Global Governance – Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP)

Belonging in the Digital World: A Conceptual Framework and a Systematic Review of the inter-generational impact of Social Media on ‘Belonging’ in Adolescents and Older Adults

November 1, 2023January 31, 2024Global Governance, Past Events

Monday, November 6th, 2023
4 p.m EDT
Online

Abstract

Social connectedness in human beings has been found to impact clinical indicators of physical and mental health. In the present age, digital technology adoption including the use of social media or social networking sites is being normalized for creating or maintaining social relationships. However, the pace and pattern of such adoption and its influence on social health may vary intergenerationally. We outline present evidence and research gaps in the current understanding of the impact of social media on social health. We then rationalize and conceptualize a multi-dimensional analytical framework for the assessment of ‘Belonging’ in the digital world, specifically in the context of social media use (SMU). Using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) guidelines, and collated data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental studies, we examine and compare recent evidence on the impact of social media on ‘Belonging’ in adolescents and older adults. Finally, we recommend potential opportunities for future research and policy to contribute to a more nuanced perspective on the role played by SMU in inter-generational belonging.

Presenters:

Kim Samuel is a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, where she studies the relationship between social isolation and multidimensional poverty as well as the broader link between human belonging and well-being. She is the founder of the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness and an academic lecturer at institutions including Oxford, Harvard, and McGill universities. Kim is the author of On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation (Abrams Press: September 2022) and serves as the first-ever Fulbright Canada ambassador for diversity and social connectedness.

Prenika Anand is a Leslie Kirkley Visitor at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Prenika has completed an MSc in Applied Digital Health from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. She holds a Masters degree in Health Administration from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a Bachelor’s degree in Dental Surgery. Her professional experience includes product management and consulting for preventive health, workplace well-being, economic incentives for healthy behaviors and digital health management ecosystem.

Missing Persons: The case of public participation in AI strategies

August 30, 2023October 9, 20232023, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

August 2023

Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)
Adam Zable (Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub)

IIEP working paper 2023-08

Abstract: Governance requires trust. If policy makers inform, consult and involve citizens in decisions, policy makers are likely to build trust in their efforts. Public participation is particularly important as policy makers seek to govern data-driven technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Although many users rely on AI systems, they do not understand how these systems use their data to make predictions and recommendations that can affect their daily lives. Over time, if they see their data being misused, users may learn to distrust both the system and how policy makers regulate them. Hence, it seems logical that policy makers would make an extra effort to inform and consult their citizens about how to govern AI systems. This paper examines whether officials informed and consulted their citizens as they developed a key aspect of AI policy — national AI strategies. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), such strategies articulate how the government sees the role of AI in the country and its contribution to the country’s social and economic development. They also set priorities for public investment in AI and delineate research and innovation priorities. Most high-middle-income and high-income nations have drafted such strategies. Building on a data set of 68 countries and the European Union, qualitative methods were used to examine whether, how and when governments engaged with their citizens on their AI strategies and whether they were responsive to public comment. The authors did not find any country which modeled responsive democratic decision making in which policy makers invited public comment, reviewed these comments and made changes in a collaborative manner. As of October 2022, some 43 of the 68 nations and the EU sample had an AI strategy, but only 18 nations attempted to engage their citizens in the strategy’s development. Moreover, only 13 of these nations issued an open invitation for public comment and only four of these 13 provided evidence that public inputs helped shape the final text. Few governments made efforts to encourage their citizens to provide such feedback. As a result, in many nations, policy makers received relatively few comments. The individuals who did comment were generally knowledgeable about AI, while the general public barely participated. Policy makers are therefore missing an opportunity to build trust in AI by not using this process to involve a broader cross-section of their constituents.

JEL Codes: P48, P51, 038

Keywords: trust, AI, political participation, governance

Ashoka Mody on “India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today”

February 10, 2023April 4, 2023Global Governance, India, Past Events

Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
9:00 am EST, 7:30 pm IST
via Zoom

We are pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. This event will feature panelist remarks from Ashoka Mody, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Sadanand Dhume, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Jaimini Bhagwati, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), will provide discussant remarks.

Ashoka Mody is Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Previously, he was Deputy Director in the International Monetary Fund’s Research and European Departments. He has also worked at the World Bank, University of Pennsylvania, and AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. Mody has advised governments worldwide on developmental and financial projects and policies, while writing extensively for policy and scholarly audiences.

India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today is a provocative new account of how India moved relentlessly from its hope-filled founding in 1947 to the dramatic economic and democratic breakdowns of today.

When Indian leaders first took control of their government in 1947, they proclaimed the ideals of national unity and secular democracy. Through the first half-century of nation-building, leaders could point to uneven but measurable progress on key goals, and after the mid-1980s, dire poverty declined for a few decades, inspiring declarations of victory. But today, a vast majority of Indians live in a state of underemployment and are one crisis away from despair. Public goods—health, education, cities, air and water, and the judiciary—are in woeful condition. And good jobs will remain scarce as long as that is the case. The lack of jobs will further undermine democracy, which will further undermine job creation. India is Broken provides the most persuasive account available of this economic catch-22.

Challenging prevailing narratives, Mody contends that successive post-independence leaders, starting with its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, failed to confront India’s true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead. As popular frustration grew, and corruption in politics became pervasive, India’s economic growth relied increasingly on unregulated finance and environmentally destructive construction. The rise of a violent Hindutva has buried all prior norms in civic life and public accountability.

Combining statistical data with creative media, such as literature and cinema, to create strong, accessible, people-driven narratives, this book is a meditation on the interplay between democracy and economic progress, with lessons extending far beyond India. Mody proposes a path forward that is fraught with its own peril, but which nevertheless offers something resembling hope.

The Envisioning India series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director Remi Jedwab, Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber.

About the Discussants:

Jaimini Bhagwati is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), Chairman of the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) Asset Management Trustee Company, and Board member of IDFC Limited. Amb. Bhagwati was India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and India’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium, and Luxembourg. He has held senior positions in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Department of Atomic Energy and the World Bank Treasury. His responsibilities at the World Bank included bond funding including execution of over-the-counter derivatives transactions. Between 2013-2018 Amb. Bhagwati was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at ICRIER. Amb. Bhagwati was educated at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, Tufts University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.

Sadanand Dhume (Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute) is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes on South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. Mr. Dhume has served as India bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review and as Indonesia correspondent of FEER and the Wall Street Journal – Asia, and is currently a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Previously, he was Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C. He has written articles and op-eds for Foreign Policy, Forbes, Commentary, YaleGlobal, the Washington Post, and other publications. His television appearances include CNN, PBS, BBC World, Al Jazeera International, CNBC Asia and ABC Television. His political travelogue about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, has been published in four countries. His upcoming book discusses the rise of a new right in India and its impact on Indian democracy.

Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics in Indonesia in the time of COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications

February 6, 2023April 4, 2023COVID-19, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Global Governance, Past Events

March 8th, Wednesday 2023
via Zoom and in person

It has long been recognised that poverty encompasses multiple aspects of wellbeing,thus, to truly measure it, a multidimensional tool is needed. This need has become further apparent as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to unfold and disrupt different areas of life, which include, among others, challenges in health, access to learning and the learning gap, alongside significant reductions in standards of living. This paper aims to examine multidimensional poverty trends during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, utilising a measure that is based on the Alkire-Foster (AF) method. To build this measure, data on household indicators available within the 2019, 2020 and 2021 Susenas waves, will be used. By utilising household information before and during the pandemic, this paper will analyse whether COVID-19 has led to significant increases in multidimensional poverty and to the emergence of the “new poor”. This paper also seeks to present an analysis of differences before and after the pandemic, with regard to the determinants of multidimensional poverty, thus pin-pointing household characteristics, which contribute the most to the experience of poverty. Finally, the findings of this paper aim to act as a robust evidence-base to guide the implementation of poverty alleviation policies in Indonesia during the pandemic.

Speaker:

Putu Natih supports the OPHI Outreach team and is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia (FEB UI), where she teaches Econometrics for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Putu is also currently supporting Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, as a social protection specialist. Before OPHI and FEB UI, Putu was a Statistics Tutor at Keble and St John’s Colleges at the University of Oxford. She also worked as a Research Assistant at the Blavatnik School of Government within a project on digital inequality. Putu completed her undergraduate degree at the Faculty of Economics, Universitas Indonesia and was a Jardine-Oxford Scholar at Trinity College, the University of Oxford, where she studied for her MPhil and DPhil.

Discussant:

Dr Elan Satriawan is an Economist with significant experience in both academic and policy making areas. In academics, he has done extensive research covering topics in development microeconomics areas particularly in impact evaluation and effectiveness of anti-poverty and social programs, poverty related issues including health, education and inter-linkages between the two involving frontiers empirical techniques including randomised experiments. In policy areas, he leads a high-profile government policy think tank to advise the Vice President in taking strategic policy decisions on poverty alleviation and social development. He has extensive knowledge in conducting monitoring and evaluation as well as using the knowledge generated from the research for policy advocacy, capacity building and knowledge management

Cumulative deprivations in the labour market

February 6, 2023April 4, 2023Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Global Governance, Past Events

February 15th, Wednesday 2023
Zoom and In-Person

As the topic of job quality is garnering more attention in both the academic and policy making literature, calls for standardised measures of the concept are gaining increasing traction. However, prevailing measures based on dashboards of complex lists of indicators are difficult to interpret, especially across countries. More recently, the World Bank has published a working paper on “Global Job Quality” that measures multidimensional deprivations across 40 developing countries and is based on a methodology developed by Sehnbruch et al. (2020) and the Alkire/Foster method (2011). Initial studies suggest that the results from existing cross country, time series and dynamic studies are robust and very relevant to policy making. In particular, traditional ways of viewing the labour market in terms of formal (good jobs) versus informal (bad jobs) are outdated as modern hiring and employment practices as well as a shift towards the gig economy have eroded the stability and security of employment. As a result, this makes it difficult for developing countries to establish or sustain social insurance systems.

In advanced economies, employment practices that erode the conditions associated with traditional employment relationships are likely to have a similar impact on the sustainability of existing welfare states, as governments increasingly have to provide workers with additional income support as well as with other services that cover the cost of the multiple negative externalities associated with poor job quality (such as a higher likelihood of suffering from mental and physical health problems). A first step towards measuring these outcomes is therefore to establish a measure of cumulative deprivations in the labour market in the context of advanced economies.

This paper therefore presents the first multidimensional index of cumulative employment deprivations in Europe using data from the European Working Conditions Survey. Using the Alkire/Foster method, variables relevant to the employment relationship are grouped into three dimensions (income, job security and working conditions). Results confirm findings found across developing countries where job quality deprivations are not necessarily related to GDP per capita levels or employment rates. Instead, the regulatory environment of a particular country is the most important determinant of outcomes.

Speakers:

Kirsten Sehnbruch is a Global Professor of the British Academy and a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the Universidad de Chile, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of California, at Berkeley.

