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3101. Economic Convergence through Savings, Trade and Technology Flows—Lessons from Recent Research

Author:
Per Botolf Maurseth
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on income disparity between countries and convergence in economic growth. New theoretical models modify and often reverse the prediction of convergence in the traditional neo-classical model of economic growth. A particular feature of the recent literature as compared to traditional studies of economic growth is that it acknowledges interdependence between countries. International capital flows, trade in goods and (maybe most important) international technology flows influence individual countries growth performance. The empirical literature on the dynamics of the international distribution of income per capita reveals massive unconditional divergence in income levels. For sub-samples of countries on the other hand, the data support the conditional convergence hypothesis: when other factors are accounted for, there is a tendency for income per capita to converge. For the OECD countries, as well as for some other countries, knowledge flows, either embodied in traded goods or disembodied seem to be important for whether poorer countries are able to catch up with richer ones.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

3102. International R Spillovers and the Effect of Absorptive Capacity

Author:
Leo A. Grünfeld
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
We study the productivity effects of R spillovers through imports, foreign direct investment and domestic intermediates, using a highly disaggregated data set for Norwegian business sectors. As opposed to the large body of similar studies, we explicitly analyse the importance of absorptive capacity effects, claiming that the positive contribution from R spillovers is an increasing function of the R activities of the economic units that receive the spillovers. We find strong support for the existence of R spillovers through imports and domestic intermediates, but no sign of such spillovers through foreign ownership. Surprisingly, we identify absorptive capacity effects relating to spillovers from imports, but no such effects with respect to domestic intermediates. One possible explanation is that the cost of learning from international R sources is larger than from domestic R sources, implying that own R investments can counteract the negative effect of geographical and cultural distance on R spillovers.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Norway

3103. Multinationals Searching for R Spillovers

Author:
Leo A. Grünfeld
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper surveys the literature on R and technology spillovers as a motive for FDI. During the last years, a growing body of theoretical studies has generated formal arguments supporting the economic rationale for such behaviour. Yet, theoretical contributions are clustered within a few schools and a wider approach is necessary in order to understand the mechanisms that relate R spillovers to FDI. The empirical literature is more numerous, but provides ambiguous conclusions with respect to the strength of this motive. Micro studies provide less supportive results as compared to studies based on more aggregate data. Studies based on patent information are generally supportive to the existence of this motive.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

3104. International R Spillovers and the Absorptive Capacity of Multinationals

Author:
Leo A. Grünfeld
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper studies R spillovers as a motive for firms to go multinational. The establishment of a foreign subsidiary may increase a firm's ability to learn from foreign R activity since R spillovers between firms are moderated by geographical distance. As opposed to earlier studies on this subject, we also model the concept of absorptive capacity where spillovers are endogenised as a function of the firms'own R investments. We employ a three-stage Cournot duopoly model to identify under what conditions a firm chooses to service a foreign market through exports or localised production (going multinational). With exogenous R investments, the absorptive capacity effect contributes to increase the gains from going multinational when the firm is a technology leader in terms of R If R investments are endogenous, only medium-sized absorptive capacity effects will result in firms going multinational. Also, higher spillover rates do not necessarily drive down R and profits for the multinational firm. This stands in contrast to models that ignore the aspect of absorptive capacity.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

3105. From territorial defence to comprehensive security? European integration and the changing Norwegian and Swedish security identities

Author:
Pernille Rieker
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper analyses the relationship between the European integration process and the recent changes in the Norwegian and the Swedish national security identities. The aim of the paper is to compare developments in the Norwegian and the Swedish security identities in the 1990s and to evaluate the extent and scope of Europeanisation in the two cases. The fact that both Norway and Sweden had very traditional security discourses at the beginning of the 1990s and that it is possible to detect shifts away from this traditionalism in parallel with the development towards a European security dimension should prove that a Europeanisation has indeed occurred. While several researchers have studied the influence of the EU on national institutions and policies, less attention has been given to the Europeanisation of national security identities. This paper is therefore an attempt to fill this gap. The fact that Sweden has become a member of the EU while Norway has not also makes these two countries good cases for examining the extent and scope of their respective Europeanisation.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Europe, Norway, and Sweden

