Search Results

This chapter investigates how foreign influences through trade, investment, and other forms of interaction affected the capital formation and economic transformation of Korea during the 30-year transitional period between the opening of the country to the outside world in 1876 and when it became a Japanese protectorate in 1904. It examines the extent to which the infusion of foreign resources, Western technology, and education from foreign countries played a major role as the purveyors of Western thought, technology, investment, and the forces of change and innovation. Korea's responses to the encroaching new foreign forces in terms of domestic institutional reforms and public investments including investment in human capital are assessed. The responses of the private sector, including the Korean people (e.g., society's elites (yangban), merchants, craftsmen, and common citizens) during the transitional period are analyzed. The chapter also examines the question of whether Korea had the motivation to transform into a modern economy. The last part of the chapter assesses Korea's national income, consumption, and savings during the transitional period as a result of foreign incursion.

An account is given of the transition from a state-run to a market economy in Russia, since the crucial argument presented in the book is that the Russian Mafia emerged as a consequence of an imperfect transition. The chapter explores the extent to which the post-Soviet Russian state emerged either as an impartial protector of rights or, on the other hand, as an erratic, predatory, and non-impartial supplier of protection. The first section of the chapter looks briefly at the emergence of the legal and tax systems, and the rise in crime and corruption, and the second discusses property rights and the growing demand for protection. The last section presents the main actors involved in the transition – enterprise managers, industrial ministers, workers, and local governments and Boris Yeltsin’s reform team, and attempts to see which of these lobbies were best positioned to engage in collective action to determine some aspects of the transition, and the final outcome.

The crucial importance of property rights in the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy is explained as the basis for emergence of mafia groups: if trust is scarce, and the state is not able or willing to protect property rights, then there is a demand for non-state, private protection. The emergence of the Sicilian Mafia (the Cosa Nostra) is briefly described, for the study of the emergence of the Russian Mafia presented in the book is largely informed by the Sicilian case. The author explains that he treats the term ‘mafia’ as a species of a broader genus of organized crime, which is willing to offer protection to both legal and illegal transactions – although this study is mainly concerned with legal rather than illegal markets (and also does not include the role of ethnic networks as a source of protection services). The reasoning behind the choice of the city of Perm for the location of the study, the type of evidence collected there, and methods of data collection used, are outlined. A summary of the contents of each chapter of the book is also included.

This chapter examines the trends in income distribution observed since 1989 in the European economies in transition and in China, as well as the factors responsible for the systemic difference in income distribution. It then examines policy reforms which have been carried out and the emerging patterns of changes in income distribution from 1989 to 1997. It analyses changes in income structure and changes in the dispersion of main income components. The chapter argues that differences in the pace and pattern of institutional development explain in part the variation in trends in income inequality and growth performance of the transitional economies over the last decade.

Explores recent trends in developing and transitional economies in rural–urban, rural, and urban inequality of income and poverty risk, and the offsetting trends in inequality hypothesis (OTI), which claims that, underlying the overall inequality trend, there has been a tendency for rising intrasectoral inequality to be offset by falling rural–urban inequality. The data reviewed in the chapter refute OTI with the possible, partial exception of Latin America: first, the data show no overall tendency for within‐country rural–urban inequality to increase or decrease since the 1980s; second, while modest national and regional tendencies exist, they do not, on the whole, offset trends in overall inequality. Urban–rural ratios of both mean consumption and poverty risk have commonly either risen or fallen alongside total inequality, or even been trendless. Changing urban–rural ratios of poverty or per‐person consumption need not imply changing urban bias; they may be caused by exogenous changes in relative returns to urban activities, plus entry or exit barriers, although rural‐urban inequality trends in ‘human development’ indicators (literacy, longevity, etc.) do suggest rising urban bias. The chapter is arranged in three sections: Introduction and Summary; Rural–Urban and Intrasectoral Contributions to Changes in the Overall Inequality of Consumption or Income—an econometric analysis; and Changing Rural–Urban Poverty Ratios and ‘Urban Bias’.

