Regional responses to security and development challenges in East and Southern Africa: lessons and way forward

Since the mid-twentieth century, the East and Southern African regions have been mired in complex and overlapping security and development challenges, including ethnopolitical conflicts, terrorist insurgencies, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALWs), and overwhelming economic crisis. These challenges have had implications for human security, socio-economic development, territorial authority, sovereignty and the stability and legitimacy of political regimes in the affected states. The adequacy and relevance of the regional responses to these challenges is the subject of ongoing debate, to which this paper now adds. Among other factors, this paper identifies competition for regional dominance and institutional inadequacies as accounting for the inability of regional governance bodies to respond adequately to the challenges they face. Consequently, it recommends the expansion of the mandate of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) beyond regional economic integration to include peacebuilding and a deepening of the institutional efforts focused on security cooperation and conflict management.     

论经济全球化时代资本主义的变与不变

在经济全球化的进程中,资本主义在其自身矛盾的推动下,不断地进行自我扬弃,在生产、分配、经济运行等方面出现了一些新的变化,为资本主义生产关系的调整和发展开辟了新的空间,同时也为社会主义提供了完备的物质基础。透过现象看本质,这种新发展同时也证实了社会主义必将最终取代资本主义的历史必然性,虽然这一过程是漫长而又曲折的。     

略论高等教育宏观结构与经济结构的内在关系

高等教育结构与经济结构均为复杂的多维综合结构,二者之间存在着相互依存、相互影响、相互制约的辨证关系,其内部高等教育的科类结构与产业结构、高等教育的层次结构与劳动技术结构、高等教育的地区结构与经济地区布局结构存在着一定逻辑对应关系。     

经济视角下的《骆驼祥子》

老舍在《骆驼祥子》中采用经济视角,与自身的生活经历和时代背景有关。通过在作品中运用经济视角探究人的解放、展开社会批判、进行伦理剖析,比较客观地还原了生活的本真和人生的本相,让读者透视了经济生活表象下蕴含的精神内涵。     

“经济寒冬”下俄军费使用效果

受国力所限,俄罗斯难以与美西方展开全面军备竞赛;经济寒冬中,俄军费一直受国家经济能力的制约。然而,在与美国为首的西方长期斗争中,俄重点加强研制列装新式“杀手锏”武器,形成了俄罗斯特色的军事斗争战略,即基于“杀手锏”武器的俄式“不对称”军事战略。这种以“杀手锏”武器为基石的“不对称作战”军事战略使军费支出产生了效费比高、针对性强、威慑力大的良好效果。文章重点透视近年来俄罗斯国防科技创新、作战理念创新、战术战法创新的最新动态,进而剖析俄保持较高的军费效费比、成功开展对外博弈的重要举措和深层次原因,它们包括继承消化苏联大部分的国防工业基础、加快国防科技工业转型、强化国防科技自主创新、通过对外军贸和军民融合运筹军费来源等。     

Military Expenditure,Endogeneity and Economic Growth

Abstract

While not always a concern for the general economic growth literature, the debate over the effects of military spending on growth continues to develop, with no consensus, but a deepening understanding of the limitations of previous work. One important issue that has not been adequately dealt with is the endogeneity of military spending in the growth equation, mainly because of the difficulty of finding any variables that would make adequate instruments. This paper considers this issue, using an endogenous growth model estimated on a large sample of 109 non-high-income countries for the period 1998–2012. The empirical analysis is framed within an instrumental variable setting that exploits the increase in military spending that occurs when unrest in a country escalates to turmoil. The estimation results show that endogeneity arising from reverse causality is a crucial issue, with the instrumental variable estimates providing a larger significant negative effect of military spending on growth than OLS would. This result is found to be robust to different sources of heterogeneity and different time periods.     

Defence expenditures and economic growth: The externality effect

In a series of articles published in the Fall 1990 issue of Defence Economics Alexander (1990), Atesoglu and Mueller (1990) and Huang and Mintz (1990) have all specified and empirically estimated defence‐growth models based on a neoclassical production function. We now isolate the externality component in our model, re‐estimate its coefficients using data on the U.S. economy 1952–88 and compare specifications and results with Atesoglu and Mueller (1990) and Alexander (1990).     

Country Survey I–Military Spending in India 1

After a brief survey of the Indian economy, we survey the supply and demand of military expenditures in India over the last four decades. The causes of military expenditures appear to include regional rivalries and protracted conflicts, but it has proven difficult to delineate these with empirical models. The effects of military spending in India on economic growth appear to be benign, despite much speculation to the contrary. However, the opportunity costs of defence spending are shown to be considerable. We conclude with speculation about the role of debt and debt servicing in retarding future economic growth in India. We also speculate about the potential for the creation of a war economy in India.     

Causal analysis of Australian economic growth and military expenditure: A note

Chowdhury (1991) applied Granger causality methods to military expenditure and economic growth series in 55 developing countries. This note applies a similar approach to Australia and finds no causal relationship between military expenditure and growth in either direction.