News and Analysis: 11-20 Apr 11 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

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Posted on Wed, 20 Apr 11:

Japan official to visit Chernobyl to study decontamination,   Deutsche Presse-Agentur (courtesy M&C), 20 Apr 11
A senior Japanese minister will travel to Ukraine and visit the area of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the site of the '86 nuclear disaster, the Jap. gov't said Wed. He will visit Ukraine from Thu to learn from its decontamination experience in order to deal with irradiated soil in and around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. He is also to attend an int'l science conference in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to mark the Chernobyl disaster's 25th anniversary (Cash promised to help clean up Chernobyl, Weblog at Nature/ UK, 19 Apr)

Stanley Fischer: Aiming for the medium term,   OECD Yearbook 2011, 15 Apr 11:
Fiscal measures contributed significantly to the prevention of financial collapse and a deflationary spiral during the global financial crisis of the past 2 years. However, in some nations their side effects - large persisting deficits and rapidly rising debt - have begun to threaten the recovery. This presents a well-known dilemma. On one side, allowing fiscal deficits to persist will eventually result in a loss of confidence, higher risk-premia and lower growth trajectories. These risks may begin to affect the markets and impede current growth well before the fiscal risks are realized. In contrast, too rapid an adjustment may curtail econ activity directly, notes Israel central bank governor/ fmr IMF 1st deputy managing dir (Gov't budgets - Save or spend?)

A shining city on a hill - Building a middle class in the West Bank,   Time, Mar '11:
Sitting in his Ramallah office, Bashar Masri, the managing director of Bayti Real Estate Invest. Co., watches the construction of the 1st planned city in Palestinian history - which is going on 9 km away - in real time on multiple split screens on his computer. When construction is complete, this craggy stretch of land 32 km north of Jerusalem will be transformed into a modern, 40,000-person metropolis called Rawabi. Indeed, Masri is navigating uncharted territory. At $850 mln, Rawabi (which means hills in Arabic) is both the largest construction project and the largest private foreign investment ever made in the Palestinian territories (Travel:  A perfect day in Jerusalem)

Posted on Mon, 18 Apr 11:

Donor nations agree Palestinian Authority (PA) ready for statehood,   Jerusalem Post, 14 Apr 11:
Major donor nations in Brussels on 13 Apr agreed that the PA is ready for statehood but urged it to achieve this goal through a negotiated solution with Israel rather than unilateral action. "The PA is above the threshold for a functioning state in key sectors" based on assessments by the World Bank, Int'l Monetary Fund and United Nations, the Ad Hoc Liaison Cmte (AHLC) said in a statement after a meeting it held to assess the PA's econ and institutional capacity. AHLC serves as the principal coordinator for dev’t assistance to the Palestinians. Chaired by Norway and co-sponsored by the EU and US, with the participation of the UN, World Bank and IMF, it seeks to promote dialogue between donors, the PA and Israel

Charles Wolf: The facts about American 'decline',   Wall Street Journal (courtesy RAND), 13 Apr 11:
It's fashionable among academics and pundits to proclaim that the US is in decline and no longer No.1 in the world. The declinists say they are realists. In fact, their alarm is unrealistic. Early declinists like Yale historian Paul Kennedy focused in the '80s on the allegedly debilitating effects of America's "imperial overstretch." More recently, historians Niall Ferguson and Martin Jacques focus on the weakening of the economy. Among pundits, Paul Krugman and Michael Kinsley on the left and Mark Helprin on the right sound the alarm. The debate involves issues of absolute vs relative decline, and concepts like 'resilience' and 'passivity', says Corp chair in int'l econ

Nancy Birdsall: Promoting broad-based economic growth,   USAID (courtesy UK-DFID), 9 Mar 11 [PDF, go to p5]:
Last Dec, USAID held an 'Evidence Summit' on the topic. It was part of an effort to support evidence-based policy and designed to engage internal and external thought leaders. These are the closing remarks: What is inclusive growth? For me, it is growth that disproportionately benefits the poor. And we can infer if you start with a reasonably good distribution of assets as did a number of East Asian nations in the '50s and '60s, thanks to the US coming in and Korea and Taiwan imposing a redistribution of land, then that's a good thing for growth that benefits those who start at the bottom. By doing that, it also starts to build a middle class, says Ctr Global Dev't pres

Posted on Fri, 15 Apr 11:

High and volatile food prices continue to threaten the world's poor,   World Bank, 14 Apr 11:
Driven in part by higher fuel costs connected to events in the Mideast and North Africa, global food prices are 36% above their levels a year ago and remain volatile, pushing people deeper into poverty, acc to newly-released WB numbers. The bank estimates there are now about 1.2 bln people already living below the $1.25 extreme poverty line. A further 10% increase in food prices could drive 10 mln more people below that poverty line. And a 30% price hike could lead to 34 mln more poor. This is in addition to the 44 mln who have been driven into poverty since last June as a result of the price spikes

Moises Naím:  WB, IMF are meeting in Wash. - why don't we care anymore?,   Wash.Post (courtesy author's site), 8 Apr 11:
Cherry blossoms and anti-globalization marches. For many years, these were inevitable rites of spring in Wash. The springtime protests were prompted by the semi-annual meetings of WB and IMF, regularly held in early April. The marchers - many traveling to Wash. from faraway places - came to voice their fury vs free markets, world poverty, environmental decay or US foreign policy. Now, though a few vigils and rallies will probably pop up surrounding (this) week's meetings, they will be nothing like the riotous and tear-gas-filled affairs of years past. Where have all the protesters gone?, asks Carnegie Endowment senior assoc

