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Volatility Kills

You should spend about 20 minutes on Question 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage below.

Despite gun battles in the capital of Chad, rioting in Kenya and galloping inflation in Zimbabwe, the economics of sub-Saharan Africa arc, as a whole, in better shape than they were a few years ago. The World Bank has reported recently that this part of the continent experienced a respectable growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2006 and a higher rate from 1995 to 2005 than in previous decades. The bank has given a cautious assessment that the region may have reached a turning point. An overriding question for developmental economists remains whether the upswing will continue so Africans can grow their way out of a poverty that relegates some 40 percent of the nearly 744 million in that region to living on less than a dollar a day. The optimism, when inspected more closely, may be short-lived because of the persistence of a devastating pattern of economic volatility that has lingered for decades.

“In reality, African countries grow as fast as Asian countries and other developing countries during the good times, but afterward they see growth collapses,” comments Jorge Arbache, a senior World Bank economist. “How to prevent collapses may be as important as promoting growth.” If these collapses had not occurred, he observes, the level of gross domestic product for each citizen of the 48 nations of sub-Saharan Africa would have been a third higher.

The prerequisite to prevent the next crash are not in place, according to a World Bank study issued in January. Is Africa's Recent Growth Robust? The growth period that began in 1995, driven by a commodities boom spurred in particular by demand from China, may not be sustainable, because the economic fundamentals—new investment and the ability to stave off inflation, among other factors—are absent. The region lacks the necessary infrastructure that would encourage investors to look to Africa to find the next Bengaluru (Bangalore) or Shenzhen, a November report from the bank concludes. For sub-Saharan countries rich in oil and other resources, a boom period may even undermine efforts to institute sound economic practices. From 1996 to 2005, with growth accelerating, measures of governance—factors such as political stability, rule of law, and control of corruption—actually worsened, especially for countries endowed with abundant mineral resources, the January report notes.

Perhaps the most incisive analysis of the volatility question comes from Paul Collier, a longtime specialist in African economics at the University of Oxford and author of the recent book The Bottom Billion. He advocates a range of options that the U.S. and other nations could adopt when formulating policy toward African countries. They include revamped trade measures, better-apportioned aid and sustained military intervention in certain instances, to avert what he sees as a rapidly accelerating divergence of the world’s poorest, primarily in Africa, from the rest of the world, even other developing nations such India and China.

Collier find that bad governance is the main reason countries fail to take advantage of the revenue bonanza that results from a boom. Moreover, a democratic government, he adds, often makes the aftermath of a boom worse. “Instead of democracy disciplining governments to manage these resource booms well, what happens is that the resource revenues corrupt the normal functioning of democracy—unless you stop (them from) corrupting the normal function of democracy with sufficient checks and balances”, he said at a talk in January at the Carnegie Council in New York City.

Collier advocates that African nations institute an array of standards and codes to bolster governments, one of which would substitute auctions for bribes in apportioning mineral rights and another of which would tax export revenues adequately. He cites the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which took in $200 million from mineral exports in 2006 yet collected only $86,000 in royalties for its treasury. “If a nation gets these points right,” he argues, “it's going to develop. If it gets them wrong, it won't.”

To encourage reform, Collier recommends that the G8 nations agree to accept these measures as voluntary guidelines for multinationals doing business in Africa— companies, for instance, would only enter new contracts through auctions monitored by an international verification group. Such an agreement would follow the examples of the so-called Kimberley Process, which has effectively undercut the trade in blood diamonds, and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in which a government must report to its citizens the revenues it receives from sales of natural resources.

These measures, he says, are more important than elevating aid levels, an approach emphasized by economist Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University and celebrity activists such as Bono. Collier insists that first Angola receives tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue and whether it gets a few hundred million more or less in aid is really second-order.

Questions 1-4

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-C) with opinions or deeds below. Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 1 -4 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

A Jeffrey D. Sachs

B Paul Collier

C Jorge Arbache

1. An unexpectedly opposite result

2. Estimated more productive outcomes if it were not for sudden economic downturns

3. A proposal for a range of recommended instructions for certain countries to narrow the widening economic gap

4. An advocate for a method used for a specific assessment

Questions 5-9

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 5-9 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

5. The instability in economy in some African countries might negatively impact their continuing growth after a certain level has been reached.

6. Collier is the most influential scholar on the study of volatility problem.

7. Certain African governments levy considerable taxes on people profiting greatly from exportation.

8. Some African nations' decisions on addressing specific existing problems are directly related to the future of their economic trends.

9. Collier regards Jeffrey D. Sachs' recommended way of evaluating of little importance.

Questions 10-13

Summary

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using No More than Three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.

