Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business
Volume III, Number 1
ABSTRACTS
Reforming the IMF: Long Term Lessons from Short Term Crises
Graham Bird
Surrey Centre for International Economic Studies, University of Surrey
Abstract: There is a danger that reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be dominated by its experience in the context of the East Asian financial crisis. Although there are clearly lessons to learn from this, it would be unwise to allow recent events to dominate the reform agenda. In many respects the crisis only provides a further specific example of more general and fundamental issues spanning the design and implementation of conditionality, exchange rate policy in developing countries and countries in transition, the ability of the Fund to mobilise and manage other financial flows, the size of IMF lending, the international lender of last resort function, and capital account liberalisation. Moreover, to focus on the Fund’s role in better off developing countries is to ignore its role in low income countries. There is a problem of attention bias. Reforming the IMF for the 21st century requires that all these issues are addressed.
JEL Classification: F33, 34, O19
Key words: CFF, IMF conditionality, SDR, Uruguay round, Washington consensus
Trading Out of Poverty: Some Major Issues
Mia Mikic
Department of Economics, The University of Auckland
Abstract: What are the ways in which trade (trade liberalisation) may have impact on poverty? This paper looks at some of the findings of the analytical literature on trade-poverty linkages that operate through the impact of trade on income distribution, and through the impact of trade on economic growth. This paper further asks the question whether trade effects on poverty depend on a particular type of trade liberalisation. In particular, it exposes the weaknesses of non-reciprocal trade liberalisation. The trading preferences granted by the European Union (EU) to Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and their poverty-reducing potential are briefly examined at the end.
JEL Classification: F11, 13, O15, 19
Keywords: trade liberalisation, poverty, income distribution, regional trade agreements, preferential trading agreements
New Bridges Across the Chasm: Macro- and Micro-Strategies for Russia and other Transitional Economies
Joseph Stiglitz ; David Ellerman
The World Bank, Washington, D. C.
Abstract: This paper deals with Russia’s transition from communism to market economy which has been harder than anticipated just a decade ago. The rise in prosperity that the market economy had promised had not been materialised. But, in other transition countries from successes and failures, lessons have been learned, strategies devised and examples set which can serve as the basis for the success of transition not only in Russia but also in other countries of East Europe. This paper discusses these very aspects.
JEL Classification: P21, 27, 52
Key words: central planing, privatisation, social capital, tax collection
Pricing Behaviour of the Monopolistic and Duopolistic Firms in the Long Run with Heterogeneous Products
David R. Kamerschen ; Jae-Hee Park
University of Georgia
Abstract: Scholars have compared the pricing behaviour where a monopolist in the short run produces heterogeneous products 1 and 2, and a duopolist i produces goods i (i = 1, 2), where there are exogenous shocks to marginal cost and/or industry demand. This pricing behaviour is short run in that no entry is considered. However, this paper considers whether the existence of a potential entrant producing heterogeneous goods affects the pricing behaviour of the established monopolist under the same random shocks.
JEL Classification: D43
Key words: Cournot profits, heterogeneous products, Nash equilibrium, probability, pricing behaviour
Opportunistic Behavioural Patterns in Privatisation Process of Central European Transition Countries
Schapour Zafarpour
Wirtschaftsuniversität, Vienna
Abstract: This paper points out a few specific features privatisation process, which seem to have escaped the attention of policy-makers in Central European Transition Countries, and which must be taken into account by all those considering the choice of their privatisation methods. Though most of these newcomers are often criticised for delaying it. They can now benefit from this delay as they have the opportunity to learn not only from the successes, but also from the failures made by these countries.
JEL Classification: P31
Key words: restitution, tunnelling, voucher privatisation
Customers as the Core of Contemporary Marketing
Tihomir Vranesevic
Faculty of Economics, Zagreb
Abstract: In recent times the concept of marketing is undergoing changes. Customers, as the greatest assets of a company, have to be viewed not only as the targets of marketing activities, but also of marketing management. Customer satisfaction is and has to be seen as the basic guarantee of the long-term success and survival of a company. Research into economic entities in Croatia has shown that companies which show willingness to become customers oriented realise and expect a significantly higher rate of profit than those which have not yet fully recognised the significance of being customers oriented.
JEL Classification:
Key words: customer satisfaction, expected value, loyalty, marketing
PROFILE
Professor Sir Hans W. Singer |
