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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Centre for International Governance Innovation

31. Is Indonesia the Next China?

Author:
Wendy Dobson
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper reviews Indonesia’s economic prospects and what these imply for a closer relationship with Canada. By posing the question “Is Indonesia the next China?,” the author suggests that Indonesia has the considerable economic potential envisaged by foreign investors, but conveys uncertainty as to whether Southeast Asia’s most populous country can make the changes necessary to realize that potential. A review of the economic record and comparison of China’s and Indonesia’s economic structures, endowments and institutions show major differences between the two countries. The paper further questions what it will take to realize Indonesia’s potential, finding the answers to be: human capital development; increased participation in the region’s global value chains; meeting the growing middle-class demand for modern services; raising productivity in agriculture and fishing; and increasing use of the Internet. Failure to make these changes will increase the chances of Indonesia’s growth in per capita incomes slowing and falling into the middle-income trap. Canada’s role will be to monitor closely how Indonesia tackles its five priorities at the same time as it responds to the opportunities to exploit Indonesia’s abundant natural resources, urbanization and its expanding consumer demand for modern services and educational opportunities.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Human Welfare, International Trade and Finance, Natural Resources, and Regulation
Political Geography:
China and Indonesia

32. CETA and Financial Services: What to Expect?

Author:
Patrick Leblond
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is possibly the most ambitious regional free trade agreement that Canada and the European Union have negotiated so far. One of its main components is a chapter that seeks to liberalize trade and investment in financial services between Canada and the European Union, while ensuring that markets and their agents will be properly regulated and protected through prudential regulation. However, this chapter is unlikely to have a significant impact on the financial services sector in Canada and the European Union in the short and medium term. Although some observers fear that CETA might undermine the high quality of financial regulations in Canada or the European Union, this paper’s analysis demonstrates that such concerns are unfounded.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Canada and European Union

33. The Impact of Sustainability Codes of Conduct in the Financial Sector

Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the impact of four major financial sector sustainability codes of conduct, the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, the Equator Principles and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values with regard to their impact on the sustainability of their members. The codes of conduct focus on the integration of environmental, social and governance criteria into financial decision making in lending, investment, asset management and project finance. corporate sustainability voluntary codes of conduct have a positive impact on their members. The effectiveness, however, depends on the quality and content of a code, as well as on implementation and compliance mechanisms.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, United Nations, and Ethics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

34. Capital Flows to Emerging Market Economies: Feast or Famine Forever?

Author:
Malcolm D. Knight
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the nancial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital ows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic nancial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank- intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in ows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. The European Union and Investor-State Dispute Settlement: From Investor-State Arbitration to a Permanent Investment Court

Author:
August Reinisch
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Since the transfer of foreign direct investment powers from the European Union member states to the European Union itself in the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, the European Commission, the main external trade actor for the European Union, has started to negotiate international investment agreements as well as investment chapters in enlarged free trade agreements (FTAs). Both contain substantive protection standards and enforcement mechanisms in case of disputes, usually both state–state and investor–state arbitration (ISA). With regard to the latter, it was unclear whether the European Commission, the European Union’s experienced World Trade Organization (WTO) litigator, would continue to use the interstate template of trade disputes or venture into ISA. After an initial orientation period, the European Commission rmly endorsed ISA, as demonstrated by the negotiations with Canada on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and with the United States on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Meanwhile, however, public opposition to the TTIP, and to ISA in particular, has formed in unexpected dimensions. It even led the European Commission to partially interrupt its trade negotiations with the United States in order to conduct a public consultation on the investment aspects of the TTIP. Ever since, ISA has remained one of the most controversial parts of the planned trade agreements. Most recently, the European Commission tabled a TTIP proposal to set up a permanent investment court that would replace the system of ad hoc ISA. This paper analyzes in detail the development of the European Union’s position toward the use of ISA as a means for settling investor-state disputes.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
European Union

