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This article highlights the importance of European scientists, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, in shaping global research policies through active advocacy in science policy. The European Union (EU) is a significant transnational research funder, largely through its multiannual Framework Programmes, such as Horizon Europe (2020–2027), which support collaboration between researchers worldwide. This funding drives innovation and societal benefit, influencing global standards on topics like sustainability, cultural heritage, and data protection. The EU’s openness to consultation makes it unique compared to countries like the United States and China, where funding decisions are decided top-down by governments and policymakers. Thus, European humanities and social science researchers have a unique opportunity to shape the political research agenda. To strengthen this advocacy, three practical steps await researchers: (1) understand national research narratives, (2) ensure research impacts policymaking, and (3) support international research organisations.
The effects of sanctions have been extensively studied in both the political science and economic literature, but with little appreciation of their consequences for third countries and the firms in these countries. This is an important oversight, given that secondary sanctions have the stated objective of holding third countries not party to the original sanctions regime to account for their actions. This chapter surveys the economic theory behind the possible effects of sanctions on firms in third countries and then extends this to the specific case of secondary sanctions. Looking at the US sanctions regimes on Cuba and Iran, and using the scarce empirical evidence available, this chapter concludes that secondary sanctions are likely to amplify the effect of sanctions. However, their effects will depend on the particular firm, the overall trading relationship between the third party and the sanctioned party, and the relationship between the firm and the sanctioning country.
Edited by
Daniel Benoliel, University of Haifa, Israel,Peter K. Yu, Texas A & M University School of Law,Francis Gurry, World Intellectual Property Organization,Keun Lee, Seoul National University
This chapter explores the impact of intellectual property on increasing income and wealth inequality internationally and domestically, with a focus on law and legal methodology. It begins by setting the scene and background of international intellectual property protection. The chapter then examines the potential of taking into account considerations of income and wealth distribution in the process of interpreting intellectual property rules and explores the potential of the principle of equity. It turns to the overall balance of rights and obligations from an angle of fostering investment in innovation and proposes to recognize creative imitation in the overall equation. It also suggests recalibrating rules on the duration of patents, copyright, trademarks, and trade secret protection. The latter is not subject to limitation and time and may thus contribute to unjustified economic rents detrimental to human investment. This chapter suggests to introduce ceilings of protection and refer to the principle of unjust enrichment in conceptualizing these concerns.
Edited by
Ottavio Quirico, University of New England, University for Foreigners of Perugia and Australian National University, Canberra,Walter Baber, California State University, Long Beach
Africa’s unique vulnerability to climate change has become entrenched as a central theme in international climate politics and has precipitated a transformation in climate policy on the continent from relative disorganisation to effective and unified cooperation in the span of barely 30 years. In the same period, Africa has also emerged as one of the fastest growing and most promising regions in the world economy. In light of these developments, and spurred by an international discourse of ‘energy transition’, a new wave of European foreign direct investment headlined by renewable energy has crested – with Africa in its sights. This contribution will explore the efficacy of such investments as a vehicle for ‘exporting’ European climate policy, and the extent to which these policy aims are compatible with similarly massive investments into Africa from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). By interrogating the focus of energy investments from Europe and the PRC, both in terms of stated aims and actual outcomes, it will posit that the success of Africa’s energy transition will depend in large part on the PRC’s sincerity about its domestic and international climate ambition.
This chapter provides an account of different sources of finance for urban nature, the actors involved in providing these sources of finance, and various financial mechanisms through which the sources and the actors are mobilised. It focuses on the four principal models of investing in urban nature, which include funding solicited through public funds, private capital, community/not-for profit funding, and hybrid and collaborative approaches. The chapter discusses the current situation, barriers, and opportunities for investing in urban nature, along with relevant examples. It concludes with insights on how to facilitate more investments in urban nature and support its mainstreaming in cities. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Parc Marianne Ecodistrict: investment by real estate developers stipulated by municipality in Montpellier, France, and Mexico City Water Fund: hybrid investing in urban nature in Mexico City, Mexico.
The greatest progress so far in decarbonising the global economy has been made by governments that ignored the advice of economists. Investing in new technologies turns out to be a more effective way of changing things than taxing the incumbents. We need to stop being surprised by this and start replicating those successes.
We consider a robust optimal investment–reinsurance problem to minimize the goal-reaching probability that the value of the wealth process reaches a low barrier before a high goal for an ambiguity-averse insurer. The insurer invests its surplus in a constrained financial market, where the proportion of borrowed amount to the current wealth level is no more than a given constant, and short-selling is prohibited. We assume that the insurer purchases per-claim reinsurance to transfer its risk exposure to a reinsurer whose premium is computed according to the mean–variance premium principle. Using the stochastic control approach based on the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation, we derive robust optimal investment–reinsurance strategies and the corresponding value functions. We conclude that the behavior of borrowing typically occurs with a lower wealth level. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate our results.
