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2. How ‘demos’ met ‘cracy’: debt, inequality, money
- Author:
- Andreas Antoniades and Ugo Panizza
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex
- Abstract:
- The recurrence of ever more destructive economic crises and patterns of pervasive indebtedness and inequality threaten the social fabric of our societies. Our main responses to these trends have been partial, focusing on symptoms rather than causes, often exacerbating rather than improving the underlying socio-economic dynamics. To reflect on these conditions and on ‘what needs to be done’ this paper turns to a similar socio-economic malaise faced by the city-state of Athens in the 6th century BC. Most historical studies dealing with this crisis focus on the comprehensive debt relief policy (seisachteia) implemented by Solon. We argue that this debt relief, although necessary, was the least important of Solon’s reforms. Solon read the problem of debt as a problem of money so he went on to reform the monetary and exchange system. But he did not think that these reforms alone could restore socioeconomic sustainability. For this, a redefinition of what was counted as valuable economic activity and as income had also to take place. And for all these to work, citizens had to be involved more in the commons. Far from only achieving socioeconomic sustainability, these reforms gave rise gradually to the demos that we meet in the golden age of Democracy. It is indeed interesting that Democracy, in its ideal type of the 5th century BC, finds its origin in the way in which a society responded to a major socioeconomic crisis, characterised by pervasive indebtedness and destabilising inequalities. Such a broader historical horizon may help us grasp better the problems, stakes and challenges of our times.
- Topic:
- Debt, Political Economy, History, Democracy, and Global Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Greece and Global Focus
3. Emerging Countries in Global Financial Standard Setting: Explaining Relative Resilience and Its Implications
- Author:
- Andrew Walter
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation
- Abstract:
- This special report explores the role of emerging-country members in the Basel process, a key aspect of global financial standard setting. It argues that this process has been significantly more politically resilient than adjacent aspects of global economic governance, in part because major emerging countries have perceived continuing “intra-club” benefits from participation within it. Most important among these are learning benefits for key actors within these countries, including incumbent political leaders. Although some emerging countries perceive growing influence over the international financial standard-setting process, many implicitly accept limited influence in return for learning benefits, which are valuable because of the complexity of contemporary financial systems and the sustained policy challenges it creates for advanced and emerging countries alike. The importance of learning benefits also differentiates the Basel process from other international economic organizations in which agenda control and influence over outcomes are more important for emerging-country governments. This helps to explain the relative resilience of the Basel process in the context of continued influence asymmetries and the wider fragmentation of global economic governance. The report also considers some reforms that could further improve the position of emerging countries in the process and bolster its perceived legitimacy among them.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Financial Markets, Global Political Economy, and Emerging States
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, North America, and Global Focus
4. Survival of the International Monetary Fund and Global Economic Cooperation
- Author:
- Edwin M. Truman
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF)—a quota-based institution—faces a test of its survival as the linchpin of the global financial safety net. Its roughly $1.4 trillion in total financial resources is scheduled to begin to shrink in 2020. In 2015, IMF members committed to strengthening IMF financial resources in the 15th General Review of Quotas, which will end in December 2019. Over the past 25 years, the United States has led the way for a gradual redistribution of IMF quota shares toward faster-growing emerging-market and developing countries. Any significant redistribution of quota shares requires an increase in total quotas. Because of its share of votes in the IMF, the United States must agree to any change in quotas. The Trump administration, however, has signaled that it favors no such change. If the United States does not reverse its stance, IMF members will lose an opportunity to strengthen the institution at a time of global financial uncertainty. Truman says the United States could still change its position and recommends how other member countries should press it to do so.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Politics, International Monetary Fund, Global Political Economy, Donald Trump, and Economic Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America
5. A World Dividing: The International Implications of the Sino-American Rift
- Author:
- Chas W. Freeman Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
- Abstract:
- The Trump administration has declared economic war on China. The United States has raised taxes on Chinese imports to levels not seen since the Smoot–Hawley tariffs of the Great Depression. Over the course of this year, Chinese imports of American goods have decreased by 26.4 percent, while China’s exports to the United States are down 10.7 percent. Washington has embargoed exports to China of a constantly expanding list of high-tech manufactures. It seeks to block Chinese telecommunications companies from third-country markets. The United States has mounted a vigorous campaign to persuade other countries to reject Chinese investments in their infrastructure, notably in the case of 5G telecommunications networks.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Global Political Economy, Trade Wars, International Community, and Exports
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Asia, and Global Focus
6. The Aid Effectiveness Agenda: Past experiences and future prospects
- Author:
- Erik Lundsgaarde and Lars Engberg-Pedersen
- Publication Date:
- 06-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness provided an important framework for encouraging donor and partner countries to adapt aid management practices to make development cooperation more effective. The agenda it advanced has since lost visibility, even among aid providers that were once its strongest advocates. This DIIS report, written by Senior Researcher Erik Lundsgaarde and Senior Researcher Lars Engberg-Pedersen, indicates that there are several explanations for the declining attention to Paris Declaration principles. Implementation of the agenda was challenging from the outset due to different starting points among countries, the tension between a universal approach and the need to adapt cooperation approaches to varied contexts, and the tradeoffs involved in implementing prescriptions such as increasing partner ownership, strengthening donor coordination, and improving results management. In spite of these challenges, the authors argue that core ideas from the Paris Declaration remain valid today. In particular, the importance of fostering partner ownership and measuring results has not faded. Improving the consistency of how donors pursue these objectives in practice is essential in carrying lessons from decades of development cooperation experience forward.