This chapter surveys the key determinants of economic performance in transitional economies, focusing on organizations and policies that have influence structures of ownership, control, and the motivation of economic agents. It examines the nature and economic impacts of ownership and control and discusses privatization and the productivity effects of different property forms, especially employee ownership. It concludes by discussing new forms of compensation such as performance-related incentives.

This chapter examines the nature of the unorthodox ownership and governance structures in the transitional economies of East Asia. It begins by discussing the theoretical issues in innovative transformation and property rights reform. It describes the features and functions of local government property rights and the reassignment of property rights between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in East Asia. It then examines the advantages of ownership and governance structures of township and village enterprises (TVEs) in China. It also examines the way in which private enterprises in China and Vietnam expand business through social trust and patron-client relationships with local government entities and officials.

Chapters 1 and 2 point to the fact that the demand for protection that accompanies the spread of market transactions is met by the Russian state only in part: a significant sector of the business world does not use state-supplied protection services. A demand for alternative sources of protection is then expected to arise. Some authors, especially economists, have been quick to conclude that, since the state does not provide a service, the market inevitably will. It cannot, however, be argued that demand will inevitably be met; a supply of people trained in the use of violence and easily available weapons must also be present. This chapter focuses on the availability of people trained in the use of violence and of weapons, and the varieties of private protectors available in Russia at the time of the transition to the market, ranging from segments of the state apparatus (privately sold state protection), to private security (protection) firms, the internalized protection systems of major economic conglomerates, and criminal groups (banditskaya krysha: krysha, literally ‘roof’, is Russian slang for protection).

This chapter discusses the mechanisms of regionalization and the issues surrounding the development of regional cooperation in China. It focuses on Pan-Pearl River Delta (Pan-PRD) cooperation, the largest regional organization in China in terms of land area, population, economic output, and foreign direct investment (FDI). It describes how the transitional economy contributed to the formation of the Pan-PRD project and how the interplay between the central and local governments has complicated the process of regionalization.

This chapter discusses the historical background of regional cooperation in China. It explores how the idea of Pan-Pearl River Delta (Pan-PRD) regionalization first came about, focusing on issues related to its establishment, organization, achievements, and prospects. It also offers a theoretical interpretation of the factors underpinning the increased interest in regional cooperation and discusses the impact of state politics on such cooperation in a transitional economy.

This chapter discusses the development of a corporate sector that followed the approach of China's broader economic and legal transformation. Corporate sector developments evolved from policy-driven economic and legal reforms that generated China's growth while simultaneously maintained relative social and political stability. The developments are accompanied by legal reforms that confirm the institutional bases for a transitional economy. The approach permitted China to achieve significant and far-reaching reforms based on economic necessity, while gradually filling out the essential and institutional foundation needed to strengthen the partly reformed system.

Established in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a private corporation that illustrates how the Internet and electronic commerce are giving rise to new forms of global governance. ICANN regulates the assignment of domain names and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses used to identify and interconnect Internet users. This chapter examines issues of power, institutions, and participation in the context of ICANN. It looks at South Korea’s involvement in ICANN and shows how the organization has been dominated by Western countries (led by the United States) and transnational firms (such as intellectual property interests) at the expense of the developing countries and transitional economies, dubbed the “rest of the world” (ROW). The agenda and demands of ROW participants from civil society tend to be in conflict with the agenda of their own governments and exceed those in intergovernmental organizations. The chapter recommends a series of changes to ICANN in order to enhance the ROW’s effectiveness in terms of participation.

Croatian literature in the 1990s was marked by a series of questions—about cultural continuity and discontinuity, about changes in the genre system due to changes in the transitional economy and distribution, and about the emergence of new authors and individual poetics. During the last twenty years we have seen the increased quality of literary production and the creation of a new, relatively stable, reading public. The main themes of novels and short stories (which are the most popular genres) in the last few years have been the historical issues of cultural memory and cultural amnesia. How to face history, especially the postwar reality, is, for Croatian authors such as UgreŠić, Jergović, Drakulić, Sajko, Bukovac, Simić, BodroŽić, et al., primarily an individual ethical question which reopens the issues of guilt and responsibility.