East Asian Economic Integration and its Impact on Future Growth

Two propositions appear to be gaining wide currency, given the revealed preference for preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the East Asian region and elsewhere. The first is that economic integration is a good way to promote economic growth. The second is that PTAs, particularly ones that go beyond goods trade, are an effective way to promote economic integration. Yet both propositions are empirical questions. In this paper, a partial evaluation of the evidence suggests caution is called for. Current PTAs appear to be doing little to remove the important impediments to growth in the region. Far greater income gains would come from comprehensive reform of nondiscriminatory impediments to competition, as part of a thorough-going program of unilateral domestic regulatory reform. It may be time to rethink East Asian economic integration as a policy priority, or at least review the way in which it might be pursued.East Asia, economic integration, trade, Growth

Publication Review - Social and Environmental Policies in EC Procurement Law - new Directives and new Directions Edited by Sue Arrowsmith and Peter Kunzlik

A critical review of a book by Sue Arrwsmith and Peter Kunzlik which examines two significant aspects of EU 'horizontal' policies which embed social and environmental considerations into the public procurement process. A range of academic debates examine alternative perspectives focused on contemporary social and environmental issues including competitive priorities, green energy , social justice and non-discrimination and how they can be taken into account in the procurement of public works, services and supplies

Institutions for Enhancing Economic Policy Performance

institutions, development, regulation

Going to Work with a Criminal Record: Lessons from the Fathers at Work Initiative

Many of the 650,000 adults released from American prisons each year find their way to One-Stops or community-based, faith-based and other organizations that provide employment services. Yet relatively few of these organizations specifically target former prisoners. Workforce development practitioners have experience with a wide range of job seekers, but a great number of them are looking for additional guidance about the complexities of connecting formerly incarcerated people to the labor market and helping them stay on the job.Going to Work with a Criminal Record was developed to help meet this need. It is based on lessons from the Fathers at Work initiative, a three-year, six-site demonstration funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to help young, noncustodial fathers achieve increased employment and earnings, involvement in their childrens lives, and more consistent financial support of their children. The report describes seven fundamental lessons workforce organizations should consider as they help formerly incarcerated people move toward stable employment, along with a more detailed discussion of how program staff can put these lessons into practice. It outlines how to avoid mistakes and how to develop important relationships, including with employers, parole officers and the local child support enforcement agency

Expense Preference and Student Achievement in School Districts

There is little direct evidence on the widely held view that school districts spend too few of available resources on student instruction. I find evidence of such an expense preference by assessing the effect of competition from private schools on the allocation of resources by school districts. I also examine the effects of instructional and non-instructional spending on high school completion rates. The results suggest that school districts direct too few of available resources towards instruction. The results also demonstrate, however, that money spent on instruction is highly effective when conditioned on the decision to spend outside the classroom.Education

Will bank interest rate deregulation jeopardize economic growth? A case study of South Korea

The first purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, as a theoretical.proposition, that elimination of controls on bank interest rates would not necessarily lead to a decline in output in those sectors which were previously able to obtain cheap bank credit, The efficiency gains obtained by eliminating these controls need not, therefore, come at the expense of economic growth (or whatever other benefits were presumed to accrue by fostering particular sectors using credit controls). The key to this result lies in a proper understanding of the way in which credit price control and quantity rationing in the regulated sector affects resource allocation, given the existence of a dual, unregulated financial sector. The second purpose of this paper is to present quantitative estimates of the macroeconomic and sectoral effects of the removal of bank interest rate controls in South Korea. In many ways the Korean experience is tailor-made for a study of this kind.