Global Middle Class Initiative: Policy Papers

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just completed her first official visit to Washington since President Barack Obama took up office. At home Mrs. Merkel has only a few months left to go until an upcoming general election will determine her own political future. This was surely one more reason to send a message of harmony with President Obama back home, as the new U.S. president, much in contrast to his predecessor, enjoys great popularity among German voters. Elections aside, such harmonious gestures can hardly deflect

This speech was delivered at The New School on May 19, 2009.

Views on the U.S. economy

The relation of financial flows and the environment has received much less attention than the impacts of trade, energy programs, sprawl, or pollution creating projects. Perhaps that is not surprising since activities in each of those areas are known to have direct and usually detrimental impacts on environment through changes in land use, soil degradation, pollution emissions, and contributions to global warming, etc. In contrast, both international and domestic financial markets appear relatively clean and detached from environmental impacts --… more

The fundamental challenge for human institutions in the 21st century is to create and maintain a sustainable combination of economic, social, and natural environmental conditions in an increasingly global and commercial civilization.

This challenge is not now being met. The world economy so far is failing to meet even the basic needs of a large fraction of the human population, or to protect its natural resources and the ecosystems that produce them, even as it creates unprecedented wealth… more

The large scale movement of capital in the form of financial flows and foreign direct investment is a relatively recent phenomenon despite the fact that international trade has been an important part of commerce throughout the industrial era. Such flows have constituted a major and perhaps defining part of the process of globalization over the past two decades. At the same time, the environmental problems created by industrialization have also grown to have global range, particularly as they are replicated… more

The ongoing debate over the environmental impacts of private foreign direct investment (FDI) has focused primarily on the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in implementing diverse standards in countries at varying levels of social, economic and political development. Since the international debt crisis of the late 1980s foreign investment flows have become increasingly important, financing current account deficits as well as sustaining economic development. The flow of FDI to developing countries and emerging markets now exceeds official development assistance (ODA)… more

In the months leading up to the votes on Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), President Bush had to buy off powerful domestic constituencies with tariffs on steel and, more recently, increased subsidies for agriculture. Now that he has TPA, the President has wisely reversed course and proposed a far-reaching plan to use the Doha round of trade talks to eliminate the majority of world-government support for agricultural products by 2010. The agricultural proposal, in conjunction with TPA, will hopefully enable the… more

This week's positive reports showing rising consumer confidence and manufacturing activity have raised hopes that a solid economic recovery is now taking hold. But Washington should not expect its tax coffers to overflow anytime soon or for the economy to return to 1990s-level growth rates. In the short term, the economy still faces an uphill struggle to overcome the excesses of the 1990s -- too much consumption, too much debt, and wildly inflated asset prices -- that are… more

Some of the most promising ways to bring about rural poverty alleviation and conservation around the world involve innovative ways to increase the control that the rural poor can exercise over their natural resource base and to pay them for their sustainable stewardship of environmental functions and services. These approaches can make use of market instruments… more

Canadian provincial governments have a long-standing policy of subsidizing their lumber mills, to the detriment of the U.S. lumber industry, U.S. landowners and the environment. Recently, a coalition of Canadian lumber companies, some lumber consumers, and others have aimed to change the longstanding U.S. policy of combating those subsidies. Under the veil of protecting consumers, this group aims to terminate the current U.S.- Canada agreement, which contains the damage from Canada’s forestry regime, and ensure that no action is taken… more

Despite claims to the contrary, evidence points to the fact that economic development is ultimately beneficial to the environment. The issues were first officially linked in the public's mind with the publication of Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report) in 1987, which provided much of the intellectual framework for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development's 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio De Janeiro.

In the five years since the publication of the Brundtland Report, economists have consistently found… more

The 1990s have been a time of change and achievement for Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China). Politically, Taiwan has undergone a dramatic transition from an authoritarian government to a true democracy. On the economic front, Taiwan has continued to grow and prosper. With a 258 billion dollar economy, Taiwan has established itself as the world’s twelfth largest trading power. Taiwan has a multi-billion dollar annual trading relationship with the United States, Japan, Germany, Korea, France and a number of… more