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52. The coming harmonization of climate change policy and international investment law
- Author:
- Daniel M. Firger
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
- Abstract:
- Developments in climate change policy and international investment law may be ushering in a new era characterized by profound harmonization between the two regimes. Although policy instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol's “Clean Development Mechanism” (CDM) have been in existence for years, it is only relatively recently that the international community has turned to low-carbon foreign direct investment (FDI) and away from command-and-control regulation as the preferred means by which to achieve future greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Meanwhile, states have begun to renegotiate international investment agreements (IIAs) or sign new treaties to take into account policy goals, including climate change mitigation, that extend beyond the regime's traditional preoccupation with investor protection. Though still somewhat tentative, emerging trends in both arenas are thus showing unmistakable signs of convergence.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
53. Foreign Manufacturing Multinationals and the Transformation of the Chinese Economy: New Measurements, New Perspectives
- Author:
- Theodore H. Moran
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- What is the relationship between foreign manufacturing multinational corporations (MNCs) and the expansion of indigenous technological and managerial technological capabilities among Chinese firms? China has been remarkably successful in designing industrial policies, joint venture requirements, and technology transfer pressures to use FDI to create indigenous national champions in a handful of prominent sectors: high speed rail transport, information technology, auto assembly, and an emerging civil aviation sector. But what is striking in the aggregate data is how relatively thin the layer of horizontal and vertical spillovers from foreign manufacturing multinationals to indigenous Chinese firms has proven to be. Despite the large size of manufacturing FDI inflows, the impact of multinational corporate investment in China has been largely confined to building plants that incorporate capital, technology, and managerial expertise controlled by the foreigner. As the skill-intensity of exports increases, the percentage of the value of the final product that derives from imported components rises sharply. China has remained a low value-added assembler of more sophisticated inputs imported from abroad—a “workbench” economy. Where do the gains from FDI in China end up? While manufacturing MNCs may build plants in China, the largest impact from deployment of worldwide earnings is to bolster production, employment, R, and local purchases in their home markets. For the United States the most recent data show that US-headquartered MNCs have 70 percent of their operations, make 89 percent of their purchases, spend 87 percent of their R dollars, and locate more than half of their workforce within the US economy—this is where most of the earnings from FDI in China are delivered.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Israel
54. Going Global: Chinese Oil and Mining Companies and the Governance of Resource Wealth
- Author:
- Jill Shankleman
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Wilson Center
- Abstract:
- This report is the result of a six-month research project undertaken at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The focus of the work is on the impact of China's oil and mining companies' recent overseas expansion on the governance of resource wealth. The paper covers four topics: The structure of the Chinese oil and mining industries, focusing on overseas operations; the emergence over the last ten years within the large-scale, OECD-based extractive industry, of a “new model” for resource extraction focusing on minimizing negative social and environmental impacts and on resource revenue transparency; the development of corporate social responsibility concepts in China, and the extent to which this is leading Chinese oil and mining companies to apply the “new model” for resource extraction, and the role of Chinese infrastructure loans to resource-rich developing countries in resource wealth governance.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- China and Washington
55. Who Should Bear the Cost of China's Carbon Emissions Embodied in Goods for Exports?
- Author:
- ZhongXiang Zhang
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- China's capital-intensive, export-oriented, spectacular economic growth since launching its open-door policy and economic reforms in late 1978 not only has created jobs and has lifted millions of the Chinese people out of poverty, but also has given rise to unprecedented environmental pollution and CO2 emissions. While estimates of the embedded CO2 emissions in China's trade differ, both single country studies for China and global studies show a hefty chunk of China's CO2 emissions embedded in trade. This portion of CO2 emissions had helped to turn China into the world's largest carbon emitter, and is further widening its gap with the second largest emitter. This raises the issue of who should be responsible for this portion of emissions and bearing the carbon cost of exports. China certainly wants importers to cover some, if not all, of that costs. While China's stance is understandable, this paper has argued from a broad and balanced perspective that if this is pushed too far, it will not help to find solutions to this issue. On the contrary it can be to China's disadvantage for a number of reasons. However, aligning this responsibility with China does not necessarily suggest the sole reliance on domestic actions. In that context, the paper recommends specific actions that need to be taken internationally as well as domestically in order to effectively control the embedded CO2 emissions in China's trade.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China
56. A China Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations
- Author:
- Arvind Subramanian and Aaditya Mattoo
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- Until recently, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been an effective framework for cooperation because it has continually adapted to changing economic realities. The current Doha Agenda is an aberration because it does not reflect one of the biggest shifts in the international economic and trading system: the rise of China. Even though China will have a stake in maintaining trade openness, an initiative that builds on but redefines the Doha Agenda would anchor China more fully in the multilateral trading system. Such an initiative would have two pillars. First, a new negotiating agenda that would include the major issues of interest to China and its trading partners, and thus unleash the powerful reciprocal liberalization mechanism that has driven the WTO process to previous successes. Second, new restraints on bilateralism and regionalism that would help preserve incentives for maintaining the current broad non-discriminatory trading order.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China, Israel, and Asia
57. The Global Financial Crisis and Africa's "Immiserizing Wealth"
- Author:
- Luc Soete and Alexis Habiyaremye
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Before the current global recession, many resource-rich African countries were recording unprecedented levels of growth due to a raw material price boom. However, the collapse in raw material prices and the ensuing severe economic difficulties have again exposed the vulnerability of these countries' natural resource export-focussed economic structures. In this research brief, we describe how Africa's abundance of natural resources attracted disruptive and predatory foreign forces that have hindered innovation-based growth and economic diversification by delaying the accumulation of sufficient stocks of human capital. We suggest that for their long-term prosperity, resource-rich African countries shift their strategic emphasis from natural to human resources and technological capabilities needed to transform those natural resources into valuable goods and services to compete in the global market.
- Topic:
- Economics, Emerging Markets, Industrial Policy, Global Recession, Natural Resources, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Africa, China, and India
58. Will China relocate its labor-intensive factories to Africa, flying-geese style?
- Author:
- Terutomo Ozawa and Christian Bellak
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
- Abstract:
- China has developed increasingly close economic relations with Africa in its quest for oil and minerals through investment and aid. The World Ban k recently called upon China to transplant labor-intensive factories onto the continent. A question arises as to whether such an industrial relocation will be done in such a fashion to jump-start local economic development—as previously seen across East Asia and as described in the flying-geese (FG) paradigm of FD.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- Africa and China
59. Unearthing China's Rare Earths Strategy
- Author:
- Roderick Kefferputz
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
- Abstract:
- Relations between China and the West have been difficult at best in recent months. Frustrations on both sides have increased palpably. Besides long-standing disagreements over Beijing's policy on the renminbi, the stalled climate change negotiations and human rights, new challenges have also (re)emerged. These include, amongst others, rising concerns over China's role in the South China Sea and the conflict over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Recently, however, one issue in particular has made the headlines: rare earths.
- Topic:
- Environment, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- China and Europe
60. Reinterpreting China's Success Through the New Economic Geography
- Author:
- Yukon Huang
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- China has in recent years capitalized on its huge, diverse population and geographical expanse to transform itself into the world's most efficient assembler and exporter of a wide range of manufactured goods. In achieving this development, it has followed a strategy essentially based on the New Economic Geography, which explains how lower transportation costs and concentration of economic activities foster economies of scale and explosive urbanization.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- China