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1. Data Is a Development Issue

Author:
Susan Ariel Aaronson
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Many wealthy states are transitioning to a new economy built on data. Individuals and firms in these states have expertise in using data to create new goods and services as well as in how to use data to solve complex problems. Other states may be rich in data but do not yet see their citizens’ personal data or their public data as an asset. Most states are learning how to govern and maintain trust in the data-driven economy; however, many developing countries are not well positioned to govern data in a way that encourages development. Meanwhile, some 76 countries are developing rules and exceptions to the rules governing cross-border data flows as part of new negotiations on e-commerce. This paper uses a wide range of metrics to show that most developing and middle-income countries are not ready or able to provide an environment where their citizens’ personal data is protected and where public data is open and readily accessible. Not surprisingly, greater wealth is associated with better scores on all the metrics. Yet, many industrialized countries are also struggling to govern the many different types and uses of data. The paper argues that data governance will be essential to development, and that donor nations have a responsibility to work with developing countries to improve their data governance.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Governance, and Data
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Canada’s Arctic Agenda: Into the Vortex

Author:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Canada’s Arctic Agenda: Into the Vortex brings together leading Arctic thinkers to examine key elements of Canadian Arctic and Northern policy. These experts reflect on the progress that has been made in the past few years in Arctic policies and programs and consider the impact of powerful forces of change and division, both within Canada and abroad, which have produced a vortex of economic, security, environmental and identity challenges for the Canadian Arctic. Addressing the intense, if understated, debate on Canada’s Arctic agenda, this report’s contributors share the consistent message that Northerners must play a leadership role in creating and implementing the policies that affect them. The report also includes a collection of interviews with Jane Glassco Northern Fellows. These thoughtful Indigenous women from across the North in Canada share their perspectives and ideas on the policy issues that require urgent attention to ensure the prosperity of their Northern communities. The well-informed essays and interviews in this report will spark conversation about Canada’s Arctic policy priorities and provide concrete advice to inform the work of Canada’s policy makers moving forward.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Environment, and Identities
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and Arctic

3. Emerging Countries in Global Financial Regulatory Standard Setting: What Is to Be Done?

Author:
Andrew Walter
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper explores the role of emerging-country members in the Basel process, a key aspect of the global financial standard-setting process. It argues that this process has been significantly more politically resilient than adjacent aspects of global economic governance, in part because major emerging countries obtain continuing “intra-club” benefits from participation within it. The most important of these are learning benefits, but status and sometimes influence over standard-setting outcomes can also be valuable. The paper outlines how these benefits could be enhanced to secure the ongoing resilience of global financial regulatory governance. It recommends some modest reforms to further improve the position of emerging countries in the process and to bolster its perceived legitimacy among members and non-member countries.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Governance, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Assessing the Governance Practices of Sustainability Reporting

Author:
Jason Thistlethwaite and Melissa Menzies
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
To promote climate change risk mitigation in financial markets, the Financial Stability Board recently proposed the creation of a Climate Disclosure Task Force, coordinated through the G20, to develop standards for companies to disclose their exposure to climate change risks. With more than 400 existing disclosure schemes, this task will be challenging. This brief identifies the key categories of governance practices that must be addressed, how these divergent practices challenge end-users, and how the establishment of criteria that define effective and efficient reporting is a critical first step for the Climate Disclosure Task Force.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. The Road to a Reinvigorated North American Partnership

Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This special report is prepared for the North American Forum (NAF). In 2015, CIGI’s Global Security & Politics Program became the Secretariat for the Canadian leadership within the NAF. CIGI will be undertaking a program of research to support the Canadian contribution to the NAF in cooperation with our American and Mexican partners. In the coming months, CIGI will publish additional reports to support the work of the NAF. Since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, trade, investment and migration flows among Canada, Mexico and the United States have helped turn North America into one of the most dynamic and prosperous trade blocs on the planet. With a new government in Ottawa, it is an ideal time for Canada to make a stronger, deeper relationship with Mexico a crucial plank of a plan to secure a prosperous future for North America. Better relations between Mexico and Canada not only means more opportunities to take advantage of the two countries’ economic and social complementarities, it also gives the two countries the opportunity to closely work together to get the United States on board with an ambitious North American agenda to secure the continent’s economic future.
Topic:
Security, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States

