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6701. Counter-Cyclical Economic Policy

Author:
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The effects of the recent economic crisis have stretched policy frameworks in many OECD countries close to breaking point. Recent work by the OECD has examined how policies have interacted with the economic cycle over time and during the recent crisis. The main policy lessons are as follows: • Policy-makers should take into account uncertainties about the functioning of the economy, the nature of economic shocks or the effects of policy and take their decisions accordingly. • Policy in various areas will have to build in greater safety margins and to be more prudent during upswings. • Appropriate fiscal rules can help prepare fiscal policy for the next downturn by leading to swifter consolidation during the upturn. • The monetary and financial policy framework needs to achieve a better articulation between economic and financial stability. • Financial policy needs to strengthen micro-prudential regulation, regulatory interventions may need to target emerging credit-driven bubbles and macro-prudential policies should address systemic risks. • There may be a case for monetary policy leaning against the wind, if asset prices are driven by a credit boom and financial regulation is judged to be insufficiently robust. • Changes to structural policy settings can improve the resilience of the economy to shocks and affect the degree of leverage households and firms take on.
Topic:
Economics, Fiscal Policy, Economic Stability, and Economic Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6702. The Impact of Structural Reforms on Current Account Imbalance

Author:
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Global current account imbalances widened markedly in the years preceding the global economic crisis. Although the crisis brought some reversal to this trend, imbalances remain large in many countries. New empirical analysis by the OECD has examined the potential contribution of structural reforms to reducing current account imbalances. The analysis shows that structural reforms aimed at boosting economic growth can have more or less persistent side effects on current accounts. These arise because structural policies influence saving and investment of households, firms and governments. In turn, the economy-wide gap between saving and investment equals the current account balance. Specifically, the following policy lessons emerge from the analysis:  More developed social welfare systems would reduce the need for precautionary saving among households, which would moderate current account surpluses in external surplus countries.  Pension reforms that increase the retirement age and thus the length of the working life would also reduce household saving and thereby reduce current account surpluses. Pension reforms that lead to cuts in replacement rates would have the opposite effect.  Financial market reforms that raise the sophistication or depth of financial markets may relax borrowing constraints in emerging economies, thus contributing to a fall in the saving rate. The associated weakening of the current account position might be reinforced if the reforms also boost investment.  Reforming competition-unfriendly product market regulation could encourage capital spending and thereby contribute to reduce imbalances in surplus countries.  Some policy settings introduce distortions that encourage consumption, such as tax deductibility of interest payments on mortgages in the absence of taxation of imputed rent. Reform in this area might help increase household saving and thereby improve a country’s current account position. Overall, for the policies investigated, surplus countries appear to have more scope for structural reforms that would both enhance economic growth and reduce external imbalances. A scenario analysis indicates that if Japan, Germany and China were to liberalise their product markets and China also increased public health spending and continued to liberalise its financial markets, global imbalances could decline by around one-fifth relative to a baseline scenario. Moreover, since external deficit countries tend to have larger fiscal consolidation needs than surplus countries, fiscal tightening should also contribute to reduce external imbalances over the coming decade.
Topic:
Markets, Reform, Welfare, and Economic Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6703. Convergence in European Policy Making: What do Article 15 (FCNM) and the EU Regional Policy Have in Common?

Author:
Tove H. Malloy
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues
Abstract:
Minority protection is expanding its focus from protection-only to protectionand-empowerment, or from a politics of identity to a politics of identity related interests. To most, minority protection means the idea that there are compelling reasons why members of ethnic, cultural, national, racial and linguistic minorities require certain special protection rights in order not to suffer assimilation, suppression or persecution. However, in the European context, minority protection has also come to mean a right to attain a decent life. A decent life means a good life. The notion of the good life is of course essentially contested. The problem of protecting the right to a good life is not therefore what is a good life? – but how do minorities achieve and enjoy what they consider a good life?
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Minorities, European Union, Identity, and Protected People
Political Geography:
Europe

