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art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

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44<br />

Unlike these countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Ireland,<br />

New Zealand and the Netherlands have recorded favourable economic performances.<br />

Some developing countries, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan,<br />

are in the process of transition into economically more advanced group even in terms<br />

of development. However, many countries at the bottom of the range, measured in per<br />

capita national income, are facing difficult conditions and problems: inadequate human<br />

resources, poor raw material basis and political instability, civil wars and regional conflicts.<br />

Many of these countries also suffer from high levels of public expenditure, foreign debt,<br />

macroeconomic instability and poor government. Although some developing countries are<br />

managing to induce economic growth with macroeconomic and structural reforms, the<br />

low level of their per capita income will require years and years of maintaining high rates<br />

of economic growth to narrow the gap between themselves and developed countries.<br />

As for transition economies, one of the key elements of their transition is their<br />

reintegration into global e<strong>conomy</strong>. Before turning to socialism and centralised, i.e. planned<br />

management of e<strong>conomy</strong>, these countries used to have per capita income equal to one<br />

half or two thirds of income achieved in the most developed countries of Western Europe,<br />

only to be left far behind them after several decades of experiment. The process of their<br />

reintegration, through trade, financial flows and other elements, implies a time required<br />

to remove the consequences of thus created dislocations, disproportions and isolations.<br />

What seems to be the key question is how much has been achieved in this process over<br />

the past years of transformation. Progress has been achieved in liberalising trade and<br />

financial arrangements, although there are significant differences in the scope of trade<br />

liberalisation between countries. Most countries have almost fully removed restrictions on<br />

current transactions and taken steps towards liberalising financial flows. The reintegration<br />

of transition economies into world e<strong>conomy</strong> is in progress, and the success in this process<br />

varies from one country to another. The countries that have gone the furthest in this<br />

process, in terms of general process in reform policy, are also the most advanced in the<br />

reintegration process as well as their economic characteristics. However, even the most<br />

advanced countries in this respect have achieved better results in trade, compared to<br />

financial flows. According to the evidence of the World Bank, the most advanced transition<br />

countries in the 1991-1996 period were the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Poland,<br />

Slovakia, Croatia, Latvia, Slovenia and Lithuania (World Economic Outlook, 1997: 94).<br />

The contribution of feminist economists to the development theory<br />

and practice in the context of globalisation<br />

Feminist economics does not only refer to women’s issues or gender; it also represents<br />

a unique paradigm of understanding economics. Feminist economists include race,<br />

gender and power relations, as well as conditions necessary for sustainable development<br />

as the central components of economics. One of the implications of feminist economic<br />

perspective is that, for example, the focus of feminist economic analysis is on interrelated<br />

human activities, rather than the isolated individual ones.<br />

There are, of course, differences both outside and inside feminist economic discourse<br />

as to whether feminist economics is really a separate paradigm, or is it a specific interest<br />

perspective. These are, however, exactly the discussions conducted regarding the new<br />

paradigm, which is being developed. It is quite certain that an implicit consensus is being

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