6. Does the Level of Public Debt Matter?

Author:
Susan Schadler
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Research on links between the level of a country’s public debt and its broader economic developments has been heatedly debated in the economic literature. Two strands of the research stand out — one linking the level of debt to a country’s GDP growth rate and the other examining the debt level as an EWI of economic crises. As a broad generalization, research at the moment favors the view that high levels of debt are not a cause, in and of themselves, of low growth nor are they particularly good predictors of impending economic or even debt crises. In principle, the empirical findings have obvious implications for policy makers confronting the question of how to fashion policies (and fiscal policy in particular) when a country has a high debt burden. The IMF, as both a contributor to the literature and an adviser concerned with preventing or dealing with debt crises, has a particularly important stake in navigating the findings. Whether in its surveillance (routine annual advice to all member countries) or the construction of its lending programs to support countries in or near crisis, the IMF must answer the question “how much does the level of debt matter?” Despite the empirical research that casts doubt on the importance of debt, the level of debt figures prominently in the algebra of debt sustainability and the IMF’s real world policy advice. This policy brief examines the nexus of the relatively strong conclusions coming from the academic research and the IMF’s policy advice. It addresses the following question: given that the broad conclusion from the academic literature is that the level of debt itself is not systematically bad for growth or stability, why does the debt level seem to figure rather prominently in the IMF’s policy advice and conditionality?
Topic:
Debt, Development, Economics, International Monetary Fund, Financial Crisis, GDP, and Global Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Have Macroeconomic Rules of the Game Changed? Some Clues from the Phillips Curve

Author:
Samuel Howorth, Domenico Lombardi, and Pierre Siklos
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Students of macroeconomics will have heard about the central role played by the so-called Phillips curve in both theoretical and empirical analyses for almost 70 years. In 1958, A. W. Phillips reported an inverse relationship between changes in wages and the unemployment rate (Phillips 1958). The progeny of his thinking led to a revolution both in policy making and in the development of theoretical links between the real and nominal macroeconomic variables. Names such as Samuelson, Solow, Phelps, Friedman, Lucas and Sargent became associated with refinements and enhancements of the core finding reported by Phillips. Indeed, all of these economists went on to become Nobel laureates in economics, although not exclusively because of their contributions to the analysis of what has since been called the Phillips curve. Indeed, the concept is so influential that it spawned several different versions of the trade-off used to guide policy makers as a menu for the choices they face when deciding whether the gains from lower inflation are offset by the economic costs of higher unemployment. Initially, expectations of individuals or firms were ignored. This briefly gave policy makers the impression that they could simply select an inflation-unemployment combination and implement the necessary policy mix to achieve the desired outcome. Once a role for expectations was incorporated, debate centred on how forward-looking individuals are. The more forward-looking, the less likely it was that policy makers would be able to “exploit” the trade-off because, unless wages rose in purchasing-power terms, the gains from lower unemployment would, at best, be temporary once workers realized that the higher inflation, at unchanged wages, actually drives real wages down. Indeed, the pendulum swung all the way to the conclusion — reached by the 1970s and early 1980s — that the Phillips curve was illusory and there was no trade-off policy makers could exploit.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, International Political Economy, Labor Issues, and Global Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Jurisdiction on the Internet: From Legal Arms Race to Transnational Cooperation

Author:
Bertrand de la Chapelle and Paul Fehlinger
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the financial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital flows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic financial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank-intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in flows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. The Final Few: Completing the Universal Membership of the IMF

Author:
James M. Boughton
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has 188 member countries. The United Nations has 193. The difference is not economically or politically trivial. Although none of the members missing from the IMF is a large country, two of the five are potentially important in their regions: Cuba and North Korea. What would it take to complete the process to have both countries included as IMF member countries? What are the obstacles to becoming members, and how can they be overcome? For three years, 1997 to 2000, tentative moves toward membership for North Korea were encouraged by South Korea and were tolerated by most Western powers. The détente did not last, but the episode offers a model for a resumption of progress if conditions improve. Notably, the IMF could provide technical assistance and training, collect economic data and provide information on its membership requirements and obligations. Cuban membership faces additional hurdles because of US laws that were targeted specifically at the government of Fidel Castro. Moreover, to this date, neither country has applied to join the IMF. Because every other country in the world, aside from the very smallest and those not generally recognized as states, has joined the IMF, it is virtually certain that Cuba will apply eventually, as will North Korea, unless that prospect is preempted by reunification of the Korean Peninsula. When they do apply, a concerted political commitment will be needed to overcome the remaining technical obstacles.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, United Nations, and International Monetary Fund
Political Geography:
North Korea and Cuba

10. Is Indonesia the Next China?

Author:
Wendy Dobson
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper reviews Indonesia’s economic prospects and what these imply for a closer relationship with Canada. By posing the question “Is Indonesia the next China?,” the author suggests that Indonesia has the considerable economic potential envisaged by foreign investors, but conveys uncertainty as to whether Southeast Asia’s most populous country can make the changes necessary to realize that potential. A review of the economic record and comparison of China’s and Indonesia’s economic structures, endowments and institutions show major differences between the two countries. The paper further questions what it will take to realize Indonesia’s potential, finding the answers to be: human capital development; increased participation in the region’s global value chains; meeting the growing middle-class demand for modern services; raising productivity in agriculture and fishing; and increasing use of the Internet. Failure to make these changes will increase the chances of Indonesia’s growth in per capita incomes slowing and falling into the middle-income trap. Canada’s role will be to monitor closely how Indonesia tackles its five priorities at the same time as it responds to the opportunities to exploit Indonesia’s abundant natural resources, urbanization and its expanding consumer demand for modern services and educational opportunities.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Human Welfare, International Trade and Finance, Natural Resources, and Regulation
Political Geography:
China and Indonesia