Triple Crisis blogger Kevin Gallagher was recently interviewed by CNN on the recent rise in investment by Chinese development banks in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Brazil’s Neo-Developmentalist Lesson for Europe’s Unemployment Problem
During the post-war decades the direct creation of jobs through the expansion of employment in the public sector or through the government funding of public works was a reliable policy workhorse for employment policy. However, over the past three decades this policy has been replaced by market-oriented strategies such as labor market deregulation and cuts in corporate and marginal income tax.
Using the Potential of BRICS Financial Co-operation
Strange things happen in the world. Imagine a grouping of countries spread across the globe, which gets formed only for the simple reason that an analyst for an investment bank decides that these countries have some things in common, including future potential for growth, and then creates an acronym of their names! Bizarre but true.
The original categorization by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs contained only Brazil, Russia, India and China – subsequently South Africa was added to the group. And while the origin of the grouping may be odd, and the countries are indeed remarkably diverse, there are some commonalities that are important. And in any case, these countries have since shown significant appetite for meeting periodically, working together, finding some synergies and new ways of co-operation. It is interesting to note that trade between BRICS countries soared after they became recognized as a combination, although of course this is a period when trade between developing and emerging markets in general has grown much faster than aggregate world trade.
Defending UNCTAD
Last week, guest blogger Robert Wade sounded the alarm about efforts on the part of some developed country governments to severely restrict the mandate of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) at the organization’s April 21-26 ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar. We follow up on that post with a sign-on letter from former UNCTAD senior staff members urging that the institution’s broad mandate be maintained, as a critical source of heterodox economic thinking and policy analysis. We reprint their letter and signatories below.
Statement by former staff members of UNCTAD
Geneva, 11 April 2012
Silencing the message or the messenger …. or both?
Since its establishment almost 50 years ago at the instigation of developing countries UNCTAD has always been a thorn in the flesh of economic orthodoxy. Its analyses of global macro-economic issues from a development perspective have regularly provided an alternative view to that offered by the World Bank and the IMF controlled by the west.
Now efforts are afoot to silence that voice. It might be understandable if this analysis was being eliminated because it duplicated the work and views of other international organizations, but the opposite is the case – a few countries want to suppress any dissent with the prevailing orthodoxy.
The Geopolitics of Speculation: Oil-price makers and takers
Every market is a process of social and power relationships. In every market there are price makers and price takers. The oil market, however, is no ordinary market, and the struggle to control the oil market, therefore, is no ordinary struggle. With oil being rudimentary to global accumulation and the monetary system remaining in part commodity-based, the degree of control of the oil market translates into some degree of enhanced power in all other markets. But to control an oil market, the principal player, which is undoubtedly the US, has to develop a strategy of intervention at the source, military or otherwise, which cuts down to size other players. Consequently, the extent to which the US infuses tensions in oil producing areas, calibrates the degree to which oil-states relinquish sovereignty over oil and keeps at bay other major players are measures that represent the collateral necessary to lay the foundation of the oil-dollar standard. This unending power exercise constitutes the cornerstone of the commodity-money or, more concretely, oil-dollar based global monetary system.
The World Bank Presidential Race
Triple Crisis blogger Kevin P. Gallagher was recently interviewed by Boston University’s blog Professor Voices to weigh in on the World Bank Presidential nominees and why he is endorsing Jose Antonio Ocampo. Last week, he and Triple Crisis blogger Stephany Griffith-Jones launched a petition signed by more than 125 economists endorsing Ocampo’s candidacy. Gallagher also published two op-eds in support of Ocampo in The Guardian and Financial Times.
Read the full petition in support of Ocampo here.
Financial Crisis, Productive Incoherence, and the Evolution of Southern Financial Architectures
What is most notable about the global crisis of 2008-? is the way in which it is proving productive for institutional experimentation in the realm of financial architectures in the global South. As with the Asian crisis, the current crisis has promoted interest in alternative modes of financial governance. Indeed, in a new study—“Financial architectures and development: Resilience, policy space, and human development in the global South”– I find that the current crisis has stimulated the expansion of existing institutions and arrangements and the emergence of new ones in the global South.
Whose elections should we watch?
For the past few months, the rest of the world has been watching (often with a mix of fascination and revulsion) the complicated progress of the choice of the Republican candidate for the US Presidential election in November. Media reports across the world have provided the minutiae of the candidates, their performances in various state primaries, their likes and dislikes, their stated policy positions, their private lives. And because of the media, people continue to track what the various candidates say on all sorts of issues and about each other, in excruciating and often repetitive detail.
Of course this is only to be expected – the United States is after all still the most “significant” country in the world, and the outcome of its domestic politics affects all of us in all sorts of ways, whether we like it or not. But the extreme global obsession with it may be somewhat misplaced, for at least two reasons.
Prosperity and economic growth
Over the past two years much has been said in Europe about Tim Jackson’s book on ecological macroeconomics: “Prosperity without growth. Economics for a Finite Planet”, already translated into 30 languages. The author was responsible for the report on economics for the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the UK Government, in 2003-2011. Tim Jackson, well-known for his previous works on the social psychology of consumption, does not recommend the economic non-growth “medicine” to countries like India, China or Ecuador. But in countries where annual per capita income has reached USD 15 thousand, it is possible to verify that an increased income does not necessarily mean greater satisfaction or happiness. That is the so-called “Easterlin paradox”, corroborated through many a line of research.
Over 100 Economists Endorse Jose Antonio Ocampo for World Bank President
Kevin P. Gallagher and Stephany Griffith-Jones
For the first time ever developing countries have officially nominated candidates to serve at the President of the World Bank. Acknowledging that the process whereby the World Bank President is chosen by the United States lacks legitimacy, the World Bank has pledged that the next President will be chosen based on the merits. With Yu Yongding from the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, and Liqing Zhang from the Central University of Finance and Economics in China, the two of us circulated this petition endorsing Jose Antonio Ocampo for the World Bank Presidency. After just a few days from sending out our letter, you can see that we received overwhelming support from across the world, from renown academic economists, former Central Bank governors, and the heads of international agencies. It is our view, and the view of these economists, that Jose Antonio Ocampo is the best qualified to lead and reform the World Bank. We sent this letter and petition to the Executive Directors of the World Bank and post it here on the Triple Crisis blog.
Petition in support of World Bank presidential nominee Jose Antonio Ocampo
In relation to the forthcoming election of the President of the World Bank, in which you will play an important role, we wanted to express our strongest support for Jose Antonio Ocampo and provide some personal background about him which we hope will be of interest to you.
Jose Antonio Ocampo is outstandingly well suited for the job for three reasons. Firstly, he has had a distinguished career in his own country, where he was a highly successful and professional Minister of three portfolios: Finance, Agriculture and Planning. Therefore he has a deep understanding of policy challenges in developing and emerging countries.
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