while these factors have no impact on arrears in countries with low levels of clientelism. The evidence suggests that the extent of political clientelism has a major impact on corruption and economic policy, regardless of the extent of private ownership in the economy. This analysis of the political behavior of firms and the economic policy environment has important policy implications for all countries implementing market-oriented economic reform and attempting to reduce corruption. Questions concerning the treatment of state-owned versus privatized firms in clientelist countries will be pursued in further research.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Rapid advances in the processing and transfer of information place a premium on firms and business systems with the ability to innovate and quickly re-marshal resources. These demands have exposed technology and know-how gaps in even the most technologically advanced industrial nations. Globalization can lead to convergent policy responses, especially in industries such as Information Technology (IT) that tap into an international labor market. Germany and the United Kingdom have responded similarly by resorting to foreign labor recruitment to support the new economy. However, their path to this common response has involved different levels of domestic political mobilization that reflect nationally variant immigration legacies, systems of innovation and training and levels of social partner involvement. A comparison of the German Green Card program, the UK’s sector-based scheme for IT workers, and IT sector policies adopted in Austria and the Netherlands illustrates the central importance of government pro-activity and emphasizes how general labor market characteristics such as egalitarian wages and high levels of social partner involvement produce qualitatively different policy results. The policy tracing relies on media reports, organization and government position papers, and is buttressed by interviews with representatives of government and the social partners.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recently, in an interview, Governor Schwarzenegger described California as a ‘nation-state’ as it has the sixth largest economy in the world, a lot of global influence and because it makes its own deals with countries. This paper examines California’s economy, particularly the ecological impact of its industrial agriculture on the global economy. It then locates the ‘economies’ and examines the ‘ecology’ of two ethnic stores, in Seaside, California in the context of this global economy. These stores co-exist with retail giants, the normalized centers and symbols of accumulation and consumption in everyday California lives. Rather than seeing neighborhood stores as racialized and gendered sites for ‘other’ humans, removed from global, offshore and competitive state economies, we show that these stores bridge the multiple divides of economies and ecologies. People and products from the world over are inextricably connected with economies and consumption ‘here’. People ‘remit’ money, cash pay checks, buy phone cards for international calls, consume ‘ethnic’ food, maintain continuous flows across innumerable borders to enact global political economy. Offshore, private, formal, informal, gendered, racialized, alternative, anti-economies come together in these community stores. Further, by comparing consumption, particularly of agricultural products, with those in giant retails we make ecological issues related to California’s global agriculture visible. These stores, a vital part of the California’s everyday globalized economy, disrupt notions of globality as ‘out there’. It allows us to raise questions about boundaries that demarcate ‘normal’ understandings of a global political economy.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Nowhere is the gap between winners and losers in the Central and East European (CEE) transition more evident than in its subnational, cross-regional variation. Both globalization and economic integration in the European marketplace have strongly impacted the geographic and regional distribution of the benefits and costs of integrating markets. Declining activity rates and purchasing power in the less advanced CEE regions and rapidly increasing economic disparities across more and less advanced CEE regions place significant burdens on the future outlook of these less developed regions. Empirical evidence suggests that in CEE the real losers of European integration are low and unskilled workers with little education in declining regions. Variation in regional rates of economic growth and development is of course not news in the wider European Union. Despite evidence of increasing economic convergence across states, increasing regional disparities are a global phenomenon (Sala-I-Martin, 2002) and are likewise well recognized in the European context (Quah, 1996). The appearance of regional disparities in CEE however represents one of the greatest challenges both to the political and economic stability of CEE and to the Union as a whole. This is above all the case because the less developed regions of CEE have experienced some of the worst features of the economic transition.FDI has flowed far more strongly to CEE’s more developed regions, indirectly contributing to rising economic disparities across the more and less advanced regions. And economic decline in the CEE’s less advanced regions has thus far not been stemmed by attempts at creating regional support mechanisms. Central governments themselves are torn between investing in the less developed regions and cementing economic development at the national level (Ellison, 2007). Thus the question remains how best to promote the economic development of the less developed regions.What strategies should be employed to attract investment to and build employment in these regions remains controversial. This paper asks what can be done? Will EU structural and cohesion funds or the Lisbon Agenda help reverse these trends? Can more FDI be directed to the less developed regions of Central and Eastern Europe through other public policy tools? This paper will provide an empirical analysis of the factors influencing subnational regional economic development. Using data on the subnational regional distribution of FDI flows, this paper will ask what factors best explain the regional distribution of FDI flows and will further explore the impact of this and other variables—in particular New Economy models—on the prospects for regional economic development.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Agenda setting has already been applied to a broad range of issues, but so far few studies have focused on the macro-economic context. Indeed, few researchers in this field have shown how coverage can act as a potential preparatory indicator of consumer confidence. Our study follows an international comparative approach based on quantitative content analysis of the main television news in Germany and the U.S and their respective coverage on the state of the economy. The analysis comprises all broadcasts from seven German and four U.S. news programs from 2003 to 2006. This data was correlated with opinion polls on consumer expectations in both countries. Despite significant differences in the coverage on the economy, the results indicate an impact on consumers’ perceptions. The paper will discuss the impact of the quantity, the tone and the topic structure of the reports on TV audiences.