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57602. Responding to the Threat of Agroterrorism: Specific Recommendations for the United States Department of Agriculture
- Author:
- Anne Kohnen
- Publication Date:
- 10-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The threat of biological weapons (BW) is usually associated with terrible outbreaks of human illness. Receiving substantially less attention from the media, however, is the fact that BW can also be used against agricultural targets as strategic economic weapons. Agriculture accounts for about 13 percent of the United States' annual gross domestic product. 1996 U.S. cash receipts for livestock, poultry, and crops totaled more than $200 billion. An attack on agriculture could have enormous economic consequences.
- Topic:
- Environment and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- United States
57603. Moving Beyond Kyoto
- Author:
- Warwick J. McKibbin
- Publication Date:
- 10-2000
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- In November 2000, just after the presidential elections in the United States, negotiators will meet in The Hague at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). By then, it will have been almost three years since the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change at COP3, which was held in Kyoto in December 1997. Intense negotiations over the intervening period have focused on how to implement the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been signed by 84 countries but not ratified by any of the key countries, and ratification does not appear to be imminent, especially in the United States, where the Senate has registered its strong opposition.
- Topic:
- Environment and International Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- United States
57604. Permanent Normal Trade Relations for China
- Author:
- Nicholas R. Lardy
- Publication Date:
- 05-2000
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- In what has been described as its most important vote this year, the U.S. Congress will soon decide whether to provide permanent normal trade relations to China. A vote is required because, after 14 years of negotiations, China is poised to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO). Assuming China concludes its bilateral negotiations with the European Union by June or July, entry is likely before the end of the year. The cornerstone principle of the World Trade Organization is that members provide each other unconditional Most Favored Nation trade status, now called Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) in U.S. trade law. Current U.S. law precludes granting PNTR to China; as a result President Clinton has asked Congress to amend the law. A negative vote would have no bearing on China's entry into the World Trade Organization, but it would mean that U.S. companies would not benefit from the most important commitments China has made to become a member. Gaining the full range of benefits is particularly important in light of the large and growing deficit the United States faces in its trade with China (Figure 1). A positive vote would give U.S. companies the same advantages that would accrue to companies from Europe, Japan, and all other WTO member states when China enters the World Trade Organization. It would also provide an important boost to China's leadership, that is taking significant economic and political risks in order to meet the demands of the international community for substantial additional economic reforms as a condition for its WTO membership. A positive vote would strengthen bilateral economic relations more generally. That may help place a floor on the broader bilateral relationship, which continues to face critical challenges on security issues, stemming largely from tensions between China and Taiwan, and on human rights issues.
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Europe, and Asia
57605. Human Capital and the Quality of Growth
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall
- Publication Date:
- 12-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- T. W. SCHULTZ was ahead of his time, at least among economists. The earliest postwar models of development emphasized accumulation of physical capital, and saw spending on health and education as a drain on the accumulation of "productive" assets. But eventually, the newer classical growth models incorporated formally Schultz's insight, and related work on accounting for growth by Hollis Chenery and colleagues at the World Bank pointed to the contribution of more skilled workers with more human capital to increased productivity and growth. The more recent endogenous growth models are even more emphatic. Sustainable growth in these models is the result in part of positive externalities generated by education, an important form of human capital. In these models, the new ideas and new technologies that are critical to high sustained growth rely fundamentally on high levels of human capital.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- India
57606. Intervention in Internal Conflicts: Legal and Political Conundrums
- Author:
- Chantal de Jonge Oudaraat
- Publication Date:
- 08-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- THE KOSOVO CRISIS in 1999 and the Sierra Leone hostage debacle in 2000 have reignited a recurring debate in international policy circles over humanitarian intervention. This debate focuses on the legal, political, and operational conundrums of coercive actions for humanitarian purposes. I believe that this debate over intervention will only intensify in the future. Indeed, internal conflicts, even if their numbers go down, are hard to ignore in a globalizing world.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, Politics, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States
57607. Privatization and the Distribution of Assets in Brazil
- Author:
- Roberto Macedo
- Publication Date:
- 07-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- This paper focuses on the Brazilian privatization program undertaken in the 1990s, one of the largest in the world, as a result of which over US$71 billion worth of equity capital and US$17 billion of debt owed by the former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were transferred to private owners, both at the federal and state levels.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Latin America
57608. The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material
- Author:
- Matthew Bunn
- Publication Date:
- 03-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Nothing could be more central to U.S. and world security than ensuring that nuclear warheads and their essential ingredients—plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)—do not fall into the hands of terrorists or proliferating states. If plutonium and HEU become regularly available on a nuclear black market, nothing else we do to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons will succeed. Similarly, unless stockpiles of nuclear warheads and fissile materials can be secured, monitored, and verifiably reduced, it will be impossible to achieve deep, transparent, and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms. Measures to control warheads and fissile materials, therefore, are central to the entire global effort to reduce nuclear arms and stem their spread. The tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and hundreds of tons of plutonium and HEU that remain in the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles represent a deadly legacy of the Cold War, and managing them securely must be a top U.S. security policy priority.
- Topic:
- Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia
57609. Natural Resources, Human Capital, and Growth
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall, Thomas Pinckney, and Richard Sabot
- Publication Date:
- 02-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- In this paper, we present evidence that among developing countries, those that are resource-abundant invest less in education. We then discuss the economic processes behind this evidence. We describe a virtuous circle in which rising private returns to human capital and other assets lead to increased work effort and higher rates of private investment immediately, including among the poor, and generate higher productivity and lower inequality in the future. With resource abundance, however, governments are tempted to move away from the policies that generate this virtuous circle. Dutch Disease and related effects tend to lower the rate of return to the agricultural and human capital investments available to the poor. Resource rents accumulate in the hands of the government, and/or a small number of businessmen, further reducing incentives to invest. Staple-trap effects lead to the subsidization of capital, thereby taxing labor. The labor market in the resulting capital-intensive economy offers little benefit for moderate levels of education. The government may try to assuage the poor by directing some proportion of resource rents to populist programs that create new fiscal burdens but that do not enhance productivity. In short, resource abundance tends to break the virtuous circle linking education, growth and inequality in several places: the choice of development strategy, the level of inequality, the lack of incentives for investment in education, and the creation of a welfare state. We illustrate this breakdown by contrasting the cases of Korea and Brazil, and, since resource abundance need not be destiny, we conclude with policy lessons for resource-abundant developing economies.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Emerging Markets, Government, Political Economy, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and Korea
57610. Democracy Assistance and NGO Strategies in Post-Communist Societies
- Author:
- Sarah E. Mendelson and John K. Glenn
- Publication Date:
- 02-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Since the end of the Cold War, Eastern Europe and Eurasia have been host to a virtual army of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs)-from the United States, Britain, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe-all working on various aspects of institutional development, such as helping to establish competitive political parties and elections, independent media, and civic advocacy groups, as well as trying to reduce ethnic conflict. Little is known-although much good and bad is believed-about the impact of this assistance, carried out on a transnational level in cooperation with local political and social activists. This study, based at Columbia University, was designed to address this gap.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, International Organization, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia