Search

Begin New Search Political Geography America Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Peterson Institute for International Economics

1. What Goes into a Medal: Women's Inclusion and Success at the Olympic Games

Author:
Marcus Noland and Kevin Stahler
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This paper examines determinants of women's participation and performance in the Olympics. Female inclusion and success are not merely functions of size, wealth, and host advantage, but a more complex process involving the socio-economic status of women and, more weakly, broad societal attitudes on gender issues. Female labor force participation and educational attainment in particular are tightly correlated with both participation and outcomes, even controlling for per capita income. Female educational attainment is strongly correlated with both the breadth of participation across sporting events and success in those events. Host countries and socialist states also are associated with unusually high levels of participation and medaling by female athletes. Medal performance is affected by large-scale boycotts. Opening competition to professionals may have leveled the playing field for poorer countries. But the historical record for women's medal achievement is utterly distorted by the doping program in the former East Germany, which specifically targeted women. At its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, the program was responsible for 17 percent of the medals awarded to women, equivalent to the medal hauls of the Soviet or American team in 1972, the last Olympics not marred by widespread abuse of performance-enhancing drugs.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Human Rights, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
America and Germany

2. Delivering on US Climate Finance Commitments

Author:
Trevor Houser and Jason Selfe
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
At the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010, the United States joined other developed countries in pledging to mobilize $100 billion in public and private sector funding to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a warmer world. With a challenging US fiscal outlook and the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in the US Congress, America's ability to meet this pledge is increasingly in doubt. This paper identifies, quantifies, and assesses the politics of a range of potential US sources of climate finance. It finds that raising new public funds for climate finance will be extremely challenging in the current fiscal environment and that many of the politically attractive alternatives are not realistically available absent a domestic cap-and-trade program or other regime for pricing carbon. Washington's best hope is to use limited public funds to leverage private sector investment through bilateral credit agencies and multilateral development banks.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, Politics, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States, America, Washington, and United Nations

3. Too Big to Fail: The Transatlantic Debate

Author:
Morris Goldstein and Nicolas Véron
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Although the United States and the European Union were both seriously impacted by the financial crisis of 2007, resulting policy debates and regulatory responses have differed considerably on the two sides of the Atlantic. In this paper the authors examine the debates on the problem posed by "too big to fail" financial institutions. They identify variations in historical experiences, financial system structures, and political institutions that help one understand the differences of approaches between the United States, EU member states, and the EU institutions in addressing this problem. The authors then turn to possible remedies and how they may be differentially implemented in America and Europe. They conclude on which policy developments are likely in the near future.
Topic:
Economics and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

4. American Multinationals and American Economic Interests: New Dimensions to an Old Debate

Author:
Theodore H. Moran
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The 2008 election rekindled debate about whether US multinationals shift technology across borders and relocate production in ways that might harm workers and communities at home. President Obama now pledges to end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas. The preoccupation about the behavior of American multinationals takes three forms: (1) that US-based multinational corporations may follow a strategy that leads them to abandon the home economy, leaving the workers and communities to cope on their own with few appealing alternatives after the multinationals have left; (2) worse, that US-based multinational corporations may not just abandon home sites but drain off capital, substitute production abroad for exports, and “hollow out” the domestic economy in a zero-sum process that damages those left behind; and (3) worst, that US-based multinational corporations may deploy a rent-gathering apparatus that switches from sharing supranormal profits and externalities with US workers and communities to extracting rents from the United States. Each of these concerns contains a hypothetical outcome that can be compared with contemporary evidence from the United States and other home countries.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and America

5. Toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) has proposed that the APEC Leaders at Santiago on November 20-21 “agree to further examine the feasibility and potential scope and features of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).” President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, the host of the APEC summit, has endorsed the concept. I believe that APEC should actively pursue the FTAAP idea. It offers the best prospects of any available strategy for catalyzing a successful outcome of the Doha Round and thus revitalizing the World Trade Organization (WTO). By forging a new transpacific initiative, it can counter the very real risk of disintegration of the Asia-Pacific region that is evident in the progress of Asia-only cooperation on one side of the ocean and a Free Trade Area of the Americas on the other side. It is the best possible device to reenergize APEC's progress toward its own signature trade liberalization goals and thus those of APEC as an institution. It offers a unique win-win-win opportunity that should be seized, beginning at Santiago and then at Pusan a year from now.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
America and Asia

6. Doubling the Global Work Force: The Challenge of Integrating China, India, and the Former Soviet Bloc into the World Economy

Author:
Richard B. Freeman
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In 1985, the global economic world (N. America, S. America, Western Europe, Japan, Asian Tigers, Africa) consisted of 2.5 billion people. In 2000 as a result of the collapse of communism, India's turn from autarky, China's shift to market capitalism, global economy encompassed 6 billion people. Had China, India, and the former Soviet empire stayed outside, global economy would have had 3.3 billion.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, Japan, China, America, India, Asia, and Western Europe