Economic Considerations
Do Economic Relations with China Affect Income Distribution and Poverty Levels in Latin America? : An Empirical Analysis of Sixteen Latin American Countries View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yi Feng
China has emerged as a key player in Latin America buttressed by its economic relations with the region in trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and loans. At the same time, a critical issue in the development of Latin America has been its historically high levels of income inequality, which has underlined the social, political, and economic instabilities in the region. This study used data from sixteen Latin countries from 2000 to 2018 to investigate if economic relations with China change income inequality and poverty in Latin America. To account for economic relations with China, we use imports from China, exports to China, Chinese FDI, and Chinese loan commitments as theoretical variables. Following studies on income inequality and poverty determinants, we incorporate GDP per capita, domestic credit, government expenditure, political freedom, economic globalization, investment, education, and inflation into our econometric models. As a comparison, we also test the effects of FDI, exports and imports of United States in Latin America, controlled by the same set of other variables used in the China data. Our study yields some findings that link China’s and United States’ economic relations with Latin America to reductions in income inequality and poverty in the region.
Solidarity Forever? : A Case Study on Commitment of Retiree Union Members to their Union View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Phillips
Models of union commitment in existing research have been quite stable since the turn of the millennia. Some argue that retired union members in the United States may be unlikely to continue to support their unions due to the country’s individualistic culture, based on a cross-country comparison with the Japan and South Korea. We interpret this invariability as an outcome of the monolithic assumption that the commitment of all union members to their labor unions can be described by a singular model. In contrast, we examine the issue of union commitment by emphasizing the salience of a particular demographic characteristic — retiree status — in model articulation. Survey data from an industrial labor union at two time points is analyzed to show that existing models fail to account for this unique and growing subgroup of labor union members in the United States. Our case study produced a model of union commitment that pertains specifically to retirees in a localized context. We believe this finding reveals a path for future research in this field: a future in which union commitment may become represented in scholarly literature by an array of models variegated by the unique characteristics of the union members being analyzed, rather than by a universal model.
Data Localisation and Ownership as Path Towards Data Decolonization View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Pratiksha Ashok
While data decolonization marks significant shift in global power traditional models of decolonization would not fit this new wave of data decolonization. Reparations for data decolonization would mean that data colonizers would pay the territory and at end the individual monetary value for their data. Repatriation would not be ideal as this would mean giving the data back- to the individual or the territory from which it was collected. This paper considers two unique perspectives set forth in India -data ownership and data localization. The concepts of data ownership as under the GDPR doesn’t exist as data protection is a fundamental right. However, in India data is considered to be a natural resource like oil and similar to any natural resource, and tendered accordingly. The second concept is data localisation. Under the GDPR, data localization laws are often seen as protectionist. Data localization or data residency law requires data about a nation's citizens or residents to be collected, processed, and/or stored inside the country, often before being transferred internationally. Data ownership and localisation could carve a pathway to data decolonization. Arguments are presented in this paper as to whether these concepts would in fact have the opposite effect of placing a price on data by providing data ownership and fractured data sets by localizing the data. However, to the contrary, data ownership and localization could create more power and control for the individual and the territory in which the data is collect to determine the consequences of their own data.
