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21. The G20: Engine of Asian Regionalism?

Author:
Hugo Dobson
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
As a result of the emergence of the G20 as the self‐appointed “premier forum for international economic cooperation”, Asia's expanded participation in G‐summitry has attracted considerable attention. As original G7 member Japan is joined by Australia, China, Indonesia, India and South Korea, this has given rise to another alphanumeric configuration of the Asian 6 (A6). Resulting expectations are that membership in the G20 will impact Asian regionalism as the A6 are forced into coordination and cooperation in response to the G20's agenda and commitments. However, by highlighting the concrete behaviours and motivations of the individual A6 in the G20 summits so far, this paper stands in contrast to the majority of the predominantly normative extant literature. It highlights divergent agendas amongst the A6 as regards the future of the G20 and discusses the high degree of competition over their identities and roles therein. This divergence and competition can be seen across a range of other behaviours including responding to the norm of internationalism in promoting global governance and maintaining the status quo and national interest, in addition to claiming a regional leadership role and managing bilateral relationships with the US.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Asia, South Korea, and Australia

22. Australia as a supplier of uranium to the Asian region: Implications

Author:
Stuart Harris
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
Significant interest in Australia's uranium export industry has re-emerged in the face of increased energy demand, fears of eventual reduced supplies of traditional energy sources, further evidence of global climate change and prospective higher electricity prices. This paper examines how Australia will respond to that renewed interest and how it seeks to balance its economic and environmental interests with its traditional nuclear non- proliferation activism.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Australia

23. The global financial crisis: will state emergency measures trigger international investment disputes?

Author:
Anne Van Aaken and Jürgen Kurtz
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Several developed countries have introduced emergency measures to mitigate the effects of the Global Financial Crisis, including Australia, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although the measures taken are still undergoing changes by the executive branch and are thus a “moving target”, our survey reveals early evidence of differentiation between foreign and domestic actors in the emergency plans adopted by this sample grouping. It is this differentiation that may give rise to liability as breaching guarantees against discrimination of foreign investors under international investment law.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, International Affairs, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Ireland

24. China and the Global Environment: Learning from the Past, Anticipating the Future

Author:
Katherine Morton
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
One of the greatest dilemmas of the early 21st century is how to satisfy the demands of densely populated states in the context of a global environmental crisis. As the world's biggest polluter and prominent emerging world power, China is at the centre of the global debate. Worsening pollution trends, increasing resource scarcity, and widespread ecological degradation have serious implications for China's ongoing modernisation drive. The spillover effects across borders also pose a challenge to its relations with the outside world. Although China's per capita CO2 emissions are low relative to the United States and Australia, they already exceed the world average. In 2007, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest aggregate emitter.
Topic:
Environment, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Reform
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Australia

25. So what? Matching policy to Australian interests in West Asia

Author:
Anthony Bubalo
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Before 2001, Australian policy in the region defined here as West Asia – that stretching from India's western borders across to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, encompassing Southwest Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Levant – focused on two broad objectives: supporting American-led efforts to promote regional stability, and securing opportunities for Australian exports.
Topic:
International Relations, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Asia and Australia

26. When Dragons and Kangaroos Trade: China's Rapid Economic Growth and Its Implications for China and Australia

Author:
Jikun Huang, Jun Yang, and Scott Rozelle
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
China's economy has experienced remarkable growth since economic reforms were initiated in the late 1970s and pushed forward by a number of complementary policies. Since the mid-1980s, rural township and village-owned enterprises (TVEs) development; measures to provide a better market environment through domestic market reform; fiscal and financial expansions; the devaluation of exchange rate; trade liberalisation; the expansion of special economic zones to attract foreign direct investment (FDI); the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform; agricultural market liberalisation, and many other reforms have all contributed to China's economic growth. In response, the annual growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) was about nearly 10% in 1979–2004 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2005).
Topic:
Agriculture and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Australia, and Australia/Pacific

