If we had the numbers in front of us, what would a fair “global-bang-for-the-buck” stimulus package look like? George Gray Molina argues that the bailout debate is about different things in the developed and developing worlds, making the global stimulus question one of politics, not technical detail.
Though our work and research on matters of global economic governance continues, our posting here does not. For up-to-date information on the latest GEG news and research, please check the main GEG website and Facebook page.
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One-World Elasticities
Comments OffApril 27, 2009 / financial crisis, G20Tags: developing countries, financial crisis, G20, george gray molina
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April 2, 2009 / aid, financial crisis, G20
Despite all the statements and rhetoric to the contrary, there is little doubt that foreign aid from rich countries will contract as a consequence of the global financial crisis. Averting such further impact of the global crisis calls for urgent and innovative solutions to both the quantity and quality of foreign aid. Proposals to increase aid in times of crisis require important institutional reforms aimed at addressing the shortcomings of the existing aid system. While political appetite for such reforms may not be high at the moment, extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions. The G20 and other development actors need to step up to the plate.
Tags: aid, financial crisis, G20
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The Trade System Amidst the Global Financial Crisis
Comments OffMarch 26, 2009 / financial crisis, G20, trade, wtoGuest blogger Sylvia Ostry reflects on the challenges for the trade system amidst the financial crisis
If there was ever any doubt about the close, even intimate, relationship between trade and finance in the global economy, the statement issued by the G20 leaders on 15 November 2008 put that doubt to rest. In that document – wide ranging and complex – the G20 tasked several national and international organisations with implementing enunciated principles for reform of financial markets and an initial set of specific measures, including high-priority actions to be completed by the end of March 2009.
Tags: developing countries, financial crisis, G20, trade
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The Demand for Global Governance: Containing the Spread of the Financial Crisis to the Trade Sector
Comments OffMarch 20, 2009 / financial crisis, G20, trade, wtoGuest blogger Richard Higgott sets out the challenges and priorities for G-20 leaders to contain the spread of the financial crisis to the trade sector.
The governance of global trade and the international trade regime will clearly be affected by the fallout from the current wider economic and financial turmoil. Enhanced global economic policy coordination is needed. Existing institutions do not currently offer enough – in either sufficient quantity or quality. Amidst efforts to stabilise the global economy, the multilateral trade system is threatened by the perception that globalization has been tarnished by speculative investment and other excesses in financial markets seeking ever larger profits at the expense of sound business practice.
Tags: financial crisis, G20, trade
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It’s enough to make you want to blog
Comments OffMarch 17, 2009 / aid, financial crisis, imfIn good times or bad, there is one commodity which Africa always enjoys in abundance: namely, advice on fiscal responsibility. The real scarcity today is the flow of finance needed to prevent the economic downturn from turning into a human development reversal.
Tags: Add new tag, aid, financial crisis, imf, kevin watkins, mdgs
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March 17, 2009 / aid, financial crisis, G20, trade, wto
The establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1948 was intended to forestall the sort of crisis that had afflicted global economic and political governance structures in the preceding periods, and which have a striking semblance to the current world economic recession. The weaknesses of the skewed governance configurations built into the institutions charged with coordinating and managing the aftermath of the pre-1948 catastrophe have spurred copious criticisms, particularly from the developing countries whose interests have frequently been threatened by the ways in which these institutions have implemented their respective mandates. For the rest of the twentieth century and in the advent of the new millennium, the developing world has been preoccupied with resisting the current and potential impacts of global economic power relations biased against their sustainable development interests. If not immediately restructured, the status quo could have pervasive, damaging consequences for both the developed countries that now exercise economic and technological supremacy, and the weak, almost totally helpless, developing countries. Only a few developing countries have managed to escape the harsh effects of such distorted power relations.
Tags: developing countries, financial crisis, G-20, wto
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March 17, 2009 / climate change, financial crisis, G20, imf, trade, world bank, wto
The most critical challenge for global economic governance is to find effective and fair ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change whilst at the same time reducing global income inequalities and realizing the development aspirations and unrealized human potential of millions of people in developing countries. Recent evidence, for example on sea level rise and the shrinking summer ice in the Arctic Ocean, suggests that climate change is occurring even faster than models pronounced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have predicted. Biophysical feedback mechanisms, too often omitted from climate models, are likely to be a key factor in the underestimation and are likely to make climate change irreversible once critical atmospheric temperatures are passed. How fast we act will affect both the magnitude and reversibility of climate change. Some say 2015 will be too late; but even if they are wrong, the climate issue will certainly be at the top of the public agenda by then.
Tags: climate change, developing countries, financial crisis, G20, governance, trade
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March 11, 2009 / aid, financial crisis
In the FT today, Harvey Morris quotes GEG Senior Visiting Fellow Kevin Watkins on the grave humanitarian crisis facing the world’s most vulnerable people, resulting from the global economic downturn. As Kevin has written previously, the global financial crisis is already draining development aid. The effect on the world’s poor is emphasised again in Morris’s article.
Tags: aid, financial crisis, kevin watkins
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February 6, 2009 / aid, financial crisis
As governments prepare for the G20 meeting in April, there is one thing you can be sure of: the agenda will be dominated by the global financial crisis. If you’ll forgive the expression, it’s an absolute banker.
So here’s the question. As the financial meltdown continues its journey from the US housing market, through the banking systems and real economies of rich countries and into the lives of the world’s poorest people, when are we going to see a financial rescue package for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?
Tags: aid, financial crisis, mdgs
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February 2, 2009 / aid, financial crisis, imf, world bank
When the G20 meet in April the needs of African countries should be high on their agenda. The G20 have promised “comprehensively to reform the Bretton Woods institutions” . At least three major changes should be pushed.
Tags: Africa, financial crisis, G20, imf, ngaire woods, world bank