During 2019, Kirsten was awarded a British Academy Professorship to study the conceptualization and the measurement of the quality of employment in developing countries from the perspective of the capability approach. Her work informs social, labour and development policy more broadly as it allows for resources to be targeted at the most vulnerable workers in a labour market. She has collaborated with governments, international development institutions and NGOs in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Her work has been published by multiple journals such as World Development, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, Development and Change, Regional Studies and Social Indicators Review.

Prior to becoming an academic, Kirsten worked as an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, London. She received her MA, MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Mauricio Apablaza is director of research at the School of Government at the Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile, research associate of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University and Visiting Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Mauricio is also the director of the programme Conocimiento e Investigación en Personas Mayores (CIPEM) and president of the Chilean Commission for Quality of Employment and former member of the Chilean commission of experts on informal labour. Previously, he worked as Research Officer and Outreach Coordinator at OPHI, at the University of Oxford. Mauricio holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham and a postdoc at the University of Oxford. His research areas and publications focus on institutions, multidimensionality, and poverty dynamics.

Discussant:

Josefin Pasanen works as a Research & Partnerships Specialist at the UNDP Human Development Report Office (HDRO). Prior to joining HDRO, she was head of Capacity Building at the Latin America & Caribbean Office of Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL LAC), where she led a team that supported government, NGO, and private sector partners across the region to develop capacities for evidence-based policymaking, research, monitoring and evaluation. She is a development economist by training and holds an MSc In Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BSc in Economics and Political Science from Uppsala University. Josefin’s previous experience also includes research at the Swedish Agency for Public Management and the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, and policy advisory for the Mayor ́s office at the City of Stockholm.

IMF Africa REO

October 1, 2022December 6, 2022Development Economics, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Global Governance, International Economic Policy, International Finance, Past Events

Wednesday, November 16th, 2022

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

via Zoom and In-Person

We are pleased to invite you to an event titled “Living on the Edge: A Discussion of the IMF’s Africa Regional Economic Outlook” on Wednesday, November 16th, 2022 from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm EST. This event will feature two panels. The first panel, “Building a More Food-Secure Sub-Saharan Africa” will feature IMF presenters Ivanova Reyes (IMF) and Qianqian Zhang (IMF) alongside discussant Moses Kansanga (GW). The second panel, “Managing Oil Price Uncertainty and the Energy Transition,” will feature IMF presenter Hany Abdel-Latif (IMF) alongside discussant Robert J. Weiner (GW). Catherine Pattillo, a Deputy Director in the IMF’s African Department, will provide welcome remarks alongside IIEP Director Steve Suranovic. This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for African Studies.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) recovery has been abruptly interrupted. Last year, activity finally bounced back, lifting GDP growth in 2021 to 4.7 percent. But growth in 2022 is expected to slow sharply by more than 1 percentage point to 3.6 percent, as a worldwide slowdown, tighter global financial conditions, and a dramatic pickup in global inflation spill into a region already wearied by an ongoing series of shocks. Rising food and energy prices are impacting the region’s most vulnerable, and public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades. Against this backdrop, and with limited options, many countries find themselves pushed closer to the edge. The near-term outlook is extremely uncertain as the region’s prospects are tied to developments in the global economy and with a number of countries facing difficult sociopolitical and security situations at home. Within this challenging environment, policymakers must confront immediate socioeconomic crises as they arise, while also endeavoring to reduce vulnerabilities to future shocks, building resilience. Ultimately, however, the region’s safety and prosperity will require high-quality growth and the implementation of policies that will set the stage for a sustainable recovery, helping countries move away from the edge.

Agenda

10:00-10:10 – Welcome and conjuncture chapter – IIEP Director Steve Suranovic and IMF Africa Deputy Director Catherine Pattillo

10:10-10:55 – Panel 1 – Building a More Food-Secure Sub-Saharan Africa
Ivanova Reyes Peguero and Qianqian Zhang – IMF Presenters
Moses Kansanga, GW Discussant
Moderator and Audience Q&A

10:55-11:10 – Coffee Break

11:10-11:55 – Panel 2 – Managing Oil Price Uncertainty and the Energy Transition
Hany Abdel-Latif – IMF Presenter
Robert Weiner, GW Discussant
Moderator and Audience Q&A

11:55-12:00 – Wrap-up

Welcoming Remarks:

Catherina Pattillo is a Deputy Director in the IMF’s African Department where she oversees work on several countries, as well as on climate change, capacity development, gender and research. Since joining the Fund from a position at Oxford University, she has worked in the Fiscal Affairs Department where she was chief of the division responsible for the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor, the Research Department, and on countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and the Strategy, Policy and Review Department where she worked on low-income country issues, and emerging issues such as gender, inequality, and climate change. She has published in these areas, as well as on Sustainable Development Goals, firm dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa, growth, investment, debt, monetary and exchange rate policies, aid, and currency crises. She received her Ph.D in Economics from Yale University.

Steve Suranovic is the Director at the Institute for International Economic Policy and an Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the George Washington University. He is the current Director of the GW Global Bachelor’s program (Shanghai), and a former Director of the Elliot School’s Masters in International Economic Policy. He teaches courses in international economics and microeconomics principles. His research includes theoretical analysis of the role of ethics in economics, international trade policy, behavioral models of addiction, energy policy, and climate change policy. (RePEc, Google Scholar, Research Gate, SSRN)

Professor Suranovic received his B.S. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and his M.S. and Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. He has published in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of International Economics, the Canadian Journal of Economics, World Economy, and the Journal of Health Economics. His book titled, “A Moderate Compromise: Policy Choice in an Era of Globalization,” published by Palgrave-Macmillan, offers a critique of current methods of policy evaluation and choice and suggests a simple, principled, and moderate alternative. He also has several textbooks about International Economics published by Flat World Knowledge. Professor Suranovic maintains two educational websites. The International Economics Study Center features a free online international economics textbook, and a complete Survey of International Economics course that includes a textbook, PPT presentations, video lectures, and problem sets. The Ethical Economics Study Center features a collection of primers highlighting the role of ethical behavior in fostering good (or efficient) economic outcomes. It also features case studies, including selected movie reviews, demonstrating how unethical behavior is often responsible for the negative outcomes attributed to free markets.

Panelists:

Ivanova Reyes is an economist working in the Regional Studies Division of the International Monetary Fund’s African Department. Prior to joining the IMF, she worked at Gettysburg College, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Ministry of Economy of the Dominican Republic (DR), Superintendency of Pensions of the DR and Pontificia Universidad Catolica (PUCMM) of DR. She holds a PhD in Economics from American University, a masters in economics from Georgetown University and a masters in applied macroeconomics from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica (PUC) of Chile. Her research is focused on analyzing the impact of China’s economy on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hany Abdel-Latif is an Economist in the Regional Studies Division in the IMF’s African Department. Previously, he worked as a lecturer (assistant professor) at Swansea University UK, where he taught econometrics, macroeconomics, and economic policy. His research covers commodity, financial liquidity, and geopolitical risk shocks, among other macro-financial issues. Hany is a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) UK. He has acted as a consultant at several institutions, including the UNDP and Cambridge University Assessment. He holds a PhD from Swansea University and an MSc from City, University of London.

Qianqian Zhang is an economist in the African Department at the IMF. Her research interests include fiscal policy, fiscal decentralization, gender, and development issues. She previously worked in the Fiscal Affairs Department and as a country economist for Afghanistan. She received her PhD from George Washington University and her master’s degree from Cornell University.

Discussants:

Moses Kansanga is an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is a critical geographer whose research explores questions at the intersection of sustainable food systems and natural resource management from a political ecology perspective. For the past decade, Moses has worked with smallholder farming communities in the Global South with concentration on sustainable agriculture and natural resource politics. He received his PHD at University of Western Ontario.

Robert Weiner is the director of the Master of Science in International Business program and a professor of international business, public policy & public administration, and international affairs at the George Washington University School of Business, Washington D.C. He serves concurrently as deputy director of the Master of Science in Government Contracts, a joint program of the GW Schools of Business and Law. He is a faculty director of the Business School’s Center for International Business Education and Research, and an affiliate of the Elliott School of International Affairs’ Institute for International Economic Policy, Institute for Middle East Studies, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, and Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He is also senior advisor to the Brattle Group. He received his PhD from Harvard University.

On Track or Not? Projecting the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index

November 7, 2021March 16, 2022Development Economics, Global Governance, Past Events

Monday, November 15th, 2021
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EST
via Zoom

This was the fifth event in the continuation of our seminar series on Multidimensional Poverty Measurement, jointly hosted by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University. Nicolai Suppa (Research Associate, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford & Researcher, Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) presented a paper and Doug Gollin (Professor of Development Economics, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford) discussed.

About the Speaker:

Nicolai Suppa is currently postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Demographic Studies in Barcelona and Research Associate with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in economics from TU Dortmund in Germany, where he also studied economics and sociology. After his Phd he worked in the research project “Multidimensional Poverty Measurement in Germany and the European Union” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His research interests are best described as applied welfare economics, including multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, research on subjective well-being, the capability approach, labour economics, and applied econometrics.

About the Discussant:

Doug Gollin is Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University, based in the Oxford Department of International Development. His research focuses broadly on economic development and growth, with an emphasis on the structural transformations that accompany the growth process. He has particular interests in agricultural productivity and technology, from a micro scale to macro scale. His work has also looked at rural-urban mobility and urbanization processes, spatial patterns of development and a range of other topics.

Professor Gollin joined Oxford in October 2012 after spending sixteen years on the faculty of Williams College in the United States. He currently serves as Research Director for a major global program of academic research on Structural Transformation and Economic Growth (STEG), funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. Professor Gollin is a managing editor of the Journal of African Economies. From 2012-17, he chaired the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) of the CGIAR and served on the CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council. He has also served on the Research Advisory Group for the former UK Department for International Development (DFID).

More From This Series

Latin America: The Pandemic, Poverty, and Policy

October 28, 2021March 19, 2022Danny M. Leipziger, Development Economics, Global Governance, International Trade, Past Events

Wednesday, November 17th, 2021
4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. EST
via Zoom

This was a panel discussion on Wednesday, November 17th on “Latin America: The Pandemic, Poverty, and Policy.” The event featured panelists Mauricio Cárdenas (Columbia University and former Minister of Finance, Colombia), Benigno López Benítez (Inter-American Development Bank and former Minister of Finance, Paraguay), Nora Lustig (Tulane University), and William Maloney (The World Bank). Danny Leipziger (GWU) moderated the event.

This panel discussion aimed to review the issues related to the direct impact of pandemics on the poor in Latin America. The discussion focused on the urgent need to design policies to lessen the negative impact on the most vulnerable in a region most affected by recent events.

This event is co-sponsored by the Growth Dialogue, the GW Center for International Business Education and Research (GW-CIBER), the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Program at the George Washington University, and the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP).

About the Panelists

Dr. Mauricio Cárdenas Santamaría is a former Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia and Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. An economist and politician, he served as the 69th Minister of Finance and formerly as Minister of Mines and Energy of Colombia in the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. Prior to this, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

In a long and distinguished career in the Government of Colombia, he has also served as Minister of Economic Development, as Minister of Transport, and as Director of the National Planning Department. In the private sector, he has served as Director of the Higher Education and Development Foundation (Fedesarrollo) and as the 7th President of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).

