Author: Luke Nottage
I’ve lived in Kyoto for five years, on or off, and visited Japan’s delightful former capital once or twice a year over the last two decades. But this is the first time that I’ve been struck by how many visitors from abroad there seem to be here these days. And not just at the main tourist spots, or now that the autumn colours are at their most resplendent.
Some preliminary statistical analysis suggests that I am not victim to the “availability” bias, for once, but also that the rise in foreign visitors may not be limited to Kyoto. And the sudden appreciation of the yen, combined with the global financial crisis, already appears to impacting on inbound tourism.
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Author: Andrew Elek
The financial crisis of some of the world’s richest economies has catalysed a long-overdue transformation in the oversight of global affairs. The November 15, 2008 summit was the first where emerging economic giants discussed problems and potential solutions as equal participants with the industrial leaders.
In a substantial communiqué, there was consensus on a wide range of issues which need to be addressed to speed recovery from the crisis and to make it possible to sustain global improvements in living standards in the longer term.
Importantly, the meeting also overcame the resistance to reforming the governance of the IMF and the World Bank. With adequate representation from emerging economies, it may become possible to boost the resources of the IMF to deal with future crises. The hope is that the IMF will achieve the legitimacy needed to offer advice to strong as well as weak economies, with some expectation of it being heeded.
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Author: Scott MacWilliam
While much attention focuses on the legal principles involved in the 2008 High Court decision in Fiji, less public notice is directed at the 1997 Constitution and some of the laws which have flowed from this document. Lawyers in particular have a long history of regarding upholding the rule of law as an almost sacred principle, regardless of whether a law or Constitution is meritorious by other principles, such as whether the law is just or the Constitution democratic.
Nor are those who defend the rule of law always aware that for others, legalism can form the basis for a political strategy in support of unjust and/or undemocratic laws. Read more…
Author: Will Steffen
A new report published by the United Nations Environment Program this week caused some media stir and alarmism over the issue of aerosols in the atmosphere – now popularly referred to as ABCs (Atmospheric Brown Clouds).
The issues are well-known in the scientific community, and have been part of global change research for a couple of decades at least. The issue has only recently found its way into the popular press.
Aerosols are particles of various sizes emitted into the atmosphere by both natural and human processes. In some parts of the way – for example, around the Asian mega-cities – human-driven emissions of aerosols, primarily through the combustion of fossil fuels and of biomass for heating and cooking – now dominate the natural sources.
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Author: Peter Drysdale
Malcolm Cook at Lowy is exercised over a report last week that there are differences between Washington and Pyongyang on nuclear verification.
That’s perhaps understandable, given his starting point that negotiating with the Norks via the Six Party Talks is a waste of time. But what’s not understandable is the implication in his piece that my endorsement of Ambassador Hill’s and President Bush’s move to de-list North Korea as a terrorist state as an important step forward towards resumption of the Six Party Talks was any more than that. The context, for those who haven’t followed these things, was a difference over the rights and wrongs of the after-the-event whinge from Tokyo.
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Author: Frank Jotzo
It won’t be easy to pull off a solution to the global climate change dilemma, but with leadership from a President who enjoys a huge measure of goodwill around most of the globe, the answer just might be ‘yes we can’. That’s what I argue in a longer piece in today’s Canberra Times.
Was Keynes thinking of clean energy?
You might think that now, with the new US administration needing to fix the banks, keep Detroit alive and deal with soaring unemployment, might seem like a truly bad time to be expecting breakthroughs on climate policy. But it ain’t necessarily so.
Obama needs to put in place effective domestic policies to establish America’s credibility on the issue. Getting Congress to approve domestic emissions caps is a much more likely prospect than it was just a few years ago, yet it may still depend on getting climate commitments in place in China, and recession could dampen the appetite for putting a price on carbon for a while. But the downturn may very well mean large amounts of public money for clean energy and improving energy efficiency. Read more…
Author: Rajiv Kumar, Director ICRIER
Barack Obama’s election has been cheered across India and for many good reasons. Once again the US has shown remarkable qualities of social and political regeneration and surprised all of us with the depth and breadth of its democratic traditions. By electing Obama with a clear majority of votes polled, the American people have given the US a fresh opportunity to regain its pre-eminent position in the world, a position which it has enjoyed since the middle of the last century.
An Obama administration, if it does live up to the campaign promise of being less unilateral and more consultative, can restore US political leadership in countering global terrorism and pushing back the obscurantist forces of fundamentalism. While these may well be the necessary conditions for giving a fresh lease of life to Pax Americana, the sufficient condition must surely be Obama’s effective handling of the on-going global financial meltdown and reinforcing the positive features of globalization and giving it the much needed human face.
President Bush has moved quickly, as he must, to try and reverse the recessionary tide and bring the US economy back on the growth path. But the world will of course be watching with great interest his handling of the multilateral economic and trading regime and his commitment to globalization. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong
There is a lot of discussion about whether Obama is a protectionist or not based on his campaign rhetoric (see VoxEU) and there seems to be some serious concern about this among foreign leaders, especially in in Asia.
Obama’s campaigning involved promises to protect mature industries, not infant industries. There is a small band of economists who support this, most recently Ha-Joon Chang writing in the FT blog. Chang’s justification:
However, well-designed and time-bound protection of mature industries can facilitate, rather than hindered, trade adjustment and industrial upgrading. Japan and some European countries in the aftermath of the 1970s Oil Shocks come to mind.
Mr Obama should use protectionism in a similarly forward-looking way.
Chang says protection has to be forward-looking, with conditions on investment and training. Going down that road runs the risk of entrenching special interests by protecting them from international competition and making the adjustment later that much more painful. It seems to me likely to add to the costs of adjustment by delaying or even worse, just disguising protection.
But will Obama actually protect these industries from trade? Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale
The meeting of G20 leaders in Washington was just the first small step in coming to terms with the ramifications of the crisis for the international economic and political order. While policymakers globally have moved with remarkable speed to put a cushion under the world economy, the financial and economic uncertainties remain.
The fact is that it’s unlikely the dust will begin settle on the meltdown in the international financial system at least until after the inauguration of President Obama. They are fed by the political vacuum in the inter-regnum between the end of the Bush Administration and a new one under Barack Obama.
What is certain is that the crisis will change the world for some time to come, in two important ways.
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Author: Shiro Armstrong
A lot of people have spoken out strongly against the recommendations of the Garnaut review, citing the 10 percent emission reduction target number as too soft. The focus on the 10 percent number is unhelpful and misses the point for three reasons. First, the 10 per cent reduction from 2000 levels by 2020 is a conditional and intial target consistent with Australia’s part in a global agreement of 550 ppm. The initial step of reaching an agreement and setting any target is a priority, after which the targets can be tightened in subsequent agreements.
Second, as the final report makes clear, the 2020 targets need to be assessed from 2012, not 1990 or 2000 as the base year. We have had 8 years since 2000 with emissions growth higher than was projected, making targets based on 2000 levels a bigger task than it may seem. Besides, Australia already has a target to take us to 2012 (established under the Kyoto Protocol)! The key is what should post 2012 targets look like? On that basis the proposed emission reduction targets for Australia (conditional upon international agreement of a global GHG atmospheric concentrations of 550 ppm) are both tough to achieve and comparable with those for other countries – they are not soft.
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Author: Dominic Meagher
There seems to be considerable confusion about Garnaut’s recommendation as to what targets for emissions reduction the Australian government should set.
Garnaut is very particular in the way he articulates his recommendations. The media and public commentary has not been so particular.