- Topic:
- Development, Diplomacy, Environment, International Organization, Treaties and Agreements, Natural Resources, and Global Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
7. Learning from Success in Climate-Informed Decision-Making: Case Studies Across the Three Regions
- Author:
- Zena Grecni
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- A network of sustained assessment specialists created within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (NOAA RISA) program present five case studies of successful local responses to climate change that are supported by scientific information. Based in three regions—the U.S. Pacific Islands, the South Central United States, and the Rocky Mountain West—the case studies in this report feature local managers who are providing and applying climate information, with valuable outcomes, across a range of geographic scales and sectors. They include improving local climate-adaptation efforts in San Angelo, Texas, enhancing the resilience of iconic coastal ecosystems on Hawai‘i Island, managing water in the Colorado River Conservation District, increasing conservation resilience in the southern Great Plains, and using El Niño forecasts to plan for drought in the Pacific Islands. The case studies provide new insights, which are summarized as five practical lessons for anyone seeking to better integrate climate considerations into decision-making.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Affairs, and Global Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
8. Putting Global Governance in its Place
- Author:
- Dani Rodrik
- Publication Date:
- 08-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In a world economy that is highly integrated, most policies produce effects across the border. This is often believed to be an argument for greater global governance, but the logic requires scrutiny. There remains strong revealed demand for policy and institutional diversity among nations, rooted in differences in historical, cultural, or development trajectories. The canonical case for global governance is based on two set of circumstances. The first occurs when there is global public good (GPG) and the second under “beggar-thy-neighbor” (BTN) policies. However, the world economy is not a global commons, and virtually no economic policy has the nature of a global public good (or bad). And while there are some important BTN policies, much of our current discussions deal with policies that are not true BTNs. The policy failures that exist arise not from weaknesses of global governance, but from distortions of domestic governance. As a general rule, these domestic failures cannot be fixed through international agreements or multilateral cooperation. The paper closes by discussing an alternative model of global governance called “democracy-enhancing global governance.”
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Governance, Global Political Economy, and Trade Wars
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and Global Markets
9. How ETFs Amplify the Global Financial Cycle in Emerging Markets
- Author:
- Nathan Converse, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, and Tomas Williams
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Since the early 2000s exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have grown to become an important in- vestment vehicle worldwide. In this paper, we study how their growth affects the sensitivity of international capital flows to the global financial cycle. We combine comprehensive fund- level data on investor flows with a novel identification strategy that controls for unobservable time-varying economic conditions at the investment destination. For dedicated emerging mar- ket funds, we find that the sensitivity of investor flows to global financial conditions for equity (bond) ETFs is 2.5 (2.25) times higher than for equity (bond) mutual funds. In turn, we show that in countries where ETFs hold a larger share of financial assets, total cross-border equity flows and prices are significantly more sensitive to global financial conditions. We conclude that the growing role of ETFs as a channel for international capital flows amplifies the global financial cycle in emerging markets.
- Topic:
- Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, Global Political Economy, Capital Flows, and Mutual Funds
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and Global Markets
10. The Political Economy of Europe since 1945: A Kaleckian perspective
- Author:
- Joseph Halevi
- Publication Date:
- 06-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- This paper analyzes the early stages of the formation of the Common Market. The period covered runs from the end of WW2 to 1959, which is the year in which the European Payments Union ceased to operate. The essay begins by highlighting the differences between the prewar political economy of Europe and the new dimensions and institutions brought in by the United States after 1945. It focuses on the marginalization of Britain and on the relaunching of French great power ambitions and how the latter determined, in a very problematical way, the European complexion of France. Because of France’s imperial aspirations, France, not West Germany, emerged as the politically crisis prone country of Europe acting as a factor of instability thereby jeopardizing the process of European integration, Among the large European nations, Germany and Italy appear, for opposite economic reasons, as the countries most focused on furthering integration. Germany expressed the strongest form of neomercantilism while Italy the weakest.
- Topic:
- Economics, Political Economy, Global Political Economy, World War II, and Common Market
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Germany, and Global Focus