27. APEC and the search for relevance: 2007 and beyond

Author:
John Ravenhill, Lorraine Elliott, Helen E.S. Nesadurai, and Nick Bisley
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
In September 2007, Australia will host the annual Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This will be the culmination of over 100 days of ministerial, official and business group meetings, working groups and dialogues that will be held in various Australian cities from January to August. Fifteen federal government departments will be involved along with a range of other interested actors, predominantly in the private sector. The Australian government will spend considerable sums of money on the leaders' meeting itself, not least to ensure the security of those attending. This will include, if all goes according to plan, the heads of government of 21 countries—member economies in APEC-speak—including the United States, Russia, Japan and China. Security may well be the least of the government's worries. Few would argue that APEC is 'going strong' as a regional economic forum and recent reviews have suggested that at best it faces an uncertain future and that at worst it could be in a state of terminal decline. The forum is argued to have lost its relevance and to have generally been unsuccessful in attaining any of its more ambitious goals such as regional trade liberalisation.
Topic:
Security, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, Australia, and Australia/Pacific

28. Tax policies to promote private charitable giving in DAC countries

Author:
David Roodman and Scott Standley
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Researchers have written hundreds of papers on the causes and consequences of official foreign aid, while paying almost no attention to private overseas giving, by individuals, universities, foundations, and corporations. Yet private giving is significant—some $15.5 billion/year, compared to more than $60 billion/year in public giving—and is in no small part an outcome of public policy. In most rich countries, tax deductions and credits lower the “price” of charity to donors. And governments with low tax revenue/GDP ratios leave more money in private pockets for private charity. To correct the near-complete lack of information on this de facto aid policy, we survey officials of 21 donor nations on the use of tax incentives to promote private charity. From the results, we develop an index of the overall incentive for private charity, expressed as a percentage increase over the hypothetical giving level absent incentives. France's tax code creates the largest price incentive while those of Austria, Finland, and Sweden offer none. Factoring in the income effect of the tax ratio, Australia, Ireland, Germany, and the United States move to the top, with combined price and income effects sufficient to double private giving. As a result, tax policy appears to have nearly doubled private overseas giving from donor countries in 2003, from a counterfactual $8.0 billion. Two-thirds of the $7.5 billion increase occurred in the United States. Of that, nearly 40% appears to be U.S. charity to Israel. According to 21-country scatter plots, countries with lower church attendance and more faith in the national legislature have lower taxes (stronger income effect), but average levels of targeted tax incentives. Income (GDP/capita) does correlate with private overseas aid/capita, but also with public aid/capita, so that the two aid flows are complementary in magnitude.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Finland, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, and Austria

29. Economic Survey of Australia, 2004

Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Recent and prospective performance is good. The Australian economy is still benefiting from the programme of widespread and deep reforms that started in the 1980s and was especially intensive in the 1990s. These made it easier to set macro policies in a stability-oriented medium-term framework. The combination resulted in a thirteen year long economic expansion accompanied by low inflation, high resilience to external and domestic shocks, and very healthy public finances. The short term outlook is for continuing brisk low- inflationary growth.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Australia and Australia/Pacific

30. Prospects for Regional Free Trade in Asia

Author:
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Yee Wong
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Frustrated with lackluster momentum in the WTO Doha Round and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and mindful of free trade agreement (FTA) networks centered on the United States and Europe, Asian countries have joined the FTA game. By 2005, Asian countries (excluding China) had ratified 14 bilateral and regional FTAs and had negotiated but not implemented another seven. Asian nations are also actively negotiating some 23 bilateral and regional FTAs, many with non-Asian partners, including Australia, Canada, Chile, the European Union, India, and Qatar. China has been particularly active since 2000. It has completed three bilateral FTAs—Thailand in 2003 and Hong Kong and Macao in 2004—and is initiating another 17 bilateral and regional FTAs. However, a regional Asian economic bloc led by China seems distant, even though China accounts for about 30 percent of regional GDP. As in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, many Asian countries are pursuing FTAs with countries outside the region. On present evidence, the FTA process embraced with some enthusiasm in Asia, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere more closely resembles fingers reaching idiosycratically around the globe rather than politico-economic blocs centered respectively on Beijing, Brussels, and Washington.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, Washington, Canada, India, Beijing, Asia, Australia, Qatar, Chile, Hong Kong, Brussels, and Macao