Author: 黑料社区

e-Book Launch: Can Dependency Theory Explain Our World Today?

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Is it time for dependency theory to make a comeback? Its central idea is that developed (鈥漜ore鈥�) countries benefit from the global system at the expense of developing (鈥漰eriphery鈥�) countries鈥攚hich face structural barriers that make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to develop in the same way that the already developed countries did. As neo-classical economics came to dominate the field in the 1980s, the theory lost prominence and traction. Given the vast imbalances that persist within and among nations in the global economy today, it鈥檚 an opportune time to revisit the framework.

To that end, INET鈥檚 Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) has released a new e-book, . The volume, released by YSI鈥檚 Economic Development Working Group, comprises interviews with 13 scholars from around the world who express a variety of viewpoints on the meaning and relevance of dependency theory in today鈥檚 context.

Hazards of a Tourist Boom

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by Silla Sigurgeirdottir and Robert H. Wade

Iceland is surfing a tourist boom. From 440,000 tourists in 2008, numbers started surging in 2011 to reach 1.3 million in 2015 and 1.8 million in 2016. The resident population is 330,000 in an area over 40% that of the United Kingdom. Having experienced the sharpest crash of all the OECD economies in 2008-2009 Iceland regained the pre-crash level of average income by late 2014. GDP grew super-fast at over 6% in 2016, and forecasts suggest annual growth of almost 5% between 2017 and 2019, one of the fastest in the OECD.

Pre-tax salaries rose nearly 10% a year in both 2015 and 2016. Foreign exchange reserves are ample. Inflation is low, at less than 2% through 2016. Household debt to income is low. The state is paying down public debt fast; the current level is around 50% of GDP. The banks have passed stringent stress tests, with unusually low leverage ratios, low loan to value ratios, strong liquidity positions (especially in foreign currencies) and high capital ratios (close to 30%). A repeat financial crash is very unlikely.

So what is not to like? Given what is happening in Europe and the United States, political leaders elsewhere would love to have Iceland鈥檚 problems. Still, those problems could develop badly for the population at large.Read More »

How We Know It鈥檚 Christmas Time

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As Christmas approaches and the infamous Band Aid charity song resurfaces on radios, in supermarkets and in malls, so do old and harmful stereotypes of poor people living in oblivious destitution, in need of a foreigner鈥檚 donation to help them escape poverty. These stereotypes portray the poor as passive recipients of aid and poverty as a phenomenon disconnected from structural political and economic processes. In recent years, alternative charity awards – the – have been organized every December. This is聽 a concerted effort to counteract the negative stereotypes perpetuated by many charity videos and songs.Read More »

The New Secretary-General, and the Next: Reforming International Appointments

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The UN selected as its new Secretary-General this week. Economics Professor offers his thoughts on the deficiencies in the selection process, reform possibilities, and the future trajectory of a UN led by Guterres. Drawing on his experience as a member of the UN Economic and Social Council鈥檚 Independent Team of Advisers, Reddy argues that the UN system needs much more than the 鈥榝ine tuning鈥� that Guterres has in mind.

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The announcement that the new Secretary-General of the United Nations will be of Portugal brings to an end a process of making this important appointment which has been more transparent than ever (as it included such innovations as between declared candidates). However, despite the credentials of the new Secretary-General and his laudable intentions for the organisation, the process has highlighted the continued deficiencies in the selection process, including but not confined to lack of full transparency, in particular on the basis of the final decision.

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Is Development Possible In Capitalism?

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By Douglas McDonald [re-blog from ]

Last Friday was the Debating Development conference, organized by the titular scholars of , a group coordinated by NSSR鈥檚 own Ingrid Kvangraven. The conference put many scholars of different regions and different theoretical perspectives in conversation. Although it was titled 鈥渄ebating development,鈥� as NSSR economics professor Sanjay Reddy noted in his opening remarks, most of the perspectives presented were more intersecting than mutually exclusive, so the conference could also be understood as a means to compound or complexify perspectives, rather than adopt or discard them.

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