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This paper examines the economic case for debt-for-climate swaps: partial debt relief in return for climate investment/policies by the debtor country. As a form of fiscal support for climate investments, debt swaps are generally dominated by conditional grants. As a way to fund climate investment and reduce debt, they are generally dominated either by a combination of conditional grants and standard comprehensive debt restructuring, or by climate-conditional comprehensive debt restructuring. This said, debt-climate swaps could be efficient when they noticeably reduce debt risks while avoiding the costs of a full-blown debt restructuring. Beyond this narrow efficiency case, there is a pragmatic argument for debt swaps when conditional grants are unavailable in sufficient amounts and a comprehensive debt restructuring is not on the table. The design of debt swaps should focus on minimizing free riding by non-participating creditors. This can be achieved by structuring the swap such that the investment commitment is de facto senior to debt service and by avoiding the use of debt buybacks at market prices (relying instead on negotiated exchange offers backed by Collective Action Clauses). To the extent that debt swaps are implemented through market-based debt buybacks, these should be conducted by the donor rather than by the debtor. JEL Classification F34 * H63 * Q54, 1 Introduction There is a strong recent interest in debt-for-climate swaps--partial debt relief in return for climate actions by the debtor country--as a way to finance climate investment and/ or [...]

This paper sheds light on the open-economy dimension of the Fed information effect by evaluating its international spillovers on exchange rates, capital flows, and global economic activity. We provide empirical evidence that in response to unexpected increases in the Federal funds rate associated with Fed information shocks, the dollar depreciates instead of appreciating. This phenomenon is associated with a systematic response of investors' risk appetite to Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements. Expansionary Fed information shocks are associated with an increase in investors' risk appetite and capital inflows into emerging markets. Conversely, contractionary Fed information shocks are associated with a decrease in investors' risk appetite and drive capital towards the US, causing an appreciation of the dollar vis-a-vis foreign currencies. We provide evidence that the Fed information effect is associated with significant spillovers onto global equity prices, crossborder credit, and ultimately, on global economic activity. These findings highlight the presence of global spillovers of the Fed information effect. Keywords Monetary policy * Information effects * International spillovers * Flight-to-safety * High-frequency identification * Sign restrictions * Bayesian VAR JEL Classification E52 * F31 * F32 * F41 * F44, 1 Introduction FOMC announcements are events of great importance for global financial markets as the Fed's monetary policy is an important driver of the global financial cycle, as highlighted by [...]

This paper sheds light on the impact of global macroeconomic uncertainty on the euro area economy. We build on the methodology proposed by Jurado et al. (Am Econ Rev 105(3): 1177-1216, 2015) and estimate a global measure of economic uncertainty using data for fifteen large euro area trade partners and the euro area. Our measure displays a clear counter-cyclical pattern and lines up well to a wide range of historical events generally associated with heightened uncertainty. In addition, following Piffer and Podstawski (Econ J 128(616):3266--3284, 2018), we estimate a proxy SVAR where we instrument uncertainty shocks with changes in the price of gold around specific past events. We find that global uncertainty shocks have historically been important drivers of fluctuations in euro area economic activity, with one standard deviation increase in the identified uncertainty shock subtracting around 0.12 percentage points from euro area industrial production in the first months following the shock. JEL Classification D81 * C11 * C55 * E32 * F41 * F62, 1 Introduction By demanding 'rigidly defined areas of uncertainty and doubt' philosopher Vroomfondel in Douglas Adam's 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' inadvertently captures one of the key features of [...]

The United States must play a more active role in reshaping the https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/05/09/the-worlds-economic-order-is-breaking-down . Completely abandoning the international trading system would be a disaster for the American people and our [...]

There are now a billion fewer people subsisting on less than $2.15 a day than in 2000. Each year since the turn of the millennium, a cast of aid workers, [...]

The online casino industry has experienced tremendous growth over the past two decades, becoming a powerful force in the global economy. From humble beginnings to a multi-billion-dollar industry, online casinos [...]

