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151. Rice Crisis Forensics: How Asian Governments Carelessly Set the World Rice Market on Fire

Author:
Tom Slayton
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The world rice market was aflame last spring and for several months it looked as if the trading edifice that had exhibited such resilience over the last two decades was going to burn to the ground. World prices trebled within less than four months and reached a 30- year inflation-adjusted high. Many market observers thought the previous record set in 1974 would soon be toast. The fire was man-made, not the result of natural developments. While the governments in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines did not to set the world market on fire, that was the unintended result of their actions which threatened both innocent bystanders (low-income rice importers as far away as Africa and Latin America) and, ultimately, poor rice consumers at home. This paper describes what sparked the fire and the accelerants that made a bad situation nearly catastrophic. Fortuitously, when the flames were raging at peak intensity, rain clouds appeared, the winds [market psychology] shifted, and conditions on the ground improved, allowing the fire to die down. It remains to be seen, however, if the trading edifice has been seriously undermined by the actions of decision makers in several key Asian rice exporting and importing countries. In describing the cascading negative effects of these seemingly rational domestic policies, this paper aims to help policy makers in the rice exporting and importing nations to avoid a repeat of the disastrous price spike of 2008.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Health, Humanitarian Aid, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America

152. Schooling Inequality, Crises, and Financial Liberalization in Latin America

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Gunilla Pettersson, and Jere R. Behrman
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Latin America is characterized by high and persistent schooling, land, and income inequalities and extreme income concentration. In a highly unequal setting, powerful interests are more likely to dominate politics, pushing for policies that protect privileges rather than foster competition and growth. As a result, changes in policies that political elites resist may be postponed in high-inequality countries to the detriment of overall economic performance.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Globalization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Latin America

153. Latin America and the Global Economic Crisis

Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
An overview of the region up to 30 January 2009 by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (cepal) argues that the larger economies have been more directly affected by the global economic crisis (because in general they are more integrated with the global markets, especially finance), but are also better equipped to respond to it. In particular, Cepal sees South America as diverging from Central America and the Caribbean, which seem to be both less resilient in terms of their economies, and more exposed to the slump in the USA. They are being driven back to aid as the last/only resort. Mexico is in a category of its own, the most exposed to the US downturn, but as a large economy and an oil exporter, better placed to withstand the downturn than its Caribbean basin neighbours.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Caribbean

154. Reforming and Reinforcing the Revolution: The Post-TRIPS Politics of Patents in Latin America

Author:
Kenneth Shadlen
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
National policies toward intellectual property (IP) were revolutionized in the 1990s, as countries adopted new systems to conform to the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). TRIPS-style IP regimes make patents available for more types of knowledge, grant long periods of patent protection, and endow patent owners with strong rights of exclusion. This paper analyzes two contrasting patterns of political mobilization and pressures for change that newly-introduced, TRIPS-style regimes became subject to by the early 21st Century. Most governments faced pressures to address aspects of their IP systems regarding pharmaceutical patents; governments came under pressure to reform their new patent systems, calling into question the appropriateness and utility of broad and strong private rights of exclusion as tools for disseminating knowledge. Most governments also faced pressures to modify aspects of their patent systems more broadly related to science, technology, and indigenous innovation (STI); governments came under pressure to reinforce their new patent systems, buttressing the role of private rights of exclusion as mechanisms to incentivize the creation and distribution of knowledge and technology. I provide a political explanation for the contrasting trajectories of reform and reinforcement by examining how different policy arrangements generate and mobilize interests for continuity and discontinuity. The focus is on asymmetric patterns of interest mobilization: those actors who benefit from policy interventions tend to mobilize more than those who suffer; those actors who suffer retain the capacities for mobilization and resistance more in the area of health-drugs than STI.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, and Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
Latin America

155. The Environmental Impacts of Soybean Expansion And Infrastructure Development in Brazil's Amazon Basin

Author:
Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz, Robert K. Kaufmann, and Daniel C. Nepstad
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
For decades, the development of transportation infrastructure in the Brazilian Amazon has been the government's main social and economic development policy in the region. Reductions in transportation costs have not only opened the agricultural frontier to cattle ranching and logging but have also caused more than two-thirds of Amazonian deforestation. Currently, soybean cultivation is a new economic force demanding improvements to roads in the region. Profitable soybean crops have spread over the Mato Grosso's cerrados and now head toward the core of the Amazon rain forest. One of the main constraints for soy expansion into the Amazon has been the poor condition of roads. In this study, we analyze the effect Amazon transportation infrastructure programs have on soybean expansion by lowering transport costs. The analysis is based on spatial estimates of transportation costs for the soybean sector, first using current road networks and then projecting changes based on the paving of the Cuiabá-Santarém road. Our results indicate that paving the Cuiabá-Santarém road would reduce transportation costs by an average of $10 per ton for farmers located in the northern part of Mato Grosso, by allowing producers to reroute soybean shipments to the Santarém port. Paving the road also would expand the area where growing soybeans is economically feasible by about 70 percent, from 120,000 to 205,000 km2 . Most of this new area would be located in the state of Pará and is covered largely by forests. A Cost-Benefit analysis of the road project indicates that the investments in infrastructure would generate more than $180 million for soybean farmers over a period of twenty years. These benefits, however, ignore the project's environmental impacts. If the destruction of ecological services and products provided by the existing forests is accounted for, then the Cuiabá-Santarém investment would generate a net loss of between $762 million and $1.9 billion. This result shows the importance of including the value of the natural capital in feasibility studies of infrastructure projects to reflect their real benefits to society as a whole.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, Environment, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Brazil, Latin America, and Amazon Basin