36. Risks of a Selective Approach to Investor-State Arbitration

Author:
Hugo Perezcano
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Investor-state arbitration (ISA) has been a controversial topic and a source of criticism and debate for quite some time. Yet, it continues to be a standard feature of modern international investment agreements (IIAs). While opposition to ISA has traditionally come from certain sectors of civil society, there appears to be a growing discomfort now among states as well. Some critics suggest that ISA is unnecessary and should be left out of IIAs altogether. Others argue that it may be needed in IIAs between developed nations that are mostly capital exporters, on the one hand, and developing countries that require foreign capital to promote development, on the other, but that it is unwarranted in IIAs that developed countries enter into among themselves. They reason that developed countries have robust legal frameworks and institutions, including responsive judiciaries, that adequately protect private investment and, therefore, ISA can safely be omitted from such IIAs without any detriment to foreign investors or their investments. This paper addresses some of the aws in the arguments that have been advanced in support of this position, as well as some of its implications, especially the reaction that might be expected from developing countries if developed countries were to back away from ISA in their dealings with other developed nations but continue to demand its inclusion in their agreements with developing countries.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

37. The New Investment Tribunal under Chapter 8 of CETA

Author:
Marc Lalonde
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
I have rarely seen, in my long life, a change as unjustified as the one represented by the new investment tribunal structure now found in the agreed text of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union. First of all, it is a poor solution based on a faulty premise. It is the result of an ill-informed but obviously effective campaign by mainly European lobbies[1] and some groups in the European Parliament, which have argued, without proper quantitative or qualitative support, that the present system is biased in favour of foreign investors. If this were the case, how can they explain that, according to the latest statistics from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), only 46 percent of all ICSID awards upheld (in part or in full) investors’ claims, while 53 percent of the claims were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or on the merits, and another one percent were rejected as manifestly without legal merit.[2] Similarly, in its 2014 World Investment Report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) came to the conclusion that, out of 274 concluded investment treaty cases in 2013, 43 percent were decided in favour of the state, 31 percent in favour of the investor and 26 percent were settled.[3]
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. Capital Flows and Capital Account Management in Selected Asian Economies

Author:
Rajeswari Sengupta and Abhuit Sen Gupta
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Gross capital inflows and outflows to and from emerging market economies have witnessed a significant increase since the early 2000s. This rapid increase in the volume of flows, accompanied by sharp swings in volatility, has amplified the complexity of macroeconomic management in emerging economies. This paper focuses on capital flows in selected emerging Asian economies, analyzing surge and stop episodes as well as changes in the composition of flows across these episodes, then evaluating the policy measures undertaken by these economies in response to the surge and stop of capital flows. This kind of analysis is highly relevant, especially at a time when emerging economies around the world are facing the repercussions of a potential monetary policy normalization in the United States and continuing quantitative easing measures by the European Central Bank, either of which could once again heighten the volatility of cross-border capital flows, thereby posing renewed macroeconomic challenges for major EMEs.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
Asia

39. Cross-border Resolution of Financial Firms

Author:
Isabelle Duchane, Kateryna Dzaha, and James Supeene
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The absence of an effective international regime for cross-border resolution of financial firms led to the disorderly failure of a number of global banks during the global financial crisis, at a high cost to taxpayers and global financial stability. Many jurisdictions still lack sufficient resolution powers and arrangements for cross-border cooperation. This brief proposes that the Financial Stability Board’s Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions should be fully implemented within the Group of Twenty (G20) and expanded to include non-G20 states. The FSB should develop a series of model laws on cross-border resolution and endorse a multilateral memorandum of understanding containing reciprocal commitments among the signatories.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Financial Crisis, Reform, and G20
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Where Does the Biggest Gorilla in the Room Sit? Milk, the United States and International Trade Negotiations

Author:
Bruce Muirhead
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As Robert Reich, a former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, once asked, with reference to the United States, “Where does the biggest gorilla sit? Anywhere it likes.” Dairy has long been a protected sector in the United States, which has a history of constructing its own reality with respect to freeing up international trade in agricultural products, milk included, and of ignoring or renegotiating commitments when they did not suit the government of the day. This background paper explores the historical evolution of US trade and agricultural policy as seen through its position on the dairy file in international trade regulations.
Topic:
Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Food, and Food Security
Political Geography:
United States of America