In Africa, rangeland ecosystems have been exploited due to heavy and unsustainable grazing. Policy and institutional mechanisms such as integrating silvopastoral systems with sustainable grazing practices have been devised to mitigate the negative effects. In this study, we investigated whether the uptake of sustainable grazing management in the form of controlled grazing spurs investment in multipurpose trees (MPTs) and enhances income. Using instrumental variable regression, we find that controlled grazing increases not only the propensity to plant MPTs but also the number of tree species. More importantly, IV and treatment effect results indicate that controlled grazing enhances income from MPTs.
China’s strong economic presence in Africa has resulted in an increased interdisciplinary debate. Our contribution is the incorporation of a business perspective by uncovering the prominence and role of business in China’s diplomatic Africa engagement. Our theoretical contribution by applying the state-business relations (SBR) literature is to examine whether established frameworks can be expanded by an international dimension through intergovernmental initiatives like the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The paper conducts a document analysis of all declarations and Action Plans of all FOCAC conferences in the period 2000–2021, combining both a content and a thematic analysis based on an explorative and iterative coding process. Our data suggests that the prominence of businesses has increased while the scope of their activities and the number of focus sectors (especially infrastructure) has risen particularly since 2012. Companies are considered as enablers for political and economic goals in the state-driven FOCAC. We find that SBR frameworks are applicable to international contexts and propose an expanded SBR approach integrating transnational intermediary institutions like the intergovernmental FOCAC and transnational business platforms which facilitate positive state-business relations across countries and a conducive business environment.
As the UK, and the world, enters another decade of climate-anguished debate, the record of the Conservatives’ policy and actions between 2010 and 2024 is under scrutiny. Dieter Helm analyses the extent to which the natural environment improved, how housebuilding interacted with pressures to protect the environment, the legacy of privatised industries, comparisons to what a Labour government’s actions in office may have been and to what extent a sustainable path to net zero was achieved by the Conservative Party.
Chapter 7 explores contests that occur in stages, as opposed to the one-shot contests analyzed in previous chapters. Examples of one-shot contests include decisive battles in war and final matches in sports. However, some contests are inherently dynamic, such as lengthy wars, electoral competitions, patent races, sports leagues, and advertising campaigns. Dynamic contest theory is still a developing field, and this chapter focuses on analyzing specific examples of dynamic contests, including Endogenous Timing Contests (where contestants choose when to compete), Elimination Contests (where contestants compete and the winner advances to the next stage), Races (where the first contestant to achieve a certain number of victories wins), Contests with Investments (where current efforts impact future outcomes), and Repeated Contests (where contestants compete repeatedly in the same contest).
In this chapter, we ask what economic modeling can tell us about the likelihood that firms will invent an AGI: how much and for how long must they sustain investment in R&D to obtain such an invention? We develop a novel Real Options Model, one that uses a stochastic compound Poisson process, to explicitly take into account that a radical innovation such as an AGI is subject to much more uncertainty than typical business investments – which also helps throw light of the breakthroughs and backlashes that have characterized periodic AI winters. An important conclusion from the modelling in this chapter is that it will most likely be largely government-funded agencies and/or a few large corporations that will invent an AGI, if it is ever invented.
We start by introducing the key ingredients in macroeconomic modelling: investment, production, income and consumption, and explain the corresponding equilibrium conditions. Modelling these quantities in discrete time, we describe the multiplier-accelerator model, a classic model of macroeconomic dynamics, and an example of a second-order recurrence equation. We then embark on describing how to solve linear constant-coefficient second-order recurrence equations in general. The general solution is the sum of the solution of a corresponding homogeneous equation and a particular solution. There is a general method for determining the solution of the homogeneous equation, involving the solution of a corresponding quadratic equation known as the auxiliary equation.
Is Artificial Intelligence a more significant invention than electricity? Will it result in explosive economic growth and unimaginable wealth for all, or will it cause the extinction of all humans? Artificial Intelligence: Economic Perspectives and Models provides a sober analysis of these questions from an economics perspective. It argues that to better understand the impact of AI on economic outcomes, we must fundamentally change the way we think about AI in relation to models of economic growth. It describes the progress that has been made so far and offers two ways in which current modelling can be improved: firstly, to incorporate the nature of AI as providing abilities that complement and/or substitute for labour, and secondly, to consider demand-side constraints. Outlining the decision-theory basis of both AI and economics, this book shows how this, and the incorporation of AI into economic models, can provide useful tools for safe, human-centered AI.