Since leaving government, Dr. Cardenas joined various academic institutions. In 2019, he became a Visiting Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Since 2020, Dr. Cardenas has been serving in the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR), a group examining how the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries handled the COVID-19 pandemic. He received his doctorate in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Benigno López Benítez is Vice-President for Sectors and Knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank since his appointment in November 2020. Prior to joining the IDB, he served as Minister of Finance of Paraguay. In that role, he led a comprehensive tax-reform initiative aimed at improving the progressive capacity of the tax system, increasing government revenue to finance health and education reforms, and incentivizing labor formalization.

Prior to his public service, Mr. Lopez served as Chairman of the Social Security Institute, Paraguay’s employer-based health insurance and pensions system. During his tenure, he aimed to restructure the institution’s debt, professionalize its administration and structure and diversify its investment portfolio. In 2013, Mr. Lopez was appointed Executive Legal Director and member of the board of Itaipú Bi-nacional, which administers the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Paraguay-Brazil border. From 2012-2013, Mr. Lopez served as Senior Advisor to the Executive Board of the IMF, Washington D.C. Previously, he worked for more than two decades at the Central Bank of Paraguay as Board Director from 2007 to 2012 and as head of the legal department.

Mr. Lopez holds a law degree from Paraguay’s Catholic University and a Master of Laws (LL.M) from Georgetown University.

Dr. Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and the founding Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ) at Tulane University. She is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue.

Professor Lustig’s research is on economic development, inequality and social policies with emphasis on Latin America. Among her recent publications, the Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty is a step-by-step guide to assessing the impact of taxation and social spending on inequality and poverty in developing countries.

Prof. Lustig is a founding member and President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and was a co-director of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000: Attacking Poverty. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Inequality and is a member of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality’s Executive Council. Prof. Lustig served on the Atkinson Commission on Poverty, the High-level Group on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress, and the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. William Maloney, a U.S. national, is Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean Region at the World Bank. He joined the World Bank in 1998 as Senior Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean Region. He held various positions including Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America, Lead Economist in the Development Economics Research Group, Chief Economist for Trade and Competitiveness and Global Lead on Innovation and Productivity. He was most recently Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI) Vice Presidency. From 2011 to 2014 he was Visiting Professor at the University of the Andes in Bogotá and worked closely with the Colombian government on innovation and firm upgrading issues.

Dr. Maloney received his doctorate in Economics from the University of California Berkeley (1990), his BA from Harvard University (1981), and studied at the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia (1982-83). His research activities and publications have focused on issues related to international trade and finance, developing country labor markets, and innovation and growth, including several flagship publications about Latin America and the Caribbean, including Informality: Exit and Inclusion and Natural Resources: Neither Curse nor Destiny. Most recently, he published The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up.

About the Moderator

Dr. Danny Leipziger is Professor of International Business and International Affairs at the George Washington University and Director of the Growth Dialogue. He is a faculty affiliate of the Institute for International Economic Policy. Prior to joining GW, Prof. Leipziger was Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management at the World Bank (2004-2009). Dr. Leipziger held senior management positions in the East Asia and Latin America Regions. He was the World Bank’s Director for Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure for Latin America (1998-2004). He served previously in the U.S. Department of State and was a Member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff. Dr. Leipziger was Vice Chair of the Spence Commission on Growth and Development and he served on the WEF Council on Economic Progress.

An economist with a Ph. D. from Brown University, he has published widely in development economics, finance and banking, and on East Asia and Latin America. He is the author of several books, including Lessons of East Asia (U. of Michigan Press), Stuck in the Middle (Brookings Institution), and Globalization and Growth, and more than 50 refereed and published articles in journals and other outlets.

IMF World Economic Outlook: Recovery During a Pandemic – Health Concerns, Supply Disruptions, and Price Pressures

October 26, 2021April 11, 2022Global Governance, International Trade, Past Events, Tara Sinclair

Friday, October 29th, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

The Institute for International Economic Policy hosted a discussion of the International Monetary Fund’s October 2021 World Economic Outlook titled “IMF World Economic Outlook: Recovery During a Pandemic – Health Concerns, Supply Disruptions, and Price Pressures.” This event featured John Bluedorn (IMF), Christoffer Koch (IMF), Tara Sinclair (GWU), Jean-Marc Natal (IMF), and Benjamin Jones (Northwestern University). This event was moderated by IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh.

The global economic recovery is continuing, even as the pandemic resurges. The fault lines opened up by COVID-19 are looking more persistent—near-term divergences are expected to leave lasting imprints on medium-term performance. Vaccine access and early policy support are the principal drivers of the gaps.

The IMF World Economic Outlook — the flagship publication of the IMF — details the state of the global economy and its prospects going forward. It also includes two analytical chapters considering key policy issues facing the world economy. Chapter 2 considers the appropriate policy mix as many countries face elevated or rising inflation. Chapter 3 examines how countries could use science and innovation policy to boost long run economic growth. This event presents an opportunity for policymakers and academics to consider these crucial issues.

Event Agenda

Welcoming Remarks
Jay Shambaugh, George Washington University

Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies
Presenter: John Bluedorn, International Monetary Fund

Chapter 2: Inflation Scares
Presenter: Christoffer Koch, International Monetary Fund
Discussant: Tara Sinclair, George Washington University

Chapter 3: Research and Innovation: Fighting the Pandemic and Boosting Long-Term Growth
Presenter: Jean-Marc Natal, International Monetary Fund
Discussant: Benjamin Jones, Northwestern University

General Q&A and Concluding Remarks
Moderated by Jay Shambaugh, George Washington University

About the Speakers:

John Bluedorn is a deputy division chief on the World Economic Outlook in the IMF’s Research Department. Previously, he has been a senior economist in the Research Department’s Structural Reforms Unit, a member of the IMF’s euro area team in the European Department and worked on the World Economic Outlook as an economist, contributing to a number of chapters. Before joining the IMF, he was a professor at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, after a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. Mr. Bluedorn has published on a range of topics in international finance, macroeconomics, and development. He holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Christoffer Koch works in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that he had spent a decade as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. His policy and research interests are in macroeconomics, money and banking. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of St Andrews, and his PhD from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Jean-Marc Natal is Deputy Division Chief in the World Economic Studies Division in the IMF’s Research Department. Prior to joining the IMF, he was Deputy Director of Research at the Swiss National Bank where he advised the Board on quarterly monetary policy decisions and communication. Mr Natal has taught Monetary Theory and Policy at the University of Geneva and has published in various economics journals, including the Economic Journal and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. His research covers the study of monetary and exchange rate regimes, policy transmission, inflation dynamics and macroeconomic modeling. He holds a PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

About the Discussants:

Tara M. Sinclair is a faculty affiliate of the Institute for International Economic Policy and professor of economics and international affairs at the George Washington University, where she has been on faculty since earning her PhD in economics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2005. Professor Sinclair is a senior fellow at job search site Indeed, the co-director of the H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting, a member of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Technical Advisory Committee, a research professor at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) in Germany, and a research associate at the Center for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA). She has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a visiting associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and an academic visitor at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales. Professor Sinclair also serves as the moderator for the monthly inflation meet-ups for the National Association for Business Economics. Professor Sinclair’s research focuses on developing new tools and data sources to improve decision making. Her early research built empirical models to study economic fluctuations and trends, and these models remain a continuing thread in her publications. As part of the Indeed Hiring Lab, Professor Sinclair uses Indeed’s unique labor market data to develop new economic indicators. As co-director of the H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting, she evaluates real time economic data and forecasts with a focus on their role in policy. Professor Sinclair regularly speaks at conferences and with the press on issues related to forecasting, recessions, labor markets, big data, macroeconomics, and policy issues.

Benjamin F. Jones is the Gordon and Llura Gund Family Professor of Entrepreneurship, a Professor of Strategy, and the faculty director of the Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. An economist by training, Professor Jones studies the sources of economic growth in advanced economies, with an emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship, and scientific progress. He also studies global economic development, including the roles of education, climate, and national leadership in explaining the wealth and poverty of nations. His research has appeared in journals such as Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the American Economic Review, and has been profiled in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and The New Yorker. A former Rhodes Scholar, Professor Jones served in 2010-2011 as the senior economist for macroeconomics for the White House Council of Economic Advisers and earlier served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Professor Jones is a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

About the Moderator:

Jay Shambaugh is Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

IMF WEO Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies

The global economic recovery continues amid a resurging pandemic that poses unique policy challenges. Gaps in expected recoveries across economy groups have widened since the July forecast, for instance between advanced economies and low-income developing countries. Meanwhile, inflation has increased markedly in the United States and some emerging market economies. As restrictions are relaxed, demand has accelerated, but supply has been slower to respond. Although price pressures are expected to subside in most countries in 2022, inflation prospects are highly uncertain. These increases in inflation are occurring even as employment is below pre-pandemic levels in many economies, forcing difficult choices on policymakers. Strong policy effort at the multilateral level is needed on vaccine deployment, climate change, and international liquidity to strengthen global economic prospects. National policies to complement the multilateral effort will require much more tailoring to country-specific conditions and better targeting, as policy space constraints become more binding the longer the pandemic lasts.

Chapter 2: Inflation Scares

Despite recent increases in headline inflation in both advanced and emerging market economies, long-term inflation expectations remain anchored. Looking ahead, headline inflation is projected to peak in the final months of 2021 but is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022 for most economies. But given the recovery’s uncharted nature, considerable uncertainty remains, and inflation could exceed forecasts for a variety of reasons. Clear communication, combined with appropriate monetary and fiscal policies, can help prevent “inflation scares” from unhinging inflation expectations.

Chapter 3: Research and Innovation: Fighting the Pandemic and Boosting Long-Term Growth

How can policymakers boost long-term growth in the post–COVID-19 global economy? This chapter looks at the role of basic research—undirected, theoretical, or experimental work. Using rich new data that draw on connections from individual innovations and scientific articles, this chapter shows that basic research is an essential input into innovation, with wide-ranging international spillovers and long-lasting economic impacts.

Gender Inclusiveness in Trade: Barriers, Challenges, and Opportunities

October 25, 2021March 16, 2022Global Governance, International Trade, Past Events

Thursday, November 18th 2021
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. ET
Lindner Commons and Online via Zoom
There was a networking portion for those in person from 10:30 – 11:00 a.m.

This was a discussion leading up to the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12), where the panel addressed the nexus between gender and international trade. As the issue of gender equality rises to the top of public policy debate globally, it is critical to consider how trade may impact gender, including the barriers, the challenges and opportunities women face as they participate in trade as entrepreneurs, traders or workers. This event featured panelists Renata Amaral (WTO Program on Women in Trade), Jamaica Gayle (Global Innovation Forum), and Nadia Bourely (Canadian Embassy to the U.S.A.). Lisa Schroeter (Dow Chemical and IIEP Executive Circle) moderated, and IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh provided welcoming remarks.

