International Resource Transfers Research Articles

USE AND REGULATION OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT: NEW PARADIGM

According to international organizations data, global FDI flows dropped considerably in 2022.The article discusses certain global long-term trends and pressing problems of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Global Value Chains (GVC) in Russia and abroad. This paper provides key indicators published by international organizations, such as IMF, OECD and others in 2023. The author offers a relatively non-customary approach to the study of FDI and GVC - through the analysis of international migration of factors of production (capital and labor). The author examines the interaction between these two types of international resource transfers and comes to a paradoxical conclusion that the radical change of Russia’s economic relations with Western countries in 2022-2023 was logical and predictable. A relatively non-customary approach is due to the fact that in May 2023 the Russian President and Government emphasizes the importance to develop an action plan to implement the 2023-2025 State Migration Policy Conception. According to OECD data, Russia as a recipient of FDI recorded negative inflow in 2022, but the paper provides a long-term view on the subject. Finally, the author substantiates the need to revise certain principles of Russia’s foreign economic policy as well as theoretical courses on International Economics in educational institutions.

Global Reset: The Role of Investment, Profitability, and Imperial Dynamics as Drivers of the Rise and Relative Decline of the United States, 1929–2019

A new world order is taking shape as a result of the relative decline of the United States (US) and other Western economies. An important aspect of relative decline is a progressive secular slowing down of productivity growth. Another is the way US development has been shaped and to some extent offset by international resource transfers. To explain these phenomena, attention is paid to the role of profitability as a driver of productivity and investment and global hegemony as a driver of international resource transfers. Particular attention is paid to an empirical analysis of the profitability of the US corporate non-financial sector and the existence of a secular decline in profitability since the mid-1960s interrupted only by the upward phases of a series of shorter-term economic cycles. Attention is also paid to the role of financial investments and some of the international resource transfers that have shaped, offset, and contained relative economic decline. An analysis of these trends frame and explain epochal changes in the dynamics and map of uneven and combined development and the likelihood of a global reset as the centre of world development shifts to Asia and the Eurasian continent.

Neoclassical realism and international climate change politics: moral imperative and political constraint in international climate finance

In this article, I present a neoclassical realist theory of climate change politics that challenges the idea that cooperation on climate change is compelled alone by shared norms and interests emanating from the international level and questions if instead material factors also play a significant constraining role. Relative-gains concerns incited by the international resource transfers implicit in climate change policy may compel some states to be prudent in their international climate change efforts and conserve resources domestically for future contingencies, including their own adaptation and resiliency. Neoclassical realism recognises such systemic constraints while also identifying international and domestic factors — a ‘two-level game’ — that explain variation in state sensitivity to relative gains. As a preliminary test of this theory, I compare the latest data on the magnitude, distribution and financial ‘additionality’ of climate funds and carbon markets. Climate funds are found to be more vulnerable to systemic forces identified by neoclassical realism because they are largely drawn from existing official development assistance budgets despite international commitments that funds are ‘new and additional’. Carbon markets engage a relatively broader number of states and, contrary to moral hazard concerns, have been used to a greater degree by states reducing emissions domestically. While there are concerns about whether carbon credits represent genuine emission reductions, the effectiveness of climate funds is equally, if not more, dubious. I conclude that, while imperfect, carbon markets have too often been unfairly compared with an ideal climate finance mechanism that assumes few political constraints on international resource transfers for climate change.

Towards a New Political Economy of Climate Change and Development

In this article, the authors propose a new political economy of climate change and development in which explicit attention is given to the way that ideas, power and resources are conceptualised, negotiated and implemented by different groups at different scales. The climate change and development interface warrants such attention because of its importance to achieving sustainable poverty reduction outcomes, cross-sectoral nature, urgency and rapid emergence of international resource transfers, initiatives and governance architectures, and the frequent assumption of linear policymaking and apolitical, techno-managerial solutions to the climate change challenge.

The role of multilateral institutions.

In line with its mission of alleviating poverty through support for environmentally and socially sustainable economic development, The World Bank (along with some other multilateral development banks) is working to help developing countries capture a share of the emerging global market in greenhouse-gas-emissions reductions ('carbon trading'). Under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Joint Implementation instrument and the Clean Development Mechanism now provide an opening for substantial international resource transfers and potential for supporting sustainable development through the transfer of cleaner technologies or sustainable forestry and agro-forestry practices. For example, carbon sequestration represents a non-extractive non-consumptive sustainable use of living natural resources that can be incorporated within a multiple-use 'integrated ecosystem management' approach. The World Bank initiated the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) in April 2000, to help spur the development of a global carbon market and to 'learn by doing' how to use carbon-purchase transactions across a range of energy-sector technologies (and some forestry applications) to achieve environmentally credible and cost-effective emissions reductions that benefit developing countries and economies in transition. Building on the success of the PCF ($145 million raised from public and private-sector investors), The World Bank expects to launch two new funds in 2002: the Biocarbon Fund and the Community Development Carbon Fund. These funds will target synergies between carbon markets and objectives such as biodiversity conservation, combating desertification and small-scale community-driven development. Experience from the PCF shows that developing countries can have a comparative advantage in supplying this global market, as emissions reductions can be achieved in developing countries in the range of $3-$5 per ton of CO(2) equivalent, compared with a marginal abatement cost of $10-$15 per ton of CO(2) equivalent in most countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, realizing this economic potential over the next decade, and targeting the market to the rural poor, will require substantial assistance with project development and government legal and institutional capacity building. Specific needs include raising awareness of the potential of carbon markets at all levels (particularly in energy and land-use sectors), clarifying property rights, particularly in the case of communally held land and resources, ensuring the existence of an attractive investment climate, eliminating policies that create perverse incentives and constraints, and mitigating logistical, political and 'reputational' risks that could deter private-sector investors. It will also be necessary to find ways to reconcile the short-term needs of the rural poor and the typically long-term revenue stream associated with carbon sequestration.

Global environmental degradation and international resource transfers

Global environmental degradation provides an opportunity for Paretoefficient gains. The developed countries as gainers from policies designed to arrest the decline in the quality of the global environment can compensate developing countries as losers and still gain. The opportunity for gain emerges from different preference patterns associated with different levels of income and related differences in time preference rates. After critically investigating various proposals for dealing with global environmental problems the author puts forward a scheme involving international subsidies in the form of Special Drawing Rights issued via the intermediation of the World Bank. This, it is argued, overcomes many of the difficulties associated with other proposals.

The public sector impact of international resource transfers

This paper examines the effects of foreign aid on public sector budgets of developing countries. We carefully model the degree of policy leverage which is exercised; this leverage varies considerably among donors. The sources of aid include: the international development banks, the IMF, and bilateral aid agencies. It is found that the form of aid is crucial to an accurate determination of the impact of aid. We find that soft loan aid is quite stimulative, but that the IMF has the greatest impact on recipients. These findings are consistent with theories concerning federal-to-state aid in the U.S.

Consumption Possibilities, Growth, and the Optimal Commercial Policy

Previous articleNext article No AccessConsumption Possibilities, Growth, and the Optimal Commercial PolicyPhilip MusgrovePhilip Musgrove Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 80, Number 6Nov. - Dec., 1972 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/259967 Views: 6Total views on this site Copyright 1972 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.