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Developing countries have more than 1300 investment treaties with developed countries. Investment treaties are often alleged to constrain developing countries' climate policies. This paper examines four treaty reforms that are often suggested as remedies to such regulatory chill. It considers an investment treaty that protects a stranded developed country investment in a developing country. The reforms are compared with regard to whether they can induce the developing country to regulate the investment, and their political attractiveness. The reforms are shown to have features that seem to have gone unnoticed in the debate. Exclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) may be ineffective due to a hold-up problem, and if effective requires unlawful regulation by the host country. A shortening of a sunset period applicable to unilateral withdrawal can postpone regulation. A reduction in the amount of stipulated compensation can induce the developing country to phase out the stranded investment, but will require a compensation payment from the developing country to the developed country investor. The reform with best potential to address stranded investment problems appears to be an increase in a carve-out from the compensation requirement for measures with sufficiently positive climate effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and consumption activities are cross-border and therefore, it is important to understand the role of Global Value Chains (GVCs) in fulfilling a country’s specific climate commitments. This study examines the causal relationship between selected GVC indices and CO2 emissions. We use the GVC position index, considered robust in comparison to the frequently used GVC participation index, for determining the impact on emissions. The forward and backward participation indices are considered in the analysis. The paper presents an analysis of 62 developing and developed economies from 1995 to –2018 using the Juodis A., Y. Karavias, and V. Sarafidis [2021. “A Homogeneous Approach to Testing for Granger non-Causality in Heterogeneous Panels.” Empirical Economics 60 (1): 93–112] approach, which is an improvement over the traditional approaches to analysing causality. The results show that the overall position in GVCs positively affects CO2 emissions for developing countries but a causal relationship does not exist for the developed countries. The developed countries attain a higher participation index but a lower position index. On the other hand, developing countries with fewer stringent environmental regulations may opt for an upstream position (more export-oriented) and by design specialize in more pollution-intensive industries. Noteworthy, production-based emissions in developed countries are reduced because of an increase in imports of emission-intensive products from developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper applies a modified gravity model to examine the relationship between global economic sanctions (GES) and global value chains (GVC) by using a dyad panel dataset of 38 developed and 28 developing countries during the 2005–2015 period and the rich and updated database of the Global Sanction Database version 2 (Felbermayr, G., A. Kirilakha, C. Syropoulos, E. Yalcin, and Y. V. Yotov. 2020. "The Global Sanctions Data Base." European Economic Review 129: 1–23. doi:; Kirilakha, A., G. Felbermayr, C. Syropoulos, E. Yalcin, and Y. V. Yotov. 2021. The Global Sanctions Data Base: An update that includes the years of the Trump presidency. The Research Handbook on Economic Sanctions, Edited by Peter AG van Bergeijk.). GVC participation is classified into the source of the value-added as incorporated in exports, looking both backward and forward from the view of a reference country. With distinct econometric techniques and empirical estimation strategies, our empirical results document a negative association between GESs and GVC, including backward and forward linkages. This marginal effect of sanction on backward GVC is more sizable than those on forward GVC. Furthermore, the GES-GVC nexus is only evident in the case of developing countries, while the effects of sanctions are found to be small or statistically insignificant in the developed countries. However, these marginal effects of sanctions become less sizable if the target country develops a well-developed institutional system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impacts of global value chain (GVC) participation on the shadow economy size (SES). GVC participation is classified by the source of the value-added in exports, looking both backward and forward from the perspective of a reference country. First, by using a global sample of 33 developed and 23 developing countries during the 2005–2015 period, the empirical results demonstrate that GVC participation has a negative impact on SES. Second, our findings confirm the presence of a non-linear bell-shaped association between backward GVC and SES while forward GVC has a significant increasingly negative influence on the SES. Third, the positive effects of backward GVC on SES are greater for developing countries, while the forward GVC plays a more critical role in reducing SES in developed countries. Finally, in the short term, both backward and forward GVC participation reduce SES, but the effects follow a U-shaped curve. In the long-term, there is evidence on the bell-shaped non-linear relationship between backward GVC and SES in developing countries, and between forward GVC and SES in developed countries. Backward GVC is an effective tool to control the SES of developing countries, while forward GVC is more important for developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how participation and positioning in global value chains (GVC) affect wages. We also examine whether this