Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

The human imprint on the global environment has now become so large and active that it rivals some of the great forces of Nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system. Although global-scale human influence on the environment has been recognized since the 1800s, the term Anthropocene, introduced about a decade ago, has only recently become widely, but informally, used in the global change research community. However, the term has yet to be accepted formally as a new geological epoch or era in Earth history. In this paper, we put forward the case for formally recognizing the Anthropocene as a new epoch in Earth history, arguing that the advent of the Industrial Revolution around 1800 provides a logical start date for the new epoch. We then explore recent trends in the evolution of the Anthropocene as humanity proceeds into the twenty-first century, focusing on the profound changes to our relationship with the rest of the living world and on early attempts and proposals for managing our relationship with the large geophysical cycles that drive the Earth's climate system.

Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.

Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules is a comprehensive analysis of the customary rules of international humanitarian law applicable in international and non-international armed conflicts. In the absence of ratifications of important treaties in this area, this is clearly a publication of major importance, carried out at the express request of the international community. In so doing, this study identifies the common core of international humanitarian law binding on all parties to all armed conflicts.

This paper provides a minimalist derivation of the gravity equation and uses it to identify three common errors in the literature, what we call the gold, silver and bronze medal errors. The paper provides estimates of the size of the biases taking the currency union trade effect as an example. We generalize Anderson-Van Wincoop's multilateral trade resistance factor (which only works with cross section data) to allow for panel data and then show that it can be dealt with using time-varying country dummies with omitted determinants of bilateral trade being dealt with by time-invariant pair dummies.

Research on the spatial aspects of economic activity has flourished over the past decade due to the emergence of new theory, new data, and an intense interest on the part of policymakers, especially in Europe but increasingly in North America and elsewhere as well. However, these efforts--collectively known as the "new economic geography"--have devoted little attention to the policy implications of the new theory. Economic Geography and Public Policy fills the gap by illustrating many new policy insights economic geography models can offer to the realm of theoretical policy analysis. Focusing primarily on trade policy, tax policy, and regional policy, Richard Baldwin and coauthors show how these models can be used to make sense of real-world situations. The book not only provides much fresh analysis but also synthesizes insights from the existing literature. The authors begin by presenting and analyzing the widest range of new economic geography models to date. From there they proceed to examine previously unaddressed welfare and policy issues including, in separate sections, trade policy (unilateral, reciprocal, and preferential), tax policy (agglomeration with taxes and public goods, tax competition and agglomeration), and regional policy (infrastructure policies and the political economy of regional subsidies). A well-organized, engaging narrative that progresses smoothly from fundamentals to more complex material, Economic Geography and Public Policy is essential reading for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers seeking new approaches to spatial policy issues.

This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tends to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass "contagiously" from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature, and analyzes the contagious nature of currency crises empirically, Using thirty years of panel data from twenty industrialized countries, we find evidence of contagion. Contagion appears to spread more easily to countries which are closely tied by international trade linkages than to countries in similar macroeconomic circumstances.

Abstract The trade associated with international production networks – supply‐chain trade for short – is associated with some of the most momentous global economic changes in the last 100 years. It has transformative implications for the world economy. This paper presents a portrait of the global pattern of supply‐chain trade and how it has evolved since 1995.