6704. National Minorities in the 21st Century Europe: New Discourses, New Narratives?

Author:
Tove H. Malloy
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues
Abstract:
For centuries national minorities in Europe have lived in the shadow of the historical events of the 19th and the 20t h centuries. Whether for humanitarian reasons or to protect the identity of national minorities, major European treaties settling inter-state wars have had to address minority issues to secure the peace. For this reason, national minorities have frequently been seen not only as obstacles to nation and state building but also as anomalies in international relations.1 At times labelled as troublemakers and war mongers, national minorities have seldom been afforded ethical standing in the writing of Europe’s history.2 While the settlement after the First World War might be called an ‘honourable’ settlement, the settlement after the Second World War basically erased some national minorities from the European map. The integration discourses of the 21st Century seem to bring changes to this scenario.
Topic:
Nationalism, Minorities, Ethnicity, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Europe

6705. Parity—Expanding Equitable Insurance Coverage for Addiction and Mental Health Treatment

Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Open Society Foundations
Abstract:
On January 1, 2010, the Wellstone-Domenici Parity Act went into effect, expanding access to mental health and addiction treatment coverage in many employer-sponsored group health plans. The new federal law applies to group health plans covering 50 or more employees that provide any level of coverage for treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. Those plans are now required to cover mental health and substance use disorders benefits at “parity,” or in the same way as they cover other medical and surgical services. Simply put, “parity” is the treatment of addiction and mental illness in insurance benefits in the same way as other medical conditions. When the law is fully implemented, it is estimated that 140 million Americans could have improved access to addiction and mental health treatment services should they need it.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, Drugs, and Equality
Political Geography:
United States

6706. Reaching for Justice: The participation of victims at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,

Author:
Johanna Herman
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
Abstract:
This policy paper is based on research in Cambodia, assessing the activities and strategies regarding participation of victims before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), funded by the University of East London Promising Researcher grant. It is hoped by the international community and by Cambodian civil society that the participation of victims will play a key part in ensuring that the ECCC has a lasting impact on Cambodia. The ECCC, in common with other hybrid tribunals, is expected to engage the affected society and victims, since it is located within the country rather than based elsewhere as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) are. This policy paper reviews how the victim participation process functioned during the first case and the preparation for the second case at the ECCC, and offers insights to improve practice at the ECCC and other courts that are undertaking other forms of victim participation
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6707. Did the Mexican Revolution Change the Privilees of The Elite or Not? The Relationship between the Government and the Media

Author:
Juan Enrique Huerta Wong
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
Abstract:
The investigation in education and its role in social stratification has been the focus of attention in the sociology literature for a number of decades now. However, very little is known as to what takes place in Latin America. The supposed point of departure to study education and its role in social stratification is that education should act to break the inertias between origins and destinies. This article has asked the question whether education is a factor that contributes to break the cycle of persistent inequality in Mexico, and also if this is a form to evaluate the achievements of the social contract that came out of the Mexican Revolution, which this year, 2010, celebrates its century of existence. This is so because one of the main objectives of the revolution was to cut down the privileges of the dominant class, and along with it, the intergenerational transmission of wealth that perpetuates inequality. Two models of structural equations were compared to evaluate the relationship between wealth in the home of origin, the schooling of the parents, childhood academic achievement, the final schooling of the ego, and its economic wellbeing. The results show that there are statistical differences between the cases of Mexico and Chile in terms of the process of stratification. In Mexico, the wealth of the home of origin and the childhood academic achievement are the variables that best explain both the final level of schooling as well as the socioeconomic wellbeing of ego. In Chile, education functions as a variable that interrupts the weight of the inter-generational legacy. It is discussed then that the State in Mexico has failed in providing an educational system that can break the inertia of the association between origins and destinies, and the implications of the importance of childhood academic achievement, which calls upon keeping children in their classrooms, at least for the time period that the law mandates.
Topic:
Education, History, Elites, and Social Mobility
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Mexico, and Chile

