Family-controlled Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa - A Survey of Research

The paper presents and analyzes recent research into child labor problems in Africa, mainly made by economists and social anthropologists. It focuses on the labor performed in African households and controlled by the family.

An Essay on Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa - A Bargaining Approach

The separation of children from their families have a large number of social and economic aspects. At least the economic aspects are under-researched. At the point of transition of leaving their families somehow the children have to be considered as separate decisionmakers. This is the perspective I adopt in this essay. The question raised is whether poverty, changes in social norms or external shocks to the family system such as the AIDS epidemic, lead the children to prematurely fend for themselves in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Security, integration and identity change

In this working paper Pernille Rieker attempts to contribute to a better understanding of both how the EU functions as a security system and what kind of impact the integration process has on national security identities. While security has always been the main reason behind the integration process, security and integration have usually been studied separately. Integration specialists have given more attention to economy than to security, and security experts have studied traditional security institutions and overlooked the EU. Rieker attempts to combine these two theoretical traditions by drawing on a combination of recent work on security communities and international socialisation. While the development in the Nordic countries will be used as brief examples in the final part of the paper, a more detailed analysis of these countries’ security identities will follow in a forthcoming study.

Forhandlingsmetodikk i WTO : Teoretiske resonnementer

Notatet klarlegger prinsipielle og praktiske forskjeller mellom de forhandlingsmetoder som har vært og kan komme til å bli brukt i WTO forhandlinger. Resonnementene baserer seg på økonomisk teori og forhandlingsteori. Selv om det gjøres betraktninger i forhold til Norges interesser generelt og fisk spesielt, er notatet mer som et rammeverk som dypere empirisk analyse kan baseres på. Arbeidet med artikkel ble utført på NUPI november 1999–januar 2000, som en del av et prosjekt finansiert av Fiskeridepartementet.

Integration and Regionalization - a political economic analysis

This paper examines the incentives for political integration in a situation with a non-excludable public good. The model emphasizes inter-regional differences in sizes and preferences for the public good. In such a two-country model, Ellingsen (1998)1 characterizes the cases in which integration is an equilibrium. This paper includes a third region, and finds that a whole range of interesting and observable issues arise, which the two-country model is unable to capture. Depending on the relative differences in sizes and preferences among regions, the integration problem may be described as a prisoner’s dilemma, a coordination game or as a hawk-dove game. Multiple equilibria may exist as well as equilibria with no integration; partly integration; conditionally integration and exclusion from the coalition. The extreme case where the public good is global (beneficial to all) is discussed, as well as an extreme where it is local (beneficial only to the closest neighbors).

Globalisation and industrial location: The impact of trade policy when geography matters

The paper shows how industrial location and welfare depends on “most-favoured nation” (MFN) versus distance-related trade barriers, using a monopolistic competition model with regions located along a “Hotelling” line or on a square plain. Manufacturing production will cluster close to the periphery if transport costs are relatively high, but in central areas if MFN barriers are relatively high. The peripheries will be at a disadvantage, which increases when trade barriers are reduced. When countries or trading blocs are formed, a core-periphery pattern emerges within each of them. While lower transport costs create more centralisation within countries, lower MFN barriers between countries have the opposite effect.

Patterns of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment in Africa : A simple test of the new trade theory with multinationals

In this study, we present an empirical survey of the patterns of trade and FDI in Africa based on a sample of 28 countries and their transactions with the OECD countries. These patterns are used to test whether the predictions of the new trade theory with multinationals as described by Markusen and Venables (1995,1998) fit the development in Africa. The theory states that multinational production will gradually outgrow trade as countries converge in terms of income, yet our econometric study gives only week evidence supporting such a pattern. Alternative explanations are also investigated,and it is shown that trade barriers, geographical distance, income per capita and access to ocean explain much of the variation in trade and FDI in Africa.

Foreign Ownership, R&D and Technology Sourcing

This paper explores the relationship between domestic R&D and the inflow of foreign capital through foreign direct investment and foreign ownership. The idea that firms invest in a foreign country in order to more easily absorb the knowledge and technology of foreign firms is tested empirically using a unique firm level data set covering foreign ownership and R&D for all Norwegian firms over the period 1990 to 1996. The study gives no clear evidence supporting the existence of such a motive behind foreign ownership. On the other hand, the econometric study indicates that foreign investors may try to exploit their technological advantages in the Norwegian market. The results also show that the degree of foreign ownership is more volatile when firms are highly R&D intensive. We hypothesize that this is due to the fact that large R&D investments often result in large losses as well as gains to the firms.

Mot demokratisk konsolidering i Russland? En studie av politisk kultur og demokratisering i det post-sovjetiske Russland

Elite perceptions of ethical problems facing the Western oil industry in Azerbaijan

This is a study of the Azerbaijani political elite’s perceptions of Western oil companies and their contribution to – or hindrance of – the development of democracy and human rights. Twenty oppositional figures, including most of the party leaders and presidential candidates, plus some media, NGO and academic personalities, were subjected to an in-depth interview. There was a consensus that the Western oil industry was at best irrelevant and at worst inimical to the cause of democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan. This is because short-term commercial considerations have led it to kowtow to the dictatorship, ignore the political opposition and boycott the free media. There is also pay discrimination against Azerbaijani labour. Above all, it was almost universally agreed that the Western oil industry is aggravating the corruption of Azerbaijani life. Nobody thought Statoil worse than the other foreign oil companies, but only a minority thought it better. The result of this undesirable behaviour is likely to be the severe displeasure of any new government based on the current political opposition, which may prefer Japanese and Chinese investment. At worst, the population’s acute disillusionment with the West and the social misery caused by corruption and mismanagement may override Azerbaijan’s secular and moderate traditions and bring about an Islamic Republic. The elite makes many suggestions for what the Western oil companies can and should do to improve the situation: such as not being bluffed by the president, insisting on transparent accounting, cultivating alternative centres of power, facilitating scientific, educational and cultural exchange and supporting the Azerbaijani cause in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.