Over the last quarter-century, the relations between Australia and Latin America, while not intense, clearly have thickened and deepened. And the pace of this thickening and deepening is quickening. The most obvious manifestation is in the economic realm, in trade and investment. But our research indicates that in more obscure areas, such as cultural exchange, education, and environmental issues, much is happening and there is every reason to expect that the contact will expand. That said, any informed observer of Australia’s relations with Latin America would be struck by how little each knows about the other, how recent and relatively superficial the contacts are, and consequently how tenuous they could remain unless both the Australians and the Latin Americans invest further substantial effort. This effort cannot be limited to the material – trade and investment – but must include education at all levels to overcome the barriers of language and culture, of limited transport, of competing economies, of stereotypes.
There is a consensus in the finance literature that stock markets generally perform well ahead of holidays. However, I argue that this relationship does not hold in the Chinese context, given that public holidays are associated with increased collective action and repression. I propose two possible mechanisms: (1) Chinese investors take cues from the political environment and will thus act more conservatively in the market prior to public holidays or (2) the government increases intervention to stabilize the stock market during these periods. I test this relationship using daily stock exchange data from Shanghai and Shenzhen. In addition, I corroborate the theoretical mechanism by testing whether there is similar conservatism before focal points on the dissident calendar. This research note contributes to our understanding of the Chinese investment market and raises general questions about the representativeness of the finance literature. In addition, this research speaks to the costs of authoritarianism and preserving social stability in these contexts.
The sustained capital inflow, which had been an important feature of the Australian economy in the 1950s and 1960s, rose to new heights in 1971 and 1972, when the traditional flows of equity investment and long-term loans were supplemented and temporarily eclipsed by large-scale borrowing by both foreign and locally-owned companies operating in Australia. This dramatic change in the nature of the capital inflow cast serious doubts on the wisdom of the macro-economic policies then being pursued by the Australian Government and revived earlier discussions about its ability to implement appropriate policies in the face of volatile capital flows between Australia and the rest of the world.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is one of the most important mega-regional trade agreements signed to date. Yet, it failed to include an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism in its investment chapter. What explains this omission? To unpack this, we examine international negotiations as a two-step process. In the first stage, we theorize that initial preferences towards ISDS are based on countries’ orientation toward foreign direct investment (FDI), experience with ISDS, and past treaty practice. Second, we theorize that during protracted negotiations, adverse regime developments and domestic politics can have a profound impact on treaty design. To test our framework, we examine the RCEP negotiations. Our analysis shows that mounting cases as well as the eroding norm of ISDS in other treaties lowered support for ISDS as the negotiations progressed. Then, a change of government in Malaysia shifted that country’s position dramatically, which tipped the balance against ISDS in the final round of negotiations. Our findings have important implications for the international investment regime. They highlight the factors that determine countries’ initial preferences while also demonstrating the importance of developments during the negotiations, which can lead to the abandonment of the institutional status quo.
This chapter describes the key changes in terms of money, credit and banking in the 1000 to 1500 period within the various kingdoms. It highlights how after a period of late monetization, each Christian kingdom transitioned to centralized models that were well-articulated with their European counterparts while keeping important distinctive traits. Nevertheless, the demand for means of payment on behalf of kings, merchants and other agents stimulated the development of credit. The need for credit spanned the entire Peninsula and the urban/rural divide. Thus, all countries saw the emergence of lively credit markets for (mostly private) borrowers, buttressed by functioning courts and regulations. These markets involved both specialists and non-specialists, but it was only in the Crown of Aragon where financial agents transitioned to institutionalized banks.
This chapter examines current philanthropic trends in emerging economies, exploring the extent to which philanthropists in these settings are investing in resilience and how they are doing so. Three dimensions are considered: what philanthropists invest in, how they invest, and with whom they invest. The state of emerging economy philanthropy, both pre-COVID and in the wake of the pandemic, is discussed, and frameworks and considerations for understanding resilience in philanthropy are set forth. Resilience is understood as having sufficient stability within a system to protect communities – particularly the most vulnerable – and services from deep shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic has sent deep shockwaves through global and local economies, health-care and education systems, and into personal homes and lives. While the shock was universal, the impact and its long-term implications have been felt and will linger much longer for the most vulnerable countries, communities, and individuals. In emerging economies around the world, the pandemic has set back hard-fought progress in economic development and social equity. This system encompasses not only government, but also civil society, including philanthropy. The chapter presents case studies of philanthropic organisations in Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia whose investments reflect dimensions of resilience, and makes the case for investing in resilience in emerging economies, discussing both challenges and opportunities for doing so.