This event was organized by members of the recently launched Executive Circle of George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP). Established by the IIEP, the Circle is a leadership group designed to support and disseminate research and policies connected to global finance, trade, and development. Its members are senior leaders at the highest levels of their fields, and dynamic mid-career and young professionals who exhibit extraordinary potential, all who believe in the power of academic research and analysis to improve policy and enhance the wellbeing and prosperity of people around the globe. The event was co-sponsored by the Association of Women in International Trade (WIIT) and the Washington International Trade Association (WITA). The Association for Women in International Trade (WIIT) works to promote the professional development of women in international trade and business and to raise public awareness of the importance of international trade to economic development.

About the Panelists:

Renata Amaral is an experienced international trade lawyer, with an extensive and proven record of successful engagement at the WTO dispute settlement, bilateral and regional trade negotiations. She holds a Ph.D. from Maastricht University and currently serves as Adjunct Professor at the American University Washington College of Law, where she co-directs the certificate program on WTO and US Trade Law and Policy. She is the founder of Women Inside Trade, a non-profit international organization that aims to contribute to the empowerment of women through its global network of professionals, specialized training and leadership development, and a member of the recently created WTO Gender Research Hub.

Jamaica Gayle serves as Acting Executive Director of the National Foreign Trade Council’s Global Innovation Forum (GIF), a nonprofit that connects small businesses and policymakers to highlight the opportunities and challenges of engaging in the global marketplace. In this role, she leads the organization’s work advocating for trade policies and technology solutions that enable inclusive, sustainable growth. She is also responsible for managing engagements with international organizations including the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on issues related to small businesses and inclusive trade. Jamaica started her career with the National Association of Manufacturers, working with the policy and government relations division. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from the American University in Washington, DC.

Nadia Bourély is the Minister Counsellor for Economic and Trade Policy at the Embassy of Canada in Washington D.C. In this capacity, she leads the Embassy’s economic and trade policy team. Prior to joining the Embassy in February 2020, Ms. Bourély held various positions at Global Affairs Canada, including Director for Trade Policy and Negotiations, Senior Legal Counsel in the Trade Law Bureau and Deputy Director for Strategic Policy Planning. She was also Senior Analyst for the Americas at the Foreign Affairs Secretariat of the Privy Council Office. Ms. Bourély served abroad as Senior Trade Commissioner and Counsellor at the Embassy of Canada to the Republic of Indonesia and as First Secretary at Canada’s Mission to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Prior to joining Global Affairs Canada, Ms. Bourély worked in private legal practice in Montréal, Québec, and at the Secretariat for Legal Affairs of the Organization of American States in Washington D.C. Ms. Bourély is a member of the Québec Bar and holds a LL.B. from the Université de Montréal and a LL.M. (Honours) from the McGill University Institute of Comparative Law.

About the Moderator:

Lisa Schroeter is the Global Director of Trade and Investment Policy for Dow. As part of the corporate Global Government Affairs team, Lisa’s responsibilities focus on trade policy and regulations, trade negotiations, and investment issues that foster growth in Dow’s global businesses. The role drives bilateral, regional and multilateral strategies to promote policies that secure market access and facilitates global trade across Dow’s value chains and manufacturing.

Her role has direct responsibility for developing corporate strategies across trade policy, from tariff reduction to regulatory simplification; from export controls and sanctions to IP protection and to promote growth of environmental markets and diverse, inclusive workforces. Lisa regularly works with international colleagues and business leaders to engage on trade policy issues critical to drive Dow’s operations around the world. For the industry, she leads the global chemical industry trade association (ICCA) work on trade policy and global regulatory cooperation.

Before joining Dow, Lisa was the Executive Director of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD). TABD was a unique trade-facilitation process by which American and European CEOs worked with the U.S. Administration and the European Commission to implement practical, detailed recommendations. Ms. Schroeter joined TABD in 1999 and managed the process on behalf of the Boeing Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, United Technologies Corporation and Xerox.

Lisa is currently Chair of the WIIT Trust, driving a women’s empowerment and skills sharing program with local universities and was previously the President of WIIT (Association of Women in International Trade). In addition, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); and a Board member of the Washington International Trade Association (WITA). She recently and successfully completed the Georgetown University Qiyadat Women’s Leadership program.

As a long-term DC resident, Lisa is also a Board Member of Cultural Tourism DC, celebrating the unique heritage and history of the U.S. Capital.

Welcoming Remarks:

Jay Shambaugh is a Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

GW Students, Faculty, and Staff are welcome to attend this event in person at the address below or via Zoom:

Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Family Commons, Suite 602
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Alumni, Guests, and General Public: Non-GW individuals are able to attend in person, but they have to complete the Covid registration form that GW now requires.

There will be a networking portion for those in person from 10:30-11:00 a.m.

A note about COVID-19: The health and well-being of GW students, alumni, friends, faculty, and staff remains a top priority for GW and all alumni events will proceed in compliance with all state, local, and public health guidelines.

Please complete the above form to officially register. Please register yourself individually for possible contact tracing or to ensure receipt of Zoom information. For questions, please contact the IIEP team at iiep@gwu.edu.

Governing the New Voluntary Carbon Markets

October 8, 2021March 16, 2022Climate Adaptation, Global Governance, International Trade, Past Events

Tuesday, October 19th, 2021
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to an IIEP/ASU-Thunderbird event on Tuesday, October 19th, entitled “Governing the New Voluntary Carbon Markets.” This event will feature Mark Kenber (VCMI) and Kavita Prakash-Mani (Mandai Nature).

Averting climate catastrophe will require every available tool, including markets. Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) could complement government policies and drive tens of billions of dollars into activities that sequester greenhouse gases, avoid new emissions, and help move the global economy toward net zero as well as protect and restore nature and benefit people. But markets do not naturally focus on such public purposes. A new multi-stakeholder initiative, the outcome of the recent high-level Task Force on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, now aims to ensure that these markets scale quickly while maintaining their public purpose at the core. Two members of the initiative’s newly formed Board of Directors will draw on their extensive experience to provide insights into the urgent challenges and opportunities of this new kind of market.

This webinar was moderated by Ann Florini of ASU-Thunderbird. IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Sunil Sharma provided welcoming remarks. This event was co-sponsored by the Thunderbird School of Management, Arizona State University, and the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU.

About the Speakers:

Mark Kenbar serves as VCMI’s co-Executive Director for External Affairs. He has worked on environment, climate and energy issues for over two decades, in government, NGOs and the private sector. He is currently Managing Director of Orbitas, a Climate Advisers initiative that aims to make capital providers aware of climate transition risks to investments in tropical soft commodity production and shift their lending and investment decisions accordingly. With a background in development and environmental economics, Mark has worked across various areas of environmental and climate policy, with a particular focus on the use of economic instruments in the pursuit of sustainable development. His previous roles include: Chief Executive of Mongoose Energy Ltd, the UK’s largest developer and manager of community energy projects; Policy Director and later Chief Executive at The Climate Group; Senior Policy Officer at WWF International’s Climate Change Programme; Policy and Programme Director at Fundación Natura in Quito; Climate Change Advisor to the Ecuadorian government; and lecturer at both the Catholic University in Quito and the Institute of Development Studies in the UK. He has recently been elected to the Board of Directors of the TSVCM and is currently also a board member of Community Energy England and Verra, Chair of the Reneum Advisory Council and Brighton and Hove Energy Services Coop and a member of the RE100 Advisory Committee.

Kavita Prakash-Mani is the CEO for Mandai Nature, a new environmental conservation NGO established in Singapore by Temasek and Mandai Park Holding, with a focus on SE Asia. Mandai Nature helps protect threatened species from extinction, especially those endemic to Asia and often overlooked, addressing such issues as wildlife trade and the fragmentation of habitats. It works with partners to drive nature-based solutions for climate change, and it works closely with local communities and organizations to create economic opportunities and invest in building skills and conservation capacity on the ground. Prior to this, Kavita was the Global Conservation Director at WWF, leading the development of WWF strategy and approach, partnership development and engagement, planning and performance as well as campaigns. Before this position, she led WWF’s global practice on Markets – engaging companies, communities and citizens/consumers. Previously, Kavita was Executive Director of Grow Asia in Singapore (a World Economic Forum initiative); the Global Head, Food Security Agenda at Syngenta International; and Executive Director, SustainAbility in London. She has worked at the World Resources Institute in Washington DC and Glaxo SmithKline in India. Kavita is a member of Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council. She has been on numerous councils and boards including the Tropical Forest Alliance, Science Based Targets for Nature, World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Food Security and Nutrition, Volans, SustainAbility Inc., and the Institute for Human Rights and Business. She recently joined the Board of Directors of the new governance body for voluntary carbon markets.

About the Moderator:

Ann Florini is Clinical Professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, where she directs programs at the Washington, D.C. campus. She was previously Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University founding director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore; and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has spearheaded numerous international initiatives on global governance, energy and climate policy, and cross-sector collaborations including government, civil society, and the private sector. Her many books and articles have addressed governance in China, transparency in governance, transnational civil society networks, and the role of the private sector in public affairs. Dr. Florini received her Ph.D. in Political Science from UCLA and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University.

Welcome Remarks:

Sunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF- Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, he was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, Dr. Sharma was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, a M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honors) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. His current interests include rethinking capitalism and democracy, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.

IIEP Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy Series

The COVID-19 pandemic, like the global financial crisis a decade ago, has laid bare the cracks in the leading capitalist democracies. Fissures in the political, social, economic, and financial orders, accompanied by an increasingly stressed natural environment, pose serious and possibly existential threats to these societies, as exploding income and wealth inequality subverts the integrity and fairness of markets and elections, weak regulatory oversight increases the likelihood and severity of the next crash, and the visible effects of climate change threaten lives and livelihoods and drive migrations. The three spheres of wellbeing – political and social, economic and financial, and the natural environment, are each becoming more fragile while their complex interrelationships are producing wicked challenges. The IIEP webinar series on Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy examines these difficult questions and possible policy responses.

Thunderbird Finance and Sustainability Series

The global financial system is facing new pressures to become “sustainable” – not only financially stable, but simultaneously environmentally friendly and socially inclusive. These pressures are partly political, in reaction to the increasing financialization of the global economy and the sector’s failure to steer investment to meet the needs of society. New financial technologies (“fintech”) pose yet more pressures on incumbent financial institutions but also offer great opportunities for the creation of what some are calling “citizen-centric” finance. Top public authorities are convening in the new Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System. The private sector has already moved rapidly from CSR to considering broader forms of ESG (environmental, social, governance) risks and opportunities in investments. Thunderbird’s Finance and Sustainability webinar series explores these urgent questions with leading practitioners and thinkers.

More From This Series

Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention

September 10, 2021March 16, 2022Global Governance, Past Events

Thursday, September 23, 2021
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT
In-person and virtual

The Institute for International Economic Policy and the GW Elliott School of International Affairs Book Launch Series were pleased to invite you to a book launch discussion of Assistant Professor Lucia Rafanelli‘s Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention. Elliott School Dean Alyssa Ayres moderated the event.