Beyond Keynes: Q&A with Justin Yifu Lin, World Bank chief economist,   World Policy Journal/ US, Mar-May '11:
In May '79, Lin - a 26 year-old company commander in Taiwan's army and a recent Nat'l Chengchi Univ MBA graduate - defected to mainland China by swimming across the straits to Fujian Province, leaving behind his pregnant wife and 3-year-old child. 7 years later, after obtaining a Master's degree in Marxist political economy from Peking Univ, he became one of the 1st citizens of China to receive an econ PhD from U Chicago. Reunited with his family and returning to China, he became a Peking U prof and founded the China Ctr for Econ Research. In June '08, he became the WB chief economist, the 1st ever from a developing nation

Posted on Wed, 13 Apr 11:

Nordics, Asian tigers confirm their ICT leadership in tech rankings, World Econ Forum, 12 Apr 11:
Sweden and Singapore continue to top the rankings of the Global Info Tech Report 2010-2011, confirming the leadership of the Nordic nations and the Asian tiger economies in adopting and implementing ICT advances for increased growth and dev’t. Finland jumps to 3rd place, while Switzerland and US are steady in 4th and 5th. Led by Singapore in 2nd place, the other Asian Tiger economies continue to make progress in the ranking, with Taiwan and Korea improving and Hong Kong following closely (Rankings [PDF])

Forget Davos. Are you invited to Hainan Island (this) week?, Weblog at Forbes, 8 Apr 11:
The new axis in world diplomacy and global leadership flexes its muscles on Hainan Island - the southernmost tip of China - with the BRICS summit on 14 Apr in Sanya, and the Boao Forum the following day. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SAfrica) is already something of a 'G5' of non-Western nations. This week its leaders (China's Hu, Brazil's Rousseff, Russia's Medvedev, India's Singh, and SAfrica's Zuma) will meet to discuss their joint concerns in int'l affairs, econ, dev't, trade, and security (BRIC defend elevation of SAfrica into their ranks, Bus.Day/ S Africa), 5 Apr | BRIC victims of their own success, National/ UAE, 25 Mar | Beyond the BRICs, PwC, Mar '08)

Kenneth Rogoff: History will rue US and Europe debt woes, FT (courtesy Harvard), 4 Apr 11 [PDF]:
Normalizing fiscal policy in the long aftermath of a deep financial crisis is a delicate task. The key is to see the big picture. Even if today's gov't bonds seem pristine by the standards of pre-revolutionary France, future scholars will see our tax systems as Byzantine labyrinths funneling money to powerful interests, creating staggering inefficiencies. They will surely be incredulous to see pensions and health insurance financed via Ponzi schemes as transparently unsustainable as the 1700s South Sea bubble, says fmr IMF chief economist/ Harvard prof (Gov'ts need to tackle fiscal risks, IMF Survey Mag, 12 Apr | Deutsche Bank 2011 Prize in financial economics)

Posted on Mon, 11 Apr 11:

Big ideas, but are politicians listening?, by K Carmichael,   Globe and Mail/ Can., 11 Apr 11 [UTC/GMT]:
Over the weekend, some of the world's top economists gathered in Bretton Woods at a conference organized by the Inst for New Econ Thinking (INET), which is backed by billionaire financier Soros, and the Ctr for Int'l Governance Innovation, the Ontario-based think tank created by another billionaire, Research In Motion's co-leader Balsillie. Their decision to rent the exclusive mountain resort had the desired effect on many of the participants. "This room and this location is an inspiration," said Harold James, a Princeton history/int'l affairs prof, during the confab's initial session (INET opens its confab at Bretton Woods, NH | Confab program)

At Chernobyl, a warning for Japan,   Washington Post, 3 Apr 11:
Forbidding under a cold, gray sky, the dead atomic power plant here is a living enterprise. The explosion that struck 25 years ago this month, in the world's worst nuclear accident, set in motion a major undertaking that today bears on the life of the entire nation. It is a model, or a warning, for what could await Japan. The crisis at Fukushima will at some point be contained - but then there begins a national project from which there is no exit strategy. Though the turbines are still, and cranes dangle above 2 unfinished reactors, too radioactive to be moved anywhere else, this is not a ghost town (Postcard from Chernobyl - vision of Apocalypse, Reuters, 11 Apr | In pictures: Inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant, BBC News | Slides: Chernobyl - Then and now, Environmental Graffiti)

Worldwide R&D funding up 3.6%, China now No.2 globally,   R&D Magazine, Dec '10:
Global research and dev't (R&D) spending is expected to increase by 3.6% in '11 to $1.2 trillion, acc to the closely watched Battelle 2011 Global R&D Forecast [PDF,1.6MB]. A snapshot of the report reveals the following megatrends: Globalization increasingly is narrowing the R&D gap between nations;  US still leads all nations by funding one-third of global R&D; and China has overtaken Japan as the 2nd highest funder of global R&D. Asia's stake in R&D spending continues to increase, a shift begun more than 5 years ago.  US, however, still dominates absolute spending at a level well above its share of global Gross Domestic Product

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