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21. Billions More for International Institutions? The ABCs of the General Capital Increases (GCI)

Author:
Todd Moss, Sarah Jane Staats, and Julia Barmeier
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The international financial institutions dramatically increased their lending in 2008–09 to help developing countries cope with the global financial crisis and support economic recovery. Today, these organizations are seeking billions of dollars in new funding. The IMF, which only a few years ago was losing clients and shedding staff, expanded by $750 billion last year. The World Bank and the four regional development banks for Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America are asking to increase their capital base by 30 to 200 percent. A general capital increase (GCI) for these development banks is an unusual request. A simultaneous GCI request is a once-in-a-generation occurrence.
Topic:
International Relations, International Monetary Fund, Financial Crisis, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin America

22. Confronting the American Divide on Carbon Emissions Regulation

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The failure of carbon regulation in the U.S. Congress has undermined international negotiations to reduce carbon emissions. The global stalemate has, in turn, increased the likelihood that vulnerable developing countries will be severely damaged by climate change. This paper asks why the tragic American impasse has occurred, while the EU has succeeded in implementing carbon regulation. Both cases have involved negotiations between relatively rich “Green” regions and relatively poor “Brown” (carbon-intensive) regions, with success contingent on two factors: the interregional disparity in carbon intensity, which proxies the extra mitigation cost burden for the Brown region, and the compensating incentives provided by the Green region. The European negotiation has succeeded because the interregional disparity in carbon intensity is relatively small, and the compensating incentive (EU membership for the Brown region) has been huge. In contrast, the U.S. negotiation has repeatedly failed because the interregional disparity in carbon intensity is huge, and the compensating incentives have been modest at best. The unsettling implication is that an EU-style arrangement is infeasible in the United States, so the Green states will have to find another path to serious carbon mitigation. One option is mitigation within their own boundaries, through clean technology subsidies or emissions regulation. The Green states have undertaken such measures, but potential free-riding by the Brown states and international competitors seems likely to limit this approach, and it would address only the modest Green-state portion of U.S. carbon emissions in any case. The second option is mobilization of the Green states' enormous market power through a carbon added tax (CAT). Rather than taxing carbon emissions at their points of production, a CAT taxes the carbon embodied in products at their points of consumption. For Green states, a CAT has four major advantages: It can be implemented unilaterally, state-by-state; it encourages clean production everywhere, by taxing carbon from all sources equally; it creates a market advantage for local producers, by taxing transport-related carbon emissions; and it offers fiscal flexibility, since it can either offset existing taxes or raise additional revenue.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

23. Desert Power: The Economics of Solar Thermal Electricity for Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East

Author:
David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A climate crisis is inevitable unless developing countries limit carbon emissions from the power sector in the near future. This will happen only if the costs of lowcarbon power production become competitive with fossil fuel power. We focus on a leading candidate for investment: solar thermal or concentrating solar power (CSP), a commercially available technology that uses direct sunlight and mirrors to boil water and drive conventional steam turbines. Solar thermal power production in North Africa and the Middle East could provide enough power to Europe to meet the needs of 35 million people by 2020.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

24. Performance-Based Incentives for Health: A Way to Improve Tuberculosis Detection and Treatment Completion?

Author:
Rena Eichler, Diana Weil, and Alexandra Beith
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Tuberculosis is a public health emergency in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Of the estimated 1.7 million deaths from TB, 98 percent are in the developing world, the majority being among the poor. In order to reach the MDG and the Stop TB partnership targets for 2015, TB detection rates need to double, treatment success rates must increase to more than 7075 percent, and strategies to address HIV-associated TB and multi-drug resistant TB must be aggressively expanded. DOTS, the internationally-recommended TB control strategy is the foundation of TB control efforts worldwide. A standard recording and monitoring system built on routine service-based data allows nearly all countries in the world to track progress in case detection and treatment completion through routine monitoring. This provides a good base for measuring the impact of different strategies for improving TB control outcomes.
Topic:
Health, International Organization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Asia

25. How Do the BRICs Stack Up? Adding Brazil, Russia, India, and China to the Environment Component of the Commitment to Development Index

Author:
David Roodman
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 21 of the world's richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond simple comparisons of foreign aid, the CDI ranks countries on seven themes: quantity and quality of foreign aid, openness to developing-country exports, policies that influence investment, migration policies, stewardship of the global environment, security policies and support for creation and dissemination of new technologies.
Topic:
Environment and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, India, Asia, and Brazil

26. Moving Toward A Consensus on Climate Policy: The Essential Role of Global Public Disclosure

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Among climate scientists, there is no longer any serious debate about whether greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are altering the earth' s climate. There is also a broad consensus on two issues related to reducing emissions. First, developing countries must be full participants in global emissions control, because they will be most heavily impacted by global warming, and because they are rapidly approaching parity with developed countries in the scale of their emissions. Second, efficient emissions control will require carbon pricing via market-based instruments (charges or cap-and-trade). These points of consensus are sufficient to establish a clear way forward, despite continued disagreements over the choice of specific instrument and the appropriate carbon charge level. Since all market-based systems that regulate emissions sources require the same emissions information, the international community should immediately establish an institution mandated to collect, verify and publicly disclose information about emissions from all significant global carbon sources. Its mandate should extend to best-practice estimation and disclosure of emissions sources in countries that initially refuse to participate. This institution will serve four purposes. First, it will lay the necessary foundation for implementing any market-based system of emissions source regulation. Second, it will provide an excellent credibility test, since a country's acceptance of full disclosure will signal its true willingness to participate in globally-efficient emissions reduction. Third, global public disclosure will itself reduce carbon emissions, by focusing stakeholder pressure on major emitters and providing reputational reward s for clean producers. Fourth, disclosure will make it very hard to cheat once market-based instruments are implemented. This will be essential for preserving the credibility of an international agreement to reduce emissions.
Topic:
Environment, Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, and Markets
Political Geography:
Europe

27. A Policymakers' Guide to Dutch Disease

Author:
Owen Barder
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
It is sometimes claimed that an increase in aid might cause Dutch Disease—that is, an appreciation of the real exchange rate which can slow the growth of a country's exports— and that aid increases might thereby harm a country's long-term growth prospects. This essay argues that it is unlikely that a long-term, sustained and predictable increase in aid would, through the impact on the real exchange rate, do more harm than good, for three reasons. First, there is not necessarily an adverse impact on exports from Dutch Disease, and any impact on economic growth may be small. Second, aid spent in part on improving the supply side—investments in infrastructure, education, government institutions and health—result in productivity benefits for the whole economy, which can offset any loss of competitiveness from the Dutch Disease effect. Third, the welfare of a nation's citizens depends on their consumption and investment, not just output. Even on pessimistic assumptions, the additional consumption and investment which the aid finances is larger than any likely adverse impact on output. However, the macroeconomic effects of aid can cause substantial harm if the aid is not sustained until its benefits are realized. The costs of a temporary loss of competitiveness might well exceed the benefits of the short-term increase in aid. To avoid doing harm, aid should be sustained and predictable, and used in part to promote economic growth. This maximizes the chances that the long-term productivity and growth benefits will offset the adverse effects—which may be small if they exist at all—that big aid surges may pose as a result of Dutch Disease.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Europe