This paper critically reviews the outcomes of internationally-funded interventions aimed at climate change adaptation and vulnerability reduction. It highlights how some interventions inadvertently reinforce, redistribute or create new sources of vulnerability. Four mechanisms drive these maladaptive outcomes: (i) shallow understanding of the vulnerability context; (ii) inequitable stakeholder participation in both design and implementation; (iii) a retrofitting of adaptation into existing development agendas; and (iv) a lack of critical engagement with how ‘adaptation success’ is defined. Emerging literature shows potential avenues for overcoming the current failure of adaptation interventions to reduce vulnerability: first, shifting the terms of engagement between adaptation practitioners and the local populations participating in adaptation interventions; and second, expanding the understanding of ‘local’ vulnerability to encompass global contexts and drivers of vulnerability. An important lesson from past adaptation interventions is that within current adaptation cum development paradigms, inequitable terms of engagement with ‘vulnerable’ populations are reproduced and the multi-scalar processes driving vulnerability remain largely ignored. In particular, instead of designing projects to change the practices of marginalised populations, learning processes within organisations and with marginalised populations must be placed at the centre of adaptation objectives. We pose the question of whether scholarship and practice need to take a post-adaptation turn akin to post-development, by seeking a pluralism of ideas about adaptation while critically interrogating how these ideas form part of the politics of adaptation and potentially the processes (re)producing vulnerability. We caution that unless the politics of framing and of scale are explicitly tackled, transformational interventions risk having even more adverse effects on marginalised populations than current adaptation.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has noted that “efforts to prevent non-communicable diseases go against the business interests of powerful economic operators”.1WHOWHO Director-General addresses Health Promotion Conference. The 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion in Helsinki. World Health Organization, Geneva2013http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2013/health_promotion_20130610/en/Google Scholar Selling processed food and drink, alcohol, and tobacco is big business and demand is booming, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. There has always been critical public health analysis of the power of the corporate sector— especially in the field of tobacco—and attention has turned to other areas in recent years, including work on unhealthy commodities,2Stuckler D McKee M Ebrahim S Basu S Manufacturing epidemics: the role of global producers in increased consumption of unhealthy commodities including processed foods, alcohol, and tobacco.PLoS Med. 2012; 9: e1001235Crossref PubMed Scopus (420) Google Scholar industrial epidemics,3Moodie R Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries.Lancet. 2013; 381: 670-679Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (997) Google Scholar profit-driven diseases,4Buse K Hawkes S The World Cup's sickening message.http://www.project-syndicate.org/print/kent-buse-and-sarah-hawkes-condemn-companies—profit-driven-promotion-of-unhealthy-consumption-habitsGoogle Scholar and corporate practices harmful to health.5Freudenberg N Galea S The impact of corporate practices on health: implications for health policy.J Public Health Policy. 2008; 29: 86-104Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar The focus on lifestyle choices has also been extensively critiqued, especially in relation to marketing to children.6Cairns G Angus K Hastings G Caraher M Systematic reviews of the evidence on the nature, extent and effects of food marketing to children: a retrospective summary.Appetite. 2013; 62: 209-215Crossref PubMed Scopus (433) Google Scholar These domains of study share significant overlaps, yet researchers are often divided by discipline, approach, and health topic. We believe there is value in conceptually uniting this work under the banner of the commercial determinants of health: a synergistic, multidisciplinary field that addresses the drivers and channels through which corporations propagate the non-communicable diseases pandemic. Previous definitions of commercial determinants of health have stressed the fundamental conflict between imperative shareholder value maximisation and population health—for example, West and Marteau's “factors that influence health which stem from the profit motive”.7West R Marteau T Commentary on Casswell (2013): the commercial determinants of health.Addiction. 2013; 108: 686-687Crossref PubMed Scopus (28) Google Scholar This broad definition does not capture the inherent complexity of commercial determinants, and the profit motive also applies to companies that sell health-promoting products such as fruit and vegetables. Other definitions have stressed the centrality of consumption, but there are other channels through which companies influence governments, society, and consumers. We define the commercial determinants of health as “strategies and approaches used by the private sector to promote products and choices that are detrimental to health”. This single concept unites a number of others: at the micro level, these include consumer and health behaviour, individualisation, and choice; at the macro level, the global risk society, the global consumer society, and the political economy of globalisation. Three inter-related factors have changed the global business and consumption landscapes while boosting the power of large companies: rising demand, increasing market coverage, and the continued internationalisation of trade and investment (figure). Empirical evidence can be found in the escalating number of international trade deals, inexorable market penetration in low-income and middle-income countries, and metrics such as the MSCI Consumer Staples Index (covering tobacco, food, and drinks), which has grown by 200% in low-income and middle-income countries over the last decade. Corporate influence is exerted through four channels: marketing, which enhances the desirability and acceptability of unhealthy commodities; lobbying, which can impede policy barriers such as plain packaging and minimum drinking ages; corporate social responsibility strategies, which can deflect attention and whitewash tarnished reputations; and extensive supply chains, which amplify company influence around the globe. These channels boost corporate reach and magnify the health impact of commercial enterprise. The breadth and depth of corporate influence is expanded as more people are reached with ever more consumption choices. The absence of publicly available data on corporate practices is a major issue and concerted efforts to quantify these channels are an important task for the public health community. Select data are available; for instance Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and the American Beverage Association spent a total of US$114 million on lobbying at the federal level between 2009 and 2015;8Center for Science in the Public InterestBig soda vs. public health: how the industry opens its checkbook to defeat health measures.https://cspinet.org/new/pdf/big-soda-vs-public-health-report.pdfDate: 2015Google Scholar 45% of people living in countries that have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control report continued exposure to tobacco marketing;9Savell E Gilmore A Sims M et al.The environmental profile of a community's health: a cross-sectional study on tobacco marketing in 16 countries.Bull World Health Organ. 2015; 93: 851-861Crossref PubMed Scopus (26) Google Scholar and companies openly speak about using so-called corporate citizenship to buff their public image.10Dorfman L Cheyne A Friedman LC Wadud A Gottlieb M Soda and tobacco industry corporate social responsibility campaigns: how do they compare?.PLoS Med. 2012; 9: e1001241Crossref PubMed Scopus (129) Google Scholar Health outcomes are determined by the influence of corporate activities on the social environment in which people live and work: namely the availability, cultural desirability, and prices of unhealthy products. The environment shapes the so-called lifeworlds, lifestyles, and choices of individual consumers—ultimately determining health outcomes. The commercial determinants of health framework presented here is not intended to be exhaustive, but to spark the discussion that ends with the establishment of the commercial determinants of health as a stand-alone field of study, reflected with courses and departments at universities and public health institutions worldwide. The rise of non-communicable diseases is a manifestation of a global economic system that currently prioritises wealth creation over health creation. Many key problems and solutions lie outside the health sector, especially in the domains of international finance, trade, and investment policies. There is no quick fix for misaligned incentives, uncorrected externalities, and widespread cognitive dissonance. The paradoxes of the 21st century demand deep interdisciplinary collaboration and the concept of commercial determinants of health provides this distinct conceptual space for uniting different researchers and policy makers in pursuit of a common goal. Advancing the systematic consideration of the private sector is vital to promoting health in an increasingly globalised and consumer-oriented world. In the vernacular of our corporate colleagues, our current piecemeal efforts to combat the commercial drivers of non-communicable diseases is leaving value on the table. It is time to systematise our efforts to confront commercial drivers of disease. At the time of submission LA was a staff member of the WHO. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article and they do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy, or views of the WHO. This Comment is based on a discussion paper prepared for the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs: Conceptualizing the commercial determinants of health to counter the global rise of NCDs, written by IK with support from CF. We declare no competing interests.