Global political actors, from states and NGOs to activist groups and individuals, exert influence in societies beyond their own in myriad ways-including via public criticism, consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns, sanctions, and forceful intervention. Often, they do so in the name of justice-promotion. While attempts to promote justice in other societies can do good, they are also often subject to moral criticism and raise several serious moral questions. For example, are there ways to promote one’s own ideas about justice in another society while still treating its members tolerantly? Are there ways to do so without disrespecting their legitimate political institutions or undermining their collective self-determination? Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention aims to tackle these questions.

The book launch began with a lecture by the author followed by a moderated Q&A with the audience. Questions were accepted from both in-person and online audiences. All in-person guests were required to stay masked per GW campus policy. We reserved the right to refuse entry to guests without masks. Detailed guidelines for virtual and in-person attendance were included in the registration confirmation.

About the Speaker:

Lucia Rafanelli is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School. Her work focuses on contemporary political theory, global justice, and theories of human rights. Her other research interests include collective agency and collective personhood, philosophy of law, as well as ethics and artificial intelligence. She is a former affiliate of the Princeton Dialogues on AI and Ethics program and a current affiliate of the Institute for International Economic Policy and the Humanitarian Action Initiative at GW. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics, with a specialization in political theory, from Princeton University

About the Moderator:

Alyssa Ayres is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Dean Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. She was Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia in the Barack Obama administration, where she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her last book is, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World (OUP, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Poverty, Climate, and Unemployment: Towards a World of Three Zeros

September 10, 2021April 11, 2022Climate Adaptation, Development Economics, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Global Governance, James Foster, Past Events

Thursday, September 16, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. EDT
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh who created a model for combating poverty through microlending. He is the author of three books, including Banker to the Poor. The event was moderated by Prof. James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Jr Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Vice Dean at the Elliott School of International Affairs. Prof. Foster is known for developing the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) along with Dr. Sabina Alkire. Elliott School Dean Alyssa Ayres provided welcome remarks.

About the Speaker:

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, pioneering the concepts of microcredit and social business, founding more than 50 Social Business companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, the Fortune Magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.” At the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Professor Yunus was conferred with the Olympic Laurel award for his extensive work in sports for development, bringing the concept of social business to the sports world.

In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Professor Muhammad Yunus is the recipient of 63 honorary degrees from universities across 26 countries. He has received 143 awards from 33 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek and Forbes Magazine.

Professor Yunus has been stressing the need for a basic decision of ‘No Going Back’ to the old ways of thinking and doing. He proposes to create new roads to go to a new destination by creating a World of 3 Zeros – zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty once and for all, and zero unemployment by unleashing entrepreneurship in everyone.

His recent focuses are:

a. Professor Yunus has been campaigning for making the Covid 19 Vaccine as a Global Common Good since June, 2020, urging the World Trade Organization to place a temporary waiver on Intellectual Property rights on vaccines to free up the global capacity to produce vaccines at all locations around the world.

b. Professor Yunus has launched a programme of creating a network of 3ZERO Clubs, each club to be formed by five young people. The programme aims to engage the global youth in initiating actions for creating solutions for global problems.

About the Moderator:

James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Vice Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.

Professor Foster’s work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank.

Alyssa Aryes will provide welcome remarks.

Alyssa Ayres is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Dean Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. She was Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia in the Barack Obama administration, where she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her last book is, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World (OUP, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

The Use of Multidimensional Poverty and Vulnerability Indices in the Context of Health Emergencies

April 20, 2021March 18, 2022Development Economics, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Global Governance, Past Events

Monday, May 24, 2021
10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

Health emergencies pose serious threats to human lives and livelihoods. They also risk exacerbating disadvantages by unequally affecting those who are already worse-off. Identifying how different population subgroups are unequally exposed, susceptible, or vulnerable to diseases, due to social, environmental, and economic implications of health emergencies is vital in developing equitable preparedness, response and recovery measures.

WHO and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) have been collaborating to explore how the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI) and national multidimensional poverty and vulnerability indices (MPIs or MVIs) could be used in health emergencies, especially in the face of COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic consequences. This talk provides a brief overview of how MPIs and MVIs can be used in health emergencies to prevent or mitigate the impacts and to prevent exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities and deprivation. It presents four ways of using multidimensional measures in health emergency contexts, drawing examples from recent studies.

The use of multidimensional measures in the context of health emergencies is new, which invites further discussion, study and exploration by wider stakeholder groups.

This event and seminar series was jointly organized with the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office.

Meet the Presenter:

Dr Niluka Wijekoon is a medical epidemiologist. She works in the Emergencies Programme at WHO headquarters in Geneva, in the Department of Health Information Management and Risk Assessment.

Dr Niluka is a technical expert in surveillance, early warning, alert and response in emergency settings. She has started her public health career with the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) as the Emergency Health Coordinator in Sri Lanka, during the ethnic crisis. She has first joined WHO in 2011 as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of WHO’s emergency hub in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. She has been with WHO headquarters since 2014 and has worked in emergencies and outbreaks around the world, including in Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan, Mozambique, Rohingya crisis is Bangladesh, NE Syria, Yemen, DRC, and Indonesia. Dr Niluka also manages WHO’s electronic tool for early warning, alert and response named EWARS-in-a-Box, an innovative solution for outbreak detection in emergency settings.

Before embarking on a public health career, Dr Niluka worked as an emergency physician in both public and private healthcare sectors. She obtained her Master of Public Health from The University of Sheffield, UK and Master of Biostatistics and Epidemiology from French School of Public Health, Paris, France (École des hautes études en santé publique).

Dr Niluka has been a human rights and gender champion from the onset of her career. She is the Gender, Equity and Human Rights (GER) focal person for her department at WHO and also an active member of the team which leads the research brief on using multidimensional poverty and vulnerability indices to inform equitable policies and interventions in preparedness for, response to and recovery from health emergencies.

Meet the Discussant:

Juan Daniel Oviedo was appointed Chief Statistician of Colombia in August 2018. He has international professional experience in economic consulting for energy markets, and national experience in government and teaching. Previously, he was the Director of Institutional Planning and Research (2016-2018) and Director of the PhD School of Economics (2013-2016) at the Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá. In addition, he was the Founding Partner and Chief Director of LEICO Consultores (2011-2018), a leading consulting firm which performed as an expert opinion both for the private and public sector in regulated industries in Colombia and Latin America. He holds a permanent academic position at Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá (Colombia) since 2005. Juan has a PhD in economics from the University of Toulouse 1 (France) and BA in economics from the Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá (Colombia).

More From This Series

India’s Federal Finances in COVID Times: The 15th Finance Commission

February 15, 2021March 19, 2022Global Governance, India, International Finance, Past Events

Wednesday March 10th, 2021
9:00 – 10:30am EST
via Webex

This was the eighth webinar in the “Envisioning India” series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy. It is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Envisioning India” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The eighth event on “India’s Federal Finances in COVID Times: The 15th Finance Commission” featured NK Singh, Chairman of India’s 15th Finance Commission, with Junaid Kamal Ahmad of the World Bank and Indira Rajaraman as discussants. The discussion was moderated by IIEP Co-Director Jay Shambaugh.

The concept of the Finance Commission is embedded in the constitutional history of India. In a sense, it is even older than our Constitution. The Finance Commission has been described as the balancing wheel in the Constitution because it is designed to correct the structural and inherent imbalances between the resources and the expenditure of the Union and the States. The correction of this imbalance would constitute the basis for a fair vertical devolution.

The Fifteenth Finance Commission (FC-XV) was constituted by the President under Article 280 of the Constitution on 27 November 2017.The title of the report ‘Finance Commission in Covid Times’, submitted to the President for the period 2021-26, itself speaks of the onerous task it had in hand when the pandemic had significantly impacted the economy and shrunk the overall pie of resources. The Union government, in its action taken report on the commission’s report tabled in Parliament on 1^st February 2021 accepted most of the recommendations.

About the Speaker:

N.K. Singh is a prominent Indian economist, academician, and policymaker. He is currently Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission. Prior to this position, he served as a member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, from 2008 to 2014. He also presided as Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Review Committee (FRBM) in 2016.

About the Discussants:

Junaid Kamal Ahmad is the Country Director for the World Bank in India. He joined the World Bank’s Delhi office on 1 September 2016. Junaid, a Bangladeshi national, was formerly the Chief of Staff to World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. He joined the World Bank in 1991 as a Young Professional and worked on infrastructure development in Africa and Eastern Europe. He has since held several management positions, leading the Bank’s program in diverse regions including Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in India and South Asia. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Stanford University, an MPA from Harvard University, and a BA in Economics from Brown University.

Indira Rajaraman holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University. She was previously Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi. She also served as a member of the 13th Finance Commission; and Member of the Central Board of Directors, Reserve Bank of India and of the Technical Advisory Committee for Monetary Policy. She has over 75 research publications in international and national journals and edited volumes and writes regularly in the financial press. She was a member of several official committees that shaped the process of financial and fiscal reform over the last three decades.

Valuing Nature: Whales, Elephants, and the Global Economy

November 12, 2020April 11, 2022Climate Adaptation, Development Economics, Global Governance, International Trade, James Foster, Past Events

Thursday, November 19, 2020
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

via WebEx

Economic systems and human well-being depend critically on natural services provided by a huge range of ecosystems. But those ecosystems are being rapidly destroyed by failure to value those services. As the understanding grows that nature provides finite and often irreplaceable inputs into human lives and livelihoods, new methods are emerging to value natural capital and incorporate those valuations into markets and public policy.

In this webinar, IMF economist Ralph Chami builds on his pathbreaking studies on whales, elephants, and other natural service-providers to lay out an accessible valuation framework that decision makers can use to build public-private partnerships, create employment opportunities, and build a nature-friendly and inclusive global economy. ASU-Thunderbird professor Ann Florini will provide discussant remarks.

This webinar was moderated by Dr. Sunil Sharma, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, alongside IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics. This event is co-sponsored by the Thunderbird School of Management at Arizona State University and the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU.

Meet the Discussants:

Ralph Chami is currently an Assistant Director at the IMF and leads the Western Hemisphere Division of the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD). Previously, he was Assistant Director and Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department responsible for the Regional Economic Outlook, and then the surveillance and program work on fragile states. His forthcoming book on Macroeconomic Policy in Fragile States, co-edited with Raphael Espinoza and Peter Montiel, will be published by Oxford University Press in January 2021. Before joining the IMF in 1999, he was on the Finance faculty of the Mendoza School of Business, University of Notre Dame, USA. Dr. Chami has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University, and his areas of interest include banking regulation and supervision, financial markets, remittances, and climate change.

James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

Sunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, he was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, he was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, and his current interests include rethinking capitalism and democracy, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.

More info can be found here.

More From This Series

A Plurilateral “Single Data Area” Is the Solution to Canada’s Data Trilemma

May 25, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

September 2019

Susan A. Aaronson and Patrick Leblond

IIEP working paper 2020-8

Summary: With its relatively small population, Canada faces a challenge in terms of the amount of high-quality data that it can generate to support a successful data-driven economy. As a result, Canada needs to allow data to flow freely across its borders. However, it also has to provide a high-trust data environment if it wants individuals, firms and government to participate actively in such an economy. As such, Canada (and other countries) faces what can be called the data trilemma, whereby it is not possible to have simultaneously data that flows freely across borders, a high-trust data environment and a national data protection regime; one of these three objectives has to give so that only two are effectively possible at the same time.

