Search results

Public economics has recently introduced the concept of global public goods as a new category of public goods whose provision is central for promoting the well‐being of individuals in today's globalized world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which introducing this new concept in international development is helpful for understanding human well‐being enhancement.

The paper considers some implications of the concept of the common good for international development.

The concept of global public goods could be more effective if the conception of well‐being it assumes is broadened beyond the individual level. “Living well” or the “good life” does not dwell in individual lives only, but also in the lives of the communities which human beings form. A successful provision of global public goods depends on this recognition that the “good life” of the communities that people form is a constitutive component of the “good life” of individual human beings.

The paper suggests that the rediscovery of the concept of the common good, and identification of how to nurture it, constitute one of the major tasks for development theory and policy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of transfers as a means to overcome inefficiencies in the provision of impure public goods. The paper employs the example of international conditional transfers targeted to overcome suboptimal low climate protection efforts by influencing the abatement technology choice of countries.

The paper applies the Lancastrian characteristics approach and conduct numerical simulations for divergent degrees of substitutability between different characteristics. The paper takes into account climate‐protection benefits (global pollution reduction) as well as co‐benefits (local pollution reduction) of climate protection activities.

The analysis shows that individual country solution can be improved upon by making transfers from the richer countries to the poorer ones, if the latter have a lower relative preference for the global public goods (global pollution reduction) than the former. The magnitudes of such transfers will depend on the relative benefits of the global and local pollutants in the two countries. The authors also investigated the dependency of the potential for transfers on the degree of complementarity between global and local pollution characteristics. With a “Cobb Douglas” type of function used here the elasticity of substitution between the two is of course one. With a zero degree of substitutability the adjustment to a lower level of the global public good in fact starts to happen at a lower per capita income level. The scope for conditional transfers is still there, although the gains can be slightly smaller than when adjustment on the “global pollution characteristic – local pollution characteristic” margin is possible.

This paper is a contribution to the literature on impure public goods. In particular, the authors examine the role of international transfers in obtaining an efficient global allocation of resources in the presence of such public goods. To date the analysis of impure public goods has not examined the case of a continuum of technologies where an efficient solution requires conditional transfers, i.e. payments from one country to another to undertake a different supply of global and local public goods than the second country would wish to undertake.

Presented on behalf of the Evian Group @ IMD, this paper aims to expand upon points made in the keynote speech at the 9th Annual EABIS Colloquium on Corporate Responsibility and Emerging Markets held in St Petersburg, Russia on 20‐21 September 2010.

Three themes are explored within the context of the BRICs: geopolitics and global governance in the twenty‐first century; the balance between public good and private enterprise; and frameworks for equitable trade and inclusive growth.

The global situation is precarious, characterized by multi‐polarity, asymmetrical power threats, and a vacuum in global governance. The trade‐based economic development of the BRICs is a positive economic sign but raises implications for sustainability. There is a need for balance between the ability of the public sector to provide public goods, including global public goods, and the need for government to create incentives for the private sector and unleash its creativity and energy. With the proper incentives and legal structure, including respect for the rule of law, the energy and creativity of the private sector can be harnessed to develop a framework for equitable trade and inclusive growth, and to further the development of a sustainable global market economy.

The paper provides a catalyst for discussion that bridges the gap between business school education, legal education, political science and economics.

Views tropical forests as providing a number of outputs for the host country and the world at large. Activities to curb deforestation yield private goods, local (country‐specific) public goods, and global public goods. Markets can operate with respect to the private goods, while nations are motivated to strike bargains with one another with respect to the country‐specific public goods. Inefficiency or suboptimality stems from the global public goods that preservation activities of one country confer on another. Collective action at the transnational level is needed to address these global public goods. This suboptimality can be attenuated if the developed countries establish property rights to genetic material gathered from the rain forests. Much can be done to promote allocative efficiency and these actions should be accomplished prior to the institution of a supranational linkage. Since the bulk of the global public benefits are derived by the developed countries, they are in a weak bargaining position with respect to the shrinking rain forests. An early agreement is in their interests even if the bargain favours the tropical countries.

The spread of COVID-19 is not just a health crisis. The pandemic has taken a geopolitical dimension. The health crisis amplified the competitive dynamics between the USA and China, affected the provision of global public goods and injected instability into the global order. In line with the geopolitical zero-sum thinking, both the USA and China have sought to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. Instead of working together to mitigate the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the two powers fear that the other will exploit the current situation to accrue political, economic or military gains that will give it an edge after the pandemic subsides. The spread of COVID-19 has set off a “battle of narratives,” in which China and the USA are accusing each other of failing to rise to the challenge. The world seems to be falling into a “Kindleberger Trap,” in which the established power is unable to lead while the rising power is unwilling to assume responsibility. The COVID-19 crisis is occurring amid the collapse of global cooperation. The USA, the traditional leader of international collective efforts in times of crisis, has abandoned its role entirely. The lack of leadership at the global level during an international crisis may cause the breakdown of the international order.

