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40961. Toward a multilateral framework for investment

Author:
Nicolle Graugnard
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Business needs a stable and predictable investment environment, especially in times of economic uncertainty, to continue to generate employment and create wealth. Although foreign direct investment (FDI) flows rose for two years after plummeting in the wake of the global financial crisis, they fell again by 18% to US$ 1.4 trillion in 2012. According to UNCTAD, the major factors contributing to this sharp decline were economic fragility and policy uncertainty in several economies. Moreover, investment regulations classified as “restrictive” rose to 25% in 2012, compared to just 6% in 2000; “liberalizing” regulations were 75% of the total in 2012, compared to 94% in 2000. The result of these regulations is, therefore, not surprising: businesses are holding back on new investments, with multinational enterprises reporting record cash-holdings of between US$ 4 to 5 trillion.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Natural Resources

40962. Are trade-law inspired investment rules desirable?

Author:
Marino Baldi
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Traditional bilateral investment treaties (BITs) focus on investment protection, i.e., regulate post-establishment aspects of foreign investment. In recent times, investment agreements have increasingly been supplemented with liberalization rules and also clauses on, e.g., key personnel, labor rights and sustainable development. Such integrated investment accords have notably become part of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). This trend started with NAFTA, continued with the negotiations on a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and has in the course of the past ten years increasingly characterized PTAs throughout the world. The rapid proliferation of PTAs has, in the investment field, unfortunately led to lower quality provisions. Many of these treaties contain such wide-ranging exceptions and vaguely formulated safeguard clauses that their regulatory value as regards the protection of foreign investments in their post-establishment phase is called into question.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment

40963. Kazakhstan: Waiting for Change

Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Kazakhstan has long been viewed from the outside as the most prosperous and stable country in a region widely regarded as fragile and dysfunctional. The appearance of wealth, based largely on the conspicuous consumption of Almaty and Astana, its main cities, and multi-billion-dollar energy contracts – increasingly with China – hides, however, a multitude of challenges. An ageing authoritarian leader with no designated successor, labour unrest, growing Islamism, corruption, and a state apparatus that, when confronted even with limited security challenges, seems hard-pressed to respond, all indicate that the Kazakh state is not as robust as it first appears. Without a significant effort to push forward with repeatedly promised political, social and economic reforms, Kazakhstan risks becoming just another Central Asian authoritarian regime that squandered the advantages bestowed on it by abundant natural resources.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
China, Central Asia, and Kazakhstan

40964. A Cautionary Tale: The true cost of austerity and inequality in Europe

Author:
Krisnah Poinasamy and Teresa Cavero
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Europe has often seen itself as a place where the social contract balances growth with development. A place where public services aim to ensure everyone has access to a high-quality education and no one need live in fear of falling ill. A place w here the rights of workers, and particularly of women, are respected and supported, and w here societies care for the weakest and the poorest; where the market has been harnessed to benefit society, rather than the other way round.
Topic:
Economics, Poverty, and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Europe

40965. Editor's Note

Author:
James A. Dorn
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
This issue of the Cato Journal features the papers from Cato's 30th Annual Monetary Conference— Money, Markets, and Government: The Next 30 Years —which was held in Washington on November 15, 2012. After 30 years, it is well to recall F. A. Hayek's advice: “All those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.”
Political Geography:
Washington

40966. Anna Jacobson Schwartz: In Memoriam

Author:
George S. Tavlas
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
This issue of the Cato Journal is dedicated to Anna Jacobson Schwartz, who passed away on June 21, 2012, at the age of 96. Anna was an economic historian whose scholarship was marked by, among other things, dedication, tenacity, and perseverance. Her career spanned three quarters of a century. When Anna was about 90, her son Jonathan complained (somewhat tongue-in-check) that he had thought about retiring, but did not feel comfortable doing so while his mother was still working. In 1936, she began collaborating with A. D. Gayer and W. W. Rostow on a study of fluctuations in the British economy between 1790 and 1850. The study was not published until 1953, although most of the work on the study had been completed by the early 1940s. Anna joined the National Bureau of Economic Research in 1941 and remained there for the rest of her life, continuing to go to her office until shortly before her death. She published her first NBER paper in 1947 with Elma Oliver, and her last with Michael Bordo and Owen Humpage in 2012. Her collaboration with Milton Friedman on A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 began in 1948 and was not completed until 1963. The underlying objective of Anna's scholarship throughout her career was to use historical evidence, which she assembled with meticulous attention to accuracy, to understand the workings of the economy better.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

40967. Monetary Policy during the Past 30 Years with Lessons for the Next 30 Years

Author:
John B. Taylor
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The 30th anniversary of the Cato Institute's monetary conference series provides an excellent opportunity to take stock of what we have learned about monetary policy in the past 30 years and to draw lessons for the next 30 years.

40968. Fed Policy: Good Intentions, Risky Consequences

Author:
Charles I. Plosser
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The last five years have been an extraordinary time for the global economy and monetary policymakers. The financial crisis and the severe global recession that followed have tested our resolve, our patience, and our economic theories. To restore the health of ailing financial markets and economies, central banks have driven shortterm interest rates to essentially zero, expanded their balance sheets to unprecedented levels, and engaged in market interventions that have blurred the lines between monetary policy and fiscal policy.
Topic:
Economics and Health

40969. The Conduct of Monetary Policy

Author:
Kevin Warsh
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Federal Reserve's independence is essential to the conduct of monetary policy. But while the Fed is independent within government, it is not independent of government. The grant of authority to the Fed comes from Congress, to which the Fed is ultimately accountable. In my view, the Fed was granted significant powers by Congress, but those powers were not unlimited. The grant of authority was constrained. So by my measure, the Fed is a powerful institution, but a bounded one.
Topic:
Government

40970. The Fed Needs to Change Course

Author:
David Malpass
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
This article describes the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, examines its economic impact, and discusses possible exits. Federal Reserve policy is on the wrong course: it is harming economic growth, hurting savers, damaging markets, setting dangerous precedents and misallocating capital away from job-creating parts of the economy. The Fed's September 2012 policy change, in which it announced a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), was a major increase in the aggressiveness of monetary policy and, in my view, another drag on economic growth.
Topic:
Economics