To resolve the data trilemma, Canada should work with its key economic partners — namely the European Union, Japan and the United States — to develop a single data area that would be managed by an international data standards board. The envisioned single data area would allow for all types of personal and non-personal data to flow freely across borders while ensuring that individuals, consumers, workers, firms and governments are protected from potential harm arising from activities such as the collection, processing, use, storage or purchase/sale of data. If Canada and its economic partners share similar norms and standards for regulating data, then allowing data to flow freely across borders with these countries no longer risks undermining trust, which is crucial to a successful data-driven economy.

America’s uneven approach to AI and its consequences

May 25, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson

April 2020

Susan A. Aaronson

IIEP working paper 2020-7

Introduction Excerpt: The world’s oceans are in trouble. Global warming is causing sea levels to rise and reducing the supply of food in the oceans. The ecological balance of the ocean has been disturbed by invasive species and cholera. Many pesticides and nutrients used in agriculture end up in the coastal waters, resulting in oxygen depletion that kills marine plants and shellfish. Meanwhile the supply of fish is declining due to overfishing. Yet to flourish, humankind requires healthy oceans; the oceans generate half of the oxygen we breathe, and, at any given moment, they contain more than 97% of the world’s water. Oceans provide at least a sixth of the animal protein people eat. Living oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce climate change impacts. Many civil society groups (NGOs) are trying to protect this shared resource. As example, OceanMind uses satellite data and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the movements of vessels and compare their activities to historical patterns. The NGO can thus identify damaging behavior such as overfishing

Data Governance, AI, and Trade: Asia as a Case Study

May 25, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

April 2020

IIEP working paper 2020-6

Introduction Excerpt: The arc of history seems to be bending again towards the dynamic nations of Asia (Gordon: 2008). The countries and territories of the Asia Pacific region are both a locus for trade and a source of technology fueled growth. In 2017, Asia recorded the highest growth in merchandise trade volume in 2017 for both exports and imports (WTO: 2018, 32). UNCTAD reports that exports of digitally deliverable services increased substantially across all regions during the period 2005– 2018, with a compound annual growth rate ranging between 6 and 12 per cent (table III.1). Growth was the highest in developing countries, especially in Asia (UNCTAD: 2019, 66).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already a leading source of growth for many Asian countries. The AI market in the Asia Pacific was estimated at around US $450 million in 2017 and is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 46.9% by 2022 (Ghasemi: 2018). Several analysts believe Asia’s AI growth will soon overtake the US (Lee: 2018; Ghasemi: 2018)

Data Is Dangerous: Comparing the Risks That the United States, Canada and Germany See in Data Troves

May 25, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

April 2020

Susan A. Aaronson

IIEP working paper 2020-5

Summary: Citizens of the United States, Canada and Germany know that the online world is simultaneously a wondrous and dangerous place. They have seen details about their activities, education, financial status and beliefs stolen, misused and manipulated. This paper attempts to examine why stores of personal data (data troves) held by private firms became a national security problem in the United States and compares the US response to that of Canada and Germany. Citizens in all three countries rely on many of the same data-driven services and give personal information to many of the same companies. German and Canadian policy makers and scholars have also warned of potential national security spillovers of large data troves. However, the three nations have defined and addressed the problem differently. US policy makers see a problem in the ownership and use of personal data (what and how) instead of in America’s own failure to adequately govern personal data. The United States has not adopted a strong national law for protecting personal data, although national security officials have repeatedly warned of the importance of doing so. Instead, the United States has banned certain apps and adopted investment reviews of foreign firms that want to acquire firms with large troves of personal data. Meanwhile, Canada and Germany see a different national security risk. They find the problem is where and how data is stored and processed. Canadian and German officials are determined to ensure that Canadian and German laws apply to Canadian and German personal and/or government data when it is stored on the cloud (often on US cloud service providers). The case studies illuminate a governance gap: personal data troves held by governments and firms can present a multitude of security risks. However, policy makers have put forward nationalistic solutions that do not reflect the global nature of the risk.

The Value of Reputation in Trade: Evidence from Alibaba

May 8, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Maggie Chen, Working Papers

March 2020

Maggie X. Chen and Min Wu

IIEP working paper 2020-4

Abstract: We examine the role of an online reputation mechanism in international trade by exploring T-shirt exports on Alibaba. Exploiting rich transaction data and features of search and rating algorithms, we show that exporters displaying a superior reputation perform significantly better than peers with nearly identical true ratings and observables and the value of reputation rises with the level of information friction and the specificity of information. We develop a dynamic reputation model with heterogeneous cross-country information friction to quantify the effect of the reputation mechanism and find a 20-percent increase in aggregate exports fueled by a market reallocation towards superstars.

JEL Codes: F1, D8

Key Words: reputation, information, superstar, and Alibaba

The Financial Center Leverage Cycle: Does it Spread Around the World?

February 20, 2020March 7, 20222020, Global Governance, Graciela Laura Kaminsky, Working Papers

February 2020

Graciela Laura Kaminsky, Leandro Medina, Shiyi Wang

IIEP working paper 2020-2

Abstract: With a novel database, we examine the evolution of capital flows to the periphery since the collapse of the Bretton Woods System in the early 1970s. We decompose capital flows into global, regional, and idiosyncratic factors. In contrast to previous findings, which mostly use data from the 2000s, we find that booms and busts in capital flows are mainly explained by regional factors and not the global factor. We then ask, what drives these regional factors. Is it the leverage cycle in the financial center? What triggers the leverage cycle in the financial center? Is it a change in global investors’ risk appetite? Or, is it a change in the demand for capital in the periphery? We link leverage in the financial center to regional capital flows and the cost of borrowing in international capital markets to answer these questions. Our estimations indicate that regional capital flows are driven by supply shocks. Interestingly, we find that the leverage in the financial center has a time-varying behavior, with a movement away from lending to the emerging periphery in the 1970s to the 1990s towards lending to the advanced periphery in the 2000s.

Keywords: International Borrowing Cycles. Global and Regional Factors. Push and Pull Factors of Capital Flows. Financial Center Leverage Cycles.

JEL Codes: F30, F34, F65

Search for Yield in Large International Corporate Bonds: Investor Behavior and Firm Responses

November 25, 2019March 7, 20222019, Authors, Global Governance, Tomas Williams, Working Papers

November 2019

Tomas Williams, Charles W. Calomiris, Mauricio Larrain, Sergio L. Schmukler

IIEP working paper 2019-15

Abstract: Emerging market corporations have significantly increased their borrowing in international markets since 2008. We show that this increase was driven by large denomination bond issuances, most of them with face value of exactly US$500 million. Large issuances are eligible for inclusion in important international market indexes. These bonds appeal to institutional investors because they are more liquid and facilitate targeting market benchmarks. We find that the rewards of issuing index-eligible bonds rose drastically after 2008. Emerging market firms were able to cut their cost of funds by more than 76 basis points by issuing bonds with a face value equal to or greater than US$500 million relative to smaller bonds. Firms contemplating whether to take advantage of this cost saving faced a tradeoff after 2008: they could benefit from the lower yields associated with large, indexeligible bonds, but they paid the potential cost of having to hoard low-yielding cash assets if their investment opportunities were less than US$500 million. Because of the post-2008 “size yield discount,” many companies issued index-eligible bonds, while substantially increasing their cash holdings. We present evidence suggesting that these post-2008 behaviors reflected a search for yield by institutional investors into higher-risk securities. These patterns are not apparent in the issuance of investment grade bonds by firms in developed economies.

JEL Classification Codes: F21, F23, F32, F36, F65, G11, G15, G31

Keywords: benchmark indexes, bond issuance, corporate financing, emerging markets,
institutional investors

Emerging Trade Battlefield with China: Export Competition and Firms’ Coping Strategies

November 20, 2019March 7, 20222019, Global Governance, US-China, Yao Pan

October 2019

Yao Pan, Katariina Nilsson Hakkala

IIEP working paper 2019-14

Abstract: This paper analyzes how intensified Chinese export competition affects the exports and product ranges of Western firms. Using a novel identification strategy that exploits changes in Chinese export policies, we find that Chinese export competition reduces aggregate product level exports of Finland. Firm-level analysis using administrative data further shows that Chinese competition leads to substantial price cuts to retain market shares, especially for homogeneous products. In addition, we also discover that firms respond to the increased level of Chinese export competition by dropping their marginal products. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of export competition with China for developed countries.

Keywords: Trade Flows, Export Competition, Firm-level, Product Mix, China

JEL Classification: F14, F61, L25

Shared Values in U.S.- Taiwan Relations: Strengthening Democracy Through Open Governance

April 23, 2019February 23, 2022Global Economic Governance Events, Global Governance, Past Events

Tuesday, April 23, 2019
12 – 2 p.m.
Lindner Family Commons (6th Floor)
Elliott School of International Affairs – GWU
1957 E Street, NW

Open. Collective. Experimental. Sustainable. Taiwan’s first Digital Minister Audrey Tang will address what happens when people who grew up on the internet get their hands on the building blocks of government. As a self-described “conservative anarchist” and a so-called “white-hat hacker,” Minister Tang will show how she works with her team to channel greater combinations of intelligence into policy-making decisions and the delivery of public services. Minister Tang will also discuss “tech for good” and how Taiwan is “SDG

(Sustainable Development Goals) indexing everything.” This event is free and open to the public and the media. This event will be live streamed on the Sigur Center’s YouTube channel. During the moderated Q&A session, Minister Tang will use the Sli.do polling platform to include audiences on the internet in the discussion.

Agenda

12 – 12:05 p.m. Welcome Remarks by Sigur Center for Asian Studies Director Benjamin Hopkins

12:05 – 12:25 p.m. Keynote Address by Minister Audrey Tang

12:25 – 12:45 p.m. Commentary by Dr. Susan Aaronson and Dr. Scott White

12:45 – 1:15 p.m. Moderated Q&A Discussion by Dr. Deepa Ollapally

1:15 – 1:45 p.m. Conclusion and Lunch

Works Councils and Workplace Health Promotion in Germany

March 4, 2019March 7, 20222019, Development Economics, Global Governance, Stephen C. Smith, Working Papers

February 2019

Stephen C. Smith, Uwe Jirjahn and Jens Mohrenweiser

IIEP Working Paper 2019-1

Abstract: From a theoretical viewpoint, there can be market failures resulting in an underprovision of occupational health and safety. Works councils may help mitigate these failures. Using establishment data from Germany, our empirical analysis confirms that the incidence of a works council is significantly associated with an increased likelihood that the establishment provides more workplace health promotion than required by law. This result also holds in a recursive bivariate probit regression accounting for the possible endogeneity of works council incidence. Furthermore, analyzing potentially moderating factors such as collective bargaining coverage, industry, type of ownership, multiestablishment status and product market competition, we find a positive association between works councils and workplace health promotion for the various types of establishments examined. Finally, we go beyond the mere incidence of workplace health promotion and show that works councils are positively associated with a series of different measures of workplace health promotion.

JEL Classification: I18, J28, J50, J81.

