Spotlight G20: A Good Place to Do Business?

Aldo Caliari, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

At the G20 Summit Leaders may not have been able to agree on a lot of things. In fact, the European crisis was, like at the Cannes Summit last year, an urgent fire to put out. Its smoke helped cover the rest of the critical issues on which the world is still anxiously awaiting for this self-appointed committee to reshape the global financial and monetary system after the most severe financial crisis since the 1930s and to prove its worth.

But on other areas creeping movement is noticeable and worrisome. One of them is the approach to investment rules and the balance between attracting foreign investment and the need to preserve host countries’ policy space to regulate it appropriately so it serves development.

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Spotlight G-20: Elites Lose the “Mandate of Heaven”

Gerald Epstein

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

Expectations were low to non-existent for the G-20 summit meeting that ended Tuesday in the sun-drenched resort of Los Cabos, Mexico. Policy analysts and business leaders have decried “policy paralysis” and the “loss of credibility” as most of the G-20 policy leaders rail against the negative impacts of austerity, even as they mostly continue to implement it.

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Spotlight G-20: G-20 and Food Security: Keep the Focus on Economic Policy Reform

Jennifer Clapp

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

When the G20 put food security on its agenda for the 2011 Cannes summit, many analysts were initially optimistic. As the world’s leading economies, the G20 has the potential to make important economic policy changes that could help improve access to food for the world’s poorest people.

In 2012, optimism about the G20’s ability to deliver on this front has begun to fade. There has not been much action since the Cannes summit and, in the run-up to the Los Cabos summit, the discussion has shifted toward a narrower focus on productivity growth and away from broader economic policy reforms that can contribute to food security. Both are important and should remain on the agenda.

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What Should Syriza Do: A Latin American Perspective

Matías Vernengo

The election in Greece this weekend, and the possible victory of Syriza, the left of center party that is against the austerity measures that are attached to the bail-out program negotiated with the troika of the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but wants to remain within the euro, has prompted fears of a final collapse of the euro. Let me say that irrespective of whether Greece will be forced out of the euro, policies to reverse the austerity imposed so far will be needed. Latin America has extensive experience with external crises, and with defaults and devaluation, the Argentinean crisis of 2001-2 being the most recent and dramatic example. Here are some lessons and a short proposal based on these experiences.

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Spotlight G-20: If not now, then when?

Jayati Ghosh

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

The G20 meeting to be held in Los Cabos, Mexico on 17-18 June is arguably the most important meeting of this group since it was formed, and certainly one that the world will be watching. It is possibly even more important than the famous meeting of April 2009 when the member countries committed themselves to co-ordinated recovery measures in the wake of the global fallout from the Lehmann closure.

The reason for this significance is that for some time now, the G20 appears to have lost its way. Its original intention – to provide a relatively speedy and workable arrangement for global governance (especially economic governance) at a time when co-ordination of macroeconomic measures is seen as essential – has clearly fallen by the wayside in the past two years. Indeed, if it cannot deliver this time around, it risks sinking into irrelevance, at a time when the global economy badly needs some institutions to respond to what is more and more evident as a crisis of massive proportions.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: The G-20 Casts a Long Shadow over Rio

Peter Riggs, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 and Spotlight G-20 series.

What is the relation between the Rio+20 Earth Summit and the upcoming G-20 summit in Mexico?   These two events occur back-to-back, and both are at the ‘heads of state’ level.  This month should be an opportunity for serious international course-correction, right?

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: The G-20 Casts a Long Shadow over Rio

Peter Riggs, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 and Spotlight G-20 series.

What is the relation between the Rio+20 Earth Summit and the upcoming G-20 summit in Mexico?   These two events occur back-to-back, and both are at the ‘heads of state’ level.  This month should be an opportunity for serious international course-correction, right?

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Tired of Waiting for a 21st Century Trade Agreement: Developing Countries, the TPP, and Regulating Cross Border Finance

Kevin P. Gallagher

Early on in his term, US President Barack Obama pledged that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) would be a 21st Century trade treaty.  This week a copy of the proposed investment chapter of the deal was leaked, only to reveal that the US still remains behind the times.

In these turbulent economic times for the world economy, what is among the most egregious aspects of the US proposal is that it would limit the ability of TPP members to regulate global finance.  Yet emerging market negotiating partners have proposed bold alternatives that are a big step in the right direction.

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The State of the World Economy and Policy Failures

Yılmaz Akyüz, guest blogger

After three years of recovery the world economy still remains highly fragile.  The short-term outlook is for contraction in several advanced economies (AEs) in Europe.  Growth in others, including the US, is weak and erratic.  But more importantly, medium term prospects are bleak almost everywhere.

There is considerable tension in financial markets.  Asset and commodity prices, risk spreads, capital flows and exchange rates are highly susceptible to sudden swings.  Currently the Achilles Heel of the international economy is the eurozone (EZ).  Consequently, the way the EZ crisis is handled is a major concern for DEs.

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Africa Specializing in Capital Exodus?

Léonce Ndikumana

Even as Africa faces severe shortages of skilled labor at home, it experiences large and increasing outflows of highly-skilled labor migration to industrialized economies in search of better job opportunities. The investments made in the training of these professionals are losses to African countries but translate into hefty gains for receiving countries.  Thus resource-starved African nations are subsidizing developed countries’ industries and social services.

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