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1161. The Outlook for Tokyo: New Opportunities or Long-term Decline for Japan's Financial Sector?

Author:
Vanessa Rossi
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Japan's economy has suffered exceptional damage because of its high level of exposure to the massive downturn in world trade and investment, notably impacting on demand for cars, consumer electronics and investment equipment. The depth of Japan's recession looks set to be far worse than that of the US and the EU. However, the recession has also radically reshaped the global financial environment in ways that suggest unexpected opportunities for Japanese financial institutions and markets. This report reviews the outlook for Tokyo as a financial centre and the role of Japan's financial sector in the light of domestic targets as well as international trends and competition.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Europe, Israel, Asia, and Tokyo

1162. New Ideas for the London Summit: Recommendations to the G20 Leaders

Author:
Paola Subacchi, Robin Niblett, and Alexei Monsarrat
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
What started last year as a growing international credit crunch and, by September, a global banking crisis has now spread into the real economy. International trade, investment and economic growth are all contracting. A drastic curtailment of credit, collapsing global demand and a loss of trade finance is having a devastating economic effect on both the developed and developing worlds, especially those economies that are heavily dependent on exports.
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe and London

1163. Trade and the Global Economic Crisis: Immediate Challenges and Long-term Threats

Author:
Jim Rollo and Peter Holmes
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The collapse of world trade is threatening to create a negative feedback loop to the global economy. Some countries have seen their trade fall by 30–50% in the year to February 2009, a bigger fall than between 1929 and 1930. Annual figures for world trade in 2008 show a big fall in the fourth quarter – a trend that has been accelerating. The world's trade ministers have failed to get the Doha Development Agenda back on track, despite direct instructions from the G20 leaders to do so quickly after the November summit in Washington, DC. This failure sends a very powerful negative signal about the G20's lack of policy coordination on even bigger issues. There is a two-way interaction between trade and the macro-economy at a national and global level. The current crisis is threatening countries that rely on export-led growth, a strategy that has led billions out of poverty. It is imperative for there to be recognition that the current shrinkage in global trade is a macro-economic problem requiring macro-economic solutions, and that the necessary actions must be coordinated.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Political Economy

1164. Resources, Rules and International Political Economy: The Politics of Development in the WTO

Author:
Kenneth C. Shadlen
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
This paper examines the contemporary politics of intellectual property (IP) and investment in the World Trade Organization (WTO). I examine the underlying and perennial conflicts that pit developing and developed countries against each other in these two areas and the nature of the two agreements reached during the Uruguay Round, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS). I then analyze developed countries' efforts to push beyond the TRIPS and TRIMS agreements, and, critically, developing countries' success in forestalling these efforts. Developing countries have “prevailed” in the current international conflicts over IP and investment not by securing rules that they desire, but rather by preventing the imposition of arrangements that they regard as worse than the WTO status quo.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance

1165. Die Intervention der Vereinten Nationen in Somalia. Eine Analyse der Entscheidungsprozesse im Sicherheitsrat für die Resolution 794

Author:
Nils Goede
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
The report analyses the decision-making processes in the security council of the United Nations, which led to the adoption of the Somalia-Resolution 794 on 3 December 1992. For the analysis of the decision-making process the Multiple-Streams approach is employed. This concept regards decision opportunities as ambiguous stimuli concerning information, goals and measuring criteria. Hence, decisions are frequently neither rationally justified, nor are they connected with a certain problem in a linear manner. The organisation is constantly confronted with a high number of problems and policy options. Under time pressure the organisation has to decide which problems and which policy options are going to be placed on the agenda and with regard to which issues a decision is needed. During decision-making processes options and problems are often reconciled into an only artificial accord. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the adoption of resolution 794 came about due to the dynamics of the US presidential election and the constant commitment of UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali rather than due to the situation in Somalia.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

1166. Policy Liberalization and US Merchandise Trade Growth, 1980-2006

Author:
Matthew Adler and Gary Clyde Hufbauer
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This working paper draws on historical and contemporary data on tariffs, nontariff barriers, and transportation costs (for the United States and its major trading partners) to estimate the role of policy liberalization in US merchandise trade growth over the period 1980 to 2006. Both partial equilibrium analysis and computable general equilibrium analysis are used to make the estimates. Both methods indicate that roughly 25 percent of US trade growth since 1980 can be attributed to policy liberalization. Policy liberalization plays a larger role in US export growth (35 to 40 percent) than US import growth (25 percent). According to these estimates, policy liberalization accounts for almost all US merchandise growth in excess of growth that can be explained by expanding GDP in the United States and abroad.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

1167. The National Interest and the Law of the Sea

Author:
Scott G. Borgerson
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea—the instrument that created the overarching governance framework for nearly three-quarters of the earth's surface and what lies above and beneath it—has been signed and ratified by 156 countries and the European Community, but not by the United States. The Law of the Sea Convention, with annexes (hereafter in this report referred to as the “convention”), and the 1994 agreement on its implementation have been in force for more than a decade, but while the United States treats most parts of the convention as customary international law, it remains among only a handful of countries—and one of an even smaller number with coastlines, including Syria, North Korea, and Iran—to have signed but not yet acceded to the treaty.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Law, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
United States, North Korea, and Syria

1168. Revenue effects of participation in smallholder organic cocoa production in tropical Africa: A case study

Author:
Sam Jones, Peter Gibbon, and Yumiao Lin
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming and of use of organic farming methods in a tropical African context. These are compared with 'organic by default' conventional farming systems without contractual relations. Survey data from a medium-size cocoa-vanilla contract farming scheme in Uganda is reported using a standard OLS regression and propensity score matching approaches. The analysis finds that there are positive revenue effects for the certified crops from both participation and, more modestly, from using organic farming techniques.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa

1169. Power, Governance, and Ideas in Chile's Free Trade Agreement Policy

Author:
Leslie Wehner
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Why is Chile following such a proactive FTA policy and at the same time promoting the benefits of these type of agreements to other Latin American countries? There is a pre-dominance of economic explanations to analyze why countries pursue an active FTA policy. Yet within an FTA policy, understood as an essential component of a country's foreign policy, strategic and ideational goals are also important. Without downgrading economic explanations, I argue in this article that Chile's proactive FTA policy can also be under-stood using variables from "traditional" international relations such as power, governance, and ideas. A framework based on such political-economic strategic issues and value-based ideas provides a better understanding of the country's motivations in implementing such a proactive FTA policy.
Topic:
Globalization and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Latin America and Chile

1170. Beyond Convergence versus Path Dependence: The Internationalization of Industrial Relations at Ford Germany and Britain (1967–1985)

Author:
Thomas Fetzer
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
For a long time scholars of industrial relations tended to associate notions of internationalization with the debate about the cross-border convergence of industrial relations systems. Convergence versus path dependence was thus a key controversy in industrial relations studies for decades. This debate was mirrored in multinational companies when their attempts to “export” industrial relations practices to foreign subsidiaries encountered host country influences that constrained such attempts. In recent years many scholars shown the need for a wider and more complex analysis of internationalization processes that goes beyond the convergence/path dependence dichotomy. Building on this development, the paper presents a historical case study of the impact of cross-border subsidiary integration on industrial relations at Ford Germany and Ford UK between 1967 and 1985. I argue that convergence and path dependence need to be combined with a third “differential internationalization” approach that reflects the country-specific gradual change that emerges from subsidiary integration. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the case study for contemporary internationalization debates.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, and Germany