Keywords: Non-union employee representation, works council, occupational health and safety, workplace health promotion.

Artificial Intelligence: What Can We Learn from Other Countries’ Approaches?

January 25, 2019March 28, 2022Global Economic Governance Events, Global Governance, International Trade Events, Past Events

Friday, January 25, 2019

12:30pm to 2:00pm – Lunch will be provided

Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Commons, 6th floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are changing the way that we live, work and learn. In many countries, policymakers and business leaders recognize the transformational importance of AI and are developing policies to ensure that their country is competitive. To be competitive in AI requires not only significant capital, but also skills, research, an adequate supply of data, and effective governance policies. Hence, the United States has the “Artificial Intelligence for the American People” strategy. The EU has a Euros 20 billion AI investment strategy and the European AI Alliance. Canadian officials have drafted a Pan-Canadian AI Strategyand the Superclusters initiative. Germany has prepared a new plan, investments and a marketing strategy for AI services. In addition, Japan has created an initiative to fund collaborative AI projects between start-ups and large companies.

This event will examine what policymakers can learn from these distinct government approaches. Should governments take the lead in AI investment and in prioritizing areas for research, development and commercialization? Or should the private sector lead with taxpayer investment in basic AI R & D and public-private partnerships where needed? Please join IIEP, the GWU Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, and the Software & Information Industry Association(SIIA) for a lunchtime discussion on these important issues.

Welcoming remarks: Susan Ariel Aaronson, Research Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Moderator: Carl Schonander, Senior Director, International Public Policy, SIIA

Confirmed Speakers:

Anthony J. Scriffignano, Ph.D., SVP / Chief Data Scientist, Dunn and Bradstreet
Jesse Spector, Policy Officer, Digital Economy; ICT, European Union
Dr. Tim Persons, Chief Scientist and Managing Director of the Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics team of the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Brad Wood, Senior Policy Advisor, Embassy of Canada
Masayuki Matsui, Counselor, Economic Section, Embassy of Japan

Organizers: Carl Schonander and Dr. Susan Ariel Aaronson

Professor Aaronson will provide an overview document on comparative advantage in AI to all attendees.

Event Summary

This well attended event entitled: “Artificial Intelligence: What Can be Learned from Other Countries Approaches?” can be viewed on youtube here. Some takeaways included the reality that there are no meaningful estimates of the impact of AI on job creation – in fact, available data can be used to posit both that it contributes to job loss or gain; cybersecurity will include an AI component; and, the AI use skills deficiency in people capable of an inter-disciplinary approach to AI use is both real but also an opportunity. Given that McKinsey (among other estimates of the economic impact of AI) estimates that AI could deliver up to 16% higher global GDP by 2030, understanding and taking advantage of this technology in a “human-centric” way will be crucial to building popular acceptance of the technology if countries and companies are going to be able to take full advantage of possible AI applications.

Panelists

Japanese Embassy Economic Counselor Masayuki Matsui provided valuable information on the Japanese approach to AI development, especially in the international space. Japan is hosting the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Trade and the Digital Economy on June 8-9, 2019, which will include discussions on AI. The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Chief Scientist and Managing Director, Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics Timothy M. Persons spoke (link needed) about the GAO’s work on Artificial Intelligence, as well as Administration policy in “Artificial Intelligence for the American People.” The GAO has focused on AI’s impact for cybersecurity, automated vehicles, criminal justice and financial services. Canadian Embassy Senior Policy Advisor Brad Wood focused on the AI ecosystem in Canada, especially efforts to foster research excellence, promote AI across sectors, enhance public trust in the technology, and spearhead international collaboration. European Union Digital Policy Officer Jesse Spector spoke about the “four pillars” of the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Policy, which includes policies around investment, data, skills and trust. With respect to trust, the Digital Policy Officer noted the European Commission’s draft ethics guidelines on Artificial Intelligence developed by a multi-stakeholder High Level Expert Group (SIIA will submit a comment on those guidelines on February 1, 2019). Dun and Bradstreet Senior Vice President and Chief Data Scientist Anthony J. Scriffignano talked about how while there are many “head winds” propelling AI adoption, there are “tail winds,” including a serious skills gap, something all the panelists agreed was a serious problem.

Some Takeaways

Cybersecurity and law enforcement in general will depend on smart applications of AI: The “changing face of malfeasance,” as Anthony J. Scriffignano puts it, involves using AI to combat it. The GAO considers that AI will be crucial in ensuring cybersecurity. For instance, automated systems can help by identifying vulnerabilities; patching vulnerabilities; detecting attacks, and defending against active attacks. In general, AI technologies are important to the SIIA member companies that are engaged in providing anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism, know-your-customer and other services important to law enforcement.

There are no meaningful estimates of the impact of AI on net job creation or destruction: There is a wide debate on the possible impact of AI on jobs. And there are many reports with estimates based on seemingly large data sets and solid methodologies. But the reality seems to be that available data can support the notion that AI leads to job loss and vice versa. For instance, many reports are based on what computer scientists guess with respect to which tasks in which jobs can possibly be done technically by today’s machine learning programs. So, for example, salad making could be programmed; therefore that part of the job of short order cooks is at risk and therefore there will be a need for fewer of them. However, often the cost of using a robot to make that salad is not factored into the analysis, thereby not providing a realistic sense of whether an employer would want to use AI technologies to make the salad in the first place.

There is a consensus that there is a need for skills development, especially in inter-disciplinary work: If there was one thing that all panelists agreed upon, other than than that AI will have a profound impact, it is that there is a growing need for skills development. Interestingly, that does not mean that everybody needs to learn how to write code and become a computer programmer, although there is certainly a need for more coders and more computer programmers. There is a reason why U.S. college students are demanding more courses in this field as the NYT recently reported. What it does mean, particularly in this era of growing calls for “explainable AI” (itself a challenging concept), is that there will be an increasing need for individuals who know how to use AI technologies appropriately. There was a discussion, for instance, about how AI is going to become an increasingly important part of the criminal justice system. So that means that prosecutors and others have to work with professionals who are conversant with the technology and who also understand the laws and ethical considerations underpinning criminal justice work. That is a different skill set from the work conducted by today’s IT professionals.

Conclusion

There is a reason why AI dominated the conversation at the Davos World Economic Forum. Although AI has experienced period of hype in the past, it seems like “this time it is different,” in terms of usable relatively near term potential AI applications in fields as different as drug discovery, criminal justice, cybersecurity, financial services, fraud prevention and many many other spaces. SIIA will continue to work with academic institutions such as George Washington University in exploring the policy implications of AI developments. We also hope to work with the U.S. Congress and international institutions in understanding better what kind of inter-disciplinary training is needed to prepare the professionals of tomorrow. Given the U.S., Japanese, EU, and Canadian interest in skills development, this need for inter-disciplinary expertise could perhaps be supported at the June 8-9, 2019 G20 meeting in Japan.

What Are We Talking about When We Talk about Digital Protectionism?

December 31, 2018March 7, 20222018, Global Governance, International Trade, Susan Aaronson

December 2018

Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2018-13

Abstract: For almost a decade, executives, scholars, and trade diplomats have argued that filtering, censorship, localization requirements, and domestic regulations are distorting the cross-border information flows that underpin the internet. Herein I use process tracing to examine the state and implications of digital protectionism. I make five points: First, I note that digital protectionism differs from protectionism of goods and other services. Information is intangible, highly tradable, and some information is a public good. Secondly, I argue that it will not be easy to set international rules to limit digital protectionism without shared norms and definitions. Thirdly, the US, EU, and Canada have labeled other countries policies’ protectionist, yet their arguments and actions sometimes appear hypocritical. Fourth, I discuss the challenge of Chinese failure to follow key internet governance norms. China allegedly has used a wide range of cyber strategies, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks (bombarding a web site with service requests) to censor information flows and impede online market access beyond its borders. WTO members have yet to discuss this issue and the threat it poses to trade norms and rules. Finally, I note that digital protectionism may be self-defeating. I then draw conclusions and make policy recommendations.

Data is Different: Why the World Needs a New Approach to Governing Cross-border Data Flows

November 30, 2018March 7, 20222018, Global Governance, International Trade, Susan Aaronson

November 2018

Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2018-10

Executive Summary: Companies, governments and individuals are using data to create new services such as apps, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). These data-driven services rely on large pools of data and a relatively unhindered flow of data across borders (few market access or governance barriers). The current approach to governing cross-border data flows through trade agreements has not led to binding, universal or interoperable rules governing the use of data. Trade diplomats first established principles to govern cross-border data flows, and then drafted e-commerce language in free trade agreements (FTAs), rather than through the World Trade Organization (WTO), the most international trade agreement. Data-driven services will require a different domestic and international regulatory environment than that developed to facilitate e-commerce. Most countries with significant datadriven firms are in the process of debating how to regulate these services and the data that underpins them. But many developing countries are not able to participate in that debate. Policy makers must devise a more effective approach to regulating trade in data for four reasons: the unique nature of data as an item exchanged across borders; the sheer volume of data exchanged; the fact that much of the data exchanged across borders is personal data; and the fact that although data could be a significant source of growth, many developing countries are unprepared to participate in this new data-driven economy and to build new data-driven services. This paper begins with an overview and then describes how trade in data is different from trade in goods or services. It then examines analogies used to describe data as an input, which can help us understand how data could be regulated. Next, the paper discusses how trade policy makers are regulating trade in data and how these efforts have created a patchwork. Finally, it suggests an alternative approach.

Data Minefield: How AI is Prodding Governments to Rethink Trade in Data

April 30, 2018March 7, 20222018, Global Governance, International Trade, Susan Aaronson

April 2018

Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2018-11

Key Points: No nation alone can regulate artificial intelligence (AI) because it is built on crossborder data flows; countries are just beginning to figure out how best to use and to protect various types of data that are used in AI, whether proprietary, personal, public or metadata; countries could alter comparative advantage in data through various approaches to regulating data — for example, requiring companies to pay for personal data; and Canada should carefully monitor and integrate its domestic regulatory and trade strategies related to data utilized in AI.

Personal Privacy of HMDA in a World of Big Data

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Anthony Yezer, Global Governance, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Anthony Yezer (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-21

Repression, Civil Conflict, And Leadership Tenure: A Case Study of Kazakhstan

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University

IIEP Working Paper 2017-16

Taming the Tiger: Peaceful and Violent Protest and the Repressive Responses of Government

April 14, 2018March 9, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University), M. Rodwan Abouharb (University College London), & N. Susan Gaines (University of Leeds)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-15

Repression, Civil Conflict, And Leadership Tenure: A Case Study of Turkey

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University) & N. Susan Gaines (University of Leeds)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-14

Repression, Civil Conflict, and Leadership Tenure: A Case Study of Honduras

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-13

What are We Talking About when We Discuss Digital Protectionism?

