The Role of the World Bank in the Transfer of Policy Knowledge on Trade Liberalisation

Investment Growth after the Pandemic

Global Outlook

Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia’s social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes through facilitating increased consumption of the ‘risk commodities’ tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods, and by constraining access to NCD medicines. In this paper we describe the NCD burden in Asian countries, trends in risk commodity consumption and the processes by which trade liberalization has occurred in the region and contributed to these trends. We further establish pressing questions for future research on strengthening regulatory capacity to address trade liberalization impacts on risk commodity consumption and health. A semi-structured search of scholarly databases, institutional websites and internet sources for academic and grey literature. Data for descriptive statistics were sourced from Euromonitor International, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization. Consumption of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods was prevalent in the region and increasing in many countries. We find that trade liberalization can facilitate increased trade in goods, services and investments in ways that can promote risk commodity consumption, as well as constrain the available resources and capacities of governments to enact policies and programmes to mitigate such consumption. Intellectual property provisions of trade agreements may also constrain access to NCD medicines. Successive layers of the evolving global and regional trade regimes including structural adjustment, multilateral trade agreements, and preferential trade agreements have enabled transnational corporations that manufacture, market and distribute risk commodities to increasingly penetrate and promote consumption in Asian markets. Trade liberalization is a significant driver of the NCD epidemic in Asia. Increased participation in trade agreements requires countries to strengthen regulatory capacity to ensure adequate protections for public health. How best to achieve this through multilateral, regional and unilateral actions is a pressing question for ongoing research.

Unlike neoliberalism, [the] new financial architecture recognises the limits of a disembedded global economy. Yet, rather than seeking to rein in the forces of liberalisation by re-embedding intern...

This paper is an inductive, qualitative case study concerning the development of new policy learning theory derived from Russian power sector liberalisation policy reform that was conceived and implemented from the year 2001 to 2007. The research extends the policy learning theory work of James and Jorgensen and others by more holistically explaining how policy knowledge, through policy learning, affects policy formulation, change, the direction of that change, and outcomes. To provide an investigative platform for this, the study aimed to capture the perceptions related to Russian policy learning and adaptation from three primary policy community groups which included Russian energy researchers, international industrial informants, and economists with a high degree of involvement in power sector liberalisation policy development. In the course of the research, policy learning causal ‘moments’ were identified in the form of synchronic and diachronic interrelated frameworks that indicated causal mechanisms and causal paths. The empirically derived research results were from conceptual, planning, and implementation processes used to diversify Russian policy learning, primarily from relevant, concurrent, international policy experiences and outcomes in Britain, and to a lesser extent, the USA.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES The Policy Sciences at the Cross-Roads Promoting the Policy Orientation: Lasswell in Context Public Policy, Social Science and the State: An Historical Perspective POLICY PROCESSES Theories of the Policy Cycle Agenda Setting in Public Policy Policy Formulation: Design and Tools Implementing Public Policy Do Policies Determine Politics? An Analysis of Lowi's Policy Typology POLICY POLITICS, ADVOCACY, AND EXPERTISE A Guide to the Advocacy Coalition Framework Policy Communities Policy Analysis and Think Tanks POLICY DECISION MAKING: RATIONALITY, NETWORKS, AND LEARNING. Rationality in Policy Decision-Making Rational Choice in Public Policy: The Theory in Critical Perspective Taking Stock of Policy Networks: Do They Matter? Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure, and Change DELIBERATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: ARGUMENTATION, RHETORIC, AND NARRATIVES Deliberative Policy Analysis as Practical Reason: Integrating Empirical and Normative Arguments Rhetoric in Policy-Making: Between Logos, Ethos, and Pathos Narrative Policy Analysis COMPARATIVE, CULTURAL, AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES Comparative Public Policy Applied Cultural Theory: Tool for Policy Analysis Ethical Issues and Public Policy Public Policy and Democratic Citizenship: What Kinds of Citizenship Does Policy Promote? QUANTITATIVELY-ORIENTED POLICY METHODS Quantitative Methods for Policy Analysis The Use (and Misuse) of Survey Research in Policy Analysis Social Experiments and Public Policy Evaluation Research in Policy Analysis QUALITATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: INTERPRETATION, MEANING, AND CONTEXT Qualitative-Interpretive Methods in Policy Research Qualitative Research and Public Policy Interpretation and Intention in Policy Analysis Context Sensitive Policy Methods POLICY DECISION TECHNIQUES Cost-Benefit Analysis Environmental Impact Assessment: Between Bureaucratic Process and Social Learning. Technology Assessment as Policy Analysis: From Expert Advice to Participatory Approaches Public Policy Mediation: From Argument to Collaboration COUNTRY PERSPECTIVES Policy Analysis in Britain Evolution of Policy Analysis in the Netherlands Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Sweden: Discovering the Limits of the Rationalistic Paradigm Policy Analysis in Germany Policy Analysis in India Policy Analysis in Korea: From Economic Efficiency to Public Participation