There are two sets of targets: primary and secondary. The primary target is the global concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. This target must (by its nature) be a global target agreed to by at least all of the major GHG emitting countries. The secondary target relates to emsissions reductions. The emission reduction target is a national action target. Each country would have their own emission reduction target. Meeting the global atmospheric GHG concentration target would require all countries to meet their respective emission reduction target.
- Primary target: global atmospheric GHG concentration target (ZZZ ppm by 2050)
- Secondary target: GHG emission reduction target (ZZ% reduction of Australia’s annual emissions from 2000 levels by 2020 and ZZ% by 2050)
The secondary target is conditional on the primary target.
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Author: Tao Kong
History must be a curious thing in the minds of Xiaogang villagers, Anhui province. 30 years ago, eighteen households in this village risked imprisonment by putting down their fingerprints on a secret agreement which distributed the communal land. As it turned out, this embryonic form of household responsibility system heralded the dawn of China’s economic reform. 30 years later, President Hu visited the village just before he promulgated the new land regulations, which enable farmland assigned to each rural household to be consolidated through transfer of land use rights or land lease.
The Communiqué released by the Third Party Plenum Meeting last month formally clarified the land use rights of farmers and allowed farmers to transfer and lease their land.
Although the exact details of how land reform will be implemented is anyone’s guess, the move itself is of both economic and political significance, as land issues are at the heart of China’s current reform. One can hardly think of any major challenges facing China to which land is irrelevant. This is certainly true in terms of economic, social, institutional, political and environment issues.
To make sense of this new land policy, we need to step back and look at it in the context of China’s recent shift in its development strategy. Read more…
Author: Raghbendra Jha
Recent events in the global financial system have been nothing short of seismic. Hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars in capital value have been lost in stock markets. Inter-bank credit has almost frozen up.
Actual costs of borrowing have gone up (even with falling central bank interest rates), unemployment has been rising in the major world economies, and home foreclosures and bankruptcies are on the rise.
This crisis is sought to be addressed by a variety of policy initiatives, the most important aspects of which are the injection of vast amounts of public funds into financial institutions and the provision of sovereign guarantees on bank accounts.
But the ability to do so is limited. The budget deficit for 2008 in the US has trebled as compared to its forecasted value and the ratio of public plus private debt to GDP is well over 300 percent. The huge injection of funds to stabilise the financial system will need to be financed. But the US treasury is already stretched and, with a recession looming, prospects for enhanced tax revenue in 2009 do not appear bright. Similar comments apply to Europe.
Further, there is the relatively unspoken fear: if failing private institutions are bailed out now, could it lead to a problem of moral hazard with these players not becoming more careful in the future, in anticipation of being bailed out again?
How is the Indian economy is expected to fare in the short-term and how has it responded to the crisis?
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Author: Tobias Harris
Aso Taro has arrived in Washington for the G20 summit on the global economic crisis.
He leaves behind a country tottering on the brink of ruin. The OECD has announced that, like the reappearance of cancer after remission, Japan may once again experience deflation in 2009. Consumer confidence is at a record low. The question on the table now is not whether Japan will be able to avoid recession, but how long the recession will endure. The government’s latest stimulus package is on hold until January, leading some within the LDP to wonder whether Mr. Aso has a handle on the situation. (The Economist summarizes the bad news here.)
The Japanese people, it seems, are battening the hatches. Read more…
Author: George Williams
The unanimous Fiji High Court decision of Acting Chief Justice Gates and Judges Byrne and Pathik in Qarase v Bainimarama on 9 October 2008 was a major disappointment. The Court found that the President of Fiji, Ratu Josefa Iloilo Uluivuda, acted lawfully in ratifying the dismissal of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, in dissolving Parliament and in granting immunity to the leaders of December 2006 coup. It also found that the President could rule Fiji directly by decree without the need for a timetable for the holding of elections.
The Court held that all this could occur consistently with the 1997 Fiji Constitution. This was based on the giant legal fiction that the Constitution could accommodate such extraordinary undemocratic acts without itself being compromised.
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