This paper studies the channels through which shocks from one country transmit in the global economy. Using local projections with instrumental variables (LP-IV), we document significant effects of US monetary shocks on output, interest rates, and trade flows in a large panel of countries. We find substantial heterogeneity in the foreign output responses depending on international trade. This association is due to the output share of international trade (extensive margin) and not the elasticity of trade (intensive margin), the exchange rate, or the foreign interest rate responses. To distinguish between the direct and indirect transmission of shocks, we further collect detailed data on bilateral trade linkages and combine the LP-IV approach with spatial econometric models. The indirect spillovers account for nearly half of the total response of foreign output, indicating substantial amplification engendered by the trade network. But the heterogeneity in the total effects is almost entirely due to the direct effects. Moreover, accounting for network effects within this framework leads to estimates of the mean output response up to one-third larger in magnitude than in the nonspatial specifications. Thus, studies that do not explicitly model cross-country linkages may present an incomplete view of international business cycles. JEL Classification E52 * F14 * F42 * F44, 1 Introduction How shocks are transmitted in the global economy and how business cycles comove across countries are among the central questions of international macroeconomics (e.g., Kose, Otrok, and Whiteman [...]

The global economy performed better than expected in 2023, avoiding the major downturn that many feared. It benefited from the fall in commodity prices from their 2022 peaks and the [...]

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 was the most significant reform to corporate taxation in the US in nearly four decades. It reduced the top corporate income [...]

During the coming decade, the world economy will confront a crisis. This forecast may sound rash, but the past half century revealed that disasters occur regularly. In recent times, policymakers [...]

Motivation: This article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on import and export trade, and what roles the degree of epidemic spread, the degree of malignancy, and the governments' epidemic prevention and control responses have played in the waves of COVID-19 infections. Premise: Since the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the world health system and has profoundly affected the global economy and import and export trade. The volume of import and export trade in most countries around the world has experienced a significant decline. The global supply chain system has suffered huge challenges due to the epidemic, its management, and each country's governmental response. Approach: This article describes the spread and development of COVID-19 and its phased impact on international trade. This article also discusses the impact mechanism of the epidemic on international import and export trade and the global supply chain system. The study uses trend analysis and fixed effects models to analyze the influence factor on import and export trade of nine major economies (the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, India, and Australia) in 2020. Results: This study explores COVID-19's effects on international import and export trade. It estimates the impact of COVID-19 on the import and export trade of each country, discussing the relationship between the whole epidemic situation, the number of epidemic infections and deaths, and how governments responded to international trade in this epidemic. The study also groups nine countries from four aspects and analyzes the differences in the impact of import and export trade among different groups. Conclusion: This study has found that for most countries, the COVID-19 epidemic had greater impact on the import trade than export trade. The number of deaths caused by the epidemic had a greater impact on import and export trade than the number of epidemic infections. Each government's epidemic prevention and control policy had a negative impact on the import and export trade. Discovering appropriate policies that could reduce the impact on the economy while preventing and controlling an epidemic is of great importance. The further impact of COVID-19 might change the global industrial layout in the future, but the global supply chain system will not experience huge changes in the short term. Consistency: This research explores the fluctuations and the recovery cycles of the international trading system. The quantitative analysis finds out the negative effects of regional control policies and mobility restriction policies in different countries. It contributes to the business for coping with sudden risks in international supply chain system. Keywords: COVID-19, government response, import and export trade JEL Classification Codes: F14, F17, INTRODUCTION At the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic broke out and became an ongoing global pandemic within a few months. As of May 16, 2021, there had been more [...]

We seek to understand how the strategic responses of firms to institutional voids are affected by their home countries' institutional contexts. It adopts an exploratory, multiple case studies approach examining the responses of advanced and emerging multinational enterprises, and local firms in two African countries which are characterized by such voids, namely the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe. Our research suggests that firms' strategic responses to institutional voids in emerging or developing markets are affected by the home country's institutional environment and firms' experiences and advantages arising from that home context. Firms adopt strategic responses which reflect their respective advantages and this results in diverse approaches based on the interplay between capitalizing upon internal resources and institutional know-how. For some firms this may result in a defensive strategic response, whilst for others opportunistic and aggressive agility, or rationalization and reconciliation may manifest. We demonstrate differences between advanced and emerging multinational enterprises and domestic firms covering the spectrum between institutional outsiders and insiders. We emphasize the contextual nature of these strategic responses and argue that this requires integrating both a resource and institution-based analysis of firms' underlying advantages and how they are able to leverage off these advantages in institutionally voided environments. Practical implications arise for doing business in emerging and developing markets. Keywords Strategic responses * Institutional voids * Institutional complementarity * Qualitative research * Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe * Africa, 1 Introduction The global economy has experienced substantial shifts in terms of economic output and trade flows, with the growing importance of emerging markets and the declining share of advanced [...]

