In Greenprint, Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian argued that only radical technological progress can reconcile climate-change goals with those of development and energy access. In this paper, they show how trade policy and trade rules can facilitate action on climate change.
Arvind Subramanian testified before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States Congres hearing on US-India trade relations on March 13, 2013.
Few problems are as pressing and as existential for the world as climate change, and few have proven to be as intractable. Three decades of international negotiations on climate change have yielded little by way of action that would substantially slow, let alone reverse, human-caused climate change. Things can be different.
Reliance on natural resource revenues, particularly oil, is often associated with bad governance, corruption, and poverty. Worried about the effect of oil on Alaska, Governor Jay Hammond had a simple yet revolutionary idea: let citizens have a direct stake. Thirty years later, Hammond’s vision is still influencing oil policies throughout the world.
“This important book sets a sensible and specific way forward. It should be read by all involved in economic development and international action on climate change.” —Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review
Until recently, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been an effective framework for cooperation because it has continually adapted to changing economic realities. The current Doha Agenda is an aberration because it does not reflect one of the biggest shifts in the international economic and trading system: the rise of China.
Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian identify a fair deal on climate change for developed and developing countries by focusing not on equitable emissions quotas but on fair access to energy services.
Decades of research have been unable to conclusively show either a positive or negative effect of aid on economic growth in poor countries. CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram G. Rajan use a new technique in their latest working paper that suggests aid slows the manufacturing sector by appreciating the exchange rate and making the production of manufacturing goods less profitable. And if aid slows the manufacturing sector, the implications for overall growth could be adverse.
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In this working paper, the authors shed light on systemic problems of variability and valuation in the Penn World Table GDP estimates that distort cross-country comparisons of the data. They propose creating a new chained series that values all data at PPP prices and makes better use of disaggregated data for different benchmark years to overcome the limitations.
In this paper Arvind Subramanian and co-authors investigate the differential effects of cooperatitve policy action on climate change and find that one size doesn't fit all. Policy instruments should distinguish between low- and high-carbon countries to avoid serious trade consequences.
The authors suggest a new approach assessing carbon taxes on imports to address the concerns from high-income countries about the effect of taxes on competition without damaging trade from developing countries.
The paper proposes a new narrative on climate equity that emphasize basic energy needs and the equality of access to energy opportunities rather than emissions. It advocates abandoning the setting of emissions targets and instead developing a framework where all countries contribute to maximizing technology creation and diffusion.
What happens when capital and sophisticated goods flow uphill, from poorer to richer countries? With a new dataset of foreign direct investment and a measure of the sophistication of exports, CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and his co-author Aaditya Mattoo find that developing countries sending goods and services uphill experience economic growth and other development benefits.
The World Trade Organization’s collapsed Doha Round focused on issues of limited significance while the burning issues of the day were not even on the agenda. In this new working paper, CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and co-author Aaditya Mattoo argue for a wider agenda for multilateral cooperation that includes such issues as food, energy, economic security, and the prevention and resolution of future financial crises.
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Statement Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Financial Services: Hearing on Contributing Factors and International Responses to the Global Food Crisis.
Two aspects of global imbalances -- undervalued exchange rates and sovereign wealth funds -- require a multilateral response. For reasons of inadequate leverage and eroding legitimacy, the International Monetary Fund has not been effective in dealing with undervalued exchange rates. In this working paper, CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and his co-author propose new rules in the World Trade Organization to discipline cases of significant undervaluation that are clearly attributable to government action. Placing exchange rates and sovereign wealth funds on the trade negotiating agenda may help revive the Doha Round by rekindling the interest of a wide variety of groups, many of whom are currently disengaged from the round.
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In this CGD Essay, Birdsall and Subramianian argue that the World Bank faces twin crises of relevance and legitimacy in a rapidly changing world. The solution, they argue, is for the bank to become a more active catalyst for generating global public goods and knowledge and a more reluctant lender to governments. The World Bank should move, in effect, from being a bank to being a global development cooperative. The essay suggests specific, practical steps for such reforms.