Global health governance and the World Bank

“TRUE FINANCIAL OPENING UP”: THE ANALYSIS OF CAPITAL ACCOUNT LIBERALIZATION IN A GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM FRAMEWORK

BackgroundTrade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia’s social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes through facilitating increased consumption of the ‘risk commodities’ tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods, and by constraining access to NCD medicines. In this paper we describe the NCD burden in Asian countries, trends in risk commodity consumption and the processes by which trade liberalization has occurred in the region and contributed to these trends. We further establish pressing questions for future research on strengthening regulatory capacity to address trade liberalization impacts on risk commodity consumption and health.MethodsA semi-structured search of scholarly databases, institutional websites and internet sources for academic and grey literature. Data for descriptive statistics were sourced from Euromonitor International, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization.ResultsConsumption of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods was prevalent in the region and increasing in many countries. We find that trade liberalization can facilitate increased trade in goods, services and investments in ways that can promote risk commodity consumption, as well as constrain the available resources and capacities of governments to enact policies and programmes to mitigate such consumption. Intellectual property provisions of trade agreements may also constrain access to NCD medicines. Successive layers of the evolving global and regional trade regimes including structural adjustment, multilateral trade agreements, and preferential trade agreements have enabled transnational corporations that manufacture, market and distribute risk commodities to increasingly penetrate and promote consumption in Asian markets.ConclusionsTrade liberalization is a significant driver of the NCD epidemic in Asia. Increased participation in trade agreements requires countries to strengthen regulatory capacity to ensure adequate protections for public health. How best to achieve this through multilateral, regional and unilateral actions is a pressing question for ongoing research.

Contents: Environmental Externalities, Comparative Advantage, and Optimal Policy Choice: Environmental Abundance and Comparative Advantage: Environmental quality and the gains from trade, Horst Siebert Pollution, welfare, and environmental policy in the theory of comparative advantage, RA1/4diger Pethig Regulation, factor awards and international trade, Martin C. McGuire. Optimal Policies, Piecemeal Reform, Strategic responses: Environmental regulation in an open economy, Kerry Krutilla International trade and the environment: policy reform in a polluted small open economy, Brian R. Copeland Strategic environmental policy and international trade, Scott Barrett On ecological dumping, Michael Rauscher. Environmental Regulations and Loss of Competitiveness: Environmental control costs and border adjustments, Charles Pearson The pollution content of American trade, Ingo Walter International competitive displacement from environmental control: the quantitative gains from methodological refinement, John H. Mutti and J. David Richardson Industrial pollution abatement: the impact on the balance of trade, H. David Robinson The effects of domestic environmental policies on patterns of world trade: an empirical test, James A. Tobey. Trade Liberalization, Environmental damage, and Developing Countries: Trade Liberalization, Environment and Welfare: North-South trade and the environment, Brian C. Copeland and M. Scott Taylor The environment as a factor of production: the effects of economic growth and trade liberalization, RamA(3)n Lopez North-South trade and the global environment, Graciela Chichilnisky Open access renewable resources: trade and trade policy in a 2-country model, James A. Brander and M. Scott Taylor Export bans, environmental protection, and unemployment, Judith M. Dean and Shubhashis Gangopadhyay. Freer Trade and Pollution Havens: Competition in regional environmental policies when plant locations are endogenous, James R. Markusen, Edward R. Morey and Nancy Olewiler Trade policy and industrial pollution in Latin America: where are the pollution havens?, Nancy Birdsall and David Wheeler The environment and welfare implications of trade and tax policy, Hiro Lee and David Roland-Holst. Trade and Transboundary Pollution: Non-cooperative Analyses of Transborder Pollution and Trade Policy: International externalities and optimal tax structures, James R. Markusen Cross-border externalities and trade liberalization: the strategic control of pollution, Rodney D. Ludema and Ian Wooton Trade and transboundary pollution, Brian C. Copeland and M. Scott Taylor. Trade Restrictions and Coordination of Environmental Policy: Should a carbon tax be differentiated across sectors?, Michael Hoel The strategy of trade sanctions in international environmental agreements, Scott Barrett. Transborder Pollution Controls, Trade, and Welfare: The impact of selected abatement strategies on transnational pollution, the terms of trade, and factor rewards: a general equilibrium approach, John D. Merrifield Cutting CO2 emissions: the effects of alternative policy approaches, John Whalley and Randall M. Wigle International trade and environmental quality: how important are the linkages?, Carlo Perroni and Randle M. Wigle Reducing coal subsidies and trade barriers: their contribution to greenhouse gas abatement, Kym Anderson and Warwick J. McKibbin Index.