relationship is conditioned by a country's development level and labor market regulation. The results show that participation and upstream specialization in GVCs are associated with higher wages but only in developed countries. In developing countries, while GVC participation is associated with higher wages, upstream specialization exerts downward pressure on wages. For analysis focusing on the role of labor market regulation, we find that GVC participation only exerts a positive effect on wages under stringent labor market regulation. Under flexible labor market conditions, it exerts downward pressure on wages but allows for the effective reallocation of GVC workers into knowledge-intensive and high value added upstream activities in the value chain that are more productive and wage rewarding. Additional analysis on the effects of GVCs along the wage distribution show that participation and upstream specialization in GVCs are associated with higher wages across all wage segments in developed countries. In developing countries, GVC participation only benefits higher wage earners and make low-wage earners worse-off. Even when upstream specialization is associated with lower wages across all wage segments, low wage earners are disproportionately affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the export baskets of developing economies have undergone a structural shift away from traditional exports towards more technology-intensive exports. The case of India, in particular, is important as the performance of Indian exports in terms of their productivity is now at par with that of developed countries. Since trade integration has significant implications for output comovements, we analyse whether this phenomenon of a structural shift in India's intra-industry trade composition has had any impact on its business cycle synchronisation with its developing and developed trade partners. Using a panel threshold regression model, our estimates reveal that intra-industry trade in technology leads to a convergence in business cycle of India with only its developing country trade partners. Further, when the GDP per capita of the partner country is greater than the threshold estimate, we find a negative relationship between technology-intensive trade and output comovements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and CO2 emissions in Korea, applying the autoregressive distributed lag model. Specifically, we test the impact of FDI on CO2 emissions based on Korea's level of economic growth, using yearly data from 1971 to 2015. Our results show that, in the long run, FDI inflows positively affect CO2 emissions. However, the absolute size of the positive effect decreases with an increase in income. Eventually, the effect of FDI inflows changes from positive to negative, increasing the GDP per capita, in the long run. Thus, while the pollution haven hypothesis is satisfied at a lower income level, the pollution halo hypothesis becomes applicable at a higher income level. For Korea, the optimal policy strategy at the current income level, is to maximize FDI inflows. Our results also imply that a policy promoting FDI inflows to developed countries, is beneficial both economically and environmentally. Meanwhile, policymakers in developing countries should adopt a balanced policy for FDI inflows, considering their negative effects on the environment and positive effects on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International differences in technological activity are considered a fundamental factor in explaining differences in both levels and trends between countries' exports, imports, and income, especially among industrialized nations. This study examines the effects of innovation activity (measured by R&D expenditure and patent applications) and economic growth (GDP per capita) on trade openness (the ratio of imports plus exports to GDP) in 10 European countries from 1983 to 2018 using time series analysis. We also investigate the impact of the Lisbon and Europe 2020 strategies on trade openness. We use autoregressive distributed lag methodology and Granger causality tests based on the vector error correction model to conduct the analysis. The empirical findings indicate a strong long-run relationship among the variables in all the countries examined. In most countries, the long-run coefficients of R&D expenditure, patent applications, and GDP per capita are positive and statistically significant. In short-run dynamics, error correction models are well-defined and provide interesting results for each country. The effects of the Lisbon Strategy and Europe 2020 differ across the countries examined. Finally, the Granger causal relationships among the variables vary across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a crucial role in the fight against poverty and income inequality in countries worldwide. How does the governance environment decisively contribute to the difference in the FDI – income inequality relationship between developed and developing countries? To answer this question, the study empirically assesses the effect of FDI on income inequality for a group of 24 developed countries with the good governance environment and a group of 37 developing countries with the poor one from 2005 to 2018 using the two-step system GMM Arellano-Bond estimator. The estimated results indicate some interesting findings. First, FDI increases income inequality in developed countries but reduces it in developing countries. Second, in both groups of countries governance and education narrow income inequality while economic growth widens it. In particular, the robustness of estimates is checked by the PMG estimator. These findings suggest some policy implications for central governments about policies and regulations relating to the fight against income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]