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731. Global Peace Index 2022

Author:
Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP)
Abstract:
This is the 16th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. This report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to-date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies. The GPI covers 163 countries comprising 99.7 per cent of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarisation. In addition to discussing the findings from the 2022 GPI, the report includes an analysis of the military conflict in Ukraine. It covers likely increases in military spending, new and emerging uses of technology in the war, its impact on food prices and global shipping routes. The report also contains a deeper analysis on violent demonstrations around the world. This year’s results found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.3 per cent. Although slight, this is the eleventh deterioration in peacefulness in the last fourteen years, with 90 countries improving, 71 deteriorating and two remaining stable in peacefulness, highlighting that countries tend to deteriorate much faster than they improve.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Peace, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Global Focus

732. ACTUAL CHALLENGE IN INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE TAXATION: SHIFTING THE OBLIGATION OF CONDUCT INTO OBLIGATION OF RESULT

Author:
Mihaela Tofan
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
The research answered whether cooperation in ruling corporate taxation, a traditional obligation of conduct of sovereign states, was undergoing profound transformation into the obligation of result. The analyzed topic was not whether the tax authorities want or should cooperate (which is answered per se), but rather how to appropriately respond to the international taxation requirements for strengthening the multilateral agreements. Tax authorities worldwide have expressed concerns about identifying efficient regulation, and the development of multilateral agreements to combat tax evasion was under long and often unproductive negotiation. The empirical analyses of relevant literature and jurisprudence helped formulate an opinion on the regulation’s efficiency in strengthening multilateral taxation. The need to change the nature of the state’s obligation to negotiate fiscal regulation was not mentioned explicitly in hard law. Still, it was indirectly supported by soft law instruments, such as state representatives’ continuous yet divergent dialogue and the approaches presented in the international courts’ jurisprudence. The consistent influence on the obligation to support developments in international law in corporate taxation was justified, given the limit when considering its conduct nature, compared to potential benefits generated by the obligation of result.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Treaties and Agreements, and Tax Systems
Political Geography:
Global Focus

733. A lockdown a day keeps the doctor away: The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic

Author:
Anthonin Levelu and Alexander Sandkamp
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Countries have employed a variety of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in order to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the success of individual measures in reducing the number of infections remains controversial. This paper exploits a panel data set of 107 countries to estimate the effects of 14 NPIs on the spread of the disease. While almost all measures had a dampening effect on the reproduction rate of the virus, public information campaigns and school closings were most effective, followed by testing policies, contact tracing and international travel restrictions. Public event cancellation and school closings were less effective during the second wave of the pandemic, while public information campaigns and the obligation to wear masks worked better. Several NPIs had a stronger impact on infections in autocratic countries, while others were less effective.
Topic:
Health, Economy, Public Policy, Public Health, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

734. Bilateral trade and conflict heterogeneity

Author:
Katrin Kamin
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Although the number of interstate disputes has fallen in the past 30 years, rising geopolitical competition is challenging the foundation of the absence of great power war. Additionally, the number of internal conflicts is surging. At the same time, globalisation has spun a net of global trade connections and has thus created dependencies, making everyone more vulnerable to the repercussions of conflict. In this context, this paper analyses the relationship between trade and conflict from a trade perspective: Using data from UCDP and COMTRADE this paper studies the effects of five different conflict types on international trade flows in the period 1992 - 2011, including interstate and internal conflicts as well as other types of violence.Applying the gravity equation of international trade and the ppml high-dimensional fixed effects estimator, this paper finds that the heterogeneity of conflict types and their distinct characteristics matter for the magnitude and direction of their influence on trade.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Conflict, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

735. Does ethnic heterogeneity decrease workers’ effort in the presence of income redistribution? An experimental analysis

Author:
Christoph Schütt, David Pipke, Lena Detlefsen, and Gianluca Grimalda
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Ethnic discrimination is ubiquitous, and it has been shown to exert adverse effects on income redistribution. The reason is that a country’s ethnic majority, if richer than the average, may be unwilling to transfer resources to the country’s ethnic minorities if poorer than the average. A yet untested mechanism is that a country’s ethnic majority may reduce their work effort knowing that their income will finance redistribution to ethnic minorities. We test for this mechanism experimentally in triadic interactions. A German citizen acting as a worker is randomly matched with a recipient who can be another German, an economic migrant, or an asylum seeker in Germany. Workers know that another German citizen may transfer part of their earnings to the recipient. The recipient does not exert any work effort. Even if the recipient’s identity does not affect effort in the aggregate, social identity strongly moderates this relationship. Participants with a strong German identity, i.e., who report feeling close to other Germans, exert significantly less effort than other participants if the recipient is an asylum seeker. They also exert more effort when matched with a German recipient than an asylum seeker, while participants with a less strong German identity do the opposite. Moreover, participants with a strong German identity exert slightly more effort when matched with economic migrants than with asylum seekers, while others tend to do the opposite, albeit statistically insignificantly. Workers’ beliefs over the third party’s redistribution rate do not mediate such results and are generally inaccurate.
Topic:
Economics, Discrimination, Tax Systems, Labor Market, Redistribution, and Welfare State
Political Geography:
Global Focus

