First-Mover Disadvantage: The Politics of Financial Crisis Response in Japan and the United States

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Y. Lipscy ◽  
Hirofumi Takinami
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
First Mover

The Politics of Financial Crisis Response in Japan and the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILLIP Y. LIPSCY ◽  
HIROFUMI TAKINAMI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Lost Decade ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
First Mover

AbstractWe examine the politics of financial crisis response in Japan and the United States. Many existing accounts of Japan's ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s have emphasized Japan-specific factors, such as structural problems, policy errors, and political dysfunction. We argue that Japan may have been subject to a form offirst-mover disadvantage. Like innovation in the private sector, developing effective solutions to novel policy problems requires a messy process of discovery, experimentation, and repeated failure. Much as late-industrializing countries adapted the methods and technologies of early developers, second-movers can apply effective policies demonstrated by first-movers in a more targeted, efficient, and rapid manner. We show that the behavior of Japan and the United States during their respective financial crises is broadly consistent with this theory. In addition, policy adoption in the United States most clearly reflected lessons from Japan in areas where the lessons were considered clear and implementation was less politicized.

A Global Perspective on Securitized Debt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L Schwarcz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Capital Markets Union ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Asset Backed Securities ◽  
The Eu

Securitisation represents a significant worldwide source of capital market financing. European investors commonly invest in asset-backed securities issued in U.S. securitisation transactions, and vice versa One of the key goals of the European Commission's proposed Capital Markets Union (CMU) is to further facilitate securitisation as a source of capital market financing as a viable alternative to bank-based finance for companies operating in the EU. To that end, this chapter explains securitisation and attempts to put its rise, its decline after the global financial crisis, and its recent CMU-inspired revival into a global perspective. It examines not only securitisation's relationship to the financial crisis but also post-crisis comparative regulatory approaches in the EU and the United States.

The Clinton Administration and Africa: A View from Gaborone, Botswana

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Larry A. Swatuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Material World ◽  
Existing Problems ◽  
The World

With fanfare befitting the arrival of a god of the Western material world, U.S. President Bill Clinton toured Southern Africa imparting “words of wisdom” along the way. His aim, we were told, was to see that the United States becomes Africa’s “true partner.” The reason being, according to Clinton, “[a]s Africa grows strong, America grows stronger ... Yes, Africa needs the world, but more than ever it is equally true that the world needs Africa.” To this end, the United States would pursue a mix of political and economic policies that included the African Crisis Response Initiative and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, both designed to foster “stability” and “prosperity” on the continent. Lofty goals, to be sure, but ends whose means are badly in need of interrogation. This article does just that: To wit, does Clinton, on behalf of U.S. policymakers, mean what he says? If so, in naming “peace” and “prosperity,” can he make them? Put differently, does the Clinton administration have the power to introduce order where there was chaos? Or will it only compound existing problems and visit new ones upon those who had few to begin with?

A Paradigm of ‘Crisis’ Decision Making: The Case of Synfuels Policy

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed E. Ahrari
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
The Self ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Crisis Conditions

In explaining the making and unravelling of the synfuels policy in the United States, a new approach—the ambivalent-majoritarian paradigm—is presented in this article. This paradigm fills a significant conceptual gap for the study of domestic policy formulated under crisis conditions.It is argued that the self-imposed necessity to respond to a crisis condition involving a policy decision is likely to force legislators to adopt a policy option that they would not adopt under normal conditions. The crisis response is likely to be passed by a ‘majoritarian’ crisis coalition which would also include a significant number of ‘ambivalents’, i.e., those legislators who have serious misgivings about the correctness or feasibility of the policy. In order for such a policy response to survive, it must withstand the scrutiny of ‘normal’ conditions involving that policy.