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-9

Governance Spillovers of Labour Provisions in Free Trade Agreements

April 14, 2018March 7, 20222017, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working PapersLeave a Comment

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-2

Most people know that governments such as the US, EU, and Canada use labour rights provisions in trade agreements to improve labour rights. They believe that policymakers in the developing world will be willing to improve labour rights governance with the incentive of the trade agreement. But in this paper, Aaronson argues that these provisions have broader and equally important spillover effects upon governance. These provisions:

empower workers and other citizens;
facilitate a feedback loop between the developing country government and its citizens on a broad range of issues affecting trade;
promote wage and income equality, which is conducive to development, social stability and democracy;
help policy-makers to better integrate labour rights with other public policies (such as fiscal policy, anti-corruption policies, or criminal laws); and
can help citizens and policy-makers gradually improve governance, increase productivity and advance social cohesion in the community.

Aaronson used a comparative case study approach, examining both the language and studies of the effects of the provisions. For example, she finds that since 2005, U.S. agreements have included provisions in the labour rights chapter related to procedural guarantees and public awareness. The provisions require parties to encourage public participation in the development of labour rights policies. They also require that all persons have “appropriate access to tribunals”, that the “proceedings are fair, equitable, and transparent … open to the public”, give all parties the right to seek review, and educate their public about the law. Taken in sum, these provisions could empower workers (on the demand side of labour rights) through rules on public awareness, public participation, and due process rights. The EU and Canada have begun to adopt similar policies.

Aaronson provides several examples of improved governance. In Guatemala, policymakers learned to coordinate labour rights and fiscal policy so that companies could not get subsidies or avoid taxes if they were found to violate labor rights. Mexican officials learned to protect the rights of Mexican guest workers in the U.S. In 2013, with help from U.S. and Mexican civil society groups, guest workers came together to form the Sinaloa Temporary Workers’ Coalition to defend the rights of guest workers in Mexico and abroad. In 2014, the group complained to the Mexican Ministry of Labor regarding recruitment fees. The Ministry investigated and found 27 violations of the law, resulting in fines. In this example, Mexicans held their government accountable for violations of the law at home.

Aaronson notes that no one has yet done a study as to whether these provisions and consultative bodies actually empower workers. Nonetheless, in a 2016 study of trade and labour rights, the ILO noted that “the impact of labor provisions depends crucially on, first, the extent to which they involve stakeholders, notably social partners such as unions and NGOs.” Workers who are aware of their rights and able to challenge executives and government officials’ decisions are empowered. Over time, empowered workers can promote greater income equality through improved productivity and better share in profits through wage increases. Some analysts argue that this process can advance development, social cohesion and democracy, and can ensure that more people meet their potential. Moreover, these provisions may help to legitimize trade agreements and help them to gain a base of public support.

Redefining Protectionism: The New Challenge in the Digital Age

March 29, 2018March 7, 20222016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-30

Twenty-first century protectionism is a slippery concept. With the introduction of digital trade, it is important for scholars and policymakers to rethink how they define, measure, and address protectionism. This is most clear in the United States where attitudes towards digital trade and digital protectionism have been murky at best.

While the digital is important to all countries, it is particularly important to the United States, where digital trade represents nearly 55 percent of U.S. service exports and has generated an annual trade surplus of over $150 billion. In a principal effort to limit digital protectionism and maintain an open internet for the advancement of the free flow of information, the United States made the move to create binding rules to govern trade in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and was the first country to call out digital protectionism in other nations. Policymakers now understand that information, whether it is created or altered within their county, is an asset. Therefore, measures that restrict content, limit the flow of data, or impose standards that keep out foreign competition could threaten the generativity of the internet as a whole.

However, many governments disagree with the scope and breadth of U.S. claims about digital protectionism. For example, Canadian and Australian policymakers are determined to protect the privacy of their citizens’ health records and require such information to be stored on local servers to an extent that tends to outpace U.S. standards. Adding to the confusion, U.S. arguments against digital protectionism are often inconsistent. For example, in a 2013 report on foreign trade barriers, U.S. officials complained about Japan’s uneven, and Vietnam’s unclear, approach to consumer privacy. At the same time, the United States has argued that China’s failure to enforce its privacy laws is harmful to digital trade.

Despite the importance of digital trade and digital protectionism, the United States has not thought out its stance on questions like: Is a policy truly protectionist? How harmful are these policies to U.S. interests? Are trade sanctions an appropriate response, and which agency should be responsible for making these decisions? As digital trade takes up a bigger portion of the global economy, policymakers and companies will need clarity. Given the stakes, it is important that the United States takes a leading role in defining digital protectionism.

Information Please: A Comprehensive Approach to Digital Trade Provisions in NAFTA 2.0

November 30, 2017March 7, 20222018, Global Governance, International Trade, Susan Aaronson

November 2017

by Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2018-12

Nonunion Employee Representation: Theory and the German Experience with Mandated Works Councils

October 30, 2017March 7, 20222017, Development Economics, Global Governance, Stephen C. Smith, Working PapersLeave a Comment

October 2017

by Stephen Smith (George Washington University) & Uwe Jirjahn (University of Trier)

IIEP Working Paper 2017-22

The Political Economy of Sovereign Borrowing: Explaining the Policy Choices of Highly Indebted Governments

March 31, 2016March 9, 20222015, Global Governance, Stephen B. Kaplan, Working Papers

by Stephen B. Kaplan (The George Washington University) and Kaj Thomsson (Maastricht University)

IIEP Working Paper 2015-1

Partisan Technocratic Cycles in Latin America

March 27, 2016March 9, 20222016, Global Governance, Stephen B. Kaplan, Working Papers

by Stephen Kaplan (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-28

Repression, Civil Conflict, and Leadership Tenure: A Case Study of Bahrain

March 22, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-23

Foreign Rivals are Coming to Town: Responding to the Threat of Foreign Multinational Entry

March 21, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Maggie Chen, Working Papers

by Maggie X. Chen (George Washington University) & Cathy Ge Bao (University of International Business and Economics)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-22

Repression, Civil Conflict, and Leadership Tenure: A Case Study of Argentina

March 20, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-21

At the Intersection of Cross‐Border Information Flows and Human Rights: TPP as a Case Study

March 18, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2016-19

How Do Electoral Quotas Influence Political Competition? Evidence from Municipal, State, and National Elections in India

March 16, 2016August 31, 20182016, Adam Ziegfeld, Global Governance, Working Papers

by Adam Ziegfeld (George Washington University) & Adam Michael Auerbach (American University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-16

At the Intersection of Cross-Border Information Flows and Human Rights: TPP as a Case Study

March 12, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-12

Repression, Civil Conflict, and Leadership Tenure; The Thai Case Study: 2006-2014

March 10, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Uncategorized, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-10

Repression, Civil Conflict, and Leadership Tenure; The Sri Lanka Case Study

March 9, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-9

Working by Design: New Ideas to Empower U.S. and European Workers in TTIP

March 8, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-8

Can Transparency in Supply Chains Advance Labor Rights? Mapping of Existing Efforts

March 7, 2016August 31, 20182016, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2016-7

Repression, civil conflict and leadership tenure; the Thai Case Study: 2006-2014

March 31, 2015March 11, 20222015, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2015-9

Fighting the Last Economic War: Crisis and Austerity in Latin America

March 31, 2015March 11, 20222015, Global Governance, Stephen B. Kaplan, Working Papers

by Stephen Kaplan (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2015-13

The Political Economy of Macroeconomic Policymaking: Economic Crises and Technocratic Governance

July 31, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Stephen B. Kaplan, Working Papers

by Stephen B. Kaplan (The George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2014-18

Can Trade Policy Set Information Free

June 30, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2014-9

Does the WTO Help Member States Clean Up?

June 30, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University) and M. Rodwan Abouharb (University London College)

IIEP Working paper 2014-7

Trade Imbalance: Juggling the Needs of Investors and the Public Interest in TTIP

June 30, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University) and Rob Maxim (George Washington University)

IIEP Working Paper 2014-8

Putting the Blame on Governments Why Firms and Governments have Failed to Advance the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

June 30, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University) and Ian Higham (EIRIS)

IIEP Working Paper 2014-6

The Political Economy of Sovereign Borrowing Explaining the Policy Choices of Highly Indebted Governments

March 31, 2014March 11, 20222014, Global Governance, Stephen B. Kaplan, Working Papers

by Stephen B. Kaplan (George Washington University) and Kaj Thomsson (Maastricht University)

IIEP Working Paper 2014-10

Cooperatives in a Global Economy: Key Economic Issues, Recent Trends, and Potential for Development

September 30, 2013March 11, 20222013, Development Economics, Global Governance, Stephen C. Smith, Working Papers

September 2013

by Stephen C. Smith (co-author Jonathon Rothbaum)

IIEP Working Paper 2013-06

Statistical Versus Economic Output Gap Measures: Evidence from Mongolia

August 30, 2013March 11, 20222013, Global Governance, Tara Sinclair, Working Papers

by Tara Sinclair (co-author Julia Bersch)

IIEP Working Paper 2013-07

Internet Governance and Internet Control: How to Safeguard Internet Freedom, Cicero Great Debate Paper

February 28, 2013March 11, 20222013, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2013-10

Do Foreign Owners Favor Short-Term Profit? Evidence from Germany

January 31, 2013March 11, 20222013, Development Economics, Global Governance, Stephen C. Smith, Working Papers

January 2013

by Stephen C. Smith (George Washington University), Verena Dill (Universität Trier), and Uwe Jirjahn (Universität Trier)

IIEP Working Paper 2013-15

Peltzman on Ice: Evidence on Compensating Behavior Using a Natural Experiment from Ice Hockey

August 30, 2011March 11, 20222011, Global Governance, Working Papers

by Alberto Chong

IIEP Working Paper 2011-12

Does the WTO Help Member States Clean Up?

August 30, 2011March 11, 20222011, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2011-13

Does the WTO Help Member States Clean Up?

August 30, 2011March 11, 20222011, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Ariel Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2011-34

Taxes, Prisons, and CFOs: The Effects of Increased Punishment on Corporate Tax Compliance in Ecuador

April 30, 2010March 11, 20222011, Gabriela Aparicio, Global Governance, Paul Carrillo, Shahe Emran, Working Papers

by Paul Carrillo, Gabriela Aparicio, & Shahe Emran

IIEP Working Paper 2011-2

Updated 2011

Unexpected Bedfellows: The GATT, the WTO, and Some Democratic Rights

February 28, 2010March 11, 20222010, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2010-12

Limited Partnership: Business, Government, Civil Society (NGOs) and the Public in the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI)

October 31, 2009March 11, 20222010, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2010-28

Published October 2009 – Updated 2010

The Desirability of Forgiveness in Regulatory Enforcement

February 28, 2007March 11, 20222008, Arun Malik, Global Governance, Working Papers

by Arun Malik

IIEP Working Paper 2008-14

Minding Our Business Corporate Social Responsibility and the Failure to Develop Universal Global Rules to Govern Investors and States

June 30, 2002March 11, 20222010, Global Governance, Susan Aaronson, Working Papers

by Susan Aaronson

IIEP Working Paper 2010-26

Published June 2002

Friday, January 25, 2019

12:30pm to 2:00pm – Lunch will be provided

Elliott School of International Affairs Lindner Commons, 6th floor 1957 E Street NW Washington, DC 20052

Event Summary

Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Commons, 6th floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052