Search

Begin New Search Topic Economics Publishing Institution Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University

21. Policy Space for Mexican Maize: Protecting Agro-biodiversity by Promoting Rural Livelihoods

Author:
Timothy A. Wise
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Since the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, traditional maize farmers in Mexico have faced difficult economic conditions. In barely more than a decade, as many as one million farmers may have abandoned their land under economic pressure from rising imports, low prices for maize and other traditional crops, weak local and regional demand, and large reductions in public sector support for agriculture. The losses are environmental as well as economic. With the loss of traditional maize, there has been a documented loss of the agricultural biodiversity of which these farmers and their ancestors have been stewards for centuries. With maize trade scheduled to be fully liberalized under NAFTA in 2008, many farm groups are calling for a renegotiation of the treaty's agricultural provisions to prevent further damage. This policy analysis examines the room for alternative policies in Mexico under existing economic and environmental agreements, including NAFTA. It concludes that the Mexican government retains access to many useful policy instruments that could promote rural livelihoods while arresting the losses of important maize diversity. What is lacking is the political will to make use of them.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
North America and Mexico

22. The Economics of Inaction on Climate Change: A Sensitivity Analysis

Author:
Frank Ackerman and Ian J. Finlayson
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Economic models of climate change often take the problem seriously, but paradoxically conclude that the optimal policy is to do almost nothing about it. We explore this paradox as seen in the widely used DICE model. Three aspects of that model, involving the discount rate, the assumed benefits of moderate warming, and the treatment of the latest climate science, are sufficient to explain the timidity of the model's optimal policy recommendation. With modifications to those three points, DICE shows that the optimal policy is a much higher and rapidly rising marginal carbon price; that higher carbon price has a greater effect on physical measures of climate impacts. Our modifications exhibit nonlinear interactions; at least at low discount rates, there is synergy between individual changes to the model. At low discount rates, the inherent uncertainty about future damages looms larger in the analysis, rendering long-run economic modeling less useful.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, and Environment

23. Can Climate Change Save Lives? A comment on "Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health"

Author:
Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
In a recent article in this journal, Francesco Bosello, Roberto Roson, and Richard Tol make the surprising prediction that the first stages of global warming will, on balance, save a large number of lives. Bosello et al. fail to substantiate this remarkable estimate, and they make multiple mistaken or misleading assumptions. They rely on research that identifies a simple empirical relationship between temperature and mortality, but ignores the countervailing effect of human adaptation to gradual changes in average temperature. While focusing on small changes in average temperatures, they ignore the important health impacts of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes. They extrapolate this pattern far beyond the level that is apparently supported by their principal sources, and introduce an arbitrary assumption that may bias the result toward finding benefits from warming.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, and Environment
Political Geography:
San Francisco

24. Ethics and International Debt: A View from Feminist Economics

Author:
Julie A. Nelson
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Feminist scholars examine not only the gendered impacts of development programs whose design has been influenced by disciplines such as economics, but also the gendered biases that permeate the models and methods of the disciplines themselves. This essay draws on aspects of feminist critiques of economics, philosophy, psychology, law, and finance to analyze the way in which international debt is discussed. Feminist critiques raise serious questions about the rational choice framework that often undergirds scholarly discussions of “agents,” “contract,” “ethics,” and “capital and debt.”
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, and International Trade and Finance

25. The Missing Links between Foreign Investment and Development: Lessons from Costa Rica and Mexico

Author:
Kevin Gallagher and Eva Paus
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
A developing country will derive long-lasting development benefits from FDI only, if there is the right coincidence between its location-specific assets and TNCs\' global interests, and the right match between the country\'s national linkage capability and TNCs\' strategic interest in domestic sourcing. We argue that Costa Rica and Mexico have been very successful in attracting high-tech FDI due to the cumulative results of past development policies, proximity to the U.S., and trade arrangements. However, a combination of pervasive market failures, government inaction, and changes in TNC strategies explains why the two countries have not been able to reap lasting benefits from high-tech FDI. We conclude that pro-active government policies have to be an integral part of any FDI-linked development strategy. Pro-action is needed to attract FDI, to promote indigenous linkage capability, and to enhance key location-specific assets on an on-going basis in the context of a coordinated policy framework.
Topic:
Economics and Markets
Political Geography:
Central America, North America, and Mexico