6708. Reporte sobre Democracia y Autonomías en Bolivia en el periodo de Evo Morales

Author:
Diego Ayo Saucedo
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
Abstract:
La realidad Bolivia ha tenido cambios enormes en la última década. En una apretada síntesis se puede definir los siguientes periodos. De 1985 a 2000, fase de establecimiento y consolidación del modelo de democracia representativa de mercado con rasgos multiculturales. De 2000 a 2005, fase de declive y derrumbe del “modelo.” De 2005 a 2010, fase de transición a un modelo descolonizador, autonómico, productivo y solidario. De 2010 en adelante, fase de implementación del nuevo modelo.
Topic:
Development, Democracy, Autonomy, and Evo Morales
Political Geography:
South America and Bolivia

6709. Can the U.S. Remain an Attractive Host for FDI in the Auto Industry? New Labor Policy and Flexible Production

Author:
Terutomo Ozawa
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
President Obama has been supporting a new bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, designed to promote the labor unions' drive for unionization. This bill, if enacted, will surely be a big boon for unions as it helps enlarge their membership, enhance their bargaining power vis-à-vis businesses, and enrich their coffers to wield political clout. An important issue here, however, is how such reinforced unionism contributes to the U.S.'s much needed industrial competitiveness and employment—and, more specifically, how this new policy will affect the U.S. as a host to FDI in the auto industry.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States

6710. The global economic crisis and FDI flows to emerging markets: for the first time ever, emerging markets are this year set to attract more than half of global FDI flows

Author:
Laza Kekic
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
The global economic and financial crisis has had a major impact on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. After declining in 2008 by 17% to US$1.73trn from US$2.09trn in 2007—the high point of a four- year long boom in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M) and FDI—global FDI inflows are forecast to plunge by 44% to less than US$1trn in 2009. The big drop in 2009 is occurring despite the improvements in the global economy in recent months. A notable feature of trends in 2009 is that, for the first time ever, emerging markets are set to attract more FDI inflows than the developed world.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

6711. Sovereign wealth funds: much ado about some money

Author:
Charles Kovacs
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
The first sovereign wealth fund (SWF) was established by Kuwait in 1953, and was followed by many others from 1973-4, after the first oil crisis. Since then, each major jump in oil and gas prices increased the number and size of SWFs; after 2000, countries with large trade surpluses also began to establish SWFs. By April 2009, SWFs had grown to $3-5 trillion of assets under management, invested mostly in high quality bonds. Equity investments have been a much smaller part of their portfolio and began to grow only in the 1990s. This trend has since accelerated with at least 698 documented equity investments between June 2005 and March 2009.
Topic:
Security, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Sovereign Wealth Funds
Political Geography:
Kuwait

6712. The growth of Brazil's direct investment abroad and the challenges it faces

Author:
Luís Afonso Lima and Octavio de Barros
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
The internationalization of Brazilian companies is a relatively recent phenomenon. From 2000 to 2003, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) averaged USD 0.7 billion a year. Over the four-year period 2004−2008, this average jumped to nearly USD 14 billion. In 2008, when global FDI inflows were estimated to have fallen by 15%, OFDI from Brazil almost tripled, increasing from just over USD 7 billion in 2007 to nearly USD 21 billion in 2008 (annex figure 1 below). Central Bank data put the current stock of Brazilian OFDI at USD 104 billion, an increase of 89% over 2003. Caution is in order about these figures, however, as in Brazilian outflows it is difficult to separate authentic FDI from purely financial investment under the guise of FDI. According to the most recent data, 887 Brazilian companies have invested abroad.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Brazil and Latin America