156. La importancia de la Convención sobre la protección y la promoción de la diversidad de las expresiones culturales de la UNESCO y su impacto en las políticas culturales mexicanas

Author:
Fabiola Rodríguez Barba
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
En un contexto de globalización económica y de múltiples tratados comerciales de integración económica, asistimos a un creciente interés por el tema de la diversidad cultural. Desde esta perspectiva, la promoción y protección de la diversidad cultural se han convertido en una preocupación de la comunidad internacional, particularmente en la última década, como lo demuestra la publicación de diversos documentos: Reporte mundial sobre Cultura, creatividad y mercados ; Reporte mundial sobre la cultura 2000 . Diversidad cultural, conflicto y pluralismo; Informe sobre el Desarrollo Humano 2004 . La libertad cultural en el mundo diverso hoy ; así como la adopción de la Declaración universal de la UNESCO sobre la diversidad cultural proclamada en noviembre de 2001; y la Convención sobre la protección y promoción de la diversidad de las expresiones culturales (en adelante, Convención ) del mismo organismo, adoptada en 2005, y que entró en vigor en 2007.
Topic:
Economics, Education, and International Law
Political Geography:
Latin America

157. Outward investment by Trans-Latin enterprises: reasons for optimism

Author:
Michael Mortimore and Carlos Razo
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Despite the current economic crisis, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Latin American and Caribbean enterprises continued its upward trend in 2008 (annex figure 1). OFDI by firms in the region reached nearly USD 35 billion in 2008, an increase of 42% with respect to 2007 (ECLAC, 2009a). However, several of the factors that fostered such growth have recently changed, possibly affecting OF DI prospects for 2009. This Perspective briefly explores these changes and their potential effects on firms' investing behavior, as well as some important countervailing factors that may cushion the effects of the economic crisis on Latin American firms' investment plan.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

158. The growth of Brazil's direct investment abroad and the challenges it faces

Author:
Luís Afonso Lima and Octavio de Barros
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
The internationalization of Brazilian companies is a relatively recent phenomenon. From 2000 to 2003, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) averaged USD 0.7 billion a year. Over the four-year period 2004−2008, this average jumped to nearly USD 14 billion. In 2008, when global FDI inflows were estimated to have fallen by 15%, OFDI from Brazil almost tripled, increasing from just over USD 7 billion in 2007 to nearly USD 21 billion in 2008 (annex figure 1 below). Central Bank data put the current stock of Brazilian OFDI at USD 104 billion, an increase of 89% over 2003. Caution is in order about these figures, however, as in Brazilian outflows it is difficult to separate authentic FDI from purely financial investment under the guise of FDI. According to the most recent data, 887 Brazilian companies have invested abroad
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Brazil and Latin America

159. Recovery: The Global Financial Crisis and Middle-Income Countries

Author:
Alejandro Foxley
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
No country has proved immune to the devastating effects of the current global financial crisis. But the middle-income countries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, which previously had achieved significant progress—economically and socially— have shown themselves to be particularly vulnerable. The crisis has high- lighted important lessons for these countries, which inhabit a twilight zone between the developed and developing worlds –and those that aspire to join their ranks – as they rebuild
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, East Asia, and Latin America

160. The Culture of Fear and Control in Costa Rica (II): The Talk of Crime and Social Changes

Author:
Sebastian Huhn
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The Costa Rican talk of crime is fundamentally based on the assumption that a formerly explicitly nonviolent nation has been transformed into a battleground for social violence—that is, on the belief that an alarming “crime wave” is occurring today while there was no crime at all in the past. On the basis of this assumption, the fear of crime and the call for zero tolerance and drastic law enforcement actions have been increasing. In this paper I discuss the Costa Rican talk of crime from a historical perspective to demonstrate that crime has always been a topic that has generated pervasive feelings of insecurity and social pessimism. I argue that social changes in Costa Rican society and the paradigmatic shift in economic and social‐welfare politics since the 1980s have been essential in the transformation of the talk of crime. As part of this transformation, the politicization of crime since the 1990s has been one of the most powerful changes in the dominant discourse.
Topic:
Crime, Economics, Politics, and Sociology
Political Geography:
Latin America