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4031. Is the G-20 Summit a Step Toward a New Global Economic Order?

Author:
Johannes F. Linn and Colin I. Bradford
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In November 2008, President George W. Bush convened the first G-20 summit in Washington to address the worst global financial economic crisis since the Great Depression. This summit provided a long-overdue opportunity for a dramatic and lasting change in global governance. This was followed by the election of Barack Obama, who had campaigned on a distinctly different foreign policy platform compared with his Republican rival, Senator John McCain. These two events were no mere coincidence.
Topic:
International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Washington

4032. Bosnia's Dual Crisis

Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) post-war status quo has ended but the international community risks muddling the transition by delaying decisions on a new kind of engagement. Republika Srpska (RS), one of the state's two entities, has defied the High Representative, Bosnia's international governor, and the international community has not backed him up. Instead, the U.S. and the European Union (EU) launched in October 2009 on the Butmir military base outside Sarajevo a high-level effort to persuade the country's leaders to adopt far-reaching constitutional reforms and allow the mandate of the High Representative and his office (OHR) to end. Disagreements over the scope and content of reform make agreement uncertain. But Bosnia's leaders should adopt as much of the EU-U.S. proposal as possible, and the international community should end its protectorate in favour of a new, EU- and NATO-led approach including strong security guarantees.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, and Sectarianism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Balkans

4033. The Future of the Dollar

Author:
Richard N. Cooper
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The US dollar is not the world's key currency by policy design, just as English is not the leading global language by policy design. It is the evolutionary outcome of practice and experience. It would take both a major shock to the dollar and a viable alternative to dislodge it from widespread use. Like a common language, the dollar enjoys “network externalities”— the greater the number of people who use and accept it, the more useful it is to everyone, and the more entrenched it becomes. Also, what is not quite the same thing, the dollar enjoys a large market in low-risk and highly liquid securities, most notably US Treasury bills; the liquidity both enhances and is enhanced by the network externalities. Most of the world's foreign exchange transactions directly involve the US dollar. It is easy to hold and easy to use, even on a large scale. In short, it is highly convenient.
Topic:
Economics, Foreign Exchange, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

4034. Why SDRs Could Rival the Dollar

Author:
John Williamson
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In a recent Cato Institute paper, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar (2009) asserts that the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights (SDRs) cannot rival the US dollar, as suggested by the Chinese central bank governor (Zhou Xiaochuan 2009). “The SDR is not a currency and never can be,” Swami declares confidently in the first paragraph of his paper. He presents two arguments, which are presumably supposed to be proofs of this proposition.
Topic:
Economics, Foreign Exchange, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

4035. The 2008 Oil Price "Bubble"

Author:
Mohsin S. Khan
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
As oil prices began to rise in 2009 from a low point of about $40 a barrel in January to around $70 a barrel in July, a key question is whether the world is in for another oil price spike in the near term similar to that witnessed in early 2008. Several hypotheses were advanced when world oil prices started their inexorable climb from 2003–04 onwards, then skyrocketed from $92 a barrel in January 2008 to cross the $140 a barrel mark in June, finally hitting a record high of $147 a barrel on July 11, 2008, before collapsing to less than $40 a barrel in December (figure 1). There was the “peak oil” explanation, based on the theories of M. King Hubbert of “Hubbert's Peak” fame and his supporters, notably Colin Campbell and Matthew Simmons, that the world was running out of oil. There were the market “fundamentalists,” including importantly John Lipsky, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Philip Verleger, a well-known oil expert, who argued that the fundamentals of demand and supply were primarily behind the extraordinary rise in oil prices in the first half of 2008 (Lipsky 2009a, 2009b; Verleger 2005, 2008). Interestingly, this fundamentals view was also shared by the US Treasury and was articulated by David McCormick, then undersecretary for international affairs, in a presentation in July 2008 at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Finally, there were those who maintained that such an increase could only be a “bubble,” unexplained by peak oil theory or market fundamentals. Many financial-market participants were proponents of this third view, notably Michael Masters (2008), as well as the main oil producers, who were as surprised as anyone at the speed and size of the price increase over only a few months. Their argument was that the phenomenal increase in financialization of commodity markets during 2006–08, including in particular the oil market, led to speculation and momentum trading, which pushed oil prices way beyond their long-term equilibrium level as determined by fundamentals.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Oil
Political Geography:
United States

4036. The Global Economic Crisis after One Year: Is a New Paradigm for Recovery in Developing Countries Emerging?

Author:
Wim Naudé
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
T HE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND RECESSION, WHICH spread across the globe following the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in September 2008, has become the dominant news topic of the past year. One year into the crisis it has become clear that the paradigm for international development has changed irrevocably. With leadership, moral authority and the capacity of the West diminishing, developing countries' recovery and future growth will critically depend on their own initiatives and solutions.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

4037. Policy Responses to the Global Economic Crisis in Africa

Author:
Wim Naudé and Augustin Kwasi Fosu
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS OF 2008 HAS INDUCED two negative external shocks in African countries. The first is a financial shock with the availability of credit declining and the cost of international credit increasing (a financial crisis); and the second is a shock relating to the demand for and price of exports, as most of Africa's important markets went into recession and commodity prices tumbled (an economic crisis).
Topic:
Globalization, Poverty, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa

4038. Partnerships for Women's Health: Striving for Best Practice within the UN Global Compact

Author:
Monika Kruesmann and Martina Timmermann
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Women represent the great majority of the world's poor. With this poverty comes a range of well-documented problems: low educational attainment; low income and earning potential; inferior social power, status and influence compared with men; and importantly, poor health outcomes for both women and their children. High rates of maternal mortality and morbidity remain apparently intractable problems in many countries, particularly developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that every minute, at least one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth; and 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Health, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

4039. 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

4040. Comparing the Effectiveness of Accountability Mechanisms in Eastern Europe and Latin America

Author:
Vesselin Popovski, Johanna Stratton, and Kalle Huebner
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
A society emerging from war or authoritarianism seeks to reckon with past human rights atrocities that, if not addressed, can threaten the state's legitimacy and democratic foundations. It is in the interests of sustainable peacebuilding and democratic consolidation to promote reconciliation and healing, and foster human rights and the rule of law. In order to achieve such a transformation over the long term, the organizational strategies, political styles and mechanisms used to consolidate democracy are of critical importance and deserve closer comparative analysis with the aim to provide valuable lessons for newly democratizing societies.
Topic:
Human Rights and Law
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Latin America