Evolution of public sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic: Case comparisons of India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
May Oo Lwin ◽  
Anita Sheldenkar ◽  
Jiahui Lu ◽  
Peter Johannes Schulz ◽  
Wonsun Shin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Communication Space

BACKGROUND Public sentiments are an important indicator of crisis response, with the need to balance exigency without adding to panic or projecting overconfidence. Given the rapid spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, governments have enacted various nationwide measures against the disease with social media platforms providing the previously unparalleled communication space for the global populations. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine and provide a macro-level narrative of the evolution of public sentiments on social media at national levels, by comparing Twitter data from India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the current pandemic. METHODS Over 67,363,091 million Twitter posts on COVID-19 from 28 January 2020 to 28 April 2021 were analyzed from the five countries with "wuhan", "corona", "nCov", and "covid" as search keywords. Change in sentiments ("very negative", " negative", "neutral or mixed", "positive”, “very positive”) were compared between countries in connection with disease milestones and public health directives. RESULTS Country-specific assessments show that negative sentiments were predominant across all five countries during the initial period of the global pandemic. However, positive sentiments encompassing hope, resilience, and support arose at differing intensities across the five countries, particularly in Asian countries. In the next stage of the pandemic, India, Singapore, and South Korea faced escalating waves of COVID-19 cases, resulting in negative sentiments, but positive sentiments appeared simultaneously. In contrast, while UK and US negative sentiments increased sharply and dramatically after the declaration of a national public emergency, strong parallel positive sentiments were slow to surface. CONCLUSIONS Our findings on sentiments across countries facing similar outbreak concerns suggest potential associations between government response actions both in terms of policy and communications, and public sentiment trends. Overall, a more concerted approach of government crisis communication appears to be associated with more stable public sentiments balanced between positives and negatives over the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A Change in the Balance of Power”

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Chapter 7 explores the dawn of China’s grand strategy to build regional order as well as the ends, ways, and means of this strategy. Using Party texts, it explores how the shock of the Global Financial Crisis led China to see the United States as weakening and emboldened it to take a more assertive course. It begins with a thorough review of China’s discourse on “multipolarity” and the “international balance of forces,” concepts China uses as euphemisms for US power and which it ties to its strategic guidelines. It then shows that the Party sought to lay the foundations for order—coercion, inducements, and legitimacy—under the auspices of the revised guidance “actively accomplish something” issued by Chinese leader Hu Jintao in 2009. This strategy, like blunting before it, was implemented across multiple instruments of statecraft—military, political, and economic.

scholarly journals Silos and First Movers in the Sharing Economy Debates

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-96
Author(s):  
Diane M. Ring
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sharing Economy ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Independent Contractor ◽  
Independent Contractors ◽  
Tax Legislation ◽  
First Mover

Abstract Over the past few years, a significant global debate has developed over the classification of workers in the sharing economy either as independent contractors or as employees. While Uber and Lyft have dominated the spotlight lately, the worker classification debates extend beyond ridesharing companies and affect workers across a variety of sectors. Classification of a worker as an employee, rather than an independent contractor, can carry a range of implications for worker treatment and protections under labor law, anti-discrimination law, tort law, and tax law, depending on the legal jurisdiction. The debates, at least in the United States, have been incomplete due to the failure of policy makers and advocates to consider the scope and interconnectedness of the worker classification issues across the full sweep of legal arenas. There is time, however, to remedy the incompleteness of these policy conversations before worker classification decisions ossify and path dependence takes hold. Two interacting forces create the most serious risk for inadequate policy formulation: (1) silos among legal experts, and (2) first-mover effects. Both of these factors, silo and first mover, emerge in sharing economy debates in the United States. Tax experts and other legal specialists operate in distinct silos leading to a misunderstanding by non-tax analysts of the tax ramifications of worker classification, and to an under appreciation on the part of tax experts of the potential influence of “modest” tax rule changes on worker classification generally. The risks of such misunderstandings can be amplified by first-mover efforts, such as: (1) platforms’ contractual designation of workers as independent contractors to bolster a claim of nonemployer/nonemployee status; (2) platforms’ support for proposed tax legislation that would “clarify” the status of sharing workers as independent contractors for tax purposes if they satisfy a multiple-prong (relatively easy) safe harbor test; and (3) sharing economy worker litigation to secure employee status. This Article identifies the incompleteness in the worker classification debates and argues for the active formulation of policy through a process that looks beyond individual fields. A more complete conversation requires analytical engagement across multiple fields and recognition of the de facto power of reform in one arena to influence others. Moreover, it is by no means clear that just because tax might arrive at the legislative drawing table first (due to first mover effects), that it should drive or shape the broader worker classification debate.

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