26. Policy Space for Development in the WTO and Beyond: The Case of Intellectual Property Rights

Author:
Ken Shadlen
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Global governance in intellectual property (IP) has changed dramatically in the last two decades, and these changes have profound - and worrying - implications for late development. What was once principally an instrument of national policy is now increasingly subject to international disciplines, as the world moves ever-closer to harmonization in the area of IP management. But moving toward harmonization and achieving harmonization are different matters, and it is essential to keep in mind that the former and not the latter describes contemporary arrangements: the trend is toward a reduction in policy space, a feature that many scholars and activists point to with great concern (Gallagher, 2005), but the outcome remains one where countries retain space for autonomous IP management.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements

27. The Shrinking Gains from Trade: A Critical Assessment of Doha Round Projections

Author:
Ken Shadlen
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of world trade, often presented as demonstrating the benefits of trade liberalization, now make much more modest forecasts than they did just a few years ago. The estimated benefits are not only small in the aggregate, but also skewed toward developed countries; the expected contribution of trade liberalization to economic development and poverty alleviation is extremely limited. Related calculations, for the expected benefits of services liberalization, trade facilitation measures, and long-term productivity gains from trade liberalization, remain problematical and/or speculative. The empirical limitations of CGE forecasts rest on broader theoretical weaknesses: the models are largely locked within a static framework, and remarkably assume that trade policy causes no changes in total employment, up or down. Models built on more adequate theories, which have only begun to appear, would paint a very different picture of the effects of trade liberalization.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements

28. Five Kinds of Capital: Useful Concepts for Sustainable Development

Author:
Neva Goodwin
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
The concept of capital has a number of different meanings. It is useful to differentiate between five kinds of capital: financial, natural, produced, human, and social. All are stocks that have the capacity to produce flows of economically desirable outputs. The maintenance of all five kinds of capital is essential for the sustainability of economic development.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Treaties and Agreements

29. International Trade and Air Pollution: The Economic Costs of Air Emissions from Waterborne Commercial Vessels in the United States

Author:
Kevin Gallagher and Robin Taylor
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Although there is a burgeoning literature on the effects of international trade on the environment, relatively little work has been done on where trade most directly effects the environment: the transportation sector. This article shows how international trade is affecting criteria air pollution emissions in the United States' shipping sector. Recent work has shown that cargo ships have been long overlooked regarding their contribution to air pollution. Indeed, ship emissions have recently been deemed "the last unregulated source of traditional air pollutants."Air pollution from ships has a number of significant local, national, and global environmental effects. Building on past studies, we examine the economic costs of this increasing and unregulated form of environmental damage. We find that total emissions from ships are largely increasing due to the increase in foreign commerce (or international trade). We analyze the period 1993 to 2001 and find that the economic costs of SO2 pollution during the period are estimated to be $1.1 billion or $126 million per year. For NOx emissions the costs are $3.7 billion over the entire period or $412 million per year. Because foreign trade is driving the growth in U.S. shipping, we also estimate the effect of the Uruguay Round on emissions. Separating out the effects of global trade agreements reveals that the trade agreement- led emissions amount to $460 million for SO2 between 1993 and 2001, or $51 million per year. For NOx they are $1.2 billion for the whole period or $144 million per year. Without adequate policy responses, we predict that these trends and costs will continue to rise with trade flows into the future
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
North America

30. Economic Reform, Energy, and Development: The Case of Mexican Manufacturing

Author:
Kevin Gallagher and Francisco Aguayo
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Given increasing concern over global climate change and national security there is a burgeoning interest in examining the relationship between economic growth and energy use in developed and developing countries. More specifically, delinking energy use per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) has fast come to be seen as in the interests of national economies and the world as a whole. Recent attention has been paid to the dramatic decreases in the energy intensity of the Chinese economy, which fell by 55 percent between 1975 and 1995 (Sinton and Fridley, 2000). Do other developing economies follow similar trajectories?
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
North America