I. INTRODUCTION 198 II. BACKGROUND 199 A. Data as a Commodity 199 B. The Emergence and Evolution of Data Protections 200 C. The European/American Relationship 202 D. Schrems II and [...]

With economic globalization and with the precarization and informalization of work, efforts have increased to build global labour alliances among formal workers on the one hand and to organize informal workers on the other. These two endeavours overlap considerably. Global labour organizations have taken on a growing role in organizing and advocating for informal workers. I explore this overlap by comparing two global labour federations: one arising from heterogeneous networks of informal workers--the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF)--and a longstanding one of formal employees that has increasingly attempted to include informal workers --the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI). For both cases, I draw on five sources: secondary literature; archival material from the two federations; seven semi-structured interviews with experts on and members of these federations, plus a meeting with a small group of BWI leaders; and observations of several IDWF and BWI events. This comparison yields two striking findings. First, despite contrasting environments and historical legacies, the two federations show much convergence in strategy. Second, they clearly differ in their degree of adherence to the standard trade union model, as a result of differences in assets and challenges. The BWI is strongly wedded to the conventional model and struggles to reach informal workers, while enjoying a robust inflow of membership dues. The IDWF is committed to welcoming a variety of organizations and readily mobilizes informal workers, while suffering from an anemic inflow of membership dues. These challenges must be met not just for the survival of the BWI and the IDWF but also for the prospect of organizing globally to defend informal and precarious workers. With economic globalization and with the precarization and informalization of work, efforts have increased to build global labour alliances among formal workers on the one hand and to organize informal workers on the other. These two endeavours overlap considerably. Global labor organizations have taken on a growing role in organizing and advocating for informal workers. I explore this overlap by comparing two global labour federations: one arising from heterogeneous networks of informal workers--the International Domestic Workers Federation--and a longstanding one of formal employees that has increasingly attempted to include informal workers --the Building and Wood Workers International. The contrast reveals similarities, divergences and trade-offs, with important implications for the future potential for building global organizations of informal workers. Keywords: Construction workers; domestic workers; global unions; informal work; power resources Avec la mondialisation economique et la hausse du precariat, les efforts se sont multiplies pour creer des alliances mondiales entre les travailleurs formels, d'une part, et pour organiser les travailleurs informels, d'autre part. Ces deux efforts se chevauchent considerablement. Les organisations syndicales internationales jouent un role de plus en plus important dans l'organisation et la defense des travailleurs informels. J'explore ce chevauchement en comparant deux federations syndicales mondiales: l'une issue de reseaux heterogenes de travailleurs informels--the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF)--et l'autre, creee de longue date par des employes formels, qui tente de plus en plus d'inclure les travailleurs informels--the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI). Dans les deux cas, je m'appuie sur cinq sources: la litterature secondaire, les archives des deux federations, sept entretiens semi diriges avec des experts et des membres de ces federations, ainsi qu'une reunion avec un petit groupe de dirigeants de l'IBB, et l'observation de plusieurs evenements organises par l'IDWF et le BWI. Cette comparaison permet de faire deux constatations frappantes. Tout d'abord, malgre des environnements et des heritages historiques contrastes, les deux federations presentent une grande convergence de strategie. Deuxiemement, elles different clairement dans leur degre d'adhesion au modele syndical standard, en raison de differences d'atouts et de defis. Le BWI est fortement attachee au modele conventionnel et lutte pour atteindre les travailleurs informels, tout en beneficiant d'un afflux important de cotisations. L'IDWF s'est engagee a accueillir une variete d'organisations et mobilise facilement les travailleurs informels, tout en souffrant d'un afflux anemique de cotisations. Ces defis doivent etre releves non seulement pour la survie du BWI et de l'IDWF, mais aussi pour la perspective de la defense des travailleurs informels et precaires au niveau mondial., 1. Introduction Labour scholars and practitioners alike have been showing much interest in two trends of the world of work: economic globalization (Bercusson & Estlund, 2008; Brookes & McCallum, 2017); [...]

Competition and international trade policies are both potential sources of efficiency in the economy. It could be argued that, in an ideal world with no impediments to domestic and international [...]

Is the world economy in a debt trap? A N ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION for why real interest rates have fallen since the 1980s is that many countries have become less equal. [...]

A new era of macroeconomics is emerging, bringing promise and peril F OR MONTHS there has been turmoil in financial markets and growing evidence of stress in the world economy. [...]

I. Introduction This paper will address the impact of economic digitalization on the international tax structure and the imminent need to respond to these challenges to avoid global financial turmoil. [...]