According to one research carried by the World Bank, some countries in Africa may suffer from 10 due to the lack of according preconditions. They experienced a growth stimulated by 11 , but according to another study, they may not keep this trend stable because they don't have 12 which would attract investors. To some countries with abundant resources this fast-growth period might even mean something devastating to their endeavor. During one specific decade accompanied by 13 as a matter of fact, the governing saw a deterioration.

　　參考譯文：

致命的波動性

儘管乍得共和國的首都都有槍枝交火，肯尼亞經歷着動亂，津巴布上演着駭人的通貨膨脹，撒哈拉以南的非地區的經濟作爲一個整體比前幾年要發展好很多。世界銀行最近的一項報告顯示非洲南部的地區在2006年經濟增長率爲5.6%1995至2005年之間的增長率也比過去幾十年的增長率要高。世界銀行已經給予了謹慎的評估，認爲該地區可能已經達到了一個轉折點，發展經濟學家要面臨的一個最重要的問題是非洲是否還可以以這種高增長率繼續發展，以解決貧困問題，該地區以7億4400萬總人口中的近40%人每天的生活成本不到1美元，如果進行更加周密的調查的話，非洲南部這種經濟增長可能只是曇花一現，因爲一種毀滅性的經濟波動格局在過去的幾十年一直存在。

世界銀行的一位高級經濟學家Jorge Arbache評論道：“在現實中，非洲國家在好的時候其發展速度不亞於亞國家或是其他發展中國家，但後來這種增長崩潰了。如何防止這種經濟崩潰和促進經濟增長同等重要。”根據他的觀察，如果這些崩潰沒有發生，撒哈拉以南的非洲地區的48個國家的每個公民的國內生產總值水平會高出實際水平三分之一。

根據一月份發佈的世界銀行的一項題爲“非洲近期的增長勢頭強勁嗎?”的研究報告顯示，非洲國家爲防止下一次危機發生的前提條件還不到位。始於1995年的增長期，推動是由特別是受中國需求推動的大宗商品的熱潮驅動的，這種增長期可能不會持久。因爲缺乏經濟基本面裏的若干因素——其中特別是新投資和避開通貨膨脹的能力。一份銀行11月份的報告總結道，該地區缺乏必要的基礎設施來鼓勵投資者將目光投向非洲以尋找下一個“班加羅爾”或 “深圳”。對於撒哈拉以南富含豐富的石油和其他資源的非洲國家來說，蓬勃發展的時期甚至可能會破壞努力建立起來的完善的經濟行爲。一月份的報告指出，從1996年到2005年，隨着增長額加快，治理因素如政治穩定，法制和控制貪腐實際上是惡化了，特別是擁有豐富礦產資源的國家，惡化情況更加嚴重。

也許對於波動問題做出的最精闢的分析來自於Paul Collier，他是牛津大學一位長期專門研究非洲經濟的專家，也是最近初版的The Bottom Billion一書的作者。他列出一系列美國和其他國家在制定有關非洲國家的政策時可以採取的一系列選項。他們包括修補貿易措施，在某些情況下比例更爲恰當的.援助和持續的軍事幹預，以避免世界上最貧困地區特別是非洲的一些國家和世界其他地區甚至是和其他發展中國家如印度和中國之間的差距進一步加劇。

Collier發現不良治理的主要原因是國家沒有利用好經濟增長所帶來的鉅額收入。此外，他補充道，一個民主的政府往往會往往會使經濟增長帶來的結果更加惡化。他在紐約市卡內基委員會一月一次的談話中說道“民主的政府非但不能很好地管理好這些經濟增長，反而會被這些經濟增長破壞，除非你能通過足夠的制衡阻止他們破壞民主制度的正常功能。

Collier主張非洲國家推行一系列標準和規範的數組以加強各國政府，其中一項是用拍賣來代替通過賄賂推派破產權，而另一項則是向出口收入徵收足夠的稅收。他以剛果民主共和國爲例，該國在2006年礦物出口收入達2億美元，但是隻向國庫繳納了8600美元的特許權使用費。他認爲，“如果一個國家在這些方面處理妥當，他將會發展。但如果它做出了錯誤的選擇，該國家就不會發展。

爲了鼓勵改革，Collier建議G8國家應該同意接受這些措施成爲跨國公司在非洲做生意時的自願原則，例如，公司簽訂新的合同時，必須通過由一個國際覈查小組監控的拍賣來決定合同合作方。這種協議將效仿以下兩個例子，一個是有效地削弱了血鑽貿易的所謂的金伯利進程，另一個是採掘業透明度行動倡議，其倡導政府必須向公民報告它收到的來自銷售自然資源的收入。

他說，這些措施比由哥倫比亞大學經濟學家Jeffery D. Sachs 和著名的活動家如Bono所強調評估援助水平的方法更爲重要。Collier指出，首先應該考慮到安哥拉政府收到數百億美元的是由收入。其次才該考慮其是否得到了幾億美元左右的援助這件事。