Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the WTO focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines a different aspect of developing country participation in the WTO: Use of the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce...

“Civics” often refers to the familiar constellation of rights and responsibilities emanating from citizenship in a nation-state. But what about global civics? Would this be feasible - or even desirable? There are several plausible objections to the concept of global civics. One can argue...

At a panel discussion at the London School of Economics (LSE) in early October, I said in my concluding remarks that while I was not optimistic about the likelihood of a robust global climate deal at Copenhagen, “there seemed to be a strong consensus in world capitals for a weak agreement.”...

A Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) has been proposed as a long-term prospect by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. This paper examines the impact of the FTAAP on the national and regional economies in China using a suite of general equilibrium models: APG-Cubed, a dynamic global...

This paper introduces a significant collection of papers on monetary policy in emerging market economies, written by leading analysts and policymakers. Does existing economic theory provide lessons that are pertinent for designing effective monetary policy frameworks in emerging markets? What...

The financial crisis has re-ignited the fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization and its implications for growth, especially for developing countries. The empirical literature has not been able to conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of financial integration....

Recent work emphasizes the primacy of differences in countries' colonially-bequeathed property rights and legal systems for explaining differences in their subsequent economic development. Barbados and Jamaica provide a striking counter example to this long-run view of income determination. Both...

To estimate the emissions reductions and costs of a climate policy, analysts usually compare a policy scenario with a baseline scenario of future economic conditions without the policy. Both scenarios require assumptions about the future course of numerous factors such as population growth,...

Economic theory has identified a number of channels through which openness to international financial flows could raise productivity growth. However, while there is a vast empirical literature analyzing the impact of financial openness on output growth, far less attention has been paid to its...

The IMF and the World Bank were created in 1944 to be at the center of the international financial system, but they have not adapted well to the far-reaching changes in the global economy over the past twenty years. Their legitimacy has been called into question due to their antiquated...