6713. Outward investment by Trans-Latin enterprises: reasons for optimism

Author:
Michael Mortimore and Carlos Razo
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Despite the global crisis, outward FDI by Latin American firms grew by more than 40% in 2008. The picture for 2009 is less clear, due to the expected regional GDP contraction, falling commodity prices, and tightening credit markets. Nonetheless, the authors argue that many countervailing factors make Latin American investment more resilient in the crisis than other regions may be.
Political Geography:
Latin America

6714. Outward investment by Trans-Latin enterprises: reasons for optimism

Author:
Michael Mortimore and Carlos Razo
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Despite the global crisis, outward FDI by Latin American firms grew by more than 40% in 2008. The picture for 2009 is less clear, due to the expected regional GDP contraction, falling commodity prices, and tightening credit markets. Nonetheless, the authors argue that many countervailing factors make Latin American investment more resilient in the crisis than other regions may be.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Latin America

6715. Indian FDI falls in global economic crisis: Indian multinationals tread cautiously

Author:
Jaya Prakash Pradhan
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Just over a year ago, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from India seemed to be on a path of rapid and sustained growth. Its annual average growth of 98% during 2004–07 had been unprecedented , much ahead of OFDI growth from other emerging markets like China (74%), Malaysia (70%), Russia (53%), and the Republic of Korea (51%), although from a much lower base. Much of this recent growth had been fuelled by large-scale overseas acquisitions, however, and it faltered when the global financial crisis that started in late 2007 made financing acquisitions harder.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Malaysia, India, and Korea

6716. National Security with a Canadian Twist: The Investment Canada Act and the New National Security Review Test

Author:
Subrata Bhattacharjee
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
On March 12, 2009, the Canadian federal government passed significant amendments to the Investment Canada Act (ICA), Canada's foreign investment law of general application. Though the amendments generally liberalize important aspects of the Canadian foreign investment review regime, they also include a broadly worded national security test that now allows the responsible Minister to review proposed investments in Canada on national security grounds. On July 11, 2009, the government published draft regulations that provide the details of the new national security review process. A detailed summary of the amendments and regulations is included in an extended note available at www.vcc.columbia.edu.
Topic:
Economics and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Canada

6717. Are SWFs Welcome Now?

Author:
Veljko Fotak and William Megginson
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Until the end of 2007, western media, governments and regulators often seemed more concerned about protecting domestic firms from investments by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) than about attracting capital inflows. Politicians in many countries called for the regulation of sovereign foreign investments at that time, when SWF investments were growing rapidly. In fact, during 2006 and 2007, countries that introduced at least one regulatory change (many of them related to such investments) making the investment climate less welcoming for multinational enterprises accounted for 40% of all FDI inflows.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Foreign Direct Investment, and Sovereign Wealth Funds

6718. Land grab or development opportunity? International farmland deals in Africa

Author:
Lorenzo Cotula
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Over the past 12 months, large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world. Lands that only a short time ago seemed of little outside interest are now being sought by international investors to the tune of hundreds of thousands of hectares.
Topic:
Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa and Latin America

6719. International Investment Arbitration: Winning, Losing and Why

Author:
Susan D. Franck
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
We know several things about foreign investment. First, foreign investment matters, reaching US$1.7 trillion in 2008. Second, we know that foreign investors have new international law rights to protect their economic interests. Third, we know that those rights are now being used.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States

6720. Improving infrastructure or lowering taxes to attract foreign direct investment?

Author:
Christian Bellak and Markus Leibrecht
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
A crucial challenge to all countries in the current economic crisis is to stimulate investment, including foreign direct investment (FDI). Countries striving to attract FDI often resort to two types of policies: improving infrastructure or lowering taxes, as a means of attracting new FDI, or keeping existing FDI. Indeed, recent empirical studies (e.g. Bénassy-Quéré et al. 2007; Bellak et al. 2009) confirmed that both lower taxes and improved infrastructure exert a considerable influence upon multinational enterprises' decision to invest in a particular country, when controlling for other important location factors (like market size, labor costs etc.).
Topic:
Economics, Infrastructure, and Foreign Direct Investment