In this article we examine the emergence and implications of transnational climate-change governance. We argue that although the study of transnational relations has recently been renewed alongside a burgeoning interest in issues of global governance, the nature of transnational governance has to date received less attention. We contend that transnational governance occurs when networks operating in the transnational political sphere authoritatively steer constituents toward public goals. In order to stimulate a more systematic study of the diversity and significance of this phenomenon, the article develops a typology based on the actors involved and their authority—public, private, or hybrid—and the primary governance functions performed in order to steer network constituents—information-sharing, capacity building and implementation, or rule-setting. A comparative discussion of transnational governance networks for climate change illustrates each category and the value of the typology in assessing the multiple mechanisms through which transnational governance occurs. In conclusion, we suggest that our typology provides a useful starting point for future research and reflect on the implications for the study of global affairs.

The current crisis saw an unprecedented collapse in international capital flows after years of rising financial globalization. We identify the stylized facts and main drivers of this development. The retrenchment in international capital flows is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon: first, across time, being especially dramatic in the wake of the Lehman Brothers’ failure; secondly, across types of flows, with banking flows being the hardest hit due to their sensitivity of risk perception; and thirdly, across regions, with emerging economies experiencing a shorter-lived retrenchment than developed economies. Our econometric analysis shows that the magnitude of the retrenchment in capital flows across countries is linked to the extent of international financial integration, its specific nature – with countries relying on bank flows being the hardest hit – as well as domestic macroeconomic conditions and their connection to world trade flows. — Gian-Maria Milesi-Ferretti and Cédric Tille

This article analyzes the heterogeneous reaction of exporters to real exchange rate changes using a very rich French firm-level data set with destination-specific export values and volumes on the period 1995–2005. We find that high–performance firms react to a depreciation by increasing significantly more their markup and by increasing less their export volume. This heterogeneity in pricing-to-market is robust to different measures of performance, samples, and econometric specifications. It is consistent with models where the demand elasticity decreases with firm performance. Since aggregate exports are concentrated on high-productivity firms, precisely those that absorb more exchange rate movements in their markups, heterogeneous pricing-to-market may partly explain the weak impact of exchange rate movements on aggregate exports.

