Number of results to display per page
Search Results
972. 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
973. 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
974. 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
975. 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
976. Environmental Quality and Regional Conflict
- Author:
- Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Allen Hammond, David A. Hamburg, Donald Kennedy, John D. Steinbruner, and Timothy E. Wirth
- Publication Date:
- 04-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict
- Abstract:
- This Web cast highlights issues raised by Donald Kennedy, president emeritus and Bing Professor of Environmental Science of Stanford University, in his newly released monograph Environmental Quality and Regional Conflict. David Hamburg, president emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation and Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, will give introductory remarks. In addition to Kennedy, presenters include John Steinbruner, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution; Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Allen Hammond, director of strategic analysis at the World Resources Institute
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Environment, Peace Studies, and Science and Technology
977. Climate Change and the Transformation of World Energy Supply
- Author:
- Steve Fetter
- Publication Date:
- 05-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Security and Cooperation
- Abstract:
- In December 1997, world attention turned to Kyoto, Japan, where parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) negotiated a protocol to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of the industrialized countries by 5 percent below 1990 levels over the next ten to fifteen years. The agreement has been attacked from both sides. Environmental groups assert that much deeper reductions are urgently needed. Opponents claim that the proposed reductions are either unnecessary or premature, would curtail economic growth, or would be unfair or ineffective without similar commitments by developing countries.
- Topic:
- Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Japan
978. 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
979. 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
980. 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