From six to ten and beyond: The European Community at the crossroads
The purpose of this paper is to assess the main factors causing the impasse which the EC has reached. The next section examines the lack of consensus of the member states on the aims of the EC and on the means to achieve them. Subsequently, this is related to the EC enlargement. Finally, recommendations will be made on major policy issues in order to provide a new stimulus to the integration process in Western Europe.
The UN convention on the law of the sea: an inefficient public good supplied by an inefficient organization
The Convention on the Law of the Sea is the still controversial outcome of the longest and perhaps most expensive international conference of the century. The most debated issue at UNCLOS III was the Convention's regime to govern seabed mining; differences of opinion on this regime have seriously challenged the purpose of the Conference and are likely to keep the Convention from becoming effective as international law. This paper is an inquiry into the economic causes for such an outcome. In Section II the efficieny of the Convention's regulation for minerals production from the ocean bed is analyzed. Section III deals with the efficiency of the Convention's production process at UNCLOS, focusing on the determinants of voting behaviour and on the rules of procedure used. The last section explores the rationale for alternative multilateral organizations for an efficient management of seabed mining.
Will bank interest rate deregulation jeopardize economic growth? A case study of South Korea
The first purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, as a theoretical.proposition, that elimination of controls on bank interest rates would not necessarily lead to a decline in output in those sectors which were previously able to obtain cheap bank credit, The efficiency gains obtained by eliminating these controls need not, therefore, come at the expense of economic growth (or whatever other benefits were presumed to accrue by fostering particular sectors using credit controls). The key to this result lies in a proper understanding of the way in which credit price control and quantity rationing in the regulated sector affects resource allocation, given the existence of a dual, unregulated financial sector. The second purpose of this paper is to present quantitative estimates of the macroeconomic and sectoral effects of the removal of bank interest rate controls in South Korea. In many ways the Korean experience is tailor-made for a study of this kind.