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181. Criss-Crossing Globalization: Uphill Flows of Skill-Intensive Goods and Foreign Direct Investment

Author:
Arvind Subramanian and Aaditya Mattoo
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills, embodied in goods, services or capital from poorer to richer countries. We first present a set of stylized facts. Using a measure which combines the sophistication of a country's exports with the average income level of destination countries, we show that the performance of a number of developing countries, notably China, Mexico and South Africa, matches that of much more advanced countries, such as Japan, Spain and USA. Creating a new combined dataset on FDI (covering greenfield investment as well as mergers and acquisitions) we show that flows of FDI to OECD countries from developing countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia and South Africa as a share of their GDP, are as large as flows from countries like Japan, Korea and the US. Then, taking the work of Hausmann et al (2007) as a point of departure, we suggest that it is not just the composition of exports but their destination that matters. In both cross-sectional and panel regressions, with a range of controls, we find that a measure of uphill flows of sophisticated goods is significantly associated with better growth performance. These results suggest the need for a deeper analysis of whether development benefits might derive not from deifying comparative advantage but from defying it.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Spain, and Korea

182. The Political Economy of Heterogeneous Development: Quantile Effects of Income and Education

Author:
Marcus Alexander, Matthew Harding, and Carlos Lamarche
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Does development lead to the establishment of more democratic institutions? The key to the puzzle, we argue, is the previously unrecognized fact that based on quantitative regime scores, countries over the past 50 years have clustered into two separate, very distinct, yet equally-common stages of political development—authoritarian states with low levels of freedom on one side an d democracies with liberal institutions on the other side of a bimodal distribution of political regimes. We develop a new empirical strategy—exploiting exogenous world economic factors and introducing new panel data estimators—that allows for the first time to estimate the effects of development as well as unobserved country effects in driving democracy at these different stages of political development. We find that income and education have the least effect on democracy when authoritarian regimes are consolidated and that only country effects, possibly accounting for institutional legacies, can lead to political development. Ironically, it is in highly democratic and wealthiest of nations that income and education start to play a role; however greater wealth and better educated citizenry can both help and hurt democracy depending again on what the country's institutional legacies are. Far from accepting the notion that much of the developing world is cursed by unchanging and poor long-run institutions, policy-makers should take note that with democratization we also see country-specific factors that in turn condition the difference income and education make for democracy.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Asia, and Germany

183. Money for Nothing: Three ways the G20 could deliver up to $280 billion for poor countries

Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This weekend the finance ministers of the G20 nations will meet in London. Whilst the rich world feels that the worst of the economic crisis may be behind it, the poorest countries are being hit hardest, with those living on the margins of the global economy paying for the bankers' folly with their lives.
Topic:
Development, Education, Health, Poverty, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and London

184. Brazil and the Transatlantic Community in the Wake of the Global Crisis

Author:
Thomas J Trebat
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University
Abstract:
As the great global crisis eases its grasp, it is a time to reconsider relations between Brazil and the North, especially the United States and the European Union. While the world economy is still reeling, it is very possible that a new and more productive period in Brazil's relations with the US and Europe is possible. This positive outcome derives from numerous factors, most especially Brazil's “peaceful rise” to a more prominent global role and the arrival of the Obama administration whose promise of a new beginning in U.S. foreign policy has been greeted with such evident enthusiasm in Latin America.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, International Political Economy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Brazil, and Latin America

185. Toward a Global Science and Technology Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Author:
Paul A. David, Can Huang, Luc Soete, and Adriaan van Zon
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The current economic crisis has tended to sap the policy momentum that had developed during 2006 and 2007 behind public R programmes and institutional initiatives to expand the portfolio of affordable technological means of controlling global warming. This is unfortunate, since the international negotiations about concerted actions among the leading industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have so far proceeded very slowly – too slowly, considering both the global nature of the problem and the size of the stakes involved. The initial “bargaining” stance taken by some important players, notably Japan and the United States, was in some respects disappointing in that it appears to fall far short of the EU member countries' endorsement in December 2008 of the package of EC directives designed to activate its “20-20-20” renewable energy strategy – a 20 per cent reduction of GHG emissions, and 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewable sources, by the year 2020. While there have been more promising developments recently, in the convergence towards that target in some of the legislation introduced in the US Congress, and the Obama administration's issuance of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory directives requiring the use of the latest emissions control technologies on new and retrofitted electricity power plants, the outcome of the Copenhagen conference in December 2009 remains uncomfortably uncertain.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

186. Funding for Media Development by Major Donors Outside the United States: A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance

Author:
Mary Myers
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The main guiding questions for this research are: How much are European and other governments and donors spending on international media development? Where is the money going, for what sort of development (training, capacity building, infrastructure, legal or physical safety, etc.) and what are the trends in terms of donor priorities and approaches? The present study is an update of one produced for the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) by the author, with Emma Grant, in 2007 (see Grant and Myers in References). That study was, in one way, more limited in that it dealt only with media support when used by donors to enhance access to information and promote governmental accountability in developing countries. In another way it was broader in that it made recommendations about “what works” and “what are the gaps” in media support in order to guide DFID policy. The present study is less of a discussion document and more of a straight survey.
Topic:
Development, Mass Media, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

187. The United States in the New Asia

Author:
Robert A. Manning and Evan A. Feigenbaum
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
President Barack Obama heads to Singapore in November for the 2009 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) summit. It will be his first foray into the arcane world of Asian multilateralism. And if his administration adopts a new approach, it could yet fashion a more sustainable role for the United States in a changing Asia.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

188. Three Decades of Politics and Failed Policies at HUD

Author:
Tad DeHaven
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has long been plagued by scandals, mismanagement, and policy failures. Most recently, HUD's subsidies and failed oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped to inflate the housing bubble, which ultimately burst and cascaded into a major financial crisis.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

189. Post-Conflict Health Reconstruction: New Foundations for U.S. Policy

Author:
Leonard S. Rubenstein
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The stabilization and reconstruction of states emerging from conflict has gained increasing attention in U.S. foreign policy as means to promote well-governed states, avoid future conflict and alleviate the enduring human suffering from war. Over the last two decades, stabilization and reconstruction initiatives supported by the United States and other donors have sometimes included investments in re-establishing – or in some cases, establishing for the first time – a system of health services for the population. Despite the knowledge generated and the encouraging outcomes of many of these programs, however, and the increasing attention to and financial commitments to global health in U.S. foreign assistance, the place and priority of health reconstruction as part of post-conflict U.S. stabilization initiatives remain undefined.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States

190. Climate Shame: Get back to the table Initial analysis of the Copenhagen climate talks

Author:
Kate Raworth
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Copenhagen was a unique opportunity to turn the world's course away from climate disaster, towards a safe future for all of us on this small planet. Massive global public mobilization demanded it. But leaders of the major powers negotiated for their national interests, instead of safeguarding our shared destiny.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Poverty, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States