The costs and benefits of eastern enlargement: the impact on the EU and central Europe Get access Richard E. Baldwin, Richard E. Baldwin Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva and CEPR; Erasmus University Rotterdam, WTO and CEPR; London Business School and CEPR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Joseph F. Francois, Joseph F. Francois Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva and CEPR; Erasmus University Rotterdam, WTO and CEPR; London Business School and CEPR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Richard Portes Richard Portes Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva and CEPR; Erasmus University Rotterdam, WTO and CEPR; London Business School and CEPR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Economic Policy, Volume 12, Issue 24, 1 April 1997, Pages 125–176, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0327.00018 Published: 21 November 2014

This paper examines the impact of public infrastructure on industrial location when increasing returns are present. Trade integration implies that firms tend to locate in countries with better domestic infrastructure. High levels of international infrastructure and strong returns to scale magnify industrial relocation due to differentials in domestic infrastructure or capital endowments. Regional policies which finance domestic infrastructure in a poor country lead firms to relocate in this country. Regional policies which finance international infrastructure in a poor country will lead firms to leave this country. We also analyze the incentives for countries to inhibit industrial relocation.

A Chapter which discusses the creation and evolution of the UN High Commissioner's Office, explains the structure of the Office, and looks at some of the priorities of the various High Commissioners.

The world of climate politics is increasingly no longer confined to the activities of national governments and international negotiations. Critical to this transformation of the politics of climate change has been the emergence of new forms of transnational governance that cut across traditional state-based jurisdictions and operate across public and private divides. This book provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge account of the world of transnational climate change governance. Co-authored by a team of the world's leading experts in the field and based on a survey of sixty case studies, the book traces the emergence, nature and consequences of this phenomenon, and assesses the implications for the field of global environmental politics. It will prove invaluable for researchers, graduate students and policy makers in climate change, political science, international relations, human geography, sociology and ecological economics.

This paper surveys the recent literature on sovereign debt and relates it to the evolution of the legal principles underlying the sovereign debt market and the experience of the most recent debt crises and defaults. It finds limited support for theories that explain the feasibility of sovereign debt based on either external sanctions or exclusion from the international capital market and more support for explanations that emphasize domestic costs of default. The paper concludes that there remains a case for establishing institutions that reduce the cost of default but the design of such institutions is not a trivial task.

This paper addresses the final steps to global free trade – what they might look like, what sort of political economy forces might drive them, and what the WTO might do to help. Two facts form the point of departure: (1) Regionalism is here to stay; world trade is regulated by a motley assortment of unilateral, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements; (2) this motley assortment is not the best way to organise world trade. Moving to global duty‐free trade will require a multilateralisation of regionalism. This paper presents the political economy logic of trade liberalisation and uses it to structure a narrative of world trade liberalisation since 1947. The logic is then used to project the world tariff map in 2010, arguing that the pattern will be marked by fractals – fuzzy, leaky trade blocs made up of fuzzy, leaky sub‐blocs (fuzzy since the proliferation of FTAs makes it impossible to draw sharp lines around the Big‐3 trade blocs, and leaky since some FTAs create free trade ‘canals’ linking the Big‐3 blocs). The paper then presents a novel political economy mechanism – spaghetti bowls as building blocs – whereby offshoring creates a force that encourages the multilateralisation of regionalism. Finally, the paper suggests three things the WTO might do to help multilateralise regionalism.

ABSTRACT In China, between 2006 and 2013, local public debt crowded out the investment of private firms by tightening their funding constraints while leaving state‐owned firms' investment unaffected. We establish this result using a purpose‐built data set for Chinese local public debt. Private firms invest less in cities with more public debt, with the reduction in investment larger for firms located farther from banks in other cities or more dependent on external funding. Moreover, in cities where public debt is high, private firms' investment is more sensitive to internal cash flow.

We use a French firm-level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1994–2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms’ R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) R&D investment is countercyclical without credit constraints, but it becomes procyclical as firms face tighter credit constraints; (ii) this result is only observed for firms in sectors that depend more heavily upon external finance, or that are characterized by a low degree of asset tangibility; (iii) in more credit-constrained firms, R&D investment plummets during recessions but does not increase proportionally during upturns.