736. Carbon dioxide removal in a global analytical climate economy

Author:
Martin Quaas, Felix Meier, Wilfried Rickels, and Christian Traeger
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Net-zero climate policies foresee deployment of atmospheric carbon dioxide removal wit geo-logical, terrestrial, or marine carbon storage. While terrestrial and geological storage would be governed under the framework of national property rights, marine storage implies that carbon is transferred from one global common, the atmosphere, to another global common, the ocean, in particular if storage exceeds beyond coastal applications. This paper investigates the option of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and storage in different (marine) reservoir types in an analytic climate-economy model, and derives implications for optimal mitigation efforts and CDR deployment. We show that the introduction of CDR lowers net energy input and net emis-sions over the entire time path. Furthermore, CDR affects the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) via changes in total economic output but leaves the analytic structure of the SCC unchanged. In the first years after CDR becomes available the SCC is lower and in later years it is higher com-pared to a standard climate-economy model. Carbon dioxide emissions are first higher and then lower relative to a world without CDR. The paper provides the basis for the analysis of decentralized and potentially non-cooperative CDR policies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economy, Carbon Tax, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

737. The impact of trade and trade policy on the environment and the climate: A review

Author:
Gabriel Felbermayr and Sonja Peterson
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
While international trade can offer gains from specialization and access to a wider range of products, it is also closely interlinked with global environmental problems, above all, anthropogenic climate change. This survey provides a structured overview of the economic literature on the interaction between environmental outcomes, trade, environmental policy and trade policy. In this endeavor, it covers approaches reaching from descriptive data analysis based on Input‐Output tables, over quantitative trade models and econometric studies to game‐theoretic analyses. Addressed issues are in particular the emission content of trade and emissions along value chains, the relocation of dirty firms and environmental impacts abroad, impacts of specific trade polices (such as trade agreements or tariffs) or environmental policy (such as Border Carbon Adjustment), transportation emissions, as well as the role of firms. Across the different topics covered, the paper also tries to identify avenues for future research, with a particular focus on extending quantitative trade and environment models.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, International Trade and Finance, Trade, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

738. Understanding differences in attitudes to immigration: a meta-analysis of individual-level factors

Author:
Lenka Dražanová, Jérôme Gonnot, Tobias Heidland, and Ralf Krüger
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Public attitudes toward immigration have attracted much scholarly interest and extensive empirical research in recent years. Despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature, no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the factors affecting immigration opinion. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis derived from the literature regarding immigration attitudes from the top journals of several social science disciplines in the years 2009-2019 and based on a population of 1185 estimates derived from 144 unique analyses on individual-level factors affecting attitudes to immigration. The meta-analytical findings show that two individual-level characteristics are most significantly associated with attitudes to immigration - education (positively) and age (negatively). Our results further reveal that the same individual characteristics do not necessarily explain immigration policy attitudes and attitudes towards immigrants' contribution. The findings challenge several conventional micro-level theories of attitudes to immigration. The meta-analysis can inform future research when planning the set of explanatory variables to avoid omitting key determinants.
Topic:
Globalization, Migration, Immigration, Public Opinion, and Attitudes
Political Geography:
Global Focus

739. The Consequences of Unilateral Withdrawals from the Paris Agreement

Author:
Mario Larch and Joschka Wanner
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
International cooperation is at the core of multilateral climate policy. How is its effectiveness harmed by individual countries dropping out of the global mitigation effort? We develop a multisector structural trade model with emissions from production and a constant elasticity of fossil fuel supply function to simulate the consequences of unilateral withdrawals from the Paris Agreement. Taking into account both direct and leakage effects, we őnd that a US withdrawal would eliminate more than a third of the world emissions reduction (31.8% direct effect and 6.4% leakage effect), while a potential Chinese withdrawal lowers the world emission reduction by 24.1% (11.9% direct effect and 12.2% leakage effect). The substantial leakage is primarily driven by technique effects induced by falling international fossil fuel prices.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Trade and Finance, Fossil Fuels, Carbon Emissions, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

740. Picture This: Social Distance and the Mistreatment of Migrant Workers

Author:
Toman Barsbai, Vojtech Bartos, Victoria Licuanan, Andreas Steinmayr, Erwin Tiongson, and Dean Yang
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
We experimentally study an intervention to reduce mistreatment of Filipino over?seas domestic workers (DWs) by their employers. Encouraging DWs to show their employers a family photo while providing a small gift when starting employment reduced DW mistreatment, increased their job satisfaction, and increased the likeli?hood of contract extension. While generally unaware of the intervention, DWs’ fam?ilies staying behind become more positive about international labor migration. An online experiment with potential employers suggests that the effect operates through a reduction in employers’ perceived social distance from their employees.
Topic:
Migration, Labor Issues, Labor Market, Migrant Workers, and Contracts
Political Geography:
Philippines and Global Focus