3106. Justice and Home Affairs Issues in Turkish-EU Relations

Author:
Kemal Kirisçi
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
Turkish-EU relations entered a new era with the decision to declare Turkey a candidate country for membership at the Helsinki summit of December 1999. i Since then the adoption of the Accession Partnership Document (APD) issued by the EU in December 2000ii and the National Programme issued in April 2001iii by the Turkish government have set an agenda of issues to be addressed in preparing Turkey’s accession. In general, considerable public attention has been given to the reform s that Turkey must introduce to meet the Copenhagen criteria and to foreign policy issues such as the question of Cyprus. One aspect of both documents that has received little attention is Justice and Home Affair (JHA) issues. JHA is an area of the European integration process that has not yet become supranational. Instead, member countries have preferred to address issues to do with JHA through intergovernmental cooperation. Nevertheless, an impressive level of EU acquis has been developed and candidate countries are expected to harmonise their legislation and practice to it. Central to JHA issues is asylum, irregular migration and visas. Once the geography of the EU became borderless for the citizens of member countries, the questions of common asylum and immigration policies acquired heightened importance. The need to coordinate policy increased and the EU has gradually edged toward a common asylum and immigration policy. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam includes a commitment by member states to develop such a policy within five years. Once this is achieved the development of common immigration and asylum policies will come under the Council of Ministers’ power.
Topic:
International Relations, Immigration, European Union, Justice, and Asylum
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

3107. Enlarging the European Union: Where does Turkey Stand?

Author:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
EU decision-making with regard to Turkey is interesting to examine in terms of European integration and enlargement issues. One basic assumption of the paper is that Turkey’s position in the enlargement process cannot be treated as an independent case on its own, but should be evaluated within the larger framework of enlargement. In other words, the EU’s reservations, the role of the EU public towards the process of enlargement, the bargains that will be conducted between member states during enlargement negotiations for all candidate countries affect Turkey’s position in the enlargement process. This is not to say that the EU does not have specific reservations and issues that relate only to the Turkish case, but that the picture is more complicated than a European Union-Turkish bilateral relationship. The factors that are relevant in this picture are the European Union’s policy making mechanisms, the role of public opinion, the EU’s institutional set-up and of course the EU member states’ preferences. This approach therefore differs from previous work on the subject by placing EU-Turkish relations within a multilateral framework of enlargement in general, rather than a binary relationship. Similarly, I have argued elsewhere in a work co-authored with Lauren McLaren, that Turkey’s relations with the European Union should be evaluated within a perspective of the enlargement preferences of EU members and policy making in the European Union. The assumption in that work was that member states’ preferences determine the outcome of bargains in the European Union’s policy of enlargement.
Topic:
International Relations, Treaties and Agreements, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

3108. Turkey and Europe After the Nice Summit

Author:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
While European Union attitudes on a possible Turkish accession are the subject of these reflections, the title is taken from President Turgut Özal. He used to tell those close to him that Turkey will either be at the table in Europe as a full member or it will find itself on the menu (Makovsky, 1999, 92). The Turkish perspective encapsulated in both parts of this aphorism also provides a good starting point for West and East Europeans interested in what is at stake.
Topic:
International Relations, Treaties and Agreements, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

3109. Liberal International Relations Theory: A Social Scientific Assessment

Author:
Andrew Moravcsik
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper, part of a multi-author project evaluating the evolution of theoretical paradigms in international relations (IR), evaluates the Liberal paradigm form a Lakatosian perspective. There is a distinct “Liberal” Scientific Research Program (SRP) in the study of international relations, based on three core assumptions. These Assumptions are shared by Ideational, Commercial and Republican variants of Liberal theory. The Liberal SRP is clearly progressive in the Lakatosian sense, that is, it explains a broad and expanding domain of empirical phenomena more accurately than competing research programs—and does so in such a way as to meet the specific Lakatosian criteria of “heuristic”, “temporal” and “background theory” novelty. Liberal theory is thus among the most promising, perhaps the most fruitful and promising, of contemporary paradigms in IR theory. Yet legitimate doubts can be raised about the utility of Lakatosian theory as a means to evaluate research in IR. In particular, one might question its view that theories from competing paradigms are mutually excusive, which encourages one-on-one testing of unicausal theories, rather than estimation of the proper (and sometimes overlapping) scope of paradigms, or the construction of multi-paradigmatic syntheses. Given the current stage of IR theory, these two tasks may offer greater explanatory insight into world politics than unicausal theory testing. This conclusion does not undermine, however, the positive assessment of Liberal theory, which both supports clear empirical scope conditions and can play a foundational role in fruitful multi-theory syntheses.
Topic:
International Relations, Research, and Social Science
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3110. Special Policy Forum Report: Turkey In The Twenty-First Century

Author:
Niyazi B. Gunay and Ismail Cem
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On March 28, 2001, His Excellency Ismail Cem, foreign minister of Turkey, addressed The Washington Institute's Policy Forum. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks. Over the past four years Turkish foreign policy has been experiencing a transformation. Turkey now sees itself not only as part of Europe but also as part of Asia. The Asian character of Turkey, which has been downplayed for decades, has been revitalized, making Turkish foreign policy more active in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union and helping Turkey to improve relations simultaneously with the Arabs and Israel. Turkey's relations with the European Union are progressing favorably; EU membership is a goal, but not an obsession for Turkey.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Washington, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia