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1572. Start the Trade and Labor Dialogue
- Author:
- David Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 11-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Overseas Development Council
- Abstract:
- The debate over trade and labor standards is one of the most divisive in relations between industrial and developing countries. Concern about the impact of trade on workers is undermining support for trade liberalization worldwide.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and World Trade Organization
- Political Geography:
- United States
1573. ODC Viewpoint - Don't Make Debt Relief A Burden
- Author:
- Kevin M. Morrison
- Publication Date:
- 09-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Overseas Development Council
- Abstract:
- Kevin M. Morrison September 1999 Overseas Development Council The debate over debt relief has reached a critical phase. The pressing need to reduce the crushing debt of the highly indebted poorest countries (HIPCs) is no longer in doubt, due to the efforts of advocates in developing and developed countries. At the Cologne G7 Summit in June, the leaders of the richest countries decided to speed up and enlarge their previous debt relief initiative. Now the issue is: How are donors going to pay the bill? The G7 is exploring various means to finance the expanded initiative, and they hope to announce the plan this month during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).But there is concern that, when all is said and done, financing the initiative will cut down other resources for developing countries. Key development assistance programs might be reduced, as might developing countries' earnings from gold exports if the IMF sells some of its gold reserves to finance the relief and the price of gold drops. The point of debt relief is, as the leaders said in Cologne, "to provide a greater focus on poverty reduction by releasing resources for investment in health, education, and social needs." Thus, to provide debt relief and then reduce other resources for development makes little sense.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
1574. ODC Viewpoint - U.S. Trade Policy: Misreading the Developing World
- Author:
- David Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 05-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Overseas Development Council
- Abstract:
- U.S. trade leadership has suffered from a contentious policy debate that has left President Clinton without new fast-track trade negotiating authority since 1994. Disagreement over the impact of commerce with developing countries on jobs and the environment is at the heart of the trade quarrel, but that quarrel misreads what is happening in developing economies and what is achievable in negotiations with them.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States
1575. Environment and Trade: A Framework for Moving Forward in the WTO
- Author:
- Gary P. Sampson
- Publication Date:
- 02-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Overseas Development Council
- Abstract:
- Environmentalists and trade advocates have clashed frequently in recent years. Environmentalists argue that international trade rules restrict the legitimate use of trade measures to enforce environmental standards internationally and undermine environmental standards at home. Trade officials argue that trade measures are not the appropriate tools to dal with environmental problems, no is the World Trade Organization (WTO) the appropriate institution. They contend that environmentalists need to put their own house in order rather than resort to trade measures to achieve their objectives.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
1576. IMF Model and Resource-Abundant Transition Economies: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
- Author:
- Richard M. Auty
- Publication Date:
- 11-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The IMF model of the economic transition stresses the role of macro policy reform. It concludes that rapid reform to a market economy is preferable to slow reform because late reformers experience very steep transition recessions and severe contractions in government revenues. However, the predictive power of the IMF model has weakened through the late-1990s. This is because it under-estimates the role of initial conditions that include the natural resource endowment as well as institutional capital and the legacy of produced capital. This paper demonstrates how the predictive power of the IMF model can be improved by taking account of the impact of natural resource abundance for the transition. Resource abundance can feed corruption and diminish the urgency of reform, thereby intensifying the adverse effect of a retarded transition. It can also amplify the contraction of the non-booming tradeable sector due to Dutch disease effects. These adverse features are likely to be more severe where the resource endowment creates point source socio-economic linkages, as in mining, as opposed to the diffuse linkages associated with crop production by yeoman farmers. The detrimental effects of resource abundance are also likely to be more severe where institutional capital is deficient. Consistent with such a resource-constrained variant of the IMF model; resource-abundant Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both delayed their reforms and both exhibit high levels of corruption relative to the transition economies as a whole. Also, economic recovery in Kazakhstan is slower than the original IMF model predicts because investment in minerals strengthened the exchange rate and retarded economic diversification. In the case of Uzbekistan, a natural resource endowment that yielded especially buoyant crop revenues (that eased the foreign exchange constraint) helps to explain why the growth collapse is less than the unadjusted IMF model predicts for such a slow reformer. This explanation is still too simple, however. Uzbekistan also benefits from robust social capital and limited obsolete industry, both of which retard the decline in government revenue. Finally, the resource-constrained IMF model suggests that the Uzbek policy of gradual reform represses exports and intensifies economic distortions. This will lock the economy into a staple trap and lead to a growth collapse, as the experience of many resource-abundant developing market economies testifies
- Topic:
- Emerging Markets, Environment, and International Organization
- Political Geography:
- Kazakhstan, Asia, Uzbekistan, and Dutch
1577. Natural Resources and Economic Growth: A Nordic Perspective on the Dutch Disease
- Author:
- Thorvaldur Gylfason
- Publication Date:
- 10-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The paper begins by offering a quick glance of the Nordic economies and of some aspects of their economic growth performance and natural resource dependence since 1970. Thereafter, it reviews some of the main symptoms of the Dutch disease, and then considers whether these symptoms are observable in some of the Nordic countries in view of their abundant natural resources. The experience of Iceland and its fish seems an obvious point of departure. The paper then discusses the less obvious case of Norway and its oil (and fish!) and, at last, also reviews some possible linkages between forest resources and economic growth in Finland.
- Topic:
- Economics, Environment, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Finland, Norway, and Dutch
1578. Resource-Led Growth — A Long-Term Perspective: The Relevance of the 1870-1914 Experience for Today's Developing Economies
- Author:
- Ronald Findlay and Mats Lundahl
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Resource-Led Growth – A Long-Term Perspective surveys the 1870-1914 experience of growth in resource-rich economies: the so-called regions of recent settlement, some tropical countries and some mineral-based export economies. First, three contrasting stylized views of resource-led development are presented. Thereafter the picture of international trade in primary products and the migration of production factors between 1870 and 1914 is sketched. The third section presents some models that may be used to analyse trade and factor movements in the context of resource-rich (staples) economies and provides some details of the experience of fifteen countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and Argentina among the regions of recent settlement, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ceylon, Malaya, Burma, Siam and the Gold Coast in the tropical group, and Bolivia, Chile and South Africa among the mineral exporters.
- Topic:
- Economics, Environment, and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Canada, South Africa, Burma, Chile, and Bolivia
1579. Oil For Wheels
- Author:
- John V. Mitchell
- Publication Date:
- 12-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- Current trends in transportation are unsustainable. A struggle for new means of mobility is beginning. Changes are inevitable. There is uncertainty about growth in the supply of fuel for vehicles after 2020. (See Briefing Paper No. 10, Changing Oil, by Norman Selley, forthcoming January 2000).The transport sector will be required to contribute to the reductions in GHG emissions required under the Kyoto Protocol. This will involve going beyond the 20-30% improvements envisaged by current voluntary commitments such as those by the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers in Europe, since such improvements extend trends which are already embedded in 'business as usual' projections.To manufacture clean petroleum fuels to protect urban air quality against increasing volumes of vehicle traffic will require increases in hydrogen inputs which cannot be achieved without significant increases in CO2 emissions (unless restrictions on the expansion of nuclear power are lifted).
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Environment, and Science and Technology
1580. The Buenos Aires Climate Conference:Outcome And Implications
- Author:
- Christiaan Vrolijk
- Publication Date:
- 04-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The Kyoto Protocol agreed in December 1997 was a landmark, but not an end point. Negotiations are on going to fill in the gaps left in the Protocol. From 2 to 14 November the Conference of Parties met again to follow up on Kyoto in its fourth session (COP-4) in Buenos Aires. After the media hype of the Japan meeting, the lack of news coverage was not entirely deserved. Although discussions had to focus on filling in the details in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, these details will determine just how big a step Kyoto was The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) was negotiated at the \'Earth Summit\' in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and has entered into force in 1994. Under the Convention the Parties have committed themselves to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations \'at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system\'. The headline commitment for the countries listed in Annex I of the Convention, the industrialized countries, is to return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels, and to show a reversal in the trend of growing emissions before the year 2000. The Conference of Parties meets annually as the supreme body of the Convention, dealing with various issues related to it. The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated at COP-3 in Japan, is a Protocol to the FCCC, and as such was also on the negotiating table of the COP in Argentina. It sets out renewed, and now legally binding, emission reduction commitments for the Annex B Parties (the industrialized and former COMECON countries). The overall commitments add up to a 5% reduction from 1990 in a basket of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, some industrial gases (HFCs, PFCs, SF6) and emissions and removals from land-use change and forestry (LUCF). After its entry into force, the Meeting of Parties (to the Kyoto Protocol) will take over the responsibility for the Protocol issues Many Annex B Parties that have taken up commitments under the Kyoto Protocol stressed the importance at working on the rules for the mechanisms of the Protocol. The EU also stressed the need for limits on the use of these mechanisms and a compliance regime. The G77/China stressed the importance of a debate on the adverse effects and impact of responses. One of the commentators said that Article 17 on international emissions trading \'contains the basic principles, but its main feature is the fact that it can be interpreted to anyone\'s liking\'. Many articles leave room for further work by the COP. Even if the text was not deliberately ambiguous, only general principles were described, so that the 170 Parties at the negotiations could reach agreement, with a later COP to decide on the details of the issue This paper will first briefly discuss the science of climate change and then consider the Buenos Aires Plan of Action and the most important individual issues of the conference.
- Topic:
- Environment, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- China