This paper examines the US-China competitive dynamics through the lens of the work of Charles Kindleberger, which both liberals and realists regard as foundational when examining the dynamics of global crisis management. This paper also uses the meta-geopolitics framework to determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and its implications for their power and standing in the international system.

This paper concludes that the only way to escape the Kindleberger trap is “to embed Sino-American relations in multilateralism.”

As rivals, both the USA and China are seeking to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. This paper probes how China and the USA navigated the ongoing COVID-19 crisis to determine whether or not they are currently in a “Kindleberger Trap,” using elements of the meta-geopolitics framework of analysis, namely, health issues, domestic politics, economics, science and international diplomacy. Using the meta-geopolitics framework will help us determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and the implications of that on their power and standing in the international system.

This paper studies the formation and management of an international entity for promoting the provision of global public goods in a setup of international treaties on concessions and reservations. Based on the so-called Vienna Convention by which there can be a discrepancy between the original treaty obligation and the ratified one in the multi-lateral treaty implementation, we construct two-stage mechanisms for international treaties on global public goods; the concession stage and the ratification stage with reservations. We explicitly analyze the optimal reservation levels from the optimal mechanism when the countries face asymmetric information on the preference parameters to global public goods. Specifically, we characterize the environments where the optimal mechanism with dominant-strategy incentive-compatibility and ex-post participation- constraint in the literature of mechanism design exists. The result shows that the sophisticatedly calculated transfers in the principal of quid pro quo control the international concessions and reservations.

The purpose of this paper is to present exploration of themes that interconnect six studies in environmentally and socially sustainable human development.

The article presents an overview of the papers included in this special issue.

As humanity threatens to undermine its habitat, a social economics returns to core concepts and themes that became expunged from neoclassical economics: serious examination of persons, seen as more than given points of desire; a broadened perspective on types of good, including a non‐neoclassical conception of public goods as publicly deliberated priority goods that are not well managed through free markets and “common goods” as shared bases vital for everyone; study of what commodities and goods do to and for people; a central role for public reasoning about which are public priority goods, rather than using only a technical definition of a public good; an acceptance of notions of ethical responsibility and responsibilities concerning the provision and maintenance of public priority goods determined through public reasoning; and attention to institutional formats for such deliberation. Amongst the greatest of public priority “goods” are the concepts of common good and responsibility.

The findings reinforce the agenda of socio‐economics for central attention to the mutual conditioning of economy, society, polity, and environment, including analysis of the sociocultural formation of economic actors and of ideas of “common good”.

Cross‐fertilization of theorization with cases from Costa Rica, Kenya, Nepal, Thailand, Rwanda, sub‐Saharan Africa and global arenas.

Taking departure in the premise that donor and recipient priorities differ with regard to the marginal costs and benefits associated with attacking global environmental externalities, and hence the relative importance attached to the global environment, this paper seeks to scrutinize specific global environmental transfer mechanisms in the light of proposed definitions of global environmental assistance and global environmental compensation. It is argued that most global environmental transfer mechanisms possess distinct compensatory elements, and that additionality of these transfers is essential in order to ensure that existing development assistance is not crowded out. Specifically, this should be achieved either directly through separation of funds for global environmental and local developmental purposes or indirectly through increased considerations for local development objectives directly in global environmental transfer design.

The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework helping to understand the relationship between the principle of multilateralism in global policy relations and the role of international governmental organizations (IGOs). The paper develops conceptual building blocks to design adequate for international organizations for result-oriented effective multilateralism.

Literature review and in-depth theoretical analysis served to construct a framework that helps to see the variety of IGOs against global policy problems they serve to solve.

The analysis highlighted several lessons that can be learned, including the need for an efficient match between the nature of the global policy problem and the mandate and the size of IGO. The paper indicated the importance of efficient mechanisms to make international organizations accountable to member states while allowing for effective leadership.

The heterogeneity of IGOs makes a generalization difficult, hence, the proposed framework necessarily remains relatively generic. Still, this paper provides a first analytical basis for the comparison of IGO with regard to global policy problems they have been set to solve.

The author pointed to the way how to improve the fit between global policy problems and IGOs to make multilateralism more effective. The framework can be used to learn what can be expected from a given IGO and to see IGOs in their proper roles.

The paper might of interest to decision-makers and international public opinion eager to either criticize or praise international organizations based on a simplistic, if not ideological approaches. The paper develops arguments that help influence the evolution of international organizations.

IGO are increasing in number and forms leading to confusion to their role and impact. This framework can be used to realistically assess the role of IGOs in global public policies.