Under the background of economic globalization, economic and trade exchanges are increasingly close. While countries enjoy the dividends brought by the global economy, trade competition is also more intense. In order to protect their own economic and political interests, countries usually adopt the policies of trade liberalization or trade protection policy protectionism. The total economic volume of China and the United States is huge, so the trade frictions between the two countries will attract the attention of the world trade countries. The choice of trade policies between the two countries will also affect the economic level and economic and trade relations of both countries and even the development of the entire world economy. Therefore, from the perspective of game theory and international trade, this paper analyzes the choice of trade policy in world trade by calculating the Nash equilibrium in the choice of trade policy and the welfare changes caused by the implementation of tariffs. Through game theory analysis, the results show that trade protection and trade liberalization in world trade are both contradictory and coexist. In order to protect the development of their important industries, countries can adopt reasonable subsidy policies or protection policies to support them under the framework of WTO. However, countries should actively promote global economic governance and actively promote the development of multilateral trade and regional economy. It provides some ideas for the choice of trade policy in the context of trade war.

Digital and Data Infrastructure: Stimulating Greater Availability and Use through Policy and Regulatory Reforms

Incentives to create jobs: Regional subsidies, national trade policy and foreign direct investment

This paper introduces an approach to the study of optimal government policy in economies characterized by a coordination problem and multiple equilibria. Such models are often criticized as not being useful for policy analysis because they fail to assign a unique prediction to each possible policy choice. We employ a selection mechanism that assigns, ex ante, a probability to each equilibrium indicating how likely it is to obtain. With this, the optimal policy is well defined. We show how such a mechanism can be derived as the natural result of an adaptive learning process. This approach generates a theory of how government policy affects the process of equilibrium selection; we illustrate this theory by applying it to problems related to the choice of technology and the optimal sales tax on Internet commerce.

Most of the literature on the World Bank struggles to understand precisely how effective are the Bank’s projects and policies, emphasizing at the same time as reaffirming certain universal parameters with which to measure the good and the bad. This article, by contrast, argues for a different way of seeing the World Bank, that is, for scholarship that interrogates the political rationalities which underlie these distinctions and categories and which make these parameters and measures viable, necessary, and enduring. Indeed, most writings – including the innumerable self‐evaluations carried out by the Bank – simultaneously note the enormity of the Bank’s past misdeeds as well as its unique position as the only global institution up to the monumental task of translating global truths into global plans of action. Because of its unique role as the global development expert, the Bank is always two steps ahead of the pack, always re‐assessing and re‐tooling for improvement in ways that most national and international institutions cannot. Who else can respond so quickly to catastrophes around the globe – appearing one month in Thailand, the next in Argentina, and, in a bomb’s flash, in Afghanistan and Iraq? In a world in which global crises routinely erupt and “require” global experts of development to resolve them, the Bank and its affiliates in the World Bank Group have no rivals. But, rather than ask why the Bank’s responses are ultimately insufficient or flawed, we must first ask how problems get defined in terms of global crises and their solutions in terms of global development institutions in the first place? How did these ideas and institutions become so influential? What power dynamics do they embody?